Plutorus

Lanc, linebombz

lol, great pic, would make a great subspace xmas card hmm Poor Zig put in all that heroic effort on the map graphics, only to get trapped, snapped, and shellacked!

Merry Chaosmas! Holiday map is now up, with some brand new graphical additions. 'Tis the season for giving the gift of bullets, bombs, and more!

hrozné zóna

Thanks for the hard work Aesop! It was fun touring and playtesting one of the older versions with you last week.

Fruktansvärda zon

Thanks Psy! Just scoped it out, looking good.

You're already missed, my friend. See you next year

Thanks for all, Polix! Wish you the best with family and future A few months ago, we spoke for the first time, when I PM'ed you with a random question in chaos zone. You were both gracious in answer and generous with time. I feel fortunate that I had the chance to meet you then. -Plut

Not many questions this week, so if you've got some, feel free to send them my way! If not, we'll hold off on the next Chaotic Chat column until we get a few more. -Plut

Hi all, Sorry for the delay in upping the next column. I just moved, and now starting to settle in, so should be able to post sooner rather than later See ya ingame! -Plut

Would you like to see the return of the +1 flag game for a reset? For those newer to Chaos, this older version gave the flag holder a bonus of +1 lvl bullets and + 1 lvl bombs. As an example, a fully upgraded warbird holding the flag in this game would have level 4 bullets and lvl 3 bombs (the blue kind, like a lev). There was also a version where the flag would not only give the power-ups, but also some countering downgrades, like a slight reduction in speed. Vote and discuss below!

Welcome to Chaotic Chat, a bi-weekly column focused on turning real community questions into real answers. Thanks to you, this chat continues to flourish, so keep those questions coming! This week, we've got 5 great questions, from yobbo, lightbender, and Sue E. Side. If you're playing the drinking game at home, take a shot when you see the word "wildly": Question #1 - When will we see a return of the "power-up" version of the flag game - the version where there is one flag that gives level +1 bullets and bombs? (yobbo) A. There have always been mixed opinions on this version, but it is a possibility for a future reset. In fact, it's a topic that's worth more discussion - check out the forum for a brand new poll on the +1 flag game! Question #2 - What are the differences between current chaos and true SVS settings? (lightbender) A. In short, not much. Besides the Shark, there are very few real, material changes compared to SVS. The Shark and bonuses are new. And there are now wildly more greens than SVS, with a lower % of warp, super, shields, shutdown, and burst greens, with a few more thors. Most ship settings are almost identical - the vast majority of the changes occurred in the 1998-2003 timeframe, with very little change since then: - Warbird reduced to 290 rotation vs. 300 SVS - All ships (except wb and jav) have 18 thrust instead of 17 SVS - Terrier fire rate now much faster, increased to 25 vs. 30 SVS (all others except shark are currently 24) - Lanc bombs bounce twice - Bullet damage is 212 (matches league) vs. 400 SVS -- this has been this way for many, many years - Burst bullets now 350 vs. 515 SVS (wow, 515!!!!! instant death) - Anti-warp radius increased to 1200 vs. 1000 SVS - Dynamic freqsize (since 2000) - Repel speed reduced to 4200 vs. 5000 SVS - Repel time increased to 295 vs. 225 SVS - Banner points reduced to 1000 vs. 5000 SVS You can see the current ship settings @ http://chaos.subspac...ge=zonesettings Super sneak peek: there will be a true SVS weekend (or longer) in the not-so-distant future!! Question #3 - Why is there even a flag game in Chaos to begin with? (Sue E. Side) A. Chaos has had a flag since 1998. It has at times had a power up, other times not. Jackpot style flagging was introduced in the mid-2000s. Chaos gets it's name from the wildly differing game goals that various pilots have - not from any random nature in the settings. Chaos has always supported a wide range of playing styles. Adding various types of flag games/mini-games gives people more choices about how to have fun the zone. However, flagging should never become the predominate game goal in Chaos. Question #4 - What's the point of giving away 55-60 greens for a 0 point flag win? (Sue E. Side) A. The first goal was to give a solo player something to do while waiting for others to show up to play. We often see players enter, see no one playing, then leave only to have a second come in within a minute and do the same. If the first player had stuck around for a minute, we'd have a seed of population that might grow. So, by collecting flags, you get to boost your greening power a little to spur interest. Question #5 - What are the jackpot multipliers anyway? (Sue E. Side) A. With the real stats being kept by the bots, the flag reward can be anything rather than the very limited version the server code allows. Currently, the jackpot (which accumulates from killed bounty) is split between however many people are on a freq AND playing at the time of the win. And that's a wrap! You can help make this Q&A a regular feature to the forum, so please feel free to message me in-game, or drop a ?message (Plutorus), or even post your questions below. Thanks for reading! -Plut

Congrats and happy birthday!

Like everyone, would love to see Continuum + Greenlight. For a short while, I tried a game called Nestalgia, which is an indie MMO that visually looks like an 8-bit Dragonwarrior game, and plays with modern mechanics. I still check in on their blog - it looks like they were recently allowed access to the Greenlight beta. They also launched a new "Portal-inspired" dungeon, where you have to locate and defeat the evil King Gabe. http://silkgames.com/blog/

Bring on the countless questions! Since I'd like to keep each column between 3-5 questions, I can't guarantee I'll be able to use them all, but you're a lock to get some of them answered in the next post. Thanks as always, Sue

Welcome to the 2nd edition of Chaotic Chat, a bi-weekly column focused on turning real community questions into real answers. With the debut of Hamburglar's Trivia event (every Wednesday @ 10pm ET) and the massive Streaks/Sprees update, it's a busy month for Chaos, so let's get started: Question #1 - Why is the safe zone limit for streaks set at 10 minutes, and not longer/shorter? (anonymous) A. In looking for a word to describe what streaks were supposed to be, 'streak' was chosen based on multiple definitions: Move quickly in a specified direction, MOVE, an unbroken series of events, UNBROKEN, a continuous period of specified success or luck, CONTINUOUS. When Hallu originally conceived streaks, they were supposed to be a continuous series of kills. At the time, sitting in safe for 15 minutes was longer than Hallu would have liked, but he didn't want to lower safe time, so he left it at 15 minutes before you lost your streak. With the advent of the 45 minute safe time, a streak could be held for far too long without action. In addition, long periods of idle time make it easier to 'game' streaks. This problem of non-continuous play was exacerbated by the ultra-long safe times that we are experimenting with now. The solution was to have the bot kill the streak after a certain amount of time - 5 minutes was first tested, but that seemed a bit too short, so now we have 10 minutes. Upon entering a safe while streaking, you're bound to notice the new warning about the time, as well as the activation of the 'stoplight' display (a small green icon in the upper right portion of your screen). With about 30 seconds before the time is up, the stoplight turns yellow/orange, and then you lose it. However, you can refresh it by exiting safe before the time is up, but don't cut it too close! The safe detection is not immediate! So just nudge out and into safe every 10 minutes, and you can keep the streak. Question #2 - Ever notice items from your ship disappearing when you win the flag game? I just lost all 3 of the bricks I had before I jumped back in to green/flag? (Sue E. Side) A. Not a bug, this is hard wired into the server. Win the flag game == shipreset. In a normal flag game, a shipreset is a disadvantage...not necessarily here. That's why people are re-prized, but the prizing doesn't give bricks. Question #3 - Whatever happened to Chaos with walled off areas? Depending on number of players? (Gold Teeth) A. It was an experiment, and here are the results: smaller areas always led to smaller populations. A significant number of players do not like to play in a confined space. So they would just leave; they wouldn't just play in the mosh pit. So that meant that everytime the map shrunk to a new smaller size, the population would shrink even more. The map would be hard pressed to size back up afterwards. And all those usual players that like open maps would stop showing up. Chaos encompasses many playing styles and goals. Many of those styles don't work well on a small map. Additionally, a large map is newb friendly. Newbs need space to start to figure things out. If they are forced into a heavily populated melee, they die over and over very quickly, and that makes them quit. With a large map, they can fly around the edges and start to figure things out without dying every 20 seconds. And that’s a wrap! You can help make this Q&A a regular feature to the forum, so please feel free to message me in-game or drop me a ?message (Plutorus) with your questions/observations. Thanks for reading! -Plut

Thanks for the links! Amazing stuff, a bunch of us in chaos zone were watching.

Welcome to another edition of Chaotic Chat! Ok, the 1st edition. OK, OK, the only edition! So what is this all about? Last week, I gathered a few great questions/observations from the community (thanks again guys!) about our favorite zone. Here they are: Question #1 – I noticed a broken link in the public bot messaging. Can that be fixed? A. This has been fixed and will be released soon! Question #2 – Whatever happened to Subspacechaos.com? A. Subspacechaos.com is gone for good. The official site for Chaos Zone is now chaos.subspace.co Question #3 – There are broken links on chaos.subspace.co. Can these be fixed? A. Staff is aware, and link repairs are now in progress. With limited resources, these won’t be fixed tomorrow, but look for this to be tackled in the upcoming weeks. Unfortunately, some minor links that point to dead sites are probably perma gone. And that’s a wrap! You can help make this column a regular feature to the forum, so feel free to message me in-game (or drop me a ?message) with your questions/observations. Thanks for reading! -Plut

Ack, make sure to Login to preview images. Otherwise they appear broken. Wierd. Anyone know a fix or if there is a better way to upload these? Last one: Mobboss...

Bortas...

One more: Largo...

Found a handful of old drawings that I did for a few of the old Ballistics crew. Here's one of me and Ace-High:

Awesome update, Nude. And btw, would love to hear some Alpha stories.

Loving the progress, thanks for all of the updates JJJ