Space trade

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zaroba
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Post by zaroba »

is it a known fact that one will be happening?

afaik, mit has said nothing of one yet. so why not play?
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Sonro
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Post by Sonro »

posted 6 Oct:
Mit wrote:
can you remove some of the vagueness and remind us please - are we talking days, weeks or months here?
I agree its a bit of rubbish state to be in atm :].
As fooli has mentioned a date for doin some marketin, lets go with 'Early December' for a reset. There.

The only question is what happens till then? I will give some sort of 'prize' for the ppl at the top in 'Early December'.. tho i dont think its a particularly encouraging or fair competition for most ppl, as things stand at the moment, so the prize would have to be something fairly 'trivial'. (Its a very relative term :] )
looks like december to me :)

However - not a reason to stop trading. as has been said elsewhere by Mit/Fooli on this thread and others - all the stuff that is being figured out now - the bugs/route probs/tips etc - are all useful to those doing the coding and will help to make this a bigger and better game come the reset.

I'm personally looking forward to it - tho not enough to reset myself early :0 Everyone starting off on an even footing when piracy comes in means those of us in the top 5 wont necessarily be the prime targets (I hope). Maybe even I will be tempted to the darker side of space trade
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Post by Damon »

Oh, I'm totally looking forward to it and all. I'm not going to totally disappear or anything, and I will continue to come up with ideas and suggestions, but playing at length like I have been doing the past couple of days, to get the highest cargo extension and a better ship seems a bit moot if it will be reset in six weeks or so.

I'll keep tabs on the top 5 positions in case there is going to be some kind of competition between now and then, however the client chews up a ton of computing power on my system and makes doing other things (playing other games, websurfing, webdesigning, track composition, etc) very difficult to do without being reminded of a 386. Not anyone's fault or anything. Just the way it is.

To keep this post a little more on topic, here are a couple other thoughts I had for Mit and the others to think over...

An asteroid "field" for pirates/bounty hunters/fighters to maneuver through while having a good game of Blast The Other Guy Before He Blasts You. Also would give some people who like doing high speed Ion maneuvers to test their abilities.

A pirate space station that sells mostly 'illegal' (slaves/narcotics) goods as well as ship components. May be in orbit of a planet or near the asteroid field mentioned above, or perhaps out in the middle of no-where... a true space "station".

AI driven cargo transports that fly between stations in one star system. For example, from Sabrada to Biplane. They'd have only light cargo (water or food) and a limited carrying capacity but it would give people that wanted to start out as pirates something to prey upon before they try taking on player-run cargo vessels.

Regional goods. This can best be explained with narcotics. Not every station sells or buys narcotics and it seems to be located on a few star systems that are relatively close together. When bigger star drives are available, it'd be interesting to have regional goods you can only get from a few stations in different parts of the galaxy.

Ion drive upgrades. This might solve the problem of "bigger ships have more mass". Ships start with a standard Ion drive (level 5, for example) and have to purchase higher levels to go faster, the same way star drives do. Would mean a more diversified fleet of cargo ships and better personalization of said ships, not to mention the questions people will ask themselves when they have enough credits: do I go for cargo capacity or the ion drive? For pirates, do I want a faster ship that can catch the faster cargo ships or do I go for upgrades to my weapons or armor?

Ion drive weapons. I'm sure this is probably in the works, but no one as far as I've seen has said anything. Not really worth being a pirate if all a cargo ship has to do to get away is hit the 'Home' key.

Nebulae. Not sure if it's possible but areas like this could act as pirate hang-outs as well as ambush zones. Lower visibility, maybe forcing a lower speed to fly through... stress=fun.

Maximum speed for station docking. Say, perhaps, Impulse 1.0? This has been mentioned before, I believe...
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Post by Mit »

An asteroid "field" for pirates/bounty hunters/fighters to maneuver through while having a good game of Blast The Other Guy Before He Blasts You. Also would give some people who like doing high speed Ion maneuvers to test their abilities.
.. and a location where players can 'mine' metals for an always-available, but slow, method of earning cash. Is on its way..
A pirate space station that sells mostly 'illegal' (slaves/narcotics) goods as well as ship components. May be in orbit of a planet or near the asteroid field mentioned above, or perhaps out in the middle of no-where... a true space "station".
I've been meaning to mention... ahem....

Code: Select all

"The Federation has announced a breakthough in space drive technology, that makes improbability & star drives easier and cheaper to produce. The new technology also allows for the production of brand, spanking new stardrives with a range of up to 40 parsecs, and finite drives are so cheap they're now given away to all newcomers.  Rumours are also circulating of a new prototype 'System Drive', taking the capabilities of the L40 drive but compressing journey time to just a few seconds.
The new technology has resulted in Federation-backed colonists spreading rapidly throughout the galaxy, populating previously unhabited areas with colonies and research bases - this in turn results in more possible and more profitable trade routes, supplying colonies with the stuff they need from the core systems and returning their produce back to federation homeworlds. '
 (Announcement courtesy of the Marketing Section of the Magrathea Department of Trade, Technology and Colonisation..  )
i.e. There are now lots of different remote space stations out there that sell (or at least, will sell - some still need settings done on the gal server) weird and wonderful stuff you can't find in the starting systems.
AI driven cargo transports that fly between stations in one star system. For example, from Sabrada to Biplane.
AI stuff has been on my list for a while but with a big question mark next to it, as im not fully decided that its a good way to go for an online game like this. I kinda like the idea that *everyone* in space is a real person. Maybe one for next year.
Regional goods. This can best be explained with narcotics. Not every station sells or buys narcotics and it seems to be located on a few star systems that are relatively close together. When bigger star drives are available, it'd be interesting to have regional goods you can only get from a few stations in different parts of the galaxy.
As per the note above, this is now done.
Ion drive upgrades...
Items have been added to the gal and will be available sometime soon.
Ion drive weapons. I'm sure this is probably in the works, but no one as far as I've seen has said anything. Not really worth being a pirate if all a cargo ship has to do to get away is hit the 'Home' key.

Not worth it yet, true, but that will be resolved when the space combat is in properly and active. Ya won't have weapons while using ion, but you will be able to prevent ppl running away. Part of the aim for the combat is to avoid the rather tedious dogfighting bit that is present in most 3d space (and jetfighter-type) games, which i think just doesnt work terribly well - most of the time you end up hurtling towards someone, you fire a bit, they fly past, turn round, you turn round, and do it all again. My aim for the combat in space is to make it almost like a strategic, 'turn-based' thing.. attackers will use missiles to knock out a ships ion drive and damage it - before finishing it off with lasers - defenders will be able to use ECMs and other defensive systems to 'counter' the moves of the attacking player(s). A key aim is to make it very much a 'gang' thing - where attacking a ship successfully will generally involve getting 2 or more attackers to perform a co-ordinated attack.
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Post by Chezzie »

COOL!!! Are we talking about strange new worlds or moving the ones we've got? :lol:

And who's selling the Lvl 40 Stardrives? Can't find any yet.

Any idea of a timescale for this? Not that I don't appriciate all the hard work you've all put in already!

Off exploring deep space now, shall report back with my findings....
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Post by Mit »

new worlds only in the sense that they have a 'type' and a supply & demand chain defined for items - even if they dont have a world server connected to em.

I'll be adding in the ability to connect unregistered worlds to empty planets on the gal this week hopefully.. so there could be new worlds anywhere out there. (There are already a couple of specials you won't find for ageeees ;] )
And who's selling the Lvl 40 Stardrives?
They should already be available (not telling u where, thatd spoil the fun :]), but it is possible it'll need the stations econ reset before they show up. If so, i'll do that manually tonight or tomorrow. Its also possible there just havent actually been any made yet.... so when they'd show up would depend on the busy-ness of the appropriate station's virtual workers :]

This weekend should give me chance to tidy up some more of the space stuff, and i'll confirm all the details fully then.

asteroids/mining - week or two.
combat system - by december (hopefully).
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Post by Chezzie »

NOW you've got me wondering!
There are already a couple of specials you won't find for ageeees
What could that be? Hang on....? What's THAT!?!?

My God! It's full of stars!
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Post by theseer »

Finite drives will be for everyone? I can trade .. without doing it in one big session. ... *dances*
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Post by Sonro »

nice space advances with 48.1

any chance you could improve the production speed of L40 stardrives - they seem to be taking forever (seems a bit overpriced too - but guessing that the wider range trade possiblities will outweigh this, and what else am I going to spend my money on? :P )

would be useful to see all named planets on the Fipro list - typing laziness setting in

very interesting planet type additions - have spotted a couple of additions so far, just within the areas reachable by l24:unrealistic utopian colony, lutherian colony - very philosophical...
private military outpost, research bases. lookin good. - are these gonna be trading soon?

Invisible stations around magrathea - you know about that already :) (made docking fun!)

stability of prices greatly improved for the more expensive items

good stuff so far - Sonro is a happy cynic :) thanks mit
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Post by zaroba »

oldcynic wrote: would be useful to see all named planets on the Fipro list - typing laziness setting in
then the infimp would be useless.
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Post by Chezzie »

Thanks to the purchase of a Lvl 40 Stardrive, I'm off to explore the galaxy.
Here's the view in the Dude system, top left corner of the starchart.

Image
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Post by Mit »

yeh, the finite drive works like that mainly as a gameplay device, to give new players access to a limited range of worlds we can control. (When i previously put worlds out to the public, the game experience for a new player was not too great, as they'd often end up visiting a new, unset (or badly set) world which'd put em off the rest of the game.)

I'd originally planned a similar drive to the finite drive where you were able to modify the list of worlds on it (like a 'favourites' list).. ill probably implement somethin like that somepoint soon :)
any chance you could improve the production speed of L40 stardrives - they seem to be taking forever (seems a bit overpriced too
its jus like technology in the real-world.. starts off rare and over-priced and only bought by weird, technology freaks ( ;] ).. eventually the price drops a bit and it becomes more widley accepted.
are these gonna be trading soon?
probably tonight..
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Post by Minku »

Acually... when ye get 2 or 3 hits in they can't use ion anyway.. cause energy 'diverts to sheilds'...
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Post by Sonro »

its jus like technology in the real-world.. starts off rare and over-priced and only bought by weird, technology freaks ( ;] )..
sounds like chezz to me :D
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Post by Chezzie »

HOI! If I wasn't so many parsecs away, I'd give you a slap!
:lol:
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Post by Minku »

I acually hope there is going to be some sort of planets that ye can acually -land- on... and be in atmosphere... Think the Space battle in SW EPS. III....

Also.. will there be Capital ships? When I mean that I mean -big- ships... Where a X-fighter might be like a 1/3 of the bridge of the cap ship..


But the semi landable with atmosphere planets would be like special ones that have no acual econmy... but cities and spaceports... ect... *nods sagely* Battling over it and all.. would make galatic speremecy...
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Post by Sonro »

Minku wrote:I acually hope there is going to be some sort of planets that ye can acually -land- on... and be in atmosphere... Think the Space battle in SW EPS. III....

But the semi landable with atmosphere planets would be like special ones that have no acual econmy... but cities and spaceports... ect... *nods sagely* Battling over it and all.. would make galatic speremecy...
Nice idea Minku, but I think that the level of graphics rendering for that kind of feature would be prohibitive - the detail required to make something like that look good, the constant updating of scenery, ship contact etc would have to be pretty high - and would take forever to model and texture effectively. It would possibly also be outwith the specs of some players graphics cards/net connections. I'm only new to modelling and texturing stuff, so Fooli/ Hedge or others can either confirm or deny what I say here, but I'm guessing its not gonna happen :)
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Post by Minku »

oldcynic wrote:
Minku wrote:I acually hope there is going to be some sort of planets that ye can acually -land- on... and be in atmosphere... Think the Space battle in SW EPS. III....

But the semi landable with atmosphere planets would be like special ones that have no acual econmy... but cities and spaceports... ect... *nods sagely* Battling over it and all.. would make galatic speremecy...
Nice idea Minku, but I think that the level of graphics rendering for that kind of feature would be prohibitive - the detail required to make something like that look good, the constant updating of scenery, ship contact etc would have to be pretty high - and would take forever to model and texture effectively. It would possibly also be outwith the specs of some players graphics cards/net connections. I'm only new to modelling and texturing stuff, so Fooli/ Hedge or others can either confirm or deny what I say here, but I'm guessing its not gonna happen :)
What I mean is pretty much a planet, but when ye get blark distance it loads up... You can land on it by flying to the space port and landing... then run around (would have to be a war/econmy world set up)

Pretty much it would be the same exact thing as other worlds, but instead of going *launch to leave on that planet ye have to go -back- to yer ship and then get in, fly all the way up, into the space area of the map, then it will transition you out....

With AI ye could have landers from a planet your family controls and take over via sending in troops and things, like a RTS in a way...
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Post by Mit »

oh oops .. just noticed..
lutherian colony - very philosophical..
.. was supposed to be "Luddite".. :]
Syntax error in Mit, line 607.
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Post by zaroba »

since we're on the topic of trade etc...

would it be hard to impliment a confirmation message when buying ships in space?
Last edited by zaroba on Mon Nov 07, 2005 2:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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