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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 257886 times)

Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #420 on: October 26, 2014, 05:16:37 PM »

I'd imagine that you're selling to the open market, i.e. to many different intermediary distributors. Which all jump at the opportunity to buy scarce goods, unaware that you're secretly selling to their competition at the same time.
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #421 on: October 26, 2014, 05:26:26 PM »

Okay, that does actually make sense. Though I'm fairly sure it would work the same if I sold to the military. Plus the reports mention "officials" being embarrassed about the whole thing, so there seems to be some level of governmental involvement.

Edit: Yep, works the same. Just sold 40K food to Sindrian military when they only needed 10K.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 05:36:52 PM by Sordid »
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GhloaTrooper

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #422 on: October 26, 2014, 06:09:28 PM »

Yeah Sordid im basically in the same boat. Im even destroying Ludd relief fleets to make sure the food shortage goes for long so i can sell every piece of food in the sector, considering they usually need around 13k the market never gets overflooded.
My whole end game consists of running circles around the sector, loading two atlas freighters full of food, wait for the food shortage on sindria, sell food start another cirlcle, i have almost two milion in my bank and i have ran out of places to spend my money.
Basically right now im just collecting ships from different factions and store them on orbital stations, i have 2 fully equipped Onslaughts sitting in Corvus gathering dust, not to mention multiple Paragons and Auroras in Tibicena.

I really think Volturn should have a higher food output so the food shortages on Sindria dont become an endless money pit.
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Debido

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #423 on: October 26, 2014, 06:26:56 PM »

One way I could possibly see the whole...over supplying an event issue is:
Have price scaling per unit with a special script for events (erksome)
Make it so that the player has to click on a event sub-market tab, and an event submarket enforces strict maximum limitations on the quantity of the commodity that can be sold, and the sell button will not working/the price will be read with a warning etc. Though this creates more coding issues as well...also the UI barely has space for another submarket tab. Also it may not be intuitive to the player to use an event submarket.
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Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #424 on: October 26, 2014, 07:04:30 PM »

Quite a few games with dynamic prices have this kind of exploit where the game doesn't take into account that the player is selling a large quantity of items. IIRC Fable: TLC had it, as well as other games. A vendor has a lot of a particular item, so he's offering them cheap. You buy the whole stack, and every item in it costs the same (whereas if you bought one at a time, the price would ramp up). The vendor now has none, so he's willing to buy for a lot. You sell the whole stack back to him for a profit. Repeat until you have enough cash that you can buy everything there is to buy in the game. It's not quite as bad in Starsector but it's still very exploitable.

It's a combination of factors. Food shortages occur regularly on Sindria, which is relatively close to the Luddites, who produce tons of food. Both the producing planet and the receiving planet have a jump point right next to them, so the run is very fast and efficient. You can store an infinite amount of food for an infinite period of time for zero cost (aside from a tiny one-time fee). The receiving planet will buy an unlimited amount of goods for shortage prices during a shortage. The punishment for flooding a market is tiny.

I have 5 superfreighters right now hauling food from the Luddites to a warehouse on Sindria. That's 10K at once, enough to end a food shortage in one trip. But I'm putting it in a warehouse because Sindria will buy as much as I have when the shortage hits. Right now I have 50K there and more is on the way. I'll make millions of credits and tons of XP when the shortage inevitably hits, and what will it cost me? 5 reputation with Sindria? Yeah, okay, so I'll go from 98 to 93, whoop whoop.

IMO at the very least the market should only buy as much as is needed to relieve the shortage for shortage prices, any goods in excess should sell for post-shortage prices. Additional measures could include limiting storage space and/or enforcing a storage fee, making food perishable, and making the severity of the penalty for flooding a market dependent on how much you flood it. Ideally it would be a combination of all of these. I quite like Starsector's 'soft cap' approach to things like cargo capacity, IMO the same should be the case here. It would be nice to see the change from shortage to post-shortage prices be gradual rather than sharp and immediate, etc.

Also, given that the Sindrian Dictat is, y'know, a dictatorship, I was quite surprised that the Sindrian authorities didn't just go "damn, we have people starving to death in the streets and there's a giant warehouse full of food right here, so fuk it, we're taking it". That could be another method of countering this kind of exploit. And also a neat way of giving the factions different personalities, come to think of it. Maybe some factions are willing to confiscate your goods in an emergency and others aren't? Eh, I'm rambling at this point.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 07:12:47 PM by Sordid »
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ArthropodOfDoom

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #425 on: October 26, 2014, 07:09:27 PM »

This isn't totally relevant to the current discussion thread, but I feel like sharing it here anyway.



Take no prisoners. Also Apogee w/ 2 AM Blasters, Autopulse, and Atropos is stupidly fun/OP.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 07:12:27 PM by ArthropodOfDoom »
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Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #426 on: October 27, 2014, 07:54:40 AM »

So yeah...

Spoiler


[close]
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Histidine

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #427 on: October 27, 2014, 07:59:36 AM »

So, uh... how long till hotfix release? :3
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Uomoz

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #428 on: October 27, 2014, 08:08:35 AM »

Damn, that's broken xD
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #429 on: October 27, 2014, 09:11:54 AM »

So yeah...

Spoiler


[close]

Missing from this picture is the part where the Diktat wants to nail you to the wall for causing the shortage. The only way you'd get the shortage amount to be that high is by buying up tons and tons of food on Sindria, don't think that went unnoticed! You shameless profiteer, you.

... actually, wait. They'll just be mildly upset. I need to fix *that* :)


So, uh... how long till hotfix release? :3

(Technically, we're well out of "hotfix" territory - those are the releases within a day or so of the original when, say, a common crash bug slipped by. The next release is the "bugfix" release.)

Anyway, to answer what was most likely a rhetorical question: usually, it's 1-2 weeks from the original release, but given that 1) there aren't as many pressing issues this time around and 2) there are more less pressing issues that are still important, it looks like it's going to take a bit longer.
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Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #430 on: October 27, 2014, 09:42:00 AM »

Missing from this picture is the part where the Diktat wants to nail you to the wall for causing the shortage. The only way you'd get the shortage amount to be that high is by buying up tons and tons of food on Sindria, don't think that went unnoticed! You shameless profiteer, you.

... actually, wait. They'll just be mildly upset. I need to fix *that* :)

Yeah, the penalty is 5 relation points, which is nothing. And yes, I did in fact buy like 40K food from the Sindrian military, which likely triggered the shortage. No idea why they had so much and why they were exporting it very cheaply off-world when their own market stats said that like 40% of domestic demand was not being met, but hey, free money. But even without that Sindria seems to be experiencing food shortages on a regular basis. Granted, they usually only need 10K or so and the price goes up 200 credits instead of 300, but I don't need to go around causing humanitarian crises for this exploit to work. Though I do get blamed for those as well even when I hadn't caused them. :( The amount needed is irrelevant, they'll buy as much as I have in any case. They'd buy those 180K units of food for full shortage price even if they only needed 100.

Oh the other hand, buy 1K food from the black market in Eos? -80 to relation with the Luddites. Holy stepdancing Jesus! :o
« Last Edit: October 27, 2014, 09:45:01 AM by Sordid »
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #431 on: October 27, 2014, 10:08:43 AM »

it looks like it's going to take a bit longer.

Um, the mission crash bug happens about every three missions... I was hoping for that to be fixed soon :-\


Concerning the "sell more during shortage than is needed" issue, maybe it should be communicated to the player more clearly? The first few times I did it was simply because I did not pay attention to the "amount of x needed to end shortage" info. Since the player character is surely informed about what he or she is doing (probably actively plotting and deceiving), the player should be, too. Especially if the reputation penalty is increased. A pop-up warning when you sell over demand, maybe?




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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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Sordid

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #432 on: October 27, 2014, 10:49:08 AM »

Yeah, sometimes the relevant info isn't presented quite as well as it could be. The first time I got framed for causing a shortage was when I received one of those "there's a shortage, a relief fleet has been sent" messages while in Eos. When the message is just about the shortage, it tells you how much is needed. When it also says that a relief fleet is underway, it doesn't. I didn't know where else to look for this information yet, so I just loaded as much food as I could and raced the relief fleet to the destination. Turned out I brought way too much and I got incriminated for causing the shortage (even though I hadn't been anywhere near that place for months).

I agree that it would be nice to have some kind of "hey, you're flooding the market" warning, but I don't think a pop-up is a good idea. There's plenty of room on the screen where such a warning can be displayed without requiring a click to dismiss it. Like so:

Spoiler
[close]
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #433 on: October 27, 2014, 11:15:49 AM »

Uh, yeah, I wasn't thinking about a clickable pop-up, that would be annoying.
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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pigreko

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Re: Starsector 0.65a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #434 on: October 27, 2014, 11:44:25 AM »

ok my feedback on this:
I like all the tiny bits of informations on stations and planets. Also the upgraded lore for the various factions is cool. All these new panels, the intel and various market menus, they feel very well integrated with the game.
The trade mechanics is cool even if I read about a lot of exploits, but that is something easy to fix or balance once more and more feedbacks are picked up AND an actual story settles in.
The "trade or hire personnel" and "buy and sell ships" are an an understatement now as a title name of what you get from accessing those station panels. They are of course a legacy of the past releases, nevertheless when you have so many good stuff around, nitpicking is allowed.

GG!
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