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More "compact" building is not a anti-dote, but a cause of Power Surge issue? Trying to find the roots of the problem.


MaxRideWizardLord
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MaxRideWizardLord

Power Surge is, without exaggeration, literally the most obnoxious bug for me, mostly because there is literally nothing you can do about it once it happens as there no way to fix it. Worst of all, you can't even predict how this bug works and what causes the issue to begin with.

 

However, many suggest that building a more "compact" bases prevents the bug from happening. And from my own experience, it's not true. I've build many comapct bases. Sometimes, very compact. But adding at least 20-30 more tiles connecting the base and the whole thing would go collapse. This is how compact I usually build my bases:

 

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The interesting thing is, if you build a crapton of powerpath tiles that are NOT connecting to the base, even if it would cover ENTIRE map with nothing but power path tiles (sometimes that's over 200-400) but missing the one(s) that would simply connect them to the base which has the power station, the base and buildings connected to that power station and it's powerpaths would be just fine, no Power Surge issue would happen. In fact, you can even build a separated power station for these power path tiles if you so love the lighting of the blue color emerging from the powered power path tiles such as I am, no harm to the actual base would happen anyway.

 

However, if I build a base similar to one as seen on the second screenshot, and just cover it with powerpath tiles, which is less than 30 in total as I've counted, this is enough for Power Surge to happen. I've had powerpath tiles cover the entire island, except the corner of it that actually leads to pathway which connects island to the rest of land. I've felt that island wasn't pretty enough without that just one extra tile to make it symmetrical. And guess what happened? The Power Surge, and the whole thing collapse. As result, I began to panic and quickly get extra crystal to finish the mission before oxygen level was deceased entirely. Such a beautiful, glorious base is now a history...

 

01bKwR.jpg

 

Funny thing is, some time later I've rebuild my base EXACTLY the way it was based on screenshots I've made, except not adding that extra tile, and it was just fine. Instead, I've build hundreds and hundreds of square miles of power path tiles separated from the actual island where was the main base. At the end, covering the whole map with nothing but powerpath tiles. At the end, I've decided to also build several separated power stations so all of the power path tiles would be shiny, colorful and beautiful. In fact, once I've done all this and began to get bored as I've had the whole map completed and even finished the electrification of the whole map, I've decided to build the last power path tile at that notorious spot in corner which caused the Power Surge issue and as result my whole base collapse. I was expecting the worst thing, and already was prepared to teleport one vehicle to finish the mission. But once I've build the absolutely final power path tile which connected the powered base island with the rest of power path tiles covering the entire map. Sooooo, guess what? NOTHING HAPPENED! Just look at this!

 

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This is just hysterical marasmus and hypocrisy coming from the game's logic.

 

As you can see, I've debunked the myth that the big amount of the power path tiles is the result of Power Surge issue to happen. It must be something else... As I've said earlier, the first time the Power Surge happened on that time in this mission, I've didn't had that much of powerpath tiles, it was around 20-30, maybe even less. And no, I've didn't even had powerpath tiles anywhere outside of the island either.

 

The red arrows and the "red dots" on the last screenshot I've marked are that "corner" power path tiles I've talk about earlier, which caused the whole Power Surge issue the first time, and which one I refused to build the second time untill the very end of the game when I was preparing for the worst things to happen. I can't remember which exactly one of these corner tiles it was, as it was a while back since I've made these screenshots, which is why there are two arrows and two "red dots", so please don't blame me. I believe it was actually the one that is on the bottom.

 

But yes, obviously this isn't the first time the Power Surge issue happened to me. Since the time I've decided to play Lego Rock Raiders again, which was about merely a half-year ago, I've counted up to 10-20 Power Surge issues that happened to me since then (probably even more, since some Power Surges weren't as evil and only affected a few of buildings rather than all at once, which as result I could still continue playing without emergency panic alarm to finish the game as fast as possible before oxygen is gone), and I didn't even build a huge areas of power path tiles connected to the main power station. Mostly it happend when I indeed build a "compact" bases as I've been recommended.

 

All I can hope is that in the remastered community edition, such issue is exterminated entirely. More obnoxious thing to me than the random crashes I occasionally have for unpredictable reasons.

 

The thread was suggested to be made by Cirevam to me in a hope to resolve the Power Surge issue and finding the initial hidden cause\reason of it.

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I was talking to Maxim over Discord to get a couple ideas on what could be causing this. My hypothesis is that it's a pathfinding issue similar to what we've seen with Idleness Syndrome. The game must trace a valid path between a Power Station and a building in order to power it. I don't know how often the algorithm is being called, but it probably happens at least once every time a power path is created or destroyed, a building is created or destroyed, or when the crystal count updates. From my own experiments with Idleness Syndrome, raiders only update their tasks and paths when their current job is updated, or when they're idling. Also, too many raiders performing huge pathfinding calculations can cause some raiders to stop automatically accepting jobs. See my posts in this thread:

 

 

Thus I think that the issue is perhaps not being caused by a huge number of power paths, but maybe a huge number of powered buildings trying to trace a path to the Power Station. If there's enough, the pathfinding algorithm gets too many updates all at once, then it breaks and buildings are left unpowered. Maybe the game thinks that the buildings are no longer connected to the Power Station because the calculations were halted or failed, and they never get started up again because the job manager (stretching here) got clogged up with jobs that can never finish, and it can't tell those old buildings to search for a path to the Power Station anymore.

 

I'm not super familiar with power surges since they've never happened to me. Do we know if they affect the entire level at once or just a single Power Station's connected grid?

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I've never had bases big enough to experience this, however, I have a wild idea to test: How many buildings do you have when this occurs? How many of them require power and is there a relation to building count and the number of crystals 'in-use' ? I'm wondering if there is some calculation made which value becomes invalid when it reaches a certain point.

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MaxRideWizardLord
On 7/18/2019 at 5:32 AM, Cirevam said:

Thus I think that the issue is perhaps not being caused by a huge number of power paths, but maybe a huge number of powered buildings trying to trace a path to the Power Station. If there's enough, the pathfinding algorithm gets too many updates all at once, then it breaks and buildings are left unpowered. Maybe the game thinks that the buildings are no longer connected to the Power Station because the calculations were halted or failed, and they never get started up again because the job manager (stretching here) got clogged up with jobs that can never finish, and it can't tell those old buildings to search for a path to the Power Station anymore.

Sometimes having too many power path tiles causing some of them lacking the power, as you can see on the screenshot here - 

 

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Whic is the primary reason I build another power station there, and probably in some other parts of the map too -

 

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On 7/18/2019 at 5:32 AM, Cirevam said:

Do we know if they affect the entire level at once or just a single Power Station's connected grid?

Not something I'm sure with all honesty, but maybe it affects just one set of buildings connected to power station through certain powerpats, while some buildings can still, somehow, remain unaffected. Theoretically it's possible to be tested out if you build emergency power station with several support stations connected to it if the Power Surge bug is happens and see if the emergency base will work or not, but I'm not having enough nerves to test it out myself. I'm usually always panic when such thing happens, and it took me like whopping 5 hours, if not more, to build that one base on the water works mission. Most of the time I wasted by generating ore with the help of ore refinery and crapton of teleport pads so I could have enough ore to build these power path tiles to begin with. It was pain as it is. Probably one of the primary reasons why I REALLY want to speed up my ore refinery at least 3 times, maybe even 4.

 

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On 7/18/2019 at 12:49 PM, Cyrem said:

I've never had bases big enough to experience this, however, I have a wild idea to test: How many buildings do you have when this occurs? How many of them require power and is there a relation to building count and the number of crystals 'in-use' ? I'm wondering if there is some calculation made which value becomes invalid when it reaches a certain point.

 

I'm usually build one of each building (if possible, not on every map can you build Docks for obvious reason, and some maps don't have enough crystals and) and then usually up to 7-8 support stations, sometimes 12 like on that screenshot from waterworks for rare exception when I want my base to look nice, but usually 7-8 is enough for quick and rapid victory with 70+ minions (at around 80+ minions the game start lagging a bit). And usually up to 4-5 upgraded gunstations, and usually one non-upgraded gunstation since I've moded it to actually heal vehicles, minions and buildings (on the screenshot of waterworks, there is two non-upgraded gunstations, I build the second one as I couldn't reach every vehicle and building if i place just one on either side, so two of them covering both sides).

 

I usually start from tool station > teleport pad > power station > ore refinery > support station > either upgrade station or super teleport (usually super teleport is coming first then upgrade station) > usually I build 2 or 4 more support stations if I need more minions > non-upgraded Gunstation > Docks > Geological center coming last, and then if I have still more crystals left, I just covering the base with upgraded gunstations so the base looks nice and give false feeling of being protected, even though I rarely use them except on missions like frozen frenzy or rocky horror. (Theoretically they MIGHT be actually useful against obnoxious slugs, but I haven't tested it on them. Could be great alternative way to beat back to basic). Then, I just finish building the rest of support stations.

 

In early missions however, where the crystal count is being low, I usually teleport useless bases once they done their purpose, like support station once I teleport extra rock raiders in mission where oxygen is not limited and big teleport\upgrade station once I've summon and upgrade my vehicles, basically leaving only power station + tool store + ore refinery as the only buildings I need. But yes, I do often turn off the power from many buildings simply because I'm unable to power ALL of them because either the crystal carry limit, in which if I surpass, the game would just end with "mission complete" tag and\or simply because there is not enough crystal on the map itself to power them all.

 

I mostly disable power from buildings I don't use like teleport pad, big teleport, upgrade station, gunstations, geological center, docks and several support stations if I can manage the oxygen level stay positive. If I'm low on crystals at the moment and you don't have too many minions, usually two crystals, one for support station, another for ore refinery is more than enough. At such situations I'm mostly disabling the support station for short time period and enabling powers for these buildings instead only when I know I need them to do a specific job done, like teleport specific vehicle and\or upgrade it, sometimes for geological center to see what's around on the map, and then immediatelly disabling it's power and enabling support station back.

 

On the screenshots you see (except the forth one, there I'm simply out of crystals on the map I think, heh, and I have no idea how to get crystals from the crystal seams that are placed in the ocean area), I usually try to enable the power for all buildings, since then these buildings become more active and emerge light, which makes the base look more alive and more colorful\sweet looking. With the limited amount of crystal I can carry, of course I had to disable several things like geological center and gunstations, since they look alike regardless of power is on or off. So, about 19 are active mostly is for sure. The issue more often happen to me on maps like frozen frenzy, water works and rocky horror. Although on rocky horror, for some reason, it's not as deadly and I still had some support stations working while other were having Power Surge issue, even though all of them were powered from the same Power Station.

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