OFFICIAL DISTENSION THREAD HERE

[roxxkatt]

ive been saying javs need a buff for a very long time
qan keeps saying that theyre op at lvl80 and that he never resets so its definitely worth the wait

[but...why...per...]

The weasel situation in distension is becoming an absolute joke; currently one team has 5 to 6 weasels and the other has 1 maybe 2. With 2 or 3 often being used on the team everysingle match, causing a blatant handicap in their favour. If you were to look at the statistics from just the past 3 or 4 hosts you would clearly see this, as 1 team has won at least 25 battles whilst the other has won close to 3. That is not even including the obscene amount of points that have been earned through hockey. Just cap the x to 1 per team at a time, I believe this is done for the 'nightwasp' in other zones. Trench Wars is one of the best and most popular zones due to the ships being so well balanced and ready to fight straight away. If you are going to have an event were players need to rank ships then there still needs to be some balance. For the large part this balance has been addressed to ensure fair gameplay though at the moment the event is becoming pointless as it is completely one-sided. Having fixed teams is largely part of the problem too, since the auto balance is not working and there is not even the peace of mind that by the next host the teams will have changed and may well be a little fairer. If things carry on the way they are you will drive players away from the game.

[qan]

Hi folks. Was hoping to have time to update again before yesterday but ended up camping over the weekend and then getting extra work I hadn't planned for. I'm still working a lot. Being American, I'll also be camping yet again for Inpdendence Day all 4 days (sorry). I will do my best to fix things up as best I can today before the test tomorrow. No promises though.

I have a few balance issues I want to address for the late game. As many of you know, the game is not balanced for the late game, as we simply haven't had the players to test it.

- Weasels still have issues with recharge -- they can fire too much, too quickly. I'll be giving them back maneuverability to a great degree (may even increase it beyond stock), but increasing fire cost, increasing fire delay, and reducing overall recharge.
- Levis have too high an UP cost for later levels. Recharge is supposed to be overpriced (it's a glider) but it's too overpriced to make the ship work. They will also receive additional levels of shrapnel to be purchased at various times. Note that this may result in a partial or full refund of upgrades on all levis. I also understand that prox isn't that useful for Levis... thinking about it.
- Jav bombs at high level are no good. Strongly considering increasing bomb damage across the board (only way to increase it -- L1/2/3 all do same dmg, just larger radius for higher levels), but reducing radius. I'll also be giving Javs L3 at a lower rank (was planned for the end), and perhaps another level of shrap (or 2).
- One solution to bomb issues is to adjust costs and introduce rank 4 bombs. Note that as bombs only do 1900 dmg, this would still just increase blast radius. So I may raise bomb damage by quite a lot but also reduce the blast radius proportionally.
- CONSIDERING doing something with Shark, though it pains me to adjust repel settings, as they're standardized across TW. May adjust how well regen works. Shark needs to be OP to be played (to an extent at least). Hard to negotiate this turf.

In other words, major overhaul coming; will continue tweaking as time goes on. At the very least I will be sure to get a weasel tweak in before tomorrow. Your feedback is as always not just appreciated but entirely necessary for the game's continued survival and prosperity.

[qan]

So, great news -- my hard drive died last night. I'm still able to do some work using other systems but I'll be a little bit crippled until I can get my old system up and running properly.

I've tweaked Weasel again, as well as a few other ships. (Interestingly, some of the settings changes I made before were mysteriously reverted. For example, Weasel starting recharge was at 2400. This is highly unusual, as it reverts not one but two changes... so it seems unlikely to have been a simple error on my part. We are researching server logs to get to the bottom of it. The potential for foul play aside, this means that the Weasel you've been seeing in-game is not the "true" new version. Well, that doesn't matter much now, as I'm reverting some changes -- speed changes -- and increasing the fire delays and energy costs.)

Weasel changes:
- Initial thrust and speed back to pre-nerf settings.
- Initial energy from 1000 to 1100.
- Bullet speed from 2000 to 1500. (May raise slightly as needed.)
- Bullet cost from 225 to 350 per bullet level.
- Multifire cost from 275 to 450 per bullet level.
- Bullet fire delays increased for both standard and multifire. (This will be the most noticeable change.)
- 4x as likely as other ships to lose upgrades after receiving damage, due to small ship size. (Still will be rare.)

Other ships (NOTE: These changes are more "working" changes, meant as a stop-gap measure until I can come up with a more comprehensive solution):
- Jav bomb L1 energy cost from 900 to 700.
- Levi bomb L1 energy cost from 650 to 600.
- Levi bomb energy upgrade cost (how much more each level costs) from 400 to 300.
- Shark energy required to drop L2 mines increased by 100.

[LF]

I feel bad harassing you in game every time I see you so I will just leave this here so you can address it at your convenience...

I was under the impression that the 5% diversity bonus for having ships 20+ were to be applied to everything but it seems that it is only being applied to kills and not profit sharing/ball games/end of round bonus/holds and breaks/etc. This has been confirmed by comparing results from 2 different players in the same ship at the same level (Myself and bellflowers) while I have all 9 ships 20+ and he has only 2. So just wondering if I was mistaken or if something small just needed to be tweaked to complete this. On a side note +1 for the weasel nerfs, the fire delay is intense and takes some getting used to but it completely changes the way you have to play the weasel to a way much more appropriate for its design. Now its actually worth while to buy blue bullets, since you can't spam yellows. Nice job and thank you

[ogron]

Bombs/Mines do seem a bit underpowered at the moment.

Awhile back the blast radius of yellows was WAY too big, but now I can tank yellow mines and good jav shots don't seem to kill. Javs have always seemed a bit underpowered, although their ability to rocket towards Terr is a big difference maker.

[qan]

To all Distension players,

Please accept my apologies; Distension has been taken off-line indefinitely, pending the discovery of the source of spontaneous settings changes which, regardless of their origin, are completely disrupting the game.

Here is what we know:

• Subspace arena settings files, as a rule, never change "by themselves" -- if the error is due to a problem with the server, it's just about unique (at least as far as I can remember). (Quite Unlikely)
• The bot is not changing the settings file -- there is no code in DistensionBot or TWCore that would spontaneously change arena settings. TWCore is not magic ... at least not in "that" way. The assumption that the bots might spontaneously change arena settings is ... lacking in intellectual rigor/understanding of the workings of computer science.
• The settings changes made have mostly benefited Weasels. And only some settings in various sets of changes I've made have actually been reverted or changed to values which they've never before been at; others were left alone. Meanwhile, values such as Levi bomb damage percentage (the percent of total bomb damage an EMP bomb does), which have remained the same for years, are suddenly found to be at 1/3 of their normal value. (Fortunately, we have "helpful" people who identify this when this happens, and set it back for us. What would we do without them?)
• I'm not an idiot. And I'm done playing around. I will do a full playerwipe of all Distension players if the game is run again without my consent, and I will not bring it back online again. This is my prerogative. I worked on this every day for a year and a half. This is my child. I will drown it in the bathtub myself before I see it molested by a pervert.

If you'd like to see just how far down the rabbit hole you may go, by all means, take a look.

[Shaddowknight]

• The bot is not changing the settings file -- there is no code in DistensionBot or TWCore that would spontaneously change arena settings. TWCore is not magic ... at least not in "that" way. The assumption that the bots might spontaneously change arena settings is ... lacking in intellectual rigor/understanding of the workings of computer science.

It's the Ghosts in the Machines man.... call Will Smith, he'll solve the mystery!

[roxxkatt]

i believe lefty was making changes to settings

[roxxkatt]

at least he was talking about changing weasel settings in pub chat frequently

edit doesnt work, fuck broken forums

[Shaddowknight]

you can edit if you change forum skin to "vb4 default"

[roxxkatt]

i can also not see anymore if i stab myself in the eyes with daggers repeatedly

[Shaddowknight]

ya, i agree its horrible... but its the only way to do it until it gets fixed... which will hopefully be happening before too long.

[LF]

i believe lefty was making changes to settings

I believe you are an immeasurable amount of faggot stuffed into 1 tiny, yet mildly plump body that most likely his own mother can hardly tolerate. I also have years of evidence to back my claim, whereas you are just pulling shit out of your ass to fling at people since your entire purpose of existence in the 2d world of spaceships has just been brought to a sudden and very drastic end. Maybe now you are your posse (K-pop) can go back to shamelessly plugging your empty zone while the rest of us try to enjoy the very limited # of days, weeks and/or months this game has left. I feel like worse person for ever having been associated with you and at no point will you ever be considered relevant again. May God have mercy on your soul.

RiP Distension.

[cash.MONay]

Kill distension. Should have spent the hours developing distension on improving other game play mechanics. Distention is the sole reason for TW's downfall. God hates distension.