Something I'm going to be looking at right after finishing up with the editor work is the pace timings of the new version. I've had reports that xport delay makes some actions like WSST take too long, while ZTM is actually too fast now. I'm also seeing evidence that with movement delay set to its lowest possible setting (25ms), it's running too hot and breaking the message and event system, as well as drawing too much of a CPU load. Now that the game is being played beyond the beta test site, I'd like to have some feedback on how the game pace is relative to the previous version, and what needs to speed up or slow down in order to maintain the right balance.

Yea, we need to increase the minimum plot and move delay. We probably also need to get a reasonable rob delay (people are used to none) as the default.

I intended to default rob delay to the previous default. Did I goof on that?

Well, people always just changed it to none. So the default... it was changed every edit.

Ok, gotcha. And it can still be set to no delay, so nothing has changed. The question is whether to change the default.

What I'm really looking at here is the pace timings, not the delays. Delays are configurable, pace timings are not (currently), so I will need to adjust them myself to get the desired balance.

Right. A pace timing of 20ms per rob would probably be fine. A pace timing of whatever it takes for a reasonable PC to process 1000 moves divided by 1000 would probably be okay for moving (50ms would not be a bad starting point). 50ms per plot, too, would probably work also.

I'm not actually convinced that the problems we've been seeing are related to the speed of the move delay anyway. I just fixed a bug that was causing some games to lose their ability to communicate with other games, and that could also cause the kinds of odd event behavior we've been seeing. So we'll have to see. But you did say that there's too much CPU load with 25ms, so that does need addressing.

Just in interject an idea... it's always amazed me at how 'instantly' planets are created and destroyed. Seems incongruous to things like Rob-delays and move-delays.. etc.

Yeh, there are planet pop delays/timings in the new ver I think, too.

It's been awhile since I presented these, so I might as well do it again. Here are the current pacing delays:

ShipMove/attack = 20 ms
EProbe = 20ms
Photon = 15ms
PlanWarp = 20ms
LandTakeoff = 6ms
DockDepart = 12ms
ShipXport = 10 ms
PlanXport = 10ms
KillFig = 15ms
DropTakeFigs = 15ms
DropTakeMines = 15ms
Crime = 20ms
GenTorp = 5ms

CoursePlot = 40ms (from computer, CIM and autopilot)
DensityScan = 20ms
SetAvoid = 20ms
CorpXfers = 20ms
PortReport = 20ms
LaunchBeacon = 20ms
Showroom = 20ms
ShowPlanet = 20ms
Move/TakePlanProd/Cols = 10ms
CitadelOption = 10ms
UserStats (I) = 10ms
WhosPlaying = 5ms
FigListLine = 2ms
MineListLine = 2ms
PlanListLine = 2ms
RankingsLine = 2ms
ShowTime = 2ms

There are others, but these are the ones that are most relevant, and many of these are not very relevant. Just wanted to give a full accounting.

Yeah, you can set GenTorp launch delay up to 5 s max.

Ship move needs to be higher. Not sure what, tho, but it does. Didn't it used to be 250ms?

These are pace timings, not delays. Keep in mind that the pace time is the minimum time between any two actions. If you wait 30 seconds before entering a command, you'll get zero pace delay. But a normal delay is always used, so after 30 seconds, if you move, you'll still get a 250 ms move delay or whatever it's set to.

The move delays are configurable. I will certainly consider changing the defaults (move delay defaults to 250 ms) or even increasing the minimum delay if it's too fast, like min move delay of 25 ms seems to be, but I'm looking at the pace timings right now because those can't be changed in the editors, and I just need to get the right values in the game.

These pace values effect things like WSST and ZTM, though they can be overwhelmed by large delays like ship movement. I'm just looking for feedback about what actions seem to be taking too long or too little time so I can consider if any of these timings need tweaking.

Why not make the pace delays confgurable?

Because they're supposed to be set to the minimum reasonable levels for today's systems, and then be locked in so the pace of the game remains constant into the future. You can effect many of the important actions with delays, but the pace timings are for every action, like displaying the main menu and checking the system time. I just needed to establish a standard pace for the game that isn't dependent on CPU speed and Internet speed. It allows every game to be the same across a variety of systems. I may eventually put a pace factor in there, so you can uniformly speed up or slow down the pace, but I want to establish a solid set of relative pace timings and stick with them. I already have support for pace throttling, but it's just set to 1.0 right now.