How to increase max credits...without increasing the maximum number?

[Lancake]

The issue most capital ships have is that they are most of the time unbuyable with credits.
The maximum price is 2 147 483 647.
Since this is the max int you can get, it's hard to increase this number without overhauling the whole game to a 64 bit system (I have no idea how the game is made, just assuming it won't be easy to increase it).

So how do you increase it? Maybe the better question is, how can you make it harder to reach this limit?

The answer is simple: decrease ALL prices with a factor 5 or more.

So far the minimum default price I've found is 100 credits. Would it be bad if this was 20 for that block?
The only exceptions are terrain blocks (rocks, lava, ice crystals,...) and the new ores. These are 1 credit each and I assume the ores aren't priced correctly yet so other than 5 times more expensive terrain, everything else stays the same.

Lowering all these prices with a factor of 5 will in theory increase the max credits to 10 billion credits in this current version. 10 billion is a lot and you need to have a serious big ship to cross this limit, this ship will be game breaking and I doubt anyone could use it without killing the server or his own pc.

This is also easily done, just go in the blockconfig and divide all numbers by 5 and round up/down when you get a decimal.

Positive things:
-All ships (that don't kill your pc or the server) should be buyable with credits.

Negative things:
-Terrain blocks will be 5 times more worth (could be considered positive too, terrain should be worth a little bit more)

 

[Aizria]

Good thinking, I like it! :D Of course, to go along with this, credits should likely be 5 times more difficult to earn to keep things balanced, otherwise every noob and his mother can suddenly spawn titans with even less work than is required now. XD

 

[Lancake]

Good thinking, I like it! :D Of course, to go along with this, credits should likely be 5 times more difficult to earn to keep things balanced, otherwise every noob and his mother can suddenly spawn titans with even less work than is required now. XD

Well so far you earn credits by selling blocks, right? ^^
Decreasing the price of blocks by a factor of 5 also decreases their selling power by 5.

 

[Megacrafter127]

just assuming it won't be easy to increase it).

Actually, it is easy to change the credits variable to a long. The only problems are the "old" saves, which still only have 4 bytes for the credits.

 

[Lancake]

Actually, it is easy to change the credits variable to a long. The only problems are the "old" saves, which still only have 4 bytes for the credits.

Doesn't this mean a lot more casting between ints/doubles/floats and now longs? Sounds like a lot more could go wrong while changing a few numbers in a config file is easily reversed or changeable.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Doesn't this mean a lot more casting between ints/doubles/floats and now longs?

In what cases is the variable storing the credits used/changed?

• Buying/selling something
• Loading/unloading an entity, which can store credits.

Java can implicitly cast from int to long, so buying/selling things won't be much of an issue(only casts from int to long are required there).
And regarding loading/unloading an entity, which can store credits: I already mentioned that problem.

changing a few numbers in a config file is easily reversed or changeable

If it were a few numbers, yes, unfortunatly the change you are talking about requires a change in more than 300 numbers in a single config file. <whisper>One could let a computer do that, but don't tell anyone.</whisper>

 

[PizzaPress]

While I do believe there's going to be a change like this, I don't think we have to have a low credit limit. Just use "stacks" of 2,147,483,647.
4,611,686,014,132,420,609 should be enough credits :D.

Edit: there should probably be a server-set limit on block count of a ship being bought(independent of mass, some blocks may have more/less mass later on). We may have a shipyard system later on, who knows.

Edit2:I didn't realize this thread was dead. I must have had it in a large group o' tabs.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

First of all, you just dug a dead thread out of its grave.
Second of all, ship yards will have block based building, so credits won't be that important anymore in the future.

Please just let this thread die.