Arcen Games
General Category => The Last Federation => : x4000 October 09, 2014, 08:16:40 PM
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Original: http://arcengames.com/tlf-version-1-606-released-credit-bombardment/
Version 1.606 is an enormous balance to the Credit economy, as well as giving you newfound power to really effectively bomb your enemies from orbit.
There's a bunch of other great stuff, too, in the bugfix and clarity categories. Your options for dealing with rescued pilots are now a lot more obvious, for one. When planets are captured while defense fleets are still in orbit, those fleets no longer switch sides inappropriately. Fighting pirates no longer angers the race that the pirates happen to be. Several quests that had some bugs now do not.
Orbital Bombing, v2
Orbital Bombing is one of my favorite new additions. Let us know how you feel about the balance on it; it may be a bit strong, but it does cost money, so we'll see. Basically you used to be able to use a special ability to spawn Orbital Bombers inside battle, and then as long as they were alive they'd bomb the planet from orbit. This was fiddly and never felt right for a host of reasons (it was tedious, for one).
Now the Orbital Bombers themselves are attack craft like any other, and kind of send mini-nukes inside the battlefield, but don't affect the planet surface at all. Instead, you have a new dispatch that lets you do their old job for them -- but faster, and more effectively, thanks to the magic of dispatches and fast-forwarding in them. ;)
Earning Credit, v2
When it comes to Credit, hoo boy. There had been complaints for a long time that attacking the AFA to grind for credit was really the only viable way to get enough credit late game -- and that you could get a TON there. And that there were not enough ways to peaceably earn credit.
All right, so the first order of business was to heavily nerf the amount of credit you earn in combat -- you now gain 1/10th the amount you did before. That's a counterintuitive place to start, but basically if it was already so attractive to grind, and this was the primary source of income, then yeah we had a problem. When I looked at this, you could gain around 8000 credit in a solar month when fighting a sizeable battle, while the most generous dispatches were maybe 200 credit max. And many were more like 10 credit per month. Wow what a difference.
To add to the problem with the balance on the combat side, that was all income from fighting ships -- so you'd only get that full 8000 if you auto-resolved, or if you really fought an extended battle just for the sake of earning credit. We've had this sort of unintentional balance problem in AI War before, too: basically if you have a way to do grinding at all, for some players that means that they will do it (and hate it) in order to play "optimally." Depending on the game, I fall into that category of players.
All right, so killing everybody in combat is no longer so profitable that it encourages grinding much. So what is there to compensate? Glad you asked. :)
First of all, almost all of the existing credit-earning dispatches earn you far more credit than they previously did. Depending on the dispatch, they earn you 3, 6x, or 12x more. Expanding usable land area for a race was something that was never attractive to me to do personally before, but now I find that it's a key part of an early-game strategy. You can rack up 40,000 credits in just half a year or so. Doing this expansion actually has a lot of benefits for the AI, too: you make it so that they don't hit population density problems so fast, and you also make it so that they can divert that portion of their budget to other things -- like shipbuilding. This is an aspect of strategy that was never really viable before, because expanding the usable land area yourself was such a bad deal for you personally that helping the AI via it was not really on the table tactically.
Next up, a lot of the regular friendly actions that give you flat credit (like 5,000 credit for granting spacefaring tech) now give you a LOT more credit. The one for delivering spacefaring now gives you a quick 20,000, for instance. These particular missions that have been buffed in credit reward are things that you can't just do endlessly, and in some cases they come with drawbacks (like having another spacefaring race that you might not really trust). But they provide a way to get off to a much more profitable start to the game, which really opens up your options much faster -- with no grinding, but with appropriate tradeoff costs.
Then there are the assassins and thoraxian hunter that can sometimes sneak up and attack you. I don't know about you, but that has always kind of annoyed me, even if it does make great thematic sense. I've been tempted to remove the mechanic, but it makes just so much sense and is fitting when you are in the wrong part of the solar system and you've really made someone angry. So I had a thought, today: what if these were really big credit rewards? So when you get attacked, sure, it's annoying to have an interruption to whatever you were previously doing. But it's also a windfall, which makes it exciting. It will be interesting to hear how you feel about it, but it makes me go "ooh, assassins!" now. "Hey Greedo, whatcha got on ya, there? It's your fault for coming after me in the first place, you know..."
Lastly, we come to quests. A lot of the quests gave either no credit reward at all, or a very tiny one (in the 500 range, max). These quests typically represent some major powerful things that you can do for the races, so they were already attractive to do. And you can't farm them, because of their limited nature. So I thought: why not make it so that they are directly profitable to you, personally, as a mercenary as well? It makes thematic sense, and from a gameplay standpoint also works well. So the most stingy of these now give you 2,000 credit, and the most lucrative (and infrequent) offer 40,000.
All in all you will probably have more credit now than you did in past games. And I'm cool with that, because that gives you more options. Some options may now be overpowered since you can afford them more frequently, and so there may need to be another round of balancing in terms of either the costs of certain political deals or the scale of credit granted from various sources. In fact, I'll be shocked if some sort of further tuning isn't needed. But I figured I would err on the side of the player's favor in this case. Even having more credit, I don't think that trivializes the strategic game (particularly on higher strategic difficulties, whereas I think most people have been previously treating Normal as Hard, which is not great). But what having more credit does do is prevent the game from dragging on simply because you are waiting to have options. Not that that was previously epidemic, but it happened more than I liked.
UPDATE: 1.607 is now out. This has a hotfix for some annoying hive queen stuff that was visual-only, but got in the way of seeing some other stuff. This also, more importantly, tries to tune the economy slightly better. As I figured, 1.606 was a bit on the generous side for players. This new version tones that down to about 70% of the boost that it gave in the prior version, and it also makes a few things more expensive -- goons and buying hydral tech, notably. Those two things were too cheap compared to other things that one might purchase. The credit rewards from combat also are nerfed slightly less hard now. And lastly, there is no longer a timeframe limit on what races will sponsor when it comes to property development, tech research, or space outpost development. That was annoying, and made goons required rather than a value-add.
UPDATE: 1.608 is now out. This includes some general fixes and updates, as well as a new dispatch for supporting friendly ground troops. This is possibly the last release for the next week and a half or so. Unless something serious comes up, that's intended to be the case. Keith and Josh will be monitoring things, but I have some personal stuff I have to attend to for this next bit of time. Thanks for understanding -- and if there is anything absolutely critical during that period, Keith will let me know so that I can push out his fixes through Steam. But if I'm slow on that, you'll still be able to get the update through the in-game updater as soon as he finishes coding it and puts it online.
Let us know how things are looking, if you have suggestions or bug reports, etc!
More to come soon. 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.
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You have no idea how happy I was to get the e-mail that my feedback submission about the credit economy had finally been marked resolved. It's been a long time coming. :)
Hitting combat with a full order-of-magnitude reduction, though... You're right, does sound extreme. I might just have to take the old girl for a spin and see how all of the changes in the past while have affected her. 8)
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Good stuff!
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:)
Hmm, is there any particular reason to bother cleaning up the AFA now? Especially since it always felt like they'd just recover kudzu-style anyway.
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Hmm, I like this money update, heh. Alot of different things feel much more worth it. Though, this seems to imbalance costs all over the place.... so very many things are downright trivial now. Even super expensive options wouldnt take long to get currently.
Other than that, certain odd bugs and things appearing, this one reported by Snafu is super duper obnoxious: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15960 and might be interfering with actions the races might otherwise be taking (had an Andor election fail, resetting the timer but doing nothing, while it spat out more of those messages). So that one might be a big issue if that's true, I'm not sure.
And in other news, I'm going to have a look at the damage levels for the Leech ships.... they're kinda being another "lawnmower" type thing right now. Watched them eat pirate bases like potato chips. Among other things. I've also seen them (I think it was them) do non-existent damage against friendlies, which... makes no sense in alot of ways.
Also, I responded to your email, which I'm again mentioning here because AGAIN bloody Yahoo isnt confirming the blasted things. And I had one NOT go off to someone earlier in the day. So... yeah. Possible issue still there with the Burlusts, kinda strange.
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Thanks everybody! Lots of great feedback. :)
UPDATE: 1.607 is now out. This has a hotfix for some annoying hive queen stuff that was visual-only, but got in the way of seeing some other stuff. This also, more importantly, tries to tune the economy slightly better. As I figured, 1.606 was a bit on the generous side for players. This new version tones that down to about 70% of the boost that it gave in the prior version, and it also makes a few things more expensive -- goons and buying hydral tech, notably. Those two things were too cheap compared to other things that one might purchase. The credit rewards from combat also are nerfed slightly less hard now. And lastly, there is no longer a timeframe limit on what races will sponsor when it comes to property development, tech research, or space outpost development. That was annoying, and made goons required rather than a value-add.
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Just as an FYI, after tomorrow night I'm going to be bogged down with a few personal things for a little over a week, and won't really be able to do anything with TLF. If there's anything time-crucial that has to happen prior to that blackout period, best let us know sooner than later. ;) After I get through that one bog-down patch, I'll be onto the TLF stuff as normal again. Thanks for understanding with that!
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I am playing 1.607 right now, but it does not seem that the hotfix has really fixed the whole issue with the Queen. I can give a save if needed, but I just started to get spammed with it myself.
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I am playing 1.607 right now, but it does not seem that the hotfix has really fixed the whole issue with the Queen. I can give a save if needed, but I just started to get spammed with it myself.
If you have a save, that would be helpful. Thanks!
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Also, one thing to make sure of is that those aren't just old queued messages still flooding through your bar down there.
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A totally unrelated sidenote:
What/who is the Thoraxian Hunter ??? ?
I don't think I ever encountered such a thing in-game...
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The Thoraxian Hunters start getting sent after you if the Thoraxians really really hate you after a certain point in the game years-wise. It may be that their mechanic is nonfunctional for some reason. Might be worth going in mantis for us to look at later.
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Save is attached, and I know these are not queue because I loaded this game back around the very start of this game before any other race was space fairing and it just started to do so after a few years in the game.
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Got it, thanks!
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The Thoraxian Hunters start getting sent after you if the Thoraxians really really hate you after a certain point in the game years-wise. It may be that their mechanic is nonfunctional for some reason. Might be worth going in mantis for us to look at later.
Done (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15967).
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Thanks!
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Uh, are construction times for RCI and attitude buildings supposed to be ultra low now? I go into the property development list, and they're all at one month... Granted, considering the very small numbers of their effects, that might be the intention, but it could also be a bug, I'm not sure.
EDIT: ....okay, maybe, POSSIBLY it was me just not paying attention. didn't notice I had a few construction workers. Sigh.
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The hive queen mood swings really seem to be on the (too) frequent side in 1.607...
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Save is attached, and I know these are not queue because I loaded this game back around the very start of this game before any other race was space fairing and it just started to do so after a few years in the game.
Hmm, I'm not sure what's going on then, because I loaded the save attached to your post and ran it over 10 game years and didn't see a single hive queen mood swing (even for the thoraxian planet).
Does anyone have a save and steps to reproduce the bug? Thanks :)
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See attached game.
I load the game and hit fast forward and there is a swing every month, and has been one for quite a while.
Restarted the game, rather then just load it to make sure make sure and it does it every time here.
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See attached game.
I load the game and hit fast forward and there is a swing every month, and has been one for quite a while.
Restarted the game, rather then just load it to make sure make sure and it does it every time here.
I loaded the game and ran it for a few years until the game was lost (the hydral planet was taken) and didn't see any mood swings either on the right-sidebar notifications or in the logbook when I checked there.
I'm wondering if the 1.607 update actually got applied properly.
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See attached game.
I load the game and hit fast forward and there is a swing every month, and has been one for quite a while.
Restarted the game, rather then just load it to make sure make sure and it does it every time here.
I loaded the game and ran it for a few years until the game was lost (the hydral planet was taken) and didn't see any mood swings either on the right-sidebar notifications or in the logbook when I checked there.
I'm wondering if the 1.607 update actually got applied properly.
Actually, I get the exact same thing. I loaded up his game, ran it for a while, and saw this:
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Then I just don't know what's going on, I'm afraid. I did a fresh steam install just now, loaded the save, repeated the test twice and I saw no mood swings in either the notification-sidebar on the right side of the main map screen, or in the logbook.
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Then I just don't know what's going on, I'm afraid. I did a fresh steam install just now, loaded the save, repeated the test twice and I saw no mood swings in either the notification-sidebar on the right side of the main map screen, or in the logbook.
I am doing a fresh install right now, lets see if that clears it up.
I made a copy of my game directory before I had steam delete it just in case this does fix it. And if it does, I go do some diffs and see if I can find what is different between the two.
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I appreciate the detailed re-test :)
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I appreciate the detailed re-test :)
Fresh install (delete game files in steam and redownload them) did not fix the issue. When I load the game it does the exact same thing.
Game when started reports it as 1.607.
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Wow, that's bizarre.
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UPDATE: 1.608 is nowout. This includes some general fixes and updates, as well as a new dispatch for supporting friendly ground troops. This is possibly the last release for the next week and a half or so. Unless something serious comes up, that's intended to be the case. Keith and Josh will be monitoring things, but I have some personal stuff I have to attend to for this next bit of time. Thanks for understanding -- and if there is anything absolutely critical during that period, Keith will let me know so that I can push out his fixes through Steam. But if I'm slow on that, you'll still be able to get the update through the in-game updater as soon as he finishes coding it and puts it online.
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I'm excited to see the betrayal mode change (obviously I'm also appreciative of the note in the changelog, even though you do all the real work. Things like uploading a save or making a suggestion are quite modest in comparison), and I'm looking forward to testing it out later.
I wish you the best, with whatever real-life event that needs your attention. I think I can speak for myself and others in saying that with the effort and commitment you put into your gaming duties you are more than deserving of a little flexibility in working hours, and that you have the understanding and support of happy customers who wish you well.
A week or two is a very short time, it only feels longer because of the unparalleled, unyielding and intense update schedule you keep and the high standards to which you judge your work. Don't be too hard on yourself. The same goes for everyone.
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I'm excited to see the betrayal mode change (obviously I'm also appreciative of the note in the changelog, even though you do all the real work. Things like uploading a save or making a suggestion are quite modest in comparison), and I'm looking forward to testing it out later.
I wish you the best, with whatever real-life event that needs your attention. I think I can speak for myself and others in saying that with the effort and commitment you put into your gaming duties you are more than deserving of a little flexibility in working hours, and that you have the understanding and support of happy customers who wish you well.
A week or two is a very short time, it only feels longer because of the unparalleled, unyielding and intense update schedule you keep and the high standards to which you judge your work. Don't be too hard on yourself. The same goes for everyone.
Totally agreed with this :)
Though I've already stated as much on numerous occaisions. I think it's deserved, though.
On the note of the patch and stuff: The Hive Queen is still missing a few screws here. Actually at this point she probably doesnt know what screws are anymore. Is having mood swings every 20 seconds or so.
And the planet is very much under her control. Brags about this fact alot.
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I'm excited to see the betrayal mode change (obviously I'm also appreciative of the note in the changelog, even though you do all the real work. Things like uploading a save or making a suggestion are quite modest in comparison), and I'm looking forward to testing it out later.
I wish you the best, with whatever real-life event that needs your attention. I think I can speak for myself and others in saying that with the effort and commitment you put into your gaming duties you are more than deserving of a little flexibility in working hours, and that you have the understanding and support of happy customers who wish you well.
A week or two is a very short time, it only feels longer because of the unparalleled, unyielding and intense update schedule you keep and the high standards to which you judge your work. Don't be too hard on yourself. The same goes for everyone.
Seconded, as usual :). Take your time, Chris!
We'll be here when you get back ;).
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Just got some playtime with 1.608.
Some notes:
- Obscura might be way too weak early game now: 15979 (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15979)
- The Orbital Bombing hostile dispatch likely needs a nerf, especially with regard to the Obscura:15980 (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15980)
- Obscura apparently like to conduct Andor elections - go figure: 15981 (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15981)
- The hive queen still is a moody gal: 15982 (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15982)
- Still quite a bit of UI-related iffyness related to Obscura in combat: 15983 (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15983)
At least the first two might warrant a look before Chris is back.
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In my game, I noticed hive queen mood swings happening quite a lot. Would that have anything to do with why the Thoraxians did so terrible? They ended up getting taken over without my influence at all.
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Not related to the patch, but since I dont wanna e-mail Chris directly while he's busy with other stuff, just a quick progress report, the Burlust Warlord stuff is now 1/3rd complete. That whole "shifting" concept (or whatever it should be called) has turned out to be a great idea, this one will be... interesting.
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Not related to the patch, but since I dont wanna e-mail Chris directly while he's busy with other stuff, just a quick progress report, the Burlust Warlord stuff is now 1/3rd complete. That whole "shifting" concept (or whatever it should be called) has turned out to be a great idea, this one will be... interesting.
Glad to hear it :) We've been really impressed by the patterns overall thus far.
"I call this one... 'Warlord saw your puny ship and sneezed milk all over the dashboard'."
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Mostly done.... one last bit to go, and I think I'll do that later tonight, or tomorrow night. Probably tonight.
Gonna show a quick screenshot this time, because the way this one turned out, it ends up making for very good screenshots.
(http://i.imgur.com/ERJmnPo.jpg)
That's the "mid" pattern, the "low" one is next up for design. Not as hard to deal with as it might look. The Obscura were designed with difficulty in mind... the Burlusts do need to be strong, but not as tough as those guys, yet still look impressive. Most players should be able to handle these guys. Well, without TOO much trouble, anyway...
The green shots are constant; the other 4 colors are chosen at random, the chosen color firing along with each green shot. After a time each set turns around and does something. Incidentally, I'm tired of numbers now.
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Incidentally, I'm tired of numbers now.
I'm surprised you've been able to tolerate my half-baked xml schema thus far ;)
Looking good :)
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Really looking very cool Misery, i'm looking forward to getting overwhelmed, haha. Really, really nice work, looks really great!
:) Thanks for all the hard work.
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Incidentally, I'm tired of numbers now.
I'm surprised you've been able to tolerate my half-baked xml schema thus far ;)
Looking good :)
Actually it's worked out very well so far; if you guys are going ahead with that shmup game idea this next year still, you've got a very good base there overall (if that's what you're going to use for it). It's been pretty easy to use. The only tough parts is when I'm trying to get something to happen but clearly dont have the right numbers in there, so it of course then does exactly what I DONT want it to do...
Really looking very cool Misery, i'm looking forward to getting overwhelmed, haha. Really, really nice work, looks really great!
:) Thanks for all the hard work.
Nah, that one wont be too overwhelming. It being one of the main ways to interact with the Burlust and all. Actually for once I'm wondering if it might be too easy, which is rare for anything I make. It's actually been tougher to make BECAUSE I need to keep the difficulty dialed down this time, haha. While still being interesting.
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I'm definitely digging the fact that dispatches are now actually effective. Was able to pull some Skylaxians out of an environmental tailspin thanks to it and get the Thoraxians (!) to join a federation. Bastards were one planet short of forming a fear empire.
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Yeah, the dispatches are working much better now. Can actually DO something about RCI problems.
Right now the only problems are the fact that the Thoraxian queen has totally lost it, and there's a bunch of funky balance issues in combat. Some of which are ship-based and probably my doing (argh the tweaking, it begins), others are related to certain abilities (triple range is WAY too powerful in it's current state).
The bit with the queen is definitely the biggest issue though. Mood swings.... so many....
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The Burlust Warlords are finished! Ahh, that took longer than I thought it would. I think it came out well though.
I've sent an e-mail to Chris with all of that, though Yahoo is barely even functional at the moment (sigh), so hopefully it actually sent and didn't corrupt the files or something.... blasted thing is nearly killing itself just trying to check the "sent messages" list. ...which it then failed to do. It'd be nice if it could work fully and correctly for 5 minutes here.
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Misery: I did get your email, and I look forward to delving into it on Monday. Exciting stuff! :D
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Yeah, I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.
....except for the part where I didn't balance/tweak/do something with damage values whatsoever (wheras I did with the Obscura each time) with this, as this one is so much harder to gauge properly. With the Obscura ships I generally figured "Yeah, this thing is ready to be added at this point probably" when it was finished, but not this one.
I'll probably keep messing with that over the weekend, so I might chuck a different set of files at you on Monday.
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Sweet!