6/16/2017 Topic: Price Limits for Buy/Sell Orders Leyic1	This would be an optional limit when placing a 'buy from city' or 'sell from city' order. The unit will not buy a good if the current price for that good is above the limit. The unit will not sell a good if the current price for that good is below the limit. This would make it possible to avoid a scenario where a unit engaged in trade ends up buying high and selling low, but without requiring the unit to remember the previous prices at which it bought goods. It would also be useful for preventing the sale of a product below a specified price if there's any concern that the demand may crash.
6/19/2017 Topic: Assets Page, City expansion, unit balance Leyic1	Looking at logistically equivalent groups of max level units (going full defense for spacecraft), ground units still have a significant advantage. Monoliths win against anything other than air units, dreadnoughts lose to battlesuits and artillery, battleships also lose to commandos, and destroyers and cruisers only win against mechanized and armored. What seems strange is that 12 level 10 transports win against 15 max defense cruisers, though it would take dozens of turns and the cruisers would severely damage the transports. Though maybe it makes sense numerically as the fight is 1200 vs. 15. Or perhaps there are errors in my spreadsheet. Edit: Of course part of the potential of cruisers is that they can carry bombers, but that complicates trying to calculate logistically equivalent groups. edited by Leyic1 on 6/19/2017
6/20/2017 Topic: Assets Page, City expansion, unit balance Leyic1	I didn't mean to get into a discussion about transports specifically. The other poster said "I think large capital ships should be nigh invulnerable to regular ground units.", but my analysis shows that this is far from the case currently. Cruisers are described as capital ships (nothing about them being large), but a max defense cruiser can be brought down by any max level ground unit (except mechanized units). Not only are most space units vulnerable to many ground units, but it's counterintuitive that even the weakest ground units can take on a space unit and win once sufficiently leveled. Like, what weaponry is a transport or infantry unit even using that a cruiser couldn't deal with by staying out of range? It reminds me of Civilization where spearmen can take down helicopters. Anyhow, the reason I normalized the logistical cost was so that I could analyze cost (specifically upkeep) efficiency for ground and space units (not fixed structures). The results are... interesting. Scouts are most cost effective at taking down scouts. Transports are most cost effective at taking down corvettes. Infantry are most cost effective at taking down freighters. Commandos are most cost effective at taking down frigates, destroyers, and battleships. Bombers are most cost effective at taking down carriers, cruisers, dreadnoughts, and monoliths. But this is idealized, pure combat. Most people will fight with mixed compositions, so relying only on transports or infantry to fight off invading fleets won't do much good when said fleet has other ground units in their hangar space (though I suppose a transport-only defense would help against someone attacking only with scouts, corvettes, and destroyers). And a ground v. space fight with even numbers logistically will take hours, giving time for others to intervene. I guess I do find it a little off that commandos might be the best unit at taking down particular spacecraft when they're supposed to be specialized counters to fixed structures.
6/20/2017 Topic: Assets Page, City expansion, unit balance Leyic1	Regarding commandos damaging capital ships: That's a fine explanation for how they do it, but from a balance perspective, should commandos be more cost effective than bombers at taking down capital ships when they are also the most cost effective unit by an order of magnitude at taking down fixed defenses? They're basically a solid anti-ship defense unit and the best anti-structure offense unit, when every other unit in the game seems to be specialized against a certain type of unit, or a jack-of-all-trades. Edit: Commandos already do plenty of damage against ion cannons and shields. Two commandos would take down a same level cannon or shield in one turn. And if commandos can fight from space, then carriers might not need bombers or escorts to defend them except against dreadnoughts and monoliths. edited by Leyic1 on 6/20/2017 edited by Leyic1 on 6/20/2017
6/20/2017 Topic: Assets Page, City expansion, unit balance Leyic1	My math: Starting from the combat table, put everything at max level (I put ships at max defense), multiply by the number of units you need to have 120 logistics (for equivalency), determine relative damage against different units and divide by the total upkeep. If you're defending, time isn't too important; either the attacker will be ground to dust, or the attacker will retreat, or someone will intervene, possibly on your behalf. If someone intervenes against you, you have diplomatic problems and determining optimal defense composition won't help you, but this isn't a concern against NPCs. If you're attacking, there's no fog of war so you can optimize composition for that specific battle and choose the time it occurs. But realistically my analysis is idealized because no one is going to fight without mixed composition or with logistical equivalency. The purpose of my analysis was to find the cheapest general defenders, since I'd want many of them to cover all my facilities, and they'll just be standing around sucking up money most of the time. Commandos, backed by artillery to deal with ground units, are looking to be surprisingly versatile in both a defensive and a retaliatory role.
6/20/2017 Topic: Assets Page, City expansion, unit balance Leyic1	In a one v. one fight between a level 10 commando and a level 10 battleship (max defense), both of which take 10 logistics points, the commando does 2.00% damage to the battleship in the first turn, while the battleship does 1.50% damage to the commando in the first turn. The commando wins in over 50 turns not considering random effects. In a one v. one fight between a level 10 bomber and a level 10 battleship (max defense), both of which take 10 logistics points, the bomber does 53.33% damage to the battleship in the first turn, while the battleship does 0.83% damage to the bomber in the first turn. The bomber wins in two turns, so there's less opportunity for random effects to change the outcome. The bomber certainly gets the job done faster, but the upkeep is 30 times that of the commando. If you have the income, by all means use bombers and dreadnoughts to defend every last mine and quarry you have.
6/21/2017 Topic: Assets Page, City expansion, unit balance Leyic1	I don't see why it's difficult to make assertions, provided some caveats are understood. You provide the combat data, so I can run "simulations" in a spreadsheet to determine how many units are needed to beat another type of unit. But the caveats are, as I've said before, that this is idealized combat, meaning there are no random effects, no mixed compositions, and no intervention. Making determinations based on just a few of these data points would be a bad idea, but looking over the entire table, trends can be revealed, showing that some units have a wider range of dominance than others. By then considering logistical and financial costs, and how fast a combat would end, one can identify units that are generally better for their particular situation, and then consider a practical group composition over that smaller subset. Like you say, 20x monolith+varitek combos will annihilate pretty much everything, but will also cost almost 20 mil per turn if you have no other military and a level 10 HQ. You might win several battles, but I'll get the last laugh and win the war when you go bankrupt and auto-liquidate. Incidentally, it takes 5 level 10 commandos to bring down a level 10 max defense monolith, and possibly 9 level 10 commandos to bring down a level 10 max defense monolith with a level 10 varitek (this sim is even more iffy as I don't know how the damage reduction mechanic works exactly, so I ignored it). But anyhow, are commandos working as intended, being specialists at taking out fixed defenses while also being great for taking down spacecraft?
6/27/2017 Topic: Alt Optimization Leyic1	@Aywanez: Lands of Lords does this already: A single account can have up to three characters, each of which can be in charge of up to three domains (equivalent to BotG's corporations). And yet, people still create alts. Some create alts because nine domains on an account still isn't enough for them, some do it for RP reasons, some do it to harass players, and I'm sure there are other reasons some have for creating alts. The point is your suggestion will not prevent alts. It might reduce the number of alts from players who don't hide their alts, but it will do nothing about players who do try to hide their alts. Maybe this idea can be part of a solution, but it is not a solution on its own.
6/27/2017 Topic: Policy on deleting unpaid inactive accounts Leyic1	I'll third this. I know some people who've already dropped BotG because they don't feel there's enough stuff to do. But you're still adding new content. They might be willing to come back to the game when there's more stuff going on, but that'd probably be a hard sell if they have to start from scratch all over again.
7/5/2017 Topic: Where did you hear about Barons of the Galaxy? Leyic1	Also Bay 12, albeit indirectly through one of our Lands of Lords Discord channels rather than the b12 forums proper.
7/5/2017 Topic: Viewscreen Military Top10 Order Not Working Leyic1	On the "Viewscreen" page, "Military" tab, "Top 10 Areas" section: the user can set the "Order" field to something other than "Ship Count". This results in the browser refreshing and the field displaying what the user selected, but the data displayed below is still sorted by "Ship Count" instead of the user's selection. To duplicate, view Earth's "Military" tab and set the "Order" field to anything other than "Ship Count", then look at how the data is actually sorted after the browser finishes refreshing.

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