DrDread

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8/17/2017 Topic: Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters Doctor Dread Administrator	I don't have an average population growth rate to display on a city or planet to display because its actually PER PRODUCT and each product is linked to the 9 different pop levels at different rates so its difficult to show how a booster would effect this. If the population is 90% class 1 pop and the demadn for the class 1 pop products is really high but the other 8 pop classes are all demand 100 but with 1000 pop each, the "average" population growth would be tricky to understand. it might be a lot easier to use the mechanic of geo boosting moves the Demand break even point for poulation growth up from 200 to 300. That would make a lot more sense and be a lot easier to see and understand by looking at the demand of the city. Then boosting the planet and system would raise it to 500. But you can never get population growth is the demand average is past 500 Since there are probably going tobe other things that "boot Population growth" like ring worlds and such, I might just have to go with a straight "bonus" that acts as a percentage boost that is easy to understand
8/17/2017 Topic: We pushed Orbital Megastructures for Testing Doctor Dread Administrator	Vulpex wrote: Gammalpha wrote: Yeah but Vulpex/Machina said above that it only applies to ships hence my confusion. Yup that was my mistake I really thought that was the case but now I have tested it in other situations and it does indeed provide a bonus to other units. Not 100% certain if it gives a bonus to the orbital guns though. .... Thats a good question actually. Because of the way the guns are being added after everything else is in place they might be getting excluded from the boost. That might be true for defenses and escorts as well. I will have to look at that and add them in if neccesary
8/17/2017 Topic: We pushed Orbital Megastructures for Testing Doctor Dread Administrator	Hutton wrote: Maybe it's just me, but it seems to me that the starbase and orbital gun as described are redundant. They do essentially the same thing, just calculate the bonus differently. The rail gun might be more efficient if you are spreading your forces to guard a lot of positions without allies across a planet, and the starbase will be more efficient if between you and your allies you have units concentrated at the important positions. One will probably get built nearly all of the time and the other barely at all, depending on how the meta shakes out. (My guess would be star bases most of the time). I think your missing an opportunity to make star bases a real tool for planetary sovereignty rather than just a higher end orbital gun. The orbital gun is an actual unit that shows up to the fight, every fight, a giant x10 power railgun at level 1. The starbase doesn't show up, its just boosts whatever units you already have. I realize that in theory they are both just combat boosts to "all combat" and I do see where you're coming from. Planet Sovereignty is something I am actually looking at because its a popular idea. It probably wont require any orbitals to achieve but of course since its a threat of force mechanic having the combat orbitals would definitely help. I'm looking for a good way to declare soverignty on a planet and it will show up very clearly to anyone zoomed in on it looking to move a freighter to sell etc. that they will be attacked on sights. Youcan declare it for your corp or your entire guild. It would engage the type of blockade mechanics we've discussed before where anything that isn't you or your guild will be auto attacked. Or perhaps "auto attacking" becomes more of an attack order option that is similar to guard but is , well, "Attack" anything that isn't corp or guild in range, or planet location etc.. The units will auto move to and attack any hostile. This would essentially be adding the "chase down" mechanic that doesn't exist yet. It was dependent on the whole "move then do your next order" implementation that I put in months ago so now it should be a lot easier to do a chase down and attack. You would be able to attack a specific ship if you wanted and your units will Move and attack as that target moves. then of course I add the "If you destroy something, all the cargo becomes yours" and you can literally chase down the freighter carrying the AX artifacts and take them =) This is where orbitals and star bases could be very different. you can have fast scouts on the planet that auto engage and when they do , they bring in the orbitals to actually fight off freighters and such. It also makes "fast" ships worth something as they can essentially outrun blockades. We can even make you declare an entire star system soveriegn =)
8/18/2017 Topic: Unread topic bugs: forum edition Doctor Dread Administrator	I've encountered this also. This forum has a couple of problems but otherwise it works great. I can't easily fix anything though
8/18/2017 Topic: We pushed Orbital Megastructures for Testing Doctor Dread Administrator	Having units station in the orbit or some other location like the starbase and be able to teleport or attack anywhere from that position doesn't really work well. It does for Orbital guns but not for fleets. I would rather have them do the chase down. Having units auto chase down bad guys is something I need to implement anyway so I can have bad guys chase you down =) When I mentioned Sovereignty I was talking about declaring a planet "yours" without the election. Like going to some moon with a fleet and declaring "this moon is mine, everyone else is going to be auto attacked". You and your Pirate Guild can take over some rogue planet as a base.. You can even do that inside a system with a star lord. Or even a city.
8/18/2017 Topic: Ion Cannon Doctor Dread Administrator	Artillery used to hit harder on ships, but it still hits ships pretty hard, harder than any ground unit. The Ion gun hits for 5x normal? so 50 on ships? Then you put an artifact on it ...
8/18/2017 Topic: Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters Doctor Dread Administrator	I can't allow geo boosters, or any population boosting structure to make a city prosperous past the average 200 demand threshold or it will break the game. If you can make a city have all 500 demand and still be going UP in population its going to ruin the game. Whatever mechanic we use has to not allow that to happen. Boosters, or pop boosting megastructures aren't meant to jump start a small city by adding a static number of population, they are just mean to accelerate the existing growth. Its something you can put on top of an already thriving city , not bring it back from the toilet. The only way to make a city "work" is to sell it products and keep the demand low. The game has to revolve around that base mechanic. Just like Orbital Megastructures are useless around small planet (no ones warping or trading much) , you don't place booster on small cities either.
8/18/2017 Topic: Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters Doctor Dread Administrator	Aywanez wrote: Doctor Dread wrote: they are just mean to accelerate the existing growth. Its something you can put on top of an already thriving city , not bring it back from the toilet. See, that right there is what makes them volatile. Purchasing and using a geo-booster on your city makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. It doesn't matter what the boost is, that just determines at what size one becomes the other. If geo-boosters made small cities bigger, but was relatively little help to megapolia, it would have a stabilizing influence instead. Just something to think about. Doctor Dread wrote: I can't allow geo boosters, or any population boosting structure to make a city prosperous past the average 200 demand threshold or it will break the game. If you can make a city have all 500 demand and still be going UP in population its going to ruin the game. Well, let's see. a 500 demand city loses 3‱ of its population every turn, so if you want 500 to be the break even point for a triple-boosted city (you said in some places that you did, and in others you didn't, but for the moment we will assume you do) a boost should give 1‱ per boost. Roughly 1/10th of what it gives now. That is a massive nerf, and people will be upset. Rightly upset. I do like the idea you had about geoboosts increasing growth and decreasing decline, depending on which is happening. Well, at any rate, I like it a lot more than the pop-multiplier we have now. One problem I have with it, is that while the alt-boost is useful for a demand 10% city and really useful for an 999% demand one, has no effect at all on demand 200% city, theoretically the most common city there would be if the system stopped being such a crazy oscillator. But it is a matter of opinion. edited by Aywanez on 8/18/2017 You are correct that it wouldn't have an effect on a demand 200% city if we do it like this. I don't see any other way of doing it if I need to prevent a over 200% average demand city from increasing in population. Im ok with "Its useless to boost that city, its not even growing" . Its the same thing as "Its not worth putting a warp gate on this dead moon". Allowing the booster to scale down the decline is more of a bonus use for it. This also works with the persistent bonuses I'm already trying to incorporate through ringworld and Dysonsphere or whatever else we come up with. If its positive its more positive, if its negative its less negative. Thats the bonus of having this boosters in place. But if you put them on a dead potential city its going to fail edited by DrDread on 8/18/2017
8/19/2017 Topic: Negative products Doctor Dread Administrator	Hutton wrote: I somehow have -20,682 Precious Minerals in New York right now. Well that's facinating. Are you doing anything with Precious Minerals at that location>? Buy sell Dist center ect? edited by DrDread on 8/19/2017
8/20/2017 Topic: Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters Doctor Dread Administrator	Tunguska wrote: I'm not sure how you expect this game to play out. When I sell products, I go for the best price, I'm not sure where the incentive is to sell at below 200%? There wont be much over 200 if it negatively affect the planets population. That was the original mechanic. The Geo boosters as is are breaking they simply multiply existing population which counteracts any negative from the demand.
8/20/2017 Topic: Orbital Megastructures are now available Doctor Dread Administrator	The 4 orbital megastructures we were toying with this week are ow available to build. They are large 5000 cargo ACPs that can be built from your Corp HQ. They can only be deployed at specific locations around a planet. You can see them if you click the Overlay checkbox on the viewscreen. you MUST have the highest military power at the location to deploy them, So sendyour fleet to "reserve" a spot if you need to. There is a section in the guide under Construction that details them The tweak to Geo Boosters is going to take until next week to put in, I'm actually building a way to add any kind of bonus at city,planet,system level so we can do things like Ringworlds and Dyson spheres. the Geo boosting event is going to be a part of that. All "boosts" to population is going to increase an existing positive growth only or cut down the severity of a negative growth if there is one. You won't be able to take a declining city and make it positive with any amount of boosting, only slow down the decline. Random events that affect population will still operate the same way.
8/21/2017 Topic: Orbital Megastructures are now available Doctor Dread Administrator	Vulpex wrote: 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? The random events will work the way geo boosters work now, multiplying existing population regardless of the current growth rate. If it says its going to increase population by 5% it will do exactly that. There is going to be a current growth rate displayed somewhere when I get it working. It will show the normal growth rate based on demand and any bonuses, including geo boosting, so you can see where its coming from. But the random events that do straight population change will still do exactly that. Geoscorcher is a great question, I haven't even thought about those yet. My first thought is to leave them the way they are and have them nuke population directly. I could make them the exact reverse of the booster, so it scales back population growth and increases population decline, but that seems awkward. Actually they would just be providing a Negative pop bonus and if that takes the total pop bonus into the negative then it would have the effect i just described. Makes it seem less like a weapon that way though. It literally couldn't drop population if the city was positive growth already only accelerate its decline if it was below 200 demand.
8/21/2017 Topic: Spaceport Doctor Dread Administrator	I think you're right I mistyped the wording Its 0.001 of the total which is 0.1 PERCENT, at level 10 it would be 0.1 of the total, which is 10% The profit on Earth is staggering amount of money because there is SO MUCH selling happening. I played with the numbers and I ended up lowering the upkeep cost of the orbitals and setting that percentage just to make the Spaeports profitable AT ALL on any planet but Earth and maybe Guyaeve or something when I looked at it. Earth is like 2-3 zeroes past any other planet when it comes to selling. I was considering making the orbitals around earth be terran fed controlled because of the potential there. I also MIGHT have to make the spaceports share the wealth between them somehow and not let them straight stack. Not sure. The orbitals around earth should be incredibly valuable, I really want to get to a "Capture" mechanic one day so they can be taken and not destroyed =)
8/21/2017 Topic: Spaceport Doctor Dread Administrator	Hutton wrote: Also, the power of air units in your hanger isn't counting towards blockading the orbital location. I have a feeling the fleet power isn't adding the carried units either and that's where the miscalculation is actually coming from. The potential damage on the More Info for the fleet is probably off in the same way.
8/21/2017 Topic: Spaceport Doctor Dread Administrator	Vulpex wrote: 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. ... What if you raid the spaceport, you get the profits? =) edited by DrDread on 8/21/2017
8/22/2017 Topic: Spaceport Doctor Dread Administrator	Aywanez wrote: Doctor Dread wrote: Vulpex wrote: 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. ... What if you raid the spaceport, you get the profits? =) edited by DrDread on 8/21/2017 How did you get that from his message? Or do you mean that is a planned feature? I'm saying its a feature idea, a way to "raid" the spaceport to steal profits? It could be as simple as gong to the spaceport and attacking on Raid option, even though there is no product to raid, it will register the spaceport and steal credits also, maybe based on military power. Attaching raid to credit stealing seems clunky though OR something more fun, you can essentially "blockade" the spaceport somehow with a fleet and take the profits while you hold it without any damage. That would be a great way to "capture" a Spaceport without actually switching owners and is easily reversed. Can almost make a "blockade" option on attack which would do this sort of thing, but it would only apply to a single location and wouldn't effect anything but a spaceport. I don't want a new order just for that one thing. Perhaps making it another effect of a raid will work. If there is a spaceport there it steals credits equal to military power? You can do that while fighting another fleet. Its essentially Spaceport piracy =)
8/22/2017 Topic: It is possible to buy items at demand prices Doctor Dread Administrator	Aywanez wrote: See contract No 4594 Cities do not have demand for items, so it is entirely unclear what the price should even be. Basically this should not be allowed by the game. That is an oversight. you shouldn't be allowed to make a contract like that
8/22/2017 Topic: Spaceport Doctor Dread Administrator	Aywanez wrote: Why not make it a permanent option? Instead of a specific good, steal credits equal to power (or more likely 100 x power, credits equal to power are not worth the fleet upkeep) but no more than the money that location earns that turn. Most locations just sell loose products to a city, but a spaceport would be where you really could really clean up. This would also not replace regular raids, as most goods (even tier 1) can be sold for more than 100 credits. That is if you manage to get away with them. edited by Aywanez on 8/22/2017 So I just add a "Credits From Sells" as one of the "products" you can raid for and it will steal credits from any sells happening at that location/corp you selected. on a Spaceport it would be the money the spaceport made. Perhaps you can attack Corp HQs for all their profits? Attacking all of New York would steal from a dozen players who traded there that turn. The max can be something like what you said but based on Military power, or what I like better is that it steals a percentage of it based on your military power compared to thiers, so if they have NO military power, I can steal it all, If I have equal military power I cant steal any, if I have double your military power I can take half. A scale like that as opposed to static numbers. I would extend that to products also.A small fast fleet can hit an unprotected spaceport and get away with millions or fill their cargo holds
8/23/2017 Topic: Perhaps its time to tweak Geo Boosters Doctor Dread Administrator	nynobernie wrote: Another idea... Could you just scale down the bonus of the geobooster depending on the population? For example if population the city is 0 (hypothetical) the booster gives 10% (or 5% whatever) bonus. At 50 Mio the bonus ist halved to 5 %. At 100 Mio population the bonus is 0%. So no matter how many boosters are active in parallel, population could never grow above 100 Mio. And in larger cities, the demand effects would start to outweigh the boosters benefit. Scaling down the bonus just scales down the "max demand" you can achieve for a planet while still keeping its population breaking even. Currently You might be able to pull off say 600 demand and steady population while boosting it continually, cutting it to 5% might allow you to keep it at 3-400. We don't wnat any planet increasing in population if the average is past 200. Most of the game balance revolves around the demand staying around 100 for "normal" profits
8/23/2017 Topic: Product sorting Doctor Dread Administrator	Aywanez wrote: I'm sorry I was unclear in my bug report. There are 3 parts: The view is Assets and inside it Overview the sorting is requested by the Lvl/Qty column but products actually get sorted by alphabet. This still happens. When you try to sort it by level it still goes alphabetically? Is that what you're saying?

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