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Fuel blocks! (and CCP Soundwaves wildlife safety advice)

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Ampoliros
Aperture Harmonics
#141 - 2011-12-09 20:57:28 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
MadMuppet wrote:
CCP - recommendation: Make fuel bricks reprocess to their component parts until the 24th to try and offset this mess.

-Mad


Fuel blocks should already reprocess to their component parts, although only in multiples of 40.


Are they reprocessable at POS refineries with 0% waste, like ice blocks? Is that a quick fix you could manage to put in?

and just to say, i'm more comfortable with the delay till january than i am with the risk in everything going offline, i'm simply irritated that you guys couldn't have communicated better with us about the status of this.
spookydonut
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#142 - 2011-12-09 21:00:58 UTC
Solution: Remove the need for fuel until the changeover.

Can I have your job now CCP Greyscale?
CynoNet Two
GSF Logistics and Posting Reserves
Goonswarm Federation
#143 - 2011-12-09 21:01:24 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
That script involves, in practice, removing all the fuel in towers and then adding new fuel to the towers (you're altering types and quantities, and the final quantities have to be larger because of the number of isotopes and so on in the mix, so it's got to be effectively to be a remove and an add). The worst that happens is that the remove happens but the add doesn't and everything goes offline, and testing this requires an upgrade test which (as we've established) is risky in and of itself and takes a lot of time to prepare.


Is it worth me explaining how to add one number to another in an UPDATE statement, or does your SQL server only do INSERT and DELETE?

CCP Greyscale wrote:
An extra fuel bay, switching the tower to run on dual fuel types or anything else of that nature requires us to make major changes to the starbase code, which is both risky in and of itself as a major code change, and doubly risky because the starbase code is pretty failure-prone. Plus, making sure that towers ran smoothly when we threw the switch would require another upgrade test; see above.


Stront bays were added years after the original starbase code was written. Although it's not as though those bays need to do anything but exist before the end of January of course.
Skeith Oumis
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#144 - 2011-12-09 21:01:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Skeith Oumis
Here's some ideas.

1) If a pos is out of fuel but has a fuel block, burn the block and add the add the fuel.
Cases to test:
- Ensure enough room is in the tower to add the fuel
- Ensure each block provides the right amount of fuel
- Ensure the correct block is being burnt if multiple are present for some reason
Implementation:
You can write a simple function to do this that hooks into the code that checks a pos tower for fuel. Add it as a last case check before going into the pos offlining code. Should have basically no impact on the starbase code and be fairly reliable in practice as long as the tower isn't full of cubes.

2) Write a script to convert blocks to fuel
Cases to test:
- Handle towers that will overfull
Considerations:
- What to do with excess fuel. Can the EVE code handle overfull bays? If not, this can be jetcanned outside the pos.
Implementation:
Simple run-once script. This should be fairly easy to code on a core level, as you're just removing items and adding new ones. I saw you mentioned "things can go wrong" but I don't see how some towers could magically fail beyond overfilling (can it, dump it, I'm sure you can figure this out) and basic error logging will tell you if something breaks long before it actually does (add items, check bay, if there's less fuel than you added something probably went wrong!)

Neither of these are hard to write. The first one should just be a few lines of code, and the second is maybe a few hours plus a day or two of testing with sisi if you take your time. I understand you guys are busy and want to take vacation and all, but consider this is literally going to take days for some larger alliances; and we're not getting paid... quite the opposite really.
CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#145 - 2011-12-09 21:03:12 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Actually, no, and that's a pretty reasonable suggestion. I would assume for now that it's too late to get this in under the wire, but I'll ask about it at least. Please understand that this is 95% likely to be too late at this point though.


Update on this: I'd rate this at about a 50-50 chance of happening at this time, depending mainly on whether we run into any kinks. I pulled a bunch of people out of the christmas party and managed to get preliminary approval. Checking right now what happens if you over-fill a tower bay...

Nylan wrote:
If the risk is because of a poorly written pos code base then it does come down to effort/money/man hours to fix it.


There's a huge difference between "effort" and "money and man-hours".

Ampoliros wrote:
Are they reprocessable at POS refineries with 0% waste, like ice blocks? Is that a quick fix you could manage to put in?

and just to say, i'm more comfortable with the delay till january than i am with the risk in everything going offline, i'm simply irritated that you guys couldn't have communicated better with us about the status of this.


Probably not viable, sorry. Starbase refining is arcane to say the least (remember the "you can only have one type of ore in there at a time" rule?).
SmartBird
Fish Curtains
#146 - 2011-12-09 21:05:06 UTC
spookydonut wrote:
Solution: Remove the need for fuel until the changeover.

Can I have your job now CCP Greyscale?



And I stay...
Crias Taylor
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#147 - 2011-12-09 21:05:39 UTC
spookydonut wrote:
Solution: Remove the need for fuel until the changeover.

Can I have your job now CCP Greyscale?

Bad idea, free production. Alliances like us could drop towers and react a ton of goo, produce a ton of ships, etc for free. 
Innominate
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#148 - 2011-12-09 21:06:36 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:

There's a huge difference between "effort" and "money and man-hours".


i.e. It's cheaper to make thousands of players work for days than to have one dev implement a proper solution.

Please CCP, I thought we were past this ****.
Sizeof Void
Ninja Suicide Squadron
#149 - 2011-12-09 21:07:41 UTC
Wow, look how much whinage and tears are coming from Goonswarm Federation, esp. after all of the quacking about the pain they were going to inflict on POS operators with their Oxytope interdiction!

Goon tears are so much sweeter than carebear tears.... :)

Hahahahahahahaha..... +1 CCP!
D'Kelle
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#150 - 2011-12-09 21:07:45 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
CynoNet Two wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

We don't have a workable solution right now that answers all the issues, that's pretty much the problem. Sometimes that's a thing that happens, unfortunately.


a) Run a script to melt all fuel already added to towers. This will require a bare minimum of QA as it cannot cause towers to go offline, the worst that can happen is that they become overfilled for a few hours until the fuel burns off.
This means that there is no manual correction needed by players in time or ISK
b) Spend the remaining time you have before Jan 24th either sorting a final handover script, or pushing in an extra fuel-block-only bay to towers to cover the switch over.

Voila, fixed with a minimal amount of player intervention.

Can I have your job?


That script involves, in practice, removing all the fuel in towers and then adding new fuel to the towers (you're altering types and quantities, and the final quantities have to be larger because of the number of isotopes and so on in the mix, so it's got to be effectively to be a remove and an add). The worst that happens is that the remove happens but the add doesn't and everything goes offline, and testing this requires an upgrade test which (as we've established) is risky in and of itself and takes a lot of time to prepare.

An extra fuel bay, switching the tower to run on dual fuel types or anything else of that nature requires us to make major changes to the starbase code, which is both risky in and of itself as a major code change, and doubly risky because the starbase code is pretty failure-prone. Plus, making sure that towers ran smoothly when we threw the switch would require another upgrade test; see above.


At least you have a reality grip on it if all POSes offline and dont imeadiatlely re-online with new fuel just keep EVE pilots offline till they are all up and running they're in your hands not ours.
CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#151 - 2011-12-09 21:08:25 UTC
CynoNet Two wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
That script involves, in practice, removing all the fuel in towers and then adding new fuel to the towers (you're altering types and quantities, and the final quantities have to be larger because of the number of isotopes and so on in the mix, so it's got to be effectively to be a remove and an add). The worst that happens is that the remove happens but the add doesn't and everything goes offline, and testing this requires an upgrade test which (as we've established) is risky in and of itself and takes a lot of time to prepare.


Is it worth me explaining how to add one number to another in an UPDATE statement, or does your SQL server only do INSERT and DELETE?

CCP Greyscale wrote:
An extra fuel bay, switching the tower to run on dual fuel types or anything else of that nature requires us to make major changes to the starbase code, which is both risky in and of itself as a major code change, and doubly risky because the starbase code is pretty failure-prone. Plus, making sure that towers ran smoothly when we threw the switch would require another upgrade test; see above.


Stront bays were added years after the original starbase code was written. Although it's not as though those bays need to do anything but exist before the end of January of course.


You're going from one stack of x items to 8 different stacks of items of size between x/40 and 10x.

WRT bays, I'm not saying additional bays are impossible in principle, I'm saying they're risky in practice, and we don't want more risk right now.

Skeith Oumis wrote:
Here's some ideas.

1) If a pos is out of fuel but has a fuel block, burn the block and add the add the fuel.
Cases to test:
- Ensure enough room is in the tower to add the fuel
- Ensure each block provides the right amount of fuel
- Ensure the correct block is being burnt if multiple are present for some reason
Implementation:
You can write a simple function to do this that hooks into the code that checks a pos tower for fuel. Add it as a last case check before going into the pos offlining code. Should have basically no impact on the starbase code and be fairly reliable in practice as long as the tower isn't full of cubes.

2) Write a script to convert blocks to fuel
Cases to test:
- Handle towers that will overfull
Considerations:
- What to do with excess fuel. Can the EVE code handle overfull bays? If not, this can be jetcanned outside the pos.
Implementation:
Simple run-once script. This should be fairly easy to code on a core level, as you're just removing items and adding new ones. I saw you mentioned "things can go wrong" but I don't see how some towers could magically fail beyond overfilling (can it, dump it, I'm sure you can figure this out) and basic error logging will tell you if something breaks long before it actually does (add items, check bay, if there's less fuel than you added something probably went wrong!)

Neither of these are hard to write. The first one should just be a few lines of code, and the second is maybe a few hours plus a day or two of testing with sisi if you take your time. I understand you guys are busy and want to take vacation and all, but consider this is literally going to take days for some larger alliances; and we're not getting paid... quite the opposite really.



On the first, if the starbase code was that robust, reliable and extensible they wouldn't break so often.

On the second, "I don't see how it could go wrong" is how all the really big disasters happen.
Thalen Draganos
State War Academy
Caldari State
#152 - 2011-12-09 21:08:29 UTC
Skeith Oumis wrote:
Here's some ideas.

1) If a pos is out of fuel but has a fuel block, burn the block and add the add the fuel.
Cases to test:
- Ensure enough room is in the tower to add the fuel
- Ensure each block provides the right amount of fuel
- Ensure the correct block is being burnt if multiple are present for some reason
Implementation:
You can write a simple function to do this that hooks into the code that checks a pos tower for fuel. Add it as a last case check before going into the pos offlining code. Should have basically no impact on the starbase code and be fairly reliable in practice as long as the tower isn't full of cubes.

2) Write a script to convert blocks to fuel
Cases to test:
- Handle towers that will overfull
Considerations:
- What to do with excess fuel. Can the EVE code handle overfull bays? If not, this can be jetcanned outside the pos.
Implementation:
Simple run-once script. This should be fairly easy to code on a core level, as you're just removing items and adding new ones. I saw you mentioned "things can go wrong" but I don't see how some towers could magically fail beyond overfilling (can it, dump it, I'm sure you can figure this out) and basic error logging will tell you if something breaks long before it actually does (add items, check bay, if there's less fuel than you added something probably went wrong!)

Neither of these are hard to write. The first one should just be a few lines of code, and the second is maybe a few hours plus a day or two of testing with sisi if you take your time. I understand you guys are busy and want to take vacation and all, but consider this is literally going to take days for some larger alliances; and we're not getting paid... quite the opposite really.



See how easy it can be? This seems to have come from some one who actually knows what they are talking about.

DOOOO EEEEEEEEET
Mynas Atoch
Eternity INC.
Goonswarm Federation
#153 - 2011-12-09 21:09:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Mynas Atoch
There really is a disconnect here between the actions of CCP and their consequences for us. Just try for a minute the old back of the cig. packet calculation of the number of man.months of our real lives YOU have just wasted through failing to invest a few man.DAYS in getting this right or rushing in a technical fix.

If we were talking about some unnecessary pretty explosions we would shrug it off, but pos logistics is the aspect EVE ONLINE that makes a mid spectrum aspergers sufferer with a spreadsheet fixation snort in derision as being too extreme even for them.

This is a bad show and I'd like you to go reflect on exactly what you have done.

Think for a second about YOU logging in on an alt and handling the fallout for this even for a mid level POS holder with 75 POS.

The **** jokes are inappropriate and frankly irritating. The CSM guys joining in on them instead of making it clear publicly just how **** this is, makes one wonder how in touch with the work their subdirectors back home are having to do they really are.

Get a clue about your own game and your impact on it.

/ragelogsoff
spooky turbonigger
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#154 - 2011-12-09 21:10:04 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Actually, no, and that's a pretty reasonable suggestion. I would assume for now that it's too late to get this in under the wire, but I'll ask about it at least. Please understand that this is 95% likely to be too late at this point though.


Update on this: I'd rate this at about a 50-50 chance of happening at this time, depending mainly on whether we run into any kinks. I pulled a bunch of people out of the christmas party and managed to get preliminary approval. Checking right now what happens if you over-fill a tower bay...


Hearing you pulled people out of a christmas party to DO THEIR JOBS made this thread worthwhile.

P.S; you still haven't said if I can have your job or not.
Ivanova Denisovich
State War Academy
Caldari State
#155 - 2011-12-09 21:11:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Ivanova Denisovich
CCP Greyscale wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Actually, no, and that's a pretty reasonable suggestion. I would assume for now that it's too late to get this in under the wire, but I'll ask about it at least. Please understand that this is 95% likely to be too late at this point though.


Update on this: I'd rate this at about a 50-50 chance of happening at this time, depending mainly on whether we run into any kinks. I pulled a bunch of people out of the christmas party and managed to get preliminary approval. Checking right now what happens if you over-fill a tower bay...


Excellent. Oops, let me post on my main not my market alt!

If it does prove problematic, perhaps you could do something like this -

On fuel cube patch day, leave the bays double size.

Tell everyone that on patch day+x days you will nuke both any non-fuel cube materials in the fuel bay and any fuel cubes over excess capacity.

Give people time to empty the bays, then do just that. (or, if it's simpler to implement codewise, offline the towers until they're no longer over capacity - could be as simple as if(volume_of_materials_in_bay > capacity_of_bay) offline() and do this check every downtime and when someone attempts to online a POS)
SmartBird
Fish Curtains
#156 - 2011-12-09 21:11:57 UTC
Crias Taylor wrote:
spookydonut wrote:
Solution: Remove the need for fuel until the changeover.

Can I have your job now CCP Greyscale?

Bad idea, free production. Alliances like us could drop towers and react a ton of goo, produce a ton of ships, etc for free. 


Ah didn't think of that.

Is there anyway CCP can fix players who have followed the route to fuel blocks and convert them back without needing to train skills etc?

i.e fast track method fuel blocks back > normal fuel at no cost or training.

Then just the hours of moving stuff about has been endured.
Kismeteer
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#157 - 2011-12-09 21:13:24 UTC
I'm pretty much done QQ'ing about this. We'll get this stuff done regardless. Doing work in a game is apparently par for the course, I wonder why more people don't play.

But just be aware that poor communication is once again a problem for you guys. If you've slipped a week, and you say nothing, this is more of a problem than this particular **** up.

And once again, all your forums need to be read once and awhile. I raised this question yesterday for instance: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=43786
Desparo
Oberon Incorporated
#158 - 2011-12-09 21:14:27 UTC
Okay what I don't understand is why you think you need to convert all the fuel.

I'm assuming you already have the code ready to allow fuel blocks to be loaded into towers. If you havn't already patch that into the client. Just that code part.

DT each night run a script that converts upto 24 hrs of fuel blocks into standard pos fuel. Yes it may take a few mins more but as your 30 min dt runs in 8-10 mins no one will mind. This is a SQL script so there shouldn't be any code to break.

Once you have the thing working stop running the script

If you've so intergrated the fuel cube code that it can't be split and done separately or you can't run a 24hr cube conversion script then your code has much bigger problems.

CCP Greyscale wrote:
CynoNet Two wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

We don't have a workable solution right now that answers all the issues, that's pretty much the problem. Sometimes that's a thing that happens, unfortunately.


a) Run a script to melt all fuel already added to towers. This will require a bare minimum of QA as it cannot cause towers to go offline, the worst that can happen is that they become overfilled for a few hours until the fuel burns off.
This means that there is no manual correction needed by players in time or ISK
b) Spend the remaining time you have before Jan 24th either sorting a final handover script, or pushing in an extra fuel-block-only bay to towers to cover the switch over.

Voila, fixed with a minimal amount of player intervention.

Can I have your job?


That script involves, in practice, removing all the fuel in towers and then adding new fuel to the towers (you're altering types and quantities, and the final quantities have to be larger because of the number of isotopes and so on in the mix, so it's got to be effectively to be a remove and an add). The worst that happens is that the remove happens but the add doesn't and everything goes offline, and testing this requires an upgrade test which (as we've established) is risky in and of itself and takes a lot of time to prepare.

An extra fuel bay, switching the tower to run on dual fuel types or anything else of that nature requires us to make major changes to the starbase code, which is both risky in and of itself as a major code change, and doubly risky because the starbase code is pretty failure-prone. Plus, making sure that towers ran smoothly when we threw the switch would require another upgrade test; see above.
Harris
Harden House Irregulars
#159 - 2011-12-09 21:14:54 UTC
Props to you Greyscale for staying to man the forums while others are partying!

I have visions of you waving a flaming torch at the baying wolves, what with the mood the forums are in at the moment! I can appreciate the angst for the mass-POS managers but understand how you got the place you're in.

The expanded POS fuel hangars lets people put their blocks somewhere but still doesn't give them a way out of hauling the other POS fuel products to their locations, the operations for which they'd have scaled back. What?

EvilThe timing combined with the PI tax debacle (the tax increases should have been phased in after the POCOs were released by the way) is what is making the hurt particularly expensive.
I hope you guys have a think about that the next time you plan your big game changes - try to look at the impact from every angle possible, instead of the changes on their own or only in relation to other changes on a code level. This mistake has been made before and You are making it again.Evil


Good luck with the change over whenever it comes around and I hope you can address some of the concerns with a patch in the meantime.
whaynethepain
#160 - 2011-12-09 21:16:09 UTC
While you are in there CCP, may I have the fuel bay size increased three fold please.

My Vacations can last quite long in the spring time, and the ice miners would appreciate the business I believe.

Getting you on your feet.

So you've further to fall.