Forum - Space Odyssey MMORPG - a massive free online space game

Hello, can anyone offer some exploration / probing feedback please.
Just reply in this topic with information / feedback on rewards, spawn size, difficulty etc.

I saw some of you in the news with Unknown Aliens, those are exploration encounters.

I'm trying to expand / improve / refine the exploration.

Exploration Guide here:
http://forum.spaceo.net/index.php/topic,3541.0.html

Thank you and God Speed!

Sir Emi

I find that they're all too big for me to try

ok so far it seems the probes quantity are not balanced while ur doing mission u actually get roughly around the same amount pinpointer probes and multispectral but u need to use the pinpointed probes more often to determine the location of the aliens so u always run out of em while still having tons of multispectral.

most of the times the special items u receive from this aliens are actually resource items like gold carbon etc. its not really that special for someone who already has a mining facility already doing that.

lastly most of my encounters with the unknown aliens their FP are always on level or lower that my tail ships which means if i have a lead of ard 100 Bil FP and my last ship has a FP of 10 Bil FP the unknown alien would usually be below 10 Bil FP and i feel thats a bit too low.

So far I have a 1:3 ratio multispectral to pinpointer, it seems fine to me.

I do a lot of mothership missions it would be nice if you could get them on those missions also.

i seem to get as many of each kind of probe from encrypt's, which is ok. rewards seem pretty good too.

yes u do and thats my point when u scan u need to use more pinpointers instead of the multispectral so ur always short of the pinpointers probes

I got no problems with those probes I get a good amount of them and way more pinpointers.

Multispectral 17 
Pinpointer 53

i do notice though that now it seems pinpointers are occuring more often than multi spectral

could it be possible to get probes from the aliens themselves? that would be cool ^^

- Added a chance to get probes from unknown aliens
- Increased pinpointer probes in encrypts a bit

thanks sir emi

I have had it 3 times now, that I find with the multi-scan 5 alien "places" and then I find on 1 planet 2 of them, but all the other 6 planets in the quadrant are empty :confused:

Is it normal that you can't find them sometimes and have to scout again or just something wrong? :confused:

Greetz, ABI :w00t2:

ABI read, you have a 20% per encounter to find them ;)

 E!! Check this out! since these things pay off like gold tran's they should be a lil(lot) harder to find. like start at a 3% chance for each pinpoint probe, improving by 2% (maxing out at 35%) with each reaserch level. also multispectral scan should cost 5 turns, and each pinpoint scan should cost 1 turn. and the aliens in the incursions should pay a bit less than these aliens. these aliens are way too easy to find right now. it's like handing out free credits it'll make everyone lazy and fat like bum on couch drinking beer in front of T.V.


                             :spider2:

i agree . or make the aliens stronger so they are harder to kill

I don't mind it the way it is atm, gives players another option instead of just camping out at mid powers to hit max line and marines, Players are now rewarded for upgrading which makes the start of the round worth playing for, as it now begins to have an affect on the game :) aliens aren’t with out there draw backs though ,you don't find any where near as many black holes or bio farms, which really balances it out 2-3 black holes is an extra 1350 turns and (with those turns you could probably find more) scenic there aren’t that many and the bio experiments  hurt at high levels as you try to max out stats.
. We can't compete with the items form e missions, not to mention all of the power is in our ships so if you get 0ed it can be a long drop, without much workers to fall back on, segs aren’t as easy to get so your growth isn’t near as good as people using an e boom build, which pretty soon will be at 5-10%, if anything I think you should raise the rewards form e mission to 3.5 credits, 5 workers per power, not only would this
Open up a lot more stragitys in the early-mid round, but if the workers buffs is adapted to mothership mission as well as e mission it opens up the doors for worker rushing and worker builds without becoming overpowered end game due to the negative growth, gt and ed should stay as they are ;).

yeah, the way you've got exploration set up now , it's just like boarding was 3(?) rounds ago. just a quick easy shortcut to the top.

i just did the math, E , this is an abortion. on the current curve the lead players will max in less than ten days, doing only exploration. (since your giving out probes - 30 at a time in exploration missions, encounters encrypts - all missions are obsolete.) rename the game space exploration. nothing else is worth doing.

We are still balancing the exploration / Incursion, that's why they were not yet introduced on SO WARS and this thread has been started.
The aim is not to max out that soon.

the way it is, your just giving people up to 70 GT's per quadrant, have you looked at the rankings? people are growing 1000 - 10000 % in a day. the only way you're going to balance it is to cut it by 95%.
this round is totaly blown. i don't see any point in continuing it.

Yes I'm keeping a close watch on the rankings, that estimation is surely exagerated, you're probably not counting that power ships are very common.

no kidding  :))  pships are very common because it pushes the rewards from exploration encounters up to even ridiculously higher levels. 3. trillion power with 800000 segs - give me a break already. this has gone beyond absurd into twilight zone levels of unreality. i love this game and this upgrade has just raped it.

Rewards got decreased by 90% for me  :2:

We will be making the hidden encounters as profitable as before, but I will _not_ allow the exploit of rasing their power with power ships, instead they will have increased fleet power. Probe rarity in hidden encounter remains as before.

Thank you

This means they get between 5 and 10 times as strong as now?

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 1% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 1.311.258.644


no way its fixed....... this is not even worth the turns :/

Uhhhhh... Can you do a demonstration to what you are talking about emi?

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 0% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 312.298.286


Right.....

FTP please finnish your current encounter and find another one, and don't spam.

Also try to show us a Terminator spawn or at least the spawn name.

Thank you

Just get it back with the powerships, then you can adjust the power of the aliens you wish to face by the number of powerships you put up.


Sir Emi, I found 5 encounters groups after my post and none been stronger then 5% :/

Ok, this is jacked up pretty bad.

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 1% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 547.146.791

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 1% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 196.422.854

i just found them 30 secs ago and its useless not even worth looking for them

There is a difference in fleet power spawned if the alien is an Alpha, Terminator etc. A Transporter for example is the weakest and will have about 1-4%, while a Terminator would have from 18%-35%

18%-35% of what?

Ok, still jacked up. My total FP is 50+bill without powerships.


Commander, this appears to be an Alien Constructor #1...
Our scientists inform us that this particular spawn is very dangerous.
They possess a very large amount of technology that we could salvage...
They also seem to be transporting valuable resources.

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 1% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 889.113.536


Commander, this appears to be an Alien Hauler #1...
Our scientists inform us that this particular spawn is pretty dangerous.
They possess a large amount of technology that we could salvage...
They also seem to be transporting valuable resources.

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 1% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 547.146.791

1-4% or 18-35%    means atleast half of the aliens pays out less then if I extended my mothership. Surely that gap wasnt this high yesterday.

18% - 35% of the finders totAlienFleetPowerWithPShipModifier = (totActiveFindersFleetPower * (totActiveFindersFleetCost / totActiveFindersFleetPower / 100) ) )  :))  :sniper:

So, 18%-35% of total fleet power with powerships? I am confused, and becoming impatient.  :21:

What is the pship modifier?

FFP * FFC
FFP /100

Thats is Cost/100

That formula is mathematically incorrect, and makes no sense, means all the power you face is based on the cost of your ships.


A correct formula would be    totAlienFleetPowerWithPShipModifier = (totActiveFindersFleetCost/61)

Ok FTP's formula looks better to me. I still think it should be the way it was. If nobody can hit what was originally thrown at us, then they need to find a different game. Making an update and then taking it back is about as dumb as doing a recall on ham sandwiches.  :))

And a 1% for a transport would be really useless, make transports 5% as minimum and a 35% (maybe up to 40%) for terminators sounds good.

Switch IT BACK!!! Just because some players are more adaptable than others does not mean that you should leave this MASSIVE gap between everyone in power. Nightshadow has 170 trillion credits (I hope you don't mind me saying so NS). How do suppose we are all gonna catch him with these little 5mill aliens? You have to change it back.

just move it back 2 the way it was b4 u started screwin around with it, it was good that way they were worth doing but not ever profitable, it also works out because u need 2 b able 2 find them first 2 do them which makes it so that the profit should b larger

Just take the availability of probes down??? It was fine the way it was.  :wounded1:

I calculated a pship modifier to find out the relation between the fleet power and cost, as FTP pointed out there is a direct relation between fleet cost and fleet power, and that's what is used to determine the alien spawn.

The alien spawns should now be increased to about the same amounts as before, but taking encounter type into account. The spawns are also more diverse in fleet power.

How is it the same???????????? :atention: :atention: :atention: :atention: :atention: :atention: :atention: :atention:

Commander, this appears to be an Alien Dominant #1...
Our scientists inform us that this particular spawn is extremely dangerous.
They possess a huge amount of technology that we could salvage...
They also seem to be transporting valuable resources.

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 1% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 1.755.429.288




Ok, please just switch it back?


Commander, this appears to be an Alien Harvester #1...
Our scientists inform us that this particular spawn is extremely dangerous.
They possess a huge amount of technology that we could salvage...
They also seem to be transporting valuable resources.

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 0% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Harmless

Estimated enemy fleet power: 1.139.889.148

Try to check new discovered hidden encounters from after my last post please...

yea ive done that and they are still all at 1 or 2% of my power

Emi your formula might make it abit to weak try divide by 61 instead of 100 to balance it out. And please raise the lower limit to 5%

Well, it looks like you fixed them a little. Is the power generated from the aliens affected by your fleet power? Or fleet cost?

Yes, 5% mimimum would be nice.  :21:

It all seemed balanced before.. i liked it.. i just moved up quick because of max turns, some hard work, and a little elbow grease  :sweat

what are you all talking about? this is the worst update EVER! there is nothing balanced about 1000% growth - going from 1 to 100 trillion power in one day is just bleeding absurd. there is no point in doing anything in this game except hunting aliens. why waste turns going system to system when you can make 2, 3 - 4 - 5 +  times your total fp sitting in one spot, do the hidden encounters, then hop to the next quadrant and do it again. picking up probes 30 at a time you don't even need to waste time with encrypts anymore. encounters? why bother? this way you can be 100 trillion power and hit any body cause you dont even have 1 million segs. crap, you don't even need cp when you have an unlimited flow of credits. THIS TOTTALLY BLOWS. exploration is exploitation.

FOR GODS SAKE E, DON'T TURN THIS ABORTION LOOSE ON SOWARS.

the only way your going to balance this is to cut the encounters to one or two per quadrant and only have encounters in 25 to 30 quadrants at any given time, and slow thier spawn time to once an hour or two or even 6 hours.

I've got to admit, I've never lost rank so quickly for not being attacked as i have in the last week. Granted I don't like that SO Main became the testing ground (is there still a test server?), I have to admit that with the amount of online players at any given time, it is the server that will generate the greatest amount of feedback. That being said... negative feedback, without outlining possible solutions, is just as frustrating as the problem itself.

I would like to help by submitting a couple problems that I feel should be addressed with possible solutions:

Probe Reward Frequency -

• The probes should not be a reward of any encounter that issues multi-item rewards, as multiple item rewards greatly skew the access to the hidden encounters that are creating this outrage. Probe items should be about as often as (if not less than) Gold Transports because of the reward associated with hidden encounters.

Hidden Encounter Difficulty Level & Frequency -

• Techs should be researched for finding the more elusive, therefore more lucrative, encounters. The type of alien encounter discovered might be capped due to insufficient tech and/or commander level, even full tech should not guarantee consistent max encounter (as all encounter levels should be based on a rarity, tech, pure chance and possibly a commander level variable).

Everybody, including the commanders benefiting from the current status, knows that there is a problem with the implementation of this update. We really need to assist in finding a solution, as encounters of this nature are likely to be implemented in future updates (greatly expanding game play).

IVE ONLY BEEN BACK A FEW DAYS EMI BUT THE UPDATES LOOK AWSOME NICE WORK :cheers:

Well, it took 130 pinpoint probes for me to find 2 aliens. Thanks for infroming us about the update emi.  :4:

Have you researched the exploration technology?

I did and I had to use 20 probes on 4 aliens to find one of them  0o And I did research the tech to lvl 10 :(

ive ran into the same prob as middy.. research or not it shouldnt take that many

Ok, THERE IS DEFINITELY a change in the ability to find the aliens. Took me 40 probes to find 1 alien with 4 in the quad, and I have level 4 exploration.  :4:

maybe that would put a stop to this insane growth epidemic, if it were constant but watching the news is obviously not. some people spend 100+ probes to get one alien and others are knocking them down left and right.
there's only one way to "fix" this.


How to Win at SO:     http://forum.spaceo.net/index.php/topic,3562.0.html

Losted come on, stop the complaigning, you know aswell as anyone, that already after the first day it was unbalanced. Next round the rewards will be cut down enormously. For some players who were third just dropped to tenth place in 1 day cuz they couldnt play. if you would just cut back the reward now you totaly kill those players. This way people max out fast and hopefully we can start a new round in a week or something but please stop all the complaigning.

Will copy this message to everywere were I think someone complaigns about this.

Well the good news is I'm getting a lot of feedback on exploration, and should be able to make it very balanced in the future.

yeah I leave for 2 days, come back and woopdefreakin do Nighty is at a quad power, I burn all my probes in one system and don't find any of the 4 aliens

Like losted said this round is over for me too, no way I can catch up at all now the growth was too huge from these things

make encrypts more worthwhile :-)

geez losted ive never seen anyone complain so much, ur not the onli one thatw as away and culdnt take advantage of it stop ur complaining and adapt 2 it and just c how well u can do, so wht if its not gunna be as good as u were gunna do b4 if u try ur best it really dont matter

Odd because tonight is the first time I've been able to find any aliens it took 6 probes at level 1 explore and gave me 9 aliens.

impossible

2 hours ago I was finding aliens with 2-5 probes and no exploration tech.  I just blew 50 pinpointers on 1 signature and found nothing.  Did another update go through? 

No update, it's just the probe chance and the alien type you are trying to find, for example if u go for a quad with 1 sig and the sig is an Alien Terminator you're in for quite a ride trying to find it. If you drop the probe in a 5+ sig quadrant you have 5 x chances to catch a hidden enc. Add the tech research in the mix and you should be able to find them.

emi your killing the game! this is worse than the boarding thing!!!

You lost 0/37.066.364.956 fleet power (0%), while the enemy lost 2.762.773.905/4.277.000.557 fleet power (65%)

Primary Objective: Destroy 50% of the enemy while losing less percent of the armada then the enemy.


Incoming transmision!
You are clear to use any salvage anything you may find useful.
Your salvage crews found the following items trough the alien wreckage:
Alien parts and alloy worth 0 credits.
30 x Gold Hack Card

Is this how we are re-balancing the exploration exploit?  4.3 Bill Fp encounter gives 15 Mil credit reward?
Bah.  Chance of reclaiming pre-exploration rank 0%
Chance of me continuing to play SO, fading quickly!

Next round rewards will be scaled down.

well then well just have to wait for um what? another couple of weeks or so before top10 is maxed and then the new round will start :D

lammy geez, shut up u dont even play anymore, and emi d**n, this probes thing sux bad, its like way 2 hard 2 find any now, u run out of probes and u dont get them nearly as often, its ridiculous, u all sit here complaining instead of trying 2 adapt 2 the new times, its boring if it stays the same all the time, bit of a change up like this is good, stop ur complaining and instead try 2 put ur efforts into trying 2 make the best of the situation and c what u can do about it

i only dont play when unbalanced updates ruin the game.

yeah.. exploration sucks.. made the game boring like boarding.. great job

So for everyone who wanted boarding back.... its the same as this when you kjust do that... you make great profit.

geez, stop brownosin' ftp. just because your lucky and finding aliens back to back, for your info we DIDN'T want boarding back. and for your info most of us don't want to play hunt the hidden alien game.

i used it.. i only thought it was cool cuz i went from like 40 to 2 in a day.. but its not cool.. boarding wasnt cool.. just end the round folks.. aliens blow... should've been tested more

should've been tested.

no kidding

Ruined this round, if these guys are sticking around then I'm sticking to the other server.

well i personally think its awsome and i say stick with the aliens emi :)

Yeah, I vote for rounds only lasting 3-4 weeks before reset too! Aliens are so cool and making ridiculous amounts of money every day is fun.  Oh, and PVP is so much better now too!
(sarcasm dosn't translate online)

even tho u was jokin proph i wuld love rounds 2 be 3-4 weeks wuld b more fun that way :D

Losted, you know I didnt had any time to play for 2 weeks now. past 4 days I did one mission. Thats all, so dont say "just because your lucky and finding aliens back to back"

There were several topics and people asking for boarding to come back, as I strongly disagree with it I mentioned it would be the same like this and hopefully people would realise that that wouldnt be a good change to get it back so your comment "for your info we DIDN'T want boarding back" is wrong and should have been I didnt want... as some other people wanted check suggestions and there were 2 more topics asking it to be back.

And at last "and for your info most of us don't want to play hunt the hidden alien game." as mentioned before I didnt even have time to play so I got davey to play for me  :12: And i disagree with the aliens as well. But downscaling them after some people got a huge profit from them is no option as well. Next round there rewards could be like reduced with 70% and make the aliens per spawn smaller en the probes more rare. That would solve allot of problems  but not for this round.

spend over 300 turns to get 30 probes, use them all to find this???

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 308010810% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Insane

Estimated enemy fleet power: 242.999.241.970.948.150

is this a joke?? wtf??????

If another person finds the alien first the alien will take his smaller % of total fleetpower, if you find it later then you will see it like that because some one else found it first..
I had it myself aswell that FTP or 42 found something before I did and had 800% aswell...

But I also had 0% with 16.000.000 power, it's just about who finds them first.

u know that wuld explain some of the massive ones i found earlyer

Its impossible to test stuff without having players available to test it.  Test servers tend to be overlooked - I know Ive got no interest playing on a test server (sorry Emi >< )

On the other hand, if updates are added to the test server and no-one tests it, then players can only blame themsleves.  Rather than blaming the poor guy who did all the work in the hope of improving everyones game experience.

i agree :D, altho i dont think this update was added to the test server i doubt it wuld have been looked at anyways, we cant complain that it aws unbalanced if we didnt test it, it got tested on the main server and emi made some adjustments to it while people were playing it

this is definitely way unbalanced . how could i possible do this alien encounter that i found

Commander, this appears to be an Alien Alpha #3...
Our scientists inform us that this particular spawn is extremely dangerous.
They possess a huge amount of technology that we could salvage...
They also seem to be transporting valuable resources.

Intelligence Officer: This event fleet power is 290231189% of our total fleet power.
Danger level: Insane

Estimated enemy fleet power: 244.054.933.246.894.900

Dude, do you even read?

Well America spends more on Gum than on Books, so I'm not surprised...

Ok - hall of fame quote.