Blackspace!

[villain of the story]

Getting 50 clicks/h. Thrust = 51.89, Ship size = 46.

By the way, obviously making Billions in a day from robotics is stupidly dumb but I'm working on how that'll all be balanced.

But if you "balance" that, there will be no fun.

 

[Kayerts]

Good call. Though I was (int) type-casting it before stuffing it into the DB. I corrected the DB earlier but didn't change the typecast to a (float).

I'll have an in-game ship renaming option soon.

Heh, cool. I'll probably test out the new money limit sometime tomorrow, if you need a guinea pig.

What's the typical mobility range? I've found that my Fuckhueg-class dreadnought gets around 60 with empty cargo holds, and a flat 0 if it's full.

Regarding the economy, I can think of a lot of hacks that might work to partially fix it, short of a total overhaul. The problem with the current model is that it allows exponential growth in tradeable funds once you find a profitable loop. You can do things to limit tradeable funds, limit the exponent, or limit the loops, all of which could be viable with the right implementation.

I think the bigger problem's more or less what Villain said in his last post, though: given how hard it is to get into a fight right now, there aren't a lot of things for players to do besides trade. Wandering space-beasts / NPC ships, or maybe some way of extending the PvP engagement range, seem like priorities for keeping people interested.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Getting 50 clicks/h. Thrust = 51.89, Ship size = 46.

Yeah well, you have stuffed your ship with thrusters and have bugger all defense and very limited cargo space considering your size.

I was speaking more generally in terms of big, heavy ships who want some defense and armaments in terms of them being slower than trading vessels. Currently if you keep the same ratio of engines / power / holds you could keep that high thrust with any ship size. I think that seems reasonable.

Good call. Though I was (int) type-casting it before stuffing it into the DB. I corrected the DB earlier but didn't change the typecast to a (float).

I'll have an in-game ship renaming option soon.

Heh, cool. I'll probably test out the new money limit sometime tomorrow, if you need a guinea pig.

It'd be worth doing just to make sure I covered it.

What's the typical mobility range? I've found that my Fuckhueg-class dreadnought gets around 60 with empty cargo holds, and a flat 0 if it's full.

At the moment, mobility only comes with Judson-12's. I'm re-working how I do the math and will / may change that though. Dunno yet.

I think the bigger problem's more or less what Villain said in his last post, though: given how hard it is to get into a fight right now, there aren't a lot of things for players to do besides trade. Wandering space-beasts / NPC ships, or maybe some way of extending the PvP engagement range, seem like priorities for keeping people interested.

- Player built stations.
- Exploration (find and name new planets / systems) in an infinitely expanding, randomly generated on-the-fly universe.
- Mining resources.
- Building improvements on Ports (Planets / Stations) to increase their resources (and defenses).
- Port raiding (destroy Stations / raid planets).
- Clans / Companies players can join and ally with to conquer systems and exploit resource hot-spots.
- Player built Stargates that link far-flung Systems together, allowing easy trade access. Being able to destroy Stargates built by your enemies to ruin their trade routes.
- Large ships being able to install a Wormhole Generator that allows them to open up a direct (but temporary) link between anywhere and anywhere else. While it's open, a whole fleet can move through.

Poor PvP at the moment is also due to the small number of players online at any one time. If I add mining, then hunting around the asteroids will become worthwhile. If I add port raiding then players will be able to find and destroy ships in the middle of a raid (distress signals sent out on various frequencies by stations under attack - so you can monitor them and help defend).

 

[Cassidy]

LOLWAT. How about, you dock at a station before you log off?

I saw the list of docked ships, and having not tested it, thought docked ships could also be attacked.

 

[Jaesun]

Oh FFS! Do you have to find engines at a certain Space Port?

 

[Wild Slop]

Yes

Ahbet [-5,8] - hulls, energy cores, thrusters
Jola7 is shields, armor, and can find coms array there
The Edge - cargo holds and weapons (around 15 clicks to ahbet)
(currently)

Starting I wandered all about the map and making (click wasting) low $ trades and got stuck with 1 click turns no engine or thrusters.
Slowly coming back.


A question. When someone destroys your ship what exactly happens?

I know it should be fairly obvious but do you lose a % or amount of your bank?

 

[Wild Slop]

oops double post cant figure out how to delete

 

[SoupNazi]

I seriously need to reset my ship.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

So how do I blow people up? It seem like you get at most one attack before they are gone out of a certain area of space, so the only way to kill some one is of you manage to take them down in one shot.
I want to turn the Toddhowardizer into scrap metal, sadly I can't do this, it seem like such a huge and juicy target with out any defenses or weapons.

 

[villain of the story]

Why me? I'm not even one of the biggest ships and I have zero defences and zero weapons. Are you a spacenigger or what?

I seriously need to reset my ship.

Why, can't you just sell all components and buy them anew? Are you poor or something? Dirty peasant!

By the way, how the fuck those huge, top 10 biggest ships manage at all? How do you guys generate enough clicks to even trade? Here are two ships I've got:

Freighter Class Hull (47x)
(L.TCR-9b) Thermonuclear Core (4x)
Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV (14x)
InterTek k12 Communications Array (1x)
Large Cargo Hold (2x)

Thrust: 50.81 (per hour)
Nets 50 clicks, I think.

Freighter Class Hull (18x)
(L.TCR-9b) Thermonuclear Core (1x)
Cijaa Systems TSEIT IV (3x)
Large Cargo Hold (2x)

Thrust: 28.89 (per hour)
Nets 28 clicks? Not sure but if not, it's gotta be something around that.

I mean, WTF?! 3 more Thermonuclear Cores (4 vs. 1), 11 more TSEIT IV Drives (14 vs. 3) and 29 more Freighter Hulls (47 vs. 18), only for 22 more clicks and the gain is shrinks the bigger you get. What am I doing wrong here? I'm sticking to the most sc-efficient setups and it's not enough.

 

[Baron]

I want to turn the Toddhowardizer into scrap metal, sadly I can't do this.

It's time for desperate measures. Forward all thrusters. Ram him.





I have X3 somewhere on my system, not sure why I'm playing this. Still, cool project DU. Will get around to donating/patronising.

Love the idea of forum games*, and space traders are the best. (Fuck that Space Rogue guy must have gotten some tail in the late 80s, that gym towel was a nice idea. Another quality Origin cover. Those two games shit all over Elite. Admittedly, you couldn't get mugged in an alley in Elite... yet it got the critical acclaim.) I unashamedly loved Mass Effect (several alleyway muggings), but I could have loved it more if instead of saving the galaxy I could have just profited by it, smuggling guns to the Geth, dodging customs Spectres, and trading in illegal Krogan cryogenic equipment.

* edit - I just confessed an attraction to social gaming, didn't I?

 

[villain of the story]

Could we get a new stats category: Most Clicks? I'd like to know how many clicks all those people with huge or most offensive/defensive ships get.

 

[Kayerts]

By the way, how the fuck those huge, top 10 biggest ships manage at all? How do you guys generate enough clicks to even trade?

I think the answer is basically that buying additional thrusters gives drastically diminishing returns, and this is significantly magnified by size. However, the early part of the curve is reasonably forgiving. ~30 TSEITs at size 200 will get you ~22 thrust. The same ~30 TSEITs at size 444 gets you ~13 thrust; ~50 gets you ~22; ~70 gets you 27.

As for your other question, my two 400+ ships get 27 and 30.

@DarkUnderlord: Weapons buff ship defense, apparently at an equal value to their offense. Is this intentional?

Also, there seems to be a race condition (and not the usual sort for the Codex). When buying/selling, if you fire off the transaction requests fast enough, you can go into negative structural capacity. Probably not worth fixing, but I figured I'd let you know. I did notice that if you're in the negatives, it won't let you buy hulls or sell any ship parts to free up space unless the resulting SC >=0, so people could theoretically get stuck.

 

[villain of the story]

Hey wtf, I found my ships (emphasis on plural) undocked though I'm absolutely certain I left them docked.

 

[Baron]

"Uhhh Captain... we seem to be entering a sector with an unusually strong gravitational well that's fucking with my shit."

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Could we get a new stats category: Most Clicks? I'd like to know how many clicks all those people with huge or most offensive/defensive ships get.

More useful would be Thrust per hour but given I generate that data (and don't save it), it's not easy to get for the stats page. It's added in but people will have to login (and move) before it gets updated.

I think the answer is basically that buying additional thrusters gives drastically diminishing returns, and this is significantly magnified by size. However, the early part of the curve is reasonably forgiving. ~30 TSEITs at size 200 will get you ~22 thrust. The same ~30 TSEITs at size 444 gets you ~13 thrust; ~50 gets you ~22; ~70 gets you 27.

As for your other question, my two 400+ ships get 27 and 30.

Thrust of Engines / Ship Size. So:
Judson-12 = 12T (what I call raw thrust)
Ship Size: 1 = 12/1 = 12 T/ph
Ship Size: 2 = 12/2 = 6
Ship Size: 3 = 12/3 = 4
Ship Size: 100 = 12/100 = 0.12

Obviously if you keep the ratio though, your speed will remain constant. So if 1 Engine provides 12 Thrust at size 1, then 2 Engines at Size 2 will provide 12 Thrust, 3 at Size 3 and so on. There's a power requirement in there too that will also limit how many you can stuff on. Oh and power at 110% provides a 10% bonus as well (I was thinking about modules that allow you to boost that up to 50%, certain engines that can't be overclocked and others that would explode if you tried it, including power plants that would explode if you were under-powered and working them too hard).

I am thinking about re-working the math so that small engines simply don't power big ships that much (even if you have a lot of them) but I'm not happy with the results I've had so far. I even toyed with the idea of ship components adding "weight / mass" which would also have an effect.

@DarkUnderlord: Weapons buff ship defense, apparently at an equal value to their offense. Is this intentional?

No, it is not. It's been corrected (but the stats page will take some time before it updates).

Also, there seems to be a race condition (and not the usual sort for the Codex). When buying/selling, if you fire off the transaction requests fast enough, you can go into negative structural capacity. Probably not worth fixing, but I figured I'd let you know. I did notice that if you're in the negatives, it won't let you buy hulls or sell any ship parts to free up space unless the resulting SC >=0, so people could theoretically get stuck.

I'll take a look.

"Uhhh Captain... we seem to be entering a sector with an unusually strong gravitational well that's fucking with my shit."

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v241/ ... pspace.jpg

Is fixed!

 

[Jigawatt]

Isn't it a bit of a coincidence that all the news occurs at six past the hour?

 

[villain of the story]

I made it to a station, ending up at zero clicks and I can't sell my cargo:

"You must wait for your engines to recharge before performing that action."

 

[villain of the story]

I accidentally bought a Judson-12 and upon selling it back:

"Selling this engine has resulted in a 119 click penalty.
You sell Judson-12 Ion Drive for $59,800."



THIS IS BULLSHIT, DU!

 

[villain of the story]

Yeah great, someone finished me off in a single momentary attack and I lost all of my cargo and money too. FUCK THIS SHIT! Motherfucking gravedigger, go take on someone your size if you have the balls, bitch!

 

[tarkin]

Lol that must be the same pirate that was attacking me on my The Edge - Ahbet Jola-7 20k/cubit run. I just shrugged and went on my way. But i must say he was a persistent fucker, was chasing me for like 10 minutes.

By the way, cool game DU. Love the fuzzy dice.

edit: fixed

 

[Kayerts]

Uh, hey guys, how's it going?

Sorry about that, Villain. I do actively try to refrain from firing on the smaller guys, but didn't you have ~$1.2B? You could have easily afforded enough defense to prevent me from one-shotting you. If there's an implausibly-sized battleship sitting on a space station on your trade route, I feel like you're assuming some amount of risk by running it naked.

Tarkin, did I get anywhere close to knocking you out? I was considering switching up my damage distribution to see if I could take you down with one hit, but that seemed unsporting.

Jiga was also making the run; he managed to do a healthy amount of shield damage every time I caught him. I'm pretty sure he was never in any danger of getting scrapped; I'm mostly just an oversized trader.

Everyone else on that route seemed new, so I was trying to stay away from them.

 

[tarkin]

Once my Hull went down to just about 150. Other times to 300-400. That's the only protection i had. And by saying that i now must buy some armour or shields, thats like a couple of hundred of millions down the drain



Pennies

 

[villain of the story]

How is having 1.2B is an excuse? I was neither one of the top 10 biggest, most offensive or most defensive ships. And I had just spent about half of all my money on upgrades to enlarge my cargo space and to preserve my speed and was carrying $300M+ worth of cargo. And then boom!, all gone, just ~$200M remaining. How the hell can you keep track of your sector anyway, are you spamming refresh like mad or what?

But anyway, congrats and all that (ie. I'm immensely butthurt).

 

[Kayerts]

Well, mostly it means that you could have easily afforded protection against dashing pirates with cruel yet handsome eyes, but decided not to get any. My sense is that this kind of piracy is in the spirit of the game and makes things more interesting; if you disagree, feel free to explain why.

$200M is plenty, though. The ship that killed you had been reset from $2B to $0 by a system bug on Monday, and I built it back up starting with about $30M worth of sold parts. With your accumulated clicks, I'm sure you'll be able to turn that into at least a few billion within a few minutes, if a good loop appears while you're on. PM me if you want any help on how to optimize your ship to trade back the money you lost, not that I think you need it.

Oh, and if it's any consolation, I obeyed your request and picked on someone my own size. Unfortunately, this resulted in there no longer being anyone my own size.