Currently Known space is becomming more and more like a resource desert.

Its becoming difficult to find systems that have even good supplies of moderatly valuable resources left let alone high value ones. The downside to this is that mining is becoming progresively more and more difficult to make a profit at. Players that are following a mining path are being forced to move further and further away from SOL... and heaven help any newbies that want to mine, actually i image most would take a look and give up.

My suggestion is that planets have their resources restocked at semi-regular intervals. Each planet/moon could have a list of 'regular' resources that are more or less guaranteed to re-spawn. I find it hard to imagine that a gas giant the size of jupiter can be completly mined of all available resources within a few days game time. The regular resources should be almost unlimited on planets, currently players doing mining are like the aliens in Independence day, we come along, clear away all the valuable resources and move on. There is no reason to spend any effort developing a system since even a large one can be cleared of everything valuable with basic mark 1 modules in a couple of weeks. Planets could also have a small chance to occasionally spawn an amount of a valuable resource. Ie a Gold deposit was discovered, a small load of Chengdite was uncovered something like that.... Resource variety and potential 'special' resources could somehow be related to planet size, ie a 16 slot planet has more potential to spawn an 'special' resource than a single slot planet, It should also have a larger variety of 'regular' resources.

This respawning of resources should happen automatically without any special notification to the players. Some planets/systems would then become valuable to posses or control. As they have more valuable resources in their 'regular' respawn list. If a list of potential 'special' resources was also fixed it would re-inforce that further, as a planet that occasionally turned up some uranium would be more desirable. The current resources available would be shown in a survey... over time players could figure out what the regular resources were and what the special resoources of a plaent were with regular re-scanning.

It would be nice if you could introduce a few more misisons types into the game.

Currently we have the Passenger transport missions

Interplanetary SOL missions (particularly good for newbie's)
Interstellar SOL missions, the next step up, (although it would be nice to see a few longer distance targets included now)

Then there are the open space SOS signals, for large transporters with either free cargo space or carrying specific supplies.

We have the open space COM signal missions ... which IMHO are really problematic for game balance atm.

It would be nice to have a few more types.

How about a 'Search and Destroy' mission Type. I envision this as a mission you pickup at SOL, with a destination System defined in the mission, and your job is to jump into the system and destroy 1 or more pirate ships located in the system. I think these missions should be similar to the passenger missions in that each player has their own seperate set ie player specific. (SOL Corp could have recieved notice that pirates are opperating in that system, but for whatever reason the SOL navy is unable to respond immediately and they are looking for your help in eliminating the pirates) exactly where the pirates are in system could be random and require the player to jump around looking for them, it could occasionally be nasty in that sometimes you dont get them all, so on returning to sol, your told that there are still some pirates opperating there. (or given the choice to take half pay) .... The mission spawn rate could be reduced so that a new one isnt there immediately after completing one (this would also eliminate the possibility of rejecting a mission and retrying until you get one going the way you want to go.)

Another mission Type could be 'Bounty Hunting'. I envision this along similar lines as the COM/SOS missions in that the missions are shared amoungst all players. SOL Corp has a bounty board that you can access from anywhere, It lists a number of wanted persons. perhapes some wanted dead or alive, others just their current location. (some may be criminals, others may be missing persons/ships) The player needs to keep their eyes open as they roam through known space. The targets on the bounty board have locations assigned in known space that the players cannot see. If a player jumps into the orbit where the target is then they see the targets ship. if the player then opens the ship scan screen they can 'report' the ship to SOL Corp for the location only bounties, or try and attack it for the 'kill' bounties. (here i would suggest ship power be fixed but hidden at time of generation, this would encourage players to occasionally co-opperate as they find a ship that they cannot beat, but perhapes a corp member can, alternative is to simply report the location to SOL Corp for a reduced fee)

---dont stop me im on a roll---

Next potential mission type, Purchase orders. SOL Corp could run into supply and demand issues with a certain resource type. Id like to see two variations, small and large. the small versions should be player specific, They could offer an above average pay rate for certain resources, perhapes the mid valued resources. The mission could read something like. We have a rush order for 750m of Selenium, (dandruff outbreak in SOL headquarters ;) ) our client is willing to pay $100 per m above the usual rate. It would be nice if these missions could be run from all SOL trading stations so that players dont simply set up a warehouse in SOL. That way even if they did store resources (at risk of piracy) then they would still have to transport it to the requesting location. Some players may choose to buy the resource at sol and transport it to the requesting location, others may mine it. players choice.

The large version could be shared by all players. SOL Corp may simply run out of a specific resource. They would then offer an improved price on purchasing that resource for a given time period, potentially turning low valued resources like iron, nickel, helium etc into something that is actually worth mining. Initially i though of blocking purchases of said resource during the shortfall, but that might unfairly affect new players.
The profit margin on the low valued resource during a period of demand could be significantly higher. (10 x the price?) Players would then scramble to clear their MIF's of that resource, others might turn to looting to make a quick buck... some may have some stockpiled. it brings a bit of variety into the game.

I think there is a serious problem with the COM missions. Currently it appears that the pay for the COM missions is roughly (or exactly?) twice the power level of the Pirate Hijacker ship. The pirate Hijackers power is then corelated to the power of the players ship.

This means the more powerfull my ship the more money i can expect to make running COM missions. It sounds nice in principle, however in practice it can lead to 'Excellent battle captain! I have transferred $2816207 solars to your account.' It would take me literally a month of sundays to earn this amount of solars mining minerals. Add to that that I have to transport the minerals back to SOL, so its not like i can mine without having a ship involved in generating mining income. It takes even a strong miner 2-3 weeks (or more) to make that amount of solars, where a player running COM missions can potentially make it in 7-8 hours.

Essentially it makes me ask the question why even bother mining. Im just going to end up a sitting duck to players that have been running COM missions and can afford significantly better ships and weapons. I think the pay of the COM missions should be roughly equivalent to what the player could make if they had invested their income in mining. Ie neither 'path' should be inherantly better than another, just different, this way the game will appeal to a wider base of players. Players like me that are interested in 'building up' a system/network will very quickly tire of and abandon the game if its clear that we are relegated to being second class players by a game mechanic that so strongly favours a single style of game play. I also question how much long term enjoyment a player can get from simply doing the COM missions.

I assume the Pirate Hijackers power level is currently randomly selected from low upto the players ships power level with roughly equal chances for each category.... the equal chance is problematic. The pirate power should not be evenly distributed, lower powered pirate hijackers should be much more likely than hijackers with higher power. I also think it would be a nice touch too to occasionally pick up COM signals where the pirate Hijacker is stronger than the players ship. This would still give the occasional COM signal with a high powered opponent, but most of them would be lower powered.

In addition to this i think the pay scale should also be adjusted. I favour a non linear approach, so that the pay for lower powered pirates is still pretty good, but that the pay for higher powered ones doesnt continue to climb It will still give players a good days pay for their work, but it shouldnt mean that with a single days play they could finance the purchase of the largest ship possible in the game....

Im having issues with the voting on OZ Games too.

It allows me to cast the vote, but im guessing there is a problem in the callback. I dont get either solars or QP for a vote on OZGames.

Hi Im Syd,

Ive Been knocking around SOL for a while now, but thought i should introduce myself. I captain the Starburst and her sister ships.

If you see me around feel free to send a transmission to say Hi.

Bomale,

Its very well to say the game 'should' do something, But at the moment I dont really see where you have actually explained HOW the game would do that.

I struggle to imagine anyway that the owner of a module could be compensated for its loss in a sensible way.... other than a money transfer from the guy that attacked and captured it, which doesnt really make sense if you ask me... why would a pirate, or someone your fighting a war with pay you repriations for your loss?

I also cannot imagine how you can make it more expensive for the person who captures the module to capture it than to build one themselves. You could make it so that repairing a module from fully damaged to fully repaired costs twice as much as its construction, but then a pirate seldom wants to keep a module for themselves, they are just going to sell it or scrap it, or if its not worth anything dump it in space. If your in a war and repairs are that expensive then my tactic would be to damage my oponents modules and then leave them there for them to repair.

I think i understand what your suggesting, but i cannot imagine how it can be done in a sensible way. without completly altering the style of game that AG is. Can you explain HOW you think it can be done.

Besides as Sheb mentions the risk that your stuff can be destroyed, that you can get into fights, and battles is a part of games like this, it is what attracts many players. I couldnt be bothered to play if it was another farmarama/pyramidvile set in space.

yep but then when you want to scoop 'A Specific Module' into your ship the order of the modules on the scoop screen is not the 'Top Left to Bottom Right' ordering that you have on the surface control screen.

It would be nice to have info on what the MIF/ATH is filling with, and how much is filled.

But my suggestion for a quick workaround would be that the modules in both screen be ordered the same, that way if i want to scoop the 4th module from the control screen then i select the 4th module in the scoop screen.

FWIW it would also be really nice if we could also have the shuffle module function that we have in ships available for planets and stations. but id settle for the same ordering between control and scoop for the moment.

Sometime in the last few days there seems to have been a change to the Javascript that runs the timing counters on the SITREP page.

It seems that now the timer ticks off the first 15 seconds, then stops.

This means that i need to keep refreshing the SITREP page to know if the various tasks/jump calcs have been completed. Previously i could just leave the page there and check it every now and again.

Note i appreciate that the time in the counter is JS bassed and not perfectly synced with the remaining time on the server, thats not really a problem.

What sux is when i loose half an hour or more because i didnt notice the task/calc was finished.

Could we go back to what it was before?  where it just runs down till the counter is zeroed out?

I dont think there should be any safe zones at all. Except perhapes Earth Orbit, and other SOL protected zones. As i mentioned in a suggestion ( Criminal Records ) these should then be restricted to only non-pirates.

That way we could actually hunt down pirates, or at least there is a chance we could find them occasionally as we fly around and then take some revenge. Space is hugh so currently hunting for them is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

If Corp members fought together then that would make Corp 'gather points' like a safe zone as well.

I think you will find that Emi has fixed prices to stop players using player set prices to transfer funds from one account to another.

If we can set the buy/sell price ourselves then some players will start farming Newbie's or Alt's for cash. and using the market to transfer cash by selling nickel at $1500/m for example.

But i think we need some way of adjusting the fixed prices to reflect the real cost. Essentially the further you are from SOL the more valuable the resources are that you dont have. Since you will either have to invest time in finding a source and mining it or you will have to return to SOL to buy it.

A really good idea Sheb,

It could also provide a good incentive for players to work together, or to at least establish common player bases. Players from the same corp could then mine a asteroid belt together, with a single station in orbit for protection, or harvest from a large gass giant.


eventually I could even see it go a step further down the line, with corporations being able to define alliances, and allied corps all fighting together.

I like it Bomale, could be better than the seemingly random colouring that resources have atm.

Another Alternative that just springs to mind is an SEA Corp for while the newbie is still working through the Tutorial.

The SOL corp suggestion above with assistance from a drone could still be an option if they choose to join the SOL Corp and operate in SOL Corp controlled space.... with an appropriately high tax rate ofcourse.

I think it could be a good move to instigate a sort of Newbie Protection, perhapes bassed around the SOL Corp membership.

This way if someone attacks a player in SOL Corp in a SOL Corp controlled system a SOL Corp drone could come to their assistance in combat.

Your SOL Corp membership would naturally be revoked if you attacked anyone else.

Membership could be either limited to a specific time period. or alternatively SOL corp could have a high tax rate set (to pay for the protection) that would also encourage people to leave and set up their own corps once the ongoing tax levels outstrip the benifit of having the protection.

I notice that the top players ranking only includes ships and stations. I think it would be more representative if we included planet power as well.

Further more, it would be great if the list was able to be ordered by each aspect seperatly. Ie list the top 20 players by ship power, or list the top players by station power.... ( or by other aspects as suggested in my criminal record suggestion )

I understand that the top ranking page is generated at intervals and cached, this could be done for each variation. ( perhapes with a note on the page when the next ranking will be generated? )

Doing so would allow different players with different styles to see how they compare to others. From a purely game-play basis it would also mean more players could appear on a top players list, which should encourage more players to remain in the game.