Spacebuild balancing/stuff

LtBrandon · December 2013

So to make a long story short, I tried to make a ship without any E2 the other day and noticed how horrible that process has become, so I'm fixing it and a plethora of other things while I'm around for the next few weeks. So I'm just going to start with the thing that everyone is going to most care about and that is:

NO. MORE. STEAM. LOOP.

I'm probably going to get at least SOMEONE pissed off over this, so I'll start by explaining that I've tried to limit it before(that's what that whole support energy thing was) and it just doesn't work, the only effective thing is simply removing the ability to do it. While doing that I took it a step further and all multipliers are going to be limited to 20 and everything has a 10% randomization on its output.

BUT WAIT! There's more! I have removed every single compressor and wind generators. Why? Because I'm tired of telling people not to use them and terraforming is pretty broken anyways so it doesn't really matter if we have them. I've also gone ahead and given fusion generators quite a bit of a bonus in exchange for making them rely on the ship core: they now generate capacitor. The capacitor generation ranges from 10 to 300 per second. Of course, I also had to make them take up a fair chunk of CPU, PG, and a low power slot.

I'm not done yet, and I'll be continuing to update this thread as I make more changes. Feel free to post any suggestions that you might have for LS3.

Go here for an explanation of WHY I started this: http://diaspora-community.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1032#p5530

Here's some other stuff on my todo list:
[list][*]Fix the retarded storage amounts and fix things storing non-existent resources. --Done[/*]
[*]Make quantum generators a lot more risky to use, but at a larger reward. For example, making them explode or consume energy instead of generating it[/*]
[*]Add a new terraforming method so we can make planets habitable again.[/*]
[*]Make the different power generation methods more in line with each other, right now they're quite far apart.[/*][/list]

Lambda217 · December 2013

oh shit taco just finished his generator e2 too

LtBrandon · December 2013

Lambda217 wrote:

oh shit taco just finished his generator e2 too

I didn't render it useless, I simply made it so you can't generate infinite resources(yet, I'm sure you'll find a way to do it anyways).

I can confirm that it does actually still work, just not anywhere near as horribly well as it used to. Kanzuke and I just used it to test my changes to fusions.

Steeveeo · December 2013

Firstly, what's wrong with wind generators? I think I'd rather have spinny bladed things that stand up straight rather than a massive area of land taken up by solar spam.

Secondly, could you add air compressors back in? I know that a lot of "noobs" use them because that's just a logical progression (need air? Air compressor!), but those same "noobs" also don't know enough to destroy a planet's atmosphere. On that same note, bio-terrorists are a thing, but those who intentionally use it to grief are few and far between (and we can ban them if they do that on the spawn, or better yet make the spawn invulnerable to it); draining a planet of it's O2 seems like an interesting tactic against an enemy base.

While there are very few planets at the moment that support terraforming, outright removing that ability before a replacement is in play is a bit much, especially when the reasons for such are, A) because of an event that rarely happens, and

is already mitigated by making the multiplier cap at 20.

I am interested, though, in how the 20-multiplier-cap is going to work out. Basically, I see a ton of generator spam in the future. How will we mitigate that, then? Tying the generators into the coresys? What of tiny resource bases?

Overloaderdave · December 2013

instead of the disabling air compressors, make the spawn atmosphere(the atmosphere the spawn planet is on, unless you make a list of them) have its atmosphere and temperature checked after 10 seconds of map change, then set the atmosphere constantly to that, and so mitigating the effects of them. because science.

LtBrandon · December 2013

Steeveeo wrote:

Firstly, what's wrong with wind generators? I think I'd rather have spinny bladed things that stand up straight rather than a massive area of land taken up by solar spam.

Secondly, could you add air compressors back in? I know that a lot of "noobs" use them because that's just a logical progression (need air? Air compressor!), but those same "noobs" also don't know enough to destroy a planet's atmosphere. On that same note, bio-terrorists are a thing, but those who intentionally use it to grief are few and far between (and we can ban them if they do that on the spawn, or better yet make the spawn invulnerable to it); draining a planet of it's O2 seems like an interesting tactic against an enemy base.

While there are very few planets at the moment that support terraforming, outright removing that ability before a replacement is in play is a bit much, especially when the reasons for such are, A) because of an event that rarely happens, and is already mitigated by making the multiplier cap at 20.

I am interested, though, in how the 20-multiplier-cap is going to work out. Basically, I see a ton of generator spam in the future. How will we mitigate that, then? Tying the generators into the coresys? What of tiny resource bases?

People have gone along with the changes surprisingly well. There have only been a few people who voiced any complaint to it, and most people I've talked to think the changes will sum up to be a good thing.

I'm testing what I change as I change it, there are things that I'll revert if I see that the change isn't working over the next week or so. My main thing as I do this is going to be try it before you say anything, please. I did think about all of the concerns you listed, and so far I haven't seen any notable issues beyond people who have too much shit on their fighters crying that they can't fire their bertha any more.

LtBrandon · December 2013

Having read what I posted yesterday, I notice that it doesn't actually explain why I decided to start changing everything in the first place. Rather than make another long post that will probably end up as a giant rant about how horribly useless lifesupport was, I'll just summarize it as best I can.

To start, lets scroll back a long time(a lot of people around now weren't here at this time) to when I implemented my(stupid) system with Support Energy. I originally implemented that because everyone was putting as many weapons as they possible could on their ship no matter the size, something which I noticed has been happening again lately, they were able to do it quite easily because of two things that had changed at the time:
[list][*]People had discovered and were readily abusing the "steam loop"[/*]
[*]One of the developers had come back and decided to multiply all of the storage values by some large numbers. It was multiplied by 1000 in the case of energy storage.[/*][/list]
These two bits combined(which you could still use until yesterday) allowed for nigh on retarded amounts of resource generation abilities.

Fast forward to 2013 after I put the old weapons back on the server. When I did this I decided to remove support energy and let people have another chance at not spamming weaponry, which actually worked out for quite a while. Now move forward to the other day, I came on for once in a long while and noticed two things:
[list][*]People were all relying on the "steam loop" again and were spamming tons of weapons(not as badly but still)[/*]
[*]Using any method other than the "steam loop" resulted in filling your ship taking well over 20 minutes, making LS3 pretty redundant as Kanzuke put it.[/*][/list]
After seeing this I decided that it was time to finally get around to bringing all of the different things back in line with each other.

Well, that ended up longer than I wanted it to be, but that's the gist of how these changes came to exist. On another note I also want you guys to please keep in mind that I did not make it so your resource managers are useless, I just brought them down to the same level as other methods. I hope all of that makes sense, let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Steeveeo · December 2013

Whatever the end result, please be sure to note the live changes in the Changelog. We were going to start using that more, remember? :V

LtBrandon · December 2013

Steeveeo wrote:

Whatever the end result, please be sure to note the live changes in the Changelog. We were going to start using that more, remember? :V

I'm going to put a changelog up as I finish things so people know what to expect, but for the WIP parts I probably won't because I change things too fast and we'll end up with half a billion posts if I post them.

Steeveeo · December 2013

What I usually did is note down the general changes I've made at the end of each day. If you do it like that, it will end up being about 7 posts, rather than half a billion. Considering these changes are live and affect everyone at the moment, it might be best to do it sooner rather than later.

LtBrandon · December 2013

Steeveeo wrote:

Considering these changes are live and affect everyone at the moment, it might be best to do it sooner rather than later.

Thats kinda why I made this thread, to inform people that I was actually making changes that will affect them. Anyways, a changelog will be done when I actually know what the final changes are.

Steeveeo · December 2013

A changelog isn't an announcement (we have an announcements section for that), it's just, well, a log of changes. A thread in the Development section usually has a connotation of "these changes are GOING to happen", whereas the change log is "These things have changed today".

DataSchmuck · December 2013

I am an offender of the steam loop/retarded amount of energy/throw every capital weapon on my frigate exploits. That being said, I support the changes. It's scary because all my ships are now crippled, but it will also give me a reason to come back on and rethink/redesign stuff.

LtBrandon · December 2013

DataSchmuck wrote:

I am an offender of the steam loop/retarded amount of energy/throw every capital weapon on my frigate exploits. That being said, I support the changes. It's scary because all my ships are now crippled, but it will also give me a reason to come back on and rethink/redesign stuff.

I'll make sure to ship this stuff over to server 2 in a jump freighter with super capital escorts when its done.

DataSchmuck · December 2013

LtBrandon wrote:

...when its done.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

LtBrandon · December 2013

I'm starting to close in on the end of my changes to SB3, only a couple new things and some fixes then its all good for people to complain/suggest changes. So far most people I've talked to like the changes too, which is always nice.

njits23 · December 2013

At first I was like "no, eww change." but after most of the stuff has come through, I think it'll be bearable, but I hope weapons will switch over to capacitor soon, because a lot of the bigger weapons can't be fired. You simply can't have enough energy storage. But with a few finishing touches, I'm confident it'll all turn out better than before

(no more evil puff fighter with four pulse cannons)

NormallyClosedSwitch · December 2013

A Knight Of Ni · December 2013

I forgot steam loop existed, fusions are all I use.

woothie · February 2014

Overloaderdave wrote:

instead of the disabling air compressors, make the spawn atmosphere(the atmosphere the spawn planet is on, unless you make a list of them) have its atmosphere and temperature checked after 10 seconds of map change, then set the atmosphere constantly to that, and so mitigating the effects of them. because science.

This kinda beats the whole purpose of balancing the way life support works as this is just... wat.
What you're saying is that we should give everyone the ability to extract unlimited resources from a limited area (spawn), meaning... I...
plsno

On the topic, I would support the removing of air compressors if we are given something to terraform planets with in the same run.

LtBrandon · February 2014

woothie wrote:

Overloaderdave wrote:

instead of the disabling air compressors, make the spawn atmosphere(the atmosphere the spawn planet is on, unless you make a list of them) have its atmosphere and temperature checked after 10 seconds of map change, then set the atmosphere constantly to that, and so mitigating the effects of them. because science.

This kinda beats the whole purpose of balancing the way life support works as this is just... wat.
What you're saying is that we should give everyone the ability to extract unlimited resources from a limited area (spawn), meaning... I...
plsno

On the topic, I would support the removing of air compressors if we are given something to terraform planets with in the same run.

Please look at dates before you post, this thread is two months old and all the changes I detailed in it have already been applied.

Spacebuild balancing/stuff

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