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[Trylobot]

Very detailed post Alex. Can't wait to start destablizing markets

[Alex]

Second screenshot, on the right, under the description of "food". Something like "Buys for"/"Sells for" would also work to make the direction clear, more or less.

Ah, right. That is confusing, good call.

Edit: changed to "sold for"/"bought for".

Can't wait to start destablizing markets

That's the spirit

[ciago92]

who was the closest so far on orbital burns? I like whoever's idea of outpost to outpost fast travel

regardless, super curious what that is now since you're making a big deal of not telling us....which means I've fallen right into your trap. then again, been trapped by this game for like two years now, so that's nothing new :-D

[harrumph]

Ooh, a mystery!

Maybe Orbital Burns means using some kind of massive propulsion device to correct the planet's orbit, improving agricultural conditions or something?

[Gothars]

Second screenshot, on the right, under the description of "food". Something like "Buys for"/"Sells for" would also work to make the direction clear, more or less.

Ah, right. That is confusing, good call.

Edit: changed to "sold for"/"bought for".

Uhm, that seems hardly less ambiguous. Who's the seller, who's the buyer? You'd have to bring in a personal pronoun or a less neutral verb to make that obvious.

(You) buy for x
(You) sell for x

(Market) sells for x
(Market) buys for x

Offered for x (by the market)
Bought for x (by the market)

Purchase for x
Vend for x

[Debido]

Maybe orbital burn does have something to do with burn speed, but more like...hm...the escape velocity which translates to speed which translates to chance of an encounter with the local law enforcement/government if you buy/sell or have black market goods.

That is if it is easy to arrive/leave the planet with a high burn, the government has a small chance of catching you compared to a planet that is much larger and has a low burn speed.

I think it would be fairly neat for there to be a % chance based upon another external factor as to whether you were stopped by the government forces "Smuggler! You have been found trading contraband.. Power down your engines and prepare to be boarded."


I think I'm going to be fairly wrong on this one.

[Thaago]

Ooh, a mystery!

Maybe Orbital Burns means using some kind of massive propulsion device to correct the planet's orbit, improving agricultural conditions or something?

That would explain why the market needs so much fuel

[heskey30]

Orbital burns sounds to me like some sort of industrial thing. Perhaps for melting metal cheaply, or generating power with infernium. It's probably in orbit because it gives off radiation?

[Andy H.K.]

Orbital Burns: Nope, no one's got it. I kinda want to tell but it's too much fun watching everyone try to guess - truly, to be a game developer is to be a sadist who derives pleasure from the pain of players.

I doubt if anybody will, because IMO at this moment the phrase "orbital burns" make absolutely no sense at all. Is it suppose to describe a natural phenomenon? Or an industrial infrastructure? Which meaning of the word "burns" is fitting in here?

Orbital burns sounds to me like some sort of industrial thing. Perhaps for melting metal cheaply, or generating power with infernium. It's probably in orbit because it gives off radiation?

If that's the case it would have better be called a "orbital foundry" or something else, anything that have nothing to do with the word "burn".

My bet would be that "orbital burns" is a kind of natural phenomenon, kind of like aurora but more like naturally occurring fireworks, a good sight-seeing attraction. Tourism is probably a big part of the economy there, with the fireworks and rainforest. More visitor means more people to hire/abduct/kidnap, hence the high import and surplus of crew.

But then the big problem of making the guess is, there are probably commodity/items that are not shown to us.... those that are actually affected by the status...

[Alex]

Second screenshot, on the right, under the description of "food". Something like "Buys for"/"Sells for" would also work to make the direction clear, more or less.

Ah, right. That is confusing, good call.

Edit: changed to "sold for"/"bought for".

Uhm, that seems hardly less ambiguous. Who's the seller, who's the buyer? You'd have to bring in a personal pronoun or a less neutral verb to make that obvious.

Hmm. To me, using the passive voice seems to make it pretty clear that it's "sold by" and "bought by" the market. Did think about using "supply price" and "demand price", but that's probably more confusing.

[Frozen]

Read my mind dark rev.

Spoiler

[close]

[Megas]

Joke post:  Orbital burn equals planet killer bomb made out of LOTS of fuel.  Light it off and the explosion breaks a planet in half, or sets it on fire.

[Gothars]

Hmm. To me, using the passive voice seems to make it pretty clear that it's "sold by" and "bought by" the market. Did think about using "supply price" and "demand price", but that's probably more confusing.

I'm not a native speaker, so I don't feel like I have much right to be lecturing about English grammar. And maybe this is just a lack of feeling for the language on my part. Now comes the "but":  But the way I understand it, passive voice is explicitly used when the agent of a action is unknown or irrelevant. So, the exact opposite of wanting to be clear about who's acting.

Anyway, a minor point.



Another guess about Orbital Burns: It's the funeral method of choice. The hundred thousands of people on the space station can't all be cremated or buried withing the station's carefully controlled microclima, so they are shot into the planet's atmosphere where they burn up and their molecular building blocks can become part of the eco system. It's a funeral option that's spiritually satisfying to the people of the time and bears nor risk of spreading sickness, increasing population/crew growth and stability.

[David]

(The tourism draw and funerary rites aren't correct, but are quite cool ideas. I should stick something like those somewhere in the game ... )

They are most correct though in that the "Orbital Burns" effect is a sort of background piece of setting that alters the market conditions rather than something which ties heavily into mechanics like the speed of outgoing ships or whatever. Well, at least that's the case right now. Perhaps in time it could be turned into a feature that has certain effects on other parts of the game which I won't speculate on.

[Alex]

Hmm. To me, using the passive voice seems to make it pretty clear that it's "sold by" and "bought by" the market. Did think about using "supply price" and "demand price", but that's probably more confusing.

I'm not a native speaker, so I don't feel like I have much right to be lecturing about English grammar. And maybe this is just a lack of feeling for the language on my part. Now comes the "but":  But the way I understand it, passive voice is explicitly used when the agent of a action is unknown or irrelevant. So, the exact opposite of wanting to be clear about who's acting.

Anyway, a minor point.

Hmm. I'd say that's what makes it point away from the player being the agent, since otherwise it'd be both known and relevant. Not being a native speaker myself, though, I could be wrong here, and either way, I'm not opposed to clarifying it somehow; just not terribly liking any other options so far. I appreciate the suggestions, though! Funny how something so seemingly trivial can be an inordinate pain. Agonizing over what tiny bits of text say is a significant part of the dev process