DrDread

all messages by user

1/9/2017
Topic: Give us Event Ideas!

Doctor Dread

Administrator

Orexis wrote:

I'd like to see some political events. For instance if you're a ruler but you've been voting to ban/allow fads regularly that make people angry or abuse the populace (increasing demand while letting people die, then profiting off the sales), the populace could either riot or could possible lobby against you and reduce your voting power in the next election. Choices that would increase population happiness on the other hand might do the opposite or give a boon to production or a random permanent bonus to a unit or structure in the area (permanent -5% to cost of unit/structure for instance)

If you are a ruler of a city you want to see it prosper as well as the people in it, you make more income the bigger it gets and more voting power in other events, such as voting for a planetary ruler. I don't want to do political events against the cities directly, we want the players to engage with each other. I don't have "stats" on the cities other than their population and demand. The demand average, rising or falling, or even the population rising or falling can be used as a Happiness Stat. We don't want the cities turning into Civ VI =)

There could be "riot" type of events that go better or worse depending on whether your population is rising or falling, or has a lot of combat happening there. Kind of like a "Population Complaint" event which takes the worst problem your city has and makes an event around it.

1/10/2017
Topic: City name changing

Doctor Dread

Administrator

The names outside of Sol aren't going to stay that way, they will all get original names. Its something I can do today if I really wanted to. Part of the Kickstarter rewards were to name your own city is why they were never set up.

1/10/2017
Topic: Compenstation

Doctor Dread

Administrator

Fast rebuilds would be tricky ti implement and might be going against the spirit of the game, If I knock out your level 8 shipyard I kind of want it to stay knocked out for a while. THe payback money makes it so it doesn't devestate your game. Your COrp HQ doens't lose its level, if you are level 8 Corp and rebuild, youshould be getting a level 8 Corp HQ again, it builds instantly. The problem is that you lose your IN PROGRESS upgrade on yoru corp HQ which could take weeks. That is something we can adress.

1/10/2017
Topic: Major change to Demand/Pop in Sol

Doctor Dread

Administrator

You can't lump onto the event AFTER it drops. When the event shows up, it already generated the list of defendants and victims and total damage spread. You can bring a handful of small ships from your other corps to "get attacked" in every big fight you do to attempt to get onto the victims list IF a War Rep event shows up but if I make the payout spread based on how much damage you took then even though you got onto the victims list, your payout is going to be a few credits. The guy who lost half is game in the attack is going to take 99% of the payout if there is one.

The events right now are chosen randomly from the ones available, they aren't even "weighted" yet. They all have equal chance at the moment. The system makes a second event happening in the same city planet or system very rare until some time has passed and the same event cant hit the same scope and place while one is running, not the same event anyway, As we add more, any particular one like War Rep will become rarer and rarer. The chance of you getting hit by one should be slim, Granted, a System wide scope War Reparations event is going to affect you but if the entire galaxy votes you as the #1 aggressor, hey that's the intended mechanic =)

1/10/2017
Topic: Descrepancy in Population Change In Overview

Doctor Dread

Administrator

Orexis wrote:

Gotcha so all my hard work to try to make saturn sustainable is a failure and the events are what actually help :p lol well i suppose one person can only do so much

There is like 2-3 different event happening on Saturn that are all jumping up the population =)

1/10/2017
Topic: Give us Event Ideas!

Doctor Dread

Administrator

RadCavalier wrote:

What if the city rioting created a co-operative event that encourages players to supply certain high-tier services or products to pacify the populace? This event may possibly trigger due to logical reasoning (local combat, severe lack of an essential resource, etc.) and could even provide opportunities for opportunistic corporations to expand into those cities to fill those needs.

Sounds like the event would demand that certain products, maybe ones that are severely in demand, to come down in price or there will be riots. Population infantry units, that start attacking the city if the demand doesn't come down to a certain level in a certain amount of time. A food riot =)

1/10/2017
Topic: Ways to help the development?

Doctor Dread

Administrator

RadCavalier wrote:

Hi! I'm quite new to the game, but I love what you guys are doing here. I was wondering if there was any way we could help grow the game/community in terms of creative contributions or, well, anything you could think of. I plan to donate when I can, but until that point I was wondering if there was anything more substantive we could offer?

-RadCav

Reporting bugs is of course helpful =) Talking about the most annoying things about the UI or game in general helps also.

If you want to contribute creatively then maybe Event Ideas. The event system allows for multi-stage "branching" events almost like a choose your own adventure story. It can start with a quick blurb and a vote, then depending on that, branch into 3 different paths. They need to be cooperative in nature and usually that means a vote of some kind by certain corps in an area preferably with a niche product industry or type of military (we like the events were a seemingly small player with the right industry is all the sudden important in a big event).

Its tricky making compelling events involving several players who may or not be participating so path direction usually boils down to a vote across a swath of territory or industry type. Also there isn't much you can actually "do" in the game besides move units, products and fight. There also aren't any custom items or loot drops like in an MMO, but we can make custom rare units like what the mysterious artifacts are giving out right now.

With that in mind events usually affect product categories demand vs population or move populations around depending on a vote. We can also make NPC units spawn and wars break out in this city or that city depending on a vote. Have a Kaiju monster attack a city with some sort of resource product as a source of damage. Link units, corps or product stacks to events so you can chase down the one ship that stole a princess across the system and destroy it to win the event or something like that.

Anyway, with those things in mind if you can come up with a compelling event that would great too

1/10/2017
Topic: Where did you hear about Barons of the Galaxy?

Doctor Dread

Administrator

RadCavalier wrote:

I heard about this seeing some art on DeviantArt, was intrigued by the picture so I looked you guys up. Looks like I found a hidden gem!

YES after thousands of dollars of cool artwork it paid off! =)

1/10/2017
Topic: New Hostile Raiders and earning bounty on them

Doctor Dread

Administrator

We modified the event system and Hostile Raiders event to allow you to earn significant payouts for attacking and destroying their bases when they show up. The level of the base and units are now randomized, which can go from annoying to scary. The payout is the total value of all the raider units and the base which is usually anywhere from a few million to 20 million or more. If the base is destroyed, the payout is dispersed to all the Attacking corps against the raider base or its units and divided up by the how much damage those corps sustained while fighting them. The corps who bore the brunt of the damage will get paid bigger percentage of the total. It only tracks the attacks against them not defending damage, like when they attack your factory.

We want to give the military players something to do on a regular basis so we're going to introduce a few more events like this one with different scenarios so players with big forces can make money with their military. There will probably be different raider variations such as pirates with ships, or marauders with one big capital ship harassing a planet. We're also working on making a couple of the NPC pirate factions, Commonwealth and Dark Star have sprawling bases in every star system which are used with other events, such as hiring pirates to attack particular pirates or players. The data tracking we added can be used to do things like "Faction Points" corps earn over time with the Commonwealth and is used for event voting or who they will help or attack when certain events show up.

Events are what we are focusing on this month, some minor changes will also show up here and there also.

There was also an overlooked addition to accounting. Combat Costs. It costs a small percentage in increased upkeep when your units attack, something like 20%. Just be warned that if you attack a few ground units with a fleet of battleships and 800 bombers, it might cost you millions =)

1/11/2017
Topic: Where did you hear about Barons of the Galaxy?

Doctor Dread

Administrator

We are trying to break away from the typical "pay us money while watching the little numbers go up and then get stomped" mechanic that seems to be all the rage these days. =)

1/11/2017
Topic: Couple quick stat questions

Doctor Dread

Administrator

ColErr wrote:

Looking through the combat stats, one of them is CTurn. What is this value used for?

Also, what's the formula for movement? is it just linear distance / move stat = turns to move? Or is it more complicated. How does it determine where it stops along the route?

CTurn is abbreviation for Construction Turns. Ran out of room =)

The movement is always in straight lines in one of the 8 directions. If you are forced to "turn" traveling from two cities that are not in a straight line from each other for example, the unit will stop at that turn and then continue in a straight line next turn. Even if you have a movement of 20 and you're moving to a city that is 4 spaces away but not in a straight line, your unit will move in a direction that resolve the X or Y axis first, stop and then move straight into it on the next turn.

The "stop and turn" in the movement was actually a programming obstacle that we decided to keep in place because it allows for units to almost always be "on the board" outside of a city when they are moving around. You can watch a freighter move from city to city and predict exactly where they will be stopped for their turn assuming the two cities are not in a straight direction and within movement range.. That's where you can have units attacking to raid it. I think movement always tires to resolve its Y axis (vertical) first then its X axis (horizontal). A unit moving back and forth from two cities that are offset from eachother will not take the same path back and forth. One path will be "high" the other path going back will be "low"
edited by DrDread on 1/11/2017

1/12/2017
Topic: Order completion log

Doctor Dread

Administrator

ColErr wrote:

Could we get a log of when orders complete? Either in the actual "Display Logs" when each order finishes, or on the order screen, the turn that each order last completed on? Would be a bit easier to figure out timing rather than going through accounting to see when certain things there change to figure out when orders (like buys, sells, and moves) complete.

The unit shows Orders Complete in its "Display Logs", but there is no way to display all your unit logs at once. Perhaps we can make that another "section" ont he assets page, to show all your recent unit logs?

1/13/2017
Topic: Order completion log

Doctor Dread

Administrator

ColErr wrote:

It shows when the whole order completes. I have a ship on a loop, and the log is empty.

Ah, you want every order that completes to be in the log? Is it so you time how longs things are taking? There was an idea to make the order list give you an estimated time in turns for every order on the list. That might be more useful than dumping into the logs

1/13/2017
Topic: Order completion log

Doctor Dread

Administrator

ColErr wrote:

That would also be helpful. Figured it would be easier on your side to say when something finished, rather than when it might finish.

Unrelated, sent funds for backer rewards, how long should I wait?

... as soon as I realize the email notification of your payment has gone to the spam folder I will get right on that....
It's done.... =)

1/15/2017
Topic: Some QoL notes :)

Doctor Dread

Administrator

RadCavalier wrote:

Hi! First thing's first, I've been playing this game almost every day and I love it! I've been chewing on some event ideas, but for now here are some Quality of Life notes I've had while playing.

First, it would be awesome if we could have the names of the people posting messages hyperlinked to their corporate profile, so we could click and get more information on who is doing the talking.

Second, if possible, I think it would be helpful for military units to have their base stats displayed on the construction screen, as well as their upgrade screen. Without seeing which upgrades I chose in the past, or the current weaknesses of the units it makes choices a little tricky. I like shoring up my units' weaknesses, and I can't do that without seeing what their stats are/will be. Also, if the upgrade choices of the past could be logged somewhere in the case of ships, it would be good to see what I've done in the past.

Lastly, and this is the doozy that I think may not be possible.. would it be doable to add a "Trade Routes" page which reads all infinitely looped orders, their destinations and the cargo sold as a means of managing our fleets of transports and freighters? I've taken to writing a separate spreadsheet to manage mine, but keeping it updated is tricky since demand drops in cities, routes change, and oftentimes I find myself working with outdated information. I just think a Trade Routes page, however it gets formed, would help immensely in keeping things how I want them. But I recognize this one might be shooting for the moon.

At any rate, just wanted to say this has been a great game and I fully intend on donating when I have the dosh to do so! Cheers!

1) Yes, Links from the comms page, and other places. Its on the UI to do list!
2) Yes, Someone already mentioned this. Upgrade to and From stats of some sort on the manage screen where you upgrade things
3) Yes, I want to to do Trade Routes as lines and little markers on the Viewscreen itself. Lines showing the travel and markers showing what they do there. Maybe click on one or have a grid displaying which unit each line goes to. I need to rework the viewscreen to make that feasible.

All good suggestions =)

1/16/2017
Topic: Multiple order actions

Doctor Dread

Administrator

BaronOfThGalaxy wrote:

Is there a possibility to execute multiple orders at one turn for lets say a transport vehicle.
Example:

Order number#4: Buy From City: 250 fish
Order number#5: Buy From City: 250 beef

To combine these 2 into taking only 1 turn instead of 2 separate ones.

Example 2:

Order number#4: Sell To City: 500 beef
Order number#5: Buy From City: 500 fish

To sum up that multiple actions at the same location does only take 1 turn.

This will open up many opportunities in managing logistics and takes away a lot of what feels like unnecessary turns imo.

The game wasn't originally coded to do that sort of thing is why it hasn't changed yet BUT we did do it a little differently for the Distribution Center Structure which can sell or buy multiple things at once. So we want to change the units to be able to at least be able "Sell All" which will try to sell 5 different things at once. Essentially "Dump Everything". To have the units buy and sell in the same turn on top of that is getting a little tricky though. Because we are handling al sells and buys from everyone on that same turn and there is a limit to how much can be bought or sold on one turn it becomes a little complicated in the back end and in the UI to have a small list of things everyone is trying to buy and sell at once .

1/16/2017
Topic: SafeHold Corporation is ruler of Sol System

Doctor Dread

Administrator

First Star Lord has been elected. Never actually tested on the live server yet and I think there is a display bug in the grid =)
If you want to see all the leaders of Sol you can look at the Sol System on the Viewscreen and then hit the "Show Data" button towards the right,

Star Lord of Sol		Cayleb Ahrmahk	Safehold Corp
Emperor of Mars	Mars	CoureurSpatiale	ThB Productions
Emperor of Earth	Earth	Speed C Unity	Speed Corp Unity
Emperor of Mercury	Mercury	Cayleb Ahrmahk	Safehold Corp

1/16/2017
Topic: Multiple order actions

Doctor Dread

Administrator

BaronOfThGalaxy wrote:

Yes I was already wondering if this was on limitation with the code, or was designed intenionally for every actions but some parts had to be refined yet.

I don't know if this a good idea, but like an additional turn in between the 10minutes (at 5:00) which is only for loading and unloading cargo/units and other misc logistical stuff, not sure if this kind of method can bypass the code limitations at this point in the first place, but if it is it could be an idea to solve this issue a bit.

An additional turn just for transports probably isn't going to happen. A 5 minute turn MAY happen. There is a worry that the turn flips themselves might start taking a long time with more people playing. They take 5-15 seconds right now. We want to "slam" the system before we launch and see how it handles more players, if it still can stay under 20 seconds or so , then we might adjust the game to do 5 minute turns. There is a fear that we wont be able to keep the turns flips under a minute with a lot of players and features making 5 minute turns really 4 minutes. I don't think that is going to happen though. The UI takes some time to navigate, we want to speed that up also. 5 minutes might be cutting it short to react to a fight from a text message sent your phone (that's coming soon also).

Also 10 minutes came out to be a nice number, About 1000 turns a week =)

1/16/2017
Topic: Hostile Pirates and Discord chat server

Doctor Dread

Administrator

One of our users turned us on to the Discord Chat server so we made a server and implemented a link under the Comms Page. The link is currently:

https://discord.gg/Fc77xVu

It seems to crash on Internet Explorer when trying to do the invite, unfortunate. Majority of people are using Chrome or Firefox though. We've just starting playing with the chat server, if you have some suggesions on configuring it please let us know!

Hostile Pirates Event has gone in, it is similar to the Hostile Raiders but with Ships, more of them and that means big bounties. The pirate bases have several frigates but also have Maraurder Destroyers and sometime 1-3 Pirate Battleships. The bounties are the value of all the units and it can amount to 200mil + for the base destruction.

We're working on a Kaiju Monster attack which will be similar but with one super unit that isn't raiding. There is also plans for a System scope version using an alien invader or perhaps a giant asteroid.

There are also now a lot more links to Combat and Corporation pages from the overview tab. We are also considering making each event have its own private Comms thread in the event screen itself. Perhaps switch between the event info and the comms thread This would make easier discussing anything about the event, especially voting

1/16/2017
Topic: Safegaurd system for computer bots

Doctor Dread

Administrator

BaronOfThGalaxy wrote:

I just want to "heads up" about bot systems that automatically play the game, and possible systems that can prevent this in the future.

For example today most of the time you have to proof that you are not a robot to create an account on a lot of internet websites with complicated picture selection. (everyday bots they are getting smarter)

At the current state when I'm looking at this game it would be very easy to create automated bots and make a fortune ingame without doing anything 'if I could code' those bots and basically ruin the gameplay for dedicated players without them even knowing it.

Looking at patterns only to pick out bots will only fish out the noob coders, the real good coded bots don't have patterns to be seen, even if they get caught they just get adjustments and they will be back.

Anyway its just something to bring this to the notice for future plans or something.

Some basic stuff on sign up still doesn't is good idea but doesn't stop a real person from setting up 10 accounts and then running bots on them.Its not a very "bot viable" game though. There isn't a 10 step program that you can follow for immediate success.

Barons of the Galaxy Forum

DrDread

all messages by user