Fifth game of the multiplayer slow game server

[Ophiuchus]

how about an interim fix: for the colony base hull only, put the upkeep back up to 1% rather than 0.2% - that way you can still use the comsat strategy, but it's back to being as expensive as it used to be. This seem a bit fairer?

Maybe I do not understand the comsat strategy or the way upkeep works, please correct me.

In my understanding comsats in the queue do not count for upkeep, so in many cases you can leave them 1-turn unfinished. Ok for huge numbers you need to make sure your supply lines are good so you can finish them any time. How many comsats were there in the game?
I think upkeep should also consider items in the queue. Maybe as a ratio of completeness - so if 2 out of 3 parts of a comsat are finished, it adds two thirds of what a comsat usually adds to upkeep).

Another thing - somebody was talking about part upkeep. There is hull upkeep and part upkeep. Classic comsat does not have parts, so only influence hull upkeep.

Also if we get real upkeep (having to pay influence every turn for existing ships) keeping comsats around might hurt more. E.g. not being able to spend PP on ships as your influence is below zero.

For ship weapon targetting i would suggest to ignore ships without (non-fuel) parts. That makes the comsat more expensive (probably adding a troop pod, doubling the cost) and also increase the part upkeep and make those more reasonable as troop ships are useful.
We could also up the base hull cost a bit -maybe to four- but not much as the small asteroid only costs 6 PP.

One could still trigger combat with monsters with an empty aggressive comsat.

[swaq]

How many comsats were there in the game?

25+ in a single system.

[swaq]

Ummm. The Magnate State Media would like to apologise to our allies the Good Etty, for confusing them with the evil and shapeshifting Cray, who often look nothing like Etty but sometimes do. We'd also like to announce the public execution of all our surviving admirals for not noticing (i) that a failed invasion of a system does not successfully blockade it and (ii) that it doesn't block supply either, allowing all those pesky fighters to rearm, resulting in the treacherous Cray reinforcements pulverising the still-not-good-enough Magnate fleet. Finally, we'd like to thank the very wonderful cheese- and chocolate-eating Swiss (and I'm not even going to attempt to remember their race) for whizzing up in the nick of time to harrass the evil not-Etty on so many fronts that they reboot into self-destruct mode.

That really was a series of very fortunate events for my empire. I wasn't expecting to even survive your first wave let alone counterattack on the next turn. If it wasn't for all the other fronts that are crumbling that might have saved the game. But at least I am making it difficult.

In addition, we can cite this epic battle as conclusive proof that Energy Frigates, while dozens of turns later in tech than Robotic Hulls and requiring an additional building, are significantly worse, with the extra speed in no way making up for the loss of 10 structure and regeneration. If nobody is going to nerf robotic hulls, energy frigates at least deserve an extra external slot.

Yeah, my experiments with the energy line of hulls (in single player) found they were never worth the cost. They need to be easier to build and more have more perks to make up for being more fragile.

Btw I had another idea about comsats - I agree with Oberlus that they should be more expensive (perhaps with the outpost base / colony based reduced so that the cost of outpost/colony ships remains the same) - but also, why not give them an external slot? Then you could put armour or a weapon on them and they could be the first of a line of immobile defence platform hulls. (Part of the problem is that armour is too cheap compared to weapons, but increasing both the hull cost and the upkeep cost would do in the meantime.)

I like the idea of defenses platforms. I think they should require guns/fighters to draw enemy fire though.

[o01eg]

The server was updated to 2019-10-27.f676837 latest test build. Update clients as well.

Other than upstream changes it includes fix for server freezes happened not so long and a new delegation support, where delegate uses his own credentials to enter the game.

[Magnate]

That really was a series of very fortunate events for my empire. I wasn't expecting to even survive your first wave let alone counterattack on the next turn. If it wasn't for all the other fronts that are crumbling that might have saved the game. But at least I am making it difficult.

And I thought Oberlus was a tough opponent! You certainly are - but to be fair to you, this kind of compensates you for the rotten luck of not being able to take Hydros Beta because not a single shot hit the planet. Though this was not all good luck, more my mistake of stopping at Hydros Alpha instead of fleeing home.

Yeah, my experiments with the energy line of hulls (in single player) found they were never worth the cost. They need to be easier to build and more have more perks to make up for being more fragile.

Who is in charge of hull balance now? A few years ago it was MatGB and he was very responsive to feedback.

I like the idea of defenses platforms. I think they should require guns/fighters to draw enemy fire though.

Ooh I like that - does the ship design code allow it to reject a design because a required component is missing? e.g. This design requires at least one weapon?

[Oberlus]

Who is in charge of hull balance now? A few years ago it was MatGB and he was very responsive to feedback.

No body in particular.
I'm working on the tiered tech tree and hulls are next on the list, but that os something else.
However, anyone motivated can put up pull requests with balancing changes.

[swaq]

Turn 95. The swaq empire homeworld is under siege! Nothing else is important.

[The Silent One]

I'm currently unable to connect to the server - is it down?

[Oberlus]

How are prospects of victory for each team?
I wouldn't mind if you all kill each other for once

[o01eg]

I'm currently unable to connect to the server - is it down?

It looks like hosting issues, it isn't available even for ping.

Bot is online, so VPS is up. But traceroute shows circles.

[JonCST]

I was just able to connect/enter orders, so whatever you did seems to have fixed it.

J.

[The Silent One]

I was just able to connect/enter orders, so whatever you did seems to have fixed it.

Still can't connect.

[o01eg]

I was just able to connect/enter orders, so whatever you did seems to have fixed it.

Still can't connect.

Could you try to traceroute or tracert host? I have a strange loop at fra1-lmb1-vac1-a75-firewall.de.eu [178.33.99.161] and fra1-lmb1-vac1-a75-shield.de.eu [178.33.99.162]. I suppose same as you.

[swaq]

How are prospects of victory for each team?
I wouldn't mind if you all kill each other for once

I don't have enough ships to defend all my borders, JonCST is slowly being pushed back, and alleryn is at a stalemate with huge stacks of ships on both sides. I don't think our chances for victory are very good. But I am building self-grav ships now which helps a little.

[swaq]

I was able to log in just now.