Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[HateTheFake]

OK why in the hell does x have cloak and stealth so early, and a terr doesnt get xradar til later, then u add the lag of the xs, then u add multi and 2 seperate bullets and quick speeds, then u add l2 bullets. ITS DUMB. I terred for about 10 mins til i was officially pissed off. I dont mind competition but COME ON. Replace that shitty ship with a Non Cloaking Nightwasp

[Chao.]

Please nerf the weasel in a big way - I already see some able to spam yellow bullets, cloak, and rocket-lag. It's absolutely horrid having to deal with them. (Maybe you could increase it to normal size as said earlier)

[Zeimonster]

*kill weasel

and yes, i'm serious. Never want to see another cloaking miniweasel with multi one-hitting everybody with the help of their rockets.

DIE WEASELS, DIE!!

[Shas'la T'au Kais]

the weasel is the single most annoying ship around

why can't it be the same size as the other ships? would be just about bearable then

[gdugwyler]

A) When there is an Avaric after a long battle, it's realllllly disappointing. Especially if much of the battle was fought fair. Do you think the RP jackpot for the game can not be reset in the case of an avarice?

It's a fine balance. The problem is, I noticed that in cases where an army is doing well, no-one will !assist because they simply want to get a slew of points. Avarice was implemented to help prevent this. However, one problem is that players are unsure when this may occur. To attempt to be more fair, I've reduced the avarice penalty to 1/4 points, and now the bot will inform a team who is 30 seconds away from winning that avarice may fire due to team imbalance. !assist at that time will become rewarded, even if an !assist was done recently, and this should cause the team-msg advert to fire in at most 20 seconds informing the team of the max assist rank.

Not sure why RP are being capped now. Especially capped for a low-rank player that kills a high rank player.

RP caps were widened a bit, both for higher players killing lower players, and lower players killing higher players. There was a miscalculation in the low to high kills recently (the low player was receiving his or her own rank, rather than the rank of the player killed, when the low player cap should not have been in effect but humiliation was). Presently a lower-ranked player will experience a cap only at 20 levels above, at which point it's just their upgrade level + 20. So if a ship with 10 upgrades kills one with 20, it receives 20; 30, it receives 30
; 35, 40, 50, etc., it receives 30 still. This is in to prevent a rank 0 player from straying a rank 80 and going up 5 ranks in the process. I think that there should be a little work into the low ranks, even if you do get lucky and take out a higherup, humiliating them beyond belief.

fuck one shot killers

Try upgrading some maneuvering options. The Lancaster is unique in that it can get a strong L2 bullet as early as rank 6, but it costs 6 upgrade points to do this. So you'll see a "1" by the name and meanwhile this ship is actually rank 6 or higher. Don't trust bounty to show you rank, only number of upgrades. The cost of the upgrades has nothing to do with it. Of course, it becomes beneficial for some ships as the Weasel, who then have a much smaller upgrade level than their rank and can use it to their advantage. So it goes with the Lancaster and its 6-cost gun. But my advice is: if the Lanc goes with that gun, all you need to do is upgrade your thrust, rotation and speed a bit, dance around him with a few well-placed red bullets, and you won't have too much trouble. On the other hand, if you just try to tank him, why, yes, you're going to end up screwed facing double-barrel L2 head-on with very little dodging capabilities. Don't get mad, get tactical.

Getting shraps takes WAY TOO much time for a javelin.

There are some ships in the game which have been designed for the very long haul, and Javelin is one such ship. It tops out higher than pretty much any other and has the option of full-damage L2 (L3 as well, though it's somewhat out of reach). Levi is another such ship. It has many levels of some of its upgrades, but they don't upgrade it a great deal. These are intentional, to give each ship its own feel. If you want something that upgrades quickly but is not meant gain much strength past rank 40 or 50, try out the Lanc. Jav shrap meanwhile allows a short number of upgrades at level 15, and then several more levels at level 30 -- this is in keeping with the idea of having ships be essentially "stock" at upgrade level 25, if everything is upgraded roughly evenly.

Is there a schedule for when distension will be running?

Generally I test turning the week (very rarely on the weekend), and usually in the morning starting 10am-12pm EST or afternoon starting somewhere around 2pm-5pm. I'm trying to keep it up for longer as well.

I'm having to make some significant changes to the way the game is handled, as we're causing server recycles. This means rearm times are going to be a little slower, and yes, there is going to be a player cap, though instituted by the bot and not the arena settings. And due to the necessity of a player cap, there will also be a daily time limit imposed per person, probably looking like 2 hours per day, refreshed at the rate of 5 minutes per hour and storing up to a max of 3 hours per day. I know this is not welcome news for many people, but I'm afraid that because of the way the bot must be implemented, there really isn't much of an alternative; it's looking like it's Distension in this way, or no Distension at all. Suggestions as to other ways of dealing with it are welcome ... complaints are not. The benefits of such a system are reasonably good as well: running the bot fairly regularly (perhaps 24/7) is not going to be as much of a problem, nor will leaving to go to a hosted event if you can just use your Distension time later on. I understand multiple accounts may be a problem, but we'll have to see how that goes. It might be alias-checked, and it might just be allowed if people get obsessive...

[Burzum]

Is there a schedule for when distension will be running? So far it seemed pretty random, and people going in and out of that arena all the time, waiting for it to start.

[Peace_Maker]

I want distension!!!! To test some of the upper rank ablilities do you think we can get the bot up longer? I want to be able to test antiwarp for spider. Thanks for everything you have done dug.
Peace

[Ara]

Getting shraps takes WAY TOO much time for a javelin, it's depressing, instead
of level 15 shraps should be allowed at level 10 max. And terriers SHOULDN'T
have bursts untill they are at level 10 also. Thanks

[Peace_Maker]

lvl 4 lanc vs lvl 17 spid
lvl 4 spid vs lvl 17 lanc

difference?

f oneshotkillers

not so much "f oneshotkillers" more like make it harder to be able to get the powerful bullets

[Evul Fly]

lvl 4 lanc vs lvl 17 spid
lvl 4 spid vs lvl 17 lanc

difference?

f oneshotkillers

[alinea]

Two suggestions/comments..

A) When there is an Avaric after a long battle, it's realllllly disappointing. Especially if much of the battle was fought fair. Do you think the RP jackpot for the game can not be reset in the case of an avarice?

and B) Not sure why RP are being capped now. Especially capped for a low-rank player that kills a high rank player. I thought the point was that high level players are worth more RP so that new players can rank up/catch up quickly?

Just my 2 cent

-ali

[PH]

Take a look at him during tomorrow's test when an enemy shark mines the flag. You'll see.

[Peace_Maker]

I hope that's not the only questionable thing you've noticed Animol doing.

It is, enlighten me.

[gdugwyler]

Nope, no way to have the burst increase in number of bullets. Would be interesting if you could, though.

As far as the bursts being a problem, though ... I don't know, I haven't really seen them be that big a deal. Every part of the base has been widened quite a bit to prevent getting trapped too often by bursts. A burst also has to rebound off a wall in order to hit -- and consider that if a terr uses two bursts on you, it's likely something that wasn't all that easy to get at this level due to fairly low regeneration rates.

One thing that could be done is to reduce the burst speed for the Terrier, but slightly increase bullet alive time (which I'm fairly sure determines burst alive time). They'd be easier to dodge, but would be around a bit longer to make up for lost distance.

[Zeebu]

Perhaps the burst could be changed so that only one could be held at once? The prize thing is ok but it's a little ridiculous to have a terr run towards us, spam burst 2 (maybe 3?) times and be left trying to dodge all of it.

Alternatively you could change it so that the burst only shoots 2 bullets or something.

is there a way to make busrt somewhat like shrap levels? the higher your burst level the more little dudes you get to bounce around. get up to a level 5 burst or whatever and have a 5-bullet burst? just a thought