Aileron Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 This topic is created for R&D purposes. Generally when we run into problems over the course of the round, we will add to the list. Basically, here are a list of features in my little dream world I hope to be able to impliment for the next round. I will leave the thread open so as to receive feedback. Transfer Services will be limited to 5 transfers per day. Players will be limited to 5 race changes. (Before last night, I could never figure out why they had that rule in my last RPG.) Weapons repair costs will be fixed. Weapons will also deteriorate at a much faster rate, so that you HAVE to repair them on a regular basis, and it will be possible to m!@#$%^&* players in order to induce weapon damage. All attacks that do less than 1/5th of the damage that the defender does to the offense will be considered critical failures and will cause no casualties or weapons damage. Income per soldier will be increased to about what it was last round. Last round the income was balanced, there just happened to be a super saver account that caused people to generate ridiculous point values. Whether or not you can attack somebody will be a rank-based check instead of a population-based check. For ships, if it is possible I plan to reinstate the 8 ships. This is to make new players who haven't been playing Subspace since the 90s feel more comfortable. However, the 5 oldskool ships will be available as a bonus to players who have participated in previous rounds. The ships won't be more stastically powerfull, just cooler. A player's clan will be visible on the attack page. There will be a clan ranking system. A market feature will be added, where you can trade turns, points, and units. Exchange rates will be based upon the number of each resource on the market, which will grow at the same rate the total population does. Though I do not know why, players will be limited to 5 trades per day. (I suspect that there could be a technique for lameness with infinite trades) Finally, sabotage will be rebuilt from the ground up. Recons will not count towards the covert phase limit. Sabotage attempts will cost 5 turns to carry out. You will not be able to specify which weapon you wish to take out. Instead, your options will be limited to "offensive weapons", "defensive weapons", or "general". Sneaking in will be easier for groups of spies of more than 1. Damage will be automatically calculated by the sum of the target weapons, the strength of the attacker's spy, and the defender's covert, the ranks and army size of the players, and the number of spies sent. That damage will be done all weapons, starting at the weakest and working to the strongest until a weapon has strength greater than the remaining damage. Basically, it means that the less spies you send, the greater your chances of success. However, the more spies you send, the more damage you do to the weapons. It will be tuned so that it takes a couple hundred spies to do a realistic amount of damage to the defender's stockpile. That way, if it fails, the attacker actually loses something. Also, since sabotage is intended as an alternative way for players with weak offenses and defenses to take down stronger players, rank and army size will also be a larger factor. Comments on any of these ideas are welcome.
Animate Dreams Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 The first major problem I see is recon missions not counting for the spy limit. I mean, people can just send 2-3 spies, maybe get one piece of information, then just do it over and over until they get everything they need. Also, right now it seems like you build up extra spies just to increase your overall power, but you only send 3-5 because if you send too much, you lose them all. I think the losses when you fail at spying could stand to be lowered. >_>
Aileron Posted April 9, 2007 Author Report Posted April 9, 2007 Well, right now, you should send 1 spy for all operations, and the losses for failing a spy attempt couldn't get lower. You have a point though. Maybe set the covert phaseout to 16 and make sabotage count for 3 recons.
Aileron Posted April 9, 2007 Author Report Posted April 9, 2007 Hold on, I've looked the core over now...most of those things cannot be implemented without editing the core.
PoLiX Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 Well, gimme a nice specific list, and I'll see if I can't mod them in.
jacob hunter! Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 Make the interest income rate a little more higher then it is for the super savings account.
Shock Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 (edited) Super Savings is a complete jip, unless you have a ton of money. Edited April 9, 2007 by Shock
Diff Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 Yeah, if you put the free savings into the compound interest formula, there's a lot more money to be gotten from the free savings. The only way the super saving would be worth it is if the game is over a LONG LONG period of time. 24% is what the free savings gets you in 48 hours, compounded hourly at 0.5%. And the 8% withdrawal fee further takes away from the efficiency of the super saver.
NBVegita Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 but as I've shown because its compounded hourly you really get more than 24 in a two day period. Even without fees you make more in the free account.
Suicide_Run Posted April 9, 2007 Report Posted April 9, 2007 Yea you get more in free savings if u just do P(1+0.005)^48 compare to P*1.25 where P = principle amount. Plus super saving cost money to make and cost alot of money to withdraw cause of the fees. Might as well just keep free savings and delete super savings cause I dont think banking is post to sling shot you in anyway. Just a way to keep money until you need it with a bit of interest.
Aileron Posted April 10, 2007 Author Report Posted April 10, 2007 Well, actually, I can't implement ANY of my suggestions without radically altering the core, which is both time consuming and beyond my abilities. As for super savings, it might be removed or it might be increased, depending upon what some prediction curves say. Odds are, it will likely be removed, because it will be hard to balance out with the rest of the game. After looking over the core, there are a few things that can be done: Commander supportSiege and Fortification UpgradesSVS based armory Obviously, Siege and Fortification upgrades will be in place by next month. My thoughts as to what to call them are: Solo Attack, Team Attack, Attaching, Dep Attaching, Sneaky Dep, Anti-Warp, Suicide Bursters, Bricklayers, Portaling in, massive Thor Barrage Drop in Space, Drop in Base, Attaching, Home Anchor, Entrance Guard, Second Anchor, Warping out at the last second, Minelayers, Flanking, Bottleneck
Animate Dreams Posted April 14, 2007 Report Posted April 14, 2007 I'm !@#$%^&*uming this is the suggestions thread. I just noticed how easy it is to sabotage people below your level. Apparently spying isn't restricted the same way attacking is(4x or 1/4th of your soldiers), so I can hit people who have absolutely no chance of defending against a sabotage. I don't really know of any way to fix this, other than restricting it the same way attacks are, but I have a feeling the whole sabotage system should be re-thought out.
Aileron Posted April 15, 2007 Author Report Posted April 15, 2007 The sab system can't be changed without editing the core. If it could, I'd do my suggestion from the first post, but it can't. Instead, I'm actually planning on doing the opposite, allowing 11 covert actions per day, removing the army sized based attack limit, and removing that !@#$%^&* 5 attack phase limit. That way, you can sab someone's weapons or merely slaughter his forces by conventional means, provided you have the turns stockpiled, can pay the repair costs and don't mind the losses. There hasn't been any cases so far of a rank leader getting his !@#$%^&* pummeled by an angry mob of lowbies, chiefly because its impossible to attack someone for damage. Here's a gist of what I've got planned for the next round:First and foremost, by popular demand, transfers will not happen next round. Secondly, when you start the round or change race, you will start with NOTHING. No points, units, UP, or turns. The first UP upgrade will cost 10,000 points. Players can get those points either from the arcade or by posting once. Gross inflation should prevent people from abusing the arcade and from spamming. This should prevent automated scripts from rabidly reseting, as bots can't play in the arcade and if they posted like nuts it would be easy to notice. (Not that the old method doesn't light up like Tim Taylor's Christmas decorations in the logs.) Hourly income will be 100 per soldier, 50 per spy, and you don't get a !@#$%^&* thing for hiring mercs, though there will be more of them for those of you who like them. You will get turns at a rate of 2 per hour. If people don't cheat for turns this time, this should mean that you need to wait 5 hours between attacks. Thus, you need to make them count, and thus people can go to work, school, or sleep without having to worry about getting hit 20 times over. Now we move on to likely stats for next round, starting with UP. Please note right now that I will be running a few more predictions, and odds are some figures will be multiplied or divided by 10 as needed. My goal is to have the general population at the end of the month in the 100,000s, which allows for decent casualty rates as the game was designed for. Yes those numbers aren't very Subspacey. If I could edit the core so that casualties happened in the 1,000s, I'd do so. This is the UP Chart, V4.0: UP Price40 10,00050 4,000,00060 8,000,00070 16,000,000 32,000,00090 64,000,000100 128,000,000110 256,000,000120 512,000,000130 1,024,000,000140 2,048,000,000150 4,096,000,000160 8,192,000,000180 16,384,000,000190 32,768,000,000200 65,536,000,000210 131,072,000,000220 262,144,000,000230 524,288,000,000240 1,048,576,000,000 By the way, the idea is that people will probably not be able to afford any more upgrades by 140. However, people have been maxing out their UP really early so far, so I didn't want to take chances. I'll do some further investigation as to how fast income will grow in this system, but odds are Super Savings will be reinstated as they were in round 2, where it will proceed to contribute diddly squat as conventional income should blow it away. Seige and Fortification Technologies will be added. Prices will be set later. As for the ships, there will be 8 ships available at the start of the round. Halfway through the round, the Nightwasp will be added, which should be a more powerfull ship to benefit those who started late or just really sucked it up the first two rounds. Since Transfer will be disabled, the late bloomers will still have to start from scratch. Income Discount Casualties Offense Defense Spy SentryWarbird 30.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 30.00% -30.00% 0.00%Javelin 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 30.00% 30.00% -15.00% -15.00%Spider 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% -15.00% -15.00% 30.00% 30.00%Leviathon -15.00% 0.00% 60.00% 30.00% -15.00% 0.00% 0.00%Terrier 0.00% 30.00% 0.00% 30.00% -30.00% 0.00% 0.00%Weasel 30.00% 0.00% -60.00% 15.00% 0.00% 15.00% 0.00%Lancaster 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 00.00% 15.00% 00.00% 15.00%Shark 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 30.00% -15.00% 30.00% -15.00% I tried to attach a style of play to each ship rather than generic stat bonuses. Finally, that leads us to the armory. In addition to the stats above, each ship will have a special weapon which only that ship is capable of purchasing. All the others are universal except that the Terrier and Shark's specials will replace normal guns and the Weasel and Lancaster specials will replace normal bombs. Strength Price Repair Cost Name 100.00 10.00 (lots) Shrapnel2500.00 20000.00 16.00 L1 Gun5000.00 40000.00 25.00 L1 Bomb5000.00 50000.00 20.00 L2 Gun10000.00 100000.00 30.00 L2 Bomb10000.00 125000.00 25.00 L3 Gun20000.00 200000.00 30.00 L3 Bomb (Leviathon)2500.00 17500.00 16.00 L1 Double Gun (Terrier)5000.00 40000.00 20.00 L2 Double Gun (Terrier)10000.00 100000.00 25.00 L3 Double Gun (Terrier)5000.00 35000.00 25.00 L1 EMP (Weasel)10000.00 80000.00 30.00 L2 EMP (Weasel)6250.00 40000.00 25.00 L1 Bounce Bomb (Lancaster)12500.00 100000.00 30.00 L2 Bounce Bomb (Lancaster)3125.00 20000.00 16.00 L1 Rapid Fire Gun (Shark)6250.00 50000.00 20.00 L2 Rapid Fire Gun (Shark)12500.00 125000.00 25.00 L3 Rapid Fire Gun (Shark) 100.00 10.00 (lots) Burst Shrapnel2500.00 20000.00 16.00 Rocket5000.00 40000.00 25.00 Portal5000.00 50000.00 20.00 Full Charge10000.00 100000.00 30.00 Repel10000.00 125000.00 25.00 Brick20000.00 200000.00 30.00 Fancy Maneuvering (Warbird)10000.00 100000.00 25.00 High Top Speed (Javelin) 15.00 92500.00 0.00 Decoy30.00 175000.00 0.00 Stealth30.00 131250.00 0.00 Cloak (Spider) 15.00 92500.00 0.00 Mines30.00 175000.00 0.00 X-Radar Generally, you will have fewer options but more variety. Powerfull weapons will be LESS point efficient than weaker weapons. However, powerfull weapons require less troops to use them, so the player must decide if he wants to save points or save units. Also, there is a difference between bombs and guns, as well as their defensive counterparts. Guns will cost more up front whereas bombs cost more to repair. Two varieties of "Shrapnel" have been added. These weapons will be by ridiculous cost impossible to repair. Offensive shrapnel is for when your opponant's defense is a hair above your offense, whereas burst shrapnel is there to counter this. There are a lot of radical ideas here. If you people have any complaints about this system, speak up now before May.
Animate Dreams Posted April 15, 2007 Report Posted April 15, 2007 I really don't like the idea with the UP. You ought to be able to max out UP. The game is already too dependent on amounts of soldiers, increasing the amounts isn't going to help that. Besides that, the UP is at a point where most people will probably max it out before the game is over, but while some will do it right off the bat(well, probably at least 10 days), others won't do it until near the end of the round. But regardless of play style, it's a turning point of your strategy, which should change as the game progresses. Games that require the same actions throughout the round aren't interesting. This way, once you reach max UP, you move on to something else. Maybe you want to max covert level, maybe you already have(probably bad idea lol), maybe you want to build up items and try to take top place by attacking the most, or maybe you are going to start banking your extra income... etc. The turning point is much weaker and has much less impact if it's so hard to define when you max out. You could argue that it adds more skill, since everyone is going to have to try to figure out when it's going to be most beneficial to stop working for UP and move on to something else, but I just think that means the current income system isn't perfect. Right now, you should always go for UP right off the bat until you max it, and I think that's going a bit overboard. It shouldn't be so obviously valuable. It would be best if it progressed slower, so you will have to balance getting UP, training soldiers, buying items, etc. You might do those things in completely separate phases, but it's still more of a balance, instead of priority 1: get UP, priority 2: get defense, priority 3: whatever else. As for the turns, I'm not sure that system will work alongside a bank that gives you interest. It seems to me, if it's so much easier to not get attacked, someone who just banks all their stuff all day and only spends cash on UP can wait until the very end, and buy up a ton of items, and win. Everyone else who has wasted their resources on attack power that only helps them a tiny bit, and has taken soldier losses from attacking, just won't have the cash in the end. They will have gotten SOME cash by attacking, but I doubt it will match up to what you can get by banking. But at least the Transfer system is gone... if it was still around, turns would be worth so much that people who banked and sold their turns would have no problem winning. I still think it's a move in the right direction, but I think either the interest or the turn decrease will have to go.
Aileron Posted April 15, 2007 Author Report Posted April 15, 2007 The bank interest should be countered by the fact that you can't reach the UP max. As long as you can increase your UP, your growth rate is exponential (sort of), and when it does reach the max it is quadratic. All that is needed is to keep the bank exponential growth rate lower than the income exponential growth rate. However, don't worry about the bank, I'll decide what to do with it only after I figure out exactly what the income is going to look like. The reason the UP doesn't have a max is because about a dozen problems start to happen two weeks after everyone reaches it. I'm used to a system wherein UP and Covert skills had no max. Don't worry, the decision making process is simple: If you can't afford the next upgrade, focus on other things for a while. At a later time you will have a greater income, or you could just get a lucky attack, then you buy the upgrade. It doesn't take a lot of skill to figure out when something is unaffordable. Oh, I forgot to mention: The UP mentioned above will be hourly.
Samapico Posted April 15, 2007 Report Posted April 15, 2007 I don't understand the first UP upgrade from 10000 to 4000000...
Aileron Posted April 15, 2007 Author Report Posted April 15, 2007 You start with 40 UP, and it costs 4,000,000 for the first upgrade. However, to prevent people from exploiting some sort of respawn bug, all new accounts will start with nothing. To get the "initial" UP, they need 10,000 points which they can get from the arcade or by posting.
Samapico Posted April 15, 2007 Report Posted April 15, 2007 The continuuous respawn thing is not a problem at all while transfer services are disabled EDIT: hmm... bank isn't reset when you reset race... I see
Aileron Posted April 16, 2007 Author Report Posted April 16, 2007 It's still possible to multi without transfers. According to the settings, all bank accounts are deleted when players are resetted.
Samapico Posted April 16, 2007 Report Posted April 16, 2007 I just reset my race and my bank accounts were still tehre... oh ok they get deleted once you choose another race again... What's the point of having multiple accounts without transfer??? And what does that would have anything to do with starting with some money or not?
Suicide_Run Posted April 16, 2007 Report Posted April 16, 2007 Imagine u have 3 accounts. 1 main and 2 sub. Keep banking money on the subs and when u reach a nice amount, have the main hit it and you get that money i suppose. Or you can just run 3 accounts at the same time and whenever u like, u have those 3 accounts m!@#$%^&* hit one person to kill off their troops/screw their armor strength up.
Animate Dreams Posted April 16, 2007 Report Posted April 16, 2007 Erm, no need to tell everyone how it works....
Aileron Posted April 16, 2007 Author Report Posted April 16, 2007 That wasn't what I was aiming for actually. I was thinking about two subaccounts programmed to reset and attack each other. Like so: A attacks BB resetsA attacks BB resets . . .A runs out of turnsB resets and buys one weaponB attacks AA resetsB attacks A. . . . . Since new accounts start with nothing, it would require that B post and an hour p!@#$%^&* between attacks, which makes it both easy to catch and not worth much. More traditional multies are impossible to stop with preventative measures. However, they can be halted with reactive measures. The preceedure Suicide_Run described is the most common case. It doesn't usually bring in as much cash as you hope, runs the risk of somebody else taking the loot, and still shows up in the logs.
Samapico Posted April 16, 2007 Report Posted April 16, 2007 That wasn't what I was aiming for actually. I was thinking about two subaccounts programmed to reset and attack each other. Like so: A attacks BB resetsA attacks BB resets . . .A runs out of turnsB resets and buys one weaponB attacks AA resetsB attacks A. . . . . Since new accounts start with nothing, it would require that B post and an hour p!@#$%^&* between attacks, which makes it both easy to catch and not worth much. More traditional multies are impossible to stop with preventative measures. However, they can be halted with reactive measures. The preceedure Suicide_Run described is the most common case. It doesn't usually bring in as much cash as you hope, runs the risk of somebody else taking the loot, and still shows up in the logs. What's the point doing that? At the end you still end up with a big fat NOTHING in both accounts??? (even if you start with 100k money) And if someone REALLY wants to run 2 or 3 accounts at once, I mean... just let him win, he probably finds this thing so important he'd kill himself if he doesn't win... I wouldn't bother with these freaks too much Without transfer service, you stilll have to bank the money in all accounts to avoid someone else stealing it, and you have to develop these other accounts so they bring in some cash too... so... yeah.
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