151 Reply by Martha Stuart

(16 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Celebro wrote:

Beta is fine as it is, players reach a stage where living in beta is not enough that's fine, but it is a stepping stone for newer players to live there before they move to gamma. This is good game design.

Sometimes you guys forget this is not only a game for vets.

The only thing wrong about beta now is the big blob just around the corner, where they arrive without any warning or detection.

I disagree, before gamma, the reason for Betas was Epri. There is no reason to fight for them now, because you can just lock down a gamma and then mine everything there.

Edit:  instead of having Rank 5 NPC's drop cortexes like Burial suggested, why not change the roaming spawns to MK2 npcs, which then have a moderate chance of dropping cortexes.  This would make the pointless roaming spawns worth finding and hunting down, plus it would also make them much more challenging.  and to counter this remove or lower the cortex drops from SAP loot.

Edit #2 not sure why i got double post sad

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152 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

posting on crusader again huh, did you get ville banned again for some racist, idiotic or stupid post again ville?

Edit:  11:15 am is alarm clocking?  what time do you get up?

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153 Reply by Martha Stuart

(16 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Homer J Simpson wrote:
Celebro wrote:

- wild Noralgis +1


The rest not so sure, we have SAP loot and best missions on Beta. Nothing industrial needed the difference between gamma is already minimal. Safety is much worse on beta that the main reason I think no one actually is living there, perhaps is players mentality where a blob can jump you at anytime from across the world.

Heres the question tho. Is beta to risky or can Gamma be made to safe ? smile

I think this is the problem with wild norg.  If they leave incubators in the game i'm still gonna plant 100 on our gamma and just harvest it there.  If they remove the incubator, then that's a whole different situation.

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154 Reply by Martha Stuart

(16 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Ludlow Bursar wrote:
Shadowmine wrote:

You risk losing infinitely more on Gamma

Zortarg Calltar wrote:

you only have the illusion of savety on gamma

I'm not trying to deny either of these things. Believe me I know.

What I'm trying to say is that we need to stop thinking about gamma as a more risky/rewarding version of Beta and Beta a more risky/rewarding version of Alpha and give each type some exclusively different activities/risks and exclusively different rewards. At the moment those differences aren't nearly marked enough.

I agree, give us a reason to fight for them, and we will fight for them.

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155 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Celebro wrote:
Burial wrote:

Celebro try to play a bit without sparks. Give it a week. Can you do it?

Burial I like the instant teleport too, but like in life, you can't have your cake and eat it too. It's too OP for large forces that want to abuse it, I don't think STC is making the most of it tbh. edit not saying they should.

Yes you can, buy 2 cakes.

@ville.  then your argument is completely pointless, if it could be done then, how is it spark teleports fault now?  Not to mention that this is the first time I have seen it done in a year and a half.

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156 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Celebro wrote:
Martha Stuart wrote:
Celebro wrote:

LoL that actually proves my point, back then there was no sparking.

Where the hell have you been for the past year?  CIR was playing 6 months ago.  With the Spark system in place

Yes, like in 2nd gear. Anyways they could have if they wanted to.

Would, Could, Should.  NO ONE DID IT.  So again, this is like a holy man wearing a sandwich board professing "The End is Neigh".  Plain and simple, it never happened.  As of right now, Beta's are so worthless that the only reason we did it was s***s and giggles

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157 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Celebro wrote:
Martha Stuart wrote:

At the Height of CIR/M2S Power they didn't even hold half the stations, so your point makes no sense.  its never been done, or will it ever so long as there are multiple sides to fight for them


LoL that actually proves my point, back then there was no sparking.

Where the hell have you been for the past year?  CIR was playing 6 months ago, as was Chaos.  With the Spark system in place.  if I remember correctly they had 4-5 Beta's at most.

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158 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

At the Height of CIR/M2S Power they didn't even hold half the stations, so your point is basically some prophecy of Doom that will never occur.  Its never been done,except now and we only did it because no one was fighting for them. So long as there are multiple sides to fight for them the will be owned by different corps.

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159 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Gunner wrote:

If you want an arcade game, go play World of Tanks, I am told its quite nice.


Oh the irony.  For someone who doesn't care about 1's and 0's you seem to be ranting and raving quite a bit gunner.  But please continue with this all-knowing "Vision" BS you speak of, I find it mildly entertaining.

No one, who is suggesting changing the spark system, seems to realize that IF a large player base comes in with steam launch, our alliance will not be able to hold all the Betas.  It will go back to each corp holding 1 or 2.  Then guess what balances sparking:  The lock-out mechanic.

So, lets end this once and for all.

@ DEV Zoom, if there is a large influx of players with the steam launch do you and the rest of the DEV's feel the Spark system is a broken mechanic?  I would also like to point out the this mechanic must be looked at through the eyes of a larger players base with multiple power blocks, not the current situation.

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160 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

it won't, the patch is to fix a few broken turrets

The beacon nerf i'm talking about isn't actually the one you were here for, the one that actually caused token prices to drop and beacons to become far less valuable was implemented about 2 weeks ago.  Dropping the beacons for 10 to 3 didn't really change anything tbh.

I like how you call it vision, I call it hypocrisy.  Funny how things appear from different perspectives.

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161 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Gunner wrote:

We all knew it was broken.

You know it is broken too.

There is not "My Side".

None of us play.

We dont like playing with 8 people.

So the decline in population happened when sparks were implemented?  And there is a "your side", the only people who claim the system is totally broken is the Ex Dom alliance.  How is that not your side?  Its strange that you claim its broken after you stopped playing.  Not while you were using it.

And if i am so concerned about 1's and 0's and you are not why are you even posting?

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162 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Gunner wrote:

Stuff

I don't even run missions anymore (the beacon nerf was quite effective), but my point is still the same.  When your side was winning fights and controlled territory, the system was fine.  Now that you don't, its time to cry about it and claim its broken.

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163 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Gunner wrote:

Sorry Charlie, you are not selling that here.

You still need to make strategic decisions about moving back and forth . UNLESS YOU LIVE THERE

Games cant be that easy, buddy.





Tux wrote:

There should be NO cool down / Penalty for sparking to stations that your own corporation OWNS.

]

Who died and made you king? 

From what I can tell your side has yet to even prove the system is broken.  all you have shown is that its only broken when your at a disadvantage and can't crank out missions.  Evidenced by the fact that the system has been in place for almost a year, and when you controlled Dom you didn't have a single gripe against it.  Strange that.  Smells to me of a poor loser.

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164 Reply by Martha Stuart

(11 replies, posted in General discussion)

Celebro wrote:


Yes true, afaik there is still a development problem for any bot large than 1 tile, its just not possible, if there has been a progress on this matter it would be great news. This might be the biggest concern I have for this games future. Everyone will come back to try with larger bots on offer.

We have all been trapped (Devs/Players) with balancing issues of minimal concern, to most new players, maybe new content is what is needed most.

Part of the problem is that you need an artist on staff to make new models/textures/ etc etc.  From what I understand there is not one currently working for AC (I could be wrong though).  So basically that leaves 3rd party contracting which can be extremely expensive, or hire someone which is also expensive.

@OP  I want an auto pilot that works.  (Seriously)

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165 Reply by Martha Stuart

(24 replies, posted in Balancing)

Celebro wrote:

I don't think you understand this concept well, maybe I didn't explain it properly.

The idea is for players to decide where to place the fields but there is little or the same abuse there is now, even with noralgis is worse but no one complains about abuse anybody can harvest in complete safety with a good base.

You can't place them close to terminal or tightly in one corner you would need to place them spread out across the whole island.  You could fortify the whole island and abuse it the same right now, and built terminals right next to it.


In beta is more useful because no one mines there right  now due to NPC too close by, and I remember Ville saying is nearly impossible or not worth mining in beta close to NPC ecming you all day.

I understand what you are saying, I don't think you are understanding what I am saying.  I don't care if its 2000m or 5000m,  If i can TF a box so NPC's can't get me, park 5 scarabs inside the box, load 30k of charges into each scarab, and let them AFK mine for 4 days.  I come back to 70 million Epri, with no work.  Not to mention you only need to make 1 box, and just keep spawning Epri inside it.  Rinse and repeat every 4 days. 

With the system we have now, I have to hunt for it, haul all my crap out there, mine it, and then haul it all back, so I can do it all over again on a different field.  At least this takes effort.

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166 Reply by Martha Stuart

(24 replies, posted in Balancing)

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Goffer.  Personally, I would abuse the hell out of this.  On gamma at least, one could TF a box, and then just spawn Epri inside the box and AFK mine.  This would work for all of the liquids.  The ores would be slightly more difficult to AFK mine, but not by much.

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167 Reply by Martha Stuart

(15 replies, posted in Bugs)

RAM has nothing to do with your lag, if your ping is spiking its something to do with your network connection/ISP.

Have you tried to ping the games website?  Is there any packet loss?  Also, I would recommend running a trace route to the website to see where along the chain your slow down is occurring.  Most of my traffic ends up being routed through the UK or France.  So if any of the ISP's along your path are having routing/Lag issues it will affect your latency.  That being said, I have been experiencing major lag as well from my end too.  I'm in the United States.

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168 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Arga wrote:

Stuff

I don't think you are grasping Hitchen's argument.  You are semi correct in that Hitchen's used his argument in the discussion of Atheism and Creationism.  But the underlying logic of his argument is the same logic that pretty much every countries legal system is based upon.  Innocent until proven guilty. 

Your example doesn't even make sense in the context of hitchen's logical argument.  A correct use of your example would go like this.  Doctor 1 subscribes to the standard system in place, that to save a patient from a brain tumor you remove the tumor, and remove as little of the brain as possible or none at all.  This method has empirical data backing it up, and has been used and performed many times.  Doctor 2 (You)  comes in and says "Doctor 1, you are totally wrong, completely remove the brain to save the patient.  I have no evidence that my method is correct but I believe it to be correct". 

The point of hitchen's argument is the same as the legal system.  The Defendant doesn't need to prove his innocence.  The prosecution must prove his guilt. 

The second part of hitchen's argument is that Doctor 1 doesn't even need to respond to doctor 2's argument because 1) it has no evidence to back it up 2) Doctor 1 doesn't need to defend anything, because doctor 2 is the person trying to change the established system.  The burden of proof lies with Doctor 2, or the prosecution, to prove that they are correct.  Not the other way around.  This is why it is known as "Innocent until proven guilty"

So again, to use this logic, YOU must prove that the system is broken.  YOU are the prosecution.

Now, this thread has become a corporation dialog between two old enemies.  And it is pointless for me to continue this argument so, I'm done arguing.  Dev's I leave this matter in your capable hands.  I would just like to stress that before you change a working system.  Make sure the system actually needs to be changed.  Adding tedium to a game like this will drastically affect travel time (one of the worst aspects of this game), especially when there are systems in place already that restrict this system from being abused.  Not to mention that the system itself is open to all to use. By adding in cool-downs and other restrictions like it, you will be arbitrarily restricting peoples ability to play your game.

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169 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Arga wrote:

You still have not presented an argument FOR having instant travel, other than majority rule, it's always been like this, and I like it this way.

Burden of proof is on the state my friend.  The system works perfectly fine now.  The proof must come from you that the system is broken.  To put it in your terms, no one has put forth proof that the system is indeed broken and requires changing. 

Its known as Hitchen's razor:  An assertion without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

I have yet to see anyone post any proof that the system is broken.  Yes missions are broken, but they are a system that is available to all, same with sparks, so its not like any one corp is gaining an advantage from that.  I don't think that because missions are broken we should make the game more tedious. Especially when mission can be fixed by changing missions, not the spark system.  Which is exactly what the Devs are doing now.

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170 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Arga wrote:

Stuff

No where did I say that I would quit because of this change, i'm actually curious how you even pulled that out of what I said.  I'll be here tell the shut the servers down.

Here is the crutch, there is a PVP flag.  If as in lemons case I engage, I'm flagged.  There is your 5 mins.  You can't spark anywhere when flagged.  If you don't engage why should you be penalized?

1 other thing, the power projection argument is completely without merit.  You know how you stop someone from projecting power?  you bring a fleet and stop them from projecting power, not changing game mechanics.

Has anyone thought of a more simple solution?  How bout we just reduce the number of sparks?

Also, when did we decide this mechanic is broken?  Just because some say its broken, doesn't mean its broken.

Lemon wrote:

@Martha Again the key to balancing a mechanic like this is to not prevent people from utilizing it but to not allow a minority of motivated players access to abuse it to ruin the experience for the majority.

We are the majority.  This argument defends my position.

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171 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

DEV Zoom wrote:

Arga: that actually sounds like a good idea but I'm not sure whether we can distinguish that the lack of an active robot is due to a spark jump, or death. And if it's the latter, is it bad or not if you receive a cooldown there as well.

Yes it is a very bad design decision, when you stop people from playing your game for an arbitrary reason, a game which may I add, they have payed to play, it is a bad design decision. 

The problem that no one but STC acknowledges is that, right now 1 side is dominating.  There is no opposition force, in the game right now, that can compete with us.  The only reason we hold almost all the OP's is cause no one is trying to take them.  If any of the major corps came back we would not hold all of the Beta OP's. You are making a decision based on a incredibly low player population.  I keep saying this but and no one listens.  When CIR/Chaos/PHM were at full strength this spark thing was never even mentioned (Neither was the missions being broken, because they were happily running missions).  It was apparently not a problem when there were 2 sides fighting.  But now that you remove one side it becomes a problem.  This doesn't mean the system is broken, it means the population is not large enough for the mechanics to work correctly.

Just because you leave and everyone else stays, doesn't mean there is something wrong with the game or the mechanics.  You can't punish people for playing the game when you didn't.  If it's just as simple as adding a cool down timer to sparks, why don't we wait and see if all they people screaming "The end is neigh" are actually correct or just butthurt?  Why don't we wait and see what happens when more people are playing and how the spark system affects a large population?  Anyone saying they "know" what will happen is full of ***, they don't know,  they think they know.

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172 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

So a novel idea occurred to me.  Instead of listening to all the vets who spend so much time with this game and totally know exactly whats wrong with it without playing it.  How bout we ask the people who are important:  The people we hope to get on steam launch.

In all honesty, the vets don't matter.  We are not whats going to save this game.  The influx of new players who come with steam launch are going to be what saves this game.  So instead of asking people who don't play, what mechanics they like and don't like, how about we ask the new players what they think?

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173 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Gunner wrote:

You never won anything.  You just moved in to a vacant lot.

Deciding to quit is known as a forfeiture or a forfeit.  Its not a glorious win, but a win none the less.  And ill take what I can get.

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174 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

Gunner wrote:

.

If you cant defend 12 stations day in and day out with 10 people, you have too many stations or not enough people.

We can defend them, you are the ones that are failing.  hence why we control 12 Beta outposts.  this whole thing is about making it easier for your 6 man corp to compete against a fleet.  Sorry, but a small nation shouldn't be able to take on the U.S. military.  You are trying to work the system so everyone else has to play the way you want.

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175 Reply by Martha Stuart

(1,455 replies, posted in General discussion)

They scenario that they want is the gank or the ropeadope.  For example:  hypothetically, lets say 2 62nd toons go to Uria.  They start some *** or in some other fashion make us think that there will actually be a fight there.   We jump in, ready to defend.  The two 62nd players disengage at Uria and run for it.  After the defense force has jumped into Uria, the real attack begins.  The main 62nd fleet then attacks the real target.  Be it a SAP, miner, whatever.  But the real attack wasn't Uria, it was at Dana.  The attack at Uria was just a feint to get the fleet to jump and strand themselves at Uria, so the main attack can then have free reign for as long as the cool down timer lasts, with no threat of a defense fleet showing up.  The only reason people want this is because they don't want to actually fight someone who might beat them or inflict major casualties. 

They want to be able to kill some mission runners, ratters, haulers, without having to fight off a possible overwhelming counter-attack.  This is the only reason you would want a mechanic like this.  In effect, they are trying to level the playing field against superior numbers, because they are at a major numerical disadvantage.  They know they can't field the fleet we can, so they will most likely lose completely in a stand up fight.  Hence why they want to gank with no threat of someone showing up to shoot them.  There is no other reason to add a cool down timer, besides not wanting to actually fight.

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