Future changes and thoughts... For 1.0.8

[zarkwizard]

As always player feedback is VERY important to us. We compiled a list of changes we are looking at making to the game and would like to get feedback and thoughts to make sure we are addressing the main concerns. If you have something to add, it would be a good time to let us know while we are still specing everything.

Some changes are being made to allow better access to the game, and also the ability to not lose time when you want to build or train something. See below for details on time changes.

Main issues as we see them now:

Land Grab:
This is obviously a huge issue. Obviously those spending a lot more time in the game to uncover the maps are the first to grab the planets. In the beta you use to just be able to claim a planet with a flag, so we added ships you had to build to claim it. That has turned out to not work so well either. More resources means it's way easier for people to build things.

Plans to thwart the activity:
At the start of the game you'll be able to control 10 planets. You will require a Planetary Control Center (PCC) to acquire +5 planets per orbital PCC. You will need a population at a planet to have factories to be able to build the PCC. If you have 2 planets that have PCCs, and you own 20 planets, and you lose a PCC in battle you will keep your 20 planets, but you will require 2 more PCCs to start acquiring new planets. ie 3 x PCC = 15 Planets, plus your Base of 10 planets.

Taking over Planets with Massive Armies of small ships:
Seeing a fleet of 400 Battleships, or 400 Battle Cruisers take over a planet is not our intent.

Plans to thwart the activity:
Planets, ships and orbitals will all be changed in the next version 1.0.8. Please refer to the combat change thread for the details. Lee has been working very hard on compiling a list of changes, as well as laying out all the changes. Now is the time to speak up. You can find the comabt thread here: http://www.zarksoft.com/cms/showthread.php?706-Combat-Revisions We have created a combat simulator and are running multiple tests on the data to make sure combat functions how we would expect it to.

Building Super Capitol Ships:
For the most part we don't think there is a current reason in the game to motivate people to build the Super Cap (Warlord) ships, other than the PK. The PK obviously has a special ability letting you destroy a planet that gives it a reason to be built. The other Ships like the Monitor, or Super Dread really don't have a reason at this time.

Plans to change the reason:
After much debate here are our thoughts. The Super Cap skill will allow Monitors to "Absorb" damage. Rank one would give the Monitors 20% damage absorption, and every rank up would give it 10% more. So at max rank the Monitor would absorb 100% of a single attack. This would be a great way to protect your fleets from taking damage on other ships in your fleet. You would be able to bring Super Dreads in to attack a planet if you wanted to take it over, and build Monitors as damage absorbers for your army. It would also help in the case if you have a PK destroying a planet, the Monitors would be able to absorb damage that would have other wise gone to the PK.

RO and you:
Currently traders are the only ones that can really acquire Rare Ore. So it makes it difficult for others to acquire the ore needed to build the more difficult things in the game.

Plans to change this:
AMC (Advanced Materials collection) will be going away. All players will be able to acquire Rare Ore. Since the Planet Grab will be toned down we felt it wouldn't make a difference anymore if we let anyone acquire the ore. Traders will still be able to build faster, and screw people on trading, but with the changes going in for PCCs it will be much more difficult to do the massive land grab, which in turn will make it more important to acquire things like Gas planets that produce abundant amounts of rare ore.

Time requirements for Researching, and Building:
Currently you must start something to have it begin training, or building then wait a required amount of time while that object builds.

Plans to Change this:
We are going to be adding new stats to a planet. They will be RU (Research Units) and PU (Production Units). RU/PU is gained at a rate according to the planets population. Their will be a slider on the planet screen that allows you to say how many points are going to either Research Units, or Production Units. Default for a planet with be 50%/50%. Building a Refinery at a planet will increase the PU, just as building a Science Center at a planet will increase RU. Researcher will have a slight innate RU bonus, Traders will have a PU bonus. So if you had a planet with a high population you could set it to PU 100% and all off that planets Unit allotment will go to PU, and nothing will go to RU, just as you could focus a planet on RU rather than PU. Focusing several planets on RU will help you earn Research Units to acquire skills faster.

How RU Works:
RU is a global stat that will go in to a research pool. You will use the RU to purchase skill upgrades. As it stands now you must wait to start training a skill, and if you forget to change a skill, you my find yourself training a rank 2 of a skill you didn't want. Rather than have people "lose" the time we will allow them to purchase skills using RU that is acquired from their planets. This will make it so that skills will insta train of you have the required RU to purchase a skill. Prerequisite requirements will still stand. Example you must have a Tier 1 skill in a specific tech in order to train a Tier 2, even if you have enough RU to buy the Tier 2, you must still have at least 1 Tier 1.

How PU Works:
Planets will produce PU based on the population of the planet, and various skills. PU is specific to the planet, and not a global item, nor can it be traded, or harvested. It is unique to the planet and it's population. EXCEPT: If you build Matter Transmitters. A MT will allow you to share all resources, a production units between all your planets. Ships, orbatals etc will require PU to be build in stead of time. Building a unti will require a few things, the correct amount of RO/CO/PU, the correct skills. If all those things are in place you will be able to insta build the unit. No more waiting.

Hey you forgot about Warlords:
No, we didn't. Warlords will have a unique ability that will allow them to gain CO/RO from ships they destroy. They will be able to assign a single world that will get resources from combat. They will be able to change which world is getting the resources anytime, but only one world can be assigned. Only Warlords will have this ability.


Colony Ships, and Outpost Ships:
Currently a "free" starter population gets moved to a new planet.

What's going to change:
When you create a colony ship is will take 50mu of your population from the source planet. This will reduce the planets population according. An Outpost ship will take 10mu of you population from the source planet. Those populations will be deposited on the destination planet. If the ship is destroyed before it colonizes a planet that population will be lost. This causes more of a cost to be applied to your colony ships. The resources used for building the ship, and the colony will all be deposited at the new destination.


* One little note: This is a living document at the moment, and some things may change slightly because I typed it wrong. It should be fairly straight forward though.

[ravenzachary]

Awesome!

I still think colonized worlds are too powerful defensively. I lost 350 Battleships trying to take a colonized world. It should be easier than that considering the ship build limits. I'm not sure anyone has lost a colony in any games played so far.

[Wrath]

Thanks, zark, sounds like a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes - totally appreciate it!

Two 'main issues' that I think would merit attention and I do not see mentioned for a 1.0.8 update would be:
1. easier ways to track harvest and/or trade routes and/or incomes
2. functioning push notifications

All the land grab changes and research time requirements won't help me at all unless it gets easier for me to wrap my head around where my harvesters are coming or going and how much I'm getting from those trades/harvests. In addition, I see forum threads with long calculations showing math involved in how much resources can be carried, or how long different ships take to travel one sector, etc. -- so anything extra along those lines that could be added in-game would also be very welcome.

[SG7]

I still think colonized worlds are too powerful defensively. I lost 350 Battleships trying to take a colonized world. It should be easier than that considering the ship build limits. I'm not sure anyone has lost a colony in any games played so far.


Seeing a fleet of 400 Battleships, or 400 Battle Cruisers take over a planet is not our intent.

1.) It looks like colonized worlds are even more not less protected!
2.) I still have to think over the changes since they are altering the game in a dramatic way. Possibly fast simulations of new conditions could tell if we have balanced game. However, I am fully aware how difficult it is to make full scale simulation of the Universe :)
3.) I do not think that the land grab can be avoided. I do not even see anything wrong in it! As long as everyone knows about it than there is a fair fight for it. This proposal just delays and slows down the process making it more elaborate. 10 minutes players will always lose against 1 hour players. That is all. Ultimately without the land the economy cannot expand. The other extreme is to disallow any expansion and give everyone the planets up front. Well, I am not fun of it at all but that is a remote possibility.

(BTW Raven:
If you are talking about your loss trying to take my colony than FYI
a) it was well protected
b) I have taken not one, not two but 18 homeworlds already.
c) Do not worry; I am not planning any revenge on you as I am very peaceful guy. No hard feelings Raven!)

[JetJaguar2000]

These are good changes.

By far the most interesting, in my opinion, is the attempt to put production and research on a mutually exclusive axis. I really like the idea of being able to focus on either a robust production platform, or a robust research platform, or something in between. I think your goal here should be to foster different play styles. Instead of having everyone blasting through the same research, and ramping up production simultaneously, create diversity by giving players the option to focus on research rather than production or combat, etc. The proposed changes sound good, but you should make sure that these options are well balanced; you may want to consider changing some of the research technologies, for example, to work better "on their own" as an alternative to production. I think this will take some time to sort out, because it's not totally clear yet what sorts of things a "researcher" could do better than a "producer," since the main mechanism of interaction and progress in the game is the production of ships.

I also like the idea of the Planetary Control Center, but I would take it a couple of steps further: PCCs should only grant you the ability to control planets within some radius of where it is built (say, 5 - 10 squares). Coupled with the expense of building them in the first place, I think this would add a HUGE strategic element to the game that doesn't exist now. If you actually had to make hard decisions about WHERE to create expansion opportunities, things would be a lot more interesting, especially when led to contention over particular areas of space.

Which brings me to another related suggestion. One aspect of the game I find a little obnoxious is how ships have unlimited range. What this means is that geographic location has very little meaning in the game. The most extreme example of this is how an opponent can send a fleet directly to your home world and blow it up, regardless of how big your empire is, or how far away it is from the enemy. This has always struck me as pretty artificial.

What I would LOVE to see is the concept of "contest fronts." Having a radius-based PCC could be one aspect of this. I would also propose that the range of your ships be limited in a similar way. Maybe they can only travel 2x the radius of your nearest PCC from it (modified by ship type). Alternatively (or in addition), create another orbital unit, the Refueling Station, that could further extend the range of your ships. What I'm looking for here is a way to establish geographic relevance. For someone to invade your territory, they should need to have built up a refueling "supply line" from their territory to yours. Ideally these refueling stations are defensible, but not ridiculously so. REALLY ideally would be for this mechanic to provide some balance between hardcore players and more casual ones. If a casual player is facing an invasion from a superior force, they may not be able to defend against the attack, but they should be able to muster the forces to destroy the invader's fueling stations, thus cutting them off and delaying invading ships while the refueling station is rebuilt. (A third super-interesting step in this direction would be to allow players to grant or deny access to one another's refueling stations -- maybe this casual guy can't even destroy a link in his invader's supply line, but maybe he can convince a third guy to deny the invader access to an open refueling station he is using!)

Obviously, these would be significant changes to the mechanics, but I think they would be good ones. I've been playing Starbase Orion again recently, and it struck me that the ship movement limitations are a big part of the strategy involved. Having to make decisions about where to build outposts in order to get your ships to where they need to get makes things interesting. Again, give meaning to specific regions of space. Right now it doesn't matter where you start, as moving ships around is just a matter of time (and avoiding black holes). Make expansion be grounded in the physical space of the galaxies.

That's all for now.

[zarkwizard]

1. easier ways to track harvest and/or trade routes and/or incomes
2. functioning push notifications

That is on the list of things we are looking at doing. We are trying to determine a decent way to handle it on the small devices and we are working on some screen mockups and so forth trying to figure out how to do it. I didn't put it on the list because it's not a sweeping change to the game. It's more of a visual thing, but it is in there for client changes.

[zarkwizard]

I still think colonized worlds are too powerful defensively. I lost 350 Battleships trying to take a colonized world. It should be easier than that considering the ship build limits. I'm not sure anyone has lost a colony in any games played so far.

We have been using the new combat simulator to determine effective armies. The way combat works currently isn't the same as the new combat. Basically damage is spread across a lot of ships at once in the current system. While 350 Battleships could be good if someone doesn't have enough orbitals, in the case of stealthed orbitals it could prove to be deadly.

Under the new combat system stealth orbitals will only have an initial 1 free attack round bonus. If the orbitals are stealthed, and their orbital stealth skill is higher than yours they will get a free round, where as if you have a higher or equal stealth orbital ability they will not get a free round of attack.

[zarkwizard]

JetJaguar2000 (http://www.zarksoft.com/cms/member.php?459-JetJaguar2000) : You bring up good points. While I am not totally against saying ships can only fly a certain distance from a world, or a ship has a certain amount of fuel for distance it can travel it might make the game a little restrictive. I'm not sure how that would play out. While I personally don't have a major issue, I think it might cause some fundamental problems. We would have to give it some thought.

I like the PCC thoughts.. We would have to go through some universe big bangs and try to determine proximity for systems. Either we create more planets or have to change the algorithm for the way the big bang generates a universe. Some good thoughts though.

You certainly bring up some interesting points about the space travel. If ships were give a limited range for how far they could travel it would make things a lot more interesting. You would have to slowly acquire planetary hops to get somewhere. I would think a few things would have to happen for this though...

1 - We would probably undo the fog of war. So you would see all the stars. If you want to travel somewhere you would "jump to a system". Once you were in warp you are locked in to the time it takes to travel to that system. How far you can jump depends on the type of ship/fleet.

2 - How would people encounter a black hole? If you are warping along and go past a hidden black hole does the black hole expose and you lose your ship, or are they visible and destroy everything passing by in a given radius?

3 - Using a jump gate to jump to a beacon, would this still allow you instant travel to a planet you control with a beacon bypassing single jumping from system to system?

Obviously waypoints would have to be introduced to the game to allow that kind of navigation.

Just some thoughts about the future of the game, not something we are currently planning.. If input is enough for it, they are certainly things we would consider implementing in the future.

[ChickenHawk07]

I actually really like Jet's suggestions. They make a lot of sense, and would definitely help out the players who don't or can't invest a lot of time in the game. I definitely think there should be some kind of range for ships (maybe not probes?) And refueling stations allowing for larger areas of expansion makes a lot of sense. As does having a limited range the PCCs can be deployed. In the end, without PCCs having a limited range, players will still be able to take over large swaths of space and expand uninhibited.

And Raven, Colonies and HWs are definitely NOT hard to take. I currently have 6 HWs. And I can't even remember how many colonies.

[VanderLegion]

I actually really like Jet's suggestions. They make a lot of sense, and would definitely help out the players who don't or can't invest a lot of time in the game. I definitely think there should be some kind of range for ships (maybe not probes?) And refueling stations allowing for larger areas of expansion makes a lot of sense. As does having a limited range the PCCs can be deployed. In the end, without PCCs having a limited range, players will still be able to take over large swaths of space and expand uninhibited.

And Raven, Colonies and HWs are definitely NOT hard to take. I currently have 6 HWs. And I can't even remember how many colonies.

Agreed, i really like the idea of ships having limited range especially. Jet makes good points about being able to just fly in and capture homeworlds ignoring other colonies/outposts in the process. And if you limit ship range, that would to a degree limit the land grab as well, even if PCC didn't limit the range you could colonize. You'd be able to colonize further away in the long run without limits from PCC, but you'd have to build colonies or outposts along the way to extend your ship range in order to colonize further away.

And as ChickenHawk said, capturing homeworlds is really not hard. I've captured 6 in one of my games, and control my entire starting sector (galaxy? Whatever you want to call it) outside of like 1 or 2 non-homeworld colony and an outpost or two. Beyond that I have countless colonies and outposts (I sstarted out playing as a harmless trader. Then someone attacked me (and eeryone else in my starting sector) and captured pretty much every outpost in the sector. So i turned around and captured everything he owned. After I found out that you can meet any victory condition and I realized that there's no way I'd ever be able to trade 4 billion common ore to be able to win, I figured I'd see how hard a warlord victory was. The only homeworld that's been a problem to take is the one that had stealth orbitals so I couldn't kill them. Beyond that, I've killed several outposts with a few defense orbitals, or mines, or a coupla ships, and several that have been 450-500Mu population.

Non-homeworld colonies (and non-terran so less population) are even easier to capture.

[ravenzachary]

functioning push notifications

+1! We definitely need working Push Notifications.

[VanderLegion]

+1! We definitely need working Push Notifications.

This is critical. As i said in my last post here, the whole reason I started with combat stuff is cause someone captured every outpost I had in an entire sector. I had no idea I was even being attacked until I loaded up my turn one time and had a whole lot less outposts all of a sudden. I'd already been building a fleet for defense, so as soon as I noticed I was able to start taking them back, but if I'd known I was being atttacked when it started I probably could have prevented him from capturing a lot of them...

[AntiHaze]

1. easier ways to track harvest and/or trade routes and/or incomes


This is the only thing I care about. As soon as I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of everything, this was no longer a game. It was work.

[VanderLegion]

The other reason I switched over to conquering. FAR easier...

[ChickenHawk07]

The other reason I switched over to conquering. FAR easier...

Agreed. And more fun!

[Supamand]

Not sure if someone said this, but there needs to be a way to abandon a planet! If I start a game and two of the planets in my sector are ice, I would like to have a function to abandon a colony on those planets. That way it does not count against my total planet count.

[VanderLegion]

Not sure if someone said this, but there needs to be a way to abandon a planet! If I start a game and two of the planets in my sector are ice, I would like to have a function to abandon a colony on those planets. That way it does not count against my total planet count.

Ooh, thats definitely a good point with limited number of planets you can control. In the game right now there's no reason to abandon a planet, but yah, once PCC goes in...

[Parsons]

I'll comment on each change section separately. Land grab: I like the idea of keeping us from rushing out and grabbing everything in site. With this change I would like to see a change to the teraformer. Maybe allow the teraformer to actually change planet types. This would be a looooooonnnngggg process, but it would allow those who get crummy starting areas to change a few planets to accommodate their play style.

[Parsons]

Massive armies and super capitals: are we going to keep the super capitals a warlord only realm, or open them up to the other specialists? I would like to see all but the PK open up to the other specialists. Not having gone down the combat line to far in my main game Im not 100% sure if this is currently the case or not, I'm just going off what my factory screens say I may build, and what I havnt met the requirements for yet. If we are a trader or scientist and we max out at dreads I guess I would feel really left behind if we want to stray from our specialist end game or defend from a warlord fleet. I would really have to reread the combat revision thread and spreadsheet to get a full understanding.

[Parsons]

Love the research/building slider! I had been trying to figure out what would really make this feel like I was making a more interactive choice in the game and this screams it. The Ro evening out is a great idea as well. I would have to say I really don't think the production bonus is in the spirit of the trader. It really seems like it should be the warlords bonus, warlord should be the one cranking out ship after ship on a production war factory line. The idea of getting ro/co from ship destruction is nice and would maybe make a nice skill for anybody to take. Maybe a scavenger skill, not sure. I would like to see the trader get a trade bonus from actually trading, this would get them actively getting routes going. With the production bonus it just says crank out more ships, well more ships is only really good for war, huge empires, or your stuff is getting blown up alot.

[Parsons]

Colony and outpost ships dipping into the origin planets population will really make us protect those ships instead of blindly setting them off into the void. I like jets ship range limit idea, if this were to come to be let's leave the limit off a colony ship and it's protecting fleet. This way we can make a new home in another galaxy without having to settle to close to home. On the topic of ship changes I would like to propose a big change to mine layers and orbital defenses. In the current game mine layers suck, they are over priced, and way under powered. We can only lay mines on our own planets. Well I really don't care under current system if I lose an outpost, it's really easy to retake, and I can build mines at any old colony. I had imagined being able to lay mines in open space quadrants to create a wall around my empire. I would like to see Defense orbitals given this option too.

[Parsons]

If we could get some form of rudimentary alliance system soon too that would be great. Would like to be able to just ally with one or two people, see their territory, be able to put orbitals on friendly planets and outposts, and maybe combine fleets. We can work out more elaborate details later, but this would be a great start. Maybe make it distance restricted, so you and your best bud don't ally from one end of the universe to the other and take advantage of trade routes or some odd thing I can't think about right now. Maybe to increase the number of people you can ally with it could be a skill, each rank increases the size of the alliance/guild/faction/corporation. Maybe the forming person get some sort of cut of trades or mining profits, would be very trader oriented. That portion doesn't need to implemented now but an idea for the future.

[Parsons]

Would like to add something else that I thought of about the warlord scavenger ability. How often is that really going to come into effect? If they want to make it harder to take outposts and colonies, we are talking a week or two into the game at least before anybody has at least a dread fleet in decent numbers. Then they are gonna maybe start getting some of this extra co/ro. But taking a colony/hw is a pretty major deal now and more so with the changes proposed. So take the two or three day between building a big enough fleet in the current system, make that longer and then attack the planet. Ok so I took the planet now and lost a whole bunch ships. Gonna be a few more days till I can take a planet. Ok so warlords are gonna only getting a payout after a week or more and then only every now and then. I see the researcher getting the best deal with the current system, followed by the trader and still last warlord. Maybe I'm not imagining how fast a warlord is gonna be cruising around but taking planets will be the only thing bringing in money. Even with all these great changes there is still no reason to fight in open space unless I'm missing something. So it's gonna be one or two trading vessels a warlord eats for dinner, and I can't imagine those will net much. Maybe I'm missing something, can anybody enlighten me?

[JetJaguar2000]

Would like to add something else that I thought of about the warlord scavenger ability. How often is that really going to come into effect? If they want to make it harder to take outposts and colonies, we are talking a week or two into the game at least before anybody has at least a dread fleet in decent numbers. Then they are gonna maybe start getting some of this extra co/ro. But taking a colony/hw is a pretty major deal now and more so with the changes proposed. So take the two or three day between building a big enough fleet in the current system, make that longer and then attack the planet. Ok so I took the planet now and lost a whole bunch ships. Gonna be a few more days till I can take a planet. Ok so warlords are gonna only getting a payout after a week or more and then only every now and then. I see the researcher getting the best deal with the current system, followed by the trader and still last warlord. Maybe I'm not imagining how fast a warlord is gonna be cruising around but taking planets will be the only thing bringing in money. Even with all these great changes there is still no reason to fight in open space unless I'm missing something. So it's gonna be one or two trading vessels a warlord eats for dinner, and I can't imagine those will net much. Maybe I'm missing something, can anybody enlighten me?

I agree with this, but want to add one more thing: a bunch of the "hardcore" players have been posting a lot about how easy it is to take colonies ("it only takes 400 battleships!"). Once again, I disclaim this by conceding that I may not "get it," but in none of the games I've played so far have I gotten close to building 400 ships. Given the amount of time I played, I was too occupied with other stuff to manage that. You guys can argue that new players will eventually learn that building huge fleets is the path to victory, but I'm telling you as a guy who has experience with 4x games and played a fair amount in this game, building enormous fleets was not an obvious thing for me to do.

More generally, I think it's a symptom of poor design that someone like me could go so far off the rails in terms of playing successfully, so I encourage the designers not to make decisions based on this hardcore play style. I really think the vast majority of potential players are not ever going to reach the point of colony killing fleets. More likely, they will play the game like me, realize at some point that they are completely outclassed by some of the other players, and then quit the game thinking "no way am I putting in the effort that guy has."

Anyways, regardless, the idea of getting resources from killing ships is interesting in theory, but in practice most ships are parked in orbit of colonies, and with colonies being so badass, it seems that a young warlord who hasn't built a colony killing fleet will stand little chance of actually killing any ships.

On a side note, given how colonies work, it would be interesting if there could be some way to attack things in orbit of a colony without invoking its murderous wrath. There is a HUGE jump between fleets that can have skirmishes in uncontested space, and fleets sitting in orbit of a 400mu planet.

[VanderLegion]

Also, on the topic of defending colonies/homeworlds, I don't think I've found a single homeworld yet that had more than a couple orbitals defending them. I think the best I've seen was a couple colonies and a homeworld (from the same player) with 1 energy array, 1 missile array, and a few ships (I think it was 1 fighter, 1 destroyer, one cruiser, 1 battleship). I think I lost a total of 60 or 70 ships to that one. I found another player 1 energy array, 1 missile array, and a few fighters. Not sure if people think that's enough defense to protect them, or if they don't realize they can build more than one of each type of orbital defense or what. Personally, I have at least 15 energy arrays on each of my homeworlds...

Oh, and I've seen some with 1 or 2 minefields, which might be good early game or against a fleet that's just barely big enough to capture the homeworld. Later on against larger fleets, doesn't help much. Not sure if it makes a difference if the mines are on the defense and not at war with the attacker or not, can they be killed off in the first round before they attack?

[VanderLegion]

I also just found a colony (I'm assuming homeworld, looks like a homeworld system) with 850Mu population. That one's gonna hurt too methinks...

[Parsons]

Ok so some more outloud thinking about combat. So we know that they are slowing combat down to 30 min fights roughly this is a nice thought in theory but in practice who it going to help? The defender. When I've been attacking somebody under the current system yes I swarm somebody with a huge amount of ships in one giant fleet. I know they don't want giant fleets of "small" ships and I agree with the idea, but with new system we will still see giant fleets of "big" ships. I'm not going to send in two partial fleets no matter what. It takes more than 30 min to get across a galaxy sector with most traditional fights. And it takes more than an hour or two to build one "big" ship so for the attacker it's best to build big fleet of big ships and attack. The defender will get a bonus to their formidable defense if they can fly in ships you may have had defending a different system or you were massing for your own defense. Not sure how to fix this cycle but just thought I would bring it up how I see it playing out.

[Parsons]

We need a reason to want to have space battles I think, not just near orbit battles. Something that invokes that armada vs armada feeling, not the armada vs the planet defenders.

[SG7]

I agree with this, but want to add one more thing: a bunch of the "hardcore" players have been posting a lot about how easy it is to take colonies ("it only takes 400 battleships!"). Once again, I disclaim this by conceding that I may not "get it[]
More generally, I think it's a symptom of poor design[]


Jet, with all due respect. Yes, you did not get it this game. It is very, VERY EASY and CHEAP to protect your colony from 400 Battleships. When I did a math I said to myself at the beginning of the game - there is no point to build 400 battleships since it will be useless against reasonably defended colony. I build my army only to fight aliens. Then later on I noticed that almost all players put a sign on his/her home worlds: "Please conquer me. I am totally undefended. I do not know what I am doing".
I repeat as a winner on Aruru of 18 home worlds: It is almost impossible to take down reasonably protected home world! My own home world could not be taken by 1000+ battleships. The attacker is in serious disadvantage against properly protected colony.
I think a simple knowledge about this fact will render idea of attacking home worlds obsolete in the future games.

[zarkwizard]

Not sure if someone said this, but there needs to be a way to abandon a planet! If I start a game and two of the planets in my sector are ice, I would like to have a function to abandon a colony on those planets. That way it does not count against my total planet count.

To be honest the conversations internally are leaning towards making the PCC a radius rather than a specific planet count. We have been discussing adding a range to ships. The grid as it sits for the sector maps will probably be going away in favor of jumping to systems. Once we get a little further on this we'll publish our thoughts.

[zarkwizard]

A lot of good reading. We really appreciate the feedback and your thoughts on everything. While we may not respond to every post, it's not because we don't want to answer, but more so we need to discuss it. While it's easy to point out a flaw, it's generally tougher to point out a solution.

Ideas are more than welcome. On the topic of combat for Warlords... What would you like to see some of your capabilities be? I understand about maybe the combat CO/RO not being enough... What would you like to see?

In the case of the trader... They build things faster currently because in beta we found that Warlords would destroy traders. Traders seemed to have no early game defence. One of the things we did was speed up the traders build times, since we thought that a trader being a master of commerce should understand what it'll take to create better production lines. Certainly with changes being made to planets and allowing people to set a planet to focus on building by moving a slider all the way over to PU even a warlord could produce ships faster at the cost of learning skills.

The trader will have a 10% build bonus... What does this translate in to? The trader get 10% build bonus, if you have a 400mu planet and it has 3600 units per hour maximum of points. Since the default is 50/50 1800 PU, and 1800 RU is generated. A trader will gain +180 PU / hour, just as a researcher will gain +180 RU / hour. Now if they move that slider all the way over they will top out at +360 RU or PU. Factor in population size then that number gets higher. We may or may not scale the bonus (it may cap at +360 bonus), it's in the air at the moment as we run numbers through testing. Once we get the exact numbers we'll certainly let you know.

About the super capitols.. I was just thinking.. and this is thinking out loud, perhaps some of you can comment.. What if we opened up Super Capitols (except the PK), and made it so Warlords received a % cost reduction, and maybe a reduced PU cost for the Super Caps? So while anyone will be able to build a super cap, the Warlord will be able to build them most effectively.. Thoughts?

[Parsons]

Thanks for the insight on where the trader bonus comes from, it makes sense now. I'm for warlord keeping the PK exclusive and giving them a reduction on cost to the other ships. Opening up the other caps would be nice.

[ChickenHawk07]

I like truckingyoda's idea of the warlord being able to pump out more ships than anyone else. As a warring nation, one expects their production capabilities to be higher than normal. Think The United States and WWII, we won because we were able to out produce the Axis. To combat this, the Trader should start with Orbital Defenses already researched, as their primary focus should be defending their trade routes.

I also love the idea of effectively blockading an area of space around your planet(s) or attempting to lay siege to another player's planets. If someone wants to spend their unit cap on Orbitals or minefields surrounding someone else's planet(s) or their own, why stop them? Fleets definitely shouldn't have unrestricted access to someone's own territory. Mining the area around the Sun would help slow down or destroy would-be attackers.

Obviously having a limited area of expansion based on PCCs would also help this, but one would have to protect those PCCs, as in Jet's idea of refueling stations. The PCCs with limited range of outward expansion would effectively act as a form of "refueling station. If it had a visual radius, one would have to consciensly make sure hey overlapped each PCCs radius in order to continue traveling to their desired area of expansion or conquest.

On the topic of Warlords scavenging, I don't like the idea and I think the Warlord getting a production bonus would solve this, as well as Traders having orbital defenses already researchEd (maybe even advanced Orbitals). I know I always research that tree right off the bat as a trader anyway, as I know I can't compete with a Warlord's Super Caps. But my 30 Advanced Orbitals around my HW can (to a degree).

Let me stop here and see if there is anything I missed.

[ChickenHawk07]

To be honest the conversations internally are leaning towards making the PCC a radius rather than a specific planet count. We have been discussing adding a range to ships. The grid as it sits for the sector maps will probably be going away in favor of jumping to systems. Once we get a little further on this we'll publish our thoughts.

I sort of touched on this in my last post, but instead of PCCs having a planet count attached to them, why not make it so the PCCs radius is as far as anything other than a probe can travel. (See my past post of overlapping Radius for outward expansion) I also would like to see Probes only being "shot" out from a planet or location and traveling in a single direction until it reaches the ends of the universe. (Voyager nearing the outer limits of our solar system is what brought this idea to fruition). A single probe shouldn't be able to map out an entire galactic sector. Maybe make the probe's "FOG uncovering" be like 3 sectors wide. And once it exits the stage of play, is destroyed by a black hole or aliens, it is removed from the ship count and sends its usual Spartan Notice. Probes are cheap enough and produced quickly enough that I don't think this would hinder anyone, infact, I think it would free up A LOT of time for players and would negate the need for waypoints (making your coding changes less drastic, I assume).
A player would only need to pick the direction of travel and the probe would do the rest.

[shadowkhai]

The biggest issue I had as a trader is explained here:

http://www.zarksoft.com/cms/showthread.php?650-Trading-issue

In a nutshell the ability to properly set up more than one trade route to separate planets at a time.

[SG7]

Lots of very good ideas were presented already. I am fine with all of them. Once some of the ideas become new rules I think I can adapt to them.

These are *my* suggestions:

1) Make font bigger wherever it is possible. Readability of the text on many screens was an issue for me. (Personally it was and it is a big deal for me).

2) Add more precision for CO and RO (eg: 1.550k not 2k)

3) Allow cancelation of moving orders for normal ships/fleets. If my ship is moving across universe (and I change my mind) I want to be able to stop it. I can even agree to pay a penalty in CO for that.

4) I was not a trader but if I were I would definitely need more info, visibility and control over my trading routes.

Well, that is it. Thank you for reading.

[zarkwizard]

Since some of this touch on bigger topics... I thought I would address this here as well.


Make font bigger wherever it is possible. Readability of the text on many screens was an issue for me. (Personally it was and it is a big deal for me).

I agree totally. Yes some of the fonts are small, but this is in part because we have a lot of information, and not much place to put it on a mobile device. With some of the changes to things like factories going away we will be opening up a ton of screen space to place things. This should allow us more room to display information better.


2) Add more precision for CO and RO (eg: 1.550k not 2k)

See comment #1. With the changes going in we will be able to bring in more precision, and larger numbers. This is in the plans for 1.0.8


3) Allow cancelation of moving orders for normal ships/fleets. If my ship is moving across universe (and I change my mind) I want to be able to stop it. I can even agree to pay a penalty in CO for that.

Ship movement will most likely be undergoing a major overhaul. This would include way points and what not. We are looking at implementing ship range restrictions as outlined above. So for the most part you won't be able to fly beyond your visible range. Not like you can now. You won't have the grid as you see it now. That will be changing to ranges for your jumping. When you jump you will be jumping to a system. You will be able to stop the ship from continuing on a way point path, but once the ship is in transit to a location you will need to wait for the ship to reach it's jump destination. You will also have about 5 min to cancel the ship from jumping to a system while it preps it's hyper drive engines.


4) I was not a trader but if I were I would definitely need more info, visibility and control over my trading routes.

We agree. This is a major issue, and with the changes going in to systems it should allow for us to implement a better display for system connections. As we progress, and when we have something in place we will be sure to put up more details.

[Marked]

I like a lot of what I am reading. Let me give you my biggest fear. Please do not take this as a slam I mean this in good ways.

I'm not hardcore on this game. While I am a gamer this game has enough issues early on that I am not 100% involved with it. I am staying with it as I believe as it evolves it will be something wonderful to play.

I am sure you have lost some early players due to this. Not to mention the tutorial video's are sub-par and don't explain well enough game play. There are only the few of you trying to do a million things and that takes time.

My biggest fear is while the game is being tuned and fixed your going to lose your player base to the point that it is not profitable to continue. Not to mention with these new changes making the game totally different from the tutorial new players who are not 4x fans are going to say forget it.

I am suggesting you scrap the tutorials and have players go right to the wiki to learn to play the game, that or actually take the time to make an in-game manual. Course you would have to update the manual for every change.

Course the wiki isn't near up to speed. You obviously have some very dedicated players here. I am thinking maybe one or two of them might trade some serious work on keeping the wiki up to speed for free game time. That way the wiki is 100%, players will not be near frustrated trying to play, and you'll have people keeping up with changes made to the game as there being made.

Just my two cents...

[zarkwizard]

My biggest fear is while the game is being tuned and fixed your going to lose your player base to the point that it is not profitable to continue.

We have heard this a few times. We have more than enough money set aside to make sure the servers will run for a VERY VERY VERY long time. We were paying for the servers, and bandwidth for 2 years without making anything. We are determined to make everything work. We have much bigger plans than just EotE, but we will not focus on the new, until we make sure this game is right.

We plan on doing some new things once we get settled down. We have been working on a scripting tutorial engine that would allow us to script some basic things in the game to get people in the swing of things. Although things like that won't go in to place before we get all the changes settled, and we can show how the mechanic will work.

All of the things you mention are important to us. We are in this for the LONG haul, I can assure you.

[Marked]

Awesome glad to hear it. I tell you one thing you all have nailed down and that is talking and making your players and fans feel that they are important and part of the game. Very few companies can do that and I for one thank you.

Any idea when you expect 1.0.8 to roll out?

[ravenzachary]

I am starting to think the Researcher victory condition is too easy. By the time you've ranked up the skill tree, you have all the resources you need to build Solar Core Taps and collapsing 12 suns doesn't seem too difficult compared to destroying homeworlds (Warlord) and collecting a huge amount of resources (Trader). This may be something you want to look into.

[Marked]

Yes especially given that if you own 12 systems then the 24hr counter for the black hole to form is a moot point. Maybe make it some how so that it has to be suns with HW systems in them?

Or reminicent of EVE, yes I used to play, a black hole event could trigger an emergency notification for "X" amount of sectors, there by giving people/allainces a chance to shut it down.

[VanderLegion]

I am starting to think the Researcher victory condition is too easy. By the time you've ranked up the skill tree, you have all the resources you need to build Solar Core Taps and collapsing 12 suns doesn't seem too difficult compared to destroying homeworlds (Warlord) and collecting a huge amount of resources (Trader). This may be something you want to look into.

Yah, I made a post about this in the Tech Support forum. Warlord is the only victory condition where the requirements change depending how many players there are. On the whole, if people defend their homeworlds destroying 12 stars will be FAR easier to do than killing a bunch of homeworlds, and the trader victory is all but impossible as far as I can tell, especially on a small server (such as Atargatis which only has 31 players).

[VanderLegion]

Or reminicent of EVE, yes I used to play, a black hole event could trigger an emergency notification for "X" amount of sectors, there by giving people/allainces a chance to shut it down.

I like this idea. As it stands, if you just kill your own stars like you said, the only way anyone will ever know is if they are actively and fairly regularly checking all the nearby stars to see if anyone is doing so. If you got a warning that it was being done nearby that would make it far easier to fight against a researcher.

[VanderLegion]

JetJaguar2000 (http://www.zarksoft.com/cms/member.php?459-JetJaguar2000) : You bring up good points.
2 - How would people encounter a black hole? If you are warping along and go past a hidden black hole does the black hole expose and you lose your ship, or are they visible and destroy everything passing by in a given radius?

One possibility for this would be to have the black hole just show up as a star until you discover what it actually is. Maybe you use Gravity based sensors to see where the stars are that you haven't explored yet so black holes just appear as stars because of it (large gravity field)? Then, it could eithe rwork similar to how it does now where you lose the ship and get a notification that it died there due to an anomaly, and you don't actually SEE the black hole until you have hyperspace physics, or else once you end a ship there and lose it the black hole now shows as what it is and you have to route everything around the system until you get HP.

[zarkwizard]

The game currently keeps track of your "Technology Level" in the background. This is basically a calculated value based on skills you have learned and acquired. Perhaps we should move this value to the front so it's visible and give you the ability to detect black holes better.

[zarkwizard]

Some thoughts on Alliances.. We were thinking of setting up alliances that will allow for a "Leader" that can invite people in to the alliance (maybe have a cap on an Alliance size). This is a Cross Server alliance. You would have a cross server chat room that is shared by the alliance. When you are playing a game and you look at the player listings you would see another tab added to the screen which is called Alliance. This screen would show all players in the Alliance, and it would list at the top the people in your Alliance in your current game.

Everything in the Alliance would be sharable. ie, you would be able to terraform Alliance Planets, use alliance jump gates, and jump through their space like it was yours. You also share all your visible space. What that means is you will be able to look at anything going on in any of their sectors.

Thoughts?

[zarkwizard]

Awesome glad to hear it. I tell you one thing you all have nailed down and that is talking and making your players and fans feel that they are important and part of the game. Very few companies can do that and I for one thank you.

Any idea when you expect 1.0.8 to roll out?

There will probably be a couple of updates.. We have 2 things going on. The current server doesn't support some of the bigger changes we want to make, so we are building a new server from the ground up. We have brought in a few people to accelerate the process. It will probably be near the end of August.

Some changes like Combat, and a few other smaller things will be going in over the next month or so. We are still working on tweaking the combat numbers through the simulators trying to make sure we get everything spot on. As soon as we have an official release plan we'll let you guys know.

We are also keeping an eye on feed back from the games that finish to determine if we need to tweak anything else along the way.

Now is the time to give feed back. Since a new server is being designed we want, and need to take big functionality changes in to account while we are in design phase. We are even looking at a way to make a persistent game with a cap on skill points, but that's a future thing.

All of this is part of the reason you don't see us posting a ton. We are trying to read the forums, but we are mainly focused on getting things fixed. We will be setting all players to free mode for now till we get everything completed. So anyone that bought the game won't have to purchase another month, till we feel, and you feel the game is right.

[ChickenHawk07]

I really like the idea on the alliance portion. However, in the endgame, what really is the point of an alliance? I'd kind of like to see it the way it is now (in the sense that you can't really see what the player is doing behind the scenes.) They can still plan and prepare for the inevitable split and insueing race to the finish. If all players can see what's going on in their members territory, there would be no way (that I can think of at the moment) of stabbing one another in the back. A setup like that would be great if the Alliance itself could win the game, but if it's still "Highlander-esque" than I'm not sure it will work. Make sense? Or did I just ramble?

I for one completely understand your lack of communication, and have stated as much earlier. Though I also understand the other side's frustrations when it comes to server issues/notices and especially current victory conditions. Maybe make it a little easier on all of you developers and post a few stickies about victory conditions on current servers and maybe some kind of auto updating server notice. As it stands now, Tsagoth must physically type each Server update notice. If the Watchdog can automatically fix server issues, there must be something like that for a forum/server notification system. Just my .02 cents.

[zarkwizard]

It's not so much about the single win condition. That will bring a server to it's end, but everyone gets a score, and ranking. Those numbers will allow for "top alliances", and "top player" listings. The one thing we have been tossing around is if their would be a cap on how many members an alliance can have.

The other thing we have talked about is having alliance competition servers where it's alliances only. The new server designs will allow for more flexibility than the current system allows.

We have someone working on a server notification system that would allow us to update a list of available servers on the web, and their current status. We have an outside person working on that, so hopefully we'll have something in place soon.

From the dev chat last night we are looking at the following going in on the current servers:

- New Combat (includes reports)
- PCC (Planetary Control Centers)
- Rest of Push
- Observer changes (probably - This will allow you to see everything in the sector when you have a ship there, and only the planets when you don't)

Most of the other things discussed in this thread are being worked in to a new server design. We will keep extending "free" months till we get everything sorted out. We want to make sure you guys get a game you feel happy with before we continue to do anything with the charges.

[Parsons]

Big fan of the alliances setup. Wouldn't need to be cross server, maybe you want to challenge your buddy on the next server, would we have a way to opt out of the alliance for particular servers? Oh persistent servers is very very cool sounding. Would need to change speed of the game, let people join server any time, lots of different things, but it's a cool idea.

[zarkwizard]

For persistent servers we have thought about doing something like UO did. Where you have a skill point cap. Once you reach that cap you can't learn anything else. You would then be allowed to "drop skills", but if you dropped something like say Super Cap you would end up having all your super caps destroyed. Every skill would have a points weight (they actually do now) and as you learn more skills it would increase your points. We would put the points numbers on the skills if we were going to do that as well so people know how many points they are spending on a specific skill as well.

We would probably go for much larger universes as well. For example there would be one more level of the galaxy map that would actually represent other galaxies, so you would be able to expand across galaxies. We would probably bring back wormholes that may link to different galaxies.. We have some stuff thought out and going in to the new server designs, but nothing is firm yet.

[Parsons]

I would love the persistent server once we get things with the standard server figured out. As we come close to the end of Ningal server I've been thinking about what I have liked and what would be better changed. I've been wondering what problems would it cause if we didn't have classes just various victory conditions? That way new players can come in get a feel for the game and steer themselves toward the game style they like instead of kinda not knowing what they are to expect with each profession. Just an idea. I think persistent servers it would be almost a must have to eliminate profession and just let people's decisions dictate the play style. If we make the galaxy larger, slow down the acquisition of planets and skills (just to a point, not stale and boring but not populate the galaxy in under say like 3 months at earliest), expand the number of skills and refine them to be very meaningful, maybe make more options available on outposts and planets we would have a real meaty persistent game. Maybe worth a seperate forum post on ideas for persistent, maybe not since we want to make the current server builds scalable for the persistent version. Really excited for the persistent version once we get stuff worked out with normal.

[Enforc3r]

Just wanted to say goodjob so far on getting me hooked! Been looking for a good iPhone MMO for ages.
Only one managed to get me hooked so far and that was -KingdomConquest-. Even though it has IAP, you
don't really gain that much more of an advantage.

Just wanted to suggest that if you do decide to enable alliance, maybe add an alliance forum/bulletin board in game.
Cos most people would log on at diff times so it would be handy to leave important notes for everyone to see.
Just my thoughts anyway. Keep up the good work!

P.S. Kindly move the question mark icon else where please. Maybe put it under the settings menu. It is a major boner killer. But if/once you guys patch in a native backgrounder, then I guess it wouldn't be so bad.

[BAC33]

For persistent servers we have thought about doing something like UO did. Where you have a skill point cap. Once you reach that cap you can't learn anything else. You would then be allowed to "drop skills", but if you dropped something like say Super Cap you would end up having all your super caps destroyed. Every skill would have a points weight (they actually do now) and as you learn more skills it would increase your points. We would put the points numbers on the skills if we were going to do that as well so people know how many points they are spending on a specific skill as well.

We would probably go for much larger universes as well. For example there would be one more level of the galaxy map that would actually represent other galaxies, so you would be able to expand across galaxies. We would probably bring back wormholes that may link to different galaxies.. We have some stuff thought out and going in to the new server designs, but nothing is firm yet.

Here is something that came to mind that you might be able to incorporate. White Holes. Never used in any game that I know of and not well known. Basically a reverse Black Hole. Thought it could be used for your cross universe ideas and you could limit usage by needing a top level skill to be able to navigate Black Holes and White Holes

Here is a partial quote from Wikipedia on the subject. Basically the same as a wormhole in a way, but a little more unique.

There are theories suggesting that white holes create new universes from matter originating in another universe's black hole.[8]

A more recently proposed view of black holes might be interpreted as shedding some light on the nature of classical white holes. Some researchers have proposed that when a black hole forms, a big bang occurs at the core, which creates a new universe that expands outside of the parent universe.[9][10] See also Fecund universes.

The initial feeding of matter from the parent universe's black hole and the expansion that follows in the new universe might be thought of as a cosmological type of white hole. Unlike traditional white holes, this type of white hole would not be localized in space in the new universe, and its horizon would have to be identified with the cosmological horizon.[citation needed]

Expanding a little more on this. If you read more on wiki. One theory suggests that both can exist simultaneously in both universes. This could provide a unique game experience. You could separate skills for both. Black holes will suck you in and destroy ships until black hole physics reaches a certain level. At that point It would transport your ships to the other universe. The same would be said for white holes. Initially destroying ships with tidal forces Then white holes could throw ships away. Throwing them across the same universe since it is an outgoing hole until tech and understanding increase allowing them to be visible and the ships getting protection. At some point it would get interesting because when navigation for one is discovered it would only be a one way trip until navigation is researched for the other to get back home

[ChickenHawk07]

Woah, first I've heard if that, but very cool.

[Xexist]

Just realized I had lost like 20 or 30 outposts before I even noticed because the game didnt have the courtesy to send me so much as an in game notice that my ships and outposts were being attacked.

Good day to you all, I shant be playing again.

[Skeith27]

As a player who likes to try different strategies, I would feel more comfortable if I could use a different name each game. I worry about players I've attacked (or even betrayed) in one game having a vendetta out for me in future games because they assume I will be agressive again. Some times I like to play a trustworthy Trader ally. Other times I want to be a cuthroat Warlord. But I know that I'll be forever carry a mark once enough players associate my name with something bad from a game long over.

[BAC33]

As a player who likes to try different strategies, I would feel more comfortable if I could use a different name each game. I worry about players I've attacked (or even betrayed) in one game having a vendetta out for me in future games because they assume I will be agressive again. Some times I like to play a trustworthy Trader ally. Other times I want to be a cuthroat Warlord. But I know that I'll be forever carry a mark once enough players associate my name with something bad from a game long over.

Excellent. This is something I hadn't even thought about yet, but I second this idea

Especially since I am almost the only person using a lame example for a name. :)

[Tsagoth]

As a player who likes to try different strategies, I would feel more comfortable if I could use a different name each game. I worry about players I've attacked (or even betrayed) in one game having a vendetta out for me in future games because they assume I will be agressive again. Some times I like to play a trustworthy Trader ally. Other times I want to be a cuthroat Warlord. But I know that I'll be forever carry a mark once enough players associate my name with something bad from a game long over.

Not currently possible with the existing accounting setup. However I will be revisiting the account server soon because we need to get off the crappy db engine it uses, so I will see if this is something we can do.