How do you actually play 0.3 ?

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eleazar
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How do you actually play 0.3 ?

#1 Post by eleazar »

I realize this game is far from complete or balanced. But unless i'm missing something big, the rules about planetary production are so broken, they might as well not be there. I've read the manual and quick start guide. I've played a few games, mostly to see how new planet maps look, but also to get a feel for gameplay. Here's what i've found:

• making anything other than food a primary focus leads to massive starvation the next turn, even on a second planet.
• the little grey bars under the production icons, are far too squashed to provide usable info.
• with 2 scouts i can explore ~50 stars in the time it takes to build a colony ship. An odd balance to say the least.
• buildings seem to be indicated for 0.3, but haven't actually been implemented. I.E there's only one defensive building to construct.

I point this hoping for 1 of 2 results:
1) if i'm ignorant: someone explains how to use production focuses.
2) if it's broken: it highlights the fact that there is plenty of work that can be done on the game before the requirements for 0.4 come down. There are several things besides buildings listed in the 0.3 DD like Infrastructure and Social meters, that either havne't been coded, or are invisible to the player.

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loonycyborg
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Re: How do you actually play 0.3 ?

#2 Post by loonycyborg »

eleazar wrote: • buildings seem to be indicated for 0.3, but haven't actually been implemented. I.E there's only one defensive building to construct.
All other buildings have technology prerequisites that are quite deep in tech tree.

Tyreth
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#3 Post by Tyreth »

Balancing things like food requirements is just a matter of tweaking the values in the game as we build it more.

Buildings are implemented - there are a handful of application technologies in the tech tree that open up some buildings for construction.

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eleazar
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#4 Post by eleazar »

Tyreth wrote:Balancing things like food requirements is just a matter of tweaking the values in the game as we build it more.
Sure, i understand that. What i don't understand is why everything seems to be on hold untill the 0.4 DD is released. I understand why indivduals wouldn't have time, but not why the project isn't encouraging someone to come along and tweak those numbers. Or do anything else that doesn't depend on 0.4.

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#5 Post by Tyreth »

There's no reason people can't tweak the values now. The only problem with it is that things may change drastically in later versions anyway, rendering earlier efforts wasted.

However, food/growth isn't likely to change - at least not the problem you specify. So there's no problem with someone tweaking the values now.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: How do you actually play 0.3 ?

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

eleazar wrote:• making anything other than food a primary focus leads to massive starvation the next turn, even on a second planet.
Don't forget secondary focus. I'm not sure how things are in v0.3, but in the SVN version, I've changed things so that the homeworld gets an automatic +7 to farming. This means that +3 from primary balanced is enough to sustain the planet's popluation, freeing the +5 secondary focus for whatever you want. Alternatively, +5 from secondary farming focus gives +2 food per 10 population (+6 / turn for 30 pop) and frees the +15 primary focus for whatever you want.

For other planets, w/o the homeworld +7, unless you're primary farming focused on more than half your worlds, you probably won't have enough food. This is somewhat intentional, as you have to research some farming-related technologies to increase food production.
• the little grey bars under the production icons, are far too squashed to provide usable info.
I'm planning to replace these with numbers indicating actual resource production amounts. Meter values will be hidden from players, since what really matters is resource production and consumption.
• with 2 scouts i can explore ~50 stars in the time it takes to build a colony ship. An odd balance to say the least.
But useful for testing, as you can explore all those systems fairly quickly to see whatever change you're testing...
• buildings seem to be indicated for 0.3, but haven't actually been implemented. I.E there's only one defensive building to construct.
As above, do some research to unlock buildings. I would like to get a few buildings with no research requirement in there as well, but it hasn't been a priority.
There are several things besides buildings listed in the 0.3 DD like Infrastructure and Social meters, that either havne't been coded, or are invisible to the player.
Green text in the DD is for future speculation stuff. The only social meter actually required by the requirements is health, which is implemented, though ig is hidden.

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eleazar
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Re: How do you actually play 0.3 ?

#7 Post by eleazar »

Perhaps i don't understand your system. My impression from looking at the roadmap, is that "0.3 ... Completed" means that the 0.3 features have been implemented in the game. Now maybe "completed" is supposed to mean "our basic plan for 0.3 is complete", but that idea never crossed my mind until i read some of the replies in this tread. Perhaps you are loosing contributors who might work on some of this stuff, when they read 0.3 is "complete" and 0.4 is being hashed out in private.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:• making anything other than food a primary focus leads to massive starvation the next turn, even on a second planet.
Don't forget secondary focus. I'm not sure how things are in v0.3, but in the SVN version, I've changed things so that the homeworld gets an automatic +7 to farming. This means that +3 from primary balanced is enough to sustain the planet's popluation, freeing the +5 secondary focus for whatever you want. Alternatively, +5 from secondary farming focus gives +2 food per 10 population (+6 / turn for 30 pop) and frees the +15 primary focus for whatever you want.
It's possible my troubles with starvation were (at least partially) due to being confused by the UI.
Geoff the Medio wrote:For other planets, w/o the homeworld +7, unless you're primary farming focused on more than half your worlds, you probably won't have enough food. This is somewhat intentional, as you have to research some farming-related technologies to increase food production.
That's good to know. These techs don't currently have an effect on farming do they? I see techs like orbital farming, but no result is listed.
Geoff the Medio wrote:I'm planning to replace these with numbers indicating actual resource production amounts. Meter values will be hidden from players, since what really matters is resource production and consumption.
Um, is what you are saying, it doesn't matter to the player how much food is being produced, just how big the surplus or shortfall is?
Geoff the Medio wrote:
• with 2 scouts i can explore ~50 stars in the time it takes to build a colony ship. An odd balance to say the least.
But useful for testing, as you can explore all those systems fairly quickly to see whatever change you're testing...
Perhaps it would be even better to have a checkbox in the startup screen, "reveal all systems at start" Naturally this would not be good for playing, but would save tons of time, if you wanted to see how a modified planet distribution worked, for instance.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: How do you actually play 0.3 ?

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I've edited the Roadmap to clarify the situation, and remove some unnecessary notes that accompanied the features list.
These techs don't currently have an effect on farming do they? I see techs like orbital farming, but no result is listed.
There are several kinds of techs you should be aware of:
1) Theories - the majority of techs in v0.3. Do nothing, but are required to unlock other theories and applications.
2a) Applications (Unlocking) - Do nothing themselves, but unlock buidings you can produced on planet, which have effects that alter resource production, etc.
2b) Applications (Effects) - Have effects that alter resource production (no building production required)
3) Refinements - Alter the effects of buildings or effects-applications. I'm not sure if there are any in v0.3, though there are a few in SVN, and will likely be more eventually.
Geoff the Medio wrote:I'm planning to replace these with numbers indicating actual resource production amounts. Meter values will be hidden from players, since what really matters is resource production and consumption.
Um, is what you are saying, it doesn't matter to the player how much food is being produced, just how big the surplus or shortfall is?
No. I'm going to show the player how much actual resources are being produced, rather than the meter value (which is multiplied by the population to get actual resource production).
Perhaps it would be even better to have a checkbox in the startup screen, "reveal all systems at start
Actually, I think there's a flag in the code you can set before compiling that reveals everything...

I guess the ships in v0.3 are just left over from v0.1, which were just "look, we have ships!" and "hey, lets make sure the UI doesn't crash when we do stuff with ships in it". The ships model is due to be expanded / replaced in v0.4, whenever it gets designed...

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