Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[alinea]

It's taken me awhile to grasp the new system, and I find myself constantly answering questions about it in-game, so to help those who are coming to the forums looking for an explanation, here it is short and sweet:

All players have been set to RANK 39 in ALL ships, regardless of their previous ships/ranks. Due to the major crash we had awhile back, this was necessary. It was also necessary to implement the new energy/recharge systems.

The beta bonus has been increased to 9x (was 4.something before), so a major increase that will help you regain your levels faster.

Energy and Recharge upgrades are now automatically given to you based on your rank (so they increase every time you rank). The amount of energy, recharge and upgrade points (UP) you receive per level is based on your ship type. You can PM DistensionBot with !shiptypes to see a list of the available ship types and then !specialize # to specialize in one of them. Specializing in a ship type is free during the beta (will cost rank points (RP) in the release), so feel free to play around with the different ship types. But note that each time you !specialize in a ship type, you will have to re-purchase your upgrades. All ships are defaulted to the Scout ship type, so if you do not !specialize, that is what you are.

There is one ship type that does NOT automatically give you recharge/energy upgrades: ship type # 5 (The Z-Class). Z-Class ships will have to !upgrade their recharge and energy just as they did before ship types were implemented. The downside to having this flexibility is that you will end up with less UP to spend on other upgrades.


I have found that several ships just don't have enough upgrades to purchase if you choose a ship type that grants you many UP per rank. But with dugs ideas and suggestions given here on the forum, we'll hopefully be able to add enough special abilities to make these lower-energy/lower-recharge/higher-up ship types tempting to use. Feel free to share more suggestions on the forum.

-ali

[Joku Ugo]

youre just being defensive because its your time invested in this, not mine =P

Actually, your comment truly was absolutely fucking stupid. And I say this as someone who hasn't invested any time in that feature. Horrible balance issues are usually straightforward to fix. It's not like Distension's balance was perfectly fine tuned before this change either. You should try to explain why the feature itself is bad or what ships are imbalanced and how. That could be helpful.

[2kill]

Planning on testing tomorrow at 1:30PM EST.

darn it!

I stop reading the thread for a few days and you guys host a test

is it going back to normal times now? (meaning 1:30 and 7:00 EST)

thanks looking forward to testing again

2kill

[gdugwyler]

I am more than merely defensive due to having invested a decent amount of time in it. Your views are also ridiculous -- as I said, an imbalance can be righted; the system may still function in the way I intend it to.

Balance at the first go was not predicted. To say that the system should be reverted because it is imbalanced is therefore illogical, meaningless.

[roxxkatt]

youre just being defensive because its your time invested in this, not mine =P

[gdugwyler]

now that ive tried it, id say to completely get rid of all this ship specialization.
even with all ships reset to the same level, everything is so unbalanced now that it isnt fun anymore...
no matter how much time and effort you put into it, it needs to go.

You'll forgive me if I put almost no stock into your opinion, having only tested it one day. Pardon me again, but that's just plain stupid. Balance issues can be fixed. The system stays. What an idiotic post.

[roxxkatt]

now that ive tried it, id say to completely get rid of all this ship specialization.
even with all ships reset to the same level, everything is so unbalanced now that it isnt fun anymore...
no matter how much time and effort you put into it, it needs to go.


and i find it funny that the same glitch that ruined the database, which wasnt backed up, is still there...
right, it hasnt been fixed.


also, there needs to be a rearm afk checker, for those players sitting rearm while the pitiful 4v6 going on is ruined because one team has 2 idiots sitting in spec, effectively making it 2v6.

[roxxkatt]

to me, the best course of action regarding the "z-class" is to disallow the free < lvl10 upgrades, and keep it at 10up per lvl, because only when the ship gets to lvl60 does it become profitable to be.

im not too fond of the 9up per level, but if it gets the inital 60up, then that would be even as well. but the first choice is still the best, imo.



-edit-
good decision.
im glad you took it that way, because i had already decided to have every ship zclass (if you couldnt tell), because i enjoy having full control over my upgrades.
if you have indeed decided to 'normalize' those values, and increase spd/thr, what will happen to the ships with already exorbitant costs?
for instance, levi thr 3/5 costs about 70up... will it be more?

[gdugwyler]

Moar updates in case anyone was curious:

Pretty much done with all the changes needing to be made to test out the new ship type functionality. I also want to tweak some costs a very slight bit and go over the code again to see if nothing was missed. Also, the DB work.

But most importantly:

• Planning on testing tomorrow at 1:30PM EST.

If I'm not able to get it going by then, definitely shooting for the 1:30 Monday slot.

[gdugwyler]

DaKo says: If it ain't broke, dont fix it. I really don't see what problem this whole new elaborate system is creating. If anything, it looks like its making things more complicated.

It's not exactly broken, but the game can be structured many different ways, some better or worse. This is being done in an attempt to take away the present distinct advantage given by investing mostly in energy and recharge. It should encourage a greater variety in ship builds, allow more creative constructions, allow new players to compete more easily by having energy/recharge managed for them, and so on. (A thread earlier on has more info.)

And while this system does make things more complicated in some ways -- having to choose which ship type, essentially -- it's more simple in others: with your recharge and energy upgraded automatically, you just worry about the other, more interesting upgrades, and will also find that (on average) you have more UP than if you purchased the exact same upgrades in the old system. This then means more abilities can be added, encouraging yet more diversity while working around the restrictions of the automated recharge and energy.

Also, I've decided to implement the Z-Class so that you can essentially play as you would at present, earning 10UP per rank. The only significant change will be a normalization of energy and recharge costs -- all ships will have the same costs, rank requirements, and number of available levels -- and a slight increase in the cost of speed and thrust.

[dako]

DaKo says: If it ain't broke, dont fix it. I really don't see what problem this whole new elaborate system is creating. If anything, it looks like its making things more complicated.

Special note: 1000th post

Special special note: Distension beta up for 8 months now

[gdugwyler]

Dugwyler 13:7
"And on the twelth day He spoke, of an end to the hunger."


this thread got halfway down the page =(

btw, i still am a strong supporter of the current "science vessel" ship we currently use, and i would really like to see it still recieve the full 10, not 9...

Well, the problem with that is that if that were the case, everyone would choose it. (Also, it's been renamed "Z-Class" and the special ops has become the Science Vessel -- makes more sense I think.) And every ship type, including the Z-Class, will have a free 3 upgrades in energy and recharge before rank 10, plus 10 UP per rank. Essentially that means a bonus 60UP. That bonus alone should make up for the fact that the Z-Class will receive less than 10 per rank; however it also will have a reduced scrapping bonus and of course the ability to have maximum energy and recharge, something allowed to no other ship. So: 9 is the most it will receive per rank, with 8 also being possible. Note that costs will be normalized a bit as well, so for example the Warbird won't have extremely expensive energy and recharge at later ranks, and the Jav and Spider won't enjoy the current proportionally cheap upgrades in slots 4 and 5.

The other option would be to have the Z-Class completely wipe all of the upgrades that players of other shiptypes earn in the first 10 ranks, and continue on with 9 or possibly even 10 UP per rank. I think 9 would be in order in that case, however, as the ability to max energy and recharge coupled with extreme flexibility and scrap cost reduction is just too powerful to be ignored, and I want the other more standard ship types for the average player that does not want to juggle builds regularly to be the best decision.

[roxxkatt]

Dugwyler 13:7
"And on the twelth day He spoke, of an end to the hunger."


this thread got halfway down the page =(

btw, i still am a strong supporter of the current "science vessel" ship we currently use, and i would really like to see it still recieve the full 10, not 9...

[gdugwyler]

Approaching changes

As you've probably heard there are a number of changes coming into the beta as we move into the final stretches:

• All players will be given a significant rank in each ship, for variety of testing.
• The ship-type modification will go in.

The ship type modification is giving me a bit of trouble so far, however. Here is the problem: at present, the system is based loosely on having upgrades generally available at the rate of one per rank, or 10UP. This usually doesn't cover special upgrades, but at least at one point this was the idea -- so that a player will generally be able to add an ability each rank, or close to it.

With the introduction of (in a sense) "free" recharge and energy, just in controlled amounts each rank, clearly there will be a significant amount of UP left unaccounted. By and large the UP that would be used to upgrade energy and recharge for a given ship type will be taken out of the rank increase UP amount, in a sense budgeting for these abilities automatically. However, the amount taken out won't be quite equal to past costs, so in the long run players will have a little bit more UP at present than if they just made a build under the current system in which they upgrade energy and recharge the same amount for a given rank. The reason for this is because the ship types take away some flexibility as far as energy and recharge are concerned.

(This all excludes the ship type option that allows players to upgrade energy and recharge on their own, which will have a slightly smaller amount of UP per rank than players now typically enjoy -- I'm imagining 9 so far.)

There's also the matter of the first X ranks to deal with before a ship type decision is made. For some time I was running with 15 or 20, but I'm thinking I'm going to push it all the way down to 10 to make it easier to calculate the amount of UP each ship type should receive per rank. The idea will be that at rank 10 you'll be given the option to change from the default ship (which will become disadvantageous to have after rank 25 or so) to one of the specialized ship types. There will also be a float time of probably 5 ranks in which you can make the change without any penalty, in case it takes you a while to decide. (Of course, when this change first comes online it will be free for quite a while.)

In those first 10 ranks you'll be given a strong mixture of energy, recharge and UP. The energy and recharge will also be given disproportionately to the rate at which you'll receive them in later ranks, with any build. This is to get new players up and running competetively as quickly as possible, and also establish a base 100UP that all ships will carry with them regardless of type. (The first 10 ranks will probably keep the 10UP per rank formula, with the free energy and recharge paid for by slightly more expensive thrust and speed upgrades.) This 100UP foundation should allow some flexibility even in the heavy ship types, which may be forced to make difficult scrapping decisions from time to time.


Any ideas are welcome on this subject. It's about 60% there, but I'd only recently decided on some things so it will be moving faster soon -- still any input would be helpful. Also, thanks for the special ability ideas; these are also going to be needed in order to offer the UP-heavy ship type a reason for existence. At the very least I can confirm for certain some buff abilities, one in the fashion of increasing a certain array of abilities a large amount for a certain amount of time, and also those that buff only one upgrade at a time, but stay throughout that life. In order for these to work properly, the maximums will probably be done away with -- ?status percentages will not have much meaning afterward. Let me know if this would be a problem for anyone.

Thanks for your ongoing patience. We're getting there.

[Bobyz]

Yes, but it affects every ship, not just one player.

that might actually backfire with a high ranked spid. if the spid gets super at the time he goes crazy spinning, wont it annihilate everyone around him?