Observations

[kazerima]

From what I've found, the crafting system at present is less than satisfying. Obtaining recipes requires that you have around 3000 or so of that object, by which point you should have all you need of it. Aside from that, shops present a disencentive to crafting your own items, as anything you do happen to need can be easily purchased in a short trip.

The credit overload from stealing the glass out of space stations also feels rather weird, as I find myself with more credits than I can possibly spend at any given shop, though I can always find more with a 5-10 minute trip through an empty expanse of space.

If I were to make some solid suggestions to improve the quality of the game, I'd say remove the shops altogether, start the player with just a core and a factory device, then allow progression to occur from mining and refining materials off of planets and asteroids.

 

[Alexander Prime]

I\'ve been playing around for a while with the idea of removing credits, maybe as a mod for my home server, but for some reason it didn\'t feel right to me. You just made me realize why: NPC shops wouldn\'t know what to charge for their wares. Removing the shops as well makes it all work.

Now that we have player shops and non-credit pricing for shop items, the next step in balance is to remove the ability to transmute all items to and from cash. This forces players to gather resources and build manufacturing plants, rather than the shoot-and-sell tactic that\'s used right now. If removing credits completely is too drastic, at least take NPC stock down to a (very) few types of blocks (and show only what is in stock), and scale block rarity and price together.

There\'s all kinds of problems with the current crafting mechanics as well, but I won\'t go into that since the system seems to comprise a number of different ideas being experimented on at once.

 

[rmooney01]

Waiting for the responses to this, there will be many and all diffferent. I support the ideas here as I prefer a \"harder road\" to get ahead. As you state, eat a couple of stations and you\'re mostly set to get started. Way to easy for me.

But we have to remember that there are other gamers with a different outlook. They have less time to devote to the game or whatever it is. They want to raise to wealth and power as quickly as possible and will use any means to get there first.

So I would say these need to server side options. That way like minded gamers will be able to play the way they like.

I think there is A LOT of dev left for this game and hopefully there will be options for us to turn on/off as we see fit.

Rob

 

[Jcewazhere]

I would change it a bit. I wouldn\'t get rid of credits or shops. I would let shops buy any amount of any item and sell unlimited amounts of basic things, like basic hull in black and grey. Thrusters would be sold too. Since plexglass is fairly easy to obtain anyway I would let the shops buy and sell infinite amounts of that too, but at a greatly reduced price. The shops could also sell all the computers needed for each weapon, but limited quantities of the weapon itself. I would add a black market that has large (but not infinite) stockpiles of everything. I would make the black markets rare, configurable but defaulted to about 1 in 20 sectors. Each black market doesn\'t refill their stock of items without player intervention, or it does so very slowly. With a player supplying materials and credits the black market could restock and offer the parts at a discount (still higher than current prices, but lower than normal black market prices). This way a player could survive if his factory was vaporized, or if he was too lazy to set one up, but a player with a well running factory would likely have more materials than the black market only person.



So normal shops have unlimited:

Grey and black hull, plexglass, thrusters, and computers.

and limited quantities of:

generators, weapons and shields.



Black markets would have limited:

everything, but at a higher price.



I would add a config file that controls all of these amounts and prices so players who play single player, or with a group of like minded friends could easily have all of the items available, but if people want to be even more limited they could be.

 

[Kaamio]

not a bad idea for a game mode, it does discourage combat though. I agree with Jce on the availability of hulls though, they are ridiculously hard to obtain without dismantling stations or making hull ships for catalog.



As a side note, if you think 3000 items of a given type is more than enough you build too small

 

[kazerima]

@Alexander Prime

You seem to get where I\'m going with this.



@rmooney01

I\'m glad you agree that it could use a difficulty bump, but as for players wanting a quick and easy path to power... The truth is, people always want what is bad for them. Sure they \'say\' they want a quick start to everything in game, but where does that leave you once you get there?

I don\'t get a whole lot of time to play myself, but, there\'s a common misconception that a person has to reach \"endgame\" in order to really enjoy a game like this, but the truth is it\'s more fun getting to the top than actually being there. I\'d have far more fun looking forwards to and planning the next step in my attempt to ascend through the tech tree in the limited time I\'ll have available than just sitting and building random aesthetic builds for the sake of having something to do.

As for \"everything optional\", a certain game designer on another site let me in on a little thing known as \"design paralysis\". If you include too many configuration options, it becomes impossible to add anything to the game without unbalancing one option or another. An item balanced for one mode of play may completely unstabilize another, or become entirely useless altogether. For example, if you can get LAZ-EX 1000 for 500 credits, and it deals 1000 damage, and a LAZ-EX 2000 goes for the same price, but deals 2000 damage, what do you think will happen to the LAZ-EX 1000?



@Jcewazhere

I don\'t really think that goes far enough. All that would really do is make meaningful shops 20 times more rare, and extend the time spent hopping from one to another to drain it for valuable items. Earning billions from glass would instead be replaced by building thousands of cheap grey/black hulls from your factory, dumping for credits, then swapping them for whatever goods you need at the nearest black market you haven\'t pillaged already. I\'d much rather resource gathering were dependent on mining rather than the time you spend hunting through boring empty expanses of lifeless space.

As for configuring, please see the note above on \"design paralysis\".



@Kaamio

The idea isn\'t to discourage combat altogether so much as make combat meaningful. Running and hiding from pirates while you\'re still too weak to fight them, so you can eventually get to a level of power where you can eventually fight them and win.

I figure catalogues were pretty much implimented as a GM command so people could try out ships in a more freeform setting, but hardly a thing to be used in what should be a resource-driven fight for mastery over your environment.

As for 3000 meaning I build too small, maybe it\'s that you\'re building too big instead? If you have the resources to make a 40,000 block ship, then nothing in the game poses any form of challenge to you anyway, and it\'s only a funny toy for making block sculpture. My intent is to have a mode of play in which this actually is a game rather than just another form of 3D pixel paint.

 

[Zovc]

I like the idea but...





I would change it a bit. I wouldn\'t get rid of credits or shops. I would let shops buy any amount of any item and sell unlimited amounts of basic things, like basic hull in black and grey. Thrusters would be sold too. Since plexglass is fairly easy to obtain anyway I would let the shops buy and sell infinite amounts of that too, but at a greatly reduced price. The shops could also sell all the computers needed for each weapon, but limited quantities of the weapon itself. I would add a black market that has large (but not infinite) stockpiles of everything. I would make the black markets rare, configurable but defaulted to about 1 in 20 sectors. Each black market doesn\'t refill their stock of items without player intervention, or it does so very slowly. With a player supplying materials and credits the black market could restock and offer the parts at a discount (still higher than current prices, but lower than normal black market prices). This way a player could survive if his factory was vaporized, or if he was too lazy to set one up, but a player with a well running factory would likely have more materials than the black market only person.



So normal shops have unlimited:

Grey and black hull, plexglass, thrusters, and computers.

and limited quantities of:

generators, weapons and shields.



Black markets would have limited:

everything, but at a higher price.



I would add a config file that controls all of these amounts and prices so players who play single player, or with a group of like minded friends could easily have all of the items available, but if people want to be even more limited they could be.

no infinite ....