EMi - you stated that you wanted planets to contribute to a players economy?  With those turns costs that will never happen - they will just be used for mining.

To become half a players income a planet will need about 150 trillion workers on it.  Thats 300 years worth of turns!!??  Do you really want them to be income sources or not?

If so, then I think youd need to remove the turns cost entirely - they still require large capital investment and take a long time to grow to high income streams.

Lets see how it works now for example. 

Return on capital is 3%. 

You stated a while back you want them to become siginicant sources of income, so lets say a player has a daily income of 10 trillion.  We want the planet to comprise half of his income, so the planet needs to generate 10 trillion also - being half of the final income of 20 trillion.  This requires a capital investment of about 330 trillion credits. 

Lets say the player diverts 5 trillion credits per day into the planet to build its capacity.  That will take 66 days investing 5 trillion per day to get the planets income up to 10 trillion per day - is this a reasonable time period?

Also - I would remind you of the issue that we had with stash that was corrected recently - there really has to be some cap on the top end or these things will eventually spiral out of control also.  I have no idea what kind of cap youd apply and how to manage it.  If its not linked to segs, what do you link it to?  Commander level?  Or just pick a number and set it at that?

Apparently AFB banned Tz from the forums?

Tz didnt like the #evil# commanders thread - He said he thought it was inflamatory and questioned why a moderator would start an inflamatory thread and he was banned?

Perhaps I dont have all the info - but I have enough info to post the following;

IF its true - then thats just a weak and childish response - his language wasnt out of order, neither was his intent.

If players cant complain openly about a moderator, then theres no accountability.  Free press and free speech are required to hold people accountable for their decisions.  Here, moderators can act like Nazi's and its ok?

Moderators should negotiate and find the middle ground - not have a dummy spit like a baby.

I want to frame this - this is a hall of fame comment.

Tz calling himself retarded - its just too good to be true.

Thats very clear Riv - it has everything to do with it - but its not ringing any bells with you.

Regarding your suggestions - dropping warp tech to 1% is a huge penalty for those who have invested heavily in it.  Anyhow - it doesnt matter what the costs are, so long as stabilizers arent too cheap compared to disruptors - then players will balance it out.

Theres no reason for a soft cap on stabilizers or disruptors - they are incremental already.

Removing warp tech from counters is ludicrous.  Warp tech is the only pure PvP tech available, so your going to remove it from 50% of the combat because you want to play a PVE game? 

Warp tech isnt free - its expensive in turns and Cp - those that have invested in it have sacrificed advances in other areas.

This does look like a nice way to balance - but the turns cost is currently excessive - and I dont think you can add a turns cost and make it balance properly, also there is no capacity limit mentioned.

Heres the data you presented - 100 billion basic cap, increasing capacity yields a 3% return (5x basic cost, and 15% return; 15%/5 = 3%).

Example - it costs roughly 5 trillion credits to increase capacity to 1 trillion, then you get a 15% return on the 1 trillion - or 3% return on your capital investment, so, slightly better than secret base workers.

That part looks good, however - heres a couple issues. 

To create a planet with a 1 trillion population (which is then generating 150 billion a day, assuming the 15% production is per day, not per 60 mins) requires about 2 years worth of turns - 100,000 (number of upgrades) x 10 (turns per upgrade) = 1 million turns.  1,000,000 / 1,440 (one day) = 694 days.

The other main issue is, if theres no upper capactiy limit - then players are likely to build only one planet each - because it will have a lot more marines and will be more defensible.

Ive been thinking about the easiest way to implement this.

Heres my idea for implementation.

When you add systems to a ship, they remain on the ship - even if you have zero of that system.  To remove the system completely from the blueprint, you need to add a new button - Delete System - you can only Delete a system when it has zero runs.

When in the view/edit window, you can chose to decrease OR increase the number of systems by typing a number of runs in the window.  You then click the UPDATE button (new button)

This means when you go into the view/edit window, all the systems you might want to use for the ship are there - though some will have zero installed - maybe they could be greyed out to show they arent there.

When you want to switch the ships configuration, you simply type in the new target number of runs you want for each system.

Heres an example;


Configuration 1 - Attack mode

System - runs

Computer A - 5

Shields X - 5
Shields Y - 0

Weapon E - 1

Special H - 1
Special I - 0


Now you want to change it to a no attack ship, by removing the weapon and computers, and changing shields from X to Y and the special from H to I.

So you just change;


Configuration 2 - Defensive Mode

System - runs

Computer A - 0

Shields X - 0
Shields Y - 5

Weapon E - 0

Special H - 0
Special I - 1


Then click an UPDATE button, and the configuration is checked for energy, space and your available cash.  If all the checks are ok, then the old components are sold and the new componets are bought and the ship design is changed instantly.

I hope this goes ahead - because I have worked out how to win using this strategy - its all part of my ongoing campaign to subvert the game for my own personal benefit.

This idea was suggested by Tz a long time ago, he called it a "Morph" button.

The idea was to save two or more sets of blueprints for a ship, and switch between the saved set ups with a click.  The option would sell off all systems not used in the new design, and buy the new systems -  so the cost would be the same as if you did it manually.

Jessie and Blackranger - your comments are nasty and uneccessary.

I can see I raised this too early - Ill wait, someone else will be bringing this subject up again and requesting a change in the future.  I removed the post you flamed - it had info that I dont feel like sharing anymore.

Jessie, you have a separate issue.

You tried to land a counter on someone and they warped 14 times.  Lower fleetpower and increase your disruptor tech - imagine you were attacking that player - you would have tried 14 times to land an attack.  Your disruptor tech is not sufficient - a new topic was started to discuss this.

The issue I have is that there is a flat 5% chance of being caught by a counter attack, which means your opponent can powerup to ludicrous fleetpower and land it on you regardless of the fleetpower difference.  Why should they have the privilege of that when you are so limited in fleetpower when trying an attack - attacks are not balanced with counters.

Jessie, imagine your trying to attack me - you know your going to have to cut fleetpower as much as possible - if by some miracle you got a successful attack, I can counter with 100 trillion fleetpower if I wanted and crush you.  You would have hardly scratched me - but I could zero you, not fair on you - landing an a successful attack on me would require a lot of effort and skill, for my counter I can just pull out all the firepower I can afford and hit you with it.

Zelox suggested making the max warp 100% rather than 95%.  I am in favour of that solution as well, 99% would be enough.

Everyone is going to be effected by this cap Basil - some players might not be effected right away as you have been though.  The up side is that the AI guys economies arent running out of control anymore - meaning they arent going to cap out the game soon, and everyone else has some chance to hit the high ground now.

Emi - very nice - thanks for this.

Riv, exactly correct - removing current income sources because "planets need a big role" is uneccessary and a horrible complication that will tilt WARS out of control. 

Planets can have a big role, they just need to be given a decent income.  Making the income from planets tech related is instantly a problem in balancing - they need to be cash investment buckets - so more cash is more profit.

This is an old problem - the problem surfaced with stations not having sufficient hit points and attack.  You need a hybrid system if your going to mix tech and incomes or tech and combat effectiveness - the hybrid system needs to incorporate tech, and cash.

Stash just needs a CAP RELATED TO SEGMENTS AND IT NEEDS TO BE IMPLEMENTED YESTERDAY.  1 segment allows 25 million in the stash is a pretty good value and should keep worker and stash income fairly balanced with each other.  A player with 1 million segments can have 25 trillion stash earning interest - anymore than that doesnt earn interest, for 10 mil segs it becomes 250 trillion interest bearing stash.

## This is a repost of my feedback on this project as made on the Suggestions forum ##


MY MAIN POINTS FROM THIS POST ARE: 

I dont think this idea should be introduced to the WARS server first - I believe it needs to go onto the PVE server for a few months before trying it on WARS.

Altering the current sources of income to implement this is NOT REQUIRED, and is likely to be a disaster. 

Current income sources should remain as they are, a cap on stash linked to segments is very important and needs to be implemented yesterday.


The issue with player incomes from stash is not the size of the income - that doesnt really matter.  The problem is the compounding nature of the income - where incomes increase at an increasing rate - therefore spiralling upwards faster and faster.

Theres no real need to reduce incomes at all, but its not a bad idea to use a segs to stash cap to balance worker income against stash income so they contribute equally.  THe change that needs to be made is to stop it being an exponential growth curve, and flatten it to a linear one.  Capping stash by using segments does that nicely, segment growth is basically linear.  There is a slight curve upwards thats attributed to increasing encrypt level, but that is neglible.

Quote from: SirEmi on February 23, 2008, 05:44:47 PM
- The planets will take over the production of the stash, we can't make planets profitable as long as stash interest is the main income source.

Theres no reason why planets cant be profitable just because players have income from stash - as I outlined earlier, its not the total income thats the problem - its the non-linear growth - a stash cap tied to segs will work.  Planets are likely to need extensive testing to balance - they are not going to be ready tomorrow, which is when we need the fix. 

For example - the ubiquitous 10 mil seg player has 5 tril income from workers, 5 tril from stash interest (250 trillion cap) and say 10 tril from planets.  This would be a nice mix of assets - the planets are subject only to indirect attacks, and workers and stash (if its capped by segs) to direct PvP attacks. 

As I stated having an income of 20 trillion isnt a problem - in fact its really good for the game, the current issue is your income is 20 tril today, and 21 tril in 2 days, 25 in a week and so on and so on - going up faster and faster because stash is unlimited.

Whats the right income from planets?  How long will it take to tech them up, or whatever is needed for them to earn enough income to replace stash and workers?  Players will need to research and build them - if the income is tech related, then that means the top players have the same starting position as everyone else - which is huge cut in income, and no faster growth than anyone else to recover.

Surely its better to leave the current income streams and just give planets a good production capabilty.  Workers and stash can be tied to segments - but planets are going to be really hard to control, they are unlike anything else currently in the game - the balancing issues for this project are likely to be nightmarishly difficult - this is a huge change and will really need thorough testing.


Quote from: SirEmi on February 23, 2008, 05:44:47 PM
- We got a lot of unused turns that will go into planet construction and maybe maintenance


No-one who plays consistently at any level has spare turns.  In fact more turns are needed - suggestions have been made regarding adding items from missions that give free travel turns (my idea, convert warp travel items to free travel), and tech turns items (an idea by Chrys, quite a nice idea I think).  This keeps up the incentive to do missions at the high end where the segs growth is so flat its hardly worth doing missions at all.


Quote from: SirEmi on February 23, 2008, 05:44:47 PM
- Worker production is also a major profit generator, making cycle 60 minutes enables planets to serve a higher role in generating profit


If stash is removed and workers cut to 15% of current production rates, then planets have to make up 93% of players current incomes - thats only if stash and workers were balanced - and for the AI guys they arent.  Planets will be the ONLY source of income - its a new idea with a huge impact, its got great potential, for going horribly wrong.

Surely it needs to be phased in over time - with slow movements based on player feedback and credible testing.

One other thing thats important to note, the game changes with high incomes - the potential is amazing - only a few players are currently pushing these limits and exploring what can be done.  Cutting current incomes so drastically kills off a game world 99% of the players dont even know exists yet - and they want to see it, I guarantee it.


Quote from: SirEmi on February 23, 2008, 05:44:47 PM
- 50% more worker production for Gold (not such a big impact on non-Gold once the planets take over the economy)


Planets really need to be in and working before making adjustments to economies, otherwise things can go badly wrong - trying to get it all done in one hit is very likely to be a disaster - it would require a miracle to get it right on the first try. 

Adjusting gold bonuses is likely to annoy players, they either are relying on having them, or planning on being competitive without them.


Quote from: SirEmi on February 23, 2008, 05:44:47 PM
The objective:
- To split the secret base income and divide it amoung the planets, making planets conquerable and income generators will stimulate fighting on the planets and for the planets, increasing indirect PvP where the attacker disrupts the supply lines (planets) of enemy, increasing overall galaxy combat.



The conceptual changes this will introduce are huge, it just looks like too big a change to the game fundamentals to rush an implementation.  However, I like planets and I believe they can be added and still keep all the good things about the current game.


The game is 95% working, some issues remain outstanding - but with such a complex system, your always going to have to be making small adjustments to try and keep it balanced.

Direct attacks have been the basis of the game since it began, why change it before its even working properly?  Normal combat still needs work, attacks are currently too weak, and should be increased in value and impact - but these changes would decay them (by 85% or so) to a point that they are not worth making at all. 

Planets are going to be really difficult to integrate I think, they need to be tested thoroughly, phased in slowly with limited tech available to prevent errors being overpowering and then adjusted and fine tuned on implementation.

If planets, workers and stash are all balanced against each other - then direct attacks still have value - and taking planets is also profitable.  Stash and worker caps based on segments, and planets able to generate higher income than either of those individually, but maybe not as much as both combined.

This is a huge change - implementing this on WARS without extensive testing is a big risk, it greatly reduces the value of segments (to 15% of their original value), which up to this point have theen the basis of all PvP action - direct attacks would cease to be an option.

Items from missions could be adjusted to create a variety of game impacts, heres a couple of ideas.

Seg Items - increase the size of segs items for low missions. To accellerate players into the game, you could change the lower end of the segment database to have larger segment items.  Maybe make all segs items that yield less than 500 segs, give 500 segs or so.  This would certainly allow starting players to get up faster.

Warp Items - Ive raised this one before.  Players movement at all levels is restricted by turns.  Turns spent teching, or doing 10x missions all cut down a players ability to either go looking for enemy players or encounters.  Changing warp items to free turns of travel (like warp fuel) would allow players to get back a proportion of turns spent on missions to use for traveling to find encounters, or more importantly to search for enemy players.

Tech Items - at the high end, segs growth becomes very flat - most players will tend to sit on their asses and spend all their turns on tech, because its the most effective thing to do.  Theres not much incentive to do missions at all.  If missions returned turtns that could be spent teching up, then the high end players would be more active, doing mission and travelling around.

CP Items - SOme nice returns from doing missions.  Encounters are nice bumps to CP, but a steady supply of lower items would be nice at all levels to allow players to pick up some CP even if they dont get lucky on encounters.

Mining Items - Again, previously proposed the idea - change these items to give a number of turns of mining.  When mining players enter the number of turns they want to use (instead of the target amount of ore).

## Edited - apologies to Emi for way I presented it earlier ##

The issue with player incomes from stash is not the size of the income - that doesnt really matter.  The problem is the compounding nature of the income - where incomes increase at an increasing rate - therefore spiralling upwards faster and faster.

Theres no real need to reduce incomes at all - all that needs to be done is to stop it being an exponential growth curve, and flatten it to a linear one.  Capping stash by using segments does that nicely, segment growth is basically linear.  There is a slight curve upwards thats attributed to increasing encrypt level, but that is neglible.


Theres no reason why planets cant be profitable just because players have some income from stash - as I outlined earlier, its not the total income thats the problem - its the non-linear growth - a stash cap tied to segs will work.  Planets are likely to need extensive testing to balance - they are not going to be ready tomorrow, which is when we need the fix. 

Whats the right income from planets?  How long will it take to tech them up, or whatever is needed for them to earn enough income to replace stash and workers?  Players will need to research and build them - if the income is tech related, then that means the top players have the same starting position as everyone else - which is huge cut in income, and no faster growth than anyone else to recover.

Surely its better to leave the current income streams and just give planets a good production capabilty.  Workers and stash can be tied to segments - but planets are going to be really hard to control, they are unlike anything else currently in the game - the balancing issues for this project are likely to be nightmarishly difficult - this is a huge change and will really need thorough testing.


No-one who plays consistently at any level has spare turns.  In fact more turns are needed - suggestions have been made regarding adding items from missions that give free travel turns (my idea, convert warp travel items to free travel), and tech turns items (an idea by Chrys, quite a nice idea I think).  This keeps up the incentive to do missions at the high end where the segs growth is so flat its hardly worth doing missions at all.


If stash is removed and workers cut to 15% of current production rates, then planets have to make up 93% of players current incomes - thats only if stash and workers were balanced - and for the AI guys they arent.  Planets will be the ONLY source of income - its a new idea with a huge impact, its got great potential, for going horribly wrong.

Surely it needs to be phased in over time - with slow movements based on player feedback and credible testing.

One other thing thats important to note, the game changes with high incomes - the potential is amazing - only a few players are currently pushing these limits and exploring what can be done.  Cutting current incomes so drastically kills off a game world 99% of the players dont even know exists yet - and they want to see it, I guarantee it.


Planets really need to be in and working before making adjustments to economies, otherwise things can go badly wrong - trying to get it all done in one hit is very likely to be a disaster - it would require a miracle to get it right on the first try. 

Adjusting gold bonuses is likely to annoy players, they either are relying on having them, or planning on being competitive without them.



The conceptual changes this will introduce are huge, it just looks like too big a change to the game fundamentals to rush an implementation.  However, I like planets and I believe they can be added and still keep all the good things about the current game.


The game is 95% working, some issues remain outstanding - but with such a complex system, your always going to have to be making small adjustments to try and keep it balanced.

Direct attacks have been the basis of the game since it began, why change it before its even working properly?  Normal combat still needs work, attacks are currently too weak, and should be increased in value and impact - but these changes would decay them (by 85% or so) to a point that they are not worth making at all. 

Planets are going to be really difficult to integrate I think, they need to be tested thoroughly, phased in slowly with limited tech available to prevent errors being overpowering and then adjusted and fine tuned on implementation.

If planets, workers and stash are all balanced against each other - then direct attacks still have value - and taking planets is also profitable.  Stash and worker caps based on segments, and planets able to generate higher income than either of those individually, but maybe not as much as both combined.

This is a huge change - implementing this on WARS without extensive testing is a big risk, it greatly reduces the value of segments (to 15% of their original value), which up to this point have theen the basis of all PvP action - direct attacks would cease to be an option.