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Author Topic: Overflow on polls?  (Read 1359 times)

Kusgnos

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Overflow on polls?
« on: March 16, 2008, 02:16:00 pm »

After running a special edition of the Liberal Guardian, I saw that the line for boycotting corps that used sweatshop workers was green at 100% when I searched the polls with my trusty programmer. Satisfied, later on I ran another, also on sweatshops, and then the next polling showed it completely red at 00%. What just happened there? O.o?
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: Overflow on polls?
« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2008, 05:24:00 pm »

Either you made them REALLY MAD in the mean time, or it apparently overflowed somehow. That -shouldn't- be possible... but that never means it isn't.  ;) What happened between the two polls?
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Kusgnos

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Re: Overflow on polls?
« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2008, 06:43:00 pm »

I did a couple more attacks on the Corporations HQ, and I ran a special edition on the same issue. I didn't alienate anyone, I didn't do anything that might have angered some random civilians other than messing with conservatives, and I didn't kill any conservatives...

You sure overflow isn't possible?

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: Overflow on polls?
« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2008, 10:15:00 pm »

No, not sure... it SHOULDN'T be possible, since public opinion shifts are fixed to the 0-100 range, and any attempt to move outside that range will be ignored. What probably happened is that, "shouldn't" notwithstanding, it did anyway -- you somehow got a big enough boost to public opinion that it rolled over in one go, and then when it was trying to decide whether to apply the bonus it decided that you'd end up in the negative if the bonus was applied, so it stuck you at 0 instead. That's all guesswork though, as I'm currently on vacation from the code.
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Wisq

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Re: Overflow on polls?
« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2008, 11:23:00 pm »

No, I've seen this happen before.  It's not rollover, it's a function of your percentage in a particular area being much higher than your overall approval of the LCS's actions, and you attempting to publish something in that area.

The effect of a less-popular group promoting a very popular item seems to have a massively disproportionate backlash effect.  I didn't report it at the time, assuming it was intentional.  See the change_public_opinion function.

The bottom line for now is, if an issue is over 10% more popular than the LCS (e.g. 100% when the LCS is below 90%), don't try to do a special issue about it.

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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: Overflow on polls?
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2008, 03:17:00 pm »

Ah, okay, I thought about that, but I've never seen that effect so strong. At the moment, yeah, the backlash is waay too strong. Also, special issues, and other things that aren't criminal activism are intended to ignore that, and never receive a backlash, so I'm surprised that happened -- should take a look at it and make sure they're getting ignored for special issues.

The backlash effect is supposed to be for when an unpopular LCS shoots up the police station, and convinces people that the police need MORE power, not less, things like that. It's currently too strong on both ends, and it has a "slingshot" effect, where it can fly from high to low to high if both levels are far away from the LCS popularity level. This is a math problem with the way issue changes are calculated.

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