Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

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Peijen
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Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Peijen »

what are the options for ticks count per turn?

Jonathan
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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

1
6
8
12
24

The options for production are all even numbers from 16-36 ticks.

Options for wait time are 1, 6, 8, 10, 12, 18, 24, and 48 hours.

I personally was thinking 6 tick jumps, 18 tick production, 18 hour wait.

Like this:
http://triton.ironhelmet.com/game/6508393842868224

The thinking being, yeah, sometimes you'll miss a turn. But with production every third turn plus ships moving just 6 ticks, you won't miss too much. Game will actually proceed.

The other key is to limit trades to scanned players. Gives exploring a whole new dynamic. And means that diplomacy has to be more localized.

The rest I swizzle just to mix it up. Could change it or leave as is.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

Or maybe a 8 tick jump, 16 tick production, 24 hour wait. But that's pretty sucky to miss, I think.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

I'm still digging expensive economy. But I think it'd be improved with reduced ticks per production.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

Scanning 3 is forced for Dark Galaxy Enabled. I thought maybe if I set it to 2 I could appease the game gen gods, but no.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

One interesting metric is for this game, it took us 30 days to do 9 cycles, so 30% of real-time. Doing 6/18 would be the same average throughput with fewer outliers.

Peijen
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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Peijen »

I think in general 3 turn to production feels right. I like the idea of 6/18. I am thinking maybe for next game we can set resource to be sparse, and science crazy expensive but start with 4 science on homeworld. I actually would like to see all research be cheap, except for experimentation, which should set to crazy expensive; maybe start all tech on level 3?

Single star start is good.

Also some rare wrap gate would be interesting, make lousy star more valuable if it's positioned just right.

Peijen
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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Peijen »

24 hour wait feels right to me. With 18 hours if I submit and start a new turn around lunch, the deadline for next turn is at midnight.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

Peijen wrote:I think in general 3 turn to production feels right. I like the idea of 6/18.
100% agree.
I am thinking maybe for next game we can set resource to be sparse,
If we play 32/stars per player with something approximating the number of players we have in War of Xenomorphic Aggression, then I think tech 3 is the min for playing sparse resource. I'm agnostic on resources. I will note that, anecdotally, the random scatter sparse resources seem really bursty in the distribution of good planets; definitely not evenly spaced. You'll definitely get winners and losers in the star lottery, even more than now. Might be fun but might not.

Expensive economy and sparse resources are kind of shitty together. See below.
and science crazy expensive but start with 4 science on homeworld. I actually would like to see all research be cheap, except for experimentation, which should set to crazy expensive; maybe start all tech on level 3?
AIs get to 7-9 Science at tick 108 with 4 science to start, sparse resources, cheap research, tech 3 starting, crazy expensive experimentation, and 18 tick production, for the record.

I suppose, relative to your suggestion, I'd lean more towards either:
1a. Big Money - Playing standard economy/industry/science/research.
1b. Or standard everything but cheap industry.
1c. Either of the above with sparse resources.
2. Protected Niches - Play the expensive economy standard industry/science cheap scanning/hyperspace, and add in Expensive trades ($25/level). I seriously considered this bit. Very Expensive ($50/level) seem silly; might as well turn trades off.
3a. Plentiful Resources and everything infrastructure and tech expensive.
3b. Plentiful resources, expensive infrastructure, normal tech.

Experimentation and Banking are the loser's swing chances. My whole reason for wanting to play non-standard economy is to increase the swing chances. Gutting one seems weird to me. I don't get it.

Standard 8 player game has early losers, by design. I guess I figure with fewer players that's not quite the design we want. I want losers after several weeks' of game time and some conclusive action. Make it more German-board-game-esque in spirit.

For the same reason, I'm leaning against anything more than 5/5/1 home.
Single star start is good.
I think >6 is better. (Options are 1-10.) I could maybe be talked into 1 star/50 ships if you feel strongly about it. But, I think that dark galaxy makes single star start really abusive to approximately one player. I just genned a universe that only put 8 stars in tech 3 range (scanning being the missing tech) before bumping into other players. I think the random scatter algorithm guarantees a six star cluster including the home star. If you request more than 6, you'll fill your initial cluster and get into the nearest cluster. If it's tech 1-2 away, it makes no difference, but if it's a big tech away it makes all the difference in the world. I think >6 evens out the start a little.
Also some rare wrap gate would be interesting, make lousy star more valuable if it's positioned just right.
Common seems like 1/3 gates. Rare was like closer to 1/15 or 1/20, maybe? Both feel off to me. I'm happy to do either. Distribution is also bursty for common.
24 hour wait feels right to me. With 18 hours if I submit and start a new turn around lunch, the deadline for next turn is at midnight.
I'm fine with 24 hours. Honestly, I don't mean to bitch about the 48 hours because I think it's a perfectly valid 1/month delay. It's the diplomacy that I didn't realize was going to take so much wall clock time. In a real-time game, the diplomacy also happens in real time. With 48 hour wait, diplomacy takes 48 hours. :)

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

There definitely are still shitty planets with plentiful resources. It's just that the ratio of shitty to good planets is inverted.

A whole different direction is to join the epic dark turn-based public game and ally.
http://triton.ironhelmet.com/game/6222378397859840

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

Btw, I confirmed my >6 star theory.

I think the other way to go is to start tech scanning/hyperspace at 4. But you really need one of those.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

I retract my claim about expensive infrastructure and sparse resources. With terraforming 3 I think it'd be just fine.

So, what about this:

http://triton.ironhelmet.com/game/6464307479969792

Basically what you said, minus the exceptional experimentation. I did $1500 starting money with no homeworld infrastructure to give people a chance to do different strategies.

Peijen
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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Peijen »

Bad password?

I am ok with 10 star start, but I think there should be 5 econ to start so new players dont screw themselves over. Was think of cheap research and expansive exp to counter exp rush, just feel so boring. Science was expansive to account for cheap research, and lvl 3 exp should still give some swing. Anyway, they are just suggestions:)

Peijen
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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Peijen »

I thing rare gate is 10% and common is 30%. Level 4 scan/hyperspace might be good, especially with dark universe.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

Oh yeah, I think it's 'm' no quotes.

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Re: Neptune's Pride 2 experimental

Post by Jonathan »

In Proteus, you must proved a properly formatted JSON string, that contains an array of stars. (Simply paste the string into the text area provided.)

When you use this method to specify the starting Galaxy, all other Galaxy customization options are ignored.

Each Star must provide the following properties

uid - a unique integer > 0
name - the stars name
x - x pos
y - y pos
r - resource value (5-60)
ga - warpgate (0 or 1)
e - pre-built economy
i - pre-built economy
s - pre-built economy
st - pre-built ship strength
puid - the uid of the owning player (optional)
wh - the uid of a wormhole connection (optional)
Scale is 0.0625 / light year. Players will be able to jump 0.25 units at the start of the game. (Range Tech Level 3 = 4 Light Years.)

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