Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[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.

[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...

[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

[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!!

[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)

[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

[Peace_Maker]

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...

What about running 2 arenas/2 bots?

[moltenrock]

SERIOUS BUG, THE BOT RUNS AWAY FROM US SOMETIMES.

FIX IT. :fear:

[Peace_Maker]

Hehe, looks like everyone else is seeing what I was saying about the weasel now. Instead of just complaining I will suggest some alternative settings: keep the weasel small, slow down the rocket, increase the amount of energy required for it to fire (right now there is a weasel that can fire 3 l2 multifire bullets, not sure about his rank but it was under 30), x-radar should be available to terrs and maybe one or two other ships before a weasel is ever able to cloak.

Edit: Dug, remembering you replied to my last post on weasels I reviewed the information and realize increasing the energy required to fire L2 bullets by weasels alone is not possible. I think slowing down the rocket and giving terriers the capability to see the little monsters would be enough to decrease its power. Right now weasel rockets seem to create a lot of lag at least on my screen.

[Burzum]

Increase their size so that it's possible to hold a base even with a low-level terrier - when I mine up the entrance and dedicate to the other base, the terrier should be able to see he rammed a mine and call for backup. With the way the weasel is right now, we had Mjollnir going in and out of base, sometimes silently stealing flags, mostly wildly spraying yellow stuff everywhere, at level 20!

[Zeebu]

gonna have to jump on the weasel hating bandwagon...

gotta be able to see that thing

[Jeenyuss]

i like the small size. it's just the matter of them being able to recharge so god damn fast.

[gdugwyler]

- Dropped Terrier XRadar level requirement. You can now get it from rank 1.
- Increased Weasel Stealth rank requirement. Now only particularly advanced weasels can use cloak and stealth simultaneously.
- Reduced thrust from rockets (all rockets, that is), so that it will take a bit to get up to the top speed; it's now half of what it was. This is not hugely noticeable, but it does have some effect and should help with lag.
- Lowered Weasel starting energy, but also gave them more to upgrade in the <5 levels as a result.

We'll see if these changes balance it out a bit. I'm curious to play the ship first-hand. The rapid fire bullets are not too much of a concern unless the weasel is able to get up to high speeds with a rocket, or just has a lot of speed upgrades -- though if the latter is true, then I think they should be able to do it, as that means they've also had to ugprade recharge and energy in addition to that speed.


Also, decoys now last a much shorter time than before. This is to cut down on lag, and to make their use is more tactical than random.

[gdugwyler]

Regarding the recent necessity of a player limit and time limit, I think I've found a good compromise. There won't be so much a time limit as playing times recorded. These won't matter until the arena is full, in which case a player who wants to get in will be able to bump out the player with the most amount of total playing time for the day, if the player has less total time. The switch will occur at round end. This means that players won't be limited by time so much as demand for slots, and will encourage those that want to play a lot to check out off-peak hours. The time will reset once per day at the statistical average low-pop time.

We might also be able to run another bot or bots depending on if the server recycle problem is on a per-bot basis or not. This would allow a lot of players on Distension at any one time, which may or may not be a Good Thing.

Anyhow, sorry if anyone got annoyed or worried about the 2 hour limitation. I think this'll work much better.

[Chao.]

Regarding the recent necessity of a player limit and time limit, I think I've found a good compromise. There won't be so much a time limit as playing times recorded. These won't matter until the arena is full, in which case a player who wants to get in will be able to bump out the player with the most amount of total playing time for the day, if the player has less total time. The switch will occur at round end. This means that players won't be limited by time so much as demand for slots, and will encourage those that want to play a lot to check out off-peak hours. The time will reset once per day at the statistical average low-pop time.

We might also be able to run another bot or bots depending on if the server recycle problem is on a per-bot basis or not. This would allow a lot of players on Distension at any one time, which may or may not be a Good Thing.

Anyhow, sorry if anyone got annoyed or worried about the 2 hour limitation. I think this'll work much better.

If I worked more on the other map I talked to you about a few weeks ago, would it possible to do tests there (maybe just in dev if we can bring some people) so see the general reaction/get ideas for it?