Fix some of the little things in A16

[stoner7]

xander, Void,

I understand your point. I've been an early-access user for several other games, such as Kerbal Space Program, Space Engineers, and ArmA 3. These are, or were, even pre-alpha when I came aboard. I knew there would be bugs and unfinished textures. However, even as the devs were adding new features, they were actively squashing bugs. Why? Because if you wait until further along in the development cycle to fix a specific bug, the fix may have an impact on other features. Now, those features must be fixed. And that may cause problems in other features, and so on. Hit the bug earlier; this will allow the devs to add features that will not require a later fix.

Have I released unfinished apps to clients? Yes. The software development methodology I believe you allude to is the Waterfall Method; first come requirements, then design, then development, then testing, then release. This method is outdated in my industry for a couple decades.

A much faster, more cost efficient method, Incremental and Iterative Development has been the standard for quite awhile. It is a continuous cycle of: define a little, design a little, code a little, test a little. Repeat the cycle. This permits the client (or in our case here, the gaming community) to review each stage of release and comment upon it for dev revision and correction. That is essentially what released alpha software is. That is what you and I are involved in with Prison Architect. Even Chris has asked in a thread explicitly, "Where should we concentrate our efforts?" This is the "define a little" part of the cycle. IV will then go back to design and code a little and release in two months another piece for us to test. I believe my experience is relevant in the current context.

[Gomisan]

I'm about to head to the bug tracker, but I was curious if anyone else has had these issues with A15c?

Generator overloads and thereafter no amoung of capacitors will bring it back to normal. I put switches in to isolate areas of the prison and it turned out that one area would always trip the power. Couldnt continue testing as it was the kitchen and the power outages caused so much chaos I couldnt recover financially.

Weird thing was even dismantling and moving the generator, if hooked up to the kitchen it would blow. (and the load was reduced to one cooker, one fridge and it still registered 100% power with 9 capacitors!


Ok.. so I started a new map after that mess.

Was going OK until soem foundations got built and the workmen didnt put the door in as requsted. They ended up with a queue a mile long. So I removed ALL their jobs inclusding adding the door Tried a different door in a different spot. no. Demolish walls, no. Demolish teh foundations, no. Anything at all involving that building was 'untouchable' by the workmen, even tried firing them and hiring new.

They will happily do other jobs elsewhere, inclusing build and dismantle things.

[VoiD88]

I'm about to head to the bug tracker, but I was curious if anyone else has had these issues with A15c?

Generator overloads and thereafter no amoung of capacitors will bring it back to normal. I put switches in to isolate areas of the prison and it turned out that one area would always trip the power. Couldnt continue testing as it was the kitchen and the power outages caused so much chaos I couldnt recover financially.

Weird thing was even dismantling and moving the generator, if hooked up to the kitchen it would blow. (and the load was reduced to one cooker, one fridge and it still registered 100% power with 9 capacitors!

1. You didn't try to run two Power stations on the same circuit, did you? That will blow both of them instantly, you can only ever have one Power Station per circuit.
2. Did you switch the capacitors back on before switching the Power Station back on? They always switch off automatically when the Power Station blows.

[Xabo]

The -30000 isn't a penalty for using grants that's the starting cash your given(by the gummint, i imagine), The grants don't cost you anything to use.

EDIT: Ah, theres a second page... Anyway doesnt look like anyone answered that particular question yet

[Ryster]

- Mouse wheel zooming is already there

To be clear, I'm not asking for mouse wheel zooming. Of course I realise that's already there.

What I'm asking for is for when using mouse wheel zooming, for it to zoom in/out centred around where the mouse pointer is. I've played many games with this type of zooming, including the excellent Supreme Commander, and it makes getting around large maps very quick and easy. You simply zoom out, move the mouse to where you want to go, then zoom back in again.

[Rattenmann]

I second the issue of side scrolling with dual monitors.

Locking a mouse to the game window is one easy way, not a good one tho. After all i use two monitors for a reason and want to be able to actually get my mouse over there.

Possible solution:
Do a simple while and if-else loop and just add a new while loop for the second monitor on the border like this:
while(inside game window)
{
....if(edge hit)
....{
........while(pixel away from game window < 100)
........{
............scroll();
........}
....}
}

This will do nothing new if used with only one monitor, but will allow a 100 Pixel margin for multimonitor. So we can pass the game window by 100 pixel and still scroll, but the scrolling will stop if we get to far (read: we dont really want to scroll, but really just want to get the mouse over there). Also if we get the mouse over and need to click on something close to the game window nothing will happen, since the first while returns false (not in game window).

Edit: Should do the second while in a manner that stops fireing if we go 100 pixel away from edge and stay in the game window. So not change to the second screen. Also the 100 pixel is simply an example and could (probably should) be changed to something more fitting.

[OJFord]

As always, I would prefer they instead used the time to add new features/gameplay rather than fixing trivial issues.

And yes, they had the menu auto-load for the first few alphas but it was causing some people to be permanently locked out of the game.

A lot of these are very quick fixes. It may be alpha, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't work through this stuff to see what it shapes up like - partly because a lot of the time if you take trivial issues away, it's more obvious to spot some new feature that would be cool.

Also with multi-monitor though - a fix would most likely fix this too, but another use-case is of course when windowed; overshooting (perhaps to click on a different window) scrolls PA until it hits the boundary.

There's also a weird bug with the Steam overlay. It always starts playing again regardless of play/pause when you *open* the overlay.

[planettop92]

Features come first, then bugfixing (except for major game breaking bugs).

I disagree with xander's view. I've been a developer for 40+ years. When my clients use applications that I've created, they expect the current version to work as they exist now. If there is a bug that hampers workflow, they prefer that I fix it, rather than add shiny new features that they're not using yet (because they don't exist).

To be clear, I was not stating an opinion, but rather the process that IV have repeatedly stated they are using. That being said, I don't think that your experience is relevant to this discussion. You are talking about clients who are using your software in order to do their jobs. Do you ever ship alpha software to your clients? Or do you hold off until you have an essentially complete product to release?

I think that the problem you may be having is that the idea of giving people access to alpha versions is not the norm. In most development houses, software is not given to users outside of the company until it has reached the beta (i.e. bugfixing) phase. Most companies do not release software to anyone prior to the beta, which means that we generally don't see the alpha versions. I would imagine that your experience is much the same, though without you actually giving details about what kind of software you develop and who your clients are (categorically, not specifically), there is no way to know.

Which, again, makes your experience of little relevance in the current context.

xander

Just my two cents, stoner7's experience isn't too far off from the current context, nor is it too far off from what IV is currently doing.

1. The current context is sutieday's remark:

They seem to be fixing issue little by little so I don't see why adding new feature should have priority over bug fixes... I think there should be a balance.

stoner7 just wanted to reassure that creating new versions of software with features as well as bug fixes are a standard in the professional industry. He already elaborated on this in a previous post so I'm not going to say more on this.


2. IV uses the agile development approach in order to repeatedly add new features with each existing alpha. They do occasionally fix bugs, not just game-breaking ones with each alpha release. In fact, the changelogs often specify which bugs they've fixed alongside the new features that were added. Going off the wiki, even with the current alpha (Alpha 15), they've fixed:

Fixed: Many types of irrelevent equipment will no longer be smuggled into your prison. Eg. Mop, Rake, Hose, Leash, etcetera.
Fixed: Power lines were rendered without colour once you'd built more than four power stations.
Fixed: Not all of the Complaints thought bubbles were displaying correctly.
Fixed: Some invalid jobs would appear at the top left of the map as a price.

along with their two hotfixes soon afterwards.


edit: with that all said, all of Ryster's "little things" sounds more like suggestions than bugs to me.

[MorikTheMad]

They seem to be fixing issue little by little so I don't see why adding new feature should have priority over bug fixes... I think there should be a balance.

The developmental model that IV have seemingly adopted is one that seeks to create a feature complete game by the end of the alpha phase, and bug free (as much as is possible) game by the end of the beta phase. Since new bugs are potentially introduced with every new feature, this is a reasonable approach. Features come first, then bugfixing (except for major game breaking bugs).

xander

Personally I dislike this approach; fixes to some bugs may require design changes to infrastructure & APIs.
Continuing to build new features creates additional dependencies on the infrastructure & APIs, which means fixing such bugs becomes a lot more expensive time-wise. (I.e., this development methodology accrues technical debt at a higher rate than fixing bugs first.)

[rip4ever]

- I keep seeing others mention the lights that come along with the foundation when you set it down. The workers take the lights to storage that conflict with any walls you construct and you'll need new lights eventually for something. So in my opinion they aren't being wasted.

- Mouse wheel zooming is already there

- One problem I noticed with the new 'sell prison' feature is after you sell a prison the Valuation on the new prison still has the -$30,000 charge for using a grant. When I haven't touched a grant yet with the new prison.

- Cameras in the shower don't show prisoners, they just light up the room. You don't see the prisoners until you make a guard go in. Isn't that the point of spending the money on CCTV?

I think he wants zoom to the mouse instead of zoom to the center of your view.

Cameras in the shower? Really?


Perv!

[matts]

I think he wants zoom to the mouse instead of zoom to the center of your view.

Cameras in the shower? Really?


Perv!

Its either be a perv or have fights I can't see and need to break up..

[DragonRR]

Like....

- Load the menu on game load, rather than a new empty prison. Its just a waste of time when most of the time you'll just be loading a save game.
- When placing objects next to walls, they shift position at present, going off centre on the tile. Or becoming "squashed looking". Like metal detectors when you have two side by side in a corridor two tiles wide with walls each side. Or with outdoor lights place next to walls, they squash down and look odd.
- Stop placing power cables automatically when placing machines, cookers, etc. These are always in one direction and dont necessarily meet your plans.
- When placing doors, you can't tell by default what direction they open. A small arrow to show the direction would be nice.
- When loading a save, quite often if not always, the fog of war turns back on again. This needs to be persistent in the save file.
- When placing cameras, as with doors, its sometimes tricky to see the direction especially when zoomed out. Add some kind of viewing angle arc graphic during placement.
- Edge scrolling arrived in the last alpha, hurrah. Can you please lock the mouse to the game monitor when playing full screen on a multi-monitored PC. Otherwise one edge is hard to use for edge scrolling.
- Also can you add mouse-wheel zooming in and out at the mouse cursor please? This will make getting around much easier.
- Stop placing lights automatically when building foundations., More often than not, your foundation wont be for a single room,so the lights will get in the way and some will be wasted.
- On the subject of lights, make a way to auto place lights in a room in an optimal formation by holding down a hotkey and clicking the room.

I'll add more as I think of them.

Good list.
@matts - He isn't saying that mouse wheel zooming isn't there he is asking for mouse wheel zooming to the mouse cursor point which is common in a lot of strategy games these days and is a big improvement over the current "zoom to current viewpoint" system.

[SadBunny]

Hi all! New user here. Love the game.

Hope this isn't too old a thread to bump in this forum, but I just started playing the game, and I registered on this forum to suggest mouse zooming on location of mouse pointer instead of on view center (or maybe search for reasons why it's not done that way already ).

Zooming with the mouse X/Y as a focal point is much more "modern" and intuitive and certainly much more efficient as you're effectively doing two things at once (relocating the view and zooming). So I second that suggestion wholeheartedly.

The thing is, getting around on a large map is awkward, and it's immediately noticeable within the first minutes of my first playthrough. The WASD scrolling is slow and constant (which is old-fashioned too, but (only) nice in close-up mode) and the mouse edge-scrolling is FAIAP unusable with my 6 monitor setup with the lower center one as my game screen (yeah, a lot of screens, I know, but it's necessary for work and it looks cool to boot ). I end up doing most of my scrolling with the middle mouse button, but this hurts my finger because I have to do it a lot.

[RichieGrape]

and the mouse edge-scrolling is FAIAP unusable with my 6 monitor setup with the lower center one as my game screen

i actuall use a program called "swap screen" to fix this issue...allows me to lock mouse onto a screen and set keybinds to move things from screen to screen...i also use a program called "DisMon" that lets me quick switch which monitor is primary..or even disable monitors on the fly(in the case where some games don't like to run with multi monitors hooked up)

Screen swap http://dualmonitortool.sourceforge.net/swapscreen.html

DisMon http://dualmonitortool.sourceforge.net/dismon.html

as far as you question on weather or not its right to revive such an old post i think it is...if you would have created a new thread you most likely would get flamed for not using the search feature..but by reviving an old post someone will probably flame about that too..so IMO i think this is the better choice

[Helmic]

as far as you question on weather or not its right to revive such an old post i think it is...if you would have created a new thread you most likely would get flamed for not using the search feature..but by reviving an old post someone will probably flame about that too..so IMO i think this is the better choice

This annoys the hell out of me and is why I always suggest that a forum make rules about minimodding. Nothing is lost by making a new thread when the old one is six months old or something similar, bumping old threads isn't an issue at all so long you have something to contribute (even if it's just a +1 in hopes an old suggestion gets implemented).