Astro Galaxy - a realistic space exploration game

This project will introduce ship to ship docking / freight exchange and carrier capabilities.

Each ship hull will have a m3 size. Any ship will be able to hold another ship in the cargo bay area, provided there is enough space in the ship to hold the hull of the other ship plus any additional cargo it may be carrying.

This will enable one to dock multiple ships at a larger ship then jump the larger ship, effectively saving up fuel and making a carrier.

Cool

Very nice.  Does this mean we will be able to dock and trade with other people's ships as well?

interesting, I kinda like it...

...giggle...

Ship to ship trading between players will be available too, in a separate action, most likely "open trade negotiations".

Trade window will feature a chat and a trade screen where each party will show merchandise and discuss the trade.

Trade restrictions will apply as set by the SOL Corporation, that is in direct trade resources and modules have to be traded at default market value, so trading a module worth 1000 solars with require 1000 solars in resources, other modules or solars.

For trading of markup modules, ships, etc. the SOL auction will be used.

I really don't like this.  It restricts a lot what can be traded.  Since it is ship to ship we should be able to trade how we want.  If it is implemented the way you have said then I don't see anyone trading this way.  Chances are many of us will just continue to trade the way we have been. Setting up stations with what we want to give the other person in the station's cargo bay.  Then they do the same with us.  Something to keep in mind is while Sol may have a set price on things, realistically in deep space people are going to want to set what they think something is worth. Say a high level wormhole gen. That might be worth a lot to one person but to another it might not be worth so much.   Still since we can pay in Solar, we might at least be able to buy some things. But I don't like this system you got in mind.   Another thing that kind of rubs me the wrong way with this is a lot of people just buy the resources to buy stuff.  So in that case the amount it might be worth by SOL in default could actually be less then what the person making the module spent. This is another reason we should be able to set our own prices. That way people can make modules and sell them to others for a profit.

We'll see how it goes, free trading may allow the economy to grow and prosper.

While testing the corporation ships, it appears that freight exchange will be possible with a corporation ship as intermediary.

How is works is a corporation captain moves a ship to a planet / moon / safe spot etc.

Then corp member #1 and #2 move to the same position. Corp ship command is transferred to member #1, then does a freight exchange between his own ship and the corp ship. Then corp ship command is re-assigned to member #2, that then can transfer from the corp ship into his own ship cargo. This freight exchange can be made anywhere in space.

So freight exchange will be possible, and I guess free trade will also be, where you will have a chat window and will be able to ask any price for your goods in the trade window.

There may come a time when Earth will no longer sell resources, just buy them at default price. Then, the captains can set their own prices and there may also be a market for different resources with auctions and stuff...

When that happens the wars will begin over planets for mining. lol. Though then it will start to make having solars pointless except for the purpose of buying QP with them for VIP and officers.

cool this sounds interesting lets see how it plays out then....

sounds very interesting... note to self, buy all resources from sol before they are gone :)


But I can see a point where sol doesn't have an unlimited supply of resources. Would totally change how the game is played.

I can see one use for solars... Buying mods from the yet to come auction. Which without being able to buy resources at sol would make high mk level mods very desirable. It could really start an in game economy.

And of course with resources becoming more rare you can be sure more pirates will start appearing.  Especially when people start to become more desperate for resources.  I do worry about newer players though once this is added in.  Current players can get far away by just buying the resources and getting what they need made at a faster pace.  But new players now still struggle in the early stages.  If they can't buy resources it will become an even bigger struggle for them. At least now they can do transports for cash to get the upgrades they need.  So the slower pace for these newbies will make it even harder to catch up to those who have already been playing then it is now. Then as piracy starts to increase because the need for more resources, the newbies will suffer more. I personally plan on stopping raiding mines in Sol if this change is made. I likely will stop raiding in 0,0 all together.  Just because if new players can't progress at all, then they will likely just quit.  It is going to be frustrating as it is for them once this change is made. I don't want to see the game die. I will still attacks ships I see in Sol though. Just for the simple fact some of them may be pirates. So perhaps I might be able to keep pirating down in Sol.  If I decide to do any pirating myself after this change, I likely will just do it somewhere outside of 0,0.    In the meantime until then I am packing up my mines and doing the more profitable SOS escape pods and COM missions and get in as many upgrades as I can.

Well when resources become scarce there will be an opening for wares market / auctions. I expect the SOL auction to really pickup then, and there will be more missions, some of them paying in resources, so the idea is you gather what's more expensive and ferry it over to Earth and put it in auction, and people that need it will buy it.

So that makes a nice market for supply / demand, and you should be able to buy what you need for modules upgrades from SOL auction from other captains... of course some of it may be more rare, but there will be a few missions that will pay in the most common minerals and gases I guess. I doubt the new players will have a hard time, Sol will only get safer as we go, there will probably be more trading stations, maybe some police patrols too, for example a new possibility emerges with Corporation ships, a corp ship will engage any fight at a planet / moon where a corp member is under attack. Now on Sol and generally in 0,0 you can expect SOL corporation ships / police patrols to patrol the systems. This will make it harder for pirates to attack newbies.

Overall, it should make it more interesting for newbie players though, some resources may very well get to be really expensive and it will start a treasure hunt / gold rush :)

You really have no idea how hard it is for newbies right now do you?  Pirating is heavy but it is down a bit from what it was. Mostly because of me a lot of people have left Sol and expanded outwards. But don't kid yourself newbie pirates are popping up all the time.  One guy I know that is a newbie had a guy who was still in newbie protection actually steal a mine of his that was on pluto and of course he couldn't take it back because the guy was still in protection.   Asides from pirates, getting the resources you need to become bigger is a slow process as you do transports.  You can't really do much in mining because stuff gets pirated.  Take away them resources they can buy and they are forced to mine to try to advance.  More newbies will become desperate for resources and likely turn to pirating. The whole reason I started pirating to begin with was because I wanted some extra resources to boost me along a little faster. I was bred in a calm environment even.  It will get worse. Since many newbie pirates are going to be in Sol for white a while it become their hunting ground. Other newbies will try to mine there for resources only to find mines raided daily. Sometimes have their mines taken over.  They might make it a little further out in 0,0. But the pirates eventually move to those areas as well when they discover what they can make there. Especially once mining becomes more essential.  Sol is going to become an even more dangerous place. Corps can only do so much to help. But it's not like they can always respond in time or even know a corp mate is being attacks. Many newbies themselves are still in Sol corp and there ain't jack to help them there. Especially considering that many of the newbie pirates are likely going to still be in Sol Corp themselves. That actually makes it worse since they can see if they are online or not.  Trust me Sol is likely to become an even more dangerous place.  If it isn't pirates, it will be people fighting over mining spots themselves in and around Sol.  It's not like they can really expand outward as much as the rest of us. So they become compressed in a smaller area. I imagine many will become frustrated and end up quitting the game.  As for patrol ships.  How do you expect them to stop the pirates? Are they going to auto respond to attacks in the ships that are in orbit around that area? If so then you may have newbies setting up somewhere in Sol only to go inactive and quit and no way to remove their mines since anyone that tries to attack them to clear them out would be attacked by the patrol ship. Only way to clear those out will be for us bigger players to come in and clear them out ourselves along with the patrol ships.

nice idea, but i found a problem :

Let's say i put ship A inside ship B, then put ship B inside ship C, and finally put ship C inside ship D
Ship D would only need enough cargo for ship C which carry 2 other ships
This can be exploited.....

I'm using this table for calculating the hull, will basically be # of modules * 25

Speed(km/s) Dodge                     Hull Size M3
10        50%      Shuttle         II       4   * 25
9         45%      Frigate         III      8
8         40%      HeavyFrigate    IV       13
7         35%      Cruiser         V        20
6         30%      BattleCruiser   VI       26
5         25%      HeavyCruiser    VII      38
4         20%      LineShip        VIII     47
3         15%      BattleShip      IX       58
2         10%      Dreadnought     X        70
1          5%      Leviathan       XI       87
.25        0%      Titan           XII      100 * 25


So then we have a Titan at 2500 m3 volume just the hull. Then if this Titan also contains let's see maybe a battleship then it will be 58*25 = 1450 m3 also. So basically you'll need the hull size + any cargo the ship is carrying, that includes Fuel Cells, resources, ships, modules and what not.

So that Titan filled with cargo and other ships and it's cargo and their cargo docked will occupy a lot of space, you won't be able to squeeze it just anywhere, you'll need that space available in the cargo bay for it to dock.

Also, a docked ship will be unavailable and can not be activated, marked as docked in Ships list until undocked. The cargo of the docked ship and other ships docked to it will be frozen until the ship undocks. The docked ship will basically be like a big chunk of cargo, like a big box full of stuff that you can't open until you get it out of the cargo bay... something like that  :))

Now if you have box A holding box B holding box C holding box D. Then you need to open box A, get box B out, open B, get C, open C, get D ok about there. And box D weights 100 tons, C 50 tons, B 30 tons and A 10 tons. Then A will weight 100+50+30+10, 190 tons.

I am guessing there is going to be a separate carrier ship hull upgrade a ship will need to have to do this. So unless you do that with every ship, I don't think this will be a problem.

http://forum.astro-galaxy.com/index.php/topic,8275.msg67053.html#msg67053

Added this in ship optimizations project a few days ago:

        -> Mother ship
              +75% cargo, -25% navigation time. Leviathan, x40 cost

The economy is slightly off topic here but i guess it does have an extension to docking, trading etc. Instead of turning off trading sales at sol, which would make things even harder for a new player to get a foothold as JamJul points out, consider a "tick" accumulation of products based on their relative rarity/value. In this way products continue to be available or produced automatically over time and accumulate at sol trading centres. Sure big players with cash can come in to clean out the stores, but a lot of "big Players" tend to be a long way away from Sol and not always bothered with its trading sales. Of course any goods coming into Sol to be sold on the commodities market should be immediately added to sol reserves and available for purchase by other pilots. Being able to control the price or resell from individual stations would also be advantageous, but limit it to say +-15% of sol prices for the resell. This concept would really help build economy and supply/demand. Naturally, you will still need to be able to defend your stations from pirate raids where you were advertising goods for sale.

This is a really good idea.  It would also give people more reasons to mine. By mining and selling resources, people can help the economy. I see big players only cleaning out the resources there if they are building a new ship or making a huge upgrade.

While were off topic and on the subject of the economy....

One of the issues with the ingame economy is that there are no long supply chains, either in the generation of cash or for collection of resources. For example you do com missions, get paid, and spend the money at Earth buying the resources to upgrade your modules. Those players that like to mine (poor buggers) go mine, sell unwanted minerals at Earth, get paid, then buy additional resources to upgrade their modules. There is no link between those mining and those doing the significantly more profitable com missions. This needs to be rectified.

The reason for the price cap on trading at player owned stations is to stop players transfering wealth from one player to another... ie to block farming. But ever since looting was introduced and especially since station cargo hold looting there were 'lossy' ways around that. With the introduction of the Corp ships there is now a 'lossless' way to transfer wealth from one char to another. So the whole reason for fixed pricing disapears.... but even if fixed pricing was removed, there is still an effective price cap in place because of the infinite availability of resources at Earth.

If the trading hub at earth was removed, so that players couldnt just buy any quantity of resources they wanted but had to buy resources from other players. then the price would be solely determined by supply and demand. This would also balance out the income disparity between com missions and mining, if too many people are doing missions, then the prices of minerals rise making mining more attractive... if there are too many mining then the prices drop. More importantly the cash injected into the game economy via the Com mission payouts is spread across the player base.

There is ofcourse the problem of newbies.... where will they get stuff to build modules? The solution make SOL corp a real CORP. Newbies start as members and the trading hub at earth could be set to corp only. It could be made so that it allways has a supply of the resources needed for tech 1 modules... or even simpler just sells all the tech 1 mark 1 modules.

I guess the trading hub at earth could be set up so that it allways purchases resources (perhapes at a fixed price) so that if no-one is interested currently in buying selenium and you have a big load of selenium in your cargo hold you can still sell it to earth.... this would effectively set a minimum price for the goods, but sets no maximum. The other advantage is that it will even out the growth rate of the players, if modules can only be upgraded using resources that some player had to mine, then there is a finite amout of module mark levels that can be built. It means that players dont grow exponentially rather much more linearly bassed on how much mining is being done.

Unfortunately fixing this now would be problematic, it would freeze the power disparities between players, making it nigh on impossible for lower powered players to ever catch up. Rather it would probably have to be associated with a full reset.... or a relauch in a different shard. But doing so would be a dramatic improvement to the balance of the game.

First let me say, welcome back to the game.   

Second your right something like this couldn't be done effectively without either resetting or starting a 2nd server. I think a 2nd server would be the best option and keep trade like it is now on the 1st.  There are people who would be really frustrated and get mad if they had to start all over again and lose everything.  I myself would play on both servers.

ditto


Agreed. Mining is a lot of hard work and virtually no profit. I only do it on the side for fun; although the fun is somewhat fading lately.


This is a very good idea indeed!


This doesn't have to be true. Most players belong to a corp; corps have various types of players. I imagine trade being big between corp members, not so much between different corps, since most corps would want to keep scarce resources to themselves. Big corp members would help out their newbies, I would think...

A true miner corp could however want to make a profit by selling resources (as anyone should be able to do anyway).
The danger in this would be if the players with the big bucks clean out the market constantly,
so perhaps the selling system could be refined in a way to allow sellers to define more accurately to whom they want to sell their stuff.
This could leave the bigger players fending for themselves, with the little guys having prime access to the resources...

I'm not saying this would solve all problems related to this problem, but it could have a shot at working...
Frankly, I think the universe could use a reset for various reasons anyway! :P
Of course this wouldn't go over well with most players that were here from the start, I imagine,
so setting up a second server might be the safest way to go in any case.

The reason a reset would have to be necessary is simply because people there will be a huge gap between those already playing and those who join.  Even the weaker people today who are like maybe 20-30k points when this is added in would have a huge head start on those just starting out. Newbies will have no chance of really catching up unless a player goes inactive. Then they might be able to pass them up.  Resources being so scarce their progress will be a slower then it is now.  Worse the newbies will start fighting amongst themselves for mining spots in and around Sol. Either they will be looting other people's mines for profit or they will just be destroying them and trying to take that spot for themselves.  Sure Emi could put a Corp ship there to to help protect people. But then you run into the problem if all the squares getting filled up. Then people going inactive and the mines are just left sitting there taking up space. So either way things when a person is just starting out is going to be a lot slower then it is now. As for having a shot at catching up for the larger players. There will be zero chance of it.  Sure a good corp will help out it's weaker members. But a good corp might also be hesitant about letting in someone just starting out.  Either the Corp might be at war with another like us or simply because some players try to just use a big corp to get ahead and then leave the corp later and try to hop around for another Corp trying to get free hand outs.  I have seen this happen in a lot of games. It is why many alliances in those games have a joining requirement.   I think in order to be fair for everyone, if this idea is added in either this server needs to be reset or a 2nd server needs to be created and leave resources as it is now here. The 1st option would be cheaper though for him. What Emi could do though to make it up to those who are already playing the game though is perhaps give them an extra ship to start with as a reward for playing the game before the reset. So that means after Sol Academy 3 ships. Not exactly a huge advantage since you would still need to outfit it with stuff later on. But enough of one to at least show he appreciates us that played before the reset.

I don't think a reset is needed or a 2nd server.

1. We need to be able to set buy/sell prices.
2. Those under say 300k power should be able to buy at sol for the current price. After that point the price should rise in relation to your current power level. (I don't think a cut off of sol mats is a good idea, just make them more costly) Also to keep smaller players from buying for the big ones a simple database flag that says the resources can't be put onto a corp ship or looted by a corp member needs to be implemented. This will give the newbies a cheaper way to grow, and play catch up. For the big boys that would mean mining on a large scale to make real upgrades.
3. The universe needs to get bigger. If the big players have to mine in large amounts then we need more systems. Also Jam's probe idea needs to happen so we can finally have a real war...especially once the universe gets bigger.
4. Players exicting from the SEA Course need to start out more capable... You really end up unable to do anything the fuel cost and the threat of pirates in Sol sector make growing very difficult. New players should exit at say 100k power, or maybe the current power but get say $1mil solars to build what they think will help them grow. They need seed money.



Lastly I think a reset would suck, the 1st 2 times I donated I converted the QP to solars to buy titans... for alot that did that it would really suck to have real money go down the drain.

Aysle i would argue that the universe should be smaller... but thats me... i prefer to actually see someone else every once in a while.

I personally think it is better bigger.  Just put in my probes idea to help find people more.  Perhaps even a way to track Corp member's ships.  Also if they were to increase the size of the universe, even by double, it would give us a good reason to set up a base of operations somewhere. At the very least just so ships can refuel somewhere between the outer better mines, outer better SOS missions and Sol.  With the introduction of Corp ships and possible Corp stations in the future, this could be very possible and pretty useful.    I do wish I could see people more sometime.  But better detection stuff would help with that.  Mining is likely to become hell for people if it were to become really smaller.

On the subject of the economy:

Yesterday I started the building of 12 high level marines to adapt my ships to the new reality of the COM missions. I required about 250000 metal and gaz to do it. And it is only 12 manufacturing bays. I have about 100 active manufacturing bays right now.

This is to say that with the number of active players actually in the universe, I beilive we are not numerous enough to satisfy my needs only in metal and gaz (not to mention all our needs). I also buy diamonds and uranium by the 1000's to be converted as fuel so my ships can do COM missions for a few weeks without comming back to earth. In my opinion, I do not beilive the proposed economic system would work. Let start with a market for exanging modules and ships and we will see how it work then we can think of how to expand it.

Regards,

Matamaure

Yeah it's too early to tell how the economy will evolve, but you can be sure it will.

There will be a story to everything that happens, for example Earth may have an event like a short supply of X mineral / gas. Then it will buy at premium prices for a while, mobilizing the miners.

Also new outposts my appear, selling cheaper minerals / gases mined on the surface, they may even take some parts of the economy from Earth meaning that to get that X mineral, you need to travel to that X star / planet that is mining it for Sol. Bringing it to Earth may also fetch a nice price while you're at it, as Earth will buy but not sell that.

All that makes for interesting news and twists, as things happen and everyone can take advantage of that to find profit opportunities. New stations / shipyards may appear as SOL Corp tries to colonize further, and events will unfold, even a war with an alien civilization could happen :)

SirEmi, I like your ideas very much!

Better get the probes done then if we are going to have a war with an alien race.  Otherwise they may be able to find us but we sure as hell are likely to have a hard time finding them.  lol.  Though I got a feeling you will do things differently with them so it won't be like a normal war.

Your Correct, the current player base under a real supply and demand economy couldnt easily fill YOUR CURRENT requirements.... but, that just means that under a supply and demand economy you wouldnt have been able to advance so rapidly. I should also like to point out that under the current system your style of play, is THE ONLY viable option if you want to stay competitive in terms of power. Explorers, Miners, Pirates, PvP's, Freighters, Traders all have no chance of keeping up with some one focusing exclusivly on COM signals. It essentially turns the game into 'I WIN'* for them.

However if there was a supply and demand economy, then those doing the mining, or trading would have been on the down stream recieving end of a lot of COM Signal hunters income, and would be a lot closer in power to them, thus better able to fullfill the resource needs...  That is why introducing a supply and demand economy would require a reset, because the demand and the ability to supply it are now so far out of sync the game would spasm horribly if it was introduced.

Unfortunatly the game seems to have a Multiple Personality Disorder. It taunts players with mining, manufacture, exploration, station building, trading etc... but then Nerfs them all in favour of COM signal hunting as the only option to actually play the game competitively which you have to do because the game is also PvP. My point is if thats all the game is meant to be, then why bother with all the other stuff in the first place? Get rid of it and focus on making a really great space bassed 'NPC pirate hunting' game.... However, I think that would waste a lot of the effort that has allready gone into those aspects, and its probably not what EMI had in mind with the game either.

So the upshot is that without a reset the only way to make those other carriers viable is with the introduction of storyline or alternative missions for them that offer a similar level of risk/reward over time, that the current COM signals give.. mining contract quests, exploration quests, etc...

But i cant help think how much richer the game play would be if players had to interact, had to work together, had multiple equally rewarding carrier paths etc...


That all sounds nice Emi. unfortunately, however, I suspect that basic implimentations of these will not offer similar levels of risk/reward over time as the COM signals do, simply because the way that COM signals get more and more rewarding bassed on your ship power levels.... a similar mechanic would need to be introduced... mining missions that get more and more rewarding bassed on you ability to mine. Freight missions that get better bassed on your ability to carry cargo..... if you do introduce these please keep that in mind and if i might make the suggestion actually run a few simulations....

There is also the issue of the massive power differences between those that have chosen to COM hunt and those that have tried their hands at something else... the COM hunters will be able to switch to those new missions if they like and be already significantly better at them than none COM Hunters.... but even so at least having alternatives to COM hunting would be good....



* watch kids, they love this game, especially while the struggle to learn that virtually all games are actually more fun if everyone has more or less equal chances to win.

Scion, I think you are missing the point completely. I explain:

You see me as the bad player, the big player. Man, not long ago, I was the underdog, my number is around 460. I did manage to move up the ladder because I am an active player first, second I have studied the game to find where was "the most bang for the buck" and found an answer. It is not the COM missions as you think, I am quite new to COM missions, it is high tech. I have built a spreadsheet to simulate all weapons, shields, armor at any MK level for their cost and power... and find the best combination.

What I have dicover is that there is steps in the game. 1- complete training; 2- do in system missions to buid your first SOS ship; 3-Use it to build more small cheap SOS ships (FTL + WD + CARGO this is all); research new tech for cargo and engines at the start and have a ship full of MK1 research lab; 4- when you have 4-6 low cost SOS ships running around in the galaxy, you use the huge profit you make to build your first COM or I prefer to call those warship with the High MK components you have found gives "the most bang for the buck". This is how I managed to get where I am now. Now I am waiting on the new special missions.

Then, the key to my success is a mix of hard work and cunning, not COM missions.

As for exchange between players, I have an active corp that have fun building their corp ships and exchanging a lot.

Do the same and come join use at the top ;). Play to win!!!! And I hope you will have fun in the process.

up until the recent update to allow unlimited number of vessels to a pilot, you could only get 4-6 ships as a VIP. i know you forget that Matamaure, cause you and I have been V.I.P. for so long now. A Player only gets to play with 3 vessels max. Well used to. It was very limiting to them.

I have just noticed this subject is carriers, so not sure why the thread went to economy. Happy to discuss the economy on an economy thread. A proper working economy will not hurt new players or old. All the calls for a reset of server and equalisation is unnecessary. Plus will upset those who have put so much time and effort and cash into where they are now


Dadds, [IMG]

up until the recent update to allow unlimited number of vessels to a pilot, you could only get 4-6 ships as a VIP. i know you forget that Matamaure, cause you and I have been V.I.P. for so long now. A Player only gets to play with 3 vessels max. Well used to. It was very limiting to them.



Actually as a VIP you had no limit at all.  Also Matamaure has been getting VIP longer then I have lol.   I am glad though about the recent change allowing unlimited to all pilots.  I suggested that months ago. Glad to see it is finally changed to that.  Now if he will just lift those limits on stations. lol

The hangars are nearly complete, posting some screenshots of how it works.

Doing a few more tests but it's looking very good :)

Update coming soon.

@ Sir Emi: Question regarding Cargo Optimization vs New Hangar Bay. Will this optimization bonus also apply to the new Hangar module (when) now it is released since it is a cargo science?

Yeah the mothership optimization looks like this now in the SOL Shipyard:

MotherShip: +75% hangar bay, +75% cargo bay, -25% navigation time

Freighter and other cargo bay optimizations will not affect the hangar bay, only mothership optimization.

ok thanks for info. Running a few tests now with  cargo packaging, ship hull size etc. I keep getting that "Doctor Who" Theme song running through my head for some reason lol. An installed large cargo module of say, ohhhhh pick a number say, MK XLIX takes up 3900m of my hangar space, but if i was to install a MK V adv cargo onto a ship, and drop my MK XLIX into it, my cargo presence for hangar is only 600m bulk. Gotta love nano-technology for condensing stuff!
I personally think that,  empty cargo space not be counted in the overall hangar space, but the amount of cargo that vessel is carrying when trying to dock. Its effectively what you are trying to say anyway, that if a ship can carry "X" amount of cargo, then its cargo needs to be in the equation. What this formula does, is assume you are always carrying max cargo.  Counting the module as an installed module works fine for me still. As you can see i can get around having empty cargo space anyway, but its just a little more annoying to keep dropping mods in and out to do so, to make a docked/undocked ship again useful or functional