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17 Jun 2007, 14:03
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#51
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Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 846
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
well its always fun to see how ppl who gets a bright idea fails to see the flaws with it (appoco) youre idea with construction as a tool for the direction you want to play get crushed with sk and cov-op?, drop the idea or drop sk's
think, try out, implement -> gogo not go via your asslicking development team mofos, sove, monroe etc.... bah
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17 Jun 2007, 14:08
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#52
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Commodore
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Posts: 3,176
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
oh noes! i'm an 'asslicking' development 'mofo'!!!11!!11!1twelve11!!!!11!!
...
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17 Jun 2007, 14:19
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#53
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Banned
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Further to the right
Posts: 19,441
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Given how self-covering is such a huge thing for cathaar they should do hilariously badly next round. Like, terran this round bad.
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17 Jun 2007, 14:21
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#54
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Bolivian Alpaca
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Also, self covering is, from the zikonian point of view, pretty much the only effective way to steal ships (that, and / or hitting inactive planets for their ships). Last round i built corsairs only as needed to steal xan fr. This new idea of yours does not enhance the game play, it restricts it.
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17 Jun 2007, 14:39
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#55
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CRASHING BEATS 'N FANTASY
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Cold Country.
Posts: 1,912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
I think a decent overview of different scenarios would be a lot more helpful to argue the case.
Personally I still think that limiting the amount of useful stockpile is a not so bad idea as long as it is the players choice to decide how much it should be limited (as a trade off for other things)
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17 Jun 2007, 14:43
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#56
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Doh!
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit
Posts: 1,720
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
From a player point of view the idea is flawed, however that does not mean that all ideas should be discarded, yes it was good to see some changes in the game, both developmentaly and in applying new tactics.
However prior to implementation into the game they should be tested both from a practical and playable perspective. It seems to me that the idea was implemented without these considerations, and that no matter what it would remain and be implemented.
I heard through our HC (and others) that SK's are effectively going to be declawed and have around 5% of there current power. A step in the right direction to be sure.
The production issue, yes the requirement to have more factories is a positive inmho, as it negates other construction choices like distorters, that said the current way in which it works makes the production of ships a random event and not something that can be planned or even forseen.
(assuming same ship class)
Add to an existing order and the final eta changes, make a new order and the final eta changes on the 1st order and the estimated build time once ordered does not come close to the information given pre-order as it does not take into account current loading on the factories. A new factory comes out of construction and once again the eta on the order changes. And finally when the 1st order arrives the remaining order(s) speed up as again the load distribution on the factories is updated to reflect the load.
All the above makes for a purely random occurance of when ships will arrive.
Ships arriving early is as bad as them arriving late.
The ship production times per batch should be fixed at time of order.
Or perhaps a player can assign a number of factories to each production batch upon order.
so u could say order 2000 fighter and assign one factory to produce them eta 8 or two factories to get eta 4 etc...
Then if you want a subsequent order you could assign any remaining factories to that order as required to obtain the required production period.
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17 Jun 2007, 14:49
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#57
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 255
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
One of the issues i think with bringing in a change like this is that 99% of people have nfi how to actually work out their production times anymore. Theirs 3 formulas to get through with so many brackets in them it gets far to confusing for me
An idea may have been to release a production calc that works on the same formula as the one ingame, that allows you to toggle the # of factories, pop. and govt etc. and actually letting people see how long it would take with different quantity of ship orders and the effects of multiple orders. This way you'd allow people to actually be able to see the effects of the changes right away, instead of them logging in to the beta and seeing 56 ticks for their first order when they try to build ships.
As such, it would cut down on a lot of the misconception and jumping on the bandwagon if it was possible to see how well it does or doesn't work.
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17 Jun 2007, 15:02
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#58
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Doh!
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit
Posts: 1,720
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ceadrath
One of the issues i think with bringing in a change like this is that 99% of people have nfi how to actually work out their production times anymore. Theirs 3 formulas to get through with so many brackets in them it gets far to confusing for me
An idea may have been to release a production calc that works on the same formula as the one ingame, that allows you to toggle the # of factories, pop. and govt etc. and actually letting people see how long it would take with different quantity of ship orders and the effects of multiple orders. This way you'd allow people to actually be able to see the effects of the changes right away, instead of them logging in to the beta and seeing 56 ticks for their first order when they try to build ships.
As such, it would cut down on a lot of the misconception and jumping on the bandwagon if it was possible to see how well it does or doesn't work.
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the problem is that you cant see the effect of an order untill you have ordered it.
Also the indication of how long an order will take on the production page is based on there being no other orders.
So when you finally order your ships, the result is completly different from what is estimated. If your in a hurry last few minutes to a tick to get an order to help self cover, put in the numbers then get your estimate click the go button and the order is placed but bears no resemblance to the original estimated time.
So you have to cancel and do it again reducing the ship count to get the requisite eta on the ships.
Trial and error is about the only way to do it, and pressed for time, you can completely miss it.
There obviously has to be a formulae for ship production based on factory load etc... but for the life if me it is complete nonsense.
The other issues with ordering a second batch, yes you work out when it will arrive (trial and error) order them and think great they arrive eta 7 just in time for that incoming batch of fr and help defend.
Next tick your 1st order arrives, and suddenly the eta 7 batch jumps down to eta 4 as the load on the factories has been decreased by 60%. All well and good if your there to see it, you can adjust your population to slow it to the correct eta, but what if you just order it and then go off to work, so instead of your fr defence coming out of production eta 7 as was originally expected it arrives eta 5 right slap bang into the middle of a battle that kills it.
There is no way to predict this, it just happens and your stuffed.
Last edited by Judge; 17 Jun 2007 at 15:13.
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17 Jun 2007, 15:03
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#59
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 255
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge
the problem is that you cant see the effect of an order untill you have ordered it.
Also the indication of how long an order will take on the production page is based on there being no other orders.
So when you finally order your ships, the result is completly different from what is estimated. If your in a hurry last few minutes to a tick to get an order to help self cover, put in the numbers then get your estimate click the go button and the order is placed but bears no resemblance to the original estimated time.
So you have to cancel and do it again reducing the ship count to get the requisite eta on the ships.
Trial and error is about the only way to do it, and pressed for time, you can completely miss it.
There obviously has to be a formulae for ship production based on factory load etc... but for the life if me it is complete nonsense.
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which is why a calc in which you fiddle with the options and point out any rediculous results you get would be very useful
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17 Jun 2007, 15:41
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#60
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Up The Hatters!
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Kenilworth Road
Posts: 3,012
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
The difference with f.example playing starcraft or any other game is that you can always start a new game. Planetarion lasts for seven weeks.
I am honestly saying that if not some radical thing is not being done about this idea, TGV will not play next round. I refuse to sit and spend lots of time on a game when it can be ****ed totally up over three ticks. The amount of damage three waves on structurekillers will do at the moment will take over 300 ticks to fix, and I fail to see the logic or the reason why I should endure such a mess.
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17 Jun 2007, 15:43
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#61
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Reject False Icons
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Your Hotel.... Fee:$999
Posts: 896
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Another alternative would be to reduce the 20% max kill rate to something far less damaging; eg 10% or 5% or whatever, as then you'd have to truely get waved all to hell in order to loose the sufficient number of structures required. Further, even at 20 factories of two types (which is alot), that's only 40 out of up to 150 structures or about a third, so any damage a SK does will at most be resulting in 30% of firepower (which is stuff all) onto factories.
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NOOOOOOO! This would be another example of a rushed wy to solve it and is a quick fix. Removing structure killers or nerfing their efficiency just papers over the problems created from having to invest in mass structures required for shipbuilding.
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17 Jun 2007, 15:45
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#62
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Doh!
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit
Posts: 1,720
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ceadrath
which is why a calc in which you fiddle with the options and point out any rediculous results you get would be very useful ![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
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There is NO WAY to predict completion of a batch of ships.
Even a calc cannot take into account the reduction on factory load when the first batch arrives and the subsequent batch or batches speed up.
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17 Jun 2007, 15:55
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#63
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CRASHING BEATS 'N FANTASY
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Cold Country.
Posts: 1,912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge
There is NO WAY to predict completion of a batch of ships.
Even a calc cannot take into account the reduction on factory load when the first batch arrives and the subsequent batch or batches speed up.
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Go back to school and pay attention to this subject called "mathematics".
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17 Jun 2007, 15:57
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#64
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 255
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge
There is NO WAY to predict completion of a batch of ships.
Even a calc cannot take into account the reduction on factory load when the first batch arrives and the subsequent batch or batches speed up.
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i presumed that because the game engine can do it then it's not impossible to recreate it
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17 Jun 2007, 16:00
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#65
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Doh!
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit
Posts: 1,720
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
Go back to school and pay attention to this subject called "mathematics".
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ok clever arse, you build a calc that takes into account the current production load, and the estimated production time of a new batch of ships, and then re-calculates when the first batch finish and the load on the factories is re-distributed.
better to shut up and let people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and confirm it.
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17 Jun 2007, 16:07
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#66
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Alive and kicking
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Kingdom of the Netherlands
Posts: 220
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge
There is NO WAY to predict completion of a batch of ships.
Even a calc cannot take into account the reduction on factory load when the first batch arrives and the subsequent batch or batches speed up.
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I calculated the productiontime in an Excel spreadsheet for a single batch. I don't see why you cannot do this repeatedly for multiple batches and ticks (=multiple iterations). All you need then is the right input.
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17 Jun 2007, 16:11
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#67
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BlueTuba
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 6,339
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
To put it simply - the proposed production system for r22 is just daft and causing complication for complication's sake. Producing ships is one of the basic game concepts and should be simple.
There are far more important issues with the game to be dealt with than creating complexity in working out when ships are produced. We have enough calcs as it is.
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17 Jun 2007, 16:11
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#68
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Banned
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Further to the right
Posts: 19,441
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge
There is NO WAY to predict completion of a batch of ships.
Even a calc cannot take into account the reduction on factory load when the first batch arrives and the subsequent batch or batches speed up.
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While I agree with you that this is a bad idea do you actually know what you're saying here?
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17 Jun 2007, 16:11
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#69
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Bolivian Alpaca
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Messing with ship arrival etas is a huge no-no. If you really want to "force" people into building more factories, make it so that a factory can only handle a given amount of ships in production, or that 1 factory can only process 1 order at any given time. Just don't make the production eta variable.
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17 Jun 2007, 16:15
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#70
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PA Team
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 7,449
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
a quick update, structure killers are limited to killing 5% instead of the previous 20% of structures.
Also, it's very possible to add to an additional order (indeed, generally recommended), thereby reducing the number of orders and removing such huge doubts about production times.
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r8-10 RaH r10.5-12 MISTU
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17 Jun 2007, 16:16
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#71
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BlueTuba
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 6,339
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gio2k
Messing with ship arrival etas is a huge no-no. If you really want to "force" people into building more factories, make it so that a factory can only handle a given amount of ships in production, or that 1 factory can only process 1 order at any given time. Just don't make the production eta variable.
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You see if you are going to work on the production feature, this is the kind of change you want, because it's simple and easy for everyone to understand. Let us suppose i am a new player. Do I really want to bother with another load of complex formulae and finding out where calcs are for this kind of thing?
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17 Jun 2007, 16:32
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#72
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CRASHING BEATS 'N FANTASY
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Cold Country.
Posts: 1,912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
The overall problem certainly is that something was made unnecessarily complex. Associating a maximum number of ships one could order per factory would have been the ideal solution.
Production time would be influenced by population, government and race modifier. Amount of units being produced during one production time cycle would have been decidable by amount of factories of the required type.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Example
Each factory can build 5000 ships in 10 ticks (base-time).
I go Cathaar and get a malus of 1 tick on production time (=> 11 ticks).
I have 3 light factories (=> maximum of 15000 ships).
I now order 9000 fighters / corvettes.
Now, until those 9000 ships arrive, I could order another 6000 ships at a maximum, because 3/5 of my factory's capability is used up already and the 6000 more ships would make up 40% more.
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That way, stockpiles become inefficient without a large amount of factories, while at the same time it would still be easy to figure how long it would take to produce X more ships.
@Judge: Speaking of yourself, eh?
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17 Jun 2007, 16:39
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#73
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PA Team
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 7,449
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
The overall problem certainly is that something was made unnecessarily complex. Associating a maximum number of ships one could order per factory would have been the ideal solution.
Production time would be influenced by population, government and race modifier. Amount of units being produced during one production time cycle would have been decidable by amount of factories of the required type.
That way, stockpiles become inefficient without a large amount of factories, while at the same time it would still be easy to figure how long it would take to produce X more ships.
@Judge: Speaking of yourself, eh?
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in general, ok, but s/ships/value.
However, the problem is that we were trying to convert production to something more like research and construction, where everything has a number of "units" associated with it and the planet produces a particular amount of those per tick (this allowed us to, for example, remove the time delay on population changes).
This means computing some amount of units for a particular order, and the amount of units that a planet produces.
The main issue is really how multiple orders are handled. Only handling at most one order of each type would remove the abiguity of the finish ticks.
Alternatively, having some sort of pause option to pause less necessary orders might help.
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r8-10 RaH r10.5-12 MISTU
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17 Jun 2007, 16:45
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#74
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Banned
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Further to the right
Posts: 19,441
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
In general I don't think anyone would agree that it's a good thing that new players can sign up build ships which they think will be produced in 8 ticks or something and they actually get produced in 12 and get killed by some guy landing that tick. To describe the aforementioned as anything other than "sucking horrifically" would be a grave understatement.
I think while I support a choice-based system for playing styles introducing new things which require the use of calcs isn't a good thing unless they're really fantastically worthwhile and actually add depth in a new area.
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17 Jun 2007, 16:49
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#75
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CRASHING BEATS 'N FANTASY
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Cold Country.
Posts: 1,912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Appocomaster
in general, ok, but s/ships/value.
However, the problem is that we were trying to convert production to something more like research and construction, where everything has a number of "units" associated with it and the planet produces a particular amount of those per tick (this allowed us to, for example, remove the time delay on population changes).
This means computing some amount of units for a particular order, and the amount of units that a planet produces.
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Why this artificial complication? The system I just sketched up does exactly the same, except that it does not compute units but assigns them directly. Also, why take value instead of the number of ships?
My proposal has the same effect as yours should have, but it is easier to understand for people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Appocomaster
The main issue is really how multiple orders are handled. Only handling at most one order of each type would remove the abiguity of the finish ticks.
Alternatively, having some sort of pause option to pause less necessary orders might help.
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Handling multiple orders ain't a problem with my proposal - you simply go and see how much "production space" is left in the given factories. If there's not enough space left for the desired order => tough luck, either cancel your current production or live with it.
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17 Jun 2007, 16:56
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#76
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Good Son
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Finland
Posts: 3,991
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
Why this artificial complication? The system I just sketched up does exactly the same, except that it does not compute units but assigns them directly. Also, why take value instead of the number of ships?
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Very simple. Those basic mathematics lessons you mentioned to Judge work here too. If you use number of ships, a terran can build 15000 harpies. That's 5,400,000 resources. A xandathrii can build 15000 banshees. That's worth 1,125,000 resources. Given, with three light factories, terran production is 4,8 times as effective as xandathrii production. For the basic mathematics, a terran factory produces 480% in terms of a xandathrii factory (edit. given that you want to produce banshees for xandathrii and harpies for terran). That's a huge advantage.
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17 Jun 2007, 17:01
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#77
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CRASHING BEATS 'N FANTASY
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Cold Country.
Posts: 1,912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tietäjä
Very simple. Those basic mathematics lessons you mentioned to Judge work here too. If you use number of ships, a terran can build 15000 harpies. That's 5,400,000 resources. A xandathrii can build 15000 banshees. That's worth 1,125,000 resources. Given, with three light factories, terran production is 4,8 times as effective as xandathrii production. For the basic mathematics, a terran factory produces 480% in terms of a xandathrii factory (edit. given that you want to produce banshees for xandathrii and harpies for terran). That's a huge advantage.
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Agreed, that's a huge difference, but not necessarily an advantage. Terran have other difficulties, too :-) In the end it would just mean that stock piling is not equally efficient for everyone.
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17 Jun 2007, 17:07
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#78
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Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 846
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
just change fleetnumbers in hartless thingie to fleetvalue and problem is solved
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17 Jun 2007, 17:10
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#79
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Good Son
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Finland
Posts: 3,991
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
It's definately an advantage. The more you can produce with the less factories, the better. What goes beyond producing ships balancewise is beyond producing ships. Being able to double or triple up on production means you have to build a lot less factories to achieve the same benefit. Edit: yes, as robban mentioned (and this is why you use shipvalue. or resources, whatsoever. there's already an excisting resource cost calculator, just add some figure to show how much more in resources your factories have capacity).
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17 Jun 2007, 17:54
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#80
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Registered Awesome Person
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 5,676
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
There were many ways of 'solving' the stockpile 'problem' that didn't involve a complete overhaul of the production system. Off the top of my head, you could have limited the number of resources that could be stored at any one time (e.g. to 50/100 million of each resource), or made stockpiled resources depreciate at the rate of 0.1-1% per tick. There were many ways of doing something without introducing major untested changes that can so obviously go wrong.
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17 Jun 2007, 17:55
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#81
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BlueTuba 4Eva
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Pickering, England
Posts: 53
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
the needing more factories to produce large amounts faster is one thing but the changing production etas will simply annoy alot of players and once some have messed up and lost something cos of it changing and been hit by an incoming it would've missed simply wont bother playing.
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Last edited by Hutchi; 17 Jun 2007 at 18:20.
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17 Jun 2007, 18:41
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#82
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:alpha:
Join Date: May 2002
Location: London, UK
Posts: 7,871
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
I agree with Heartless. I don't see what the huge problem is.
The game has been changing since round 1, with people complaining about change. Yet we all adapted and now we're used to how it is.
A couple of points:
1. Stockpiling is gay and makes planets effectively "unhittable" as people can buy ships to save themselves.
2. Self-covering isn't that great a tactic. In fact it's very annoying if you attack someone, check you'll do ok, check they have no defence, then they spend money on ships to stop you (or get them donated).
3. The game needs to evolve. Stop halting that.
4. If this idea doesn't work, then it'll be apparent by the end of this round and I'm sure PA Team will tweak it for the next round.
5. Stop whining - it's a free round so let's try something a little bit different (I want to say "radical" but that's a bit too exciting for planetarion) and see how it goes.
Having said that, this does seem needlessly complicated and does not make the game simpler and more appealing to new players. I still don't understand it. The idea with ordering lots of ships taking longer is a good one. It needs to be simpler though. Also, if you're goign to go with "logic", then why not also introduce economies of scale? The price per ship decreases as the number ordered increases. Of coruse, they take longer, but in total are cheaper. That might balance it out and stop people whining so much.
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17 Jun 2007, 19:35
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#83
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Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 30
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
I don't mind this change much at all, in fact I think it's pretty neat. I always hated stockpiles, especially *huge* ones, it made attacking sometimes feel pointless, since they could stop your fleet from the get-go.
The changes themselves, as far as I've messed around with them in the private and open Beta, aren't so bad. However, this might have to do with my playing strategy. I never have more than one ship order at once, I never stockpiled, and I only built defence over attacks once or twice, if that. Granted not everyone will play the same way as I do, but I feel the need to point out that not everyone plays in exactly the same way. Basically I only built once a day. And with these changes, I still only need to build ships once a day. So it doesn't really change much for me.
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17 Jun 2007, 22:58
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#84
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BlueTuba
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 6,339
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
The issue here is not "lets not change the game", the issue is "lets not make a simple concept of the game unnecessarily complex"
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"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
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17 Jun 2007, 23:28
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#85
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Alive and kicking
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Kingdom of the Netherlands
Posts: 220
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
I never stockpiled, but with these changes, stockpiling is a lot easier and more attractive.
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18 Jun 2007, 00:02
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#86
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Bolivian Alpaca
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 912
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerbie2
I never stockpiled, but with these changes, stockpiling is a lot easier and more attractive.
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huh?
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"I throw myself into the sea, release the wave, let it wash over me ..."
MadCowS - Angels - eXilition - Destiny - Wolfpack - Jenova - p3nguins
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18 Jun 2007, 00:06
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#87
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Evil inside
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 3,631
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by furball
There were many ways of 'solving' the stockpile 'problem' that didn't involve a complete overhaul of the production system. Off the top of my head, you could have limited the number of resources that could be stored at any one time (e.g. to 50/100 million of each resource), or made stockpiled resources depreciate at the rate of 0.1-1% per tick. There were many ways of doing something without introducing major untested changes that can so obviously go wrong.
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Don't be smart furball.
I had really intended to play, but after playing beta and seeing how pateam reacts when people tell them how bad this production thing is, Im very unsure If I actually want to play again.
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<Germania>but you called Fury a bully, and that is terribly unfair
<Hicks>Occassionally individuals do things without Executive consent
<Dreadnought>You cant whois on Eclipse server without a registered nic, which mr ****stirrer doesnt have.
<Almeida> well i like to grow fat myself too, and when i have enough ships then i can engage in big battles
<Nantoz> Zhukov for Lord Protector!
<Jakiri> (Windows)XP was fine on release
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18 Jun 2007, 00:10
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#88
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[Vision]
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 897
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gio2k
huh? ![Confused](images/smilies/confused.gif)
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I guess he is talking about the option of continiously adding ships to existing orders, basicly stopping them from ever being completed untill you want them to be completed. That way you can have a 'huge' stock on order without anyone ever knowing. Although i doubt its easier than 'conventional' stockpiling (since it requires a fair amount of activity to stop the orders from completing), it certainly is a interesting and attractive (potentially damaging) option.
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[Vision] in a lost dream, contributing to The 5th Element at present
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18 Jun 2007, 07:28
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#89
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The PropaGhandi
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 796
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Well, now you have to stockpile, its either that or waste time in the beginning building 1 billion of each shipfactory.
So, its better to build few, then wait until end of round, build lots of em, then grow.
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18 Jun 2007, 07:52
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#90
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Tilting at windmills
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 579
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
To summarise this thread.
Idea almost universally agreed to be "very shit"
Uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut
Other alternatives are available.
These alternatives are simpler
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[Fury] [1up] [Ascendancy]
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18 Jun 2007, 09:08
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#91
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Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 46
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
the idea isnt all that bad imo, currently there are 2 ways of "preventing incomings"
Dists
Fleet Construction + finance centres + Stockpiling (which could as seen last round make it far too difficult to actually attack the bigger planets) and leads to stagnation
All this does is now is prevent the stagnation and break down your second option into 2 different options making you choose (as you had to before between dists and fleet composition/finance centres).
If stockpiling was your main tactic then you can still do it as effectively it seems, you just cant build as many finance centres, if dists was your tactic then this will hardly effect you anyway.
Agreed it does seem like a slightly bad implementation (although i havent used or seen it) but the idea is good imo.
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R4 - [The Collective/Newdawn]
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R22 - [Ascendency]
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18 Jun 2007, 10:20
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#92
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Inactive peon
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,050
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
This is my view on complex formulae:
- it doesn't matter how complex a formula is
- a complciated formula doesn't by defintion mean something is complciated
- people shouldn't need to know the formulae to play the game.
What I would like to see more in future rounds is in-game calculators that show the results of chanegs before you make them. e.g. when on the opulation page when you adjust the slider it would be cool if you could see the FULL effects this has on your planet before you hit the submit button. Now this is tricky for a number of reasons a) it requires extenssive java script which makes the pages quite complicated and b) becuase of how everything is interlinked there are a lot of things affected by the changes so loads of information would need to be displayed.
Now personally I am at a loss as to a decent way of doing b) - if the community could come up with good ideas to solve that problem, then I expect we could have ago at solving a). The sort of things we would need is mock layouts of the information - I always find a visual representation of an idea helps.
As to the specific issues with production - there are some yes. I think most of the issues will be mittigated by Appoco's changes to structure killers, and the rest would probabaly be solved through a better display of information. Clearly this is not going to be possible to do fully for R22, but we will have a look and see if we can do something to help matters.
It would be useful if people could suggest easy changes to the current system that would help to alleviate their concerns as with the short time scales the only real options are tweaking or reverting to the R21 code. This is clearly something that would firstly be a shame, and secondly probabaly mean having to do a full rest of the game.
Additionally, I think that a free round is a good time to try out new things. For example, it may be that some of the current playign customers don't like it, but at the same time it may be that some of the people trying the game like it and decide to play next round. If PA is to stand any chance of surviving risks need to be taken - sometimes this will work out, sometimes it won't - but one thing is certain, if we sit here and do nothing the game will die.
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18 Jun 2007, 10:44
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#93
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.
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 3,382
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
please discuss with the community at whole about your grand scale ideas next time instead of just a small beta team that you ignore apparently anyways
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18 Jun 2007, 11:01
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#94
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Commodore
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Posts: 3,176
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
It would be useful if people could suggest easy changes to the current system that would help to alleviate their concerns as with the short time scales the only real options are tweaking or reverting to the R21 code.
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Taking a snapshot of existing number of factories when an order is placed is a simple solution, it addresses the major concern of many players (being unable to predict when a ship order will actually arrive), whilst still maintains the 'feel' of the majority of changes which is to promote a more dynamic system as players can choose to alter their population settings to alter the production times.
Quote:
If PA is to stand any chance of surviving risks need to be taken - sometimes this will work out, sometimes it won't - but one thing is certain, if we sit here and do nothing the game will die.
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Whilst this is fundamentally correct, i think it can be taken too far. The introduction of a 'bad' or extremely unpopular change whilst ignoring reasonable and/or simple changes which would allieveiate the major problems is nothing short of sheer laziness. Dont use evolution as an excuse to do nothing when doing something can be done to fix it.
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18 Jun 2007, 11:20
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#95
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Doh!
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit
Posts: 1,720
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
It would be useful if people could suggest easy changes to the current system that would help to alleviate their concerns as with the short time scales the only real options are tweaking or reverting to the R21 code. This is clearly something that would firstly be a shame, and secondly probabaly mean having to do a full rest of the game.
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U_B's suggestions are certainly worth merit, are they anything like do-able?
I would suggest that a player can assign factories to an order.
Example you have 10 factories (Light) and want to order 10000 fighters to arrive as fast as possible.
So you assign all 10 factories to the task, upon doing so you are given the completion tick, and note that you dont need them for a few ticks later, so you adjust the factories assigned to 6 and the production time lengthens to what you want or require.
The 4 other factories are sat idle but you could then assign them to produce 2000 corvette.
Once placed an order could be cancelled as before with subsequent loss in resources.
This system would give a fixed and easily manageble production queue, also fulfill the requirement of multiple factories (to reduce disto whoring etc).
Benefits.
Gives a definite and predictable outcome for your ship orders
Adds a new dimension to the game
Reduces the ability to pile up the distorters
Reduces stockpiling of funds (unless you offset it by getting more factories)
Drawbacks.
Not wholley dynamic as was the original idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
Additionally, I think that a free round is a good time to try out new things. For example, it may be that some of the current playign customers don't like it, but at the same time it may be that some of the people trying the game like it and decide to play next round. If PA is to stand any chance of surviving risks need to be taken - sometimes this will work out, sometimes it won't - but one thing is certain, if we sit here and do nothing the game will die.
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Whilst I agree that a free round is an opportunity to test out some changes on a larger scale than a beta, that does not mean you can use the free round as a beta, or to implement untested/untried/unpopular ideas.
I also realise that it is often a struggle to get feedback from a broad spectrum or players, or even a majority, it is always the "usual suspects" and often felt by PA team etc.. that we moan for the sake of it. I can assure you that this is not the case, whilst we "the usual suspects" are the ones that reply and we do not have an ellected mandate to speak for others, often the complaints we make and suggestions for change are discussed up and down the respective alliances, with members officers and HC's alike.
I dont purport to have a monoply on good ideas, and often make bad ones, but that is for others to judge, I am just glad that some note has been taken and that it appears that the current changes are a step to far.
Whatever is finally agreed upon it will require testing unless of course if it is a predictable and easily understood change.
Last edited by Judge; 18 Jun 2007 at 11:32.
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18 Jun 2007, 11:22
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#96
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Inactive peon
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,050
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by jerome
please discuss with the community at whole about your grand scale ideas next time instead of just a small beta team that you ignore apparently anyways
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When the beta testers give constructive feedback we do listen. The problem is that often despite our best efforts we get people in the beta who don't give feedback beyond "I don't like this feature".
I personally am happy to discuss ideas with people, but there are two levels to it: the idea level and the implementation level. Once a decision has been made on the idea and we want to discuss implementation its not helpful to us for people to want to change the idea. Now I realise that is human nature, I myself am guilty of trying to change ideas when it is too late. Part of the problem is that the implementation bit is generally pretty dull, so people don;t want to spend time discussing it or testing it.
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18 Jun 2007, 11:23
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#97
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Up The Hatters!
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Kenilworth Road
Posts: 3,012
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
This is my view on complex formulae:
- it doesn't matter how complex a formula is
- a complciated formula doesn't by defintion mean something is complciated
- people shouldn't need to know the formulae to play the game.
What I would like to see more in future rounds is in-game calculators that show the results of chanegs before you make them. e.g. when on the opulation page when you adjust the slider it would be cool if you could see the FULL effects this has on your planet before you hit the submit button. Now this is tricky for a number of reasons a) it requires extenssive java script which makes the pages quite complicated and b) becuase of how everything is interlinked there are a lot of things affected by the changes so loads of information would need to be displayed.
Now personally I am at a loss as to a decent way of doing b) - if the community could come up with good ideas to solve that problem, then I expect we could have ago at solving a). The sort of things we would need is mock layouts of the information - I always find a visual representation of an idea helps.
As to the specific issues with production - there are some yes. I think most of the issues will be mittigated by Appoco's changes to structure killers, and the rest would probabaly be solved through a better display of information. Clearly this is not going to be possible to do fully for R22, but we will have a look and see if we can do something to help matters.
It would be useful if people could suggest easy changes to the current system that would help to alleviate their concerns as with the short time scales the only real options are tweaking or reverting to the R21 code. This is clearly something that would firstly be a shame, and secondly probabaly mean having to do a full rest of the game.
Additionally, I think that a free round is a good time to try out new things. For example, it may be that some of the current playign customers don't like it, but at the same time it may be that some of the people trying the game like it and decide to play next round. If PA is to stand any chance of surviving risks need to be taken - sometimes this will work out, sometimes it won't - but one thing is certain, if we sit here and do nothing the game will die.
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I honestly have lost all faith in your ability to run Planetarion, while I think last rounds changes very mainly positive and made every effort to let the PA team know how satisfied I was, I had high hopes for the new round, after looking at the changes suggested my hopes had fallen. I've had 6-7 different messages from people who does not want to play Planetarion with these new changes, claiming that they will destroy the game they have grown to love.
How do you plan on getting new players to the game when people who loves the game leaves and does not want to have any further part in it? They leave the game and for sure wont say nice words about planetarion when they leave in protest from the game.
You have no advertising budget and rely on the players to advertise for the game, and many of us does exactly this, only to find you saying : go to hell with your suggestions when we advice you about FACTUAL problems with the changes you try to impose on us. What does this say about the PA-Teams grasp on what the base of PA players want?
Earlier I suggested that the PA-Team should put forward a survey which could give them some relevant data on how the common player perceive planetarion, yet again this was ignored, as Kal and others apparently sees that they are the only ones that can understand what a Planetarion player wants and needs. Totally bogus claim Kal, there are people with educations like graphics designers, programming coders, marketing advisor's and average joe internet player playing Planetarion, yet you choose to ignore the fact that they are able to have a good reason behind their opinions about the game.
You have told me from time to time that you have no problems pissing some parts of the community away because you believe that in the end we _gotta_ do something to make planetarion survive.. But you again still lose track of the reality in the situation when you have no advertising budget, you have no or little knowledge of marketing or anyone who is able to design some decent graphics for the game, you have nobody updating the manual which gives people some basic knowhow on how the game works.
There are more important issues to attend to than to mess up the game that brought so much good positive vibes last round. I wish the PA team could have understood and known that but yet again we see how they work and how they fail to put their ears to the ground to listen to what the community has to say. A game that constantly changes loses touch with the players playing it. In the end they will lose their interest.
Good going PA-Team, you're back on track on the destruction of Planetarion.
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Planetarion veteran
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18 Jun 2007, 11:28
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#98
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Inactive peon
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,050
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Taking a snapshot of existing number of factories when an order is placed is a simple solution, it addresses the major concern of many players (being unable to predict when a ship order will actually arrive), whilst still maintains the 'feel' of the majority of changes which is to promote a more dynamic system as players can choose to alter their population settings to alter the production times.
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I agree it is pretty simple (at least I assume it is), and it does solve one of the immediate problems, however it is a step back from where we want to be with the game. There are other solutions to the issues that we are investigating.
One of the reasons I don't quite like your idea is that I quite like the idea of using covert ops, or SKs to mess around with people's ability to self defend and generally annoy them. While I agree its not pleasant to be on the receiving end, plenty of the game isn't pleasent - it is meant to be a war game. As I've said I'd like someway of visually showing the effects of things - this shoudl extend to the constructions page - when you go to buidl a factory you should somehow be told the affect this will have on your current production orders, your current research etc. This will help users make decisions without needing to understand the formulae. I would love to be able to get this sort of dynamic feedback into R23, but it will require a lot of help from the community on how to structure it, where to put it etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Whilst this is fundamentally correct, i think it can be taken too far. The introduction of a 'bad' or extremely unpopular change whilst ignoring reasonable and/or simple changes which would allieveiate the major problems is nothing short of sheer laziness. Dont use evolution as an excuse to do nothing when doing something can be done to fix it.
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I agree. I'm just not convinced by your particular solution.
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18 Jun 2007, 11:30
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#99
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Inactive peon
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 6,050
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge
U_B's suggestions are certainly worth merit, are they anything like do-able?
I would suggest that a player can assign factories to an order.
Example you have 10 factories (Light) and want to order 10000 fighters to arrive as fast as possible.
So you assign all 10 factories to the task, upon doing so you are given the completion tick, and note that you dont need them for a few ticks later, so you adjust the factories assigned to 6 and the production time lengthens to what you want or require.
The 4 other factories are sat idle but you could then assign them to produce 2000 corvette.
Once placed an order could be cancelled as before with subsequent loss in resources.
This system would give a fixed and easily manageble production queue, also fulfill the requirement of multiple factories (to reduce disto whoring etc).
Benefits.
Gives a definite and predictable outcome for your ship orders
Adds a new dimension to the game
Reduces the ability to pile up the distorters
Reduces stockpiling of funds (unless you offset it by getting more factories)
Drawbacks.
Not wholley dynamic as was the original idea.
If this is do-able or any other reasonable suggestion I would be happy to see it tested first and if successful implemented.
Even if this means a weeks delay to R22 starting.
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I actually really like the idea of assigning factories to an order, I think its pretty neat, but unfortunatly I highly doubt anything like that would be possible given the timescales.
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18 Jun 2007, 11:31
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#100
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Up The Hatters!
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Kenilworth Road
Posts: 3,012
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Re: R 22 Construction/Production
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
One of the reasons I don't quite like your idea is that I quite like the idea of using covert ops, or SKs to mess around with people's ability to self defend and generally annoy them. While I agree its not pleasant to be on the receiving end, plenty of the game isn't pleasent - it is meant to be a war game. As I've said I'd like someway of visually showing the effects of things - this shoudl extend to the constructions page - when you go to buidl a factory you should somehow be told the affect this will have on your current production orders, your current research etc. This will help users make decisions without needing to understand the formulae. I would love to be able to get this sort of dynamic feedback into R23, but it will require a lot of help from the community on how to structure it, where to put it etc.
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I gotta give you that, when you go down, you at least go down with flags held high.
I think most people except you agree that there are enough situations in the game that makes a players round go belly up already. There is no need to add more.
Remember its a seven week round, and we would like to have people around for all the seven weeks, not quitting after 3-4
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Planetarion veteran
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