TLF Version 1.012 Released (War And Spies)

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2014/05/tlf-version-1012-released-war-and-spies.html

Version 1.012 is now out, and I have to say, I'm really excited about this one.  The biggest thing is that you can now tell why races are going to war when they do.  But you can also see a lot of things about why you can't get races to go to war when you would ask them to, AND there were bugs fixed that were preventing you from doing that when the races were just in an "uneasy truce" sort of state.

Also, assassinating hive queens is now made of awesome.  It really makes them hate you, but it removes all their protection from bombing.  So if you, you know, are trying to nuke them from orbit... well, before that was almost impossible.  Now you can make a desperate bid to do so in a four-year window, after which they're really going to hate your guts.

The Evucks also got a whole lot more interesting with this one, with five new political deals that you can do with them.  These new deals use the Evuck spy probes at other planets to cause turmoil that can be quite major.  These are kind of like the anti-Andors in terms of how they are useful in undermining other races, versus helping them.

I had been planning on adding some more quests today, but I wound up working on the Evucks stuff instead since that is always available (presuming friendliness with the Evucks) as opposed to a temporary thing that comes and goes.

But I also did make some extensions to the quests-related mechanisms, to better prepare for when there are more quests.  These are pretty important, because you were going to be frustrated with the lack of control over quests without these in there.  Firstly there are now (very cheap) diplomats that you can hire in order to make quests from certain races a lot more likely.  So if you want to help someone, get a diplomat and they become a lot more likely to ask you for help as compared to other races.

Additionally, you can now "reject" quests, which provides a third option other than just ignoring or accepting them.  This frees up a quest slot (you only have two) so that something new can come in over the comm link.  With an increasing number of quests planned for the future, this sort of thing is key so that you don't have to sit waiting around for new quests in an annoying fashion.  And the diplomats make it so that it's less of a roll of the dice which races are asking you for help.

Anyway, no new quests as-yet, but that's next on my list of things to do, because that will again really improve the player's ability to effect the solar system in really major ways, which is something I know is the #1 issue on the core community's mind.  As it stands, I think you have a lot of new tools in this release even without those quests, so that's pretty sweet.

--------------- Ongoing Updates All This Month ---------------
The support of the community, and the growth of it, remain amazing to me.  I've been promising daily new features, but this week it's become clear that there are other things more on your mind.  Things like added interfaces, new AI behaviors and options, and things like that.  So, you know what?  I'm just going to go with that -- those count as features, really, in that they help to make the game more interesting and easier to understand and play.

So what else is going on?  Well, we're going to be working at this pace on the game for at least another month, which means that you're going to be seeing lots of good things coming.  If you've liked what you've seen in the last two weeks, you can imagine what another month of that will be like.  We do have two other things in the works as well, but we're not quite ready to reveal either one of them (although I am betting that most long-time Arcen fans can guess what both of them are).  Suffice it to say, neither one of these two other things are going to impact the general updates, improvements, and free additions to TLF that are coming over this month.

More to come Monday.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the  in-game updater, or if you have Steam it will automatically update it for you.  To force Steam to download it faster, just restart Steam and it will do so.

[GC13]

All my "yes!" on the Evucks getting some more cool stuff to do to other races. They're one of my "meh" races, so anything else they can do is fun. Burlusts next?

[Darthcaboose]

Huzzah! This game just keeps getting better and better.

[I-KP]

Impressive.

[chemical_art]

So what else is going on?  Well, we're going to be working at this pace on the game for at least another month, which means that you're going to be seeing lots of good things coming.  If you've liked what you've seen in the last two weeks, you can imagine what another month of that will be like.  We do have two other things in the works as well, but we're not quite ready to reveal either one of them (although I am betting that most long-time Arcen fans can guess what both of them are).  Suffice it to say, neither one of these two other things are going to impact the general updates, improvements, and free additions to TLF that are coming over this month.

Very tantalizing. I can imagine what one could be (the true SHUMP game *cough* I notice players want to improve the non-shump of TLF *cough*) but the other one? I don't know.

[Misery]

Aye, one of them is probably definitely the shmup game (aahhhhhh, testing that will be fun, though I'll try not to explode Mantis with feedback).

Could the other one be an expansion for something?  Another AI War one, possibly?  That seems the most likely one to me.  I cant think of anything else it might be....


All that being said, this update sounds quite good.  Not knowing WHY I cant get one race to attack another was.... frustrating.  And the Evuck thing sounds excellent, they didn't seem to stand out quite enough otherwise. 

I look forward to the quest bits being enhanced too, there arent enough of them.   They remind me of the random dialog boxes that appear during Paradox's games, which generally give you a yes/no option, or multiple things to pick from, and the decisions seem to usually be tough ones.  I like that aspect.  I wonder what they might involve though;  so far all of the ones that are in there seem to all involve combat, which is fine by me but might not be interesting quests to do at all for those that dont really like the combat system. 

[Winge]

I didn't notice my client update (Arcen Games programmers were ninjas in a previous life), and I suddenly saw the new Evuck options.  I laughed aloud.

I didn't see any affect from buying diplomats, though--I always seem to get quests before races become spacefaring, but never afterwards.  Not sure if anyone else is seeing that.

[waylon531]

There are no other quests yet, but there is going to be more soon. Diplomats do not have an effect now, but they will in the coming version.

[Misery]

One thing that occurs to me here:  Effects of RCI buildings are still waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too slow.  .003 per month is.... not exactly much, even if they stack.  It's hard to stack them anyway, since it takes awhile to build them.

Or at least, that's how it appears.  I havent really messed with them at all.

[lifehole]

One thing that occurs to me here:  Effects of RCI buildings are still waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too slow.  .003 per month is.... not exactly much, even if they stack.  It's hard to stack them anyway, since it takes awhile to build them.

Or at least, that's how it appears.  I havent really messed with them at all.

The thing is, the techs and the buildings are what lead to the runaway RCI that the AI gets later on in the game. And since we complained, they got nerfed from 0.03 to 0.003, I think. The AI builds them and stacks them.

[ptarth]

My experience is that the building RCI changes are/where tiny, but events on the other hand dominate. The Race AI can do nothing about a Doctor Shortage for 360 months giving you -1 medical per month.

[Misery]

One thing that occurs to me here:  Effects of RCI buildings are still waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too slow.  .003 per month is.... not exactly much, even if they stack.  It's hard to stack them anyway, since it takes awhile to build them.

Or at least, that's how it appears.  I havent really messed with them at all.

The thing is, the techs and the buildings are what lead to the runaway RCI that the AI gets later on in the game. And since we complained, they got nerfed from 0.03 to 0.003, I think. The AI builds them and stacks them.

.....bah, math and numbers.  I'll just ignore the blasted things for now, I think.  Too confusing.

My experience is that the building RCI changes are/where tiny, but events on the other hand dominate. The Race AI can do nothing about a Doctor Shortage for 360 months giving you -1 medical per month.

Ah yes, that's true as well.  Those last forever.  Hm, might be worth a mantis report, that.

[Histidine]

Wow, it turns out building RCI effects were already very low as they were and now they're basically nonexistent (assuming they work additively).

Spreadsheet

The quick and dirty: On a Skylaxian planet with all RCI buildings constructed, the RCI changes (monthly/yearly), prior to 1.010, were:
Economic: 0.263 / 5.26
Medical: 0.16 / 3.2
Environmental: 0.183 / 3.66
Public Order: 0.09 / 1.8

Now, of course (aside from the bugged Quantum Power Plants) they're a tenth as much. Woo, an amazing +32 Medical after 100 years!

If there's one thing I learned about balancing video games, it's this: If your changes are an order of magnitude or more, either you did something very wrong in the past or you're doing something very wrong right now. 

[lifehole]

Wow, it turns out building RCI effects were already very low as they were and now they're basically nonexistent (assuming they work additively).

Spreadsheet

The quick and dirty: On a Skylaxian planet with all RCI buildings constructed, the RCI changes (monthly/yearly), prior to 1.010, were:
Economic: 0.263 / 5.26
Medical: 0.16 / 3.2
Environmental: 0.183 / 3.66
Public Order: 0.09 / 1.8

Now, of course (aside from the bugged Quantum Power Plants) they're a tenth as much. Woo, an amazing +32 Medical after 100 years!

If there's one thing I learned about balancing video games, it's this: If your changes are an order of magnitude or more, either you did something very wrong in the past or you're doing something very wrong right now. 

Well, then it was something else. Probably events. All I know is that by 2050 RCI values would be crazy high in some places.

(intended game length is 30-50 (hence 2050) years but I still manage to finish in 10-20 so probably not exactly balanced yet)

[Misery]

Wow, it turns out building RCI effects were already very low as they were and now they're basically nonexistent (assuming they work additively).

Spreadsheet

The quick and dirty: On a Skylaxian planet with all RCI buildings constructed, the RCI changes (monthly/yearly), prior to 1.010, were:
Economic: 0.263 / 5.26
Medical: 0.16 / 3.2
Environmental: 0.183 / 3.66
Public Order: 0.09 / 1.8

Now, of course (aside from the bugged Quantum Power Plants) they're a tenth as much. Woo, an amazing +32 Medical after 100 years!

If there's one thing I learned about balancing video games, it's this: If your changes are an order of magnitude or more, either you did something very wrong in the past or you're doing something very wrong right now. 

Ahh, yeah, those DEFINITELY need changing then.  So useful in concept, but not with those numbers.

Heck, even those prior values though arent particularly great....  1.8 for public order in a year?  Not gonna help too much....