Is Distributed Processing bugged?


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I noticed that Distributed Processing says it stacks, but it doesn't appear to. 12 days into an Endless game, I have had 2 Distributed Processing augments on Banks but I have yet to see her produce 2 power on any turn since she got them around day 3 or 4. I have seen her produce 0 or 1 power, which means that at the very least the stacking is not additive, but I have never seen 2 power produced. Do they only stack in the sense that you can have one on each of a few different characters, but not two on the same person? Or have I just had the most rediculously bad luck?

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From what you said, it is the chance of getting power that stacks. And since you do not get 1 power every turn, it stacks multiplicatively.

(+50% from first augment, then +50% of that from second, so final chance of getting power would be around 75%)

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Do you know for sure that that is correct? That would seem very odd to me. I would certainly never assume they work like that given that the items are separate items. I expected that I would have two individual 50% chances to gain 1 power. At worst I would expect two of them to provide 100% chance to gain 1 power. 75% chance is nowehere on my list of possibilities that make sense.

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If you flip a coin twice, there's a 75% chance of getting at least one "heads", not 100%; that's what wodzu means.  In other words, it sounds as if you can get at most 1 point of PWR per turn from distributed processing, and the stacking affects only the odds, not the amount you get.

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If you flip a coin twice, there's a 75% chance of getting at least one "heads", not 100%; that's what wodzu means.  In other words, it sounds as if you can get at most 1 point of PWR per turn from distributed processing, and the stacking affects only the odds, not the amount you get.

 

I understand that, but there is ALSO a chance of getting 2 heads (or in the game, 2 power), which is clearly not ever happening. Therefor it is incorrectly implemented if that is the logic being used.

 

EDIT: To clarify, the 75% chance mentioned is achieved by assuming that each chip provides a separate chance to get a power point. But by collapsing the probability into a single 75% chance that removes the possibility of getting 2 power, which means it is not stacking properly. It's the only thing that stacks with diminishing returns that I am aware of, which implies it is probably a bug.

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Well, sounds like that's not the logic being used.

 

Heads + Heads: you get 1 PWR   *** if the PWR *also* stacked, you'd get 2 PWR here, but it does not (apparently)

Heads + Tails: you get 1 PWR

Tails + Heads: you get 1 PWR

Tails + Tails: you get 0 PWR

 

What the behaviour *should* be for best game balance is another question.  Personally I wouldn't have a problem if behaviour were changed to operate how you hoped (25% for 0 PWR, 50% chance for 1 PWR, 25% for 2 PWR)

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I've never used them but it would make sense that each Distributed Processing is independent of each other, leading to each one giving an average of 0.5 power per turn. This isn't happening though, the 2nd one is only half as effective as the first if all it's doing is increasing the chance of the first one to 75%. Sounds to me like either a bug or an oversight because there's no reason for this augment to be this terrible considering the alternative augments and alternate sources of power.

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Perhaps; on the other hand, in the real world there usually ARE diminishing returns for distributed (parallel) processing.  Anyway, making them "fully stack" doesn't sound too OP to me (there are better things to use those enhancement slots for I think), so I'd certainly have no problem if they "fixed" this.

 

(this was in reply to bobthe, got ninja'd by Nxf)

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Thanks for the feedback guys. It sounds like either the math is wrong in the game or it stacks with diminishing returns, which is fine, but I would like a note added to the item if that is the case because it is not clear (or intuitive). I'll toss a post up in the bug report forum to request either the math be fixed or a clarification be added to the item.

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Went to search in game code and found this in simunit.lua, line 1268. Commented important lines with //

 

if self:getPlayerOwner() ~= nil then

   for i = 1, self:countAugments( "augment_distributed_processing" ) do      //For each Distributed Processing do:

   if sim:nextRand(0, 100) <= 50 then                                                            //Random chance of 50%

   sim:dispatchEvent( simdefs.EV_UNIT_FLOAT_TXT, {txt = util.sformat( STRINGS.UI.FLY_TXT.PLUS_PWR, 1), unit = self, color={r=255/255,g=255/255,b=51/255,a=1}} )

   self:getPlayerOwner():addCPUs( 1 )                                                         //Add 1 power

   end                                                                                                            //End tag for if condition

   end                                                                                                            //End tag for FOR loop

    end

 

It turns out, each Distributed Processing has individual chance of 50%. For loop is not interrupted in the case of successful generation however, so getting more than 1 power is possible.

 

Edit: Started game with Sharp, spawned and installed 5 Distributed Processing via dev console and waited 20 turns.

Results: I was getting anywhere between 0 and 5 power, as it should be.

 

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Heh, looking at the code and the result I see that everything is working properly..except that all of the "+1 PWR" notifications that float above the character are playing at the same time :hopelessness:  . So I've made a change that adds them all together and does them as one notification. That will show up in the next update.

If you check your PWR from turn to turn though, it will increase from 0 to the number of Distributed Processors you have on your agents.

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Heh, looking at the code and the result I see that everything is working properly..except that all of the "+1 PWR" notifications that float above the character are playing at the same time :hopelessness:  . So I've made a change that adds them all together and does them as one notification. That will show up in the next update.

If you check your PWR from turn to turn though, it will increase from 0 to the number of Distributed Processors you have on your agents.

 

Hah, i just wanted to commend that as that was my suspicion! So if both augments trigger at the same time, they both generate one power each and both show the text "+1 pwr" - although exactly on top of each other, so it looks like the agent just created one power. Checking in the top left corner for the power increase should show that it's working however.

 

But great to hear you are going to "fix" that, even though it's just something cosmetical (and slightly misleading). You guys are really putting love into this game, which is a rare thing in the gaming industry these days (especially post release!) Kudos to Klei! :)

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Well that's interesting. I was not watching the bonus popups, since the screen does not always shift to show them if sources are too far apart (and honestly they go away too quickly and they're easy to miss anyway). I always watch my total power and that never went up 2 in a single turn from 2 Distributed Processing augmentations over a 12 day endless game. I guess the RNG just beat me.

 

I admit it is possible that I missed it going up by two once or twice, but I was paying pretty close attention and even if I missed a few times it was certainly nowhere near the frequency I would expect.

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