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badmaw Posts: 80
5/3/2017
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In like a week we have to start over, so I won't get too far with current company.
My company is at level 5 (5x) and most of structures are at level 8 (58x). I'm already penalized and I guess I cannot have more than like 10 structures at max level. I'll have a transport for each city to sell my products. So no more building.
I know that I can build some monoliths and chase Raiders around the galaxy.
But is that it? How the end game looks like?
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Vulpex Posts: 390
5/3/2017
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Oh no...
See things are not so static. You could go for 10 lvl 10 production structures but that is unlikely to be very efficient. (But that's not the point here).
What will happen is conflict. As everyone ramps up production you run into two big problems:
First - scarcity of markets. Markets don't sustain this level of growth forever, some will start to collapse your products no longer sell... you need to be able to deal with it. Do you shift markets or find a way to defend your market share? Maybe blow up a freighter or two from the competition...
Second - Resources - guess what it's not just the markets which get saturated, so do the resources. This means you again have one of two options - either expand out of Earth and ultimately out of Sol (where things get violent much much faster) or once more - fight for the resources you are using. Blow up that metal mine that is pushing up your production costs to an unbearable level.
But here is the thing - conflict is a two way thing and once you start to fight people... they may choose to fight back. Or you might find yourself in the receiving end of someone who thinks you've been messing with their market and/or resource.
Which brings me to - alliances. This game will be built or die based on the allies and friends you have around you. Even the strongest corporation will collapse if others team up on them. So being able to make and keep friends is important. It can also have some very exciting economic benefits.
Add to that NPCs such as the raiders, machines and mother nature itself which is trying to make your life miserable and you already have a very interesting situation to cope with.
Think you are done? Nah not yet... I am really excited about the idea of orbital structures and platforms which require so many resources only organized alliances can build and use them to control space...
And that's just the stuff that's been announced as being in the works...
(Oh - also you could try to get yourself elected as emperor of Sol if that's how you like things. It's fun 
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xtlson Posts: 6
5/3/2017
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Thank you for answering.
Frankly, I'm not so thrilled at the idea to keep rebuilding a few structures. And building at it a week to lose it in a few rounds because Attacker of the men drunk too much tequila with his Mexican friends is even less appealing.
I don't know what to say, the universe is so huge and I gotta keep it at 10 structures. Hmm. By the way, at level 10 it's the most efficient, right? Why do you say is not? You have more and cheaper goods.
Yeah, I'll see how it is when I'll get there but I'm afraid that life in this world sucks more than when I was looking in the trash for ammo.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
5/3/2017
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First off - if I gave you the impression that the idea at the end game is to rebuild a few structures, I might have not explained things properly. What you will face is a changing environment which will force you to react with changing strategies and objectives. Sometimes that means changing structures, sometimes it will mean not changing them.
I personally find it challenging to help opening up the galaxy - this is clearly going to be quite a bit of work and require a concerted effort from a whole bunch of corps but it can be very rewarding, for instance by opening up more of the very valuable artifact sites.
About the issue with lvl 10 structures here is what can happen:
With those structures which are used to extract materials, a lvl 10 structure will have a penalty to production cost due to the Ocrowd penalty. This can be as high as double the normal production cost (depending on the productivity of the spot where you start) which kills all the profit - at that stage you can probably just buy materials straight from cities.
Ok but what about the structures which are non-extractive? Well there the situation is different and I'm going to differentiate between components (stuff like alloys or ceramics which are used to build bigger items), end products (e.g. vehicles or industrial goods) and services. Bear in mind that none of these are affected by the Ocrowd penalty so that's not going to be an issue.
In the case of components, you may want to start by making the components to sell directly but the real profit lies in making sure you make the components you need to make your end products. Are you going to continue to produce an excess of components to make your end product. For instance exotic clothes only needs one unit of exotic ceramics and one unit of exotic polymer vs 8 units of exotic fabrics. How big would you be making your ceramics or polymer facilities in this case?
When it comes to end products the issue which you are going to have to deal with is market saturation. Once several people are going to have lvl 10 production facilities your economy might find itself tanking hard and fast when the market gets saturated. Do you want to have all of your eggs in one or a few baskets by focusing on a few lvl 10 facilities or do you want to spread your risk around by having several lower level facilities? I don't yet have the right answer to that one. (In fact there might not be one).
Finally services - these are potentially the most profitable per unit but the problem is that you cannot ship them. They are automatically consumed in the city where the are built. If you build a lvl 10 facility of these profitability will tank. Hard and fast. I currently have one of each type at lvl 3 only and even though they contribute a nice chunk of change to my economy I have to rotate production every couple of days because, yes you guessed it - the economy tanks. Hard and fast.
Final word - this is not a solo game. Really cooperation is far more important than you appreciate right now which then begs the question - how far are you willing to work together with others to achieve a goal. Are you willing to scrap all of your corp and relocate production to another system to get a viable economy going there? Or not? Will you move once the economy is up and running (and highly profitable?). Just a few things to consider.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
5/3/2017
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I have a lot more ideas for more late game stuff but they aren't going to make the launch. If you have some ideas, please share. I've heard some great ideas during this beta already =)
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/4/2017
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I started to make a city at 15:7. Didn't work; on Earth, the planet with most players and populace, we can't make cities.
I'd love to explore other planets and grow economies on them but can I do it with the uncertain profit from a few structures?
I think the penalty is unnatural (how can a product be more expensive to produce when you make 120x more?). I think dropping the penalty is the way of the future and letting the competition adjusting the market is the natural way to go.
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Guest
5/4/2017
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Dr. Dread, this can be an amazing game. If I were you I'd do two things: first, I'd lose the breaks for expanding. 20 volatile structures to support defense and universe exploring and development? Tens of hours a build a structure?
Second, the interface response time. These delays and lost clicks should be top priority to fix. Incidentally one of my favorite subject, so I'd gladly discuss it with you. Totally acceptable to not be interested though, of course.
I've read again the guide and found a lot of new things, probably the first time it was too much to swallow. If I may have another suggestion, maybe the guide would be more digestible with a page enunciating the main features for the general feeling of the game and separate pages detailing the mechanics as a reference for when you actually do the thing.
I like the game and I hope my input is taken as my wish to better it. I was raised by the wolfs then sold as a slave so my English may be rough at the edges but I have the best intentions.
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OriontheHunterr Posts: 24
5/4/2017
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Overcrowding is a valid mechanic in my opinion. Keeps people moving out and does insight some conflict, well hopefully some. We do have fleets and armies after all.
I did services in the Odegard system before the last wipe and it took a couple of weeks to setup but it was a very fun setup. Adjusting for efficacy took a while but was well worth. It will be more worth it now since services got a boost in cash.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
5/4/2017
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Dr. Dread, this can be an amazing game. If I were you I'd do two things: first, I'd lose the breaks for expanding. 20 volatile structures to support defense and universe exploring and development? Tens of hours a build a structure?
Second, the interface response time. These delays and lost clicks should be top priority to fix. Incidentally one of my favorite subject, so I'd gladly discuss it with you. Totally acceptable to not be interested though, of course.
I've read again the guide and found a lot of new things, probably the first time it was too much to swallow. If I may have another suggestion, maybe the guide would be more digestible with a page enunciating the main features for the general feeling of the game and separate pages detailing the mechanics as a reference for when you actually do the thing.
I like the game and I hope my input is taken as my wish to better it. I was raised by the wolfs then sold as a slave so my English may be rough at the edges but I have the best intentions.
The structure build time can be lowered, right now it takes 2 weeks to take a structure to level 10. The higher tier structures take longer.. It can be cut in half similar to the way we did for Military. This game is meant to be played for a long time, its subscription based, so I can't make max structures and Corp Levels happen in days. Ideally their would be some new features or abilities that open up slowly as you level up your Corp but I don't really have an y mechanics like that. Going from small time trading to city ruler to Star Lord to making Megastructures AND THEN TO ... "Exploring Hyperspace" (new idea) seems like a good path long term gaming.
I don't see the slow interface most of the time. The game hums along at nearly instant speeds for me. Perhaps because the connection is better. I do see the server seems to slow down terribly sometimes. I'm not sure where its coming from. And there are a few pages on the site that will grind because of the data being gathered. Doing "Show Data" on Military Tab when looking at all of Sol for example. Most games like this have VERY simple data and screens I'm pushing much more difficult queries on the database and a lot of them on every screen, I have to spend some more time trying to optimize or Cache the results.
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/4/2017
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"This game is meant to be played for a long time"
Yes, but you don't drag the moves for weeks just because you'd want to be played for a long time. That's how you make players play for a short time. Make enough content and make it engaging so people want to play it for a long time. Imagine a D&D game where the dices spin 4 hours.
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/4/2017
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I have 200 ms ping and 400Mbps with Las Vegas. Most of pages load instantly. The assets page won't ever load under 4 seconds and many times the load goes to 8 seconds.
Most annoying is when in the orders page the counter goes red. Then the first click gets eaten for a page refresh and only the next one matters.
So you have a situation like this: Create new orders => Select order type => Direction => Category => Subcategory => Add this order; and somewhere between the first step and the last one the counter goes red and you lose the progress and the page goes to Manage and you gotta go back to Orders and start over. I'm sure the cavemen had a much friendlier interface for their games.
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/4/2017
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I don't know about other games, you may be right, but it doesn't matter because you can make this one fast as a colibri.
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Hutton Posts: 276
5/4/2017
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badmaw wrote:
"This game is meant to be played for a long time"
Yes, but you don't drag the moves for weeks just because you'd want to be played for a long time. That's how you make players play for a short time. Make enough content and make it engaging so people want to play it for a long time. Imagine a D&D game where the dices spin 4 hours.
I'm going to disagree with you there. I was drawn to this project exactly because it's a slow burn game. It scratches the same itch that play-by-mail games did before the internet. I want something that I can spend a few minutes on during my lunch break, on the train, or right before bed. But something that at the same time will give me an opportunity to make long term plans that I can watch grow over months and years. If it was sped up you would need a lot a free time to stay on top of your balance sheet. I like the pace just the way it is.
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/5/2017
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Me, I'm going to agree with you. Definitely something to work on for months or years is what attracts me at these games. But don't spin the dices for 2 hours. Why take 2 hours to move the peon in a game of chess? Move the peon and be done with it.
I'd love to work on my company for years. Start slowly with a truck or getting a commission from another player for buying low and selling high for him until I get the money to build a plant or a quarry. Make contracts to secure the logistic chain. Develop a network of clients. Make another mine. Buy some more transports. Develop a network of distribution centers. Start to worry about protecting my stuff. When strong enough expand on another planet. And so on, there's so much to do in a game like this.
But instead we build a few transports, make a ton of money in two days with buying low and selling high. Then sitting on hundreds of millions we build in two weeks a plant that makes just a few bucks and when almost there guess what. A trigger happy drunk, otherwise an agreeable person but frustrated by the shitty work conditions, with his junkie friend destroy our work in a few minutes and we have to start over. Is this the game you wanna play?
I know a good game takes a lot of work to be developed and we are not there yet, but we can use what we have in a more balanced way and we can have what we both want right now. Dropping the logistic penalties and lowering the absurd upgrading time will not change your play in any way. You can still build at your pace, nothing is rushing you. And for me would be much better.
Please tell me if I got something wrong.
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/5/2017
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"If it was sped up you would need a lot a free time to stay on top of your balance sheet."
Not at all. I don't wanna change routes and prices every single day either. I don't know who would want. Prices should be much more stable. We should have volume discounts that will bring us more money later when we need that yellow monolith.
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Zip555 Posts: 67
5/5/2017
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Volatile prices is what makes production and trading interesting
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
5/5/2017
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"Dice spinning for hours" is good analogy.
The construction times are probably too long. You are supposed to be limiting your expansion by money not by the time. The time s there so you cant get attacked and then be back up to full in 3 days, especially militarily. Of course with several bases and yards at high level. you can literally drop hundreds of millions in new high level units in a couple days. Structure upgrades though, shouldn't take weeks. I'm going to at least cut the UPGRDE time in half
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cyb0rg Posts: 123
5/5/2017
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Late game will be all about logging in every five minutes to see if your over-production of goods are still in demand and having to scrap a big pile of resources every couple of hours since they can't be sold anymore.
You will also be trying to figure out how to make a buck to support your military since you will be constantly Ocrowd griefed by multiple freebie accounts.
edited by cyb0rg on 5/5/2017
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/5/2017
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"Volatile prices is what makes production and trading interesting"
That is true but not for everybody and with proper tools and not quite all the time. So the prices absolutely should not be static but I don't wanna spend two hours today to make the perfect routes and quantities and tomorrow when I look at them they all lose money.
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+1
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badmaw Posts: 80
5/5/2017
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Dr. Dread yeah, cut those times in half and if by cut in half you mean divide them by ten then great idea! And while you are at it drop the penalties and make the Terrans matter, they are useless now. And put a huge shield on each city, every drunk can ruin a city in minutes.
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