News & Announcements

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  Dev update 2019-08-08
  • o4kapuk

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  Power Era has begun!
  • artch

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  @artch I cannot find anywhere what is the size of the InterShardMemory. Is it 100kb like the InterShardSegment used to be? If so, is it 100kb per shard? In any case, it might make sense to update the documentation with the answer.
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  Draft: Store prototype API
  • artch

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  Implemented in this PTR patch.
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  Draft: factories and commodities (new crafting/trading mechanic)
  • o4kapuk

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  Maybe market system changes should be discussed in a separate threat. I'm also not a friend of order fees and I'm more a friend of transaction fees, but it would be too offtopic to deepen this topic now. The current changes show what we'll expect but there is still something missing: The regional commodities need different resources, so their production cost varies a lot between different regions. What will be the market prices for these commodities? How much ops will OPERATE_FACTORY need for which effect duration? ( I know proposed is 100 ops for 1000 ticks, but they are "still considering other timings too" )
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  WebGL optimization
  • artch

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  @duckymirror Looks like I've been missing something... Turning off hardware accelaration gets legacy renderer speed back.
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  PTR Changelog 2019-02-01: Power Creeps
  • artch

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  @geir1983 we were able to reproduce and fix the issue, thank you for the report!
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  PTR Changelog 2019-01-30: InterShardMemory
  • artch

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  Typo in the PTR docs. Every shard can own raw... should be Every shard's own raw... Also minor nit. ... its own segment, other shards' ... probably should be: .. its own segment; other shards' ... However, no one would ever notice and it's still grammatically correct with a period. Last item. Raw contents seems to imply something about the nature of the string used in the intershard memory. I assume that is not the case and shared memory is simply a string (no special utf encoding or value escaping). I think you should avoid the word segment to avoid confusion with the old api. InterShardMemory.getLocal() Returns the string contents of the current shard's memory. . InterShardMemory.setLocal(value) Replace the contents of the current shard's memory with value. . InterShardMemory.getRemote(shard) Returns the string contents of another shard's memory. I'm a little unsure about using the word memory. It's a little better than just "data" but still too vague. Maybe instead of memory, InterShardMemory.
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  PTR Changelog 2019-01-14: Invaders optimization
  • artch

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  Changelog 2018-12-14
  • artch

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  I suggested that already. I still can't remember which does what and have to constantly look it up.
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  PTR Changelog 2018-11-01: Creep.pull()
  • artch

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  I think I've found both solutions, and for both of them it's 6 ticks to move both creeps from fully inside room1 to fully inside room2 (e.g. with neither creep on an edge tile). With a lone creep the same movement would take 3 ticks. For a creep pulling two wagons, I can do it in 9 ticks (a lone creep would take 4 ticks). If anyone can do it faster I'd love to know!
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  PTR Changelog 2018-11-05: preboosting
  • artch

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  @qgazq I think people with pre-boosting code will be more engaged with the game, and therefore more likely to be around in Slack or on these forums. So there's some selection bias in the population you used for your observations.
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  PTR Changelog 2018-12-06: new design
  • artch

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  @artch said in PTR Changelog 2018-12-06: new design: They are different because of high configurability, there is no "standard" look of a creep. Pretty sure most players agree that creeps would look like roombas in real life
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  Development update: August 5th
  • o4kapuk

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  PTR Changelog 2018-10-19: attackController
  • artch

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  @nobodysnightmare It was before: CONTROLLER_DOWNGRADE[level] - CONTROLLER_DOWNGRADE_SAFEMODE_THRESHOLD Now it is: CONTROLLER_DOWNGRADE[level] / 2 - CONTROLLER_DOWNGRADE_SAFEMODE_THRESHOLD So you're safe even if you don't make any changes to your code.
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  Non-subscription shard launched
  • artch

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  This sounds like a good compromise. New steam players get to build up a pretty decent base and can actually compete on an even playing field, while retaining the ability to get a subscription if they feel like it. Only problem is, it seems like cross-sharding your script would need to be made easier to avoid having shard3 impact profits too much (since if it's too hard to expand outside of shard3 due to cross-shard mechanics, players are less likely to expand and thus get a subscription).
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  Changelog 2018-09-22
  • artch

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  @shibdib The cool-down doesn't effect boosting. I take advantage of that in my own unboosting. Ultimately it's 'free' minerals if you can code around the limitations. In particular most lab setups have two labs that never act as a target for reactions that can be used as well.
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  PTR Changelog 2018-09-12: unboost
  • artch

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  I never take this argument about "old / new players" as valid. It's a MMO after all. It means players have constant persistent progress, and the game mechanics should make it possible to have progress for years. Personally I think in this case @Shibdib is reaching here- it reminds me of jokingly arguing that energy should be removed because it gives older players a greater advantage. Let's be honest though- letting people recover some of their boosts is going to benefit pretty much anyone using boosts relatively equally, and boosts are already a major stepping stone for newbies. That being said, @artch your previous actions don't really agree with the sentiment you express here. In the power creeps PTR you provided a shield against downward abuse by requiring that powers explicitly be enabled in a room by touching the controller before they can be used. @artch @Shibdib It's important to differentiate between types of advantages- Boosts are, I think, one of the easier advantages to equalize- code is the problem, access to war material not so much. I want to stress the difference between advantages- Veterans have an advantage in raw war materials, income, cpu management, etc. that yes, they've earned. These can also be overcome, but don't extend this to a blanket statement that it's OK to shaft new players to preserve old ones. A player should be able to overcome issues with enough skill- veteran players have more skill (and code, which I'd argue is an extension of skill). I still remember when this was on the website: I guess we've come a long way since then. EDIT: In the interests of olive branching and not going full @tedivm on this, I do like the idea of unboosting. I'm not so certain that killing lab time is really the solution. I feel like some sort of middle ground would be useful- eat some lab time, but not just shutting down the lab entirely.
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  PTR Changelog 2018-08-28
  • artch

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  I would disagree with shedletsky's opinion that HEAL should be cheaper and that recycling should be removed. HEAL is already very powerful and recycling provides interesting strategies. However, I do think that it would be worth considering buffing CARRY boosts. Currently the manufacturing cost is the same as ATTACK / RANGED_ATTACK / HEAL boosts, but I don't think that 4x carry capacity provides nearly the same utility that 4x damage/healing does (ignoring the fact that the healing further synergizes with XGHO2, which I personally think is a bit overpowered). For example, assuming 100% lab efficiency and using T3 boosts, if you want to move a full storage worth of resources from 3 rooms away using 40 move / 10 carry creeps, it will take you 25 creeps and 3.56 million lab ticks for the entire operation. The same amount of lab ticks could boost 20 creeps (5 full 2x2 squads) with 10 tough / 40 (attack/ranged/heal) / 10 move bodies, which, in the hands of the right players, is more than sufficient to take out most rooms. I would argue that taking out a room is worth far more than faster and slightly cheaper resource transport. One final thing I would add is that I think a big factor that limits the usefulness of CARRY boosts is that containers are limited to 2000 capacity, which is only slightly higher than the max unboosted creep carry capacity. I think it is worth considering adding an EXTEND_CONTAINER power to the operator power creep, which would increase the capacity of a container from 2000 to 8000 (max boosted carry capacity) for X ticks. (This would really need to be useable in outpost rooms to be useful, however, so I'm not sure how that would work with enabling/disabling powers in a room.) Alternately, simply increasing container capacity altogether could make this boost more useful on a day-to-day basis, and I don't forsee any balance problems with this change.
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  PTR Changelog 2018-09-09: intershard travel
  • artch

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  This seems to be a significant change. It firstly means that shards are less independent, but it also means that now a player's range is massively increased, as they can go in and out of another shard to exploit their portals and end up on the other side of their original shard. Having a lot of new traffic along crossroads would be interesting, though.
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  PTR Changelog 2018-08-20: tunnels
  • artch

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  Update: Reverted ability to construct ramparts on natural walls. Tunnels still have enough their own hits, but they are considered to be dangerous place without an option to be easily defended. Tunnels cost increased from 100x to 150x.