DrDread

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8/13/2016 Topic: Artifact resource changes and bug fix Doctor Dread Administrator	There was a bug with Research Facilities that would make whatever item you were creating to only require 100 artifacts mined to produce it, even a level X item. It would only be at 100 for the first item type you ever set it to. That meant you were pumping out 100 artifacts a day. Thank you all for NOT pointing out a problem with your 800+ stack of artifacts! =) We corrected the problem and also had to reduce the number of artifact items you were all carrying to a realistic amount. this affects the handful of corporations that are actually producing artifacts: Pointless goods SA Pericles Licensing Hiigaran Corporation Nic Corporation Limited Exploitation The amount of artifact resource to make an item has changed also. We're still playing with the numbers so this might change again. this is what they are now: A1 - 20,000 A5 - 50,000 AX- 750,000 We're working on the artifact effects this weekend. We might see something creep in by tomorrow but they require a lot of small changes across the system to make them work.
8/13/2016 Topic: Component production bug or typo? Doctor Dread Administrator	Xarleto wrote: [font=]Component Factories [font=]Creates products from resources that are also used to make other products. Requires 10 units of varying resources. Produces 25 units of components. - From Tutorial page [font=] I currently have a alloy factory, it takes 10 raw material to make 10 units of exotic alloy instead of 25. Same with lvl 2 factory takes 20 units to make 20 units of exotic alloy This has changed. The components and end products do not make 25 and 50 a turn anymore, instead they make 10 as normal but they sell for 2.5x and 5x the demand value instead. I missed that I the tutorial page I'll change it. edited by DrDread on 8/13/2016
8/15/2016 Topic: Prices for Components Doctor Dread Administrator	Basing everything at 100 demand. You're taking 10 units worth of raw resource (a low average resource value) which you got from running a factory at 1,000 credits a turn (that assumes no tech no corp located there) then running them through a component factory for another 1,000 credits to produce 10 units of a component worth 250 each or 2,500 total. Run those 10 component units through an end product factory for an other 1,000 (You've spend 3,000 so far) and you have 10 units of end product worth 500 each, or 5,000 credits. Of course you need 10 units from "various" sources to make components and you need "various" types of components to make end products but you're also not mining a resource at a value of 10, most likely 12-14, and you are not running the factories at 1,000 a turn, more like 700-800 because of your tech and or corporation present. You should be profitable. For example, I'm making a selling a lot of Wheat on earth and making a lot of money doing it. I also starting mining a Basic Woods and Basic Metal and BOUGHT a small amount of Basic polymer (needs 1 per) to run a Toy Factory making Board Games and I'm making a lot of money doing it. It's not easy to make end products profitable unless you gear your entire corporation towards mining only the resources and components needed to run an end product factory. And even then, if the price drop on your end product, because you're selling a lot of it, and the price goes up on the components because you're buying a lot of it, you're profits are going to collapse. Ideally you team up with other corporation through contracts that are already making comps or resources you need very cheaplly
8/16/2016 Topic: About the Ocrowd Doctor Dread Administrator	The tutorial actually looks at the overcrowding and how many CorpHQs are at the locations and tries to give you the most least populated spot with the highest resource value. Players might get put on a 12 or 13 instead of 16 but if the 16 has 5 people on it and overcrowded then obviously it not a better choice. Also the tutorial is now recommending a category of products to get into based on what everyone else is making to try to keep everyone from getting into the same thing. The Game Status page from the Homepage actually has a bar graph of what everyone is making. If Sol fills up to where no new players can be profitable anywhere then the game probably has too many players! I think I have to calculate that though. In any case, you can always ge a full account and go off into the other systems =)
8/20/2016 Topic: About those dangerous fads... Doctor Dread Administrator	The reason why the Gadgets category is rising so slowly is that when a city is under 2 million population the only thing that goes up at the normal rate are the tier 1 resources products. Everything else is at 1/10th normal. When the city population hits 2 million, 3 million and 5 million. The Components, End Products and Services demand rise at a normal rate. It's something we changed before beta so new cities have a chance to grow while corps supply them just the simple stuff. This needs to be added to the guide, I'll try today.
8/20/2016 Topic: About those dangerous fads... Doctor Dread Administrator	Vulpex wrote: ok good to know :p was trying to supply high end stuff to stimulate growth, guess I was doing it wrong! Bringing the demand down so low WILL help it makes the growth faster the lower the demand average is.
8/21/2016 Topic: NewRPG.com wrote an article about us Doctor Dread Administrator	NewRPG.com wrote an article about our Kickstarter campaign and Beta Test. It would be helpful if some of you would take a look and comment about your experiences so far. They have been great over there =) http://newrpg.com/text-based-browser-games/barons-galaxy-kickstarter-re-launch/
8/22/2016 Topic: Problem with trading Doctor Dread Administrator	Phemanaught wrote: I have a surplus of basic metal now, because my trucks cannot sell enough, there is no explanation for this, and it cannot be tracked how much is not selling and why. Also the metal mines need to state how much they can sell compared to how much they can produce. Cities have a certain "volume" that they can accept in a single turn this is the only thing that keeps you from selling everything in one turn. If you go to the Viewscreen tab then go to the Demand tab and drill down to the product you are selling at that city you can see how much it sells for an also the "volume" for that product. If you are selling so much that you are exceeding the volume then you are probably dropping the price of that product very low. You need to sell elsewhere
8/22/2016 Topic: Geotechnical Artifact Effects have gone in Doctor Dread Administrator	Artifact effects have finally started creeping into the game. We just implemented the Geotechnical effects today. Most of the time spent the last couple of week was making some changes necessary to get these to deploy from units. Now that it's place we should be able to bring out the other effects more quickly but each one has a different effect and has to be coded separately. The Guide >> Artifacts page was updated to show the artifacts new effects. They no longer boost resources, instead they affect population. The "Deploy Item" order is where you can deploy artifacts you are carrying, just like an ACP. To deploy the Geotech artifacts you must load them onto a unit and deploy them at a city, planet or star system. To deploy on a planet you must take them to the center of the planet, grid 12:12 and deploy them from there. For the AX version you have to fly them to the center of the star, again grid 12:12 and deploy it there otherwise it won't deploy and you will get a message in the units log. You also cannot deploy the same effect in the same place if one is already running there. A city can be affected by the city, planet and system versions at the same time however. In addition to adding these effects we are making changes to the way population is regulated in Sol System. Population in Sol system does not go up and down relative to the average demand. It stays the same unless affected by events or combat. If the population moves too far away from its default value, it will slowly rise or fall until it comes within range again. Similar to Demand value, it can be moved to extremes by events but will slowly return to normal. There was a bug introduced that prevented the demand on any product to change when bought or sold in a recent update. This was corrected and demand should go down as you sell your product A couple of minor issues were fixed, crash when you click uncheck all on the military tab and inconsistency when renaming units/structures. There were a lot of changes that went into the database today and so far it looks stable. We're watching for any problems in case we missed something. Hopefully the game won't stall during the day, we can only fix problems in the evening. edited by DrDread on 8/22/2016
8/23/2016 Topic: Problem with trading Doctor Dread Administrator	You are making more metals then you can sell =) You have sold down the price of metals across the entire planet almost. Also if you produce more than 1000 a turn you start to overcrowd the resource and it starts giving you and everyone there a penalty to production cost.. This is probably why it was costing you so much. If you run 2 basic metal factories at level 10 on a 16 value resource its going to be something like 3,200 a turn with a 220% penalty to cost! You have to produce at a different basic metal resource once you approach 1000 a turn in one place. There are other people that might be mining that resource also. You are sitting on over 200k basic metals. It would be worth it for you to take a freighter and sold to another planet with a big city and higher price. You can even ship to the other systems where the prices might be 300-400 right now. its good that you stopped production on your factories. your profit is back into the green. You can turn them on but set them at a lower percentage, On the website you can read about all this under Guide >> Production.
8/23/2016 Topic: About the Ocrowd Doctor Dread Administrator	ChaChaCharms wrote: So how exactly does ocrowd occur? Look at the Guide >> Production page it explains it. When a single resource is being mined at over 1000 production a penalty kicks in to the COST of all the structures mining it. At 2,000 production it is 100% and will cost you double to mine it for example. You have to go to another resource, even a lower valued one, before you overcrowd that one too hard. It's what makes the lower value resources viable.
8/23/2016 Topic: Bug on Viewscreen Doctor Dread Administrator	The viewscreen is a little buggy, especially on mobile, On mobile you have to make sure you are zoomed out all the way on the phone. On rare occasion it acts funny in a normal browser if you click something right as it is loading. you should be able to refresh the page and it will correct itself
8/24/2016 Topic: Problem with trading Doctor Dread Administrator	I think the other players have answered for me already =) This is a game and its not going to be 100% realistic, games are supposed to have fun strategic mechanics and not necessarily be realistic simulations, which in general are pretty boring. The overcrowding ONLY effects resources. It's what forces you from simply building more and selling more. You (and everyone else there) eventually hit a problem with resource overcrowding, and are forced to mine in other places as well. You will also hit a problem when you sell so much that the prices begins to drop everywhere for your product and are forced to sell to more cities , even offworld. These mechanics is what prevents you from exponentially becoming more and more powerful. As you produce and sell more and more metals you will meet more and more resistance from the game mechanics. there is no "wall" or limit you will hit. Even logistics doesn't prevent you from making more but it makes it cost more and that mechanic is generally to keep you from making 50 small factories everywhere as opposed to a small number of large ones. All the mechanics are self balancing. You can try to sell down the metal across the entire planet but this is a trading game, If metal is dirt cheap everyone on the planet, other players will start buying it to sell elsewhere or to supply the tier 2 and factories with it. Metal is selling for 300-400 outside of sol and will only rise unless sold down. The demand mechanic isn't regulated outside of Sol. You should try to make another resource also, and sell that but then make a component factory and supply it with your cheap resources, its even more profitable=)
8/24/2016 Topic: Production change notification Doctor Dread Administrator	Vulpex wrote: It would be great if there was some kind of notification on when a facility has actually received an order to change production. There are several ways in which the order may be lost or simply forgotten and it is quite important for future planning to ensure that a production change is indeed taking place. Ideally this would be in the assets list - just like we get notifications for upgrades and overcrowding it should be possible to see at a glance changes in production. Thanks! That's a good idea I'll try to get that in on next push. I'm actually considering changing the assets "search" features which I don't think anyone uses. Ya know you can click those little icons next to the dropdowns? Anyway I might change those dropdowns to be a small selection of "modes" to view your assets. The default one would the Overview version you see now but you can change it to the "Production" version which would only show structures, products AND be grouped by location with a sum of how much products your factories are burning every turn for example. The military mode would show by location with some kind of sum of power also.
8/24/2016 Topic: About the Ocrowd Doctor Dread Administrator	ChaChaCharms wrote: Or could you simply destroy the competitor mines? You mean like, the others aren't communicating with you or being reasonable about the limited resources of the planet so you attack them until it works itself out? It seems you have finally peered into the later game "politics" of how everything works.... =)
8/24/2016 Topic: Problem with trading Doctor Dread Administrator	Phemanaught wrote: This is not a healthy beta environment, it is just a echo chamber, the point of beta is to get feed back from players. Good luck with your game but I will no longer take part. You were losing money, we explained why, you started getting upset because it's not "realistic" we explained the mechanic and why it works and gave you options to expand out besides simply upgrading your structures in one spot which you've taken to its limit. You're complaining about demand but it works just like you say. The more you sell the lower demand goes, the lower demand goes the more population increases and the more population makes the "volume" go up which makes you have to sell more and more if you want the price to keep from rising. The math may not be tuned perfectly but the it is a self balancing system. All this is explained in the Guide page on the website also. The only thing you're giving feedback on is the way you want resources work. You want it to be where everyone can mine one resources infinitely as opposed to having numerous spots and you don't' want any resistance regardless of how many people mine it. My response is a system like that would make for a simple game where there is absolutely no reason to build anywhere but the spot you started in. We're not copying other game mechanics that are like that, we're making a different one that involves the other players around you. The system that's in place now makes the other players in the location you're in and what they are doing something to be concerned with which is a tenant of the game. It also makes you start out "simple" but quickly have to expand your game in new ways as you step up production going from your one spot your mining to mining from other locations to going off planet and/or starting to get into the Component factories and End products. All of that comes naturally without any guided quests. Unlike other games where fighting is just something cool to do, here there is a legitimate reason to have strife and attack someone else and that reason is grounded in the limited resources. Overcrowding is what makes the resources "limited" without a hard cap on production or limiting how many players can mine the resources.
8/24/2016 Topic: About the Ocrowd Doctor Dread Administrator	ChaChaCharms wrote: Well if only those pesky terran troops were not around I could demolish their building. It takes a few turns for the Terran Forces to intervene yes? Except for cities if I remember.. hmm A limitation and a safety net of the starter system of Sol, you can always move your game outside of Sol where the resources are better and the Terran Feds aren't around but that requires a paid account. =)
8/24/2016 Topic: Bug on Viewscreen Doctor Dread Administrator	Rujholla wrote: Ya -- I gave up trying to use the viewscreen on my tablet. This was on my desktop. However it does seem to be browser specific. I'm not getting it to duplicate on IE -- still to try firefox. So what tablet are you having problems on? I haven't seen it break on iPad unless you zoom in on the tablet. The fix I keep reading about is to lock the zoom on mobiles but I want to find another way that works while zoomed without rewriting the screen.
8/25/2016 Topic: About the Ocrowd Doctor Dread Administrator	ChaChaCharms wrote: working on it, does kickstarter accept prepaid cards? I honestly don't' know. I think anything that registers as a credit card will work, they don't charge them till campaign succeeds. You should try to get someone to go in for you at $2, buy them a slurpee, and have paid status for beta and a month when the games live.=)
8/25/2016 Topic: Question on order of operations at end of turn Doctor Dread Administrator	Sells happen after Production (it used to be first). Since you brought it up I went through and made a list of what happens in the game turn in order: Salvage income Unit Movement Ruler income Relocate HQ Buys From City Production - takes components for production first Contract Transfers - "Gives" then "Takes" Normal Transfer cargo Hangar Units Load/Unload Deploy Items Construction new units / structures Combat Resolution Repair Units Sells to City Upgrade Military / Structures Insert All money transactions into the logs Delete Salvaged/destroyed Units Progress all Orders to the next one Update Corp Funds Process Demand increases Process Population increase Maintenance Checks (Trim logs etc. from week ago) Flip Turn

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