8/18/2017
Topic:
We pushed Orbital Megastructures for Testing
Vulpex
|
Checked - starbase bonus applies to defensive structures such as the fortresses and such. |
8/18/2017
Topic:
Ion Cannon
Vulpex
|
And then you line up your 5 ion guns all together... |
8/18/2017
Topic:
Unread topic bugs: forum edition
Vulpex
|
It is quirky. But we love it all the same.
I have noticed all of those and more but ... well it works around. Interestingly it also seems to check not just for account but also for something else... i.e. I get the 30 unread topic hiccup when I log onto the forum from a different location. |
8/21/2017
Topic:
Orbital Megastructures are now available
Vulpex
|
Two questions on geo boosters then.
First - if a normal event shifts a city from pop decline to pop growth - will the geobooster increase population? What happens when event runs out and population goes from growth to decline?
Second - Are you changing the way geoscorchers work as well? |
8/21/2017
Topic:
Spaceport
Vulpex
|
Some fun numbers...
Right now on earth per turn the maximum potential sales is about 15 billion - if you were to sell to every city every single item they demand.
The actual sales per turn right now is actually approximately 1 billion only (1/15th of what is needed to meet demand) - but that does mean that each lvl 10 spaceport will be providing a grand total of 100 million per tick give or take. That's 14.5 billion per day. A cash cow if I ever saw one. For comparison a lvl 10 spaceport in Gulyaev II would provide something in the order of 5-7 million per tick. So yes spaceports around earth are going to be silly profitable. |
8/21/2017
Topic:
Protectorate of Gulyaev
Vulpex
|
This has been the source of much internal discussion within ARK but I feel it is important to bring it now out into the light so all citizens of Gulyaev can share their thoughts on this. Though the final decision on the implementation of the protectorate lays with ARK we welcome all constructive ideas and comments to help make Gulyaev a strong, prosperous and peaceful system. I would in particular like to thank those who have been sharing ideas on the various channels. Though we mostly refrained from comments we were all listening and interested in what you had to say.
Preamble
In order to ensure the peace and prosperity of Gulyaev, ARK has established the protectorate of Gulyaev.
The Protectorate is established to accomplish the following goals:
Ensure the economic development of Gulyaev
Preclude conflicts from erupting in Gulyaev
Benefit those corporations dedicated to the peace and prosperity of Gulyaev.
Put in place a mechanism for discussion and resolution of conflicts.
As such the following articles of the protectorate are in effect:
Citizens of Gulyaev - The citizens of Gulyaev are those corporations which have established their headquarters within the Gulyaev system or those corporations where the majority of the economic assets are established in Gulyaev.
Protectorate of Gulyaev - ARK is has established the protectorate of Gulyaev and as such will deploy whatever military force is needed for the protectorate to be maintained. Support from other citizens of Gulyaev is always welcome.
Natural resources of Gulyaev (excludes artifacts) - Gulyaev system is endowed with bountiful resources. These resources can and should be used for the development of Gulyaev. There are sufficient resources that conflict should not arise - however if for whatever reason localized overcrowding were to happen, this should be resolved by the mayor of the city if applicable. If there is a conflict of interest the protectorate may be called upon to intervene as a neutral party to adjudicate any conflicts. Both citizens and noncitizens may exploit the natural resources of Gulyaev but disputes will be settled in favour of citizens.
Artifacts of Gulyaev - Artifacts are particularly valuable and as such specific consideration needs to be given to their use. Preference will go to the citizens of Gulyaev. As such the following rules are in effect for artifacts:
Each citizen may maintain a research center on each artifact location in Gulyaev. No more than a single research center per site and citizen. Thus each citizen may have a maximum of 3 research centers.
Non citizens may maintain a single research center on Gulyaev (one in total) of no more than lvl 5.
Each research site will have an appointed protector that will defend the area as a whole from external incursions.
Citizens are encouraged to use the sites to produce boosters to improve the economy of Gulyaev.
Defense of Gulyaev - Having established the protectorate ARK commits to defend Gulyaev from threats. This includes defending Gulyaev from natural perils of living in space (attacks from Machines, Kaijus, raiders and the such). In addition any concerted attack against Gulyaev will be repulsed most vigorously. All citizens of Gulyaev are welcome to join in the defense of our system.
Furthermore all citizens are encouraged to share information regarding incoming and potential threats to Gulyaev.
However the protectorate will not intervene in cases of wars between guilds. Nor does it expect the citizens of Gulyaev to intervene in wars that ARK may be involved in outside of its role as protector of Gulyaev.
Deployment and use of megastructures in Gulyaev. Megastructures have the potential to greatly benefit Gulyaev. As such the following basic rules are in place regarding the use of megastructures in Gulyaev:
Citizens may deploy spaceports and warp gates, though no more than one per planet and citizen.
Starbases and Orbital guns may only be deployed prior consultation with the protectorate and with explicit approval.
Settling and moving to Gulyaev. Corporations are welcome to come and settle in Gulyaev provided they have not been involved in piratical or terrorist activities, or have explicitly acted against the interests of Gulyaev or try to lay specific claim to Gulyaev or part of Gulyaev. The protectorate maintains a list of corporations which are not welcome to settle in Gulyaev. Citizens are welcome to propose any other corporations which they feel need to be added to the list. Currently the corps which are barred from settling in Gulyaev are:
CCI
Protodrone
Serpentis
WeylandYutani Corp
ARK takes on the responsibility of enforcing the rules of the protectorate. |
8/22/2017
Topic:
Spaceport
Vulpex
|
Doctor Dread wrote:
... What if you raid the spaceport, you get the profits? =)
edited by DrDread on 8/21/2017
Oh fun!!!
Can we deploy superviruses in spaceports too? I mean it would make them much more useful as a specific weapon of economic war - they could still keep their normal effect but... you know what I mean... with the virus taking a much bigger chunk of profits from the spacestation as compared to normal deployment. |
8/22/2017
Topic:
Economic Development Report.
Vulpex
|
Purpose of the report - track economic development of main planets. First reports will deal with the five most populous planets and provide basic economic information.
First edition, turn - 14260
Population of active systems (Sector 1):
Sol - 519 million
Gulyaev - 233 million
Sirius - 116 million
Naertho - 116 million
Luyten - 36.5 million
Wolf - 27.8 million
Rigil - 21 million
Centauri - 5.3 million
Remarks: Earth and Gulyaev have functional economies. Sirius and Naertho are emerging systems going through initial colonization. Luyten is a small system. The economies of Wolf and Rigil have all but collapsed. Centauri is an abandoned system.
Main planets per system:
Earth - 500 million
Gulyaev II - 203 million
Sirius I - 26 million
Luyten VI - 24.6 million
Naertho XI - 21.6 million
Wolf I - 19.8 million
Rigil I - 13.6 million
Centauri VI - 2.1 million
Economic demand in top 5 planets:
Earth - 13 billion
Raw Materials - 0.4 billion
Components - 1.2 billion
End Products - 8.2 billion
Services - 3.2 billion
Gulyaev II - 3.7 billion
Raw Materials - 0.2 billion
Components - 0.4 billion
End Products - 2.2 billion
Services - 0.9 billion
Sirius I - 450 million
Raw Materials - 20 million
Components - 49 million
End Products - 261 million
Services - 120 million
Luyten VI - 280 million
Raw Materials - 14 million
Components - 27 million
End Products - 171 million
Services - 68 million
Naertho XI - 233 million
Raw Materials - 7 million
Components - 19 million
End Products - 159 million
Services - 48 million
Remarks - strong growth expected in Luyten VI given that most demand is below 200. All other planets are likely to collapse in the future if demand cannot be fully met. |
8/24/2017
Topic:
Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters
Vulpex
|
Actually no, 100 demand is profitable. Because:
It does not cost 100 to produce 1 piece of raw materials. So long as you avoid massive penalties to production it is very easy to produce materials for 40-70 credits per unit. I give you an example - base cost for me right now making basic metals is 39/unit. Now I end up paying north of 150 per unit but that is because I have a total 280% penalty in that production.
Components, end products and services are way more valuable than their production cost. Even when producing raw materials at 150 each you will make a profit on end products. Let me give you an example.
Take any synthetics - they require 20 raw materials to make 10 end products. End product is valued at 750 (100%).
Cost breakdown: 3000 in raw materials give you 10 synthetics - so 300 credits invested per unit produced.
To that you add 83 credits which is the cost of producing the synthetics themselves gives you a total cost of 383 credits for a product which you are going to sell for 750 credits. That is a huge profit by any scale. The problem is actually that right now it is ludicrously easy to make huge stacks of cash which in practice greatly devalues cash.
But what does happen if you have 100 demand is that massive overcrowding and logistics penalties become unsustainable which is as should be, and the economic aspect of the game becomes challenging again as opposed to being little more than a grind right now since no strategy or planning is needed to make tens of billions. |
8/24/2017
Topic:
Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters
Vulpex
|
In practice what you see in a city are some products where the demand drops to around 100 while for other products the demand is above somewhere in the 250-300 range, and on average city growth stagnates - but it is STILL profitable to operate in such a situation, though growths is smaller and needs to be managed a lot more carefully than just throwing in another geobooster (I recall the economy before geoboosters were even implemented and that is how things looked mostly) |
8/25/2017
Topic:
Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters
Vulpex
|
Aywanez wrote:
Vulpex wrote:
base cost for me right now making basic metals is 39/unit.
Woah. Let's drill down on this bit of info. How are you calculating this? Or, if this isn't a tricky statistical lie, how did you swing it?
There are a few things at work here.
First off - you need to understand that the cost of running a facility is based strictly on the level of the facility. Thus a lvl 5 metal mine will always cost the same to run at full capacity regardless of its location. So the first (and biggest) reduction in cost for exploitation is by setting up your facilities on a resources which has a high value. Add to that bonuses from HQ (say 50%) and from research (in this case 30%) and the numbers go down very fast.
I will give you an example - my own stuff is a bit complicated because of all the stacks of modifiers but it looks like this:
A lvl 4 metal mine costs 12,000 to run. (I am actually not 100% sure of this number but is should be close, too many modifiers) Located on a site with 20 basic metals produces 220 units of metal per turn.
To that we add the following modifiers - HQ 50%, Research 30%.
Final cost to run the facility - 7,200
7,200 / 220 : 32.7 is the cost to produce a single unit of material.
If you look for efficiency it is simple to keep production of raw materials below 50 per unit - overcrowding and logistics blows this up much much higher. As you can see even with lower modifiers there is still plenty of space for the cost to stay reasonable. In fact assuming there is no modifier the cost of producing the metal would still be only 54.5 per unit.
edited by Vulpex on 8/25/2017 |
8/29/2017
Topic:
Warp Gate Prices
Vulpex
|
Yes - you are not meant to break even with a warp gate. |
8/29/2017
Topic:
Quality of Life improvements
Vulpex
|
The contract thing would be great - has been requested before.
i would not support the splitting into three of the mass upgrade screen - very often I have to upgrade all three types and it would be hassle to have to cycle through numerous screens. However the idea that just by selecting an upgrade for a ship it autofills the upgrade tick is a good one and I see no reason why if that is implemented the screen needs to be split. |
8/29/2017
Topic:
Economic Development Report.
Vulpex
|
Weekly reports seem just about fine. We are two days into the implementation of the new geobooster model so this should be interesting. Also a new system (Panther) has been opened up.
Second edition - turn 15205
Population of active systems (Sector 1):
Gulyaev - 212 million
Naertho - 163 million
Sol - 160 million
Sirius - 129 million
Luyten - 106 million
Panther - 13.6 million
Wolf - 13.4 million
Rigil - 12.6 million
Centauri - 6.6 million
Remarks: The collapse of Sol has been nothing short of brutal with nearly 70% of its population lost in one week and it has dropped down to the third system by population. By contrast Gulyaev has dropped by about 9%. Luyten is remarkable for its growth and there has also been strong growth in Naertho, though that is expected to subside as it was driven in a large part by the efforts to open up Panther. Wolf and Rigil continue their collapse into irrelevancy while Centauri actually perks up a little but remains the smallest system by far.
Main planets per system
Gulyaev II - 182 million
Earth - 148 million
Luyten VI - 91.2 million
Naertho XI - 38.1 million
Sirius IV - 34.2 million
Wolf I - 9.5 million
Rigil I - 7.8 million
Panther V - 3.0 million
Centauri V - 2.8 million
Economic demand in top 5 planets
Gulyaev II - 3.55 billion
Raw Materials - 172 million
Components - 402 million
End Products - 2.1 billion
Services - 877 million
Earth - 3.48 billion
Raw Materials - 124 million
Components - 110 million
End Products - 2.1 billion
Services - 877 million
Luyten VI - 1.62 billion
Raw Materials - 52 million
Components - 382 million
End Products - 912 million
Services - 278 million
Naertho XI - 410 million
Raw Materials - 18 million
Components - 40 million
End Products - 257 million
Services - 95 million
Sirius IV - 573 million
Raw Materials - 25 million
Components - 60 million
End Products - 328 million
Services - 160 million
Remarks - As predicted last week Luyten VI has seen very strong growth both in population and value. Earth drops to second place in value and is expected to continue to decline. Gulyaev II sees a small decline in value. Interesting to see that even with a smaller population Sirius IV is richer as a planet than Naertho XI - this is reflective of high demand but will that demand speed up the collapse of Sirius IV?
edited by Vulpex on 8/29/2017 |
8/29/2017
Topic:
Daily quests
Vulpex
|
Actually here are a few possible rewards for quests which would work well in several ways but which are different from the standard artifacts.... lets have a look:
Lucrative contract. Deliver XXX units of YYY product to location Z - reward - CASH!
Open trade route. Go somewhere, search for alien fleet and destroy it. Creates trade contract - increases or decreases demand of a product, in a given city.
Political machinations. Choose own adventure style event - triggers a city wide event (the actual event depends on the choices made)
You can have other things which do things like provide a population increase to a city (careful with this one though!), allow the removal of an artefact to a unit (can be quite useful this). Or even simply provide a snazzy title to be displayed for a while.
So far the rewards from quests seem to be very focused on combat, some more ideas around the economy and the political systems could be interesting. |
9/2/2017
Topic:
Multi-Accounts (Alts)
Vulpex
|
Doctor Dread wrote:
You want a lot more behind the scenes information on who the corp deals with as a method for the community to call out abusers. Im game for that. I can make another screen on Corp Display that shows all their contacts to and from, Maybe thier combats or perhaps their corp worth over time. It might be pretty ineffective though. "Good" alt runners will know how to avoid all that and make therir alts look legit
So true. All those tools may at best lead to more speculation. I would much rather you spent your time on actual improvements to the game, though the in game voting system (triggered by rulers) would really be all that we need to deal with this particular issue. |
9/2/2017
Topic:
Using ship hangers
Vulpex
|
Correct |
9/7/2017
Topic:
Orbitals and guild units
Vulpex
|
Yes |
9/7/2017
Topic:
Stabilizing populations
Vulpex
|
Doctor Dread wrote:
That would be tricky, Already if the population is low, the end products go up very slowly and will not exceed 200. And when the population falls below 5 mil again, the demand on end products starts to fall , not increase until it hits 200.
You realise this is the first time you have actually stated this? It is GREAT to know and it explains quite a few things that were really not adding up with supply, demand and city growth.
Thanks for sharing! |
9/11/2017
Topic:
Stabilizing populations
Vulpex
|
Now I feel senile about it all!!! |