GasBandit
Staff member
I wouldn't cut down your video settings, at least not until the next big 10-ship battle on a planet
Ordinarily I get a solid 60fps on max settings. Though, definitely turn off SSAO and set shadows to medium or lower.
General Empyrion Thread
- Thread starter GasBandit
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Ordinarily I get a solid 60fps on max settings. Though, definitely turn off SSAO and set shadows to medium or lower.
"Nothing like a misspent youth to prepare you for misspending your adulthood."All of those years playing dogfighting games in my youth has finally paid off.
--Patrick
Also, I just found a game engine that's more poorly optimized than Empyrion's. OpenTTD. I'd been struggling to run 4k x 4k maps on my old machine (pre-RAM upgrade) and just resigned myself to playing 2k x 2k. I booted it up today and found... it's just as slow, if not slower, when attempting to generate a 4k x 4k on my new computer. It's not using the GPU at all, so I have no idea which RAM it's using, but all of my RAM is DDR4 now, so nothing should be running that slowly to generate a playfield.
GasBandit
Staff member
Pfft, you people with your "lives" and "spouses..." how do you expect to do the important things, like get shot out of the sky by admins using super-battleships that don't conform to the game's weapon limitation rules?!
Sooooo, yeah, I'll be doing some upgrading on the Belial design. I thought the hardened steel it came with would be enough for most purposes, given that we'd be moving in numbers, but looks like I gotta go full combat steel, and fill all the internal space with MOAR THRUSTERS. So much for being immersively RP-friendly!
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Dave
Staff member
So what are the limitations to turrets? And how many did his ship have?
The secret, it seems to me, would be to have different factions have different stuff. Like the aliens could have more turrets, but they'd be less powerful than Humans.
I dislike when admins do stuff like that. I mean, they can just spawn a ship without having to build anything, what do they really care that it gets blown to smithereens?
The secret, it seems to me, would be to have different factions have different stuff. Like the aliens could have more turrets, but they'd be less powerful than Humans.
I dislike when admins do stuff like that. I mean, they can just spawn a ship without having to build anything, what do they really care that it gets blown to smithereens?
GasBandit
Staff member
The normal player turret limits are:
8 sentry (small antipersonnel rifle turrets)
6 15mm minigun
6 30mm cannon
6 Flak
6 Pulse Laser
4 150mm Homing missile
4 Plasma
2 Artillery
And in addition, each CV can mount 6 conventional pulse lasers and 4 150mm homing missle launchers that they aim and fire using the cockpit's targeting reticle.
Pulse Laser, Plasma, and Artillery turrets can't fire in atmosphere, and neither can any of the directly aimed CV weapons.
Most people don't bother with sentry turrets unless they plan for their CV to be a workhorse/mobile base and they want protection from predators (rifle ammo is WAY cheaper than any of the other turret ammo). I usually don't bother with plasma turrets because they flat out can't hit a moving target at all, and if I need to bombard a stationary target from range, that's what artillery turrets are for.
Evasong's "event" ships have all the usual turrets, plus he adds on 15-30 "alien" turrets (the kind you find on alien POIs). His justification is that he's "roleplaying" the aliens, and these ships are mostly just used for the scheduled events where 10+ players show up in full CVs, so the alien dreadnoughts/motherships have to be able to hold their own against multiple enemies.. Alien POI turrets can fire in atmosphere, but individually do less damage than normal "player" turrets - but still, more turrets means more damage.
Granted, it's still a bit lame that he expects admiration for his design/skill for basically soloing a player in a "raid boss" ship, but to be fair this was not a random encounter - I suggested he meet me in orion since he was itching to fight. I didn't expect him to bring one of the cheatships, but I had an ulterior motive... he was sounding restless because he hadn't found anybody to fight all night, and he knew from checking my stream I'd just built a new base on Genesis in PvP territory. So I figured if I gave him an easily-replaced sacrificial punching bag that could at least put up SOME struggle, it'd scratch his "I need to win everything" itch and he'd feel less tempted to go attack something I'd spent hours on
The thing about Evasong is, he does take his admin duties seriously - he does address problems and deals with server issues and goes around to make sure people are obeying the rules. But when he's in admin mode, he sees everything. He can instantly teleport to any playfield, and when he gets there, the entire map is revealed on his map (he doesn't have to "explore" to find things, they're just all on his map already). That's necessary for him to do his job. The problem then comes on separating what he knows as an admin from what he acts on as a player - and as I said before, the primary flaw in all the admins on this server is they want to have fun as players on the server in addition to being admins. So some days he's able to keep the two separate, and some days the temptation is too much. There's always a paper-thin RP rationalization, and he usually feels guilty enough to take conciliatory measures (like, when he attacked my base on Titan, he gave me advanced warning and gave me time to get there with a ship to defend it), and you have to kind of leverage/lean on those half-measures and work on his conscience and sense of fair play.
Truth be told, if it wasn't one of the more populated servers, I'd probably say it's not worth the hassle. But unless we just want to play by ourselves and sit around looking at our pretty ships that never get used to fight anybody, this is probably the best compromise for the time being. And I *have* run into actual player opponents out there who are on a level playing field
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See, I'd love to spend a week or two building up the defenses around the Dunara Yard (desert planet, and there are actually a few flat patches. Granted, I used one for the shipyard, but whatcha gonna do?) and tell Eva to bring me some aliens to play with - I think we'd both get a kick out of it. But that may just be me.
GasBandit
Staff member
Unfortunately, the "PvE" flag on PvE worlds applies to alien-cored ships, too. Or rather, it applies ONLY to them. Since they're player-controlled, they won't fire on players in PvE maps under any circumstances, but because they're "alien" flagged, player weapons CAN and WILL fire on them in PvE. The whole "players playing as aliens" thing is kind of kludged together by the admin staff on Renntech and isn't something you generally see on a vanilla server. So, that means that actual alien-player encounters/activity have to happen in PvP space.
But hey, if you want a base to fortify, boy have I got a job for you on Genesis
Technically, yes, but they're unplayable. The "wipe schedule" aspect of Renntech is custom-made - vanilla servers don't wipe anything or reset any worlds. That means when a base or ship is built, it's there until it is destroyed - and in a PvE map, that means it is there forever, even if the player hasn't been on in 3 years. That means there's no place to build and framerate issues galore. In addition, all the mineral deposits are LONG gone, and only meteors are there for resources, which is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow. Furthermore, there's no admin oversight at all. And the game is very alpha, and there are still cheaters/hackers despite the UAC requirement, so there's problems with people cheating rampantly.
As a result, actually, they don't have much in the way of population. Though, I think they might do a wipe with each major alpha revision, but I'm not sure of that. The few I tried playing on back in the day were... less fun.
Also, the vanilla maps are organized differently. Here, "PvE" territory is large and contiguous. In vanilla, pretty much EVERYTHING once you leave Akua is PvP territory - including Akua Orbit and Akua Moon.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'd appreciate any help you can lend with Genesis. I've got it fortified a little, in that the base has the maximum number of atmo-friendly turrets, and I've put another base literally connected to it that ALSO has the max number of atmo-friendly turrets, but that's it. There's no grow plots, so you'll need a CV that can grow corn to get the plastic you'll need. I've got all the critical bits of the base (constructors, furnaces, storage, generator, fuel, etc) hidden underground in the main "Genesis Branch" base, and then I covered up the top of the elevator leading there with combat steel to keep it hidden (but I forgot to label the ingot cargo boxes on the control panel device list
).We're only allowed 5 base cores per playfield, but that leaves us with 3 more "bases" we can build in the vicinity as platforms for more turrets, and then in addition to that we can park as many HVs around it as we want and leave the engines running so *their* turrets also attack anyone who comes near. And HV turrets ALL work in atmo, so they have quite an advantage on a planet's surface against CVs.
To get to Genesis, keep heading south until you see Xena, then jump to Xena, then you can jump to Genesis from there. It's about ~120ish pentaxid to get there from Yaral orbit, each way. The combat steel block you need to remove to get down to the lower levels is the one under the part of the main elevator shaft that ISN'T directly in front of the adjacent door to the outside. That elevator then continues down another 15 or so blocks.
GasBandit
Staff member
Basically, the base is set up like this -
The black is natural rock, the blue outline above is the base itself, grey is elevator, the orange dot is combat steel block that looks just like the rest of the floor, so that it shouldn't stand out as being out of place, then below, the F level is the furnaces, and the C level is constructors, cargo, and core. There's a few cargo boxes, a constructor, and a furnace all up in the main base area too just so it looks like it's inhabited and that way raiders might not go looking for the "missing" stuff, and the layer of rock between the surface and the underground levels SHOULD prevent turrets from targeting the underground stuff, as long as there isn't perfect LOS down the elevator shaft to something turrets shoot (and turrets don't bother shooting armor or elevator blocks, as long as something more important isn't on the other side). That way, there's a chance that even if the base gets flattened, whoever raided it might be content with what they found on the surface and not even know that the good stuff was left 60 meters below the surface.
But the game is alpha, and I've found sometimes the game doesn't render the ground perfectly, so shit happens. We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope for few glitches
The black is natural rock, the blue outline above is the base itself, grey is elevator, the orange dot is combat steel block that looks just like the rest of the floor, so that it shouldn't stand out as being out of place, then below, the F level is the furnaces, and the C level is constructors, cargo, and core. There's a few cargo boxes, a constructor, and a furnace all up in the main base area too just so it looks like it's inhabited and that way raiders might not go looking for the "missing" stuff, and the layer of rock between the surface and the underground levels SHOULD prevent turrets from targeting the underground stuff, as long as there isn't perfect LOS down the elevator shaft to something turrets shoot (and turrets don't bother shooting armor or elevator blocks, as long as something more important isn't on the other side). That way, there's a chance that even if the base gets flattened, whoever raided it might be content with what they found on the surface and not even know that the good stuff was left 60 meters below the surface.
But the game is alpha, and I've found sometimes the game doesn't render the ground perfectly, so shit happens. We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope for few glitches
GasBandit
Staff member
An important distinction here, though,is that in minecraft there's no difference between a "naturally generated" block and a player-placed block. In Empyrion, the ground is a much more finely detailed hollow voxel surface that gets "reshaped" as you drill, and prevents turrets from tracking/shooting at player-placed objects on the other side (IE, a turret won't shoot through a hill to hit a target on the other side of the hill, even if it is in range). In fact, turrets also ignore structural (armor/elevator/etc) blocks that don't have a "device" on the other side.
So, if you can leave some rock-voxel between your enemy and your base blocks, it forms a barrier that will frustrate him, or perhaps even obfuscate you entirely. The game also doesn't allow you to use drills to reshape the voxel earth within 100m of another player/faction's base, so he can't dig his way down, unless he manually pounds his way down with missile launchers, ~1 meter at a time/shot. And most raiders don't have that kind of patience... they want to swoop in, blow up everything, then as soon as the turrets stop firing, jump out, scoop up any loot on the ground, jump back in their ship and fly away.
It already kind of worked on Titan - I had two bases there, the Titan Branch, which got annihilated and looted, and underground nearby, the Tartarus complex, which only took a little damage from a shot that glitched through the ground when it failed to render for Evasong. But once the ground started rendering properly, there was no way he had the patience to either rocket his way down through the ground to the base, nor to seek out the tunnel I drilled to lead to the entrance (and deal with any defenses I'd placed) on foot or in a small HV. Evasong doesn't believe in small HVs
if it can't mount 30 turrets, he's not interested in driving it.
GasBandit
Staff member
One other important thing I learned this weekend - splash damage from rockets/plasma/artillery ignores line of sight. So, if a missile impacts a combat steel block, and you have a cargo box on the other side of that block, the cargo box will probably be destroyed even though the armor block remains intact.
GasBandit
Staff member
AND, I'd like to point out why I chose Genesis for my next GBI Branch office -
Like Titan, it is a snow world, so it is rich in wood, plant and animal life and the predators are slow and large and easily dealt with. Water is super easy to access (in fact, I was using Genesis as my water-source for the Kiki Orbital Branch even before I built a base on Genesis), since snow counts as water to water extractors. The weather is generally mild-to-cold, but not as cold as space. There's no radiation or anything, so as long as you've got an EVA booster, you're more than warm enough. Only occasionally do hailstorms come along that will injure anyone not under a roof/in a vehicle and even then, only at about 5 hp every 5 seconds.
Also like Titan, Genesis is just one jump from Kiki, which is basically another Yaral - a daily-wiped resource world. In fact, it's even closer - a mere 10 AU jump instead of the 20 from Titan to Kiki. The surface of Kiki is PvE (but the orbit is PvP) despite being deep in PvP territory, so you don't have to worry about players while you're mining - just when you're coming home.
And if push comes to shove, the Kiki Orbital Branch is nearby if things go sideways, though I'd like its location (20km out into space from Kiki, more or less straight "down" from the south pole) to remain just among us, so other players won't find and kill it. It's got a large compliment of turrets, naturally, but once a space station is found, it's just a matter of time for a determined attacker to deplete its ammo with evasive maneuvers/armored baffles and then move in for the plunder. When no GBI are on, all those bases have Offline Protection, but since I have set them to GBI ownership, whenever ANY GBI faction member is online, all offline protections go away.
Like Titan, it is a snow world, so it is rich in wood, plant and animal life and the predators are slow and large and easily dealt with. Water is super easy to access (in fact, I was using Genesis as my water-source for the Kiki Orbital Branch even before I built a base on Genesis), since snow counts as water to water extractors. The weather is generally mild-to-cold, but not as cold as space. There's no radiation or anything, so as long as you've got an EVA booster, you're more than warm enough. Only occasionally do hailstorms come along that will injure anyone not under a roof/in a vehicle
and even then, only at about 5 hp every 5 seconds.Also like Titan, Genesis is just one jump from Kiki, which is basically another Yaral - a daily-wiped resource world. In fact, it's even closer - a mere 10 AU jump instead of the 20 from Titan to Kiki. The surface of Kiki is PvE (but the orbit is PvP) despite being deep in PvP territory, so you don't have to worry about players while you're mining - just when you're coming home.
And if push comes to shove, the Kiki Orbital Branch is nearby if things go sideways, though I'd like its location (20km out into space from Kiki, more or less straight "down" from the south pole) to remain just among us, so other players won't find and kill it. It's got a large compliment of turrets, naturally, but once a space station is found, it's just a matter of time for a determined attacker to deplete its ammo with evasive maneuvers/armored baffles and then move in for the plunder. When no GBI are on, all those bases have Offline Protection, but since I have set them to GBI ownership, whenever ANY GBI faction member is online, all offline protections go away.
Excellent. I will almost certainly wait until you're at least on-server, if not in-system, to head out there. In the meantime, I'll head over to Creative Space and reconfigure that big APC into a slightly-less-big siege tank like it should be, so it isn't so resource heavy just to be an empty hulk. The Alexandria and her APCs can live on in PvE or Creative space, and we'll send the Ames and her Siege Tanks to PvP space and test them out on challenging targets. In the meantime, I'm going to keep building on Dunara a little, so it's at least a functional shipyard, to use as a PvE testbed for things I design in Creative. And to occasionally do a little mining and get better at piloting nimble HVs as opposed to my big slow ones.AND, I'd like to point out why I chose Genesis for my next GBI Branch office -
Like Titan, it is a snow world, so it is rich in wood, plant and animal life and the predators are slow and large and easily dealt with. Water is super easy to access (in fact, I was using Genesis as my water-source for the Kiki Orbital Branch even before I built a base on Genesis), since snow counts as water to water extractors. The weather is generally mild-to-cold, but not as cold as space. There's no radiation or anything, so as long as you've got an EVA booster, you're more than warm enough. Only occasionally do hailstorms come along that will injure anyone not under a roof/in a vehicle
Also like Titan, Genesis is just one jump from Kiki, which is basically another Yaral - a daily-wiped resource world. In fact, it's even closer - a mere 10 AU jump instead of the 20 from Titan to Kiki. The surface of Kiki is PvE (but the orbit is PvP) despite being deep in PvP territory, so you don't have to worry about players while you're mining - just when you're coming home.
And if push comes to shove, the Kiki Orbital Branch is nearby if things go sideways, though I'd like its location (20km out into space from Kiki, more or less straight "down" from the south pole) to remain just among us, so other players won't find and kill it. It's got a large compliment of turrets, naturally, but once a space station is found, it's just a matter of time for a determined attacker to deplete its ammo with evasive maneuvers/armored baffles and then move in for the plunder. When no GBI are on, all those bases have Offline Protection, but since I have set them to GBI ownership, whenever ANY GBI faction member is online, all offline protections go away.
Does the Kiki Orbital Branch have a smattering of CVs surrounding it, like the YOB? You want I should go park a couple of the little fighter carriers out there and leave their turrets on? I'll probably stage from KOB using Ye Olde Busses since Genesis is within SV warp range, and the Nests can handle at least four of those bolted to the hull (but that would be a waste of resources so I won't really move them that way). Also - if I have a bunch of HVs stuck to the open decks of the Ames, and their turrets are online, will they fire in orbit? I don't intend to leave carriers parked out where prying eyes can see and prying turrets can destroy, but it's nice to know.
GasBandit
Staff member
Just a Cornucopia CV, which has no defenses or armor at all. It's pretty much all on its lonesome out there. Security through obscurity is its main defense. The turrets will only dissuade halfhearted attackers. Certainly not any alien-admins who get it in their head to raze the joint.
That reminds me, I need to make a Cornucopia for the Genesis Branch. Which means I need to rot another 162 food for the grow plots. Oigh. Good thing corn only takes a half hour to rot.
I... have no idea. That's something to test, I suppose.
GasBandit
Staff member
Hrm, that makes me think... if that were possible... that maybe they would be doing it already. Heh.
GasBandit
Staff member
Ok, just so we have our options laid out, if we decide to bail on Renntech, here are other possible servers we might try-
Inflicted
70.186.146.133:25567
Pros: seems to be a beefy server with over 100 worlds and a large population
Cons: Don't know anything about the admins, the rules of the server, or if PvP even exists at all.
Eleon Studios Official Public Server
31.214.160.13:30000
Pros: Official dev server, higher population than I thought there'd be
Cons: Most everything I said before, 30 simultaneous player max, plus, it's in Germany, so latency will be bad.
Paragon Expanse
egs.paragonexpanse.com:30000
Pros: beefy server, located in the US, high population
Cons: Unknown rules/configuration (does claim to have PvP and PvE areas)
Inflicted
70.186.146.133:25567
Pros: seems to be a beefy server with over 100 worlds and a large population
Cons: Don't know anything about the admins, the rules of the server, or if PvP even exists at all.
Eleon Studios Official Public Server
31.214.160.13:30000
Pros: Official dev server, higher population than I thought there'd be
Cons: Most everything I said before, 30 simultaneous player max, plus, it's in Germany, so latency will be bad.
Paragon Expanse
egs.paragonexpanse.com:30000
Pros: beefy server, located in the US, high population
Cons: Unknown rules/configuration (does claim to have PvP and PvE areas)
I ran a server for all of 30 minutes, just to prove I could do it. I would want to spend a considerable amount of time modding the stock server set-up, and learning how to maintain the thing before I stood one up for reals.
Dave
Staff member
So I'm kind of surprised that Gas didn't post about this. The other night I logged out because I was getting wife aggro and had to do some stuff. What I DIDN'T think about was the 3 am wipes of Yaral. So when I logged in last night...my ship was gone. And by my ship I mean the Capital Vessel that Gas let me have to explore. Damn it. Gas was gracious (after making fun of me) and made me another one, and I beat feet to PvP space to find a planet of my own.
I have just enough pentaxid to get back to Yaral if I want to. But I have made a base and will spend some time doing the whole Henry David Thoreau thing.
DaveCo - A GBI subsidiary is born.
I have just enough pentaxid to get back to Yaral if I want to. But I have made a base and will spend some time doing the whole Henry David Thoreau thing.
DaveCo - A GBI subsidiary is born.