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Blackspace!

What do you think about Blackspace?

  • Pretty cool. Smarten it up, add loads more shit and I'd pay $5 for it.

    Votes: 3 30.0%
  • It's good for what it is.

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • Meh. It was fun for 5 mins.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Blackspace?

    Votes: 5 50.0%

  • Total voters
    10

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
villain of the story said:
* Elvis Bobblehead Doll (1x)
* Fuzzy Dice (1x)
* Rubik's Cube (1x)
* Scented Pine Air Freshner (1x)

Does any of this stuff actually do anything? Knowing DU, I bet so but what?
Yep. It used to do even more too, until Faceless destroyed the Death Star. :cry:
 

Cassidy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 9, 2007
Messages
7,922
Location
Vault City
I have to say the standard hull is quite worthless in anything but price since freighter class hull was added, and although buying it may lead to a faster growth because two standard hulls are cheaper than the other "balanced alternative", in the long term I wouldn't be so sure of its worth:

1 Re-inforced Hull Framework + 1 Freighter Class Hull provide a total of 180sc and 115 hull defense

2 Hull Assembly Structures provide a total of 160 sc and 100 hull defense.
 
Joined
Apr 2, 2010
Messages
7,428
Location
Villainville
MCA
Alright, here are some mining figures compared to trading (jump down to coloured text for a TL;DR summery):

(1) Here is a modest rating of Robotics trading that reflects average price surges with a less-than-perfect travelling plot:

10 x Large Cargo Holders (6500 cubits, 5000 sc total);
Buy at 50,000;
Sell at 100,000;
Between The Edge and Ahbet (40 clicks total for a round);
Net earning: $325M
Earnings per click: $8,125,000

For a mediocre 20 clicks/hour ship using the most efficient components needed for this size, that's basically:

Clicks = Thrust / Ship Size
(152*x) / ((5000 + 675* + (x*250))/110) = 20

x: Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV ( -120 pu, -250 sc, 152T )
*: Gen-C "Bainbridge" Nuclear Power Plant ( 2700 pu, -675 sc)


That is 9,684300341296928 ~= 10 TSEIT IV Drives.

Total sc: 8175, which takes 75 Freighter Class Hulls (110 sc) to provide

So the ship is:
75 x Freighter Class Hull
10 x Large Cargo Holders
10 x Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV
1 x Gen-C "Bainbridge" Nuclear Power Plant

Pretty modest and agreeable for a just-becoming-a-jew ship.


~ o ~


(2) Here's what it takes to earn the same amount per click ($8,125,000) with mining by using the most efficient components with maximum performance* (ie. mining the maximum 25 cubits per drill) at average ore price :

Selling ore at $1000;

So we need 8125 cubits of ore per click and to get that, we need:
13 x Large Cargo Holder ( 8450 cubits, 6500 sc total)
325 x Bruforde "Hound" Mining Drill ( 62 sc, 150 pu; 20150 sc, 48750 pu total) )

Clicks = Thrust / Ship Size
(152*x) / (( 6500 + 20150 + 1760* + (2 * 5280)** + (x*250))/110) = 20

x: Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV ( -120 pu, -250 sc, 152T )
*: eQ8 Fusion Power Core ( 8000pu, -1760 sc)
**: Nova:Exper-11.314 ( +26400 pu, -5280 sc )


That is 66,50170648464164 ~= 67 TSEIT IV Drives.

Total sc: 55720, which takes 507 Freighter Class Hulls (110 sc) to provide

So the ship is:

507 x Freighter Class Hulls
13 x Large Cargo Holders
55 x Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV
2 x Nova:Exper-11.314
1 x Gen-C "Bainbridge" Nuclear Power Plant
325 x Bruforde "Hound" Mining Drill

~ o ~

THE QUICK JEW FOX HUMPS OVER THE CHAV DOG:

Here is what it takes to make $8,125,000 per click via trading and mining:

Jew Fox said:
75 x Freighter Class Hull
10 x Large Cargo Holders
10 x Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV
1 x Gen-C "Bainbridge" Nuclear Power Plant

Chav Dog said:
507 x Freighter Class Hulls
13 x Large Cargo Holders
55 x Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV
2 x Nova:Exper-11.314
1 x Gen-C "Bainbridge" Nuclear Power Plant
325 x Bruforde "Hound" Mining Drill

And that's actually excluding the clicks it takes to get to mining cell and back.

I mean, with figures like this, who the fuck would ever want to bother with mining? The investment is way too fucking high to make it even half worth. I'd argue that, in the long term, mining could end up more profitable and immediate due to not having to track and wait for trade surges for maximum profit so I don't suggest a value for value balancing between trading and mining but that the investment barrier is insanely high.
 

Kayerts

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
883
The above analysis is pretty good. Profits from mining are bounded by ore prices, power, number of drills, and hold space; profits from trading are bounded only by price differential and hold space. Since on even a moderately good run, the price differential for robotics or pharmaceuticals is an order of magnitude greater than the price of ore, mining is never going to be a good idea. You'd need the unit price of the resource mined to be much higher. I haven't done any math, but my guess is that if the mined resource went for $15K/u, then some people might find it worthwhile to mine. It still wouldn't be as good as trading under optimal conditions, but then, it probably shouldn't be.

Of course, trading even under optimal conditions has nothing on the profitability of attacking the Death Star. :) I might do a writeup of the battle, in the unlikely event that anyone cares. There were some quirks to that fight that could make for a decent story.

DU: Giving the planet-destroying gun the ability to crit was a nasty surprise. How did that thing work, by the way? Say that after all the other guns fire, I'm left with 50K of armor and 80K of hull. The superlaser hits my armor for 130K and destroys it; does the hull-destroying part of its gun then finish me off? Or does that take another round?

* Elvis Bobblehead Doll (1x)
* Fuzzy Dice (1x)
* Rubik's Cube (1x)
* Scented Pine Air Freshner (1x)

Does any of this stuff actually do anything? Knowing DU, I bet so but what?

Yep. It used to do even more too, until Faceless destroyed the Death Star.

The bobbleheads are actually locator beacons, drawing galactic-scale threats to us? If so, I'm totally buying 50.
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
Just for the record, I am taking notes of what people are suggesting and various ideas that have been suggested are being implemented. re: The mining vs trading, trading will change quite dramatically at some point (based on some suggestions someone posted making it quantity demand / supply based) which will alter things. I'll also add some better drills at some point.

Kayerts said:
DU: Giving the planet-destroying gun the ability to crit was a nasty surprise. How did that thing work, by the way? Say that after all the other guns fire, I'm left with 50K of armor and 80K of hull. The superlaser hits my armor for 130K and destroys it; does the hull-destroying part of its gun then finish me off? Or does that take another round?
My original intent was that the only way to take out the Death Star was to avoid being hit by the Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser altogether. Random chance would then favour a squad of small fighters pecking away at it over time - while capital ships were potentially obliterated in a single shot (or would have to be lucky to avoid a hit).

At the moment though, any damage any weapon does is only to the "top layer" of defenses. So if you have 5 Shield and 10,000 Armour and you get hit by a weapon that causes 1M Dmg to Shields and 2M dmg to Armour, then only your shields will take a potential 1M Dmg hit - your armour will be fine. There's no carry over. I'm going a bit both ways about changing that. On one hand it makes sense that damage carries through, on the other you do need the chance to run away.

At the moment too, all weapons crit hit. Critical chance is based on 10% of your attacking chance. So if you have a 33% chance to hit your opponent, you'll have a 3.3% chance to crit hit. That's as of right now. Crits are simply 2 - 5x damage. I'll be tweaking it so that certain weapons will critical hit while others will have no opportunity to; and some will crit hit harder than others. I'm also toying with an Armour Piercing Yes / No option on weapons, where AP weapons that crit hit will pierce armour and destroy equipment onboard. I'll also tweak mobility. This is a re-working of the combat system that I want to finish before I bring the Death Star back. Oh yeah and maybe looking at some kind of re-gen / armour repair for Stations (perhaps a % every attack or every hour).

Kayerts said:
The bobbleheads are actually locator beacons, drawing galactic-scale threats to us? If so, I'm totally buying 50.
It has something to do with movement...
 

SoupNazi

Guest
I lost a cargo of 770 robotics overnight ;/

Edit: One thing I think everyone would appreciate would be an easier interface for upgrading the ship. Right now, I think the list is little clunky and so is selling the current modules. For example, right now I'm a pretty heavy cargo ship but I'd try to reconfigure into a mobile killer. This is impossible without me wasting hundreds of clicks while traveling between planets (since certain modules can be only sold at certain planets), and that also increases the chance of me fucking up in the process.

What I propose is another station or a planet that is dedicated solely to changing ship configurations. Perhaps make it possible to remove certain modules but not sell them - instead store them at the station. The modules could be divided in a table by category (weapons, hull modules, defense, ...) and it could make it a lot easier and allow players to change their ship configuration when needed. Imagine sometimes in the future a group of players ally to take down a bigger target so everyone flies into the "garage", they remove their cargo space and increase their mobility and firepower. After taking down the bigger ship they can go back to their life as traders or miners.

I'm not sure if this is something you perhaps don't want (I guess you could argue you want players to stick to their roles), but as long as it's impossible to re-roll or make an alt (at least for me :x ), this would be great.
 

SoupNazi

Guest
Oh wow, I actually made it to third place in speed and am on the top 20 of attack values. Cool.
 

Shannow

Waster of Time
Joined
Sep 15, 2006
Messages
6,386
Location
Finnegan's Wake
Coming back to supply and demand:
Of course it depends on how random you want to make everything:
mining resources --> certain amount or resources is needed to make certain product (eg. 3 ore --> 1 metal, but energy and workforce were also needed so 5 ore = 1 metal before supply and demand come in, or something)--> product could be used to make others again with a factor between them thus further increasing scarcity and price of the more processed product.
Those chains could have different lengths for different products. Products should also be consumed. Food obviously having a high expiring factor while robotics and parts have a low one that can be increased by purchases of ship components.

Availability could also be capped. So at one point the good would be sold out and before some is sold to the planet or production picks up you can't get any, no matter the price. (The cap should obviously be very high.)
 

SoupNazi

Guest
FFS I turned my ship around to an attack vessel but just wasted 200 clicks even trying to attack someone, but every single god dang time the ship is already out of the sector when I try to attack.
 

tarkin

Augur
Joined
Apr 27, 2005
Messages
939
Wasteland 2
Why did i suddenly lose 700 clicks? All i was doing was buying more hull, cargo holds, engines (i had enough power) and trading like crazy. I only noticed it after a fact. Why are there no logs ffs :x
 

tarkin

Augur
Joined
Apr 27, 2005
Messages
939
Wasteland 2
I noticed. But i was gone for 3 days and losing clicks because someone attacks you is new to me. It would be nice if the game somehow communicated that.
 

SoupNazi

Guest
Nah, it's probably not because of that. But did you sell any engines? If I understand this correctly, when you sell your engines you lose like 20% of your clicks or something.
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
tarkin said:
Why did i suddenly lose 700 clicks? All i was doing was buying more hull, cargo holds, engines (i had enough power) and trading like crazy. I only noticed it after a fact. Why are there no logs ffs
  1. Max clicks you can have at any time is 500 or current thrust * 72, whichever is greater.
  2. Selling engines costs a penalty¹.
  3. Losing power will reset your clicks (ref: point 1)¹.
  4. Buying hulls obviously changes your max and will reduce available clicks if above the new max (ref: point 1)¹.
  5. The calculation sometimes displayed more clicks than you really should have had. I think I just fixed that though.
I've added a message to say when the system resets the count to your max allowed clicks.

¹Fun I know but only way I can prevent obvious exploits (Save up clicks, sell all engines, max out hull size and fill your ship with weapons, then take advantage of saved up clicks - which you can all still do with a 500 click floor anyway incidentally...).
 
Joined
Apr 2, 2010
Messages
7,428
Location
Villainville
MCA
I bought 200 Freighter Class Hulls for about $8B (and I saw the message telling me what I have bought for what amount) but my F.C.Hull amount stayed the same. I just threw $8B into thin air. Bug?

I paid $8B for something, most likely Hull Assembly Structure, but whatever it was, it has definitely vanished into air because after typing 200 and clicking on "buy", the first thing I checked was the message and the second, ship component list. There was nothing new in there (I save component list to a file before and after every major purchase).
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
See if you can repeat the bug, then tell me exactly what you were buying, how much, where and what the price should've been / how much money you lost.
 

SoupNazi

Guest
Oh man :(

We are the Entity. We are that which you fear. Your ship will be destroyed and your mind will be consumed.
Resistance is incapable of producing any result; ineffective; useless; not successful.
The Entity (Station) destroyed your ship and looted $1,746,027 credits.

Fucking nanoparticle cannon shit, EVERY SINGLE OTHER WEAPON MISSED and then this piece of shit one-shots me. Funny thing is that it has two of those and the other missed too. FFS. THIS WAS THE LAST GUN ON THE LIST
 

Kayerts

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
883
The gun that destroys you is always the last gun on the list, since after that, the ship presumably stops firing.

If it's any consolation, it had a lot more damage after that. :) The primary damage output of the entity seems to be its "Death Ray" devices.

Here are some lines from the log:
The Great Devourer said:
700 Shield dmg 17. High Energy Laser Beam Cannon
900 Shield dmg 18. High Energy Laser Beam Cannon
4,400 Shield dmg (Critical) 19. High Energy Laser Beam Cannon
4,800 Shield dmg (Critical) 20. High Energy Laser Beam Cannon
700 Shield dmg 21. High Energy Laser Beam Cannon

630 Shield dmg 424. Nanoparticle Beam Accelerator
MIV Laser Penetrator 425. 72 Shield dmg
540 Shield dmg 426. Nanoparticle Beam Accelerator

293 Shield dmg 575. Charged Particle Beam Projector
315 Shield dmg 576. Charged Particle Beam Projector
180 Shield dmg 577. Charged Particle Beam Projector
340 Shield dmg (Critical) 651. Anti-Matter Directed Energy Weapon
130 Shield dmg 662. Anti-Matter Directed Energy Weapon
60 Shield dmg 682. Anti-Matter Directed Energy Weapon
[..]
700,000 Shield dmg Shield Destroyed! 699. [Unidentified] "Death Ray"
1,050,000 Armour dmg Armour Destroyed! 708. [Unidentified] "Death Ray"

900,000 Hull dmg Hull Destroyed! 710. [Unidentified] "Death Ray"
 

denizsi

Arcane
Joined
Nov 24, 2005
Messages
9,927
Location
bosphorus
LOL, this game sucks. And I thought the Codexers didn't like social networking sites like facebook and social networking games like Farmville and yet everybody is playing this shit? TEH EYE-RONNIE! Have fun being guinea pigs for an up and coming facebook game. Farmville in space! I'm sure you will all hate it the same once it makes it there.
 

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