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Author Topic: Once More, with Feeling  (Read 31566 times)

Cik

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #30 on: October 06, 2018, 07:28:49 AM »

obviously they can't bombard you without a penalty with you (IE, they will *** you off) but most of these other factions are far from humanitarian- the hegemony is a military dictatorship that cares about protecting it's own citizens, projecting power and maintaining it's legitimacy. while they might use some sort of "atrocity" on the diktat's part as a pretext for a war they were planning anyway, they don't actually care if a few hundred/thousand/million souls actually died. obviously, if they are going to win against the diktat they'll probably have to perpetrate similar atrocities themselves AGAINST the diktat so  ::)

IMO at least what prevents every faction from declaring war against everyone else is primarily that they worry that they could incur a catastrophic loss that would spell permanent defeat. they've all fabricated plenty of pretexts already and could launch a final victory or death war at any time for any reason, so the thought that they would necessarily launch a war of liberation against anyone because they bombed some world nobody cares about out in the deep black is a little silly.

i could definitely see wars starting over RESOURCES though- if you are supplying the hegemony economy with massive amounts of fuels, and the diktat destroys your AM production facility, the hegemony would now be in a resource crisis and i could see them declaring a limited war to defend your colony and/or launch some sort of punitive expedition in retaliation.

anyway, if you don't want to get bombed don't compete  ::)
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Megas

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #31 on: October 06, 2018, 07:29:21 AM »

I really don't see the issue. If Diktat can do it without punishment then maybe it's because they have enough influence with other factions that they can pull it off. Maybe there are backdoor deals to stop new competitors from popping up. Maybe they are threatening others with military action. Maybe losing the access to the premier fuel source of the sector would be too much of a collateral. Etc, etc,
I would like the player to acquire that kind of immunity, if the major factions have it, especially if player displaces Diktat out of the fuel business or something similar.  Nothing theoretically stops the player's faction from becoming a major power, and other factions falling, if the game lasts a generation or two.

Bottom line, if a major faction commits an atrocity first, I expect every faction that would become hostile to the player that did such an atrocity to become likewise hostile to the offending faction.  If not, then it is yet another AI grief move like gank burn and pulse spam.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2018, 07:34:00 AM by Megas »
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Arkiuz

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #32 on: October 06, 2018, 07:46:57 AM »

I don't think that by the time we're establishing planets and becoming a huge influence on the market is somewhere early game.  I feel that you're going to have your own fleet built when you're building a planet.  I would also imagine this is one of those times in game where we sit there actively orbiting and playing guard dog until we hit a suitable defense level and bounce.  At least that's how I'd play it.

If it's going to play anything like the mods, planets are tough nuts to crack once you start establishing them.  Now when you're producing fleets on your own, the AI still has to fight that fleet to perform an atrocity and I'm guessing by then you'd be back on your way to intercept and stomp it.
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Retry

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #33 on: October 06, 2018, 07:59:08 AM »

I see it as something worth addressing.  A more lively, dynamic universe with diplomacy helps with immersion and can be really fun, if done right of course.

It'd kind of odd if the player can bomb someone and get everyone to immediately hate them, but if the Sindrians do it it's just another tuesday.  Especially for the Luddites who I'd imagine aren't big on war crimes.
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Alex

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #34 on: October 06, 2018, 10:50:23 AM »

Re: bombardments etc -

It's not a symmetrical situation, so mechanical symmetry as a default would be strange. Imagine if everyone became hostile to the Hegemony because they stamped out a slightly-bigger-than-usual nest of pirates somewhere out on the fringes.

It might make sense in some cases - say if it were possible for you to take over a core planet, and then *that* got bombarded - or if you became really well established, with a huge colony - but those seem like a good fit for special cases and not the base mechanics.

In any case, gameplay easily beats out other considerations here. This isn't a 4x, right, so I'm not working with an assumption of parity between the player and other factions. I get that if you're coming from that place, asymmetry would feel wrong, but that's not the way I'm looking at this, so this is probably a mismatch between our assumptions.


And speaking of gameplay, the nice thing about the threat of a bombardment is it really raises the stakes. Of course, it'd have to be something that's clearly signalled and built up to; an "oops, your colony just got bombarded" message with no advance warning would not be good.


Speaking of pulse spam, if reputation between factions will no longer be static, I like to see them inflict a bunch of -1s to their reputation with other factions they ping, or if not, at least player gets no penalty when his fleets pulse spam in systems the player controls.

Come on now, that seems a bit petty :)


Accessibility increases both imports and exports, yes? I am a bit unsure how imports work now.

Right! Colonies just get stuff, without it being from a specific source, up to the maximum production of the biggest exporter.


Checking for release on a daily basis  :D

:D


I'm so excited for this update! I've been looking forward to this sorta thing from this game for like 7 years and here we are!! My studies are going to suffer so much when it does come out hahah.

I've been looking forward to getting this stuff in the game for about as long :)

Just a quick thought - shouldn't "Global Market Value" be "Sector Market Value"?

Hmm - that might technically be more accurate, but "global" seems more immediately clear.


The reason I think this is preferable is because you can make factions more unique if they can do things that the player can't do (at least not easily), and you'd have to consider the different points of each. "Oh, gotta be careful about competing with this faction, can't simply just make some fuel and get a quick buck without some severe consequences."

Yep, definitely. If the Diktat is more dangerous to annoy than, say, the Hegemony, then that's an interesting wrinkle.
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Goumindong

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #35 on: October 06, 2018, 11:54:22 AM »

Edit: One thing to consider is a strategic structure of making things illegal. You could make trade harder with places which don't have similar illegal goods structure. So you have to consider if you want to have a free port what that will cost you in general good product sales.

Hmm - one of the things this simplification does away with almost entirely is the idea of trading with a specific location; you're just putting stuff on the market. Plus, this seems like it'd be a situation with one "right" choice, being the one that gives you more money.

Free port will have other downsides, though - it does have a stability penalty (which is indeed a reduction in income, with some additional effects), along hopefully with some that are more difficult to quantify.


"Good news, we've fixed the drug problem but now food is banned.  Seeya at work on Monday!"

"The Eridani Combine's 'war on food' initiative has met with limited success so far"

If we are in full commodity fungibility mode(IE single spot market so you cannot discriminate against goods from a specific place) then it would make sense to have relationship penalties

Setting a Freeport would make pirates like you as an example. Setting strict limitations on tech could give you an in with the luddites
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Cik

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #36 on: October 06, 2018, 11:57:55 AM »

if i understand this right supply isn't unlimited, right?

so there is a finite amount of AM production (assuming no one bootstraps more production somehow)

is there a possibility that if you expand your colonies that it will literally not be enough and exporters will have to choose what to send where? likewise with food etc?

also i think it would be interesting to tie this to ship production- you could make dockyard capacity a "resource" tied into the economy and give ships a cost based on size / tech level and a time of construction and allow export / tracking of shipbuilding to fix sector ship production to a more concrete thing that the player could effect.

nicely ties up "infinite fleets" and "costless war" which i think should be a priority before 1.0 anyway. it feels to me like the factions' ability to spawn infinite fleets from nowhere is just a holdover of ye olde .50 but i don't know how you feel about it alex.
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Eji1700

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #37 on: October 06, 2018, 12:01:05 PM »

Impact
This results in a dynamic system where changing hostilities between factions can create shortages and excess stockpiles, giving the player opportunities to exploit.


This this this.  This is so perfect. It make sense and allows the player to influence results, ideally with multiple methods (i'm hoping we can engineer wars between two factions at some point).  If you hook ship and weapon availability into resources available players will have a lot more agency over those aspects of the game, and in such a way that encourages more gameplay.

Awesome change.
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Alex

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #38 on: October 06, 2018, 12:25:32 PM »

If we are in full commodity fungibility mode(IE single spot market so you cannot discriminate against goods from a specific place) then it would make sense to have relationship penalties

Setting a Freeport would make pirates like you as an example. Setting strict limitations on tech could give you an in with the luddites

Right, that sort of thing could make sense. But a slow drip of positive reputation isn't super exciting - not to say it might not have a place, but I'd rather add some things that are more active on the player's side.


if i understand this right supply isn't unlimited, right?

so there is a finite amount of AM production (assuming no one bootstraps more production somehow)

is there a possibility that if you expand your colonies that it will literally not be enough and exporters will have to choose what to send where? likewise with food etc?

Yes and no - it's limited by the single highest producer. So, basically, while Sindria is around, everyone will have enough fuel - provided their accessibility is high enough. If Sindria becomes inaccessible, anyone with high Fuel demand would have shortages - down to the production of the next-highest source - unless another high-production source cropped up.

So, having fewer suppliers - or more consumers - doesn't mean shortages, it just means the suppliers get a bigger slice of the export pie.


also i think it would be interesting to tie this to ship production- you could make dockyard capacity a "resource" tied into the economy and give ships a cost based on size / tech level and a time of construction and allow export / tracking of shipbuilding to fix sector ship production to a more concrete thing that the player could effect.

nicely ties up "infinite fleets" and "costless war" which i think should be a priority before 1.0 anyway. it feels to me like the factions' ability to spawn infinite fleets from nowhere is just a holdover of ye olde .50 but i don't know how you feel about it alex.

There's a new "Ship Hulls & Weapons" commodity that the economy distributes in the same way as it does normal commodities. So, for example, if a market becomes inaccessible - say its spaceport was raided - then this will cause a shortage of hulls and weapons, which in turn will impact the strength of the fleets it's able to spawn.

For the player, the faction-wide production (not imports) of "Ship Hulls & Weapons" also determines the maximum per-month spend on custom hulls and weapons.


This this this.  This is so perfect. It make sense and allows the player to influence results, ideally with multiple methods (i'm hoping we can engineer wars between two factions at some point).  If you hook ship and weapon availability into resources available players will have a lot more agency over those aspects of the game, and in such a way that encourages more gameplay.

Awesome change.

Thank you! Hopefully it'll work out well.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #39 on: October 06, 2018, 01:16:24 PM »

So it sounds like:
YES the AI will be able to bombard your planets without repercussions from other factions
YES, the player will still be HEAVILY penalized if they retaliate the same way
And YES, anything that disrupts that status flow is going to be putting a target on your back

So what I want to know now is:
-Will the info for bombardments and other urgent intel ignore the speed limit of information? Otherwise a player could come back from an expedition into the black and find out OH HEY, I missed those warning while out there and in turn just lost my best colony!

-Will the AI's bombardment fleets be greatly hurt if there is a fuel shortage since fuel is also their bombs? If so then that will just push you to raid SD first if you find another Synchrotron Core to strip them of their fuel. If not then it is just going to further show off to players that the AI doesn't play by the rules and can spawn resources and fleets out of thin air


Alex, the reason why I'm so worried about this is that unlike IPulse and GankBurn, this is something that not only would cost alot of credits and effort to fix, but also real life time due to how it takes time for colonies to rebuild. IPulse is annoying but the effects are minor 99% of the time. GankBurn, while it CAN lead to a fleetwipe, still allows you to fight them off. And if you can't then at least you can reload an earlier save. With the ability to only control one fleet and the fact that once fleets reach their target, they can instantly complete their mission (versus something like the comm sniffer progress bar now), this will lead to alot of griefing and babysitting...
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errorgance

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #40 on: October 06, 2018, 03:01:40 PM »

Pat yourself on the back for the Xth time Alex!
I too was dreading an over complicated trade system and I'm quite glad you're letting the invisible hyperspace jakalope diplomats deal with all the individual trade deals.

hey, any chance we could set our own faction procedural ship names? not just the suffix, but the names it draws from? even if it's just a text file we can add to manually, that'd be nice.
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Megas

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #41 on: October 06, 2018, 03:42:53 PM »

I was serious about the pulse spam comment.

So it sounds like:
YES the AI will be able to bombard your planets without repercussions from other factions
YES, the player will still be HEAVILY penalized if they retaliate the same way
And YES, anything that disrupts that status flow is going to be putting a target on your back
And it sounds like the AI can cheat.

And it sounds like if the AI will abuse its immunity, then it seems the optimal strategy would be to eliminate the worst offenders from the sector.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2018, 03:48:53 PM by Megas »
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FooF

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #42 on: October 06, 2018, 05:16:14 PM »

Re: Bombardments

It's all brinkmanship and proxy wars with the major factions (so far!) so I don't see the Diktat bombarding your colony, and not facing repercussions from the others, as anything but par for the course. If the Diktat bombarded the Hegemony: sure, there better be a retaliatory response but that's not happening yet.

I think where it gets gray is if the player is heavily aligned with a major faction and their colonies are a de facto extension of the faction. If the Diktat were to bombard your fully-commissioned, cooperative reputation-based colony aligned with the Hegemony, would the Hegemony respond in-kind? Their lack of response could be a bit jarring and undermine the player's incentive to cozy up to them. On the other hand, all the major factions are dystopian to a degree and their chucking you aside to protect their self-interests is again, par for the course.

I would prefer certain...arrangements...be made with the major factions if you align heavily with them. The independent player would have the luxury of not being beholden to them but getting into bed with one would also have its perks. Just another meaningful choice to make along your way.
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Goumindong

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #43 on: October 06, 2018, 06:13:49 PM »

Instead of a slow drip you could just have a one time cost. Then negate the one time cost when the policy is changed.

This means that both

A: customs doesn’t necessarily lead to war eventually

B: you can modify policy to push you over the top of where you want/need to be
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Alex

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Re: Once More, with Feeling
« Reply #44 on: October 06, 2018, 07:43:18 PM »

-Will the info for bombardments and other urgent intel ignore the speed limit of information? Otherwise a player could come back from an expedition into the black and find out OH HEY, I missed those warning while out there and in turn just lost my best colony!

I'd imagine so; currently a few less severe but roughly similar things already do.


Alex, the reason why I'm so worried about this is that unlike IPulse and GankBurn, this is something that not only would cost alot of credits and effort to fix, but also real life time due to how it takes time for colonies to rebuild. IPulse is annoying but the effects are minor 99% of the time. GankBurn, while it CAN lead to a fleetwipe, still allows you to fight them off. And if you can't then at least you can reload an earlier save. With the ability to only control one fleet and the fact that once fleets reach their target, they can instantly complete their mission (versus something like the comm sniffer progress bar now), this will lead to alot of griefing and babysitting...

I get what you're saying; the balancing and tuning of this is a valid concern. But what's the alternative, not having anything that can significantly threaten player colonies? That sounds way worse; it's basically giving up on doing meaningful things with colonies before even getting started. Still, you're right, this is very much something to be careful with, keep an eye on, and most likely fine-tune in the future.

(Also, no, they can't instantly bombard, you can have defenses other than yout fleet, etc etc. Bad assumptions :))


Pat yourself on the back for the Xth time Alex!
I too was dreading an over complicated trade system and I'm quite glad you're letting the invisible hyperspace jakalope diplomats deal with all the individual trade deals.

:)

hey, any chance we could set our own faction procedural ship names? not just the suffix, but the names it draws from? even if it's just a text file we can add to manually, that'd be nice.

Nothing in-game, but you could already edit the player.faction file to set where the names get drawn from.


And it sounds like the AI can cheat.

Cheating implies someone breaking rules that should apply to it. Here, we have two parties which *do not have parity* and have different rules apply to them and *it makes sense in-fiction*. You're absolutely entitled to an opinion on this, but calling it cheating is just factually incorrect.


I think where it gets gray is if the player is heavily aligned with a major faction and their colonies are a de facto extension of the faction. If the Diktat were to bombard your fully-commissioned, cooperative reputation-based colony aligned with the Hegemony, would the Hegemony respond in-kind? Their lack of response could be a bit jarring and undermine the player's incentive to cozy up to them. On the other hand, all the major factions are dystopian to a degree and their chucking you aside to protect their self-interests is again, par for the course.

I would prefer certain...arrangements...be made with the major factions if you align heavily with them. The independent player would have the luxury of not being beholden to them but getting into bed with one would also have its perks. Just another meaningful choice to make along your way.

Hmm, yeah, that could be interesting and would make sense. I'll say, commissions and such are an area that's not very fleshed out, and I'm not currently sure how much I want to flesh it out, but it's potentially an interesting direction to go in.


Instead of a slow drip you could just have a one time cost. Then negate the one time cost when the policy is changed.

This means that both

A: customs doesn’t necessarily lead to war eventually

B: you can modify policy to push you over the top of where you want/need to be

Seems like then you'd establish a free port, do some missions for the faction to negate the cost, and be pretty much done with that.

Either way, though, cooking up something more dynamic :)
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