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ProudCanadian

Join Date 10/2004

For Beta Testing - Requesting Additional Cheat Codes

I was just reading the Dev Journal post about needing to finish the game (minus the "polishing") before Christmas, and concerns about AI stability. I know that Stardock is really counting on Beta Testers to make forum posts about AI problems that are observed during game play. In order to better observe the AI as a tester (rather than a "player"), we could use some additional tools.

My Request:
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Please add several "cheat codes" to the game that will unlock the following abilities
- Reveal Everything: shows everything on the Galactic Map regardless of range and suspends the "fog-of-war" - AI ships, planets, anomalies, junk, etc.
- Unlock AI Ship Control: lets the player do whatever they want with an AI ship, view its stats and condition, set a new destination, etc.
- Unlock AI Colony Control: lets the player open the Colony View window for an AI-owned colony. We would be able to see what they have on their colony as well as make any changes that we wish (decommission a building, add a new building to the AI colony build queue, change colony name, etc.) just as if it was our own colony.
- Unlock AI Ship Design Control: lets the player open the Ship Design window for a selected AI race and modify their ship designs.

I realize that the last one (Unlock AI Ship Design) may be more intrusive to add compared with the others, so that would be a "nice to have".

I think the addition of these "cheat" capabilities will GREATLY improve the visibility testers have into what the AI is doing, and where it is falling apart.

-PC

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Here's another one, but I'm not sure if this is even possible:
- Swap Control with AI Race: Ends the current turn. When the next turn begins, you will be playing the selected AI race (just as if you had started the game as that AI race). The race you *were* playing as will become AI controlled (just as if you have started the game with your former race an an AI race). This would provide excellent insight into the current state of the AI race you just "swapped" with, as you play that race for a few turns.

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Very useful suggestions, ProudCanadian!

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In theory it would be nice for beta testers but remember that cheats Aren't that nice to use! so im proposing to add this "Cheats" now and add a few more basic Cheats and if they get used it damages horribly your score!

and your char's reward will be a big stinkin cheater award its a picture of bush

JK im sorta anti-republican but also anti-democractic as well! i belive in a new form of a policital party:"The Firm Liberal Party" *Metro Police Guys Reads miranda rights to citizens and then beats the living crap out of them*

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I'm only asking for these for Beta Tester use. I don't care if they remove them before the production version is released. I just want tools to assist me in testing the game.

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If we want to see what the AI is doing, so we can report it in the Beta4 forum (ie, why is the AI building 1 million 1/1/1 ships? Those cannot even harm anyone with current defense techs!), then that's the sort of functionality we would need.

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I've been bugging Cari in the chat room for these, so I'll /sign this too.

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Please add several "cheat codes" to the game that will unlock the following abilities
- Reveal Everything: shows everything on the Galactic Map regardless of range and suspends the "fog-of-war" - AI ships, planets, anomalies, junk, etc.

CTRL+U

- Unlock AI Ship Control: lets the player do whatever they want with an AI ship, view its stats and condition, set a new destination, etc.

You can see the stats of an AI ship just by clicking on it. I don't think I even hide the destination. I think you'll also be able to unhide the ship details window by double clicking on it or clicking on the details button.

- Unlock AI Colony Control: lets the player open the Colony View window for an AI-owned colony. We would be able to see what they have on their colony as well as make any changes that we wish (decommission a building, add a new building to the AI colony build queue, change colony name, etc.) just as if it was our own colony.

We can do this in debug mode.

- Unlock AI Ship Design Control: lets the player open the Ship Design window for a selected AI race and modify their ship designs.

I really don't see how being able to control AI ships, mess with their improvements, and design AI ships is going to help you test the AI. Viewing it yes, but manipulating the AI's stuff will just skew the results.

- Swap Control with AI Race: Ends the current turn. When the next turn begins, you will be playing the selected AI race (just as if you had started the game as that AI race). The race you *were* playing as will become AI controlled (just as if you have started the game with your former race an an AI race). This would provide excellent insight into the current state of the AI race you just "swapped" with, as you play that race for a few turns.

This might be possible. Everything is tracked by the player ID so, we would just have to change the value of the human player. This would, effectively, give you everything you asked to be able to do in the other ones, in regards to messing with the AI's stuff.

However, Brad is the one working on the AI, so I'll ask him if he thinks that any of this would be useful.

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This might be the MOST useful now that I think about it. At any point, I could save the game, "swap" to a race I've been watching, and get to see exactly what the state of their empire is, then reload the game from before the swap and just keep playing. This would give me total visibility into any AI player.

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We can do this in debug mode.

How does one enter the "debug mode"?

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Actually, you guys don't.

It's a compiler thing. My point was more that we can manipulate the AI as necessary, but it's probably going to be more useful if you guys just play against the AI, and send save games that illustrate any weirdness going on.

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You know that might be a quite popular feature to leave in the final game. For those who have Dawn of War, at the end of a game you can watch a replay of the battle from the perspective of any player, which can be entertaining.

Ofc there's a huge cheese factor in giving plyers that level of information, so I suppose players who use it mid-game would have the score zeroed for metaverse submission. Put in an options check box to enable/disable it and everyone is happy. Just a thought.

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Ugleb Said:

Yeh i would love to see one of my "elite lander" ships blow the shit out of the Torian Capital Ships (i don't like them because the value Independence TOO highly plus my friend the dregan luv to kill em NOW, on the other hand, i would backstab them and become "holy")

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