0.51 Feedback

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

I've played a couple single-player games now in 0.51. Here is my feedback.

Performance (i5-2500K, nVidia GTX 770, 8 gigs, Win 10 x64)

- It took 10 tries, I counted, to get the game to not freeze or crash while initializing, both DX11 and DX12. On the 10th try I got to play a match in DX11. I still have not gotten the DX12 version to not crash. I wonder if memory has something to do with it. I have 8 gigs and there were times during initialization that task manager was reporting Ashes using over 5 gigs. It still hangs/crashes on startup 75% of the time.

- When I was finally able to get into the main screen, I was able to play in full screen mode, which is nice, so thanks!

- In game it seemed as smooth as usual for me, and I didn't experience any crashes during the match. The first time I've been able to complete a match since before 0.49.

 

Gameplay

- The Easy AI is tougher than I thought. This is the first time I've seen the AI build T3s, and those T3 groups rolled over my T1+T2 groups like they were ants. The AI also split its forces to attack different objectives, forcing me to split my forces to defend. Kudos to the AI team. Next time I'll have to pay more attention to what objectives they were going for so I evaluate its strategy. On my second match I was more aggressive with my unit building and rolled over the Easy AI with my T3s, so I'm ready for the next step up in difficulty.

- My units seem to be much better at pathfinding compared to 0.50. I've only tried it on one map so I need to look at it more. I still had a couple instances of "what are these guys doing", so I'll try to duplicate that.

- I do not miss the old research tree. I hope the next iteration in the research tree has techs with bigger gameplay impact.

- I know some of your changes are trying to make units differentiate from each other more, but it's still not clear enough to me. Obviously your Archers and Artemis are going to be your longer range units, but when two blobs of units are fighting each other the differences between brutes and archers gets lost. Half of this I chalk up to my lack of experience. Is there any way you might be able to put in a mode where I can control two different players, so I can set up mock battles? This might be easier for you to implement instead of a sandbox mode. The other half comes down to behavior, i.e. combat speed, movement patterns, covering weaker units, and so on. I go back to your own gameplay ambitions:

Every unit is aware of every other unit in the meta-unit. Units within a meta-unit work together in a consistent manner that allows players to predict how a given meta-unit will behave. For example, a repair frigate will move to heal the most critically damaged unit in its meta-unit. A short-ranged heavy unit will move to protect a slow-moving, vulnerable ranged unit. Additionally, unit behaviors are linked to the types of unit in their meta-unit, which allows players a certain amount of control over the overall combat tactics their forces adopt.
End of quote

- I tried the game on fastest for a few minutes. I couldn't keep up. Hopefully this satisfies people's worries about the slow game speed. I'm happy with the game and unit speed on normal.

 

UI

- The strategy map is definitely in a rough state. There is no doubt in my mind that it is a zoomed in duplicate of the mini-map. Definitely needs better resolution and better unit color differentiation. I strongly suspect you guys already have more plans for it, so I look forward to that. I am happy with the "hold space" implementation. It's fast and functional.

- I miss having the ability to hit Z and X to make and break battle groups. Error of omission, or preparation for something new?

- You can still queue a unit in a factory before the factory is built, and the shaded unit frame remains in the empire tree forever.

- At this point I am fully in favor of exclusive control groups, i.e. units can only belong to one. It seems like that's not in yet, but I think it would be a good idea.

 

Misc

- I'm looking forward to global abilities.

- I'm looking forward to battle groups calling in reinforcements.

- Keep up the good work!

250 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

My experience with the AI varies wildly. Sometimes an Easy or Normal AI will stomp me before I get a chance to do anything, but sometimes a Painful AI will just derp around in the corner after capturing a few points. Though I will agree, when they're working, the AIs are a satisfying challenge.

This patch is also a lot more stable for me, I'd say bringing the amount of finishable matches up to 70% from ~40%. Big improvement.

I love the new unit groupings in the build panes, it's definitely a lot easier to find what I'm looking for. I find myself missing research. Haven't tried out the strategic map yet, though I have a feeling it won't do what I need it to from the state you described.

Reply #2 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top


I've played a couple single-player games now in 0.51. Here is my feedback.

Performance (i5-2500K, nVidia GTX 770, 8 gigs, Win 10 x64)

- It took 10 tries, I counted, to get the game to not freeze or crash while initializing, both DX11 and DX12. On the 10th try I got to play a match in DX11. I still have not gotten the DX12 version to not crash. I wonder if memory has something to do with it. I have 8 gigs and there were times during initialization that task manager was reporting Ashes using over 5 gigs. It still hangs/crashes on startup 75% of the time.

End of quote

This is quite interesting. Ashes does use a lot of memory but with those specs you shouldn't be having that frequency of crashes. It should be noted that the DX12 build has been known to take up to several minutes to initially load, which can sometimes seem as if it is frozen. If you don't mind, try this: delete the current settings.ini file in your Documents\My Games\Ashes of the Singularity folder. Next time you launch the game it should generate a new one (with default preferences, sorry) and see if the next time you play if there is an improvement in performance.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Playing with DX12 and my game does not crash at all, i am just having some freezes when I move the map from one side to another, thats when my gave freezes for like 1 second, it should be something with how the game its handling the memory.

I have a FX8350, GTX770 4GB, 16GB DDR3.

 

  • The AI is much better, still they don't use Air Units
  • I love how when you choose a bunch of T1, T2, T3 units and group them all together, ti will reorganize them equally by the numbers, and you can do it everyone without getting locked, so if i want to add one more T3 to my alt 1 group then it will go ahead and reorganize them again qqualy taking some T1 and T2 units from those T3 and putting them with the new T3, well done Dev's

Need to keep testing it.