PTR Changelog 2016-09-13
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This post describes changes on the Public Test Realm.
- Only one room can be in safe mode at the same time.
- Increased safe mode duration from 10,000 to 20,000 ticks.
- Increased safe mode cooldown from 30,000 to 50,000 ticks.
- The room owner can create up to 5 invader creeps using the Invasion UI in order to test room defences. These invaders will not drop resources when they die and can be removed using their UI. If another player’s creeps appear in the room, they suicide immediately.
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When is the PTR scheduled to go to production?
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Most of these changes will be deployed on September 16 as planned. The only exception is nukers and observers range change, which will be included in the next patch.
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The range increase is certainly welcome as it gives greater relevance to nukers. At the moment most warfare is conducted via long distance creeps and the few battles which are not are usually decided by other factors.
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With safe mode having 20k ticks duration, can we have the safe time period configurable? Ie. `activateSafeMode()` would take a number less than or equal to 20000 and the safe mode duration will be that many ticks, optional and default to 20000.
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With safe mode having 20k ticks duration, can we have the safe time period configurable? Ie.
activateSafeMode()would take a number less than or equal to 20000 and the safe mode duration will be that many ticks, optional and default to 20000.It would require changing the cooldown as well, but we don’t want to go this way.
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I just realized an unfortunate consequence of the safe mode.
One of the only effective strategies I currently have in dealing with heavily defended opponents is to combine a conventional strike with nuke launch (or launches). Continuously pressuring the room from the outside and then finally punching through after the nukes land and the enemy creeps are dead. The safe mode provides a perfect counter to this strategy.
That would be ok as long as the cooldown would be longer, but since the cooldown is the same as the nuke cooldown. This counter can be used continuously unless multiple rooms are targeted.
Can we not make the cooldown scale with GCL? The greater your GCL the longer the cooldown. I can accept the purpose of this feature for young AIs which need additional protection and even for veterans to cover the start of a war. However, wars among veterans are likely to last days to weeks. This feature should not have such a heavy impact there. It should only be relevant for the first move, not a critical part of warfare.
I would suggest that cooldown is increased by 10k for every GCL past 5. So 100k at GCL 10, 200k at GCL 20 and 300k at GCL 30.
This system should force veterans to have increasingly automated defense and safe code. There's still that 1 emergency safeguard, but not something central to continuous warfare.
I would also suggest increasing the cost in G by GCL, but that's less critical.
Pretty please?
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This seems like a nicely balanced compromise, thanks devs! And increased nuke range too, yikes
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"Only one room can be in safe mode at the same time."
Love it. Limits its usefulness for bigger players, still useful for smaller ones. I vote we see how the rest plays out.
Also loving the changes to nukes/observers.
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I think these modifications are great. Perhaps additionally with something in the lines of Atavus' suggestions it would scale even better for matured scripts.
One quick question regarding:
- Decreased nuke energy cost from 200,000 to 100,000.
What happens to current nukes once this change goes live? Does the 100k extra that's possibly in the nuker disappear (scaled down) or does it get dropped / refunded to storage? What happens if I have 100k in my 'old' nuker; does it get scaled down to 50k or is it instantly full?
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I would suggest that cooldown is increased by 10k for every GCL past 5. So 100k at GCL 10, 200k at GCL 20 and 300k at GCL 30.
Any dependencies on GCL are very difficult to implement due to distributed architecture of room processing code.
What happens to current nukes once this change goes live? Does the 100k extra that’s possibly in the nuker disappear (scaled down) or does it get dropped / refunded to storage? What happens if I have 100k in my ‘old’ nuker; does it get scaled down to 50k or is it instantly full?
This change is cancelled and postponed to the next update. We’re currently debating other changes in that regard.
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Regarding the nuker overhaul, I got some ideas.
Maybe its fun to have more dynamic damage based on the nukers content.
Lets say the MINIMUM you deed to fill it with is 100k.
This 100k will give you 5 rooms range to launch.
After this every ~15k could potentially increase the room distance.
This way its more fun to do long range targeting of people.The same could be done with the 5k ghodium. Base damage is still the same, but you could increase the damage by dropping in tons of ghodium.
You might be able to get tiered nukes this way, which might mitigate the issues we currently have with them beeing kinda underpowered.
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When i look at this change log the thing i like the most. Being able to spawn attackers. This will actually improve my defense because i can be online and test it instead of just waiting for some invader to come in and see what happens and hopefully nothing breaks.
Summary (I am GCL 7 but have 3 rooms, I wanted to move around after GCL 4 to test things)
- Yay for being able to test defenses. 100% want this as soon as possible
- safe mode Goods
1) starting out I could put in a simple line of code to delay the inevitable. gives me time to realize shit i need to work on defenses before they come back.
2) if you know your going to be gone for a while or you were putting in changes that your not sure about you can activate safe mode to give yourself that extra needed time to finish
3) base get wiped but not your empire? activate safe mode on that base. Send in builders and build it right back up. Since as soon as you hit the controller your right back at your level you can build the base back up pretty quickly if you have the code for it.
- safe mode Bads
1) I am just getting minerals. Started Mining them but still have no lab code. dont even have links setup correctly. the place where you want to give the advantage to beginners is where it is hardest to get while the ones who need it the least are able to easily obtain it.
2) Higher players have had time to refine thier code. They have several bases supporting each other. Thier automated defenses should hold and if not then a safe mode only delays what is going to happen. It also ruins a true war going on
3) Spent a lot of time killing a base but at the end of it the defender activates safe mode. Sends in builders and gets it right back up which you need to kill again.
4) The only reason I want to kill someone right now is because they are in my way. I lose a lot of resources early on and cant build large creeps when attacking so attacking is not easy once they have a tower near a wall.
5) with being able to test defenses this is far less needed. The big issue is what if your code breaks or they found a weakness in your code. With test attackers you can account for these and code accordingly. If you didnt code accordingly then your going to die which is going to happen anyway just later with a safe mode.
What I would like to see
1) get the test attackers in as soon as possible
2) safe mode
- Can activate at any time even if attackers in room. can be room or empire wide. 2 options (room/empire, effect[1 - 3]).
- If empire level: lasts about 24 hours with a ~4 week cooldown. Can stack with effect so can get up to ~ 3 days for a vacation or something if you need to but that means you will be exposed for ~9 weeks without the option.
- If room level: lasts ~12 hours with ~1 week cool down. Stackable so can get up to 36 hours on a single room but a 3 week cooldown.
- if activated on a room then cannot be activated on another room. the cool down effects using it on a room or empire so if you do a room you have to wait for a cooldown to then do your empire and vice versa
- you start with 10 points to use. you get 5 points to use every time you get another GCL. This is the limiter. Novice people will use this a lot more early on. End game people will use these rarly and by that time probably dont have any to use. If you put them on the market then it creates an easy obtainable way to get them at end game which is where you need them the least and want battles happening. I think the safe room will not be needed as much with the ability to actually test your defenses. If you respawn and have less than 10 then you go back to having 10.
This doesn't make a safe room a weapon more of a deterrent but hopefully a rarely used one. once used you then have to rely on your code which is what this game is about. If your going on vacation or something and know you wont be able to fix something if attacked the empire wide will give you that safty but once up again its on your code. As far as getting it, you get 3 per GCL level you gain. Then if you want to add you can do Ghodium i guess but something pretty hard to obtain since the only ones who will do this are late mid/late game people who's code is refined somewhat.
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This is a niche game but a great game. The big problem i think safe mode should be targeting is in the beginning. Your trying to figure out what to do. even with the tutorial there is a lot to learn and code. I am not a good coder and to make this a bigger game you will get even worse coders because that is who your going to get if you want to increase your player base. Coding when you dont know much is tedious and painful. If you die quickly when just starting your discouraged. Some players get there base code efficient in a week. others in a month. Until they get to that point they will be discouraged when they get over run and likly quite instead of just respawning. After that point your at your addicted point and your ok if you need to respawn because you made so many mistakes early on.
This is where safe mode will excel kind of. Problem is if I have a bug in my code the whole thing breaks meaning my safe room doesnt activate. Also those just starting out most likly will just throw in if hostiles, throw safe mode up. simple and quick while they work on more important stuff. With a longer delay and limited resources this will be discouraged.
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It's already on production BrinkDaDrink
