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 Post subject: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:40 pm 
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I'm posting this again because I didn't get a response the first time.

I'm sure you all remember last round Lucky's suicide service, blowing up pios against SD. The SD used all the energy it would if all the fighters had been used even though all they were destroying was a little tiny undefended pio. This quickly depleted the supporting planets of energy, with no real monetary sacrifice from the attacker. They had to be willing to allow their death count to go really high, but that's all. And if they hired someone else to do their dirty work like Lucky, they didn't even need to do this.

This is obviously an exploit, and I'm asking now what you all have done to fix it, because, honestly, I can't remember, and I can't find it even after doing multiple searches.

I do remember that you stopped counting these passive kills for the owners of the SD, so it doesn't drop kill efficiency like mad, but that's not the problem.

Edit: also... I'll also repeat that I think planets should produce more energy. I'll use myself as an example. In one day, one of my planets produces around 400B. In the same amount of time, one planet produces around 200-250M energy. Suffice it to say that with all my planets in the sector producing all the energy they can (87% colonists on energy), it would take a few days for them to produce enough energy to power my SD for even 1 attack! That's kind of ludicrous to me. I'd have to wait over a year for them to produce enough energy to power my SD through say 100 attacks (which is the kind of thing I need to feel secure).

That's just not right. I need more energy than that to stay safe, and it simply is not available.

By the way, yes, I did think to build where I had an energy port in the next sector over. I have exhausted it, and I am not by any means done my SD. It regenerates energy very slowly. Energy ports regenerating energy MUCH faster would be another potential fix.

I don't care a whole lot what you do to address this problem, but it is my opinion that something needs to be done.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 12:43 pm 
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I think if your gonna build big SD, you better be prepared to either haul the energy in or have enough to support your SD. I dont think this will change, it already hold up enough to support most of the SD out there. Now just because you feel you want to be the only one in the game will a bill fighters floating doesn't mean we should change the game to accommodate. you. Just like its work to have more than 50 planets it should be work to hold that much SD in a sector.

I am unsure PJ changed the other or not, we had talked about it but I don't know for sure.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 4:33 pm 
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Yeah, I understand, Tarnus. I took all the measures I could, but there just isn't all that much available, since planets produce so slowly and energy ports regenerate so slowly.

It really is quite the limiting factor though. I mean, in the game, the only thing stopping a person from getting a ship with 390 fighter techs is money. I was sorta of the opinion that it should be likewise with SD. Not that energy should be unnecessary, but it shouldn't be as big problem as the money; I shouldn't run out of energy before I run out of money for my SD.

Oh well... I would still like to see at least some change, like you choosing whatever would affect the game the least, like letting energy ports regenerate faster, but if you don't do it, you don't do it. It's not as if I'm the only one who faces it; it's not as if it's unfair at all. I'll just need to upgrade to the point that it pods you your first try, so I don't need to rely on huge provisions of energy ;)

As far as the other aspect of this, with pioneers, I think that really does need to be fixed. It's an easy exploit that can be used by anyone, and it would cripple any builder. As awful as it is to admit, I honestly think a person with 5M score could take out my SD and then take ALL my producing planets using that exploit if it hasn't been fixed.

And as much as I sound like a broken record on this, I have to point out the fact that the only way, or reasonable way, I can see you guys fixing this would be to calculate energy based on how many fighters are actually used/necessary.

Before, fighters took up energy over time, when they were doing anything. I could go with this. Planets produced more then too, so it was ok. Maybe they needed energy for their patrols or something.

Now they only need energy when attacked. That makes sense too, I guess, since that's when they're likely to actually use energy, but now, even the ones that don't participate in the attack use energy. So they don't take energy just sitting there over time, but they do take energy when OTHER fighters move, but they don't. That doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, as tedious as I know I'm being, I am grateful that you took the time to respond and partially address my concerns. I do appreciate it. I'm just hoping maybe I'll hit the right wording to make you see my side or something :P

In the meantime, I'm going to check to see if you did anything about the pio exploit. I'll have a friend hit the SD once with a pio and I'll check out how much energy is used.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:46 pm 
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Got a question regarding all of this:

If someone uses the Pioneer Exploit to drain my SD of energy, are my planets going to be able to defend themselves? What I'm asking is, does the loss of energy to my SD also mean that my planetary shields and beams die as well?


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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 8:18 pm 
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gizmo wrote:
Got a question regarding all of this:

If someone uses the Pioneer Exploit to drain my SD of energy, are my planets going to be able to defend themselves? What I'm asking is, does the loss of energy to my SD also mean that my planetary shields and beams die as well?


Pioneers can not A&R



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:22 pm 
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Forgive me for belaboring this, but now I'm really, REALLY confused.

From Valience's first post:
Quote:
I'm sure you all remember last round Lucky's suicide service, blowing up pios against SD. The SD used all the energy it would if all the fighters had been used even though all they were destroying was a little tiny undefended pio. This quickly depleted the supporting planets of energy, with no real monetary sacrifice from the attacker. They had to be willing to allow their death count to go really high, but that's all. And if they hired someone else to do their dirty work like Lucky, they didn't even need to do this.


Now, you say:

Quote:
Pioneers can not A&R


These two statements seem directly contradictory. Has the code changed since the original post by Valience, or am I (being a n00b) missing something blindingly obvious? I happen to know from talking with one of the other players, that this DID work in the last game at least a couple of weeks before the reset occurred. :???:


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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:57 am 
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gizmo wrote:
Forgive me for belaboring this, but now I'm really, REALLY confused.

From Valience's first post:
Quote:
I'm sure you all remember last round Lucky's suicide service, blowing up pios against SD. The SD used all the energy it would if all the fighters had been used even though all they were destroying was a little tiny undefended pio. This quickly depleted the supporting planets of energy, with no real monetary sacrifice from the attacker. They had to be willing to allow their death count to go really high, but that's all. And if they hired someone else to do their dirty work like Lucky, they didn't even need to do this.


Now, you say:

Quote:
Pioneers can not A&R


These two statements seem directly contradictory. Has the code changed since the original post by Valience, or am I (being a n00b) missing something blindingly obvious? I happen to know from talking with one of the other players, that this DID work in the last game at least a couple of weeks before the reset occurred. :???:



Have you tried to do an A&R in a pioneer in the current game? From what others have told me you cannot do it. Now I may have been misinformed. I can not cross check as PJ is out of town this week. Nor can I test as I am not currently in the new game. Maybe someone else can verify this for me. Now in the early part of the game we should probably allow it to a degree, but only if its been upgraded a bit.

Now here is my thought, if you die on the SD doing the A&R the amount of energy that is depleted should be very low. But if you are successful, the full amount of energy should deplete.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:21 pm 
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Tarnus wrote:
Have you tried to do an A&R in a pioneer in the current game? From what others have told me you cannot do it. Now I may have been misinformed. I can not cross check as PJ is out of town this week. Nor can I test as I am not currently in the new game. Maybe someone else can verify this for me. Now in the early part of the game we should probably allow it to a degree, but only if its been upgraded a bit.

Now here is my thought, if you die on the SD doing the A&R the amount of energy that is depleted should be very low. But if you are successful, the full amount of energy should deplete.


I haven't tried it in the current game, no. But even assuming you are right, that still doesn't answer my underlying question: if someone A&Rs my SD until my energy is depleted, does that also result in my planetary Shields and Beams not working (since they also require energy)? If that is the case, then it seems to me that even a middling sized SD is pretty pointless. Better to put up a small SD to keep the curious out, and fortify your planets.

In addition, is the restriction on ship class, or is it a requirement of some other capability? E.G. I can't use a Pioneer, but what's to stop me from spending 57,000 credits and buying a Stealth, and then doing the same thing? Granted, the ship costs 4 times as much, but so what? The cost of the ship isn't a big factor anyway, when you consider that you've got to spend 57M (or whatever it is) to get the engines up to level 150 so you can get to your destination in a decent number of turns.


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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:29 pm 
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gizmo wrote:
Tarnus wrote:
Have you tried to do an A&R in a pioneer in the current game? From what others have told me you cannot do it. Now I may have been misinformed. I can not cross check as PJ is out of town this week. Nor can I test as I am not currently in the new game. Maybe someone else can verify this for me. Now in the early part of the game we should probably allow it to a degree, but only if its been upgraded a bit.

Now here is my thought, if you die on the SD doing the A&R the amount of energy that is depleted should be very low. But if you are successful, the full amount of energy should deplete.


I haven't tried it in the current game, no. But even assuming you are right, that still doesn't answer my underlying question: if someone A&Rs my SD until my energy is depleted, does that also result in my planetary Shields and Beams not working (since they also require energy)? If that is the case, then it seems to me that even a middling sized SD is pretty pointless. Better to put up a small SD to keep the curious out, and fortify your planets.

More than likely yes, however you may end up with a little energy left over as if you attack or a&R a sector that doesn't have the energy to support the fighters it will knock out all the extra fighters, while you might get lucky to have a little energy its more than likely you have left your planet wide open for attack as well once they are in.

Quote:

In addition, is the restriction on ship class, or is it a requirement of some other capability? E.G. I can't use a Pioneer, but what's to stop me from spending 57,000 credits and buying a Stealth, and then doing the same thing? Granted, the ship costs 4 times as much, but so what? The cost of the ship isn't a big factor anyway, when you consider that you've got to spend 57M (or whatever it is) to get the engines up to level 150 so you can get to your destination in a decent number of turns.


Well the major difference is the cost of ships go up with every loss accept on pioneers. Now if we go with a plan like I mentioned, you die your attack is basically worthless as far as energy goes. Just gotta wait till PJ gets back to mention my idea ;)

Note: my buddy was wrong, you CAN a&r in a pioneer. You can't a&r from fed space.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:12 pm 
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Tarnus wrote:
Now here is my thought, if you die on the SD doing the A&R the amount of energy that is depleted should be very low. But if you are successful, the full amount of energy should deplete.


That's an improvement, but it still avoids what should be a perfectly logical and reasonable approach: if the fighters are used in repelling the attack, they consume energy; else they don't. Simply using all fighters to repel every attack is both extravagant and wasteful, IMO, and no defending forces commander who acts that way should be in command for long.

Now, I 'get' the idea that "if it floats in space, it consumes energy" which you stated a while back, and in another thread if I'm not mistaken. I'm ok with that concept too, if we make the energy drain CONSTANT, and then ramp up the energy consumption during an attack. Ideally, we would combine the two approaches: E.G. ALL fighters floating in space consume energy, and all the fighters involved in REPELLING an attack consume even more energy.

As an example, say you have a sector with 1M fighters and 4 planets. Each of the 4 planets contributes 250,000 fighters to the SD (equal SD Weapons on all 4 planets).

Each fighter floating in space (on the SD) consumes 1/10 unit of energy per tick (running patrols, training maneuvers, whatever). That means that for 1M fighters, you have to produce 100,000 units of energy every tick, otherwise fighters start to degrade (get lost in space because they didn't have enough energy to get home, can't get out of the hanger, etc.).

Since the planet controlling the SD can only muster 250,000 fighters per attack, that means that the SD can only provide that many ACTIVE fighters at any one time (which we already know, because that's how the game is now, AIUI). Those fighters ACTIVE in the attack consume 2.5 units of energy for EACH attack, meaning that in addition to the 100,000 unit energy draw required every tick to SUSTAIN the SD, you also need a RESERVE of AT LEAST 625,000 units to REPEL an attack on the SD.

Those're just my thoughts, and I realize they don't count for jack. I also 'get' that you have to balance realism against ease of play; make the game too realistic and it could well become so complicated that no one wants to play.

In any case, my questions aren't meant to be a criticism, I'm simply trying to understand the rules that govern the universe we are playing in. My comments, while they can certainly be construed as critical, are only offered as alternative thoughts. As the game creators, you and PJ have to do what you think is best for the game, regardless of whether that meets with my approval or no. ;)


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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:56 pm 
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Tarnus, I like your idea that Gizmo quoted above.

But... An issue remains:

Quote:
Pioneers can not A&R


How about normal attacks? Someone getting in pioneers and doing normal attacks against my SD is actually twice as bad (consumes twice the energy). So the problem is not fixed at all, really.

I still think only the fighters active in an attack (supported by main fighter tech) should consume energy ;) But if that's not going to change, fine. Just thought I'd put my opinion out there one more time; it never hurts :P



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:02 pm 
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Valience wrote:
Tarnus, I like your idea that Gizmo quoted above.

But... An issue remains:

Quote:
Pioneers can not A&R


How about normal attacks? Someone getting in pioneers and doing normal attacks against my SD is actually twice as bad (consumes twice the energy). So the problem is not fixed at all, really.

I still think only the fighters active in an attack (supported by main fighter tech) should consume energy ;) But if that's not going to change, fine. Just thought I'd put my opinion out there one more time; it never hurts :P


Did you miss what I said? I think this should apply to both A&R and normal attacks. If the ship is lost it doesn't take that much energy. If you successfully AR or direct attack the energy is used to the maximum. It fixes the suicide runs to drain energy.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:04 pm 
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gizmo wrote:
Tarnus wrote:
Now here is my thought, if you die on the SD doing the A&R the amount of energy that is depleted should be very low. But if you are successful, the full amount of energy should deplete.


That's an improvement, but it still avoids what should be a perfectly logical and reasonable approach: if the fighters are used in repelling the attack, they consume energy; else they don't. Simply using all fighters to repel every attack is both extravagant and wasteful, IMO, and no defending forces commander who acts that way should be in command for long.

Now, I 'get' the idea that "if it floats in space, it consumes energy" which you stated a while back, and in another thread if I'm not mistaken. I'm ok with that concept too, if we make the energy drain CONSTANT, and then ramp up the energy consumption during an attack. Ideally, we would combine the two approaches: E.G. ALL fighters floating in space consume energy, and all the fighters involved in REPELLING an attack consume even more energy.

As an example, say you have a sector with 1M fighters and 4 planets. Each of the 4 planets contributes 250,000 fighters to the SD (equal SD Weapons on all 4 planets).

Each fighter floating in space (on the SD) consumes 1/10 unit of energy per tick (running patrols, training maneuvers, whatever). That means that for 1M fighters, you have to produce 100,000 units of energy every tick, otherwise fighters start to degrade (get lost in space because they didn't have enough energy to get home, can't get out of the hanger, etc.).

Since the planet controlling the SD can only muster 250,000 fighters per attack, that means that the SD can only provide that many ACTIVE fighters at any one time (which we already know, because that's how the game is now, AIUI). Those fighters ACTIVE in the attack consume 2.5 units of energy for EACH attack, meaning that in addition to the 100,000 unit energy draw required every tick to SUSTAIN the SD, you also need a RESERVE of AT LEAST 625,000 units to REPEL an attack on the SD.

Those're just my thoughts, and I realize they don't count for jack. I also 'get' that you have to balance realism against ease of play; make the game too realistic and it could well become so complicated that no one wants to play.

In any case, my questions aren't meant to be a criticism, I'm simply trying to understand the rules that govern the universe we are playing in. My comments, while they can certainly be construed as critical, are only offered as alternative thoughts. As the game creators, you and PJ have to do what you think is best for the game, regardless of whether that meets with my approval or no. ;)


Gizmo I am going to simplify it and say, yes your right, BUT, due to the enormous server hit that SD takes in the scheduler, we eliminated fighters consuming energy on the tick, hence the only time energy is consumed is when the SD is attacked. This is also why energy generation has been limited. If your gonna fly a ton of fighters expect them to drain energy under duress.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:32 pm 
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lol, I did miss what you said. I misinterpreted it as applying only to AR, which I now realize makes no sense because AR is impossible.

I don't know... I was preoccupied I guess. lol Sorry.



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 Post subject: Re: SD energy usage
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:00 pm 
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Valience wrote:
lol, I did miss what you said. I misinterpreted it as applying only to AR, which I now realize makes no sense because AR is impossible.

I don't know... I was preoccupied I guess. lol Sorry.


And you missed my followup that said I was wrong that you CAN A&R with a pioneer. :)

Sleepin at the wheel :)



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