Hello

@Jammer

I feel the same from my point of view. Its good to play SI but after such long time its just borring now to stay several haours just on it - and the most important thing in this game NUMBER OF PLAYERS - is decreesing, or the only ones ingame are old timers.

But i would vote yes for these, exept few things that are more an absurd for me.

Miner and Researcher :

the Galaxy scanner can only be used every 120s - thats the reason this will not be choosen by a lot of people, for the start you are disabling astro very badlly. Wait for next scan wait ... its takes so long now to play classic unis and you want to expand these times here ? This is really annoing that astro will be limited for such a long time.

Fleeter :

1 additional raid colony (no mines on this planet) - this will be a bonus for a miner for extra slots for event recycle and farming, aswell for somebody who want to play mixed style.

I will choose it and make 2 extra planets what i used this way now - for mining only then if thi is activated.
It will be more than 10% production bonus that i could have from mining specialization and no scener restrictions.

Quote

A Raid-Colony is a planet with the restriction that no mines, fusion plants or storages can be build up - any other building will be available.

What about teleporters ? And charging of them if they are avaliable there ?

regards

Quote from Mariusz025

the Galaxy scanner can only be used every 120s - thats the reason this will not be choosen by a lot of people, for the start you are disabling astro very badlly. Wait for next scan wait ... its takes so long now to play classic unis and you want to expand these times here ? This is really annoing that astro will be limited for such a long time.

I would like to apologize for the English straight from the translator.
What do you think of a modification of the Galaxy scanner. How a sonar works.
Once triggered, it starts a decreasing scan. for example first 10 fields then 8/6/4 etc. depending on the expansion level. That would mean that I could scan a planet in the neighboring Galaxy 5X with just one scan.I hope it is understandable.

Lg Solar

Quote from Solarbomber-PD

I would like to apologize for the English straight from the translator.

This English is perfectly understandable! Thanks for making the effort!

Quote from Dschibait

But such a feature dosn't reduce the player amount; maybe more players will look into a active and developed game. I don't understand this point at all - i don't have a magic spell to get new players.

I agree.

Here is a point of interest.

Quote from Jammer

The game is very boring. I like it that way.

Dschibait, many of the long term players keep playing this game because of it's simplicity. It might be boring, but they can easily manage the "famerama" feel to this.

On the other hand, many players like myself keep coming back to the game due to a sense of potential excitement. The adrenaline rush when you have a 7 second window to save or be smashed, or when you are trying to time your intercept of someone else so they have less than 2 seconds to react - that is addicting! But then things become boring, and unlike Jammer, we go inactive and play other games for a year or so, then we come back because we miss the adrenaline.

My point is, with these updates, you might be making this game more interesting for some, but you might be making it too complicated for a large amount of passive players.

Finding your magic spell for new players might only happen when the game becomes more complex and needs brain activity in order to play...but some other players might be lost along the way...

I want more complexity!!! :))))

Quote from Fodsey

I want more complexity!!! :))))

If we go back to the days of hundreds of online players simultaneously, then I agree. But they're not there, now. What we have is the ultra-rich with tens of millions of points (or hundreds of millions!) versus people with substantially less. Most of the really high point active players are in Europe. The rest are in the United States. Because this is a real-time game, if you only have the ability to play for 30-60 minutes before you go to work in the morning (as I do) then you can't compete in real time with someone who is 4-8 hours different in real-time. They'll be launching 30-60 minute attack runs and you'll be at work.

So you have to save flight. Which means they won't bother attacking you in the first place because you have nothing useful to steal.

So you create a perpetual downward spiral of 99% return every round. One player out of 100 will not return because they find the game not to their liking (either too aggressive or not aggressive enough). Eventually, you get to the leftover stellar core of material no longer capable of producing fusion and the star slowly cools to a pile of dense carbon. Wait - I'm mixing my astrophysics with my spaceinvasion, but you get the idea.

The real answer is, indeed, substantially more players. But since there is no magic (or advertising, as far as I can see) to bring in new players, one alternative would be AI computer generated adversaries. Even if it's just fake players running a script (build when they can, research when they can, scout planets in some fashion, and attack when they find an attackable planet) then we could pretend that there are more players.

Don't get me wrong - I miss the days of excitement just like you, Fodsey. But since those aren't here, and I don't have that kind of time anymore, I sort of like the "farmarama" method these days.

-Jammer (formerly Irron, Poostid, and others I've forgotten)

You do make sense. I have found out first hand how disadvantaged I can be when faced by the unemployed or the college student with no sense of time problems. I have also found out that some of my opponents have teamed up with girlfriends/siblings to help gather resources etc while they slept.

I have a full time job and a second job that comes and goes. Sometimes I can play a bit at work, but sometimes not. Real life drives the parameters that we live with...

The end of it is though, that change is needed in SI before expecting to see thousands of active players like there were decade ago. If you and I struggle with the time to apply these changes, so be it. When I get some free time - I'll rock those changes!

But the new blood will NEED more to this game than is here now if they are going to come and also if they are going to stay.

It might be working for you as it is, but unless you are the end game for Dschibait (I somehow don't think that is feasible), then some innovation is fundamentally critical.

I don't think you and I see things too differently, except that you feel the proposed changes might not change anything. Maybe not, but innovation must begin somewhere...

Quote from Dschibait

finally:
you can charge teleporters by solarcells.

Well if you allowed at least 6 levels of Spice mine for raid planet we also be able to build thermo solar plants. Or you could have it that it would just allow you to build thermo solar plants without having to build spice mines at all on the raid planet. At least then the player doesn't have to use sacrificial Solar Cells.

Or you could look at changing the tech tree here

To Possibly Energy technology [level 4]

And adding a new tech like Solar Cell Tech which would be good as then player's would be also able to improve the Solar Cells as well with this kind of tech by say for each level of Solar Cell tech you increase the solar collection ability of Solar Cells by 0.5% per level. This would improve both Thermo Solar Plant production of energy and Solar Cell production of energy.

Then would be no need to have the Spice Mines to be able to build Thermo Solar Plant

Quote from Jammer

Don't get me wrong - I miss the days of excitement just like you, Fodsey. But since those aren't here, and I don't have that kind of time anymore, I sort of like the "farmarama" method these days.

-Jammer (formerly Irron, Poostid, and others I've forgotten)

Well in the good old days the res supplies weren't out rageously out of control like they are these day's. You basically had to go hunt down resource's and take fleets out to continually rise the ranks. These days you can relax and just continually build without having to worry that you mighten have the res to replace a fleet. As res is just in so much abundance compared to years ago.

It sounds like like we're all basically saying the same thing:

The good old days were good; the current days are not.

I like that the devs are trying to do something, and I'll be the first player to shift from urplasma production to battleship production if I thought building attack fleets would get me anywhere, but I just don't like the list of benefits/penalties as listed now.

Here's my thoughts on that, as opposed to overall game economics and zero-sum game theory:

Limiting access to the scanner simply punishes people who've lost fleet to create an asteroid)

If you're going to call turtles miners, then give them defense production bonuses as is, but remove that from fleeter. Fleeter should get production bonus only on attack ships. In other words, make it cheaper/faster to build defenses for miners and cheaper/faster to build attack ships for fleeters. Do not make it cheaper/faster for fleeters to build defenses.

I do not like the "steals more resources" attribute of fleeter, because there's' no balance. If I'm a level 3 miner, I get 120% total production. Let's just say that my base production per hour is hour 100,000 uinits. Normally, the 100,000 units would have 1.0 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.125 remaining after three attacks (!2.5%). A level three miner defending against a level 3 fleeter, however, starts with 110% units, but only keeps 35% each time. So that's 1.1 x 0.35 x 0.35 x 0.35 = 4.72%, which is almost 1/3 of what they would have had without the specialization. That means I lose 87.5% of my stuff after three attacks normally, but even if I'm a level 3 miner, a level 3 fleeter will take more than 95% of my stuff in the new rules! I do not like this at all. Make it balance out better. The poor researcher loses out even more with 1.0 x 0.35 x 0.35 x 0.35 = 4.29% left

Given that the combat is so lopsided under the new rules, it hurts even more that the fleeter paid less for the attack ships and it cost them less to make the attack in spice usage, so they could send fewer ships in the first place. This just makes the current situation of lopsided combat even more lopsided.

While I like that shield domes are more effective for miners, Seriously, they're pretty much useless beyond AZ10 or so. Someone pumping more than 100 or so nixxes at you will pop a shield dome easily. New rules would make that 150 nixxies, which is no deal breaker for someone with tens of thousands of ships to send.

Instead, give miners a 10%/20%/30% increase on defense research bonus, and give fleeters a 10/20/30% increase on weapons research bonus. Then give them both a 10/20/30% increase on shield research, since they both use it. This scales and it's much more even.

Another option is to allow people to build more than one shield dome, or to build multiple levels of shield domes. That would be more useful than a 50% bonus to their point value.

Now, to return to combat and the research specialization, yes, the AZ 16 research can save 16,000,000 units of resources per attack, but it's not clear if that's total, or per type. In other words, is that 16,000,000 pig and 16,000,000 metal and 16,000,000 krypt and 16,000,000 spice or 4,000,000 of each?

Also, back to the research person, 6 hours of research reduction per day is nothing when it takes 100 days (or more!) to research something. That means if I log in each day, I can shave off 25 of the total and only have it be 75 days instead of 100. That's me logging in EVERY DAY. Unless it's made automatic, I don't see this as being beneficial. Also, I'd rather see research times go down substantially. Since researchers won't get any other real perks, the best thing would be to allow them to build multiple research stations and have the SUM TOTAL of their levels (or maybe a diminishing returns formula) be used to determine the total research time:

1 point = 1 extra research station (one from main planet plus one more planet)
2 points = 2 extra research stations (one from main planet and two more planets)
3 points = 3 extra research stations (one from main planet and three more planets)

Then if you had level 20/12/6 on those three stations, you could do math like this:

total research level = 20 + 16/2 + 6/3 = level 30

Fill in the denominators for each fraction as you will to make the math work out better, but you get the idea.

THIS would be something I could get behind.

In fact, I would love to see the researcher go crazy with this (plus the 1,000,000 per AZ PER RESOURCE TYPE). Combined with some urplasma and the merchant, they could seriously do well, even without ships.

Those are my thoughts and my maths. The economics of combat under the new system seems very biased towards fleeters, very anti-miner, and the whole thing with the galaxy scanner should be left out. It's hard enough to get an asteroid and build a decent scanner for lower-level players; don't punish them for choosing to be a miner instead.

Quote from Jammer

Limiting access to the scanner simply punishes people who've lost fleet to create an asteroid)

Agreed. No point limiting that I think.

Quote from Jammer

If you're going to call turtles miners

Huh?!?! No one is talking about turtles at all. They just don't factor in the modern game at all... Let's see how Sirius develops with the hiding defense function. But in all other unis, there literally is no such thing as a turtle anymore.

Quote from Jammer

In other words, make it cheaper/faster to build defenses for miners and cheaper/faster to build attack ships for fleeters. Do not make it cheaper/faster for fleeters to build defenses.

I can agree with this.

Quote from Jammer

I do not like the "steals more resources" attribute of fleeter, because there's' no balance.

Your math works out of course, but really, the new idea is not meant to give miners the capacity to log in twice a week now and still have mountains of free res building up while they don't participate in the game at all... that's just insane!

When last did you have someone steal your offline resources in 3 attacks?!?!?!? Unless you are in AZ3, or unless you are only logging in once every 72 hours, that just isn't happening!!! I think 99.99% of players (irrespective of playing style) will log in once a day, or will turn off their mines if they do a 4 day Escape Flight etc.

There is NO reason for the developers to create an incentive for LESS participation!!!!

Quote from Jammer

Given that the combat is so lopsided under the new rules, it hurts even more that the fleeter paid less for the attack ships and it cost them less to make the attack in spice usage, so they could send fewer ships in the first place.

What are you smoking?!?!? Try building a fleet and using it regularly. There is no imbalance here!!!! The fleeter risks EVERYTHING every time they send their fleet out - it is expensive, it has the risk of no reward, AND it has the huge risk of interception and TOTAL LOSS! If anything, the game is totally unbalanced toward the miners! Why do you think ALL fleeters have become hybrids?!?!?!?

Quote from Jammer

While I like that shield domes are more effective for miners, Seriously, they're pretty much useless beyond AZ10 or so.

Agreed.

Quote from Jammer

Instead, give miners a 10%/20%/30% increase on defense research bonus, and give fleeters a 10/20/30% increase on weapons research bonus. Then give them both a 10/20/30% increase on shield research, since they both use it. This scales and it's much more even.

Interesting. This can be worth consideration.

Quote from Jammer

Now, to return to combat and the research specialization, yes, the AZ 16 research can save 16,000,000 units of resources per attack, but it's not clear if that's total, or per type. In other words, is that 16,000,000 pig and 16,000,000 metal and 16,000,000 krypt and 16,000,000 spice or 4,000,000 of each?

Again - how many days do you want to spend outside the game between logins? My great aunt Jiminy Cricket!! That is just crazy talk!!!!

Quote from Jammer

Also, back to the research person, 6 hours of research reduction per day is nothing when it takes 100 days (or more!) to research something. That means if I log in each day, I can shave off 25 of the total and only have it be 75 days instead of 100.

25% increase is nothing????? WT actual F????

25% speed up compared to all other players is HUGE!!!!!

Quote from Jammer

That's me logging in EVERY DAY.

I'm almost crying here!!! You talk like a daily log in is a sacrifice!!!!????? Dude, really. You should buy Minecraft and just save your game. You can play once a week and nothing will happen to your game between log ins! I promise you!!! You can even turn off the monsters so they can't hurt you! In fact, just play in creative mode! You have unlimited everything!!!

Quote from Jammer

Then if you had level 20/12/6 on those three stations, you could do math like this:

total research level = 20 + 16/2 + 6/3 = level 30

Fill in the denominators for each fraction as you will to make the math work out better, but you get the idea.

Now you can talk about imbalance!!!!

Seriously dude, the problem with SI is partially an imbalance AGAINST fleeters, and partially inactivity. You want to make BOTH of those worse!!!!

Quote from Fodsey

Now you can talk about imbalance

You're welcome to disagree. My point is to bring in new players that WILL STICK AROUND. Not kowtow to existing, mainly high point players.

If I lose 95% of my resources as a new player on a regular basis, I will claim that the game is unfair and I will stop playing. Then we'll be right back to where we are. That doesn't count the players that spend money on the game to buy Urplasma to get additional benefits such as the trader or build bonuses.

And yes, my maths may be off for true game balance, but I believe that the ideas behind them represent a fairer balance than the existing proposal does.

Please forgive my turtle/miner conflation; Again, I am talking about new players coming to the game and staying with the game. Existing players won't care. Well, maybe I will but I'm an old woman with crazy ideas.

Here's my bottom line: I do not like the current proposals as they stand. I've offered some examples of why I think they do not work, and some examples of how I think they could be improved. The real change that should be made to the game is, I still believe (other than bringing in hundreds of new active playegrs), AI opponents that work around the clock. That would give everyone something new to play with and nothing else needs be changed.

(Oh, and I don't mind logging in every day, that wasn't my point. My point is again from the perspective of the AZ5 player, not the AZ15 player).

You're skipping past many of the concerns that I have raised with your views. So I might have to bow out of this discussion (in frustration) soon.

Quote from Jammer

My point is to bring in new players that WILL STICK AROUND.

No it isn't!!

I will say that you have one or two clearly balanced ideas that show you aren't an idiot. But your overall perspective does NOT demonstrate an approach to growing the game, but instead only seems to want to protect your passive play style.

Quote from Jammer

If I lose 95% of my resources as a new player on a regular basis,

If cows had wings!!! Be realistic!!!!!

Quote from Jammer

Well, maybe I will but I'm an old woman with crazy ideas.

My apologies for calling you dude...

Quote from Jammer

I've offered some examples of why I think they do not work,

No, you really haven't.

Quote from Jammer

AI opponents that work around the clock.

An idea that does have merit.

Quote from Jammer

Oh, and I don't mind logging in every day, that wasn't my point

Then don't use it to muddy the waters of a poor position...

Quote from Jammer

My point is again from the perspective of the AZ5 player, not the AZ15 player

Incredibly unrealistic perspective. Only an idiot stays in AZ5 for more than a brief burp in their play of a universe!!!!!! EVEN AZ15 is a relatively short time span!!! The AZ17 play is where the game gets almost all its financial support right now! You have to be REALLY bad at this game (and I am including miner, fleeter, hybrid, all of them) to not grow past AZ10 in the blink of an eye!!!

This game will not benefit ANYTHING from listening to ideas from people that do not have the ability to play a WAR strategy game!!!!!!!!!

I'm trying to be polite. My use of the exclamation mark is getting out of control.

I might have to stop reading this thread for a day or two at this rate...

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I am, however, expressing my OPINION that the new rules, as written now, will not make the game sufficiently BETTER.

I did offer some suggestions that I BELIEVE would make things better.

My current game style of farmville is based on the fact that there is nothing else to do in the game for me at this time, given the amount of time (and other resources) I have to devote to it. Therefore, yes, to some degree I want to protect my ability to play this game in that fashion should I choose to.

However, if there are players that choose to be primarily attackers or defenders or researchers, then I believe that these new rules are imbalanced and could have tweaks made that will improve the game play.

Still, regardless of game play for AZ17 players (of which I am one), if the AZ5 players don't stick around, then the AZ17 players will continue to be what they are today and the game will slowly die.

This game is essentially a giant economics simulator. It is a closed system with no way to introduce goods and services from the outside other than the transdimensional thingy. Given that framework, the economics of this game (meaning, studied from economics theories, not literally the trading or stealing of the game) predicts that it will stagnate as resources dwindle, without ways to replenish them from outside the system.

I am happy to start building nixxies and stealth bombers again. I'm happy to blow up my neighbors and spew forth with level 10 galaxy scanners my wrath upon the universe. But it takes so much TIME to do that right now that I fear that unless you already have a large commitment in the game, new players will not stick around long enough to become AZ17.

After all, games, in general, have evolved in the past 13 years and most people don't play strategic browser-based games anymore.

The Milestone is passing 2 Million in points and surviving on wards and upwards to player's well over 200 times your size.

Quote from Jammer

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I am, however, expressing my OPINION that the new rules, as written now, will not make the game sufficiently BETTER.

I did offer some suggestions that I BELIEVE would make things better.

Fair enough. You obviously see things very differently.

Quote from Jammer

My current game style of farmville is based on the fact that there is nothing else to do in the game for me at this time, given the amount of time (and other resources) I have to devote to it. Therefore, yes, to some degree I want to protect my ability to play this game in that fashion should I choose to.

Yes, that is clear. But surely you can see that for the game developers to follow you down that road of - BOREDOM - will KILL THE GAME!!!

Quote from Jammer

This game is essentially a giant economics simulator. It is a closed system with no way to introduce goods and services from the outside other than the transdimensional thingy

But it is NO LONGER a closed system!!!!!

You have the interdimensional transmitter, you have purchasable options, you have events with huge injections of resources, you have accounts transferring from speed unis, this game is now further from a closed system than EVER IN IT'S HISTORY!!!!!!

Quote from Jammer

But it takes so much TIME to do that right now

Yes, and if the game cannot find people with TIME, it won't continue. The standard for further development should NOT be to presume nobody has the time to play.... what is the purpose then? Your and my lack of time is IRRELEVANT to the development of the game, it is only relevant to what you and I choose as playing style. So the new options would FACILITATE your style of play, and would FACILITATE my choice to be even riskier and go down the fleeter road - despite me knowing that my fleet is likely to die a gory death due to my inability to put sufficient time into it... This is NOT a game design issue, it is your and my personal life constraints.

Quote from Jammer

After all, games, in general, have evolved in the past 13 years and most people don't play strategic browser-based games anymore.

Well, I disagree with this. It's just that the options are vastly greater with cell phone app stores now... SI needs to transition its platform to a mobile base. The browser is not dead though...

Quote from AlienHarvestor

The Milestone is passing 2 Million in points and surviving on wards and upwards to player's well over 200 times your size.

Absolutely easy. SURELY you have done this successfully multiple times? If not, please join a good alliance and get some advice. If you can't follow the advice due to time restraints from real life, then again, this is frustrating for you, but has NO relevance to the game design!!!!

Absolutely easy. SURELY you have done this successfully multiple times? If not, please join a good alliance and get some advice. If you can't follow the advice due to time restraints from real life, then again, this is frustrating for you, but has NO relevance to the game design!!!!

And why would I need Advise. The only one frustrated here seems to be yourself. As for them game design it's obviously going to be implemented at some point. I am happy to go with what ever they bring out. I did make a point about possibly changing the tech tree slightly for Thermo Solar Plants so that we wouldn't have to use sacrificial Solar Cells. But then maybe that's what they are definitely wanting a Fleeter to do. Spend on Solar Cells hoping for that Optimistic raider to kill your Solar Cells and the possibility of being Ninja'd in the process.

But as I see the idea is eventually going to be brought in , in one shape or form in the hope of making the game slightly with more activity.

Quote from AlienHarvestor

And why would I need Advise.

Sorry, wasn't suggesting that you were a noob, but rather just not sure.

Quote from AlienHarvestor

in the hope of making the game slightly with more activity.

Agreed!

I have played right back in 2007. Left not long after it was transfer to bitmeup. Then I returned and have been playing for quite sometime now. Back in my early days of playing I was the Tactician for Alien Invasion Tag: A-I . So definitely not a noob. Considering some of the tactic's player's use today stem from Alien Invasion's time of play in the game. Considering those that saw Jomic do a fighter swarm attack not realizing where he got that tactic from. So of cause they called it the Jomic. He learnt that tactic from A-I. We had taught that tactic ages before he used it. It was just at the time he had the means to build the fighter swarm. So was the first to use it.

Hopefully this will bring about a couple of new tactic's. The we will probably see is this issue of going to have to build solar cells if you want power for tele's on the raid planets.

Just a question to SI Team Please explain how these Raid planets are going to function.

Are you going to have to designate the raid planets?
Or is it only if you go above the amount of colonies allowed is when they are considered raid planets?

As for this business of having to go in VM to change the statis quo of the points.

What is the problem with having being able to select the change but having the system stall the change by setting a time function to when the change occur's. Allowing the player to continue as how the points are at the time of selecting the change.(yes slightly a little more programming to achieve but would be far better accepted then being put in Vacation Mode and out of the game for 48 hour's. As isn't it the idea of this to create more activity not having more shade of blue on your galaxy scanner.

If you want help the new players , just add some AZ .

Only 17 ZA..

Revvie can raid Joachim1969 , it's funny no ?

Sure Joachim can vdr , and it's okay ... but just look the stats ..

Quote from Fodsey

This is NOT a game design issue, it is your and my personal life constraints

This is 100% correct. But they asked for opinions and comments, and you, me, and everyone else who does so will be doing so through the lens of their personal experience. Mine is as someone who believes the key to the long term success of this game is the attraction - and more importantly, the retention - of new players.

Specifically, they asked for

Quote

feedback to make this feature interesting for all players! Get involved in questions of balancing, possible exploits or general suggestions for improvement.

I mainly choose to address what I considered balance issues and factors that contribute to the "interesting" factor.

ANY rule changes or technology changes must make it easier and more enticing for them to go to their browser and play this game for months rather than switch to their mobile phone and play whatever the latest popular game is on mobile platforms (I don't play mobile games so any game I use as an example will surely cause me ridicule ).

If the game is going to force us to chose between three playing styles (and it does: "as long as at least one specialization point has not yet been assigned, only escape flights can be launched") then I'd like to see an option where there essentially is a net gain or loss of zero compared to the other options. In other words, don't force me to be miner, fleeter, researcher or hybrid; I'm making that choice already with my builds, defenses, attacks, and strategies.

The keys to doing what they're trying to accomplish are already part of the game. MY MATHS MAY BE BAD EXAMPLES, but the idea is simple: Miners get a 5% increase in mining per point assigned. Fleeters get a 5% increase in attack score per point assigned. Researchers get a 5% reduction in research time per point assigned. Feel free to mix and match. Maybe even let people purchase points with Urplasma.

All this business with the galaxy scanner needs to STOP NOW. It has no bearing on combat/mining/research style. A miner wants to know what's going on in their sectors to time a recycle run just as much as a fleeter wants to do a ninja. Ditch the capacity perks for fuel and cargo because the miner is escape flighting and the cost of a new transmitter is trivial compared to the "bonus" of not having to send as many, but the fuel savings for a fleeter (especially with merchant perks) is substantial. Etc.

Keep it simple.