Poll

What should I prioritize next? (a * after a choice means I am currently working on that)

Player Stuff
20 (8.5%)
Girl's interactions (with each other)
25 (10.7%)
Scripts (interactions with the player)
46 (19.7%)
New Stats, Skills and Traits
10 (4.3%)
Existing Stats
1 (0.4%)
Existing Skills
3 (1.3%)
Existing Traits
6 (2.6%)
Customers
5 (2.1%)
Gangs
12 (5.1%)
Rivals
8 (3.4%)
Buildings
7 (3%)
General Jobs
4 (1.7%)
Farm Jobs
9 (3.8%)
Matrons
9 (3.8%)
Items
2 (0.9%)
Remaking the interface
15 (6.4%)
New stuff
8 (3.4%)
Whore Master Editor
4 (1.7%)
No priority
3 (1.3%)
WM7
This poll will be reset when I start a new section or add more choices so check back often.
37 (15.8%)

Total Members Voted: 136

Author Topic: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.04.01  (Read 937819 times)

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Offline 0nymous

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  • Date eam in verpa.
GIFs were a stretch but after 10 months, five tries and a complete rewrite of image handling, they work.
It could probably be done, but how many of them would be available to use?
Send me a few so I can take a look.  :P


Well AFAIK, .WebM files are better quality while at the same time being much smaller in size, which makes them effectively superior to .gif files in every way.
I know there's plenty of Source Film Maker porn out there in the .WebM format (check "sfm" tag on rule34.paheal.net) that some people could be interested in, but I think all the .WebM versions have .gif alternatives as well... that are simply gigantic when it comes to bytes.

Offline FlamBurger

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No more separating gif files! We working now!




....CRUD this means I got to work on my files again....
The whole region of Crossgate will be my playground....
Our playground....
The whole freaking world guys....
Crossgate Chronicles?? Yup it's that bad....
I'll still chug on! Plus, The Crazy Team is really doing a good job on this game.
https://mega.nz/#F!A55jWSpT!P-1Lw1-kNxiBfelAH24Kvg My Packs

Offline aevojoey

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Re: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.02.02
« Reply #467 on: June 21, 2015, 10:38:42 AM »
Is there a mod for 1920x1080p resolution? Should I manually edit the config file or are there suggestions to basically reduce the amount of mouse wheel scrolling? Thanks!
I am currently creating a 16:9 interface based off the J_1024x768 interface.
My screen is 1366x768 so that is what I am making.
It should scale up to 1920x1080 but I don't have a screen to test it on at the moment.

Once it is available, you will set your config.xml Resolution to:
Code: [Select]
    <Resolution
        Resolution="J_1366x768"
        Width="1920"
        Height="1080"
        ScaleWidth="1366"
        ScaleHeight="768"
        FullScreen="true"
        ListScrollAmount="3"
        TextScrollAmount="3" />

I will also be updating the J_1024x768 interface to make it more consistent.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2015, 11:33:35 AM by aevojoey »
Fixing the game is a better game than actually playing it.
Get the Current Version <|> Discuss the Game <|> Report a bug

Offline aevojoey

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I have gotten more done on the 16:9 and would like some input.
This interface will be much easier to customize because all the numbers will be exact instead of scaled like the old ones were.

The previous post had the first draft of the Town screen and I have adjusted it a bit here.
I made all the buttons the same size, 180x36, across all the screens I have gotten to so far.
Every page will have the Back button in the same place except the main page that will have nothing there.
I made the border 26px around the entire game plus 8px from items which makes windowed mode work if you have the start bar on the side.

For the Studio screen, and the other building screens, I did a lot of changes because there is a lot more room to fill.
I made the girls list much wider so you can add a lot more info to it.
I made the picture and the girl's description 300x300 and increased the size of the jobs lists.
I changed the buttons from one vertical column to a 2x3 block because the most buttons a building has is 6 and it fits well.
(The Studio does not have the day/night buttons by design.)

The only blank space is a 240x80 box and I'm not sure what to put there.
I thought about making the "Girl Details" button larger, putting it in there and having room for another button.
Or I could make it some other info box like gold or something else.

I should probably shrink the "Job Types" box and put the "These are jobs for running a movie studio" text below it.
Or I could shrink both jobs boxes and increase the girls list.
Or I could make the "Job Types" boxes just big enough to fit what is needed with the text below it.

Update: I have reworked the girls lists a bit more.
You can see what I have done in the 3rd image "Clinic preview a.jpg".
(I had to reduce the jpg compression a bit so I could attach it.)

What other things could I do?
« Last Edit: June 22, 2015, 10:59:19 PM by aevojoey »
Fixing the game is a better game than actually playing it.
Get the Current Version <|> Discuss the Game <|> Report a bug

Offline HuiBui

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To give you any idea how to optimize the game with a larger interface:

In any case when showing large pics, please lets make the related pictures as big as possible.

Whats importent for me is to have the option to select all jobs without scrolling menues. By the way is there any chance to select the day/night jobs without switching from day to night.
Lets say to show the jobs for day and night  parts simultaniously?

Offline mika

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First impressions after about 10 hours of play:

1. The OP - while having all needed information there - is a mess. The problem is actually information overkill... or rather, lack of simple structuring. Instead of following instructions from top to bottom, one kinda has to read out of order. Most importantly, since this "megamod" now seems to be the primary relevant version to players, a very obvious infobit is missing: The main download just is the game, without neccessary content. The default-images pack is in fact a common ressource (though, an easily customizable one) that should be downloaded together with the main DL. Then one has to DL girl-packs, to actually get girls into the game.

The OP is written with the assumption the player already knows all this, and just needs the links. Heck, it outrightly starts with a to-do for UPGRADING from older mods/vanilla! So, it's written for players already familiar with the game, not newcomers.

2. I got constant random crashes with ver 06.02.03 - every few minutes. What i did was DL the mod, default-images - put it into its proper places. Then i selectively DLed a few lurker girlpacks. Started a new game, and that's it basically. The only change i DID make, was to from the girlpacks delete images i didn't like, without changing the others. From what i red about the naming scheme, this should cause no issues - for supposedly the game doesn't expect proper ascending numbers ("sex (1)", "sex (2), etc". Yet, i can't see why the imagepacks would cause crashes, for it happened the moment i switch from one screen to another - all kinds of screens, even the dungeon which initially shows no girl pics initially (of  course, the game might be preloading pics). Error log after crash was zero bytes, gamelog ended with all brothels suppedly being suddenly missing, but not when loading the actual brothels, but rather i think the house or farm, which was entirely empty since i didn't do anything for those yet (i don't even have a farm yet, i think). Will post a log when it happens the next time.

EDIT: Happened after loading a savegame and clicking "Girl Management". Not reproducable - reloading and clicking again causes no crash. End of gamelog:

Code: [Select]
***************** Loading brothels ****************
Loading brothel: Succubus

[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255
[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255

[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255
[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255

[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255
[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255

[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255
[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255

[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255
[sGirl::jobs_enjoy_code] Error: unknown Enjoy: 255
Loading clinic Data
***************** Loading clinic ****************
Loading studio Data
***************** Loading studio ****************
Loading arena Data
***************** Loading arena ****************
Loading centre Data
***************** Loading centre ****************
Loading house Data
***************** Loading house ****************
Loading house: House
Loading farm Data
***************** Loading farm ****************
Loading global triggers
Loading default images
No, i don't have a farm.

Another one - this time it was selecting a unique girl in the dungeon, and clicking "Girl Details" (or however its called):
Code: [Select]
************** Saving players inventory ***********
***************** Saving brothels *****************
Saving brothel: Succubus
***************** Saving clinics *****************
***************** Saving studios *****************
***************** Saving arenas *****************
***************** Saving centres *****************
***************** Saving houses *****************
Saving brothel: House
***************** Saving farms *****************
Brothel 1 not found in list!
Brothel 2 not found in list!
Brothel 3 not found in list!
Brothel 4 not found in list!
Brothel 5 not found in list!
Brothel 6 not found in list!
Brothel 0 not found in list!
Brothel 0 not found in list!
Brothel 0 not found in list!
Brothel 0 not found in list!
Brothel 0 not found in list!
This was shortly after new week begin. What happened was: Week-end, Save, Click Dungeon, Select Girl, Click "Details" -> CTD. I'm not even sure the above end of the log covers anything past saving, since it appears to be just about saving the game.


3. The start of a new game is still quite difficult, for reasons mentioned years ago: Lack of money to hire needed stuff. But i think the deeper problem isn't really lack of startmoney, but rather that for early slaves, obedience and competence at a given task are the same. What i mean with this is, that in any other polished game, there would be staff to hire who do their job reliably, but at low quality. So, there's no way to trade quality for reliability. Girls tend to either be good at a task AND are already obedient, OR they lack both. Hence, one either gets nothing or all. Maybe the problem is, that the game checks obedience without considering expectations - there's no way to "go easy" on a girl, hence sacrificing quality (and possibly learning potential) for obedience and less stress (tiredness).

4. As with most of such games, the behavior of the girl is often nonsensical and shizo. For the reports about how an event went, the game seems to evaluate the different criteria seperately: Stats, skills, traits, happiness, libido and so on all seem to be analyzed seperately, with one textbit for each. So you then can get a "cum addict", which's trait description says she totally wants it, happy and high libido, but she refuses to do it because of.... uh.... lack of oral skill, wat? Countless other examples in the same style: Criteria evaluated in insolation, instead of them being related to each other and considered as a whole. This does of course imply more complex coding, but i think that's totally worth it.

5. Multiple concerns about the system the game uses for picking images:

5.1. For the same girl and same scene, pictures shouldn't change when clicking back and forth. It's irritating and makes even the unique girls feel "random and generic". Keyword: Use a seed.

5.2. For non-unique girls, the portrait (from default-images) should be static, instead of changing all the time. Again: Use a seed.

5.3. The idea for "default-images" could be vastly improved, by adding haircolor (and *optionally* perhaps three breast sizes (small, normal, big)) to the criteria for picking an image. This would also (again, optionally) allow to drastically simplify girlpacks: If one is willing to compromise, a girlpack could include nothing more than portraits, and fetch scene pics from default-images, that take hair color (and possibly breast size) into account. Again, i'm not argueing that ALL packs should do that - just that it's possible. In any case, taking this into account also would make the non-unique girls more consistent, especially if portrait randomization is fixed.

5.4. Default-images do not seem to work properly. Scenario: Unique girl in beast scene. No beast pic in girl folder, but multiple in default-images. Expected: Game picks a random a default beast pic. What instead happens: Game takes a random sex pic from the girl folder. Some might argue that priority is right, but i don't think so... neither does it make much sense: Most girlpacks have sex pics, so what is even the point of default-images as a fallback, if it's never used, as long as a unique sex pic is available? That demotes default-images to nothing more than a pics for non-unique girls, and for those, the lack of a seed doesn't make it do that task well either.

6. The interface for assigning jobs is a bit annoying - the main problem is how the seperation between day and night jobs is handled... one always ends up having to click many times, for first having the change category, then changing assignment. Why are categories even listed, that aren't available? I.e., why can a noob pick a gambling assignment, for a brothel without that feature? Or does it have that feature but doesnt tell me? No idea - the game doesn't say.

7. Training doesn't seem to work. Got a girl with strength 0 - i'm not even sure what strength is, for that's not mentioned on the wiki or in the old manual. Anyways, sent her to the shipyard for strength training. It was still 0 afterwards. Same happened for sending a girl to a combat trainer.

8. Prices for consumables seem to be all over the place - looks as if the original game or another mod used a different standard, and then new items were added by someone with a different opinion about what the proper price should be. If prices globally should be different, wouldn't the right place to adjust that be config.xml?
« Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 07:58:45 PM by mika »

Offline dmotrl

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3. The start of a new game is still quite difficult, for reasons mentioned years ago: Lack of money to hire needed stuff. But i think the deeper problem isn't really lack of startmoney, but rather that for early slaves, obedience and competence at a given task are the same. What i mean with this is, that in any other polished game, there would be staff to hire who do their job reliably, but at low quality. So, there's no way to trade quality for reliability. Girls tend to either be good at a task AND are already obedient, OR they lack both. Hence, one either gets nothing or all. Maybe the problem is, that the game checks obedience without considering expectations - there's no way to "go easy" on a girl, hence sacrificing quality (and possibly learning potential) for obedience and less stress (tiredness).
Starting money is something you can adjust in the Config; I find that upping it to 5000 gives me enough to get a useful Unique slave from the Market and still keep afloat.

There's also a third category of Reliability/Quality, one that's solvable later (when you have more cash) but is kind of problematic at first, and that's high Quality and low Obedience.  These are almost always Unique girls, though, so unless you save-scum the Streets or hit the Catacombs early, you won't usually get them.  Two Randoms from the Catacombs that are helpful are the Valkyrie (because they're Incorporeal) and ... one of the Elves, I'd have to check which (they tend to have higher sex skills and decent Obedience).

I'd also suggest making sure you hire at least one Gang right off the bat (of the 4-5 gangs available on the first turn, one or two are usually very good), and sending them to the Catacombs; if you luck out and hit a saleable Girl or really nice items, it makes things a lot easier :P

Quote
5.1. For the same girl and same scene, pictures shouldn't change when clicking back and forth. It's irritating and makes even the unique girls feel "random and generic". Keyword: Use a seed.

5.2. For non-unique girls, the portrait (from default-images) should be static, instead of changing all the time. Again: Use a seed.
These don't really bother me, though I can see why the second one would be irritating.  Not really sure what's wrong with the former, though.

Quote
6. The interface for assigning jobs is a bit annoying - the main problem is how the seperation between day and night jobs is handled... one always ends up having to click many times, for first having the change category, then changing assignment. Why are categories even listed, that aren't available? I.e., why can a noob pick a gambling assignment, for a brothel without that feature? Or does it have that feature but doesnt tell me? No idea - the game doesn't say.
Huh?  I'm not sure what the issue with the Bolded is.  As far as the initial issue goes - it's ... what, three clicks?  One to swap between Day and Night, one to select the area, and one to select the job.  Is that really too much work?

Quote
7. Training doesn't seem to work. Got a girl with strength 0 - i'm not even sure what strength is, for that's not mentioned on the wiki or in the old manual. Anyways, sent her to the shipyard for strength training. It was still 0 afterwards. Same happened for sending a girl to a combat trainer.
Training isn't always successful, I think, and IIRC the Shipyard is actually CON, unless it got updated at some point (because STR is a new stat).  If you want to increase STR, buy the Arena and have the girl do Combat Training there.  As for what STR does ... here.  (Granted, I had to follow the "Accomodations, House Percentages, and Other Variables" link in the first post, then click the "Stats and Skills Explained" link to go to that thread, then go to the right post, so it's not precisely a simple matter of 'Check this thread,' but it is fairly findable if you can get past the "So Many Links!" issue in the first post.)

Anyway, STR increases damage done in combat, and will (hopefully) have an effect on item carrying capacity.

Quote
8. Prices for consumables seem to be all over the place - looks as if the original game or another mod used a different standard, and then new items were added by someone with a different opinion about what the proper price should be. If prices globally should be different, wouldn't the right place to adjust that be config.xml?
Item prices are all over the place, in part because there are so many different items made by so many different people.  I believe aevojoey is trying to rework some of them as he goes through them, but there's something like seven hundred items, and they're in separate files.  But yeah, the prices are set with the item itself, not globally, so you can have a Turducken that heals 50 HP and costs 500, while a Healing Salve (M) that also heals 50 HP costs 450.  I'm not sure how you'd work out how to globally set prices, unless you set prices for each stat point and trait, at which point you run into problems with the system, because if I have an item that has a penalizing trait as part of the point of the item (say, an item that inflicts Blind and Small Scars because it represents destroying the girl's eyes) and one that has them as harmful side-effects (say, one that inflicts Blind and Small Scars, but as a side effect of granting Powerful Magic and increasing Magic stats), then you either pay for the 'benefit' of harmful side-effects on the second item, or you actually gain money from buying the first item.  So item prices pretty much have to be individually established, which leads to things like strictly-superior items being priced lower than other ones because the people making the items have different systems.

Offline mika

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Huh?  I'm not sure what the issue with the Bolded is.  As far as the initial issue goes - it's ... what, three clicks?  One to swap between Day and Night, one to select the area, and one to select the job.  Is that really too much work?
Well, let's see:
The theoretical minimum possible effort is three clicks to completely change a girl's schedule: 1. select girl, 2. select day task, 3. select night task.

Of course, with the many possible tasks, the problem is how to display all those options readily, so currently they're categorized by time (day/night), occupation (common, bar, brothel, etc). Additionally, when selecting a girl, the game remembers the last state, so it preselects a category... this also happens when switching from day to night. All of this in theory sounds neat, tidy and proper, but the consequences in practice are:

1. (1st click) Select girl
2. (1st confusion) Check if day or night is preselected - or forget it all the time and first change the wrong category, then undo your changes to adjust the right one.
3. (2nd click) Select the day or night
4. (3rd click) Change the task category - it's almost certainly not the one you want (i.e. constant switching between "common" and the others)
5. (Potential extra click) Scroll the list to the right task.
6. (4th click) select task.
7. (5th click) Switch to other daytime
8. (2nd confusion) Figure out what task category was preselected this time, since it will change to her prior task for that time
9. (6th click) select the right task category.
10. (Potential extra click) Scroll the list to the right task.
11. (7th click) select task.

11 steps, and 7-9 clicks PER GIRL. It adds up to a clickfest real fast - per location.

Quote
Training isn't always successful, I think, and IIRC the Shipyard is actually CON
Yep, figured this out later. The description for the shipyard is wrong then - since it mentions strength as well as "endurance", but actually only trains the later. The issue i had with combat training was, that the response message didn't clearly indicate failure. Heck, with so much text being flavour and hence open to interpretation (the "wacky" descriptions are part of the game's charme), it's not easy to figure out if it failed or not. Also, i'm unsure if possible failure is a good idea.... i can understand failure for PRACTICE between slaves.... but for training, you pay outright money, so even though success might be variable, IMO it should always have at least a minor degree of success. Else i quite frankly want my money back! It's the least i deserve in compensation, for tiring my girl and using her time for nothing.



Quote
So item prices pretty much have to be individually established, which leads to things like strictly-superior items being priced lower than other ones because the people making the items have different systems.
Well, sure, their worth has to be judged by a dev - an algo would take more effort than it's worth.... if that is even possible. What i meant with global adjustment was the opposite of balancing consumables against each other: If a dev thinks consumables are too expensive/cheap in general, then he shouldn't make the changes in the item prices, but instead simply adjust the relevant variable in config.xml. Item prices themselves should be set to consistent with other items. Then if i.e. consumables in general are too expensive, or cheap, then this can be tweaked in config.xml.

I understand that for things like equipment, there might just be way too many items, to balance them in reasonable time. But at the very least common consumables, like HP/tiredness restorers - shouldn't be too many to balance. Also, i'm not really too concerned about mismatches like 450 vs 500 gold... but more about more excessive examples like 200 vs 400 gold.

Offline zafer

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The main download just is the game, without neccessary content. The default-images pack is in fact a common ressource (though, an easily customizable one) that should be downloaded together with the main DL.

I have to disagree with this 100%. There are plenty of contributors who upload their own image packs to share. Having to re-download the same default image pack every time it gets updated is a waste of bandwidth.

5.4. Default-images do not seem to work properly. Scenario: Unique girl in beast scene. No beast pic in girl folder, but multiple in default-images. Expected: Game picks a random a default beast pic.

This is a setting in config.xml that is turned off by default.

change
Code: [Select]
PreferDefault="false" />to
Code: [Select]
PreferDefault="true" />And the game will now use missing images in the DefaultImages file instead of following the image tree.

Offline mika

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I have to disagree with this 100%. There are plenty of contributors who upload their own image packs to share. Having to re-download the same default image pack every time it gets updated is a waste of bandwidth.
Wat? I was talking about that the PLAYER (and especially a NEW player) should download it together (as two easily visible links, NOT "one download") with the main game. The OP doesn't suggest or explain this to new players. It doesn't even explain what the purpose of the default-images pack is.

Quote
This is a setting in config.xml that is turned off by default.

change
Code: [Select]
PreferDefault="false" />to
Code: [Select]
PreferDefault="true" />And the game will now use missing images in the DefaultImages file instead of following the image tree.
Thanks! I actually knew about this setting, but it's description didn't make this clear. I was thinking what this setting does is, to ALWAYS prefer default-images over girl pics, hence basically override most content of girlpacks, which - yes - makes no sense :)
« Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 11:19:53 PM by mika »

Offline mika

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Goddamn elusive random crashes.... got to a point where i could seemingly reproduce it: launch game, load savegame, click dungeon button, CTD. Worked five times in a row. "Yay!" i thought, and went into my savefolder.... the autosave would be pointless, so i deleted that one and zipped up the savefolder. Then just to make sure i got this right, i tried to reproduce it a sixth time.... no CTD.... 7th, 8th, 9th.... no more CTD. Wat the heck.

Offline aevojoey

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1. The OP - while having all needed information there - is a mess. The problem is actually information overkill... or rather, lack of simple structuring. Instead of following instructions from top to bottom, one kinda has to read out of order. Most importantly, since this "megamod" now seems to be the primary relevant version to players, a very obvious infobit is missing: The main download just is the game, without neccessary content. The default-images pack is in fact a common ressource (though, an easily customizable one) that should be downloaded together with the main DL. Then one has to DL girl-packs, to actually get girls into the game.

The OP is written with the assumption the player already knows all this, and just needs the links. Heck, it outrightly starts with a to-do for UPGRADING from older mods/vanilla! So, it's written for players already familiar with the game, not newcomers.
The OP was written over several months and I basically just added things when needed.
The upgrading section was added before everything else because I was getting frustrated with people constantly complaining when something didn't work when they upgraded.
I will update it with new players in mind when I can.

2. I got constant random crashes with ver 06.02.03 - every few minutes. What i did was DL the mod, default-images - put it into its proper places. Then i selectively DLed a few lurker girlpacks. Started a new game, and that's it basically. The only change i DID make, was to from the girlpacks delete images i didn't like, without changing the others. From what i red about the naming scheme, this should cause no issues - for supposedly the game doesn't expect proper ascending numbers ("sex (1)", "sex (2), etc". Yet, i can't see why the imagepacks would cause crashes, for it happened the moment i switch from one screen to another - all kinds of screens, even the dungeon which initially shows no girl pics initially (of  course, the game might be preloading pics). Error log after crash was zero bytes, gamelog ended with all brothels suppedly being suddenly missing, but not when loading the actual brothels, but rather i think the house or farm, which was entirely empty since i didn't do anything for those yet (i don't even have a farm yet, i think). Will post a log when it happens the next time.

EDIT: Happened after loading a savegame and clicking "Girl Management". Not reproducable - reloading and clicking again causes no crash. End of gamelog:
...
No, i don't have a farm.

Another one - this time it was selecting a unique girl in the dungeon, and clicking "Girl Details" (or however its called):
...
This was shortly after new week begin. What happened was: Week-end, Save, Click Dungeon, Select Girl, Click "Details" -> CTD. I'm not even sure the above end of the log covers anything past saving, since it appears to be just about saving the game.
Unfortunately I don't seem to have the problem you and some others are reporting so I can't track down the problem.
I have been playing a game for about 10 turns and have had no crashes.
If you can attach your savegame to a post, I can try and find any problems I can in it.

3. The start of a new game is still quite difficult, for reasons mentioned years ago: Lack of money to hire needed stuff. But i think the deeper problem isn't really lack of startmoney, but rather that for early slaves, obedience and competence at a given task are the same. What i mean with this is, that in any other polished game, there would be staff to hire who do their job reliably, but at low quality. So, there's no way to trade quality for reliability. Girls tend to either be good at a task AND are already obedient, OR they lack both. Hence, one either gets nothing or all. Maybe the problem is, that the game checks obedience without considering expectations - there's no way to "go easy" on a girl, hence sacrificing quality (and possibly learning potential) for obedience and less stress (tiredness).
I always start a new game by hiring all the gangs I can and buying girls with high constitution, high looks and/or low rebel.
Most jobs in the Bar, Club and Casino I never use, many of them have not really been updated lately and they don't really make much money. Brothel Whore makes money even with less experienced girls.
I usually make enough money to buy one or two girls each turn for the first couple of turns and then the money starts coming in faster.
I don't usually buy another building, usually the Centre, until I have 15-25 girls.

4. As with most of such games, the behavior of the girl is often nonsensical and shizo. For the reports about how an event went, the game seems to evaluate the different criteria seperately: Stats, skills, traits, happiness, libido and so on all seem to be analyzed seperately, with one textbit for each. So you then can get a "cum addict", which's trait description says she totally wants it, happy and high libido, but she refuses to do it because of.... uh.... lack of oral skill, wat? Countless other examples in the same style: Criteria evaluated in insolation, instead of them being related to each other and considered as a whole. This does of course imply more complex coding, but i think that's totally worth it.
The sex scenes started out fairly bland and they have been slowly updated in the past few months.
I plan on completely rewriting it and I will take your suggestions into account when I do.

5. Multiple concerns about the system the game uses for picking images:

5.1. For the same girl and same scene, pictures shouldn't change when clicking back and forth. It's irritating and makes even the unique girls feel "random and generic". Keyword: Use a seed.

5.2. For non-unique girls, the portrait (from default-images) should be static, instead of changing all the time. Again: Use a seed.
The new image selection is more accurately a rewrite of the code that makes the selection done with the same results.
All images are chosen randomly but I do want to make events choose a specific image for that event to display.

5.3. The idea for "default-images" could be vastly improved, by adding haircolor (and *optionally* perhaps three breast sizes (small, normal, big)) to the criteria for picking an image. This would also (again, optionally) allow to drastically simplify girlpacks: If one is willing to compromise, a girlpack could include nothing more than portraits, and fetch scene pics from default-images, that take hair color (and possibly breast size) into account. Again, i'm not argueing that ALL packs should do that - just that it's possible. In any case, taking this into account also would make the non-unique girls more consistent, especially if portrait randomization is fixed.

5.4. Default-images do not seem to work properly. Scenario: Unique girl in beast scene. No beast pic in girl folder, but multiple in default-images. Expected: Game picks a random a default beast pic. What instead happens: Game takes a random sex pic from the girl folder. Some might argue that priority is right, but i don't think so... neither does it make much sense: Most girlpacks have sex pics, so what is even the point of default-images as a fallback, if it's never used, as long as a unique sex pic is available? That demotes default-images to nothing more than a pics for non-unique girls, and for those, the lack of a seed doesn't make it do that task well either.
Default Images were mostly chosen because they were images I had from some packs that had no face or the face was easily cropped out.
It was made a while before .06.00.00 so it does not have many of the newer image types.
If you set "Prefer Default" to true in config.xml it will look for the image in the girl folder then from the default images before picking from the alternates tree.

6. The interface for assigning jobs is a bit annoying - the main problem is how the seperation between day and night jobs is handled... one always ends up having to click many times, for first having the change category, then changing assignment. Why are categories even listed, that aren't available? I.e., why can a noob pick a gambling assignment, for a brothel without that feature? Or does it have that feature but doesnt tell me? No idea - the game doesn't say.
Yes it is annoying.
I am adding a 16:9 interface and someone else suggested I make separate boxes for day and night jobs.
Until then, you can make setting jobs a little easier if you hold <ctrl> when selecting a job to assign it to both day and night.
All jobs are visible even if the girl can not do them, I don't have plans yet to change that.

7. Training doesn't seem to work. Got a girl with strength 0 - i'm not even sure what strength is, for that's not mentioned on the wiki or in the old manual. Anyways, sent her to the shipyard for strength training. It was still 0 afterwards. Same happened for sending a girl to a combat trainer.
The Training you are talking about is controlled by ".\Resources\Scripts\DefaultInteractDetails.script"
The game still has the original version but there is a newer version in Bowman's Plaza
I'm not sure how much has been done with the Training part but you can try it out and see.

8. Prices for consumables seem to be all over the place - looks as if the original game or another mod used a different standard, and then new items were added by someone with a different opinion about what the proper price should be. If prices globally should be different, wouldn't the right place to adjust that be config.xml?
Prices are crazy and as dmotrl said, I have been trying to normalize them but there are 744 .itemsx files so it is taking a while.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 11:52:22 PM by aevojoey »
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Offline mika

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The Training you are talking about is controlled by ".\Resources\Scripts\DefaultInteractDetails.script"
The game still has the original version but there is a newer version in Bowman's Plaza
I'm not sure how much has been done with the Training part but you can try it out and see.
Thanks for the hint. However, as mentioned in another post, the problem was with the description: For the shipyard, the description says it improves strength and endurance, but it actually only trains the later.

Tried bowmans version, but that seemed to entirely break training: Now when choosing i.e. shipyard, nothing happens at all - the game just closes the dialog with nothing happening. So, i restored the version that comes with the mod.

EDIT: About the crashes and savegames - the problem is i haven't found a way to reproduce it. If you look at my previous post above this one, even when it happens right after saving the game, or loading a game, its not reliably reproducable.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 01:24:55 AM by mika »

Offline dmotrl

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Well, let's see:
The theoretical minimum possible effort is three clicks to completely change a girl's schedule: 1. select girl, 2. select day task, 3. select night task.

Of course, with the many possible tasks, the problem is how to display all those options readily, so currently they're categorized by time (day/night), occupation (common, bar, brothel, etc). Additionally, when selecting a girl, the game remembers the last state, so it preselects a category... this also happens when switching from day to night. All of this in theory sounds neat, tidy and proper, but the consequences in practice are:

1. (1st click) Select girl
2. (1st confusion) Check if day or night is preselected - or forget it all the time and first change the wrong category, then undo your changes to adjust the right one.
3. (2nd click) Select the day or night
4. (3rd click) Change the task category - it's almost certainly not the one you want (i.e. constant switching between "common" and the others)
5. (Potential extra click) Scroll the list to the right task.
6. (4th click) select task.
7. (5th click) Switch to other daytime
8. (2nd confusion) Figure out what task category was preselected this time, since it will change to her prior task for that time
9. (6th click) select the right task category.
10. (Potential extra click) Scroll the list to the right task.
11. (7th click) select task.

11 steps, and 7-9 clicks PER GIRL. It adds up to a clickfest real fast - per location.
I ... what???  Okay, let me work this through ...

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2. (1st confusion) Check if day or night is preselected - or forget it all the time and first change the wrong category, then undo your changes to adjust the right one.
Okay, so you're complaining about having to read the screen?  And/or being incompetent enough to misclick?  Am I misunderstanding your position here?

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3. (2nd click) Select the day or night
... Why?  If you're going to switch the cycle anyway (and you do, in Step 7), why bother switching the active cycle before you change the job?  This is a completely unnecessary step.

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4. (3rd click) Change the task category - it's almost certainly not the one you want (i.e. constant switching between "common" and the others)
Unless you're just resetting from 'Free Time' to Security/Practice/Matron/Torturer/Advertising/Catacombs/, or otherwise moving from one job to another in the same Area ....

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5. (Potential extra click) Scroll the list to the right task.
... What, are you going to complain about having to move the mouse, too?

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8. (2nd confusion) Figure out what task category was preselected this time, since it will change to her prior task for that time
I'm really not sure what's confusing you here; the 'preselected' task is always going to be what their current job for that Time Cycle is - if they're on Practice, or Free Time, it'll be the General Jobs, if they're a Waitress it'll be the Bar, if they're a Masseuse it'll be in the Brothel section.  Is your issue simply that you haven't gotten used to which jobs are in which location?  That's a problem inherent to every game that has different controls!

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11 steps, and 7-9 clicks PER GIRL. It adds up to a clickfest real fast - per location
Only if you're micromanaging every girl, every day, in every location ... which you shouldn't be.  Like, even if you're a brand-new player, you aren't going to be constantly changing everything every turn for no reason ... and you only have two locations at the beginning anyway, and one of them doesn't even earn you any money!  So your complaint only has merit if you've got multiple locations with a significant number of girls at each location and you're micromanaging them each turn instead of assigning them intelligently and/or using a Matron.

I mean, here's what I do (assuming a brand-new Girl with terrible stats that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with yet:
1) Select Girl.
2) CTRL+Click Practice (which sets the selected Job to both Day and Night)

But even if you don't know about CTRL+Click, it's still pretty short:
1) Select Girl.
2) Select Practice
3) Change Time Cycle
4) Select Practice

You can even cut out half of those steps if you only want them to practice during the Day and have Free Time at night!

And if I know what I want the girl to do?  Maximum Number of Clicks:

1) Select Girl.
2) Change Work Area.
3) Assign Job.
4) Change Time Cycle.
5) Change Work Area.
6) Change Job.

Bam.  Six clicks; it's shorter if you only need to change one job, especially if you're already on the right Time Cycle.  And again, you're not going to be reassigning each girl every day; in fact, you'll only really need to reassign girls if they're too Tired/Injured to work, in which case you just switch their current Job to Free Time (you don't need to switch both unless they're working both; I usually leave the 'off' Cycle on Practice, for example), and then switch them back when they're healthier.

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Also, i'm not really too concerned about mismatches like 450 vs 500 gold... but more about more excessive examples like 200 vs 400 gold.
50 and 200 is still pretty much the same drop in the bucket once you've got a stable income going.  I simply used the Healing Salve / Turducken example because it's the one I remembered off the top of my head.

Offline mika

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Okay, so you're complaining about having to read the screen?  And/or being incompetent enough to misclick?  Am I misunderstanding your position here?
I'm complaining about the game choosing the initial state, based on a context i never care about (prior assigned task). When i assign orders, i already know what NEW orders i want to give - i don't care anymore about the prior orders. But since the game preselects day/night and task category, based on the prior settings, i for every girl have to deal with prior orders.

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... Why?  If you're going to switch the cycle anyway (and you do, in Step 7), why bother switching the active cycle before you change the job?  This is a completely unnecessary step.
I don't. It's just that it is confusing. In usability, when the user is presented with a choice/dialog, he first needs to orient himself "where am i?". Three things can happen: A) The user doesn't even have to think, because he knows ahead of time where he will end up (best case). B) The user has to doublecheck but can quickly find out (suboptimal case). C) The user has to spend multiple seconds to figure out where he ended up (worst case).

If when deciding to issue new orders, the initial choosen time-of-day and category were always the same, then case "A)" applies. But since the game tries to be "smart" by basing the preselection on existing girl settings, what happens is something in-between B) and C) instead... technically, i would call it B), but since the UI doesn't make it very visible if i.e. day or night is selected (the visual difference is very subtle), we end up with something in-between, and a 50% chance of C)  (when the user wants to change i.e. night, but accidentally changes day instead, and then has to "repair" his mistake).


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... What, are you going to complain about having to move the mouse, too?
I would complain about that too, yes, because its a usability concern too which apparently "hackers" like you fail to grasp. But in this case i'm not complaining, because its no big issue here.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 01:47:44 AM by mika »