Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Aquatiq]

i think there should be a !lagout module in the bot, where if you actually do lag out you get a couple chances to return without losing any participation. it'd be really annoying if you were playing a 45-minute long round and lagged out only a few moments just before your team won, haha. the !lagout would put you back in the ship you were in when you lagged out [edit:] and actually it should put you back on the same team you were on, really. or we could take the attitude of "sucks to be you", but even so, even one !lagout with a 30 sec timer would potentially give us time to fix our lag and keep the game fair, no?

[gdugwyler]

Regarding full ship resets, I'm a little bit afraid of implementing this. Consider if someone hacks your account or the biller goes down and they simply log on as you. We'd have to do regular DB backups to ensure data is saved. I'd like to implement this command, but maybe just as a HighMod+ or SMod+ affair (doing a ?help command sort of thing).

Which brings to mind: the bot needs to recognize when the biller is down, and stop itself when it is. Is there a short, meaningless command it could execute every 60 seconds which would give results indicating the biller being up or down? Been a while for me since I was online during a biller outage...

The negative progress occurs when you !defect, and also when I mess with RP rates (not all that often).

!scrap all will probably eventually be implemented. I'm trying to think of an elegant way to do it, though.

Sharks now do have a repel-regen ability, yes. They have fewer repels available overall as well (takes longer to get them), but they now yield 25% less RP than would another ship of the same upgrade level. This will hopefully encourage more of the calculatingly fearless spirit that makes for great sharking.

[Vykromond]

Played a little Terrier today. I like the ship and think it's more or less balanced. I'm fragile so I need sharks just as much as I would in the publics, but the speed and firing rate of my bullets means I'm not at all defenseless, which is nice. The burst/portal mechanism is very clever and seems balanced as well.

Haven't had the chance to check much else out yet. This seems like a terrific subgame so far.

[hak]

Distension Beta

1- Why anyone would want to reset their ships=)?
2- Someone new to game game could do the command by mistake, he goes =(

Unless you want to re-add all your points, a !scrapall would be nice, all the stats are scrapped.

I can actually imagine that someone with 50+ in all ships wants to start over. Even if you can't imagine this happening, it's still a desired feature in any role playing game. Second of all, you would obviously make the bot warn you, and ask for a like "!reset YES" command after giving someone a head warning. This is the same with !defect, and it seems to work pretty well.

Also: About Shark repels recharging every 30 seconds, with odds similar to those of a terrier and spider. Did you get to work this out by any chance? If not, this is just a reminder.

Regards,

Hakkinen B)

[Epic li]

I found there is no way of resetting your ships when you want to. Maybe you could add a command like "!crash 1" to reset your warbird.

1- Why anyone would want to reset their ships=)?
2- Someone new to game game could do the command by mistake, he goes =(

Unless you want to re-add all your points, a !scrapall would be nice, all the stats are scrapped.

[hak]

Distension Beta

I found there is no way of resetting your ships when you want to. Maybe you could add a command like "!crash 1" to reset your warbird.

Also: Progress: -5390 / 6198 11374RP needed for next rank
I don't know what's up with this. I'm sure you can explain me what's wrong.

Regards,

Hakkinen B)

[gdugwyler]

Noteworthy changes went in today:

- Almost every maneuver-based upgrade (rotation, thrust/acceleration, and top speed) is now worth double what it was prior. This means that now every level of a maneuvering upgrade is equal to two levels, in most cases!

- Cost requirements have been increased for recharge and energy in later levels. This is to discourage every single player from just going all recharge and energy, though some can and should still try this strategy.

- Special equipment costs have been increased across the board. Lower-level upgrades will generally still cost only 1 point, but higher level upgrades will run you a bit more.

These changes have been made in an effort to encourage playing styles other than pure tank, and to give light speed-based upgrade plans a chance at destroying the behemoths. Also some costs were increased (special abilities) because the number of levels of the maneuvering upgrades was decreased, so you'll have more points to play with in the higher levels. And need somewhere to use them.


Re: high levels, the rank 0 players might kill the higher ups every so often, and when they do it should give them nearly a level -- this, I think, should be enough to keep them interested, if they can make that one kill. We'll have to see.

A reset might be in order on occasion ... probably done in seasons or phases. Who knows.

[Toasty]

Dug

What will happen once the game is 24/7, 6 months later and u have level 50 ships. Wont it be extremely hard for a level 0 to rank or even kill someone. Will you help them by making a seperate arena for ships 0-15 or something? If i was new it may discourage me a bit if every person i shot wouldnt die and killed me 2 secs later.

probably reset after a few months

[HateTheFake]

Dug

What will happen once the game is 24/7, 6 months later and u have level 50 ships. Wont it be extremely hard for a level 0 to rank or even kill someone. Will you help them by making a seperate arena for ships 0-15 or something? If i was new it may discourage me a bit if every person i shot wouldnt die and killed me 2 secs later.

[gdugwyler]

- Armies now have their own rearmament queues, rearming 3 per second. This will result in generally much shorter rearm times, but longer if many of your teammates are killed at once.

- Lancaster has been converted to the old style, and has been given back the ability to get L2 guns early on for 6 points. I think this is preferable to making it wait forever for L2, and will also make it less of a spray/pray ship.

- !upginfo should be more helpful. Also, !upgrade and !scrap will now provide a description for all upgrades after buying/selling, including those strange ones further down the list.

[gdugwyler]

Thanks for putting together all of the info, HAK. Very useful. We'll have to see how things change as the ranks go up.

I modified the Lanc slightly, which was much needed when you reason it out. Consider how the ship was designed previously: it was one of two ships with L2 guns, the other being the Levi which was not seriously considered in any kind of basing. You can write off the Levi's slow L2 as not all that important, then, and Levi getting L2 in Distension early is a necessary step due to its movement capabilities. The Lanc, though, is a fighting ship. It was designed to fire L2 bullets, but originally when L2 bullets were still 1-hit kill. Then in order to give the ship a different feel, L2 bullets had their damage set down to about 1040. In Distension, L2 again does much higher damage -- even more devastating considering that this makes it a one hit kill for almost any ship under rank 20. Combine this ability with the Lanc's fast firing and low energy cost, and you have a recipe for ship imbalance.

I've made adjustments in one direction to keep the Lanc in the state of a more rapidly-firing ship. This may not be the best choice, but at the moment it's the easiest. This also means that L2 guns (and L3, if they will be made available) MUST be given much later in the game, as the ship is very close to a spider at this point.

The other option is giving it a much slower firing rate with higher energy cost, and making L2 bullets available at a somewhat low level. This is similar to the older version of the pub lanc. I may actually prefer to go this route, as it makes the ship more unique. It has its special abilities available early (particularly a very cool one that changes the ship's tactics quite a bit at level 26 or so) so it should still do well.

Present changes:

Its bullets fire very slightly more slowly, L2 bullets cost slightly more and now have a level requirement (15), and the bullet energy cost has been increased by 30%. This might change even by this afternoon.



Re: project dragon,

1) Rearming isn't really "laggy." This is a common misconception. Only a certain # players can be rearmed in a certain amount of time (this keeps the bot and server happy, for one). At the moment it's 4 per second. So if you have a lot of players dying at once, you may get left in the back of the queue and have to wait a while. Note that this problem originally caused Hyperspace to re-write their ENTIRE bot. This is our workaround. I could up this rate to 5 per second, or, probably more interestingly, just make two queues that run opposite of each other, and maybe run 3 per second. This would make the process faster and also not "penalize" your rearm speed if many players on the other team die.

Note that sharks and terrs can buy "Priority Rearmament" that puts them to the front of the line every time.

2) !upginfo stays. There will also be F1 help. I don't want it to say "Thrusters" or what have you. It's boring. In the end you'll get used to which number means what, and the special abilities will be interesting to figure out. In the future I will have it tell you what the thing you just bought upgrades -- this should help with confusion somewhat!

[PH]

Shark - A pure-defense ship (cough ph).

I laugh in the face of your pathetic paradigm.

[project dragon]

I like the way things are heading so far. : )
After playing distension for some time just now, I think the biggest issues for me were:
1) Rearming. It is quite laggy. Sometimes my ship will rearm itself right after I spawn, other times I would sit in the safe for at least 10-20 seconds before my ship got rearmed. If there was a more reliable way to have ships rearm right at respawn, it would be great.

2) ::!upginfo <#>. I find this command pretty much useless. there should be quicker ways to find out what each upgrade does. eg:

P project dr> !armory
P Distension> SPIDER ARMORY 0 upgrade points available
P Distension> # Name Curr / Max Points Rank Req.
P Distension> 1: Central Realigner (Rotation and turning speed) ( 2 / 10 ) 1 AVAIL!
P Distension> 2: Sling Drive (Thrust and acceleration) ( 1 / 10 ) 1 AVAIL!
P Distension> 3: Spacial Filtering (Top speed) ( 0 / 10 ) 1 AVAIL!

Something as simple as that would be very helpful when you have to need to upgrade quickly, or if you misspell upginfo many many times. : (

[hak]

Distension Beta

Auto-shutdown does now appear to work; as a result I'm going to try to up the number of tests to 2 a day, and make each significantly longer (on average +1 hour from when I log off). The afternoon one will hopefully be adverted as well. As things get more stable, this time will increase.

With the increasing focus on longer play, I'll need more feedback about ship balance and advancement rates. Are there ships that still aren't being played because of certain deficiencies, or that have trouble at certain levels? And how is the advancement rate, when you think it would be roughly half of the current rate? Think in terms of keeping play interesting, but at the same time long-lasting.

If you want, and if it's possible, I could start up the bot around 3-4pm GMT every day. There seem to be a hell lot of people on at that time who can't wait for Distension. I think you usually start it up at around 7 pm. So 3-4 hours would be a nice time gap getting a lot of different players in.

About ship balance. I've had a little discussion going on about ship balance for a few days now. Main participants being Epic Li (Leviathan and Weasel), Zeimonster (Leviathan and Terrier), Turban (Javelin and Lancaster), ph (Shark), Wayspace (Spider), Duel Pasta (Warbird).
Here are my conclusions:

Warbird - The warbird starts out with a high amount of energy and recharge. It has fast Level2 bullets early in the game, and gets mid-high thrusters early as well. Warbird is the ship to play if you're into stray&pray games, or when you're just a good sniper. It's one hit kills pay off, and the slow thrusters balance this out. With a few upgrades, and a smart pilot, this ship makes some good competition for spiders and lancasters. I think it's well balanced as it is right now. Warbird can be used best for solo play, but useful in a team too. It is easy to level.
Javelin - The bomb-lobber. Javelin has a high recharge rate early in the game, and low-mid energy. It also has low-mid thrusters and rotation, to make up for it's deadly proximity bombs. This ship can both bullet and bomb. Level2 bombs available later. Shrapnel becomes available mid-game. In short: Javelin is a high-damage low-energy bomber. It seems balanced now, but I'm not sure about Level2 bombs later in the game. Javelins might become a tad overpowered. This ship needs a team to live, but can wipe out an entire other. Easy to level.
Spider - Spider can upgrade energy and recharge very early in the game, so they can spray a fair deal of bullets. It can equip Level2 bullets later on in the game. A Spider performs best in a legion of other Spiders, but is a threat on itself as well. Seems balanced now, but I fear Level2 bullets might make them a bit strong and popular. This however could be a positive thing, spiders are loved in basing games. This ship is good for solo play, but best in team play. Very easy to level.
Leviathan - Super-fast, mid energy, mid-high recharge. Is a glider; does not have thrusters. Can equip Level2 bombs early at a high price, and equip low-damage super-fast ElectroMagneticPulse (EMP) bombs. These bombs do around 700-800 damage. Level2 bullets available mid-game, and Level3 bombs later on. Not many people use it so far, but it seems well-balanced, and is definetely a fun ship to play. The EMP-Bullet combo seems to work really well, and I guess a Level3 EMP bomb can stun an entire flagroom. It can be used for solo purposes as well as team purposes. Hardest to level, since it's easy to dodge the leviathan in early levels.
Epic Li: "Maybe we can upgrade the Leviathan early with a portal?". Sounds like a fine idea to me, it would definetely give the ship it's own character.
Terrier - Fast, agile and strong, what more do you want? I'd actually like to see some more energy into this ship. Since it is the only ship that has to survive in the relatively 'tiny' flagroom, I'm guessing it can use more than 1900 maximum energy. When Lancasters and Spiders get Level2 bullets, and Javelins get Level2 bombs, Terriers are definetely toast. Burst and portal recharge works really well, allowing a Terrier to kill some of his enemies rather than running from them. Besides it's energy, thrusters, top speed and weapon systems seem balanced well. This is definetely a team-only ship. It's easy-medium to level.
Weasel - I have not seen this ship in play yet. Oh wait, maybe I should turn my xradar on :grin:. The Weasel is once again the only ship able to equip a cloaking device, and stealth systems. It is also the smallest ship in play, one fourth of other ships. Weasel has very fast medium-damage bullets, which can be upgraded to Level2 later on. It can definetely use it's cloaking to sneak up and use it's high recharge, rocket and bullet speed to send an entire team back to spawn. The ship can not use upgrades until Level5, and most upgrades cost 2 RP. Weasel is easy in the start with around 4-5 bullets it can spray. Once it gets it's cloaking devices, it could well become an overpowered ship. Suggestion: turn down the Weasel bullet rate, or up it's costs. Good for solo and team play. Levelling: Easy.
Epic Li helped me with the weasel, since he thinks he's so smart with it.
Lancaster - Lancaster; a Spider dressed up like a beetle. Lancaster is the only ship that has to be unlocked in a special way in the actual game. It has medium energy, and medium-high recharge. They have low thrusters, but a high top speed. Their bullets seem to go mach 3. Lancasters shoot dual bullets, with a time-per-bullet similar to that of a spider. This ship gets Level2 bullets early, dealing out a fair amount of damage. The ship seems unbalanced to me. I think it's too offensive with it's high speed and high damage bullets. Maybe cut their bulleting speed down a little bit? The ship is good for solo and team-play. Lancaster seems to be the easiest ship to level, eight levels in half an hour isn't rare. This causes a huge amount of people to play the ship. I hope the ship maxes out early to promote other ships more.
Shark - A pure-defense ship (cough ph). Starting out with one repel, and mines as your only weapon, life as a shark bites. Don't worry though, it takes just a few levels for you to be able to use three repels, mines, a high-energy bullet and bombs. You can get a fair amount of energy early, and a mid recharge speed. Thrusters are low for the shark, but it's not like you need them any way. Shark is a very useful ship in teams, as it can fortify your flagroom with deadly mines. Once it has run out of repels (maximum is at least 5 repels, I'm not sure), it can use a bomb or bullets as a kamikaze. Shark is easy to level, an experienced offensive shark can get quite a few kills, and round wins do the trick for the rest of your RP-desire.

Overall: Ships seem balanced pretty well, though I fear for a terrier's life in mid-game. Lancaster and Spider Level2 bullets might be a bit too much, combined with their high energy. I'm not sure about the Javelin Level2 bombs either, but I suppose only time will tell.

Regards,

Hakkinen B)

[gdugwyler]

Yes, essentially the replacement of some of that which is in text into LVZ, or just simultaneous LVZ so as to make it more noticeable. If the text isn't a problem, I'll keep it essentially as-is.

The progress bar seems fairly decently fixed now (as compared to how it worked before), though Dank mentioned a problem where it sometimes shows blank spots in the bar. Will have to try to see this one first-hand. Also, players entering in the middle of the round may need an update sent to them regarding flag status.

There's one change I made to how !assist works that will prevent the symptom but not the cause of the strange switching problem. Guess we'll just have to see if it causes any more problems. As of lately I haven't seen much.

Also, auto-shutdown does now appear to work; as a result I'm going to try to up the number of tests to 2 a day, and make each significantly longer (on average +1 hour from when I log off). The afternoon one will hopefully be adverted as well. As things get more stable, this time will increase.

With the increasing focus on longer play, I'll need more feedback about ship balance and advancement rates. Are there ships that still aren't being played because of certain deficiencies, or that have trouble at certain levels? And how is the advancement rate, when you think it would be roughly half of the current rate? Think in terms of keeping play interesting, but at the same time long-lasting.