Graphs notifications or improvement

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I played a bit more with this feature and noticed that it works a bit differently than the Activity Graphs:

- it will show activity as 1 for a landed UFO (Graphs show +2)
- it will not show additional activity for a completed mission
- it will not show activity generated by an alien base, etc.

Have you considered "plugging" this functionality into the
void Country::addActivityAlien(int activity)  (AND void Region::addActivityAlien(int activity) )
functions?

This way you would really track the activity (as the Graphs do) rather than track UFOs.

You are right. It does not and this is by design. This being said, I am open for design modification discussion.

At the beginning of the game radar coverage is tiny. There are a lot of undetected UFOs out there. Standard workaround is to watch activity graphs and send crafts to the active region hoping to detect UFO with craft radar and intercept it (or land nearby). This approach is completely workable. However, it is very annoying to play game at low speed checking graphs every 30 minutes for few months. Ugh.
This feature is the replacement of this technique. Now player can spin the globe at max speed and popup will stop the time when activity changed. Consider it as public report of alien sights helping young X-Com forces.

This feature counts only number of undetected UFOs in region to help player understand where to send their crafts to comb the area. Any other alien activity is irrelevant for this purpose. Similarly, it is irrelevant whether UFO is flying or landed. Player just need to know there are UFOs in region present for X hours.

I agree that, since it filters alien activity, it may be considered as a borderline cheat. However, seasoned player still should be able to differentiate most of the noise events. Detected UFOs are visible on the screen and their activity can be subtracted from the total one. Terror missions also known to player and can be subtracted. Alien base activity happens once a day at midnight and not every 30 minutes making it easy to filter out. Etc. The only thing that cannot be differentiated is whether UFO is flying or landed. I think this is minor, but can modify it if this is a concern.

[krakp]

Makes sense :-) I kind of thought that you designed it like this.

What I was considering would be 2 more options for the feature:

a) exact info from the Activity graph (so basically +N for every region/country/total whenever something should happen). Is is also a kind of "cheat" cause the graphs get less granular with the time....
b) the info from a) but with the right granularity factor. Would be the most "purist" solution but maybe not so easy to explain due to granularity.

Would this be something interesting? Should I build up a PR?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

a) exact info from the Activity graph (so basically +N for every region/country/total whenever something should happen). Is is also a kind of "cheat" cause the graphs get less granular with the time....

You mean another column showing the unfiltered activity? I think this can be done. The question is - which one you want to trigger popup by?

b) the info from a) but with the right granularity factor. Would be the most "purist" solution but maybe not so easy to explain due to granularity.

Sorry, I don't understand the granularity thing. The popup shows how long UFO is present in region. This is usually a number between 1 and 20.

Would this be something interesting? Should I build up a PR?

If you already know what to do - by all means!
Check with the mod owner. I am completely fine.

[krakp]

Sorry, I don't understand the granularity thing. The popup shows how long UFO is present in region. This is usually a number between 1 and 20.

Try to open the Activity Graph for some of you old saves (far in the game - with a lot of activity tracked already). Notice that the Graph will be scaled differently instead of 90 on the top it will have 180, 360, etc. If you want to sell it as a QoL feature substituting the Graph analysis, you can't forget that later in the game you will not see a single point of activity on the Graph anymore. Depending on your current scale you will only notice a difference after 2 activity points (or 4, or 8, etc). So your feature gives a clear advantage here (noticing the UFO after the first point of activity) vs the Graph. That's why I meant that including the granularity (so only e.g. showing your pop up after 4 activity points are gained - of course depending on the current scale for the country/region) would be more fair / purist.

Does it make sense? :-)

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I understand what is granularity in GRAPHS. I don't understand how graphs granularity applies to the numbers shown in the popup.
Graphs may show increase from 1000 to 1010 and, yes, human may not be able to distinguish it. However, popup shows just 10.

[krakp]

Technically in Graph there is not really a 1000 (or at least there is no way whatsoever to know that it is exactly a 1000). With the real value of 1000 your scale will be 1440 and your granularity 16. Meaning that no matter how much you compare, how many screenshots you take and how good your eyes are (trust me -  there was a time that I did all this :-) that's why I love your feature so much!) - you can only see values that are the multiple of 16 - this is the "pixel size".

So on the Graph you will not see a 1000 but rather 992 (16*62). This is all you will see until you reach 1008 (16*63). The values in between are technically "hidden" to you - no way to read them from the Graph.
As a "Heavy Graph Reader" in your scenario (1000 +10), what you will see is 992 switching to 1008 - however you can't possibly figure out if this was a 992+30, 1000+10 or 1007+1. Graph does not give you this info. So later in a game it may take you a few hours to "notice" a UFO flying over a busy region - in your current example, if you are at 1000, you need 4 hours (8*30min) to notice that a UFO is in the air over the region - only then the "needle" will move (you get to 1008). Your notifications on the other hand can show it immediately.

And that's exactly why I thought about 2 versions:

a) showing exactly 1000+10 in the notification (a bit "cheaty" - giving away more info than the Graph). This notification would pop up every time there is activity (so possibly every 30min)
b) showing 992 + 16 (which is exactly what Graph would be able to tell you, however it is not quite intuitive/easy to explain :-)  (this notification would pop up every time the activity crosses the "granularity" threshold - every time the Graph would move - which is possibly not as often as a)

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I see. Got it.
Sure, you can go with whatever additional version you want.

Honestly, I was thinking about multiple version of this initially too. However, later I decided to cut down to the minimum. Most player would not care about intricacies of granularity. They just want to have some QoL improvement even though it may be somewhat cheat-like.

[krakp]

Hey - it was definitely the QoL that brought me to this thread (and through this to OXC/BOXCE) in the first place. So I 100% agree with you.

Still - after playing with your feature (on setting #2) for some time, I realized that it is really powerful. In January it is very similar to 'graph mining' but later in the game it brings way more value than just the graph (due to granularity). I mean, with your feature one can play the game with zero radar coverage and still catch most of the UFOs.

That's what I thought it would need some balancing. And the only way I could imagine would be to count the activity (and add granularity) rather than count UFOs....

[krakp]

Started to analyze the code and found something quite interesting :-). The Graphs do NOT necessarily get updated every 30 min as written here:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/UFO_Detection#UFO_Activity_Graph

I mean - most of the time they do - but there are events that can be triggered (and increase the score) inside the 30 min interval. Take a look here:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Scoring#Alien_Scoring

For example - the 10 points score for Terror mission creation will be granted immediately when the UFO reaches the city - not at the 30 min. Also other missions will work the same way - no necessarily on the 30 min switch. I tested it and could confirm by looking at the graphs just before and just after the Terror ship would land in the City. This was quite a surprise for me - technically it would mean that as a "Heavy Graph Reader" you would actually want to check the Graph every 5 sec to catch all the events immediately :-).

I need to think what this would mean for your notification..... whether I would want it to show up immediately or rather add up the mission score to whatever other score will be generated on the 30min and then display the notification....

If you have any opinion / idea - happy to brainstorm here :-)

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Still - after playing with your feature (on setting #2) for some time, I realized that it is really powerful. In January it is very similar to 'graph mining' but later in the game it brings way more value than

Setting 2 is for super punctual players. I introduced it just because one of such asked me to.
Setting 1 is for normal people and it has granularity 10. Meaning triggering popup only when UFO is 5 hours in the area. This is pretty much designed way: give player some generic insight without pixel precise knowledge.

If you think 2 is too abusive - play with 1. That is what I do. And if you think 1 is too abusive - just not use it!
😀

I mean, with your feature one can play the game with zero radar coverage and still catch most of the UFOs.

No offense, but have you actually tried to play to this to support your statement?. 😉
Radar coverage is definitely better. That is why people keep building bases together with tracking graphs.
Detecting UFO with craft radar requires craft which has multiple disadvantages:
- Information delay. UFO may leave region at the time player knows about it and craft reaches it.
- Discovery chance could be really low especially for combing large regions like pacific.
- All this flying here and there takes your craft out of service for days and makes them unavailable for interception when you need them.
- First couple of months is fine but then player needs more interceptors just to search hidden UFOs. Keeping interceptors just for that, you know, costs much more than few radars.
- Besides, it becomes pretty plain annoying very soon. Again - try it and you'll see.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I don't really understand the fixation on graph granularity. Yes, this feature is replacing graphs constant watching by player, but it does not replace graphs themselves nor it attempt to mimic graph behavior in any way. Seriously, it does not have to do anything with graphs. The presence of graphs in the game just creates an excuse to not call this feature a hardcore cheat as it provides similar information. Should these graphs not exist in the game at all, this feature still would be usable and likable by some players even if called a (formal) cheat.

Think about it. Graphs start with zero every month. OXCE allows scaling them to the smallest granularity so, essentially every new month, your granularity drops to 1 and then may grow again depending on amount of alien activity accumulated during the month. You seriously want to emulate these up-down granularity jumps?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/UFO_Detection#UFO_Activity_Graph

Wow, this is exactly what I was calling my feature. Just never saw this statement before.

the UFO/Alien Sub activity graphs, accessed from the Geoscape, can act as a sort of "MUFON" (Mutual UFO Network: a civilian group dedicated to the observation of UFOs/Alien Subs), allowing you to see activity that your radars/sonars cannot.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Started to analyze the code and found something quite interesting :-). The Graphs do NOT necessarily get updated every 30 min as written here:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/UFO_Detection#UFO_Activity_Graph

I mean - most of the time they do - but there are events that can be triggered (and increase the score) inside the 30 min interval. Take a look here:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Scoring#Alien_Scoring

For example - the 10 points score for Terror mission creation will be granted immediately when the UFO reaches the city - not at the 30 min. Also other missions will work the same way - no necessarily on the 30 min switch. I tested it and could confirm by looking at the graphs just before and just after the Terror ship would land in the City. This was quite a surprise for me - technically it would mean that as a "Heavy Graph Reader" you would actually want to check the Graph every 5 sec to catch all the events immediately :-).

I need to think what this would mean for your notification..... whether I would want it to show up immediately or rather add up the mission score to whatever other score will be generated on the 30min and then display the notification....

If you have any opinion / idea - happy to brainstorm here :-)

Nobody said graphs are updated every 30 minutes. They are real time.

UFO flying (landed) for 30 minutes generates 1 (2) points. That is why UFO related activity is naturally reflected in graphs every 30 minutes. Other alien activity types have their own rules. Usually just once they happened as you discovered.

[krakp]

This was new for me :-).  But I guess I would still leave your notifications to show up every 30 min summarizing the events of the last half an hour... Rather then showing them immediately after the activity is tracked