2/21/2017
Topic:
Materials Database
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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ArcherBullseye wrote:
Do you have anything public you could share as to what components are needed for each item?
I know there is one at the HQ, but I am looking for something more in the raw non GUI format. Thanks!
Straight from Database, to Excel for you =) |
2/22/2017
Topic:
Materials Database
Doctor DreadAdministrator
|
ArcherBullseye wrote:
Thanks.. And thank you for using discriptive headers. Lol
Thanks! I do this for a living and I'm not one of those A-HOLES that uses column headers in a database that look like "CLR004TH" or something because the developer was from the "8 character max" age of computer dinosaur programming =)
edited by DrDread on 2/22/2017 |
2/22/2017
Topic:
Tweaking how Paid Accounts and Sol will work
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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We have been mulling over a change to the way the paid accounts will work and we think we have an idea for a change that will solve our probelms. A while ago we allowed voting for rulership in the Sol system and we think it worked out great. Its better to have that very integral part of the game present in the free account zone where everyone can "see it". The problem is that having a paid account now seems almost worthless. It only allows you to move your Corp HQ outside of Sol system and possibility of being elected. Those aren't very "persistent" features that would make a steady subscription worthwhile. We don't want to "Cap" free players or create a "fun pain" paywall situation for advancement but paid account needs to be something any player who is interested in the game for more than a month and wants to be more involved with will be compelled to do a paid account.
So our idea is to link paid accounts to the one non-critical but persistent mechanic in the game, the event system. As in, you have to be a paid account status to VOTE in ANY event, including elections or War Reparations. This would also solve the problem we are predicting will happen when someone makes 100 free accounts and then dominates elections or any critical vote in the game to his main accounts benefit. The other restrictions of Corp HQ re-location and being elected for rulership positions would still apply. This change seems to allow free accounts to play the full game but just not be able to influence the political or social aspects of it without a paid account. The event system is more of a "fun" and social system as opposed to a critical one needed to progress.
There is also another related change we plan to implement before going live involving Sol System. We have a need to "shrink" the play field so more players, at least free accounts, are condensed into a smaller space when it comes to the "Safe Zone" of Sol. There are too many "Free" cities in Sol and it is frustrating that we can't realistically mix these permanent cities in with spawnable ones like the rest of the galaxy. Our first ideas was to cut the number of safe cities in half but that makes the planets all "barren" unless we allow spawnable cities also, something that is awkward especially when it comes to elections and Terran Federation protection.
So our idea is to make only EARTH be "Terran Fed Controlled" and all the other 8 planets in sol actually be "non safe" planets just like the rest of the galaxy with no cities except the ones that spawn from industry.. This idea seems fantastic since we can have a lot of cities on Earth, all the ones that are already there even, and we don't need any more spawn-able ones and everything on Earth can be locked down by terran fed. It also makes the other 8 planets be just like the outer star systems when it comes to high resource values except they aren't 1100 spaces away, they are right there. The idea of going to another Star system for the high resources and corp HQ relocation seemed quite daunting, but relocating to the high resource planet of Mars and then trading back to earth seems like an incredible opportunity. It would be MUCH easier for earth players to supply the 8 planets instead of it being only practical for high level players with fleets. Your Corp HQ would not be able to re-locate outside of EARTH without a paid account. We can still have elections for rulership for cities and planet earth like we do now, except only paid accounts can vote, but in order to get a Star Lord we would have to have two other planets in Sol be built up with 3 cities a piece before it was even possible. Sounds great =)
These changes won't be implemented until the next Beta Test, where we will reset the game. We do plan to eventually end this current beta test game, implement some of these major changes and then have another beta test run for a short while, like a month or so. This will happen once we're happy with the game state and are getting ready to go live.
Let us know what you think about these changes! |
2/23/2017
Topic:
Inconsistent results from Pickup *Everything*
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Orexis wrote:
Ive been having some issues with setting my freighters to pick up all resources from locations that are actively producing or buying more than one resource. Sometimes they will make one pickup attempt per resource and move on as i want them to, while other times they will sit.and pickup the same resource every turn as its produced until the cargo bay is full. This is very tough to deal with as it greatly delays all transporting and is especially painful when two or more units with the same routes get stuck on the same city. I just had two warp freighters sitting in a city together waiting to fill up 500,000 units combined where i was buying at less that 1k units per turn :/. instead i just want them to make a single pass over each present resource and grab whats there then move on. Is this a bug or working as intended? Perhaps we could get a toggle to choose which method we want the ship to use?
I believe the code will attempt to fill the cargo bay (or whatever limit you set) and will remain on that order until it "Couldn't load anything this turn" which will happen because its cargo bay is full OR there was no more cargo to lift.
What you are proposing is a flag that tells the freighter to only spend one turn (or maybe whatever number you set) loading/selling/buying before moving onto the next order regardless of what you loaded o far. That way you can make predictable round trips even if when your production or supply becomes varied.
I think that is something I can add relatively easily and I'll look into it this weekend. |
2/23/2017
Topic:
Tweaking how Paid Accounts and Sol will work
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Surgicus wrote:
Squeezing all new free accounts onto Earth when starting calls for overcrowding and over-exploitation. Understandably it is a safe-zone and thus is a good area to learn the game, but then only for this purpose, hence why I may suggest to limit the upgrade levels to say only 3 instead of 10. Now, to go go over level 3 either would require a paid account or to move to another location within Sol (given that all assets up to Level 3, and only on Earth, are paid back in full when removing/salvaging structures, and that the first relocation from Earth for new paid accounts get reduced construction turn fees at new locations up to level 3 as well -- further relocating will succumb to the usual present set of rules). To relocate outside Sol would require a paid account as well. Meanwhile, viewscreens for any account would allow players to scrutinize supply and demand in any location/planet/system, this to raise interest of a free account player in the game and its many expanding options to perhaps switch to a paid account. The same presently suggested game dynamic for free and paid accounts would count for involvement with events and voting participation (only paid accounts may actively influence the game, free accounts have static effects).
In later versions of the games one might even consider giving the choice for free accounts to choose their starting location, under the same conditions, given that there will be several planets/systems like Sol where a planet and a Federation offer a safe-zone.
Regarding inactive accounts, as I understand their storage fees would accumulate and rise way over their income and expense capability, so what has been put in place for these scenarios ? Would their operation financially cease or be stopped ? Would their storage and production be capped after a period of inactivity?
edited by Surgicus on 2/23/2017
I wouldn't want to put a hard limit on free account players levels, I rather restrict certain features that aren't critical to play.
Overcrowding on Earth, when there are too many free players, is kind of a self correcting mechanic. When there are only a few players, earth is a bountiful playground. When there are 1000 players there, the resources will all become overcrowded and all the demand will become terribly low.This makes going paid more and more attractive and there are that many free accounts bogging down the system, its ok is some start to leave.
Abandoned accounts will eventually build up huge storage debts and can bankrupt the corporation, which will liquidate. But your Free Account Corp automatically liquidates after 15 days without a login. And then will delete after a month. |
2/26/2017
Topic:
UI Performance Improvements
Doctor DreadAdministrator
|
Orexis wrote:
Looks like the arrows on the viewscreen were removed that allowed you to move one square north/east/south/west. Was this intentional? I use those quite a bit actually. Especially on my phone/tablet where for some reason clicking a square never results in the page actually loading that square, so then I have to use the buttons to navigate there
I did remove this intentionally. They weren't used much at all and I've kind of run out of space on that right bar. Perhaps one day you will be able to "slide" the view screen around planet at a time. |
2/26/2017
Topic:
Public Services
Doctor DreadAdministrator
|
Orexis wrote:
Currently there doesn't seem to be a significant lure for anyone to generate public services. Even at high demand values, there are plenty of other tier 3 products that you can find near 1000 demand for and being able to produce everything in one spot and transport it makes a big difference.
I propose that factories which build public services like roads/restaurants produce goods just like every other factory.with the following changes to still keep it slightly more realistic:
1) Construction material storage volume will be 10 compared to the normal 1
2) City trade volumes for construction materials will be 1/10th of normal
3) Sell value of construction materials will be 10x normal
4) Construction material Factories produce 1 base unit instead of 10
5) Storage volume for public services will be 100 compared to the normal 1
6) City trade volumes for public services will be 1/100th of normal
7) Sell value of public services will be 100x normal
8) public service Factories produce 1 base unit instead of 10
The logic here is profit, cost to produce, etc all stay the exact same, you just have construction materials being in single 10x the size units that sell for 10x the price and are produced at 1/10th the rate, and the same for public services which will take 10x the amount of construction materials and other resources but will be huge in size and value. This also means you need big transports to move them around which makes sense for trying to transport entire restaurants or parks. You could rename items like parks to "Park Construction Unit" or something.
Another alternative which would be much simpler to code would be simply allowing public services to generate size 1 products as normal and just renaming them to things like "Restaurant supply package" or "Road construction materials" to still have it make sense.
Overall I just think needing 3 different factories in every single city in order to provide it public resources is a huge turnoff, especially since product efficiency is at high factory levels, and this style causes you to have tons of low level factories instead of a few high levels.
Let me know what you guys think
edited by Orexis on 2/26/2017
edited by Orexis on 2/26/2017
I realize the services aren't as popular because they are "static". They do need something to balance that out. They all take mainly Water as a component, they aren't very hard to supply. As a matter of fact, there is more Services industry in the galaxy them some other things like Synthetics right now, take a look at the graph on the status page.. Maybe it isn't much of a problem =)
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/home_gamestatus.aspx |
2/26/2017
Topic:
New ACP Unit
Doctor DreadAdministrator
|
LoImpact wrote:
I'm not sure how this fits in the overall scheme of this game, but I think a Storefront unit would be nice that does not produce anything but allows you to sell up to, say five items to a city would be nice. All other costs would remain the same. You could add or remove items as the market changes.
There already is one. Its called a Distribution Center. It can buy/sell 10 items at once Leveling it up increased its Buy Sell Power (how much it can buy/sell per slot in a turn) |
2/26/2017
Topic:
Unit/Structure Downgrading
Doctor DreadAdministrator
|
This weekends update finally added Unit and Structure Downgrading! (cheers).
You can downgrade one level at a time, it takes one turn, and you get half the credits you spent on the upgrade back when you downgrade. It's essentially a "One Level Salvage". Corp HQ cannot be downgraded. When downgrading a ship, you must select an existing upgrade that will be removed. The idea of "rearranging" all the upgrades on a ship at once was scrapped as it added a lot of time-consuming complexity. Perhaps in the future.
Another change was made concerning the combat oriented events (Pirates, Raiders, Mothership, Kaiju) that pay out a bounty. Instead of using the amount of damage done or received to determine how the bounty is paid out, it instead now uses the sum of your military Power used in every combat.
It's now the end of February and we're way behind schedule! There are a few more UI changes that would be great but hey might have to wait now. There are a couple of features I want to get in the game and then do a reset of the Beta test. I want to try to add the Asteroid mining and MAYBE give a crack at all the military orders having a "move to" component also. This would mean that your attack order, at the top would have the Move o Location interface also. Combining a movement order along with the other orders allows you to make one order that is "Move To Memphis at Sell Basic Minerals" and then "Move To New York and Pick up Basic Minerals" then a loop order. It also makes "Move to Location where a ship will be next turn AND attack it" in the same turn.
The reset is needed to implement the idea we have about making only the Planet Earth be "Terran Fed" controlled and the other planets be high resource open planets like the rest of the galaxy. |
2/27/2017
Topic:
HQ Production Change
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Orexis wrote:
I've noticed this with all production buildings. They'll say it takes X turns to change production, but it always takes only 1
I haven't looked into it yet but I have a feeling at one point there was a time to change production but that was just annoying so it was made to be next turn. the message itself was never updated. |
2/27/2017
Topic:
Ideas and suggestions
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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BaronOfThGalaxy wrote:
1# Multiple languages
2# Payment methods
3# Prices
4# Bonuses
1. Multiple languages of this game for example all top 10 spoken languages on our planet.
And beside that the top 10 countries which have the highest ratio of people involved into gaming culture, for let's say maybe it's a country with 100k people but 50k of them is into gaming, imo this would be even more important than top 10 spoken language around the whole planet. (like in Poland I know there are many many people playing computer games)
This will expand the accessibility considerably, beside that it's not always the accessabilty of understanding a foreign language, most cases it's also because it's spoken in your own language which like to attract.
2. Popular Payment methods beside PayPal for each country* like for example I Iive in the Netherlands where the payment method 'iDeal' is being used as most popular after PayPal which is an instant bank transfer.
For people who are not able to use paywall or for whatever other reason they are unable to use that method.
3. True prices for currencies, for example 5 dollar or euro is not 5 UK pounds or Australian pounds, you can price is that way but it'll make you look like a dck :P
Maybe there could be a reason for let's say server costs in the UK are twice as high as the average around the globe, for whatever reason you use servers there and how many of the income is used to maintain and keep the game online.
But that just requires communication towards your player base in such cases lol
4. Bonuses you get for paying extra like 500million starting money I consider myself stuff belonging one of the most laming stuff that ever happened in history of mankind, people exchanging their currencies for non-valuable currencies (virtual money).
Nearly every game does this kind of stuff yes, which is actually a scam on global scale.(no joke)
Also I prefer to build your capital from scratch starting the same as everyone, and not having the ability to pay real money to get fake money.
Just to pay premium and have extended abilities and support the game or to play for free and is restricted and 'maybe' later start supporting the game.
But that's how I look at it :P
Anyway these ideas are to expand the accessibility by considerable amount if not already planned and also makes the players of this game aware they are threatened as fair as possible, which is an exotic rare in this industry.
Aren't languages easy to implement through the browser now? Even On the main website, there is a "choose Your Language" dropdown at the very bottom of every page. You can make the entire site go Russian if you like. I didn't add that google translator to the main game yet though. But I know google chrome can translate any web page. It's not perfect because the text of other languages breaks the UI in a lot of places, but it works.
Payment methods, these are tricky to set up. Every company does it differently. I want to have more than PayPal because we do get a lot of other countries playing this game so we'll see what other ones we can get in there.
True prices? Ughhh, how about the Euros get a deal and the other countries end up paying a but more and we'll call it even =)
The "Pay for Virtual Money" thing we are planning to do is probably the most fair when it comes to these types of games. Its only allowed once and it will only get your started, you can't buy it later when you're already higher level, AND the higher tiers won't be available until the normal players have reached those higher levels. There won't be any "OMG you attacked me let me drop $50 and murder you" kind of action here. |
2/27/2017
Topic:
Quick quick question about the reset
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Danny Mayer wrote:
I would likw to confirme something.
Evry time there is a reset of the game we will receive the bonus we got if we paid like 90$or we need to buy it evry time?
There won't be any "resets" in the live game. But while we're in Beta Test and everyone is playing for free, "resets" might happen. So far I'm only planning to reset the game once. Perhaps in the next month or two. I will have to in order to try out some changes that I can't drop onto a game that's been running for a while.
Most likely on a reset all the corporations will be liquidated and get to start with their net worth, or maybe a fraction of it. Anyone who is "paid" will still be "paid" for a certain amount of time but we will probably be testing out the payment system after a reset so you can actually "test" it. But whatever you buy during that Beta will be given to you again in the live game. If you drop $90 during the beta, you're gonna get the $90 package when the game starts live in addition to playing the beta with it.
Not sure exactly how I want to handle the players that are worth 3 billion right now in this beta, whether it translates into a bonus for the next beta, it probably will because I can't "test" much in a month if everyone starts fresh |
2/27/2017
Topic:
Two small issues
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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JasonDinAlt wrote:
- When you create contract, availability for My System actually is saving as My Planet, and vice versa.
- In Viewscreen within Military tab, Cru(iser) and Carr(ier) words are swapped. In general filtering is bit buggy. See screenshot. There is no Destroyers in this location.
edited by JasonDinAlt on 2/24/2017
The unit counts are not for the city, they are for the planet, just like the top 10 grid is. It doesn't do counts at max zoom in.
There is a bug where it doesn't read Special units, it doesn't count Terminators as Infantry for example. Its a simple change but something I have to change in 100 places |
2/28/2017
Topic:
Movement orders no longer have an "Arrival Delay"
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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A major change that was easy to implement went in today.
Normally when a unit is moving it stop at its destination for the turn and then does its next order on the next turn. That has been changed. If a units movement that turn puts it at its destination, it will immediately switch to its next order in the list and execute it as normal that same turn. That means if you set a unit to move to a location and then attack that location your unit will attack it on the same turn he arrives there.
That not only saves a turn of time for every movement order you unit has it also has a nuanced but major effect of making "Chase downs" possible. It was impossible to "Chase" a unit and attack it while chasing it because you couldn't attack on the same turn that you moved on top of the other unit. Movement happens before combat so unless the unit was standing still OR you were set to attack the location you were already in, predicting the other unit was going to show up there next turn based on its route you could never really hit a moving target and definitely not more than one turn. Now that is possible. In fact if you know a units route, you can set up your attacker with the same route with attack orders between every movement and pound on it every turn.
Unless of course that unit is a little faster than yours.... =)
Also the Assets page should be showing the other order types int he notes now. Wait, Loop, Transfer, Deploy, Search |
2/28/2017
Topic:
Hangar Units randomly ejected in space
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Orexis wrote:
I had a warp carrier with orders to move from one system to another. In mid transit, just randomly in space the carrier decided to dump all the units out and keep going. The only commands the carrier had were old orders to attack raiders and the current order to move to earth. The carrier, nor any of the units were in the progress of being upgraded/downgraded, so I have absolutely no idea why it decided to randomly eject them
Ship: OIS Valkyrie
Units:
I'm not sure what happened but your warp carrier has 192 capacity right now and that list of units adds up to like over 400. Were the units upgrading before you got them on the carrier? Maybe through Mass Upgrade? |
3/2/2017
Topic:
Possible reason for crash
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Orexis wrote:
Id meant to tell my warp carrier and army to stop attacking as the carrier itsself was taking too much damage and was going to die at the same time as the mothership but i forgot to go in and stop it. I came back thinking id lost the carrier but it looks like the game stopped on the exact turn the ship would have died on (ship is 2% hp). As much as im glad it sisnt die, I wonder if the battle broke the game as both my carrier carrying units as well as the mothership would have died in that one battle.
Game seems to be running now. I can't see the logs from where I am. Did it recover the next turn? |
3/2/2017
Topic:
Hangar Units randomly ejected in space
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Orexis wrote:
Warp carrier had like 800 hanger space (120 base plus hypercube and some upgrades) been flying that fleet around for a while no problems
Its not carrying a hypercube right now its at Hangar lvl 6 264 max which is correct. A hypercube would of made it in the 800-950 range probably.
This might be what happened. Did you "lose" the hypercube upgrade on that thing? Shouldn't be possible |
3/2/2017
Topic:
Possible reason for crash
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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Orexis wrote:
Not sure how long after. Oddly the status went from a red X to a green check in the middle of a turn I think, before I had even changed the fleet's orders to no longer attack. So possibly wasn't my fleet and I just got very lucky. Very odd
I found the problem but I didn't push the fix up yet. Ill do it tomorrow. . I think this has been a elusive bug that I've seen before. The "Group" is not being updated correctly when units are being destroyed or damaged in it. When the carrier blew up, the only things left in the group were carried units, and it confused the code. But it looks like the group wasn't being updated when damaged either. This is why the "group" never shows damage when it should And it also doesn't update capacity when carried units are destroyed.
This fix should go in tomorrow. Don't get into a fight with a "group" that has a lone carrier in it that dies till tomorrow =) |
3/4/2017
Topic:
Evolution of the Splash Logo
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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I’ve been working on Barons of the Galaxy for a while now, years on and off, and I have seen it change dramatically over that time. One of the things that have evolved from inception to production over the last year was the website and splash logo. Every Indie developer has at least one good story about developing their game. To me this is the one that stands out most in my mind.
So my game is a SciFi themed strategy game with a heavy emphasis on politics, like a space opera. Where do I start with a “look” for that kind of game? There was a table top game I played a long time ago called Succession Wars. It was a war game based in the Battletech Universe but the scope was the galaxy and the players were representing the 5 Houses moving entire battalions of mechs around. I remember how I liked the Box Cover Art of that game and how at a glance you can tell what the game was about. It had 5 different kinds of leaders over some combat units. A modern game that had the same look was Novus Aeterno. I based my splash art around this inspiration.
Four or Five upper body portraits representing different personalities and positions and some unit flying out of the image sounds great. But where am I going to get artwork like that? I’m not that kind of artist. Well I can’t use images borrowed from the internet when I go live so I will eventually have to pay to have my own assets created but for now, just to get a prototype going, I will borrow from the internet! Looking around for Sci Fi portraits I came across ones created in Eve Online portrait generator. These look great and after a while I found something resembling “The Captain”, “The evil diplomat”, “The Good Pirate”, “ The Bad Pirate”, the “Corporate” and an extra.
Now I went looking for some cool looking ships and some kind of background. I’m thinking ships flying out of a black hole on one side and then a planet with cities or lights on the other. That would represent the game somewhat. So Again I found cool looking ships from Eve Online to use temporarily and some planet from google images that fit the look. Then Using Photoshop I put it all together with some appropriate text font and Viola, I got something going
I thought that was pretty good looking for scavenged images from google so I ran with that logo as inspiration while worked on the games website. After a while I felt I could make a much better looking version of those portraits if I made my own portraits in EvE Onlines portrait creator. I had played Eve Online years ago and knew all about it. My old account was long gone but I was able to get into the Portrait generator and create my own portraits. Now I had more control over the look/lighting etc., and came up with these.
Putting it together with the existing logo layout and I got something that looked pretty good. It’s a shame I can’t use any of it on the live site but it was very helpful in putting my idea on paper.
With that look I started working on how the website itself should look. Using the same kind of color schemes I came up with something that looks like this
Which turned into an actual website that was looking like this:
At this point the website was working and the game was almost ready for a Beta Test but I can’t use anything in that splash logo on the live site. Technically I think you CAN use other images like this as long as you are not making on money on your site. You are considered to be a “Fan site”. Just to be safe it was time to start having my own artwork done. Having the current logo helped immensely in getting something similar done. I found an artist on deviantart.com where I liked the look of his other portraits. I asked him to do a commission for me for the 5 portraits. I described what they were to look like and showed him the current logo as a guide. For $400 He came back with 5 hi res portraits which I put into my logo layout
I also had another artist who had AWESOME looking ship design do work for me also. For around $100 a unit I had already gotten back a couple of 3D models plus rendered ship images from him.
Putting that together my splash logo was about 90% legal, except for the planet.
But to be honest I wasn’t too happy with the look of the logo. I’m not an artist and for all the quality of the ships and custom portraits, the logo itself looked very bland. But then out of nowhere, the artist who made my portraits sent me his own vision for the splash logo! He said he had enjoyed working on them and the likes the game so who sent me this
Hey now! That splash art was looking pretty professional. It was as huge leap from what I had made and looked great. There was a problem however. The image wasn’t formatted at the right size for my website layout, I couldn’t make it work and when I asked the artist for the original Photoshop image where I can move around all the parts of the image, he didn’t have it any more. I didn’t want to remake the website just for this image. It also had the wrong color scheme with gold trim etc. I let it simmer for months until I told myself “Ya know, you’ve been doing Photoshop for years, you can put something together with some paid for stock images”. So I hunkered down and worked on new splash image using the last one as inspiration. I went to Shutterstock.com and got some paid images and vector graphics like $50 worth, even the planet and space backgrounds. I spent a few days putting together a 100% legal paid for and custom splash logo that looked so good it almost made me cry
I was very proud of myself for how it came out in the end. It almost looked like a “Real Game” I reworked the website a little but to allow it change width with the splash image and the website now looks as good as the logo
For a solo project I think it all came together looking pretty good. The logo and website had morphed over the course of a year. With a little help and some confidence It went from an inspirational box cover art from 1980s to a Splash Art that an Indie Dev can be proud of. The lesson learned was to stay on it, let it simmer and don’t be afraid to get some help. I hope other developers have the same good experience with it which I did =) |
3/4/2017
Topic:
Guide / Combat Section
Doctor DreadAdministrator
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I see this also. The browsers aren't giving. A sroll bar when the table with combat info gets crushed as small as it can go. I think I k ow how to correct that
In meantime try zooming out the. Rower CNTRL + minus plus or zero to return to 100 percent zoom |