DrDread

all messages by user

5/11/2016
Topic:
The Alpha Test v2 reporting thread

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Masdus wrote:
Movement also appears to be somewhat intermittent. Several times I have watched a unit with movement of 5 begin a long journey, and the first turn it only moves 1 space diagonally. After that though it appears to travel at the correct speed.


Units only move in a straight line in a single turn, one of the 8 directions. So often they will stop and "turn" somewhere along the way to line them up with there destination If you're traveling to another spot that is one square higher but 10 squares to the side, any unit even a fast moving ship will move diagonally one space to line itself up horizontally and stop there, then travel in a straight line next turn as far as it can go. You can usually predict where any units are going to "stop" between two cities. I believe the code will try to resolve a units vertical location first, then the horizontal. This also means that a unit traveling in a loop between two cities doesn't take the same path to and from, it kind of makes a circle or ellipse. It might go up and then to the right to get to a city then goes down and to the left to get back
5/11/2016
Topic:
The Alpha Test v2 reporting thread

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Baston wrote:
Okay, it seems we have some problems with the population system.
- The cities of the sol system that were here since the beginning are not affected by the population growth. They don't regenerate after battles.
- Concerning the battles, for example the battle 665 on Pulto_6 caused a Pop.Lost of 49 000, but the city has lost 432 000 inhabitants in one turn. Plus the fact that they don't regenerate, it's kinda problematic. The three cities that appeared on Pluto after the implementation of the "galaxy expansion" have been completly wiped out.
Edit : from further observations, cities do regenerate after battle, but cities where no battles ever occured don't grow.
And according to another player, newly founded cities disappear if you remove the industries on them, I will try to test it myself later.

Other bug :
Military bases don't help groups to recover faster, it's only at a rate of 1% instead of something like 5% with the ungrouped units.
edited by Baston on 5/10/2016


All the cities that showed up in Sol were removed. There are not supposed to be any new cities popping up in Sol. We took them out the same day they went in. Sorry didn't mention it.

The populations of the Sol cities are forced to swing back to a default in any event. They might be swinging back to hard and the combat damage isn't affecting them. Like the demand limiters, the pop default in Sol might be too strict. Sol needs to remain stable no matter what happens there but there needs to be more movement allowed since a lot of players will be playing out there games there.

Military units repairing faster: I haven't checked to see if it works lately so I'll take a look at it but normally repair is 1% a turn but when ground units are at a base or ships are at a shipyard, the repair rate goes up 1% per level of yard or base that is present, the highest one only. So if a level 5 base is there you should be repairing at 5% instead of 1%. I have to double check if what I'm saying is accurate, its changed a couple of times.
5/11/2016
Topic:
The Alpha Test v2 reporting thread

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Baston wrote:
Okay, so the sol system is fixed, that explains a lot ^^
However even if you say that combat damage shouldn't affect the cities in Sol system, it does. Well, they recover so it's fine.

I think that the base level as the repairing rate is indeed accurate, from what I observed. But the problem is, it doesn't work on groups of units which recover at a rate of only 1% even in presence of a military base. You need to remove them from the group to have an higher recovery rate.

By the way, what about the problem with the population growth and the spawn of new cities in the Odegard system ?
edited by Baston on 5/11/2016


Units INSIDE A GROUP aren't reacting to the presence of a Military Base when it comes to repairs, that sounds very legitimate. Have to look at that.

In the Odegard system, or anything outside of SOl there is no limiters in place. If the cities out there have an average demand for products below 200 they should increase in population at a faster rate the lower the demand is. Above that they start to lose population at an increasing rate. The demand is not limited so they will keep rising until they max at 1000. The current settings make demand rise naturally at about 500 a week. But if 90% of the demand for product starts to go that high, the population will plummet. There isn't anything in the code that destroys cities. I think there might be something that keeps the minimum population to something like 10k or at least keeps volume from not going below 10 maybe, have to check on that.

The only real effect of losing population is that the volume will go down. You might try to sell 1000 units of product but the volume is only 50 so it literally takes 20 turns to do It but you also dropped the demand by 10 (you pushed it down 20 but it naturally goes up half a point a turn) . You can potentially plummet the demand with a large shipment after making a killing on it if the demand was at 1000.

The rate at which the demand goes up, which is half a point a turn, is probably too high. It makes demand go up to 1000 in 2 weeks if no one sells. It used to be 0.1 a turn which would take it 2 and half months to go to 1000 unsold.

With less cities it makes more sense but I feel that there will be a lot of small cities started outside of Sol. Every good resource will be jumped on and taken to past 500 industry pretty quickly.

Its all hard to predict though. With no Terran Feds out there and only Player rulers defending their cities people might flock to the cities instead of be spread out everywhere. Need to get that ruler ship event in place. We'll see =)
5/11/2016
Topic:
The Alpha Test v2 reporting thread

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Baston wrote:
I found a serious bug with the "Guard" order. When I ask :
- Guard entire location, it forces the guard order to 10 turns.
- Guard single corp, it forces the guard order to 1 turns.
- Guard guild, it forces the guard order to 5 turns.

Btw, I have now two industries that reached 500 or more prod on Odegard XI, but no cities appeared.
Edit : cities finally appeared. Don't know why they did not before.
edited by Baston on 5/11/2016

Guard bug found, was actually a display problem it was actually set correctly just displaying the wrong column in the database.
I found the repair while in a group problem also
The cities appearing check happens on every 100th turn along with Titles. Every 100th turn for some reason has become the special turn where some of the bigger checks happen once a day or so
I haven't pushed the fixes yet, I have a few others coming in the next update hopefully in a couple of days.
As always thanks for the reporting =)
5/11/2016
Topic:
The Alpha Test v2 reporting thread

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Masdus wrote:
Turns out logistic penalty is active, but does not match the percent calculation shown on the asset page.


This bug keeps lingering, its a timing problem that I'm missing somewhere, Military needs to be recalculated before the whole logistics thing happens.
5/12/2016
Topic:
The Alpha Test v2 reporting thread

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Baston wrote:
Concerning raids, I think there is a problem in the amount of ressources we can raid each turn.
If I attack with for example 1 or 2000 mechanizeds (in size), I raid 20 in both case.
For what I know, the amount we raid is : power / size
Shouldn't it be : (power * number of units) / size. Or simply : power ?


The raid mechanic was incorporating the size of the unit as an easy way to make smaller high attacking units raid better then say a freighter. But you're right there is a missing exclusion for ground units that level up, they are being stuck at the same amount because their size is being used to divide their power. It's a big but the whole mechanic was quick and dirty at the time.

I really need to go ahead and make a "Raid Power" stat on all the units and not use this kind of monkey logic in the first place. Be a lot easier to control and understand as a "stat".

I'm working on a bunch of changes, I'll try to get this one in also.
5/14/2016
Topic:
The Alpha Test v2 reporting thread

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Masdus wrote:
Turns out logistic penalty is active, but does not match the percent calculation shown on the asset page.


I'm not seeing your bug. Your military units seem to be costing what they should . They all cost per turn 10% higher than normal .
A commando is normal 16 per turn *100 (level 10) its 1600 per turn. Then add 10% because of your 10% penalty and its 1760 per turn.
A corvette is 500 per turn normally, its 20% more per level for upkeep so level 10 its 1500 per turn. +10% penalty is 1650.
Your total military upkeep cost should be 10% higher than normal right now.
5/15/2016
Topic:
Updates coming in tommarow 5/15/2016

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Big list of changes. It's 1AM here but these are coming out by midday:
  • Tutorial money adjusted to go up with price of transports
  • Carriers can now load "what they can" when given the order to. Starts with the smallest units first
  • Repair for grouped units wasn't getting a bonus for being in a location with base or shipyard, they should now
  • The set amount of turns getting stuck for loop and guard orders should be fixed.
  • The "divide by size" mechanic for raid power was removed. Larger ground units should raid for appropriate amounts. Was a difficult and temporary mechanic. There might be a raid stat in the future. For now powerful ships can probably raid well
  • Units left in space without a carrier take damage every round
  • Bases and shipyards can now build higher level versions of the units, at a level equal to the bases level if desired. The construction time and cost go up appropriately but there is a 20% bonus on the time through a base
  • There is now a 20% interest charged on your "debt" if your corp fund are below zero
  • Construction time on all ground units has quadrupled(!)
  • The upgrade cost bonus on units is being removed. it costs the full amount to upgrade units (used to cost 50%) there is a bonus to construction time when building higher level units through high level bases
  • Many of the units combat stats have been tweaked. Smaller ships, like destroyers are cheaper but with less hit points. Hit points of tanks and suits brought down a notch. Some combat values against fighters was changed.
  • The combat matrix on the Guide tab of the website shows the construction turns of units as well as there hangar and cargo
  • Assets page altered to show size of units next to their level (x75 for example)
5/15/2016
Topic:
Updates coming in tommarow 5/15/2016

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
This just went live. Please report if something went screwy!

There is also a plan to make repairs cost money so If you knock a x100 stack of variteks down to 10% and they get away they don't recover in a day for free. Might see something like that in another update

We really want to move onto Events this coming week, tweaks to the military and logistics will still show up but hopefully we can have a vote for a city ruler out in the new star system next week
5/15/2016
Topic:
Alpha Testing Week 4

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
Big list of changes and fixes this week in our latest latest update
  • Tutorial money adjusted to go up with price of transports
  • Carriers can now load "what they can" when given the order to. Starts with the smallest units first
  • Repair for grouped units wasn't getting a bonus for being in a location with base or shipyard, they should now
  • The set amount of turns getting stuck for loop and guard orders should be fixed.
  • The "divide by size" mechanic for raid power was removed. Larger ground units should raid for appropriate amounts. Was a difficult and temporary mechanic. There might be a raid stat in the future. For now powerful ships can probably raid well
  • Units left in space without a carrier take damage every round
  • Bases and shipyards can now build higher level versions of the units, at a level equal to the bases level if desired. The construction time and cost go up appropriately but there is a 20% bonus on the time through a base
  • There is now a 20% interest charged on your "debt" if your corp fund are below zero
  • Construction time on all ground units has quadrupled(!)
  • The upgrade cost bonus on units is being removed. it costs the full amount to upgrade units (used to cost 50%) there is a bonus to construction time when building higher level units through high level bases
  • Many of the units combat stats have been tweaked. Smaller ships, like destroyers are cheaper but with less hit points. Hit points of tanks and suits brought down a notch. Some combat values against fighters was changed.
  • The combat matrix on the Guide tab of the website shows the construction turns of units as well as there hangar and cargo
  • Assets page altered to show size of units next to their level (x75 for example)
There is also a plan to make repairs cost money so If you knock a x100 stack of variteks down to 10% and they get away they don't recover in a day for free. Might see something like that in another update.
Another major change we're looking to implement is that ground units cannot upgrade themselves, instead the Upgrade would have to be assigned or initiated by a military base on the planet and be tracked in that bases construction queue. This will make your bases dictate how much and how fast you can increase the size of your forces and not a torrent of smaller units upgrading themselves

We really want to move onto Events this coming week, tweaks to the military and logistics will still show up but hopefully we can have a vote for a city ruler out in the new star system next week. It seems any real bugs have been cleared with few exceptions.
5/20/2016
Topic:
Planet city population

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
the demand on the products dictates growth an average of under 200 will make it grow, otherwise it falls in relation to how high the demand is. We're still toying with numbers but it's difficult to guage because there's only a handful of people playing in an alpha who can't sell 150 different products to the city so it kind of crashes after being created. In theory everyone would rush to sell products that are pushing 1000 demand but until we tweak the logistics again everyone will have too much money to care =)
5/20/2016
Topic:
Moving HQ to the New System

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
This is because only "paid" accounts can go outside of Sol. I'm going to open this up in the next update (you're all going to be "paid" accounts!) I'm trying to get events in place so you can be elected as city ruler at the same time.
5/20/2016
Topic:
Planet city population

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
I agree with you =) There needs to be a minimum cap on volume, at least 10 probably 100 regardless of population. The rate the demand increases also needs to slow down so it doesn't hit 1000 in a week. The population growth or decline should also be slowed so the population doesn't crash so easily.

You should try freighter shipping materials that goes into making something else, like Night clubs, or end products to a factory out there and let it sell that stuff. So your freighter can pick up and dump quickly.

In the next update the logistics on structures is going way down, people wont have 50 factories building everything realistically.
5/20/2016
Topic:
Chaos Bomb heading for Sol System! (Updates Inc)

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
There are some DRASTIC changes coming this weekend, probably Sunday evening 5/20/2016. Mostly the Logistics, repairs and hopefully events.
The Structure and Military Logistics are changing as follows:

Your max structures is 2 + your current corp level. Yes that means you can have only 12 structures at level 10 (Your Corp HQ does not count for logistics). before getting a 5% per structure penalty. If you've got 30 structures right now you'll be getting an enormous penalty if you don't salvage some. The penalty mechanic stays the same but at 5% for every 1 you are over your max. Level of the structure is irrelevant.

Military logistics does not go by straight count of units anymore. A units level is how much it counts towards logistics except for ships which use their size stat to determine how much they count towards logistics. For example a level 8 ground units costs 8, a level 2 ground unit cost 2,, A Corvette cost 1 regardless of its level, a Freighter costs 4 and so does a battleship. The military logistics maximum is now 50 per corp level, that's 25 100x stacks of ground units at level 5 corp HQ or literally 250 Corvettes before getting a penalty of 1% for every "point" over your max That 50 per level might go down again in the future

Repairs: Structures only repair 1% per turn now instead of 5%. Military units repair 1% per turn as before but the bonus for being in the location with a base or shipyard was cut in half. You can get a 5% per turn repair at a location with a level 10 base.
It will now cost money to repair military units! It's currently set at 0.2% of the units value per turn. That means to repair a unit from 0% to full 100 turns later will cost 20% of what the unit is worth over that time. That can be a lot in a short time for a 100x stack of Variteks. Currently, repairing faster at a base does not increase the cost. You either "repaired" or didn't and repair cost that set amount. There is currently no way to halt repairs and they still happen automatically. It also will repair even if you don't have the money putting you in debt and can crash your corp. A way to stop your units from repairing and not repair them if you don't have the funds will be implemented in the future.

Everyone will be given a "paid" account which should allow you to move your Corp HQ out of Sol and into the new systems.

Some things that may or not make it this update:

You will only be able to upgrade one unit per military base (for ground units) or Shipyard (for ships) that you have, probably regardless of level. It may become another logistics stat at the top of the assets page. This will keep you from spawning 100 small units to upgrade farm them. Your bases can still construct normally.

Getting 50% back for salvaging a unit might scale down to 25% depending on how damaged the unit is. A destroyed unit would give 25%


UPDATE (5/22/2016)

There have been so many changes to the system that we now plan to spend another day or two making a few more changes and then we will restart the game entirely. It will be an Alpha 3 with another chunk of players who have signed up in the last month.
edited by DrDread on 5/22/2016
5/21/2016
Topic:
Planet city population

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
The game is a little messed up from all the crazy building weeks ago. It really needs to be restarted or maybe do a liquidate on everyone after the new changes go into effect. I don't think lowering the structure count will make the contract trading worse. If you could only make a handful of different items you would almost have to deal with other players. However I don't want to make the logistics the limitation so much as the ability to do everything yourself and be profitable be the limitation. We'll see how things go tomorrow morning and maybe we'll make the structure reduction a little less sever. We'll save the "full effect' for a Beta test after we have events and such working.
5/22/2016
Topic:
Chaos Bomb heading for Sol System! (Updates Inc)

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
There have been so many changes to the system that we now plan to spend another day or two making a few more changes and then we will restart the game entirely. It will be an Alpha 3 with another chunk of players who have signed up in the last month.
5/22/2016
Topic:
Preparing for Alpha Test 3 within the week

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
There have been so many changes to the system that we now plan to spend another day or two making a few more changes and then we will restart the game entirely. It will be an Alpha 3 with another chunk of players who have signed up in the last month.
UPDATE: We're planning to restart the game on Sunday May 28th
edited by DrDread on 5/28/2016
5/23/2016
Topic:
Chaos Bomb heading for Sol System! (Updates Inc)

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
The numbers on the bigger ships are changing some also. They're going to do more ground damage especialy the monolith
5/25/2016
Topic:
Battle Messages

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
I feel the same way. I was thinking of making the message just update the existing message if the battle is just another round in the same location. Either that or a "Delete all battle messages" button
5/26/2016
Topic:
User accounts set to "Paid"

Doctor Dread
Doctor Dread
Administrator
User accounts for everyone playing has been set to "Paid". You can re-locate your Corp HQ if you like. We're still working on changes like the events system and hope to launch an Alpha 3 when its ready by this weekend.




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