Search forums

Forums

Export thread

Blacknova Traders

Jan 2, 2014#1

Dave

I have added a new space trading game called "Blacknova Traders". I have been testing it on and off today and will probably hit it more tonight.

Couple of notes for newbs (of which I am one, but since I've been tinkering this is what I've learned).

Everyone starts with a Genesis torpedo. This allows you to make a planet in a system that doesn't have one.
Most systems don't have planets.
Most systems do have a trading post of sorts. You need to click the satellite icon to access it. Or the planet icon to access a planet.
Capturing an unowned planet is as simple as clicking "capture".
You can upgrade your ship's stuff by docking with a "Special" trading port. Sector 0 is always a special.
This is *NOT* bridged with XenForo! This means every time you go to it you'll have to log in. Maybe I'll find some way to bridge it soon. But I hate using email as my login.

Really that's all I know right now. I do not know how good combat is, I don't know how balanced the game is. I figure you knuckleheads will break it somehow. But it'll be fun trying.

By the way, you get to the game by the new "Games" dropdown.

Jan 2, 2014#2

Tinwhistler

This sounds a lot like the TradeWars bbs games we used to play on dial-up BBSs back in the day.

Jan 2, 2014#3

Dave

All settings are here in this informational file.

[quote"config"]
// All sched_* vars are in minutes.
// These are true minutes, no matter to what interval you're running the scheduler script!
// The scheduler will auto-adjust, possibly running many of the same events in a single call.

$sched_ticks = 5; // Set this to how often (in minutes) you are running the scheduler script.
$turns_per_tick = 50; // Update how many turns per tick
$sched_turns = 2; // New turns rate (also includes towing, xenobe)
$sched_ports = 1; // How often port production occurs
$sched_planets = 2; // How often planet production occurs
$sched_igb = 2; // How often IGB interests are added
$sched_ranking = 30; // How often rankings will be generated
$sched_news = 15; // How often news are generated
$sched_degrade = 6; // How often sector fighters degrade when unsupported by a planet
$sched_apocalypse = 15; // How often apocalypse events will occur
$sched_thegovernor = 1; // How often the governor will run, cleaning up out-of-bound values
$doomsday_value = 90000000; // Number of colonists a planet needs before being affected by the apocalypse
$color_header = '#500050'; // GUI colors - soon to be moved into templates
$color_line1 = '#300030'; // GUI colors - soon to be moved into templates
$color_line2 = '#400040'; // GUI colors - soon to be moved into templates
$mine_hullsize = 8; // Minimum size hull has to be to hit mines
$ewd_maxhullsize = 15; // Max hull size before EWD degrades
$sector_max = 1000; // Number of sectors you'd like your universe to have
$link_max = 10; // Maximum number of links in a sector
$universe_size = 200; // This increases the distance between sectors, which increases the cost of realspace movement
$game_name = 'HalSpace Traders'; // Please set this to a unique name for your game
$release_version = '0.663'; // Please do not change this. Doing so will cause problems for the server lists, and setupinfo, and more.
$fed_max_hull = 8; // The maximum hull size you can have before being towed out of fed space
$max_ranks = 100; // The maximum number of ranks displayed on ranking.php
$rating_combat_factor = 0.8; // Amount of rating gained from combat
$server_closed = false; // True = block logins but not new account creation
$account_creation_closed = false; // True = block new account creation
$newbie_nice = 'YES'; // If a ship is destroyed without a EWD, *and* is below a certain level for all items, then regen their ship
$newbie_hull = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a hull less than newbie hull, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_engines = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a engines less than newbie engines, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_power = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a power less than newbie power, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_computer = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a computer less than newbie computer, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_sensors = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a sensors less than newbie sensors, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_armor = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a armor less than newbie armor, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_shields = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a shields less than newbie shield, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_beams = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a beams less than newbie beams, he will be regen'd to play more
$newbie_torp_launchers = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a torp_launcher less than newbie torp_launcher, he will be regen'd to play more.
$newbie_cloak = '8'; // If a destroyed player has a cloak less than newbie cloak, he will be regen'd to play more.
$allow_fullscan = true; // Allow players to use full long range scan during this game?
$allow_navcomp = true; // Allow players to use the Navigation computer during this game?
$allow_ibank = true; // Allow players to use the Intergalactic Bank (IGB) during this game?
$allow_genesis_destroy = false; // Allow players to use genesis torps to destroy planets?
$ibank_interest = 0.0003; // Interest rate for account funds - Note that this is calculated every system update!
$ibank_paymentfee = 0.05; // Paymentfee
$ibank_loaninterest = 0.0010; // Loan interest (good idea to put double what you get on a planet)
$ibank_loanfactor = 0.10; // One-time loan fee
$ibank_loanlimit = 0.25; // Maximum loan allowed, percent of net worth
$default_prod_ore = 20.0; // Default planet ore production percentage
$default_prod_organics = 20.0; // Default planet organics production percentage
$default_prod_goods = 20.0; // Default planet goods production percentage
$default_prod_energy = 20.0; // Default planet energy production percentage
$default_prod_fighters = 10.0; // Default planet fighters production percentage
$default_prod_torp = 10.0; // Default planet torpedo production percentage
$ore_price = 11; // Default price for ore
$ore_delta = 5; // The delta, or difference for ore to range + or - from the default to allow trading profitably
$ore_rate = 75000; // The amount of ore that is regenerated by a port every tick (times the port_regenrate)
$ore_prate = 0.25; // The rate of production for ore on a planet (times production, times player/planet setting for ore_prate)
$ore_limit = 100000000; // The maximum amount of ore a port will accept or produce up to
$organics_price = 5; // Default price of organics
$organics_delta = 2; // The delta, or difference for organics to range + or - from the default to allow trading profitably
$organics_rate = 5000; // The amount of organics that is regenerated by a port every tick (times the port_regenrate)
$organics_prate = 0.5; // The rate of production for organics on a planet (times production, times player/planet setting for org_prate)
$organics_limit = 100000000; // The maximum amount of organics a port will accept or produce up to
$goods_price = 15; // Default price of goods
$goods_delta = 7; // The delta, or difference for goods to range + or - from the default to allow trading profitably
$goods_rate = 75000; // The amount of goods that is regenerated by a port every tick (times the port_regenrate)
$goods_prate = 0.25; // The rate of production for goods on a planet (times production, times player/planet setting for goods_prate)
$goods_limit = 100000000; // The maximum amount of goods a port will accept or produce up to
$energy_price = 3; // Default price of energy
$energy_delta = 1; // The delta, or difference for energy to range + or - from the default to allow trading profitably
$energy_rate = 75000; // The amount of energy that is regenerated by a port every tick (times the port_regenrate)
$energy_prate = 0.5; // The rate of production for energy on a planet (times production, times player/planet setting for energy_prate)
$energy_limit = 1000000000; // The maximum amount of energy a port will accept or produce up to
$inventory_factor = 1; // The number of units that a single hull can hold
$upgrade_cost = 1000; // Upgrade price is (upgrade factor OR 2)^(level difference) times the upgrade cost
$upgrade_factor = 2; // Upgrade factor is the numeric base (usually 2) that is raised to the power of level difference for determining cost
$level_factor = 1.5; // How effective a level is. amount = level_factor ^ item_level (possibly times another value, depending on the item)
$dev_genesis_price = 1000000; // The price for a genesis device purchased at a special port
$dev_beacon_price = 100; // The price for a beacon purchased at a special port
$dev_emerwarp_price = 1000000; // The price for an emergency warp device purchased at a special port
$dev_warpedit_price = 100000; // The price for a warp editor purchased at a special port
$dev_minedeflector_price = 10; // The price for a mine deflector purchased at a special port
$dev_escapepod_price = 100000; // The price for an escape pod purchased at a special port
$dev_fuelscoop_price = 100000; // The price for a fuel scoop (gives energy while real spacing) purchased at a special port
$dev_lssd_price = 10000000; // The price for a last seen ship device purchased at a special port
$fighter_price = 50; // The price for a fighter purchased at a special port
$fighter_prate = 0.01; // The rate of production for fighters on a planet (times production, times player/planet setting for fit_prate)
$torpedo_price = 25; // The price for a torpedo purchased at a special port
$torpedo_prate = 0.025; // The rate of production for torpedoes on a planet (times production, times player/planet setting for torp_prate)
$torp_dmg_rate = 10; // The amount of damage a single torpedo will cause
$credits_prate = 3.0; // The rate of production for credits on a planet (times production, times player/planet setting for 100% minus all prates)
$armor_price = 5; // The price for units of armor purchased at a special port
$basedefense = 1; // Additional factor added to tech levels by having a base on your planet. All your base are belong to us.
$colonist_price = 5; // The standard price for a colonist at a special port
$colonist_production_rate = 0.005; // The rate of production for colonists on a planet (prior to consideration of organics)
$colonist_reproduction_rate = 0.0005; // The rate of reproduction for colonists on a planet after consideration of starvation due to organics
$colonist_limit = 100000000; // The maximum number of colonists on a planet
$organics_consumption = 0.05; // How many units of organics does a single colonist eat (require to avoid starvation)
$starvation_death_rate = 0.01; // If there is insufficient organics, colonists die of starvation at this rate/percentage
$interest_rate = 1.0005; // The interest rate offered by the IGB
$base_ore = 10000; // The amount of ore required to be placed on a planet to create a base.
$base_goods = 10000; // The amount of goods required to be placed on a planet to create a base.
$base_organics = 10000; // The amount of organics required to be placed on a planet to create a base.
$base_credits = 10000000; // The amount of credits required to be placed on a planet to create a base.
$start_fighters = 10; // The amount of fighters on the ship the player starts with
$start_armor = 10; // The armor a player starts with
$start_credits = 1000; // The credits a player starts the game with
$start_energy = 100; // The amount of energy on the ship the player starts with
$start_turns = 1200; // The number of turns all players are given at the start of the game
$start_lssd = 'N'; // Do ships start with an lssd ?
$start_editors = 0; // Starting warp editors
$start_minedeflectors = 0; // Start mine deflectors
$start_emerwarp = 0; // Start emergency warp units
$start_beacon = 0; // Start space_beacons
$start_genesis = 0; // Starting genesis torps
$escape = 'N'; // Start game equipped with escape pod?
$scoop = 'N'; // Start game equipped with fuel scoop?
$max_turns = 2500; // The maximum number of turns a player can receive
$max_emerwarp = 10; // The maximum number of emergency warp devices a player can have
$fullscan_cost = 1; // The cost in turns for doing a full scan
$scan_error_factor = 20; // The percentage added to the comparison of cloak to sensors to determne the possibility of error
$max_planets_sector = 5; // The maximum number of planets allowed in a sector
$max_traderoutes_player = 40; // The maximum number of saved traderoutes a player can have
$min_bases_to_own = 3; // The minimum number of planets with bases in a sector that a player needs to have to take ownership of the zone
$default_lang = 'english'; // The default language the game displays in until a player chooses a language
$IGB_min_turns = 1200; // Turns a player has to play before ship transfers are allowed 0=disable
$IGB_svalue = 0.15; // Max amount of sender's value allowed for ship transfers 0=disable
$IGB_trate = 1440; // Time (in minutes) before two similar transfers are allowed for ship transfers.0=disable
$IGB_lrate = 1440; // Time (in minutes) players have to repay a loan
$IGB_tconsolidate = 10; // Cost in turns for consolidate : 1/$IGB_consolidate
$corp_planet_transfers = 0; // If transferring credits to/from corp planets is allowed. 1=enable
$min_value_capture = 0; // Percantage of planet's value a ship must be worth to be able to capture it. 0=disable
$defence_degrade_rate = 0.05; // The percentage rate at which defenses (fits, mines) degrade during scheduler runs
$energy_per_fighter = 0.10; // The amount of energy needed (from planets in sector) to maintain a fighter during scheduler runs
$bounty_maxvalue = 0.15; // Max amount a player can place as bounty - good idea to make it the same as $IGB_svalue. 0=disable
$bounty_ratio = 0.75; // Ratio of players networth before attacking results in a bounty. 0=disable
$bounty_minturns = 500; // Minimum number of turns a target must have had before attacking them may not get you a bounty. 0=disable
$display_password = false; // If true, will display password on signup screen.
$space_plague_kills = 0.20; // Percentage of colonists killed by space plague
$max_credits_without_base = 10000000; // Max amount of credits allowed on a planet without a base
$sofa_on = false; // Is the sub-orbital fighter (sofa) attack allowed in this game?
$ksm_allowed = true; // Is the known space map allowed in this game?
$xenobe_max = 10; // Sets the number of xenobe in the universe
$xen_start_credits = 1000000; // What Xenobe start with
$xen_unemployment = 100000; // Amount of credits each xenobe receive on each xenobe tick
$xen_aggression = 100; // Percent of xenobe that are aggressive or hostile
$xen_planets = 5; // Percent of created xenobe that will own planets. Recommended to keep at small percentage
$xenstartsize = 15; // Max starting size of Xenobes at universe creation
$port_regenrate = 10; // The amount of units regenerated by ports during a scheduler tick
$footer_style = 'old'; // Switch between old style footer and new style. Old is text, and only the time until next update. New is a table including server time.
$footer_show_debug = true; // Should the footer show the memory and time to generate page?
$sched_planet_valid_credits = true; // Limit captured planets Max Credits to max_credits_without_base
$max_upgrades_devices = 55; // Must stay at 55 due to PHP/MySQL cap limit.
$max_emerwarp = 10; // The maximum number of emergency warp devices a player can have at one time
$max_genesis = 10; // The maximum number of genesis devices a player can have at one time
$max_beacons = 10; // The maximum number of beacons a player can have at one time
$max_warpedit = 10; // The maximum number of warpeditors a player can have at one time
$bounty_all_special = true; // Stop access on all Special Ports when you have a federation bounty on you.
[/quote]

[DOUBLEPOST=1388696516,1388696471][/DOUBLEPOST]I put these in just in case when we play it we wanted to tweak something.

Jan 2, 2014#4

Dave

Yes, it's a lot like Trade Wars. But as long as it's fun, who cares? I'm finally getting used to the interface so I'll probably be losing my Federation Space privileges pretty soon. I'm already up to Class 5 hull, I think. And no, it's not because I started early. One of the things I did before telling anyone was to set myself back to normal. I couldn't just reset myself because I'm the admin.

Jan 2, 2014#5

GasBandit

I didn't start with a genesis torpedo.

Jan 2, 2014#6

MindDetective

neither did I

Jan 2, 2014#7

Dave

Now you both do.

Jan 2, 2014#8

Shakey

Me neither.

Jan 2, 2014#9

Dave

And I don't think the turns are refreshing. So let me look into that.

Jan 2, 2014#10

GasBandit

Now I do. Thanks.

Jan 2, 2014#11

Dave

Anybody know how to set up a cron job to run a php file? Apparently unless I do so it won't update the schedule automatically.

Jan 2, 2014#12

Tinwhistler

Dave said:
Yes, it's a lot like Trade Wars. But as long as it's fun, who cares?

I think you misunderstand me. TradeWars is awesome

Jan 2, 2014#13

Dave

Okay, I think I have the cron set up. But instead of every 6 minutes to run, it's every 5. So I'll have to watch it a bit and see if it works.

One thing, though. Get your hull values up ASAP. Holy crap does it make a difference trading.[DOUBLEPOST=1388708935,1388708477][/DOUBLEPOST]Since I can't run this every minute, I'm updating every 5 minutes. And since it used to give 6 turns per minute, I've upped it to 50 per update, which is actually 10 per minute.

This assumes, of course, that I have everything set up right.

Jan 2, 2014#14

bhamv3

I don't have a Genesis Torpedo either. Also, I'm totally confused and lost.

Jan 2, 2014#15

Dave

Okay, so I wonder why I had one. Let me check the docs and see.

Jan 2, 2014#16

GasBandit

Also I don't think the 5 minutes-50 turns thing is working.

Jan 2, 2014#17

MindDetective

yeah, same here.

Jan 2, 2014#18

Dave

No, I've been trying to get this flim-flammed cron job to work and nothing I've tried does! It's fucking infuriating![DOUBLEPOST=1388713964,1388713771][/DOUBLEPOST]Worst part is I'm following the instructions to the letter and getting nothing. There are about 20 different ways they say it could be done, but none of them work.

Jan 2, 2014#19

Dave

I thought I had. Damn it! Thanks, man![DOUBLEPOST=1388715367,1388715130][/DOUBLEPOST]I can run the scheduler by hand but it just won't go automatically. And I don't know why.

Jan 2, 2014#20

Dave

Found one that runs every 15 minutes so I changed it to 150 turns every tick. Of course, I didn't make the change until I found out it worked, which only gave you 10 turns.

I'm still going to work on the cron job, but at least I know SOMETHING will work!

Jan 2, 2014#21

Dave

Thanks to @stienman the cron is working. You now get 150 turns every 15 minutes. I'm going to play mine until I get to 0 or until they pop up again just to make sure it works.

Oh, and you get a max of 2500 regardless of how long you wait between logins.

Jan 2, 2014#22

Dave

MD has 25 million colonists already?!? WTF?!?

Jan 2, 2014#23

Dave

That's how he did it. He found and conquered Gaia. I guess I didn't set it up to be as end game as I thought.

Jan 2, 2014#24

Dave

Took a planet from you, @stienman. Wanted to see how it was done. It was actually easy as you had no defenses.

Jan 2, 2014#25

Dave

stienman said:
No problem! You might want to guard 916 a little more carefully from now on, though...

I figured. I mean, it IS only 2 jumps away from start! It's one of those things.

Jan 3, 2014#26

MindDetective

Yeah, I got lucky stumbling across Gaia. Still barely in the lead, though. I think I wasted a lot of turns I could have used for better purposes...

Jan 3, 2014#27

Dave

MindDetective said:
Yeah, I got lucky stumbling across Gaia. Still barely in the lead, though. I think I wasted a lot of turns I could have used for better purposes...

How the hell did you beat it, though? I thought I'd set it up almost unbeatable for this soon. Should I have added more fighters or torpedos?

Jan 3, 2014#28

Cheesy1

"'1 2 3 4 5?' That's amazing, I have the same combination on my LUGGAGE!"

Jan 3, 2014#29

MindDetective

Dave said:
How the hell did you beat it, though? I thought I'd set it up almost unbeatable for this soon. Should I have added more fighters or torpedos?

I didn't have to. I claimed it like any other planet. I think only player owned planets need to be conquered.

Jan 3, 2014#30

bhamv3

I think I'm on the right track... but I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing.

I'm starting to think this is what a browser-based Evochron Mercenary might feel like.

Jan 3, 2014#31

Dave

MindDetective said:
I didn't have to. I claimed it like any other planet. I think only player owned planets need to be conquered.

Okay so in the future, remove my secret world because it doesn't defend itself. Good to know for when we reset. Whenever that is going to be.

Jan 3, 2014#32

bhamv3

I attacked @Hylian and destroyed his ship, accumulating a pretty hefty bounty in the process.

Sorry Hylian.

Jan 3, 2014#33

Hylian

bhamv3 said:
I attacked @Hylian and destroyed his ship, accumulating a pretty hefty bounty in the process.

Sorry Hylian.

I suppose it is my fault, I started playing yesterday at work and I got busy and forgot to go back and actually make sure I was at least somewhat defended.

Jan 3, 2014#34

GasBandit

I think the turns generate maybe a little bit too generously. At 10 per minute, it takes just over 4 hours to go from empty to capped. Which means sleeping is wasting turns.

Jan 3, 2014#35

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
I think the turns generate maybe a little bit too generously. At 10 per minute, it takes just over 4 hours to go from empty to capped. Which means sleeping is wasting turns.

I agree, I've yet to drop below 2300 turns. Turns basically aren't a limiter at all, at the moment.

Jan 3, 2014#36

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
I agree, I've yet to drop below 2300 turns. Turns basically aren't a limiter at all, at the moment.

If you're not using up most of your turns each session, you're not doing it right. You need to use the trade routes controls.

But, that said, I think the original default, 6 turns per minute, is probably the way to go. That would take you from 0 to 2500 turns in just under 7 hours.

Jan 3, 2014#37

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
If you're not using up most of your turns each session, you're not doing it right. You need to use the trade routes controls.

But, that said, I think the original default, 6 turns per minute, is probably the way to go. That would take you from 0 to 2500 turns in just under 7 hours.

Gah, I had no idea this is a thing. I've been doing all the trading manually, fisher-box-style.

Jan 3, 2014#38

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Gah, I had no idea this is a thing. I've been doing all the trading manually, fisher-box-style.

The expenses for upgrades in this game are exponential. Unless you use the built in automation, you'll not only not keep up with the other players, but probably peter out of the game entirely when you start seeing multibillion credit upgrade bills.

Jan 3, 2014#39

bhamv3

I just loaded up on energy and bludgeoned my way through all of Dave's defenses to capture his home planet.

Jan 3, 2014#40

Dave

It shouldn't be 10 per minute. @stienman, do you have yours turned off? Are we capping double?

Jan 3, 2014#41

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
I just loaded up on energy and bludgeoned my way through all of Dave's defenses to capture his home planet.

Is THAT how you got your "good" rating so damn high so fast?

He must not have had very good defenses though.

Jan 3, 2014#42

MindDetective

150 every 15 minutes = 10 per minute

Sent from my MB886 using Tapatalk

Jan 3, 2014#43

GasBandit

And yeah, I just gained about 800 turns in an hour and a half.

Jan 3, 2014#44

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
Is THAT how you got your "good" rating so damn high so fast?

He must not have had very good defenses though.

A smidge over 40k fighters and mines.

Jan 3, 2014#45

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
A smidge over 40k fighters and mines.

I see you've been testing my defenses as well. Don't get any funny ideas, buttercup.

Jan 3, 2014#46

Dave

I think figured it out. I have to set the cron and the config to the same and they were different. So the cron was running every 15 minutes but the game was giving 50 turns every 5 minutes. SO when the cron ran the game would give 150 tuns. This has been set to 75 and both now say 15 minutes.

We'll let this sit for a bit to make sure it works, but then I may hit restart and go from the beginning.

How would you all feel about that?

Jan 3, 2014#47

MindDetective

Oh, its all in good fun. I can deal with a wipe.

Jan 3, 2014#48

Dave

There will be no Gaia this time, by the way.

Jan 3, 2014#49

MindDetective

That's probably for the best.

Jan 3, 2014#50

GasBandit

I'm ok with a wipe. This one so far has been mostly just learning to play, for me. I never played tradewars before.

Jan 3, 2014#51

MindDetective

GasBandit said:
I'm ok with a wipe. This one so far has been mostly just learning to play, for me. I never played tradewars before.

Yup, same here.

Jan 3, 2014#52

bhamv3

Ditto. I've actually been operating under the assumption that we'll have a wipe. I usually don't play these games so aggressively and recklessly.

Jan 3, 2014#53

Dave

So let's put in some pointers before we start again just to be sure.

Warp Editors will add or remove warps from your sectors. For example, I used them to make it only one way into sector 307 (I added another back in, but that was later). You can have a one-way warp to Sector 0, but not a returning one.

Jan 3, 2014#54

MindDetective

Ports can run out of ore or goods. If you run a long batch of trade route runs, it will NOT stop if one of the ports runs out!

Definitely read the FAQ for some strategy tips.

Jan 3, 2014#55

GasBandit

You'll start getting kicked out of federation space when your ship's tech levels average above 8. You can sneak in fast and get some shopping done if you're quick, but it may just be better to go exploring and find another "special" port to shop for upgrades and stuff.

Jan 3, 2014#56

Dave

Did anyone ever find another "special" one? I didn't. That's when I found Gaia, though.[DOUBLEPOST=1388779947,1388779915][/DOUBLEPOST]Gas, explain how trade routes work. Do they automatically keep going back & forth doing your trades?

Jan 3, 2014#57

MindDetective

Dave said:
Did anyone ever find another "special" one? I didn't. That's when I found Gaia, though.[DOUBLEPOST=1388779947,1388779915][/DOUBLEPOST]Gas, explain how trade routes work. Do they automatically keep going back & forth doing your trades?

I found one and basically never went back to 0.

Trade routes will allow you to batch move and trade between two locations. You can do it one way or two ways between the two ports. I was running 100 runs at a time, which took 4 turns each (trade, move, trade, move) but I lowered my batch amounts later when I mined all of the goods or ore from one of the ports and it kept using my turns up for basically null trades.

Jan 3, 2014#58

GasBandit

Dave said:
Did anyone ever find another "special" one? I didn't. That's when I found Gaia, though.[DOUBLEPOST=1388779947,1388779915][/DOUBLEPOST]Gas, explain how trade routes work. Do they automatically keep going back & forth doing your trades?

What MD said. Yeah, I found a special one, do all my upgrades there now. You just gotta go out and start exploring at some point.

A trade route has you go between two ports, selling everything they're buying and buying everything they're selling, within money and hull space constraints. Using a trade route lets you batch repeat that trade hundreds of times with one click.

I've never had a trade route run dry of things to buy/sell. I find after 100 trades or so with a level... 20ish hull, each trade session has decreased to about 2 thirds or half the profitability per run (prices also adjust due to supply and demand as you trade), and then I move on to the next place I have trades.
Also, if your engine is good enough, find two adjacent ports to trade between and do it by realspace instead of warping. If you can travel there in 1 turn in realspace, you can scoop energy in both directions and sweeten the deal with that profit as well.

The only real irritant I've found with trade routes is you can't tell it NOT to sell all your energy at both ends (assuming it's not an energy depot, because why would it be), so I end each trading session with no energy, meaning I've got to scoop/buy another million or so energy in case I come across one of you dirty bastards floating in space and need to burn a few holes in you.

Jan 3, 2014#59

MindDetective

so there's still no easy way to tell if you've been to a given sector.

There is a map that is not very easy to read that displays all of your visited sectors.

If you turn off organics, you will have to stock your planet with organics, otherwise your people will die.

I didn't know this, actually.

Jan 3, 2014#60

Dave

And I didn't know fighters in a sector deteriorate with time.

Jan 3, 2014#61

GasBandit

Just a couple corrections... the credit maximum of 10 million is only for planets with no base constructed. Also you only lose 5% of your fighters per cycle if you don't have a planet in that sector with enough energy to refuel them. If you have a planet generating lots of energy or heavily stocked with energy, you won't lose fighters.

And now everybody knows everything about the game! Whee! (grumble grumble)

Jan 3, 2014#62

GasBandit

Also are we sure the turns are regenerating slower now? Seems to me they are still coming back incredibly fast.

Jan 3, 2014#63

Dave

Hell, I don't know. Let me look. Again.

Jan 3, 2014#64

Dave

Set turns to 0. Let's see.

Jan 3, 2014#65

GasBandit

Dave said:
Set turns to 0. Let's see.

Heh, I was wondering what that was... glad I was somewhere reasonably safe.

Jan 3, 2014#66

GasBandit

Holy shit. 525 turns every 15 minutes.

Jan 3, 2014#67

GasBandit

stienman said:
I might have accidentally attacked and captured, I don't know, maybe 20 planets while I was banging around the universe.

"But for Bison, that was... Tuesday..?"

You accidentally the most evil man in the universe now. Heh.

Jan 3, 2014#68

Dave

Holy fuckballs! 15 minutes later and it generated 525 turns! So I set it to 5 minutes (obviously I'd done something wrong with the 15!) and now it generates 15 turns every 5 minutes.

And I'm watching it to make sure.

Jan 3, 2014#69

GasBandit

Ok, but 3 turns a minute might be a little TOO small. 6/min would be 30 turns every 5.

Jan 3, 2014#70

GasBandit

stienman said:
Aw, I forgot to recharge my batteries and @GasBandit was on his planet when I attacked it.

I went all explody.

Now I get to see how fast I can build my ship back up....

"Your planet GasBandia Prime was attacked by stienman. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 0% of the ship's worth of 0 credits."

Pssf, worthless. Thank you, though, for showing me that I did not have enough defenses. I'll see about fixing that right away.

Jan 3, 2014#71

GasBandit

stienman said:
Now guys, just because I can't sit around and protect my base at 672 anymore doesn't mean it's just a free-for-all, okay?

Buddy, I had a pleasure pit to reconquer, I was busy. Don't you worry, I will attend to your comeuppance forthwith. The Intransigent will darken your skies before you know it.

Jan 3, 2014#72

Dave

30 every 5 minutes and I've checked and IT'S WORKING!!!

Don't. Touch. ANYTHING!

Jan 3, 2014#73

bhamv3

Ran into Gasbandit's monster defenses at 711 and got my ship destroyed.

Time to rebuild!

Jan 3, 2014#74

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Ran into Gasbandit's monster defenses at 711 and got my ship destroyed.

Time to rebuild!

I'm not upset since it's going to get wiped, but telling everybody where my stuff is is kind of a dick move.

Now I'm going to have to increase those defenses even MORE. The Sovereignty of GasBandia must be defended from ne'er-do-wells.

Jan 3, 2014#75

bhamv3

Whoops, m'bad, hadn't realized. I apologize, and will avoid doing it in the future.

Jan 3, 2014#76

Dave

It's going to be wiped in a few hours anyway. Prepare your anus! Or was that Uranus?

Jan 4, 2014#77

GasBandit

Dave said:
It's going to be wiped in a few hours anyway. Prepare your anus! Or was that Uranus?

Whatever it is, it'll have purple rings around it!

Jan 4, 2014#78

Dave

Reset everything and made the universe a bit bigger. It went from 1000 sectors to 5000. It'll be easier to branch out. At least I think so. The map shows 5000, but I still only show 1000 sectors. Gonna have to look into that.

Jan 4, 2014#79

Sparhawk

Apparently an error is on line 451, getting several messages that read...

Strict Standards: Non-static method ADODB_Session::destroy() should not be called statically in /home/davidn/public_html/bnt/backends/adodb/session/adodb-session.php on line 451

Jan 4, 2014#80

MindDetective

Sparhawk said:
Apparently an error is on line 451, getting several messages that read...

Strict Standards: Non-static method ADODB_Session::destroy() should not be called statically in /home/davidn/public_html/bnt/backends/adodb/session/adodb-session.php on line 451

I am getting this error too, but the first error is actually on line 919. Also, @Dave I'm not sure about 5000 nodes. We barely ran into each other with 1000. If you want to increase it, I wouldn't quintuple the size of the universe, given the small player base.

Jan 4, 2014#81

GasBandit

I dunno. In a 1000 node universe, by the time I got my engines to level 15 or 18 or so (which didn't take long, obviously), every single sector was 1 turn from any other sector in realspace. Then it just becomes an easter egg hunt to see who finds whose home base/ship first.

Jan 4, 2014#82

MindDetective

I'm okay with increasing it, but not so sure that it should be by a factor of 5.

Jan 4, 2014#83

Dave

I'll change it to 2000 once I get access to my cPanel again.

Jan 4, 2014#84

Rovewin

Yeah I keep having the same problem as stienman. Looking at the rankings, it seems only bhamv was able to play so far.

Jan 4, 2014#85

Dave

Okay, I was going to just reset it again, but the new cPanel doesn't have softaculous, which is where I got it. Stay tuned. I'll get it fixed but it might take a day or two. Crap on a cracker. Just when I got the cron working fine!

Jan 4, 2014#86

Dave

I....I might have it fixed. Please give it a shot.

Jan 4, 2014#87

Dave

Ah! Stupid me. Now I understand the issue. New host doesn't have the same pop email client. I thought it was an error with the game. Be back.

Jan 4, 2014#88

MindDetective

Works for me but it looks like an exact clone (links and all, except for Gaia) as the last universe. I found the same planets I captured last time right away.

Jan 4, 2014#89

Dave

Yeah, unless I change them by hand the planets and stations are static. I'd love to figure out an easier way of randomizing them.

Jan 4, 2014#90

Dave

If we could figure out how to do it - even using SQL - I'd be all for it.[DOUBLEPOST=1388899909,1388899877][/DOUBLEPOST]Hell, even randomizing with Excel and feeding that as a flat file into the database would be good. In fact, I think I can do this.

Jan 5, 2014#91

GasBandit

Were we also not supposed to start with genesis torpedos this time? Because I didn't start with one.

Not that it matters, I can already afford more than I can carry after the first batch of turns, so really I don't think we need to start with them. And they might confuse genuine newbies to the game, making them think they need to make a planet right away, when really supporting a planet is something you need to wait to do until after you're established and have an income going.

Jan 5, 2014#92

GasBandit

Oh, and we're back to 75 turns every 5 minutes, too (15 turns/min)

Jan 5, 2014#93

Dave

NOOOOOOO!

Jan 5, 2014#94

MindDetective

Aha, that explains the disparity in turns taken a lot better.

Jan 5, 2014#95

Dave

Changed to 6 turns every minute. I'm going to work now to see if I can import a flat file with sectors. This would mean I could randomize everything so when I reset I could change planets, etc.

Jan 5, 2014#96

GasBandit

Confirmed, 6 turns per minute.

Also, damn you for getting me into a game which has prompted me to once again do a spreadsheet (this one involving considerably less sex than the last one that did).

Jan 5, 2014#97

Dave

Well hold on to your horses, because it's going to get better...or worse?

I'm creating a spreadsheet that will randomize 2000 sectors and everything about them. Then I'm going to import this into the system (I have another game set up to test on, so don't worry!) so that each time we do this it's a new game with new warps, etc. Only thing staying the same is sectors 0 & 1.

Here's what the spread is doing a bit differently.

A sector's commodities will depend on what it is. If it's an organics sector it will have from 50,000,000 units of organics to 100,000,000 units. All other commodities will be at 10,000,000 - 20,000,000 units. This only makes sense. Right now no matter what kind of sector, they each have 100,000,000 units of everything.
Types of sectors will also be randomized. Percentages are (and these are consistent with what they are now): Special (1%), Ore/Goods (15%), Organics/Energy (10%), & None (49%)
Currently, only 10% of the sectors have planets. I'll be bumping this up considerably and making Genesis Torps more expensive, but I'm still going to start everyone with one. And this time I'll even do it.

There will be other things as I find them, probably. My wife thinks I'm nuts because it's my day off and I'm doing work-type stuff. I need a life.[DOUBLEPOST=1388947076,1388946941][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, and I'm creating a few planets that are leftovers from old civilizations. Probably only a few, but their sectors will be covered in a metric fuckton of mines and the planets will have some good stuff. And I think I figured out how to make them defend themselves...

Jan 5, 2014#98

Dave

Question. Would you guys prefer me to continue to work on randomizing everything or would you rather me load the next iteration by the authors, which can be found here? It's more complex than BlackNova. Not sure if it randomizes after a reset, either.

Jan 5, 2014#99

MindDetective

Trying to check it out but the wiki there loads very slowly for me.[DOUBLEPOST=1388948539,1388948389][/DOUBLEPOST]Or...not at all. I can't learn anything about it right now, apparently.[DOUBLEPOST=1388948667][/DOUBLEPOST]Last update on the site was 2012?

Jan 5, 2014#100

Dave

MindDetective said:
Last update on the site was 2012?

That's nothing new. BlackNova is the same way.

Jan 5, 2014#101

MindDetective

Well, I have no way to compare Blacknova to AAT since I can't see any pictures or read the wiki. I guess I vote go with what we know.

Jan 5, 2014#102

GasBandit

So here's an interesting question: If you randomize the universe, are you restarting everyone again? If not... what happens to me if I'm logged out on a planet when you randomize it into nothingness?

Jan 5, 2014#103

Dave

I'll be testing it out a LOT before I reset anything. It's why I have a test install.

I expect the resets will go every other month or so.

Jan 5, 2014#104

MindDetective

Dave said:
I'll be testing it out a LOT before I reset anything. It's why I have a test install.

I expect the resets will go every other month or so.

I like having an end-point, actually, so that there can be a sense of finality.

Jan 5, 2014#105

Dave

What I envision is having a set time frame and at the end the winner is the person with the highest ranking. Everyone will know when the end is and if it's close and someone is ahead, people can get teams together and jump their shit. It'll also keep things new and make it so that new people don't get locked out and feel that they can't play.[DOUBLEPOST=1388951528,1388951481][/DOUBLEPOST]

stienman said:
It might be worth having two games, one that resets monthly, and another very large universe with sparse resources that never resets for those that like to play the long game.

I could do that as well, but I think that most people will play one or the other and I wonder if we have enough to sustain both.

Jan 5, 2014#106

Dave

AA Trade won't work anyway. I've been trying to get it to load and try it out, but the installer isn't working and I'll be damned if I'm going to go through thousands of files and change their permissions to 644 when I don't know if that will fix it.

So I'll get to work on the randomization and see where that takes me. It's still just a theory as I have no idea how the warps will be if I randomize them.

Jan 5, 2014#107

Dave

Randomizing the sector warp routes is a pain in the ass. Essentially it works, but in almost all cases the warps are one-way, meaning trade routes will be hard to set up. I think the best way to take care of this would be to make it so that everyone starts with Warp Generators and make it so that they are able to carry more than they were before.

Jan 5, 2014#108

MindDetective

Dave said:
Randomizing the sector warp routes is a pain in the ass. Essentially it works, but in almost all cases the warps are one-way, meaning trade routes will be hard to set up. I think the best way to take care of this would be to make it so that everyone starts with Warp Generators and make it so that they are able to carry more than they were before.

Are you just randomizing a column of "out" warp connections? There may be a slightly more complex formula you can use to maintain two-way connections.

Jan 5, 2014#109

Dave

I have it set so that each sector goes to the one before and after it, just as we do now. But then I have it set up to randomize both the "From" and "To" sector numbers. So some sectors will only be accessible from the sectors right next to them, while others will be hubs of activity.[DOUBLEPOST=1388955676,1388955645][/DOUBLEPOST]But if you know of a better formula, I'm all ears!

Jan 5, 2014#110

MindDetective

Dave said:
I have it set so that each sector goes to the one before and after it, just as we do now. But then I have it set up to randomize both the "From" and "To" sector numbers. So some sectors will only be accessible from the sectors right next to them, while others will be hubs of activity.

But the main problem is that a simple randomization removes the two-way connections, right? It's not easy to maintain that, but I've figured out that it can be done, just not in a single formula, I'm afraid.[DOUBLEPOST=1388956004,1388955731][/DOUBLEPOST]Probably the simplest way to do it is:

1.) Figure out how many two-way connections exist that are not immediate neighbors (I mostly have figured this out but forgot about the immediate neighbors being in there. If you can isolate those, then the rest is easy enough.) Let's call this number X
2.) Delete half X connections from the list that you determined in step 1.
3.) Randomize the remaining non-neighbor out connections
4.) Copy/paste the first X number of sectors back in from your new randomized list, but swap their columns, so the destination sector is now the starting sector and the starting sector is the destination sector.

Jan 5, 2014#111

Dave

Interesting. I think I can do that.

Jan 5, 2014#112

MindDetective

I edited for clarity, if you missed it. It shouldn't be too hard, if I am imagining the spreadsheet properly.

Jan 5, 2014#113

Dave

And that's exactly what I did. Good call![DOUBLEPOST=1388956449,1388956385][/DOUBLEPOST]And now I blow away the db for the new install and test it out with 2000 sectors and 500 planets.

Jan 5, 2014#114

Dave

All tests worked, but the two-way warps didn't. So I have to try them again. But everything else worked perfectly.

Jan 5, 2014#115

MindDetective

Damn. Sorry, Dave. I hope you're close to it, at least.

Jan 5, 2014#116

Dave

I figured it out. I had dragged my randomizer incorrectly, so it skipped about every 40th or so sector. It's fixed.[DOUBLEPOST=1388961187,1388960679][/DOUBLEPOST]Well everything works but one thing. The way that the SQL imports changes really large numbers, so that the randomization I did for the trade commodities did not come across at a 1:1 ratio and a lot of them simply defaulted to the allowed max. I'm okay with this.

So the enlarged and totally random test bed works perfectly now.

Jan 6, 2014#117

GasBandit

So today I refused to pay a fine and hit 632,466 mines in one particular sector (after, of course, having to explain my philosophical aversion to graft to the 77,675 fighters) and learned some interesting facts - that I should carry more mine deflectors (which I now do), and fighters seem a rather overrated thing. Was interesting to test the Intransigent and her squadrons in a hostile situation, but it makes me sort of eager to see what she can do in a real firefight.

Jan 6, 2014#118

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
So today I refused to pay a fine and hit 632,466 mines in one particular sector (after, of course, having to explain my philosophical aversion to graft to the 77,675 fighters) and learned some interesting facts - that I should carry more mine deflectors (which I now do), and fighters seem a rather overrated thing. Was interesting to test the Intransigent and her squadrons in a hostile situation, but it makes me sort of eager to see what she can do in a real firefight.

Sector fighters also seem to drain energy rather quickly, which means maintaining them is a bit micromanagy.

Jan 6, 2014#119

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Sector fighters also seem to drain energy rather quickly, which means maintaining them is a bit micromanagy.

Just need to have a planet producing energy with a few dozen million colonists hard at work. That's a good policy anyway, as the planetary defense base will use any extra energy produced to power their beams and shields in the event of an attack.

Jan 6, 2014#120

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
Just need to have a planet producing energy with a few dozen million colonists hard at work. That's a good policy anyway, as the planetary defense base will use any extra energy produced to power their beams and shields in the event of an attack.

I'm mainly aiming to upgrade my ship as much as possible right now. Experience from the last iteration shows that planets can be conquered fairly easily. So I'm not looking to build up big planets yet.

Of course, this means that my ship's actually relatively powerful right now. And I just ran into someone's unattended ship, just floating here in space...

Jan 6, 2014#121

Dave

You have to buy them at a Special station like sector 0.

Jan 6, 2014#122

MindDetective

They are called torpedos at Special stations, I think.

Jan 6, 2014#123

Dave

MindDetective said:
They are called torpedos at Special stations, I think.

They are. Which is just fucking stupid.

Jan 6, 2014#124

GasBandit

I guess the way to look at it is mines are just torpedoes you deploy to be stationary defenses.

Jan 6, 2014#125

bhamv3

By the way, what do those colored bars underneath the planets mean?

Jan 6, 2014#126

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
By the way, what do those colored bars underneath the planets mean?

Going by the filenames, they're supposed to denote size of the planet (population maybe?), but in my experience they track more along with the badassedness of the owner. I think.

Jan 6, 2014#127

Rovewin

Ok so I was testing out combat today too and it seems conquering planets is just not worth it. Them having a small max credit limit that only allows you to put a base on it since they lose their base in the attack makes it nonviable. It's cheaper to just buy your own colonists and put them on a planet instead of losing a bunch of fighters to claim one. Unless you find some poorly defended huge population planets but that's unlikely.

Dave said:
What I envision is having a set time frame and at the end the winner is the person with the highest ranking. Everyone will know when the end is and if it's close and someone is ahead, people can get teams together and jump their shit. It'll also keep things new and make it so that new people don't get locked out and feel that they can't play.

Anyway I know you can form teams but can you actually go in together on a toughly defended planet? Going in one by one the first person is likely to get crushed with the second pulling it out but can you both go in at the same time to minimize one of you getting destroyed. Otherwise I don't think getting together at the end to crush the leader is going to do much.

Jan 6, 2014#128

GasBandit

As I understand it, no, there's no way to attack jointly. If 3 people want to attack 1 person, they have to do it 1 at a time, and the first person is most likely to die, the last person least.

Also, if you attack someone in open space and they have an EWD, it engages automatically to escape. It is not clear to me if this creates a new warp path for the attacker to follow, but I don't believe it does. This comes after two other rolls, however.. first you must roll your engines vs the target engines to see if they "outmaneuver" you which aborts combat, and then you must roll your sensors vs their cloak to see if you can even get a weapons lock. If you fail either of these two rolls, you do not get to attack, and the EWD does not trigger.

However, if you land on a planet, it seems to indicate your desire to stay and defend to the death in all circumstances, so EWDs won't save you if you land. However, you do have the benefit of defending in tandem against people who attack your planet - IE, both you and the planet will each get attack rolls vs the defender in the same combat sequence, so in effect you and the planet "gang up" on an attacker. I don't know if landing on a planet also disables your escape pod, but I would hope not.

The FAQ seems a little confusing on the maneuver/targeting rolls, so a simplified version of the formula is:

Chance to succeed attack maneuver roll percentage = (AttackerEngine-DefenderEngine+10)*5. So if you and your target have the same engine levels, that's a 50/50 chance on the maneuvering roll. If your engines are 15 and his are 20, that's a 25% chance to succeed. Obviously, this means the practical upshot of this is that there's a linear percentage chance on success at 5 percent per engine level, plus or minus 10 engine levels of your target... IE, if your engines are 10 levels below your target's you will never catch him, and if yours are 10 levels above his, he cannot possibly escape.

The targeting roll is the same formula, only the attacker's sensors are rolling against the defender's cloaking.

Jan 6, 2014#129

GasBandit

More formulae, 'cause I had to go hunting through other forums to find them.

The actual combat values of your beams and shields is a rounded 100*(1.5^Level). That means beams at level 10 would do 5767 (since it rounds up) damage in combat, provided you have that much energy to fire them. Shields at the same level would absorb that much damage, provided they have that much energy to power them. Beams get absolute priority over shields for energy in attacking, so it's possible for your beams to use up all your energy. However that shouldn't be a problem if your shields, beams and energy systems are all about the same level, as the calculation for energy per level is 500*(1.5^Level), or 5 times higher. So as long as you stay at full energy between fights, you should have plenty of energy to power both beams and shields. Torpedoes/mines do 10 damage per. Fighters only do 1 damage each but also have a defensive role - beams and torps first have to fire through the cloud of fighters, taking out up to half their current number on each volley, "soaking" some damage that won't penetrate to the shields/armor below.

So here's how combat happens, coded a bit so it's easier to understand instead of just a wall-of-text big list like it is in the faq - It's gonna have to just be ship to ship since I don't know how planetary beams and shields are calculated, apart from energy.

First, everybody's beam, torp, and fighter damage is calculated. So let's say that comes out to both ships having 10,000 beams, torp damage, shields, armor and fighters and enough energy to power everything. Note that mine deflectors do not stop torpedoes in combat, only "mines" in sector defense.

Phase 1: Beams
Attacker beam damage is applied against fighters, destroying up to half of them. 10000 damage vs 10000 fighters destroys 5,000 fighters with 5,000 beam damage left.
Defender beam damage does the same.
If beams are all used up (which here they are not), this is where phase 1 would end.
Remaining Attacker Beam damage is applied to Defender's shields at 1:1. 5000 beams vs 10000 shields exhausts the beams and leaves 5000 shields.
Remaining Defender beam damage is applied to Attacker's shields at 1:1.
If beams are all used up (which here they ARE), this is where phase 1 would end.
(otherwise Attacker and defender would each in turn apply remaining beams to armor, then the phase would end)

Phase 2: Torpedoes (Much the same as above, but remember each torpedo does 10 damage, so you only need 1000 torps to do 10k torp damage)
Attacker Torp Damage applies to 50% of Defender's remaining fighters. 2500 fighters die, 7500 torp damage remains
Defender Torp Damage ditto the other way.
If all torp damage is used up (which it is not) this is where phase 2 ends
Remaining Attacker Torp damage is applied to remaining defender shields (7500 vs 5000). Shields are gone, 2500 torp damage remains.
Remaining Defender Torps do the same.
If torp damage is depleted (which it is not) this is where phase 2 ends.
Remaining attacker torp damage is applied to armor (2500 vs 10000). 7500 defender armor remains.
Remaining defender torps do the same. 7500 attacker armor remains.
End of Torpedo phase.

Phase 3: Fighter attack
Remaining number of fighters are subtracted in attrition at 1:1, with any remaining fighters applying 1 damage each directly to shields/armor. This fight has 2500v2500 fighters remaining, they destroy each other. If anybody had slightly more fighters, they would do shields/armor damage and survive the combat. IE, damage is only done against the side that runs out of fighters at this point, and one side WILL run out of fighters at this point, or rarely, both.

Combat ends. If at any time during the above, somebody's armor fell to 0 or below, that ship is immediately destroyed and combat ends. In our example case, both ships survive, with no torpedoes or fighters remaining, having expended 20,000 energy each, and now being at 75% armor (7500).

If the player who is attacking (usually a defender would not be online in most cases) feels like it, he can spend another turn to attack again, but it's in his interest to go patch himself up and resupply first. Then if he came back at full power before the defender logged in and moved, he would almost assuredly destroy him.

If the attack is on a planet with the owner landed on it, the order of each phase goes Attacker->Planet->Owner both for firing and defending - IE, the attacker's damage in each phase goes against the planet first, then the owner, afterwards the planet damage, then the owner damage, is calculated against the attacker. Planets have no armor, only shields, and a planet with no owner ship on it is defeated when the shields fall. But if the owner is present the planet is not defeated until the owner is also destroyed.

I suspect that somewhere in the PHP it is listed how much beam damage and shields a planet gets, as a variable.

Jan 6, 2014#130

GasBandit

Aha, looking around in the code base, I also see that as your ship's average tech level goes further above 15, there is an increasing chance that the Emergency Warp Device will fail to go off.[DOUBLEPOST=1389051773,1389051229][/DOUBLEPOST]Holy shit. Ok, I found it out. Researching the "tech level upgrade for bases" variable led to the revelation that your planetary bases' beams and shields are calculated as your ship's levels + that variable (which in our case is 1). So if you have level 10 beams, your planetary bases have level 11 beams. Same for shields. I'm assuming the same for cloaks when it comes to scanning planets.

However, the normal storage limitations for fighters and torps on your ship by tech level do not apply to planets. Planets commit their entire stock of fighters and torps in a fight regardless of your ship's tech level.

This explains why the "size" of the planet seems to scale with the badassedness of the owner. Because the planetary defenses DO scale with the badassedness of the owner.

Jan 6, 2014#131

GasBandit

So let's run another trial scenario, with two level 11 ships, attacking/defending a planet. Level 11 tech = 8650 Beams/Shields/Fighters/Torps/Armor and 43249 energy. So the planet will be level 12 for beams and shields (12975), and let's also assume a 8650 garrison of fighters and torps just to pick a number (the defender only did one defense supply run). Also I was wrong about how torpedoes are fired.. you only fire 2% of your max torpedoes in a single combat encounter. That mitigates the fact that torps do 10x damage. HOWEVER, torps also ignore shields and hit directly vs armor.

Phase 1: Beams
1a: vs fighters
Attacker Beams vs Planet fighters (8650v8650), 4325 fighters remain, 4325 beam damage remains.
Attacker Beams vs Defender fighters (4325v8650), 4325 fighters remain, 0 beam damage remains.
Planet Beams vs Attacker Fighters (12975v8650), 4325 fighters remain, 8650 Beam Damage remains.
Defender Beams vs Attacker Fighters (8650v4325) 2162 fighters remain, 6487 Beam damage remains.
1b: vs shields
Attacker beams at 0.
Planet Beams remaining vs Attacker Shields (8650v8650). Both reduced to 0.
Phase ends with defender beams remaining: 6487.
1c: vs armor
Attacker beams and planet beams at 0.
Defender Beams vs Attacker Armor (6487v8650) Attacker Armor reduced to 2163.

Phase 2: torps. Torp damage is 10xTorpsx0.02. Note that since planets don't have armor, attacking a planet with no defending owner present make the torps only damage fighters, and remaining torp damage would go to waste.
2a: vs fighters
Attacker torps vs planet fighters: (1730v4325). 2595 fighters remain. 0 attacker torp damage remains.
Planet Torps vs attacker fighters (1730v2162) 1081 fighters remain, 649 torp damage remains
Defender torps vs Attacker fighters (1730v1081) 540 fighters remain, 1189 torp damage remains.
2b: vs shields
Torp damage ignores shields
2c: Vs Armor
Planetary bases have no armor, so all attacker torp damage goes vs defender armor.
Attacker Torps vs defender armor (0v8650) all defender armor remains.
Planet torps vs attacker armor (649v8650) 8001 attacker armor remains
Defender torps vs attacker armor (1189v8001) 6812 attacker armor remains.

Phase 3: fighters. Fighters go against planet's shields instead of armor since no armor on planets.
3a: vs fighters.
Attacker has 540 fighters, Planet has 2595 fighters. Attacker fighters wiped out, 2055 planet fighters remain.
4325 defender fighters remain.
3b: vs shields
Fighters ordinarily do not roll vs shields, but they do roll vs planetary shields in the armor phase.
3c: vs armor (or planet shields)
Attacker has no fighters.
Planet fighters vs Attacker armor (2595v6812) Attacker now has 4217 armor, planet fighters retreat to planet.
Defender fighters vs attacker armor (4325v4217) Attacker armor reduced below zero. Fighters retreat to defender.

Outcome: Attacker destroyed. The planetary shields never took a dent, nor did the hull of the defender. Moral of the story: Defended Planets are tough.[DOUBLEPOST=1389055836,1389055689][/DOUBLEPOST]

stienman said:
You can only have a maximum of 40 trade routes.

Yeah, but if you keep a spreadsheet open, you can take notes... and edit your trade routes. It's an extra step but not a long one.

Also feck off with that noise Mr. 20 efficiency rating.

Jan 6, 2014#132

GasBandit

Another trial run, of a level 11 ship attacking an undefended planetary base of another level 11 ship player, which makes the base level 12.

Phase 1: Beams
1a: vs fighters
Attacker Beams vs Planet fighters (8650v8650), 4325 fighters remain, 4325 beam damage remains.
Planet Beams vs Attacker Fighters (12975v8650), 4325 fighters remain, 8650 Beam Damage remains.
1b: vs shields
Attacker Beams vs Planet shields (4325v12975) 0AB, 8650PS remain
Planet Beams vs Attacker Shields (8650v8650) both nullified.
1c: vs armor
No beams remain

Phase 2: torps
1a: vs fighters
Attacker torps vs planet fighters: (1730v4325). 2595 fighters remain. 0 attacker torp damage remains.
Planet torps vs Attacker fighters: (1730v4325). 2595 fighters remain. 0 planet torp damage remains.
2b: vs shields
Torps don't hit shields
2c: vs armor
No torp damage remains

Phase 3: fighters
1a: vs fighters
Attacker Fighters vs Planet fighters: 2595 vs 2595. Both wiped out.
1b: vs shields
Fighters do not roll vs shields.
1c: vs armor(or planet shields)
No fighters remain.

Combat result: Both sides lose all fighters and 2% of their torps. No hull damage to the attacker, no shield damage to the planet base, but the attacker had a close call, no shields left. He should be glad the planet was lightly defended by torps and fighters.

Take home lesson - be significantly stronger than someone whose planet you wish to take if you suspect it to be even modestly defended. If a planet is heavily stocked with fighters and torps, it can majorly ruin your day.

Jan 6, 2014#133

GasBandit

Well thanks for the tip. Up until now I'd simply been happy to do a series of 2-way trades, moving on when the profit dropped 75%, but I can see I'm going to have to put in the effort to match what you did. Again, thanks for the blueprint. Who knows how much further I'd have fallen behind if not for your benevolence :devil:

Jan 6, 2014#134

bhamv3

It has now become clear to me that I must blow both of you up.

Jan 6, 2014#135

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
It has now become clear to me that I must blow both of you up.

Sure, give that a try. I could use the salvage.

Jan 6, 2014#136

Rovewin

How much salvage do you get from a blown up ship?

Jan 6, 2014#137

GasBandit

Rovewin said:
How much salvage do you get from a blown up ship?

Supposedly it depends on the value of the ship. But the one time somebody's attacked me, it was allegedly worth billions and I got nada. So maybe it doesn't work as advertised. Or maybe you only get salvage if you attack and win, not successfully defend.

Jan 6, 2014#138

Rovewin

Sweet put it to good use. I was kind of bored and you blocked off one of my favorite trade routes.

I think it gives you some of your credits back to rebuild your ship as I had 16 or 17billion in the bank and I had about 20 billion to rebuild with, so about a third of my ships worth it let me keep.

Jan 7, 2014#139

Rovewin

I was doing a few trades before but I thought I dropped all my credits off before I attacked. Hmmmm I havent redone my ship so we could test it but yet I don't want to waste the 40+ turns to get to one of your planets or spend that many credits upgrading my engines to get to it faster. Hmmm if you could put up a warp from lets say 113 to the beginning 0 or 1 I could buy one upgrade at sol then see if I keep any credits.

Jan 7, 2014#140

bhamv3

Dammit Steinman, stop taking control of sectors along my trade routes.

Jan 7, 2014#141

GasBandit

Welp, I'm done with this game.

Steinman decided to block off another trade area to outside access. I scan the planet, find it has level 13 everything and 350k fighters and 300k torps.

I have level 20 everything and equal fighters and torps.

Here's how the combat goes -

So obviously planets do not follow the 2% rule, they just launch a ton of torps, well above even 100% of their torpedo launcher level. And torps ignore shields, remember? I didn't have a prayer against a supposedly much inferior target. So basically what this boils down to is who builds up planets first and just gives them a shit load of (dirt cheap) torps gets permanent control of those sectors.

I kept finding stuff broken about this game, but it was all little stuff until this - this is too gamebreaking. The Intransigent had a level 25 hull and level 20 everything else - that's 43 trillion in upgrades. And a level 13 planet trumped it with a bad design decision.

I'm out.

Jan 7, 2014#142

Rovewin

Yeah I had level 18 - 20 offense stuff and my scan only showed a few thousand fighters when I had 400k and about equal number torps and the planet whooped me too.

Jan 7, 2014#143

bhamv3

Is this something Dave can tweak? Nerf torpedoes a bit? Because if I'm reading Gasbandit's screenshot correctly, torpedoes are capable of destroying more than their own number of fighters. (74k torpedoes destroyed 128k fighters)

Jan 7, 2014#144

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Is this something Dave can tweak? Nerf torpedoes a bit? Because if I'm reading Gasbandit's screenshot correctly, torpedoes are capable of destroying more than their own number of fighters. (74k torpedoes destroyed 128k fighters)

Torpedoes do 10 damage each. So 74k torpedoes do 740k damage.

I had enough cash accruing interest on Gasbandia Prime to refit my ship back to level 20 everything, just so my planets weren't level 1 again. If anybody wants the few trillion credits I have left, I've deposited it on GasBandia Prime in sector 711, and landed there.

I have 1.5 million torpedoes. About 20k more are manufactured every few minutes.

Good luck.

Jan 7, 2014#145

GasBandit

stienman said:
I wonder if making genesis torpedoes cost a billion each would fix the imbalance?

Starting from nothing, I made over 60 trillion in less than two days.

There's no price fix to this problem, planetary torpedos are just broke.

Jan 7, 2014#146

bhamv3

stienman said:
I wonder if making genesis torpedoes cost a billion each would fix the imbalance?

Not by much, I think. Once you get your hull to a decent size, a billion is fairly easy to make.

Instead of making planets harder to create, I think it would be better to make it easier to dislodge a planet. Right now, planets are nearly impossible to defeat, so the obvious strategy would be to control as many trading stations as you can by creating planets. The game becomes a mad scramble to create planets, and once your planets are made, you can rest fairly easy.

If planets were easier to defeat, there would be more ebb and flow, with people weighing up the risk of attacking a planet in order to reopen a trade route.[DOUBLEPOST=1389077865,1389077401][/DOUBLEPOST]Just took up Gasbandit on his offer. Now I have no ship.

Jan 7, 2014#147

Rovewin

GasBandit said:
Torpedoes do 10 damage each. So 74k torpedoes do 740k damage.

I had enough cash accruing interest on Gasbandia Prime to refit my ship back to level 20 everything, just so my planets weren't level 1 again. If anybody wants the few trillion credits I have left, I've deposited it on GasBandia Prime in sector 711, and landed there.

I have 1.5 million torpedoes. About 20k more are manufactured every few minutes.

Good luck.

Even if someone does manage to defeat your planet they will only get 10 million credits. I took a planet that said it had 900million credits on it. It even showed 900million when I captured it and went to transfer it over and it only allowed 10 million to go to me and all the rest vanished. Same with the other planet I took.

Jan 7, 2014#148

Rovewin

Yeah it does remove the base.

Jan 7, 2014#149

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Just took up Gasbandit on his offer. Now I have no ship.

I wish you'd screenshotted the fight. I'm curious to see what over a million torps does to a ship.

Rovewin said:
Even if someone does manage to defeat your planet they will only get 10 million credits. I took a planet that said it had 900million credits on it. It even showed 900million when I captured it and went to transfer it over and it only allowed 10 million to go to me and all the rest vanished. Same with the other planet I took.

Ok, I'll move the cash back into my ship, that should up the reward. That's another annoying little broken thing about this game, though. There were times I had tens of trillions of credits just accruing interest on that planet. If you ask me, that it all just gets deleted except for 10 million is a bigger injustice than someone actually taking it from me.

Jan 7, 2014#150

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
I wish you'd screenshotted the fight. I'm curious to see what over a million torps does to a ship.

Wish granted.

Jan 7, 2014#151

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Wish granted.

View attachment 13549

Wow. Torpedoes hell, the beams got you.

It also confuses me, because when I attacked Stienman it said his planet had 0 shields. Maybe he didn't have the energy to power them. But because it checks whether the attacker dies before it checks if the planet dies, I lost what should have also been an automatic victory.

Also, looking at the numbers, it seems that the planet limitation on torpedoes is 10% of the maximum ship load for the level in question, not 2%. So basically, planets can launch 5 times as many torps as the equivalent level ship.

That was a horrible design decision.

What is also interesting is that apparently there is no limit on fighters. None. If I have 1.1 million fighters on a planet, 1.1 million fighters engage the attacker, end of story.

Also, again no salvage from defeating an attacker.

Jan 7, 2014#152

Dave

Okay, so tell me what you think I can do to fix this imbalance. Because I will.

Also, you'll note I don't have a ship yet. I'm doing this on purpose to see how easy/hard it is going to be for people to join late. I have a feeling it'll make things impossible.

Jan 7, 2014#153

GasBandit

Dave said:
Okay, so tell me what you think I can do to fix this imbalance. Because I will.

Also, you'll note I don't have a ship yet. I'm doing this on purpose to see how easy/hard it is going to be for people to join late. I have a feeling it'll make things impossible.

Honestly I don't see what you can do that doesn't involve a code rewrite. Granted that's less difficult here than most games because PHP doesn't compile to binary, but it's still somebody else's undocumented code to have to sift through and alter. What needs to be done is the planets need to be subjected to the 2% torpedo use limitation as ships are. Since planets consider their torpedo launcher level to be 1 level higher than their owner's ship, a planet will still have a slight advantage in combat vs a ship of the same level as the owner, but it will not be insurmountable like a 10% limitation which currently makes a level 12 owner's planet absolutely unassailable to a level 20 ship.

As for your worries about late joiners, you might be right, the way things are headed. The nature of progress in this game being exponential, every day that passes will see more and more trade ports closed off to the public as planets are built and sectors are claimed. To survive they'll have to join the Team that gives them the most access to trade ports, and even then they only subsist off the scraps of the leader/highers up who are moving millions of cargo per turn, driving down the profitability for those who don't yet have economy of scale on their side. It might not even help if planets were less invulnerable, because the sectors will just change ownership (and therefor exclusivity) rather than go back to being open/free trade.

I'm not sure what can be done about that, apart from a complete overhaul of upgrade pricing and possibly making each genesis torpedo cost 10x more than the previous (IE, 10 mil for the first, 100 mil for the second, 1 bil for the 3rd, etc). The problem is that the advancement curve is basically y=x^2 when it needs to be y=sqrt(x) for latecomers to be able to catch up (as noted in previous posts, the formula for effect of a system's level is 100(1.5^(Level))). I guess that's just another conceptual design flaw, sadly. It would be better to have it be something like 150(sqrt(Level)) (and naturally multiply that x5 for energy max) but you'd need to completely re-balance upgrade costs to be cheaper and more linear, otherwise we'll probably top out around level 10.

Jan 7, 2014#154

MindDetective

It looks like there is a setting to change the amount you can capture from a planet. it is presently set to 10,000,000 but that limitation can be removed, it seems.

Honestly, GB has it. The exponential nature of the advancement curve puts a lot of pressure on players to keep up. It is still a viable game, but it forces the end-game to be after only about 4 days of play.

Jan 7, 2014#155

GasBandit

Basically, here's how the progression graph goes now (100(1.5^x): (every X tick is 5 levels, with 50 being max level)

And here's how I think it would be better to go (10000(sqrt(x)):

Right now the balancing factor is that every upgrade costs triple what the last one did. Which around level 20-25 starts to slow progression down drastically, I found. But No matter how much you slow it, it's also slowed for everyone who comes after while still giving exponential benefits to those who came first.

The costs should be balanced a little more for the second one, maybe each upgrade costs 1.5 times as much as the previous? I don't know, I've already crunched more math than I planned.

Jan 7, 2014#156

MindDetective

80% seems high on that last point but I like the rest of it. I'm not sure the growth curves are very adjustable, though. The rest ranges from easy to difficult but doable.

Jan 7, 2014#157

Chad Sexington

Man, I just start to contemplate getting into this game with y'all, and then there's charts, and math, and gamebreaking conversations... I missed out, man. I want to make charts and math!

Jan 7, 2014#158

GasBandit

Basically the way things stand, growth LOOKS exponential but you basically hit a brick wall at 25. I can't find a way to plot upgrade price as a function, as it basically starts at y=1000 when x=1 and y doubles for every x after that. Maybe that does sort of balance it for latecomers, because when you get to where I was... progression pretty much comes to a halt.

Doesn't address the planetary torps problem though.

Jan 7, 2014#159

GasBandit

Alright, well, let's see how this goes then. I'll keep on trucking and try to switch to planetary stuff once I get back up to where I was. I had 9 bases already.

Jan 7, 2014#160

GasBandit

So tell me, when I attacked your planet yesterday, were you level 12 on most systems? Because I scanned multiple planets and their systems all reported 13. I'm curious to know if that was a sensor failure.

Jan 7, 2014#161

Dave

So does repeated scanning give the same result or should you scan 3-4 times before trusting the results?

Jan 7, 2014#162

GasBandit

stienman said:
That was very likely sensor failure. At the time you were attacking me I was at or near level 20 in beams and shields, and I think cloaking. Your sensors were probably reporting very bad values.

Ok. The combat numbers must have been off due to insufficient energy I suppose, as it had you having 74k beams (which would be about level 15 and a half actually) and no shields, so I suppose what really happened is I attacked a planet with 74k energy stores.

Torps are still broken though. I had level 20 beams and torps for sure, and you had over 10x my torp damage.[DOUBLEPOST=1389125325,1389125288][/DOUBLEPOST]

Dave said:
So does repeated scanning give the same result or should you scan 3-4 times before trusting the results?

I did scan 3 times, and got mixtures of ??? and 13 reported back to me. At this point I'm not sure I'd trust scanning at all at less than 10 scans with no ???s

Jan 7, 2014#163

Dave

How would you feel about direct access to the files? I could give you a login to the cPanel that woudl allow you to change the files yourself.

Jan 7, 2014#164

Dave

Fair enough.

Jan 8, 2014#165

bhamv3

Ever wanted to run a trade route 20 times, and enter 120 by mistake? I just did. Drained the trading post entirely and used up all my turns.

Guess I'm sitting around for a while.

Jan 8, 2014#166

bhamv3

Does anyone else think engines should be nerfed a bit? Right now, within an hour of starting the game, a player can upgrade their engines to the point where realspacing anywhere takes 1 turn. Distances become meaningless, and warp links (as well as warp editors) are underutilized, in terms of strategy and tactics. Maybe being able to realspace everywhere in 1 turn should only be available to extreme-end-game players, such as with level 30 engines.

Jan 8, 2014#167

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Does anyone else think engines should be nerfed a bit? Right now, within an hour of starting the game, a player can upgrade their engines to the point where realspacing anywhere takes 1 turn. Distances become meaningless, and warp links (as well as warp editors) are underutilized, in terms of strategy and tactics. Maybe being able to realspace everywhere in 1 turn should only be available to extreme-end-game players, such as with level 30 engines.

After 15 or so engine level, when everything turns to 1 turn realspace, it's really just about the combat roll - IE, if someone attacks you, they roll their engines vs your engines to see if you outmaneuver them.

And I really doubt you'll see level 30 engines for a long time. The cost of upgrades is 3^x, which means level 20 is 3.4 billion, level 21 is 10.5 billion, level 22 is 31 billion, 23 is 94 billion, and so on, tripling every level, until level 30 is 205 trillion.

That's that' brick wall I've been talking about.

Jan 8, 2014#168

Chad Sexington

GasBandit said:
After 15 or so engine level, when everything turns to 1 turn realspace, it's really just about the combat roll - IE, if someone attacks you, they roll their engines vs your engines to see if you outmaneuver them.

And I really doubt you'll see level 30 engines for a long time. The cost of upgrades is 3^x, which means level 20 is 3.4 billion, level 21 is 10.5 billion, level 22 is 31 billion, 23 is 94 billion, and so on, tripling every level, until level 30 is 205 trillion.

That's that' brick wall I've been talking about.

Ho-holy crap

Jan 8, 2014#169

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
After 15 or so engine level, when everything turns to 1 turn realspace, it's really just about the combat roll - IE, if someone attacks you, they roll their engines vs your engines to see if you outmaneuver them.

And I really doubt you'll see level 30 engines for a long time. The cost of upgrades is 3^x, which means level 20 is 3.4 billion, level 21 is 10.5 billion, level 22 is 31 billion, 23 is 94 billion, and so on, tripling every level, until level 30 is 205 trillion.

That's that' brick wall I've been talking about.

Well 30 was just a number I was tossing out at random. My point is that realspacing in 1 turn should be more of an end-game privilege.

Jan 8, 2014#170

Dave

I could always make the universe bigger as it takes longer to real-space travel. However, it would hose newer players that don't use warps.

Jan 8, 2014#171

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Well 30 was just a number I was tossing out at random. My point is that realspacing in 1 turn should be more of an end-game privilege.

I would have thought so too, but unless this whole "shift to planetary economy" thing Stienman was talking about pans out, 20-25 is the end game.

Jan 8, 2014#172

GasBandit

stienman said:
Planet production is staggering at large scales.[DOUBLEPOST=1389218221,1389217897][/DOUBLEPOST]I'm allowing port trading in my sectors again.

Oh, well if you're going to be that way, I guess I may as well open my sectors, too.

Jan 8, 2014#173

MindDetective

GasBandit said:
Oh, well if you're going to be that way, I guess I may as well open my sectors, too.

No, go buy all his energy then annihilate him!

Also, I stopped playing until any revisions are made and a reboot occurs.

Jan 8, 2014#174

GasBandit

MindDetective said:
No, go buy all his energy then annihilate him!

Also, I stopped playing until any revisions are made and a reboot occurs.

I'm not playing "seriously," I'm just seeing if the planetary economy is all it is cracked up to be. I still say that problem with the planetary torpedo launchers is gamebreaking, but if planets become useful for something other than area denial, then it may impact the game less.

Jan 8, 2014#175

GasBandit

stienman said:
Hey, @GasBandit, let me know what happens to your planets that have more than 90 million citizens. I'm not anxious to find out myself, but I am curious.

Hrm, I haven't been letting my planets get anywhere near that populated. Since the planetary max is supposedly 100 million, every time a planet starts going over 50-75 million I make another planet and move the excess colonists there.

Jan 8, 2014#176

bhamv3

I don't wanna build a planetary economy, I already feel like clicking on 25 boxes to collect my planets' money is too much work.

The interface could sure use some refinement.

Jan 8, 2014#177

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
I don't wanna build a planetary economy, I already feel like clicking on 25 boxes to collect my planets' money is too much work.

The interface could sure use some refinement.

Yeah, it could, in a number of ways. But the boxes on the planets menu sure beats manually travelling and transferring from every planet individually.

Jan 9, 2014#178

GasBandit

You know, BNN sure does a lot of handwringing about "boy we sure hope this person doesn't go to war!" for a game where the surest path to personal economic ruin seems to be war.

Jan 9, 2014#179

GasBandit

Master of 50 worlds and a billion colonists, and what rank do they call stienman? Still a Petty Officer 1st class.

Jan 9, 2014#180

GasBandit

Yeah, doing the round robin of one-way trades just wasn't worth the time to me , any more, so I went back to having all my trade routes be 2 way pairs, and just doing each 5 times before moving on - level 25 hull means that starts at 60 million credits per 4 turns and peters down to about 52 million per 4 turns, which is when I move on to the next pair. It's slightly less efficient than the stienman one-way trade circle (as the one turn to move to the next pair is without profit, whereas every move for stienman while trading is profit), but it lets me keep track of more ports in my trade listings and avoids the extra irritation he has to go through to make those trades.

I also quit buying colonists at about 750 million (though buying colonists was also less of a chore for me since I had spare trade route slots to go between 816 and the planet I wanted to stock). I'm up to 983 million now, and will probably hit a billion tonight. Gonna have to think of some more planet names. Planet making is less of a headache now though, too, that I don't care if I actually control the sector or not since trading is now just a secondary revenue stream for when I have lots of turns to spare.

Though, I'm not sure planetary interest is calculating right... the interest rate is supposedly 0.05 , and the update rate is every 2 minutes, but 100 billion credits is getting me 50 million in interest every 2 minutes... which is what I'd expect if I had 1 billion. I thought I should be getting 5 billion every 2 minutes. Am I doing my math wrong?

Jan 9, 2014#181

MindDetective

stienman said:
It's a pretty tough grading system, I'm going to have to have a net worth of over a trillion to go to the next level, right now I'm only a smidge over 300 billion.

Makes me think the game is designed for long term play, where eventually the limited space of the universe does come into play, and battles between behemoth corporations are required for progress. Once you have a few hundred planets generating hundreds of billions a day, losing a ship isn't a big deal, so you can keep attacking weaker planets simply to continue to grow. I have to admit, it would be fun to see a battle involving trillions of torpedos...

1000 Crewman;
4000 Crewman First Class;
16000 Petty Officer 3rd Class;
64000 Petty Officer 2nd Class;
256000 Petty Officer 1st Class;
1024000 Chief Petty Officer;
4096000 Senior Chief Petty Officer;
16384000 Master Chief Petty Officer;
65536000 Ensign;
262144000 Lieutenant Junior Grade;
1048576000 Lieutenant;
4194304000 Lieutenant Commander;
16777216000 Commander;
67108864000 Captain;
2.68435E+11 Fleet Captain;
1.07374E+12 Commodore;
4.29497E+12 Rear Admiral;
1.71799E+13 Vice Admiral;
6.87195E+13 Admiral;

Hmmm maybe a more interesting progression:

Traveler
Voyager
Explorer
Adventurer
Pioneer
Trafficker
Merchant
Tycoon
Magnate
Precept
Governor
Ruler
Sovereign
Conquerer
Overseer
Overlord
Imperator
Emperor
Dynast

Jan 9, 2014#182

GasBandit

Well, the interest thing is consistent with the bank, too.. the interest rate is listed as 0.03 for IGB accounts as well, and to test it I put 100,000 credits in the bank and waited 2 minutes, got 30 credits for my trouble.

So it seems that the interest rates aren't 3% and 5%, but literally 0.03% and 0.05%. Which even today's banks would think was really stingy.[DOUBLEPOST=1389302545,1389302437][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, protip for @bhamv3 - using the IGP banking kiosk, you can simultaneously transfer all funds from all your planets to consolidate it on one planet with much less clicking.

Jan 9, 2014#183

GasBandit

stienman said:
Except that it's compounded every two minutes, which no bank today would do, even for such small rates.

That's true.[DOUBLEPOST=1389303480,1389303427][/DOUBLEPOST]

MindDetective said:
Hmmm maybe a more interesting progression:

Traveler
Voyager
Explorer
Adventurer
Pioneer
Trafficker
Merchant
Tycoon
Magnate
Precept
Governor
Ruler
Sovereign
Conquerer
Overseer
Overlord
Imperator
Emperor
Dynast

Thank goodness you didn't have a "Planeteer" rank. Because I'd probably end up with "Heart."

Jan 10, 2014#184

GasBandit

So that's how one gets efficiency so high. Comes a point that the only reason to log in is to move colonists around and make more planets. I doubt I'll ever get under 2000 moves remaining again, as I no longer have a reason to trade commodities.

This is good news for later joining newbies I guess... a larger amount of max turns makes it easier/faster for them to do the trading port part of the game and get caught up to where the worldbuilder phase begins.

I wonder what rates planets charge if you set them to make commodities and sell them.

Jan 10, 2014#185

GasBandit

stienman said:
This makes it a lot easier to attack planets that are overpopulated, since they have no beams or shields, possible helping rebalance the game since it forces established big players to constantly move people around, or weakens their planets. There's no easy way to get rid of citizens, so once you've started down that path you have to deal with population growth and its attendant problems.

I'm dubious about how much that helps attackers. When I attacked you, your planet only had 70k energy, so your beams were pretty much a non-factor (exhausted themselves on killing about a quarter of my fighters) and your shields were at 0 to start... and you still successfully defended and destroyed me based on the torpedo phase alone.

Damn those torpedoes.

Jan 10, 2014#186

GasBandit

stienman said:
Well, now that I'm defending with millions of energy, it may make a difference now. Since the beams phase happens before the shields phase, then it's possible that if you send enough fighters, you'll cause the base to use up the energy entirely on beams, leaving no shields by the time that phase is decided.

But having torpedoes worth 10 damage is very significant. I wonder if there's any real reason to use fighters except during attacks? It seems like if you only want to play defense, then torpedos are always the better choice.

Indeed. And since the planetary torpedo-per-combat cap is much higher than an equivalently leveled ship, you don't have to stock many torpedoes at all unless you anticipate being attacked by a much, MUCH higher level ship.

Jan 10, 2014#187

GasBandit

stienman said:
Well, it probably won't matter until we're bumping into each other.

Then I'll have to sit down and figure out how much "much, MUCH higher level" actually is...

Or, conversely, someone willing to zergling rush a planet 10-15 times until it runs out of torpedoes (I'm assuming the torpedoes are used up whether or not they all do damage), then spending the money to re-upgrade their ship for real once the torps run dry, I suppose.

I guess you'd have to spend SOME money to upgrade the engines each time to travel back to the planet in 1 turn, but aside from that... torpedo sponge ftw if you're rich?

Jan 10, 2014#188

GasBandit

stienman said:
If you're rich, load up on shields, energy, armor points, torpedos, and fighters and let all them soak up the damage.

Might be unnecessary. I think a torp committed is a torp lost, regardless of whether it hits anything or not, and "who died" calculations don't happen until the end of all 3 phases (my beams killed Bhamv remember, but I still fired torps at him all the same).

So a level 1 ship soaks torpedos at the same rate as a level 20+. Once the torpedos are gone, then you can upgrade and fight the planet "for real." Still takes ~50-75 billion per planet you want to take, though.

Assuming the owner is Level 20ish.

Jan 10, 2014#189

GasBandit

... Well, hang on, that might not be right. The calculation is 10% of the planet's torp level calculation (which because torps do 10 damage, damage works out to = torp level)... but a planet can hold infinite torps, even if it can only fire 83130 (to use the number of torps gasbandia prime fired at Bhamv).

So if Gasbandia prime has 2 million torps, it will be 25 fights before the number of torps the planet fires even BEGINS to decrease. But once the number does begin to decrease, it will take 16 more fights until a planet is firing roughly the same number of torps as an equivalently leveled ship would, and could conceivably be defeated at equal level.

So, never mind. Torps still basically make planets invincible.

Jan 10, 2014#190

GasBandit

Attention Newbies! Looking to make your first cash but don't know how? Is the wide, empty universe a daunting prospect? Does your engine barely get 5 parsecs to the metric ton? There's good news! Goods R Us of Sector 413 has expanded into two new franchises, Goods Wholesalers of Sector 6 and Goods 4 U of Sector 10! These newly created and heavily populated (and fortified) planets are working day and night to churn out trade Goods for you to purchase at rock bottom prices! And best of all, they are located in the same sector as trade ports that want to buy Goods! That's right, no more cumbersome warping back and forth or spending dozens of turns to chug through Realspace to make your money. We abuse our colonists and pass the savings factory direct TO YOU!

Remember that's Goods Wholesalers in sector 6 and Goods 4 U in sector 10, both just a hop, skip and jump from Sol in sector 0 where you start! MONEY!

And don't forget to visit the original Goods R Us in sector 413 when you get some actual engines!

Jan 11, 2014#191

GasBandit

(Incidentally I am curious to know how much goods, and other commodities, sell for from planets set to sell commodities. Were I designing a game, I'd make them cheaper than ports... but here, who knows?)

Jan 11, 2014#192

GasBandit

stienman said:
You're currently selling goods at 16.75. I've set up a few planets in 916 with commodities for sale so you can check out the interface and prices.

Same at yours.

Which is horrible. Ports sell goods for 8. 16.75 is such a ripoff I can't see how the devs expect anyone to set planets to producing goods. It'd make so much more sense to have planets sell for less than ports, because it keeps money in the economy (goes from one player to another) instead of taking it out of the game (from player to cpu)

Jan 12, 2014#193

GasBandit

Ah. So. The endgame to this game is playing an ever-more desperate game of "bucket brigade" getting colonists off overpopulated worlds and on to new ones while they breed exponentially. So much for that "never below 2000 turns again" prediction.

Jan 12, 2014#194

GasBandit

stienman said:
Yeah, I pretty much stopped playing Friday. I'm letting the apocalypse take care of population, I just can't meet the time requirements. I think the next game is going to have to be a lot slower to be interesting.

I'm currently trying to investigate the team interfaces to find out what I can about that. Does it make sense to start teaming up early, what exactly are the benefits of teams, etc.

Well, currently meaning maybe I'll poke at it again tomorrow.

That explains how I passed you. I was like "whaaaaaaat?"

But yeah, I think in the future, the game will be much more interesting at 2 turns per minute instead of 6. That will give 2500 in just every 24 hours.

Planetary torps will still be broken, though.

Jan 12, 2014#195

GasBandit

Jumpin Jeezus on a pogo stick. I had to make. MAKE. from scratch, 25 planets today just to handle my overpopulation problems. I'm burning through turns as fast as I ever had to trading, just moving people off worlds that are getting over 90 million and building bases on the planets I make for them. If this keeps growing like this, I won't be able to keep up, and people gonna start dying a LOT.

But oh god the money is so good.

Jan 12, 2014#196

GasBandit

stienman said:
You can dump citizens off at special ports as well, if you're annoyed at having to deal with planets. But of course that won't fill up the galaxy...

I don't mean the hassle of planets, I mean I won't have enough turns to save everyone. I don't think my cargo hold can grow as fast as these people can screw.

Jan 12, 2014#197

GasBandit

I think I know how this story ends.

"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor of Mankind has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the vast Imperium of Man for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die.Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. (...) To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."

Jan 12, 2014#198

bhamv3

We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.

Jan 13, 2014#199

GasBandit

Victory!
January 13 2014 14:21:34
Your planet Fahz in sector 117 was attacked by stienman. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 3% of the ship's worth of 15980298240 credits.

So, yeah. You beat my planet but the torps still got you, which means you didn't beat my planet. That's what I've been on about.

Jan 13, 2014#200

GasBandit

Doing the math, it looks like you have a level 27 torpedo launcher. Those torps just went to waste against a planet though, because the planet's level 24 torpedo launcher does 5x damage because it's a planet, and your level 23 hull couldn't hold up to it.[DOUBLEPOST=1389642427,1389642175][/DOUBLEPOST]

stienman said:
That's with a ship configured for armor, shields, computer (fighters), and no beams.[DOUBLEPOST=1389641981][/DOUBLEPOST]So "wearing down a planet" isn't really an option unless you have significant sums of money to rebuild each time. If you can't beat a planet in the first shot, it's simply not worth trying at all, nevermind attacking repeatedly.

Actually, it may interest you to know you've used up about half of Fahz' torpedoes. If you only upgraded your engines enough to get there and left everything else unupgraded, it'd probably run dry in 3 or 4 more cheap sorties, then you could spend another trillion upgrading "for real."

But that's still a hell of an expense to take one of my least significant and least defended planets (It wasn't manufacturing fighters or torpedoes, I just brought 1 load of defenses and left it there).

Jan 13, 2014#201

Sparhawk

Team planets are gone.[DOUBLEPOST=1389655218,1389655044][/DOUBLEPOST]Still shows you are part of the team though.

Jan 13, 2014#202

GasBandit

Still shows you are ADMINISTRATOR of the team. So. Team's basically boned.

Yet another bit of this game that wasn't particularly thought all the way through.

Jan 13, 2014#203

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
Doing the math, it looks like you have a level 27 torpedo launcher. Those torps just went to waste against a planet though, because the planet's level 24 torpedo launcher does 5x damage because it's a planet, and your level 23 hull couldn't hold up to it.[DOUBLEPOST=1389642427,1389642175][/DOUBLEPOST]

Actually, it may interest you to know you've used up about half of Fahz' torpedoes. If you only upgraded your engines enough to get there and left everything else unupgraded, it'd probably run dry in 3 or 4 more cheap sorties, then you could spend another trillion upgrading "for real."

But that's still a hell of an expense to take one of my least significant and least defended planets (It wasn't manufacturing fighters or torpedoes, I just brought 1 load of defenses and left it there).

And that's just one planet. You'd have to take out up to three planets just to wrest control of one system away from another player.

Jan 14, 2014#204

GasBandit

Master of 82 worlds. Lord of over 6 billion souls. Captain of the most dangerous dreadnaught ever to cruise the stars. Over a trillion credits in personal net worth.

Fear me, for I am the Chief Petty Officer.

(Something doesn't sound right here.)

Jan 14, 2014#205

bhamv3

At the current rate, Rovewin's going to catch you soon. The guy has an efficiency rating of 48.

Jan 14, 2014#206

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
At the current rate, Rovewin's going to catch you soon. The guy has an efficiency rating of 48.

I don't think he's logged in in forever. So he probably put some cash on a planet and the interest is compounding.

Jan 14, 2014#207

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
I don't think he's logged in in forever. So he probably put some cash on a planet and the interest is compounding.

Huh, that makes sense.

So... time to hunt him down and blow him up.

Jan 14, 2014#208

Eriol

It's amusing looking through this thread but not playing. You guys seem to be learning the basic rules of Tradewars as I remember them:

Colonists = Prosperity
Money on planets = real interest
Late game = Ferrying colonists around for greatest benefit to your empire.

That about right? As long as the attack of the bots doesn't come along (once the auto-play bots came along, TW wasn't "fun" anymore) this sounds similar.

And in TW2002, planet-management was fun. I particularly liked teleporting your planets around the galaxy. Is that possible in this game?

Jan 14, 2014#209

Dave

I wouldn't worry about anything new being added - I don't think there's been an update on the app for two years.

Jan 14, 2014#210

GasBandit

Eriol said:
It's amusing looking through this thread but not playing. You guys seem to be learning the basic rules of Tradewars as I remember them:

Colonists = Prosperity

Money on planets = real interest

Late game = Ferrying colonists around for greatest benefit to your empire.

That about right? As long as the attack of the bots doesn't come along (once the auto-play bots came along, TW wasn't "fun" anymore) this sounds similar.

And in TW2002, planet-management was fun. I particularly liked teleporting your planets around the galaxy. Is that possible in this game?

I don't... think... so?

But in TW, did torpedoes mean invincible planets?

Jan 14, 2014#211

Dave

Have any of you seen a Xenobe yet? There's supposed to be big bad aliens but I have yet to see anyone meet one.

Jan 14, 2014#212

GasBandit

Dave said:
Have any of you seen a Xenobe yet? There's supposed to be big bad aliens but I have yet to see anyone meet one.

Not so far.

bhamv3 said:
Huh, that makes sense.

So... time to hunt him down and blow him up.

It's just a pity all the money blows up too.

Jan 14, 2014#213

Dave

Interesting. I'll look into it.

Jan 14, 2014#214

GasBandit

Everything changed when the RoboDave nation attacked.

Jan 14, 2014#215

Dave

And now that'll be the name if I can set one.

Jan 14, 2014#216

Dave

I have made a post on the Blacknova Traders forum to see how to do some of this stuff.

I've been reading through this and I think there are a few changes I will be making, like getting less turns over time and lowering the damage torps do from 10 to 7 or 8. Let me know what else you'd like to see changed.

Jan 14, 2014#217

Dave

stienman said:
I think you can just go to http://www.halforums.com/bnt/xenobe_control.php and enter your password. It appears to provide a good chunk of information about itself.

Jan 14, 2014#218

Dave

Interestingly, it puts them into the DB but not into the sector they should be in. I get an error when making them,[DOUBLEPOST=1389719667,1389719494][/DOUBLEPOST]Holy fucknuts. I'm starting to look through the php files and found "Create Universe", which is probably the reset button I've been looking at. Wonder what else I'm going to find!

Jan 14, 2014#219

GasBandit

Log.php is just the event log that any player who is logged in can read about for themselves.

Jan 14, 2014#220

Dave

The only ones of these that I didn't know about and can actually use are the universe and xenophobe one...and that's assuming the xenophobe one works - which I am doubting.

Jan 14, 2014#221

Rovewin

bhamv3 said:
At the current rate, Rovewin's going to catch you soon. The guy has an efficiency rating of 48.

haha I'm so efficient I'm sleeping and making money.

Huh, that makes sense.

So... time to hunt him down and blow him up.

You can try. My 10million torps and 5 million fighters on my home planet might say otherwise.

Jan 14, 2014#222

GasBandit

Lemme tell you something. You get over 100 planets? You're glad to pay the bank that 5% to consolidate.

Jan 14, 2014#223

GasBandit

Oh god the colonists keep breeding. I'm up to 8 billion of em. 120 planets and they're still hitting 100 million per planet faster than I can keep up.

This is a bad mix. All this planeteering doesn't give me much time to ferry defenses or build other stuff... the Sovereignty of GasBandia is getting to be fat, juicy, plump and ripe for the picking.

Jan 14, 2014#224

Sparhawk

...and I'm pretty sure I know what sector your home base is in. It's the only one I've found that doesn't have a warp to it, it's the only little freaking annoying "question mark" on my map.

Jan 14, 2014#225

GasBandit

Sparhawk said:
...and I'm pretty sure I know what sector your home base is in. It's the only one I've found that doesn't have a warp to it, it's the only little freaking annoying "question mark" on my map.

Er, that's the one place you probably don't want to attack. GasBandia Prime is probably packing enough torps to kill all life in the galaxy 10 times over.

Jan 14, 2014#226

Sparhawk

Not wanting to attack, it's just an annoying spot on the map. I figured it was fairly heavily defended, and didn't want to just warp into a crap-ton of mines and fighters.

Jan 14, 2014#227

GasBandit

Sparhawk said:
Not wanting to attack, it's just an annoying spot on the map. I figured it was fairly heavily defended, and didn't want to just warp into a crap-ton of mines and fighters.

Eh you don't have to worry about those. Stienman came and cleared them out some time ago, and it just struck me as uneconomical to spend time replenishing sector defenses for a planet that has several million fighters and torpedoes on the surface. Someone wants to look? Let 'em look.

Jan 14, 2014#228

bhamv3

Hey Dave, when you implement the changes, is the universe going to be wiped and restarted? If so, I'll go back to my "faffing around" playstyle instead of building seriously.

Jan 14, 2014#229

Sparhawk

My map is completed. I'm a little happier.

Jan 15, 2014#230

GasBandit

stienman said:
There is at least one warp to gasbandit's sector.

Plus you can always just... you know... realspace there manually if your engines are even minimally upgraded.

Jan 16, 2014#231

Eriol

So I'm in this now, and have one main question: What's the difference between credits stored on planets, and credits in the "bank"? In TradeWars, the bank limit was stupidly low (wasn't useful beyond the newbie experience). Not sure what it is here. What's the deal? Which give interest? And how much?

Jan 16, 2014#232

GasBandit

Eriol said:
So I'm in this now, and have one main question: What's the difference between credits stored on planets, and credits in the "bank"? In TradeWars, the bank limit was stupidly low (wasn't useful beyond the newbie experience). Not sure what it is here. What's the deal? Which give interest? And how much?

Both give interest, but the bank gives 0.03% whereas a planet gives 0.05%. (that's hundredths of a percent, not percent, on both)

I don't know if there's a limit on the bank account.

Jan 16, 2014#233

Eriol

GasBandit said:
Both give interest, but the bank gives 0.03% whereas a planet gives 0.05%. (that's hundredths of a percent, not percent, on both)

I don't know if there's a limit on the bank account.

So basically, until we know differently, it's idiotic to store credits on planets, because the amount of money different is miniscule?

Jan 16, 2014#234

GasBandit

Eriol said:
So basically, until we know differently, it's idiotic to store credits on planets, because the amount of money different is miniscule?

Not at all. I've got over 2 trillion credits, that two extra hundredths of a percent is a lot of money.

Also bear in mind that that interest is per minute, not hour/day/week/year. So the difference right now works out to just shy of half a billion credits per minute to keep it on planet vs in the bank.

Also, planets are pretty much impregnable in this game so long as they have even a modicum of torpedoes.

Jan 16, 2014#235

Eriol

What's the minimum organics percentage you need to produce on a planet in order for the colonists to be self-sustaining?

Jan 16, 2014#236

GasBandit

Eriol said:
What's the minimum organics percentage you need to produce on a planet in order for the colonists to be self-sustaining?

10%.

Jan 16, 2014#237

bhamv3

Ok Rovewin, you freak, how are you gaining points so quickly? Seriously, an efficiency rating of 88? That's insane.

Jan 16, 2014#238

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Ok Rovewin, you freak, how are you gaining points so quickly? Seriously, an efficiency rating of 88? That's insane.

By NEVER. Logging in.

Interest keeps compounding. If you don't use turns, the numerator continues to outstrip the denominator.

Jan 16, 2014#239

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
By NEVER. Logging in.

Interest keeps compounding. If you don't use turns, the numerator continues to outstrip the denominator.

I don't get this part. Surely the interest accrued would be the same whether you use up turns or not? Or am I missing something?

Jan 17, 2014#240

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
I don't get this part. Surely the interest accrued would be the same whether you use up turns or not? Or am I missing something?

Yes. But efficiency is measured as score divided by turns spent. If you never spend turns, your efficiency keeps going up.

Jan 17, 2014#241

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
Yes. But efficiency is measured as score divided by turns spent. If you never spend turns, your efficiency keeps going up.

Ahhh, now I get it.

So that explains his efficiency rating. Doesn't explain his incredible climb up the rankings though. I'm trading my ass off just to barely keep ahead of him.

What's your secret, Rovester?

Jan 17, 2014#242

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Ahhh, now I get it.

So that explains his efficiency rating. Doesn't explain his incredible climb up the rankings though. I'm trading my ass off just to barely keep ahead of him.

What's your secret, Rovester?

Compound interest. Same as me. I'm making way more money per day since I stopped planeteering. I busted my ass to get 134 planets with bases. My other planets populations give me just over 100 billion a day. My consolidated account on Gasbandia Prime has 3.6 trillion compounding 0.05% every minute, of which there are 1440 per day, meaning this time tomorrow my 3.6 trillion will be just under 7 and a half trillion.

Without me spending a single turn.

I was a sucker to make all those planets.

Jan 17, 2014#243

bhamv3

... I need to try that.

Jan 17, 2014#244

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
... I need to try that.

It's easy. Put all your money on your most defended planet, set it to 10 organic, some energy and torp production, land on it if you're not comfortable with the defense level of your ship, and by this time tomorrow your money will have more than doubled. Then 24 hours later it will have more than doubled again, and so on.

Jan 17, 2014#245

Rovewin

Yeah it was one of the suggested strategies in the faq. The banker. Just have one planet you keep all money on and then trade when you have extra turns which was my strategy from the start. Sorry I'm not playing much anymore, there doesn't seem to be anything I really want to do in the endgame.

Jan 17, 2014#246

GasBandit

Rovewin said:
Yeah it was one of the suggested strategies in the faq. The banker. Just have one planet you keep all money on and then trade when you have extra turns which was my strategy from the start. Sorry I'm not playing much anymore, there doesn't seem to be anything I really want to do in the endgame.

Blacknova Traders: Where the endgame is literally to walk away and do something else.

Jan 27, 2014#247

GasBandit

You destroy one little planet and suddenly your spotless record turns to "Hitler with WMDs."

Ok, so it's possible to beat a planet. You just have to outlevel it by 15 or so levels.

And I think we went over this, but upgrade costs past 30 are ridiculous.

Jan 27, 2014#248

GasBandit

However, starships over 30 are also ridiculous.

This farce will be coming to an end soon. Embrace your loved ones, for the end of all things is upon you.

When I am done with this galaxy, no stone shall rest upon another.

Jan 27, 2014#249

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
You destroy one little planet and suddenly your spotless record turns to "Hitler with WMDs."

Ok, so it's possible to beat a planet. You just have to outlevel it by 15 or so levels.

And I think we went over this, but upgrade costs past 30 are ridiculous.

Oooo, you managed to beat a planet? I wonder who it belon...

:fu:

Jan 27, 2014#250

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Oooo, you managed to beat a planet? I wonder who it belon...

Of course. I had to test my strongest rival to see if Starpocalype would be possible.

Not only will it be possible, it will be easy.

Jan 27, 2014#251

GasBandit

The annihilation of everything you know is slightly delayed because the agent of your complete and ultimate doom has a day job that demands his time... for now.

I suggest you use the time you have been given wisely, for it is borrowed.

Jan 27, 2014#252

bhamv3

Eh, having my territory nibbled at bit by bit is boring.

GUTS AND GLORY!!

And with that, I bid farewell to the game.

Jan 27, 2014#253

GasBandit

Victory! January 27 2014 13:21:21
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by bhamv. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 0% of the ship's worth of 0 credits.

[DOUBLEPOST=1390847671,1390847542][/DOUBLEPOST]I still think it's wierd that when you self destruct so do all your planets.

Welp, that means @Rovewin is next on the list.

Jan 27, 2014#254

GasBandit

Wait, why did you have no shields in that fight, @bhamv3 ?

Did you spend all your money upgrading your ship and forget to recharge before attacking?

Jan 27, 2014#255

bhamv3

I'm pretty sure I had a full load of energy. But of course now we'll never know for sure.

Jan 28, 2014#256

GasBandit

After a long and exhaustive search, the grim tide of death and destruction taken form that is the Intransigent found Rovewin on his planet, basking in his riches.

Rovewin may have escaped his final judgement for now, but surely his back is broken from such a greivous loss.

The eyes of damnation next rest upon Lerxt.

Jan 28, 2014#257

GasBandit

What's this? Someone else already doing my work for me? Who is this Rax, and why is he in such a hurry to fall under my malevolent gaze?

Jan 28, 2014#258

GasBandit

Interesting. Rax has overthrown Gasbandia Prime, and I'm out over 250 trillion credits. It only took him 8 tries, 4 minutes, and less than 1 trillion credits in rebuilds.

Planet captured!

January 28 2014 15:03:51
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was captured in battle by the wretched Rax. The people of the planet welcome their new ruler. You hear a testimony on BNN : "We're glad to be rid of that old fart! We don't want no stinking loser who can't protect us!". You swear to make them pay for their arrogance.

Victory!
January 28 2014 15:02:35
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 9% of the ship's worth of 12837519720 credits.

Victory!
January 28 2014 15:02:03
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 10% of the ship's worth of 14263910800 credits.

Victory!
January 28 2014 15:01:53
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 5% of the ship's worth of 7131955400 credits.

Victory!
January 28 2014 15:01:41
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 0% of the ship's worth of 0 credits.

Victory!
January 28 2014 15:01:30
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 8% of the ship's worth of 11411128640 credits.

Victory!
January 28 2014 15:01:14
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 0% of the ship's worth of 0 credits.

Victory!
January 28 2014 15:00:41
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 2% of the ship's worth of 2852782160 credits.

Victory!
January 28 2014 14:58:30
Your planet GasBandia Prime in sector 711 was attacked by Rax. The citizens organized a valliant defense however, and managed to destroy the opponent. They salvage some resources from the space debris : 0 goods, 0 ore, 0 organics and 6% of the ship's worth of 182202531960 credits.

Jan 28, 2014#259

GasBandit

Well, this happened:

490 million fighters on a planet. Clearly Rax knows a lot more about this game than I do. The trick seems to be, rather than having one enormous unstoppable dreadnought, to zergling-rush any given target with level 20 to 25 ships over and over until its defenses are all expended, through attrition, then move in and take over. Also, as overpowered as planetary torpedos are, the planetary ability to field 100% of its fighters regardless of your ship's fighter level is even moreso. My ship was level 35 and I was nibbled to death by millions of ducks.

All hail the new overlord of the galaxy, Rax. He has saved everyone from the rapacious Gas Bandit... for now.

But! Has the galaxy lost the villain it knew only to gain a villain it didn't?

Dun dun dun...[DOUBLEPOST=1390942214,1390941960][/DOUBLEPOST]Fun fact: A level 20 ship can be bought from level 0 for about 11.5 billion credits. Level 25 for 335 billion.

Jan 28, 2014#260

Officer_Charon

I want to play this, I really do... but I'm not gonna grind the 1000000 that it'll take to get a Genesis torpedo...

Jan 28, 2014#261

GasBandit

Officer_Charon said:
I want to play this, I really do... but I'm not gonna grind the 1000000 that it'll take to get a Genesis torpedo...

Honestly it doesn't take that long. You'll be making billions within your first two days, easily. Just find yourself a few goods-ore trade routes to hit, upgrade your hull first and foremost, and you're off to the races.

And, there are still unclaimed planets out there, I saw.

Jan 28, 2014#262

Officer_Charon

GasBandit said:
Honestly it doesn't take that long. You'll be making billions within your first two days, easily. Just find yourself a few goods-ore trade routes to hit, upgrade your hull first and foremost, and you're off to the races.

And, there are still unclaimed planets out there, I saw.

I found a single jump trade route that was letting me profit 2400, round-trip... any way to increase cargo capacity?

Jan 28, 2014#263

GasBandit

Officer_Charon said:
I found a single jump trade route that was letting me profit 2400, round-trip... any way to increase cargo capacity?

Upgrade "hull" at special trade stations (like sector 0). That governs how big your cargo capacity is.

Get some engines in there, too, though, so you can realspace travel for cheap. After they kick you out of sector 0 for being over level 8 average tech level, there's another special trade station in 816 (and a couple others I don't remember) you can use for further upgrades.

Jan 28, 2014#264

Eriol

GasBandit said:
490 million fighters on a planet. Clearly Rax knows a lot more about this game than I do.

Only? Admittedly most of my planets are lightly-defended, but my main? I was kinda paranoid about one of you coming after me.

Edit: I figured it was a lot cheaper to just fortify my planet and sleep there than to upgrade my ship, as that gets REALLY expensive. So spend the money on figs/torps and turtle.

Jan 28, 2014#265

GasBandit

Heh, I'm just fortunate I had 10 trillion "walking around money" in my pocket when GasBandia Prime fell and Rax flushed 250 trillion down the toilet.

Jan 28, 2014#266

R

Rax

Hey guys.

I read this thread and i want to make some things clear for you.

First of all, are the fighters, oh the fighters. I saw that most of you had only a few fighters on a planet. They are the main way to fend off an attack.
For example, if you have a weak ship and somebody attacks you, beams, topedoes and shields dont do you any good. Only defence is your fighters which do not depend on your ship but on their amount.

Then there are beams and shields (for destroying attackes fighters, shields and armor). Beams are important, because they can destroy upto 80% attackers fighters and all og the shields and armor.

Then there are torpedoe launchers, not torpedoes, they are nessesary but you should not have more than 100-200 times you can use on a single fight. For example if you have lvl 25 torpedo lanuchers you can carry lvl 25+1 (considering you have a base). 3 787 675 torpedoes. Out of those 3 787 675 torpedoes you can use 378767 in a fight. so youd need 37 876 700 to 75 753 400 torpedoes on a planet.

As for GasBandits planet. He had 65m figs, 95 m torps and 655m energy.

I had 45 trillion credits. I knew that he had the power to finish me off, so i had a choice put my money on IGB and fall even more behind or attack him.
I knew that he had 250 trillion creds on that planet and by hes score i saw that if i take hit, hes done.

I knew that it was risky but i still went ahead.

First of all i needed to take hes fighters and and energy down. energy because hes sheilds and beams would have annoyed me in the next step which would have been torpedoes.

So for taking hes energy and fighters down i needed 4 things. Beams, computer, shields, and armor.

Beams for fighters. This is pretty straight forward i dont need to explane this.

Computer, shields and armor for energy. Hes beams would destroy my computer, shields and armor and by that hes energy would fall. Also by doing so i would destroy torpedoes 1/4 of the amount of fighters i could carry each turn.

After i was done with energy and fighters i went ahead and bought only engines and armor to exhaust hes torpedoes.

After most of them were gone i upgraded my ship a little higher and went and took it. (made a mistake and bought too high so the planet only produced 10m, but still)

All in All spent about 10 trillion to take a 250 trillion planet.

But i urge you to read FAQ about ship to planet combat, it needs a little bit of thinking but you should figure it out.
I even made an a exel calc based on it so i know how stron i should be to take a planet or how strong a planet should be tofend off someone.

Hope it helps. Sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language.

Jan 28, 2014#267

R

Rax

Forgot to mention, that i usually only take the fighters down,mbut he had so high lvl of torpedoe launchers, shields and beams. SO high that i didnt have the money for them, so i had do to it differently. usually i finish the fighters off. And buy 1-3 lvls higher ship.

Also my main is 346-5 if anyone whants to see it.
it would take 167 attacks with lvl 30 beams to destroy all the fighers. and it would cost 201 trillion for you to do so.

Jan 28, 2014#268

GasBandit

Yeah, I don't think most of us grasped the apparently required dynamic of repeatedly attacking and losing multiple ships - most of us gave up on the game after losing our ship for the first time. So most of our defenses were only up to defeating an attacker once, after which we'd assume they'd be done.

Jan 28, 2014#269

R

Rax

Well, next round should be interesting then. A lot of fighting ahead.

Jan 28, 2014#270

GasBandit

Also did you say beams do 80% to fighters? I thought I'd read they only do 50%.

Jan 28, 2014#271

R

Rax

Damn typos

Jan 28, 2014#272

GasBandit

Ok, so to paraphrase what you're telling us, the way you take down a planet is to upgrade your ship only so much.. somewhere in the neighborhood of level 25, and then, at first only beams, computer, energy, and shields. You do this to whittle down the planet's supply of fighters and energy (as neither regenerates very quickly).

Then, once the fighters and energy are gone, switch to upgrading only engines and armor, and then continue to suicide on the planet to whittle down the torpedo count there.

Then, when the torps are exhausted, simply upgrade everything one last time to the planet's level and take the planet.

Thus, a very cost effective way of taking down a planet, provided it's a lucrative enough target.

The only downside is never having an uber ship, but from what I've seen of this game, ship-to-ship combat doesn't happen very often anyway - once you control a sector, you can set it so you can't be attacked until you lose control of the sector. And even then, there's emergency warp pods. And even THEN, liquid cash (credits on hand) goes with the defender if he jumps in his escape pod. So really, no real reason to have a superdestroyer. Just need it upgraded enough to give your planets some teeth, but even then... fighters seem to trump all on planet defense, and it doesn't matter what your upgrade level is there.

Jan 28, 2014#273

Sparhawk

Just so any else may be able to use this info... If you happen to have your mouse over on the left side of the screen, and have a sudden, unexpected, sneeze and accidentally click your mouse, you can commit suicide in the game. Just FYI.

Jan 28, 2014#274

GasBandit

Sparhawk said:
Just so any else may be able to use this info... If you happen to have your mouse over on the left side of the screen, and have a sudden, unexpected, sneeze and accidentally click your mouse, you can commit suicide in the game. Just FYI.

... I thought there was a confirmation screen before self destruct?

Jan 28, 2014#275

Sparhawk

If there was I didn't see it.

Jan 28, 2014#276

GasBandit

Welp. Making a note. Do not sneeze... with... finger... over the.... self... destruct... button. Got it.

Jan 28, 2014#277

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
... I thought there was a confirmation screen before self destruct?

There are two, in fact.

Bad allergies, Sparhawk?

Jan 28, 2014#278

Sparhawk

I don't know, I only sensed clicking once, but who knows. I'll come back when it's reset.

Jan 28, 2014#279

R

Rax

GasBandit said:
Ok, so to paraphrase....

Yes, after im done with trading ore-and goods and i have about 2 b colonists, my planets make enought money to colonize even further, i stop building my ship. i only keep about 10% of my combined wealth under my ship lvls. but that is if im playing defensive. If im playing aggressive, i ignore cloack, armor, hull (if i have enought planets). By doing so, i dont lose much if attack anyone first time.

this way of attacking a planet is called kamikazeing, or for short kaming.

Usually I do not use shields, armor, fighters, torps and such. Only beams, but like I said. you had so high ship lvl. After a few calculations I realized that even if i destroy all of your fighters I would have a lot of trouble with your beams. Also, i didnt have the money to buy a lvl 36 ship. And even if I did, it wouldnt been cost-efficient, bc your ship worth was 180trillion. And planet worth was 250 trillion. So i calculated, that i needed to attack you only 5 times more with a low lvl to get everything to 0.

Too bad I didnt get a dime from all of that math

I might make an a calculator for you guys for all of this.

Jan 29, 2014#280

bhamv3

I like this Rax guy. Can we keep him?

Jan 30, 2014#281

R

Rax

I saw that many of you are producing ore and goods on your planets.

I would not do that. Because ore byitself does not produce intrest. And you have to use turns to convert it to money, furthermore it does not have a fixed value.

i usually keep 0 on ore 10-11 on organics so the planet keeps colonists alive. 0 on ore. 5-90 on energy. (5 on a money producing planet 30-90 on bank planet) and 0 on figs and torps. I keep so much on energy so my beams and shields would be sustained.

I do not produce fighters and torpedoes because it takes 20000 colonists to build a fighter and 8000 colonists to produce a torpedoe. that 28000 colonists to produce 75 credits worth of defences, but if those colonists produced money they would make 373 credits. See where i am going?

Also selling goods on a planet isnt a good idea, someone could come in and buy all of the energy. And take the planet with ease, because 2 of 4 defences are useless.

Jan 30, 2014#282

GasBandit

Rax said:
Also selling goods on a planet isnt a good idea, someone could come in and buy all of the energy. And take the planet with ease, because 2 of 4 defences are useless.

And as I discovered the hard way, selling stuff on a planet is unlikely to actually foster any economic activity because the prices are much worse than on trading posts.

Jan 30, 2014#283

R

Rax

I think there should be a reset. I dont deserve being nr 1 atm. Pluss, now you know much more so it should be more interesting.

Jan 30, 2014#284

GasBandit

It does seem like we've learned a great deal, enough not to make a hash of it when trying it again "for real."

Jan 30, 2014#285

Eriol

Rax said:
I saw that many of you are producing ore and goods on your planets.

I would not do that. Because ore byitself does not produce intrest. And you have to use turns to convert it to money, furthermore it does not have a fixed value.

i usually keep 0 on ore 10-11 on organics so the planet keeps colonists alive. 0 on ore. 5-90 on energy. (5 on a money producing planet 30-90 on bank planet) and 0 on figs and torps. I keep so much on energy so my beams and shields would be sustained.

I do not produce fighters and torpedoes because it takes 20000 colonists to build a fighter and 8000 colonists to produce a torpedoe. that 28000 colonists to produce 75 credits worth of defences, but if those colonists produced money they would make 373 credits. See where i am going?

Also selling goods on a planet isnt a good idea, someone could come in and buy all of the energy. And take the planet with ease, because 2 of 4 defences are useless.

I mostly agree here, but with caveats:

Producing only energy can leave your planet undefended because of random "energy storms" which will drain 100% of the energy from your planet. Random events suck, and DO happen. You lose 20% of your colonists (on one planet) but 100% of energy. Big difference there. If it was 20% energy per random event, I'd agree with you, but because it's 100%, it can leave you vulnerable at the wrong time.
If you make the credits, you then need to buy the fighters and manage each planet individually. Yes it's slightly less efficient, but makes defending a large empire easier. So up to you.
I agree that putting your planet to "sell" is idiotic because they will buy/drain all your energy and then attack. But you get a better ratio on efficiency of currency by making goods. If there's a port in your sector to sell to, you can even automate the selling via the trade route interface. EASY to get your money then, even counting potential interest. But you can only do this with 1 (maybe 2) planets per sector with a port, since you max out the port easily.
10 is all you need for organics. It's the EXACT amount to never have starvation, but never have excess either.

So ya.

And I keep seeing you scanning Ganymede. You may be able to take it, but it'll be a long and hard road.

Jan 30, 2014#286

GasBandit

Eriol said:
And I keep seeing you scanning Ganymede. You may be able to take it, but it'll be a long and hard road.

Eh, don't take it too personally... he's going around scanning all my planets still too.

Jan 30, 2014#287

Eriol

GasBandit said:
Eh, don't take it too personally... he's going around scanning all my planets still too.

Ya but he's come back to there LOTS more times than he's done the "once-over" of everything else. It is my "capital" world after all, so it's not like I'm surprised.

Edit: plus not counting 645, you get points if you see the "theme" of every other one of my sectors for their planet names.

Jan 30, 2014#288

GasBandit

stienman said:
These only occur with planets over 90,000,000 population. You can populate new planets with excess people, or drop them off at special sector ports.

Yeah, once I got over 100 planets, that got really tedious, really fast.

Jan 30, 2014#289

R

Rax

Eriol said:
I mostly agree here, but with caveats:

Producing only energy can leave your planet undefended because of random "energy storms" which will drain 100% of the energy from your planet. Random events suck, and DO happen. You lose 20% of your colonists (on one planet) but 100% of energy. Big difference there. If it was 20% energy per random event, I'd agree with you, but because it's 100%, it can leave you vulnerable at the wrong time.

If you make the credits, you then need to buy the fighters and manage each planet individually. Yes it's slightly less efficient, but makes defending a large empire easier. So up to you.

I agree that putting your planet to "sell" is idiotic because they will buy/drain all your energy and then attack. But you get a better ratio on efficiency of currency by making goods. If there's a port in your sector to sell to, you can even automate the selling via the trade route interface. EASY to get your money then, even counting potential interest. But you can only do this with 1 (maybe 2) planets per sector with a port, since you max out the port easily.

10 is all you need for organics. It's the EXACT amount to never have starvation, but never have excess either.

So ya.

And I keep seeing you scanning Ganymede. You may be able to take it, but it'll be a long and hard road.

1. In case of energy storm, then will figs and torps be used for defence. Beams are just the first defence.
2. Well if i make a planet, i put 10-20 m figs and torps on it. you never need more on a normal planet. a planet with 100m colonists is worth 510 160 000 credits to make it defended cost efficiaantly you should have 1 fig and torp for every 75 credits, that means llittlebit less than 7m figs and torps. and also for every billion creds on it you should have an extra 13,3 m figs and torps. in that case if someone has a big enought ship to take it with 1 fight he wouldnt gain any money, he would lose probably. bc he has to make up 500m for the colonists, pluss he has to defend it again with enought fighters.

And those planetary apocalipses are just an a hiccup. Never cared for them.

If you keep 1,5b figs for 6 days then i would take it. and even then i wouldnt make any significant profit.

Jan 30, 2014#290

Eriol

There's actually a 10M limit on the number of credits you can take when you take a planet, making it nearly-never worth it to take a planet. You're doing scorched earth, not doing it to get resources like in Tradewars.

Jan 30, 2014#291

GasBandit

Eriol said:
There's actually a 10M limit on the number of credits you can take when you take a planet, making it nearly-never worth it to take a planet. You're doing scorched earth, not doing it to get resources like in Tradewars.

He tells me there's a way to actually get the money. Apparently it has to do with the level difference between you and the target planet. If you outlevel the planet too much, you get nothing. But he's put it to work, as his meteoric rise to 1st came from taking Lerxt's bank planet with the reward intact.

Jan 30, 2014#292

Eriol

GasBandit said:
He tells me there's a way to actually get the money. Apparently it has to do with the level difference between you and the target planet. If you outlevel the planet too much, you get nothing. But he's put it to work, as his meteoric rise to 1st came from taking Lerxt's bank planet with the reward intact.

Weird. It's in the settings menu as planet max... didn't know it had anything to do with ranks vs one another.

Jan 30, 2014#293

GasBandit

Eriol said:
Weird. It's in the settings menu as planet max... didn't know it had anything to do with ranks vs one another.

Looking around in other BNT forums, seems there's also a time limit.. if you don't capture within seconds of taking the planet, you might also lose it.

Jan 31, 2014#294

R

Rax

That time factor sounds more logical than my theory about level difference.

Jan 31, 2014#295

GasBandit

Which is complicated by the fact that the "capture" link when you take a planet is broken, and you have to either type it manually or go back to the main menu, click on the planet, and then click "capture."

Feb 3, 2014#296

R

Rax

That capture link is bugged in other games aswell.

Btw gas, i just noticed that one of your planet has my real name on it. A scandinavian name.

Feb 3, 2014#297

GasBandit

Ah yes, good old GI-129-3, a common and well-storied old Scandinavian name!

Feb 3, 2014#298

R

Rax

exactly!

Feb 9, 2014#299

R

Rax

how about a reset?

Feb 10, 2014#300

GasBandit

I'm pretty much just waiting for a reset at this point.

Though it's funny to see how much my finances have sprung back in the meantime.

Feb 10, 2014#301

Dave

Okay, I'll get it all reset then.

Feb 10, 2014#302

Dave

Reset done.

Please note this is the revised and randomized map. Have fun discovering!

Feb 10, 2014#303

GasBandit

The adventure begins![DOUBLEPOST=1392061790,1392061634][/DOUBLEPOST]Um... I still have a quadrillion in cash.

And all my planets...

I don't think that reset took effect.

Feb 10, 2014#304

Dave

How did you get in? Through the link above or a bookmark? I changed the link above.[DOUBLEPOST=1392061866,1392061849][/DOUBLEPOST]Let me change the whole thing.

Feb 10, 2014#305

GasBandit

Ah, it was a bookmark. All set now.

Feb 10, 2014#306

Dave

I've renamed it to match the old one so your bookmark should match.

Feb 10, 2014#307

GasBandit

Aaand Rax is already twice as efficient as me. Heh.

Feb 10, 2014#308

R

Rax

You bought computer and torpedoe launchers right?

Feb 10, 2014#309

GasBandit

Rax said:
You bought computer and torpedoe launchers right?

Shit, you were way more efficient than me when the only thing I had was hull and cash.

Feb 10, 2014#310

Dave

But do you like the new map and trading stuff? Let me know how well I did the maps.

Feb 10, 2014#311

R

Rax

Well at first I just traded 1 port. (2 way and warp). And did excatly the amount needed for next lvl.
When I got 16 hull I traded untill I got 32m and bought lvl 15 engines and fuel scoop. Afterwards I got lvl 10 power and started to 2 way realspace trading.
Opened a new traderoute after every 10 trades and bought next hull lvl when i could. After I had like 10 routes I just kept circulating after a few updates. That was nessesary to keep the ports near maximum profit.[DOUBLEPOST=1392064841,1392064705][/DOUBLEPOST]

Dave said:
But do you like the new map and trading stuff? Let me know how well I did the maps.

I like it. I has a lot of ports, easy to find new traderoutes.

Also its good to have those extra Unowned planets

Feb 10, 2014#312

Dave

I'm hoping it'll also be easier for someone to "hide" in the distant corners. At least for a time.

Feb 15, 2014#313

R

Rax

Unowned planets are set to produce at 120%. Is that normal?

Feb 15, 2014#314

Dave

Uh....yes? I mean, no! No!

I mean...maybe?

I tried to add some aliens. I guess they didn't take.

Feb 15, 2014#315

R

Rax

Just that, if you create a planet you get the % 20 20 20 20 10 10, but if you capture a planet, which was unowned, you get 6x20%

Apr 10, 2014#316

Sparhawk

So, apparently the highest rank available is lieutenant. Kinda sucks.

Apr 13, 2014#317

Sparhawk

Largest amount of money able to be kept on a planet: 9,223,372,036,854,775,808

Oct 28, 2014#318

A

Adolf

Guten tag, just want to let everyone know that if anyone wants to build planets they need to get a building permit first or face demolition.

Rocinante has been destroyed (twice) sofar

Oct 28, 2014#319

bhamv3

Whoa, I completely forgot we still had this game around.

Oct 28, 2014#320

GasBandit

LOL I'll say, I forgot completely, and apparently the interest in my bank account has me in a 5 way tie for 1st... though all our ranks are lieutenant

Oct 28, 2014#321

Dave

Yeah, I'm helping a guy get his stuff set up and he joined the game to check stuff out. Maybe I should do a wipe and get people playing again.

Oct 29, 2014#322

A

Adolf

There's another version of this game called Starkick Traders. It features player profiles, multiple ships, detailed news showing who's attacking who and the AI(Aliens) work in that game.

Here's the link to a non maintained game (just add www. to the link)
mybnt.net/starkick/index.php

And here are the game files from sourceforge if you ever want to host it (just add http:// to the link)
sourceforge.net/projects/starkick/files/starkick

Oct 29, 2014#323

Dave

Very interesting! Thanks, man!

Oct 29, 2014#324

GasBandit

Lemme tell you guys, it's really tedious having to stop at 67 gas stations to fill up your energy when you take your level 1 ship back to 45 in one shot.

Oct 29, 2014#325

GasBandit

Ohhhh yeah, I remember now why I stopped playing this.

Oct 29, 2014#326

Dave

Good lord.

Oct 29, 2014#327

A

Adolf

That looks like one of Assassins planets. Gotta remember to have high sensor level or you'll get a bad scan. Also sofa (sub orbital fighter attack) needs to be enabled by the admin. Sofa allows players to bomb planets using their fighters inorder to soften its defences before they actually attack it with their ship. Sofa is a game feature that is disabled by default but can be enabled.

Oct 29, 2014#328

A

Adolf

Gas rejoin the game and I'll send you max credits. I know where assassins home is but its well defended and I could use help.

Oct 29, 2014#329

GasBandit

Adolf said:
Gas rejoin the game and I'll send you max credits. I know where assassins home is but its well defended and I could use help.

I tried to attack the same planet again but forgot to buy an escape pod. I ded. Like so ded. Like oh em gee ded.

Dec 21, 2014#330

A

Adolf

Just killed off an end game player "Rax" who thought he was safe. No need to thank me I know he was dislike for stealing people's planets. Your Welcome.

"Rax was killed in a tragic accident today. How heroic - captain Rax was the last member on board of his ship, when he noticed there was no escape pod left for him. May he rest in peace"

Dec 21, 2014#331

Dave

Get 'em!

Forums