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New Editions, details and old mechanics: Process speed well spent? |
Okkam
Marshal
Joined: February 06, 2008
Posts: 157
From: Dorset
|  Posted: 2011-01-27 23:46
Ok, I understand that the volunteer dev team is troubling themselves with the recent update and the bugs aswell as the ship refits coming in the future but I would just like to re-submit the idea that enhancements should have greater description of what they do.
There are two of alot of enhancements and some say the same "Defence 8%" or along those lines. While some players understand the differences in the enhancements just from a glance, new players or players who are new to the enhancement add on would be confused.
Other information, like to what part of your defence this enhances and the possible stacking issues, should be added. Simple data that can be put in next to or beside the already written (probably a String) code.
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Just some other points I would like to throw out there for consideration too:
- Planet credit system: This does what?
- Plagues, revolts, political unrest and so on: It can be considered a interesting varied part of the game but could there possibly be a mechanic involved/introduced to help players prevent these things from happening?
The current system works similar to this:
1.) Planet contracts plague (who knows why)
2.) Population dies
3.) Planet becomes low morale and starts to revolt
====== At this point you have a choice ======
4a.) Leave the planet alone and pray
4b.) Create more food on the planet and pray
4c.) Find and drop infantry to scrap which increases population, however this also causes unrest which will increase the low morale to the point where it revolts quicker
4d.) Get a bombing ship and wait for the inevitable revolt and then bomb the planet back into your hands.
In this current edition we cannot carry food stocks, population or other things to help prevent or slow down revolts/plagues. We can only carry enhancements, resources and infantry, none of which are useful to stop these events.
Possible solutions:
- To keep the mechanic in the game you could produce something to help prevent plagues, some special by product of a spaceport or something, a vaccine from a certain planet in the middle of nowhere meaning that players have to collect and deliver it... anything in short.
- Remove the function if others believe it too is a waste of time. Consider the lines of code involved and server time in calculating the revolt mechanic. Yes it is small, but in computers the smallest of things that can be removed should be considered because this will increase the speed of the other processes.
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Just some disclaimers before someone says it, there is always one.
- The volunteer team is volunteer and their time is precious, it cannot be squandered on alot of smaller changes when a new patch has been released but considering the speed in which updates happen and are in development if this were to continue then none of the smaller issues would be fixed. Every issue should be reviewed but only acted upon if a large amount of the player base agree. (So either agree or disagree and state your reasons for such)
- The volunteer team do a great job and I am not saying they aren't bothering.
- The argument "The admins have better things to do" is flawed in the simple statement that it is.
[ This Message was edited by: Snafu (Okkam) on 2011-01-27 23:47 ]
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Forger of Destiny
Chief Marshal
We Kick Arse
Joined: October 10, 2009
Posts: 826
| Posted: 2011-01-28 04:03
Your concept of revolt is a slightly overestimated one. Plagues do not necessarily mean revolts.
There are 3 factors of revolt-
Loss of population - scrapping domes, plagues and bombs.
Hostile space - enemy AI near a planet for long (say, 5 minutes). It's a minor factor though.
Repitition - how often do each of the above happen. If a planet is bombed for long duration / loses population many times in an hour, then it can revolt. Again, contributing factor, but a significant one.
With the revolt system untouched atleast since 1.520, I can confidently say that one plague, more often than not, fail to cause a revolt, but multiple plagues and presence of enemy ships, as well as orbital bombing will likely cause a revolt.
Back on topic, I agree that a mechanism needs to be placed, to help avert or cure revolts. It takes quite some time to capture planets as of now.
As for the enhancement idea that Defense Power should show Defence regen 8%, +1 to it.
On a side note, only the defense enhancements are being ambiguous. Wonder why...
[ This Message was edited by: Boomshot on 2011-01-28 08:36 ]
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2011-01-28 07:03
The single most important factor in whether or not a planet will go into Revolution depends entirely on how morale stands.
Morale is strongly tied to population. Any population loss whatsoever drastically increases in amounts the more is lost by any means. While, population growth slowly improves morale.
The single best way to prevent a planet from revolting is to prevent quick population loss by any amount. The fact that you add population slowly adds to the ability for the planet to go out of Revolution. Its something I've tested personally and know for a fact that as long as you don't contribute to any morale loss, your planet will probably stay yours.
That means, keeping enemies away, keeping bombs off the planet, and making sure the population is growing and that there isn't any kind of negative loss (technology, research, power, and so on).
Anyways.
Aside from that, all good suggestions in my opinion.
-Ent
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Okkam
Marshal
Joined: February 06, 2008
Posts: 157
From: Dorset
| Posted: 2011-01-28 08:13
Quote:
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On 2011-01-28 04:03, Boomshot wrote:
There are 3 factors of revolt-
Loss of population - scrapping domes, plagues and bombs.
Hostile space - enemy AI near a planet for long (say, 5 minutes). It's a minor factor though.
Repitition - how often do each of the above happen. If a planet is bombed for long duration / loses population many times in an hour, then it can revolt. Again, contributing factor, but a significant one.
With the revolt system untouched atleast since 1.520, I can confidently say that one plague, more often than not, fail to cause a revolt, but multiple plagues and presence of enemy ships, as well as orbital bombing will likely cause a revolt.
As for the enhancement idea that Defense Power should show Defence regen 8%, +1 to it.
On a side note, only the defense enhancements are being ambiguous. Wonder why...
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Granted it would seem that I do not know enough about why revolts occur however, do you not agree that there should be some way for you to increase the planet moral instead of standing there and praying? Yes it is attached to population, but even if you find a miracle way of producing fast population that doesn't involve scrapping infantry you still have to deal with the fact it takes an extremely long time for the moral to go back to what it was.
A simple mechanic tied to the amount of friendly ships in orbit or near a planet could be implimented to increase morale quicker than usual, in a kind of show that the fleet does care and are out there.
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Even though it is still the defence enhancements it would seem they have been neglected and require a full description. Especially considering that enhancements can be tied to real money through the shop.
As someone who is doing programming software at university I find it hard to understand why a simple description cannot be put into the 'String' (probably string) that says "Defences 8%". Granted you probably have to find this line of code first, but unless your program has a set limit on char/varchar or String then simply pasting in the needed description isn't that hard.
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When the universe collapses and dies there will be 3 survivors; Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches and Dylan Hunt trying to save the cockroaches...
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