Newsletter #17

[Baalzamon]

(Freon sent this to me a couple minutes ago, alerting me to this forum not being up to date...we'll fix that from here on out.)





Hello everyone, If you still play SMR thank you. If you have stopped now
is the time to come back to us! We are here to invite everyone to play
SMR1.5. The game starts March 12th. This is the first major improvement
on SMR in 4 years. And here is just a sneak peak at what we have instore
for the players.

So, what does SMR1.5 actually offer?
50 NEW Ships
12 NEW Weapons
50 NEW Player Levels
20 NEW Ship Gadgets
10 NEW Planet Types
35+ NEW Planet Buildings
11 NEW Planet Research Categories
5 NEW Tradable Goods
17 Individual Player Characteristics
9 Upgradable Ship Categories
New Player Task - Excavating


Detailed Stuff:
NO MORE TURNS!
Players now have ship condition. If the ship condition drops too low
then the player will be broken down and cannot move or do anything.
This broken down time can range from 2-30 seconds depending on your ship
condition and your luck.
Ship condition can be repaired (for an exponentially increasing price)
at some locations and repairs itself over time.
As you repair your ship it will become less effective for the following
24 hours. Once you repair your ship too much you will not gain any
experience or do any damage for the following 24 hours.

Why is every galaxy always square?
Not anymore! Universe creators now have the option to make non square
galaxies. This will allow for much more diverse galaxy types

The universe seems so....empty.
There are now Non Player Controlled ships flying around the universe.
Some are good, and some are evil.
If you get high enough rank you can even command them and they will
assist you in combat.
Be sure to follow the rules or you may find one of them close on your
tail.

So what do I actually gain from this ship?
You will now be presented with another column when buying a ship. It
will show you the change in relevant areas such as condition repaired
and shield change.

I hate clicking 50 times to change my weapon order, and they just clog
up the right hand of the page
You can now drag and drop your weapons to reorder them. Also, your
weapons will not be shown on the right hand side unless you click the
expandable drop down box to view them.

The local map is...well...too local
You can now zoom in and zoom out on the local map using the scroll
wheel. You can now decide what is "local".
It is possible to turn this functionality off if you want.

Anonymous accounts aren't that anonymous...I can see who deposited and
withdrew money
Anonymous accounts have been renamed to Shared accounts.

My trusty MGU/SMC is broken and I have no idea where to plot to anymore!
Players now have an option to "Plot to nearest x" where x can be
anything from an uno to a weapons shop or even fed space.

I like alliance XYZ and they like us, but no one else knows...can't we
make official our lov...friendship?
Alliances can now ally with each other in categories from Raid
Assistance to Trader Defense to Planetary NAP

So I'm sitting around minding my own business and I forget to click the
CS link 5 million times to make sure I'm doing okay, this seems like a
problem
Clicking CS?? That's a thing of the past. SMR now has some AJAX features
which among many things will refresh the current sector's players and
forces.
It will also update your ship's hardware and automatically give you a
flashing background when you become under attack. No clicking needed!

That flashing color is annoying
Fine, go set your color to pink or blue or green or any of millions of
colors in the preferences menu whiner.

I read the promo text above and it seems like there is a lot of new
stuff.
Good reading! There is indeed a magnitude of new stuff in 1.5.
For example there are 50 new ships, 12 new weapons, 5 new tradable
goods, over 35 new planet buildings and the list goes on.
Some of these things are not known to anyone yet, even the beta testers
have not seem them. Good luck finding them all!

When I go around trading the port owners are so boring, them never talk
to me or anything
Port owners are now more social. They will sometimes tell you about
special port offers they hear about. These can give you extra (2-12
times) experience or credits.
Sometimes these will be announced to everyone, and sometimes they will
be told to only you.
Check the new "Trading" link to see some of these special offers. But be
careful, even hunters can see some of the public offers.

When I am flying my spaceship around I really wish I could do some
excavating!
Good news! Now you can! Also, the governments are trying to raise
resources for the coming war. Excavating asteroids will give you goods
to support your government and can even give you access to unknown
items.

My weapons are boring! Why can't I just use a weapon that does something
other than damage the target?
These weapons have been in development for a long time now and are
finally ready for commercial use.
EMP weapons are now available. EMP Weapons will lower the
maneuverability rating (MR) of a target. This will increase your
accuracy and decrease theirs! They can also do some damage.
EMP Effects last only for that round of combat

Why is everyone that is my race the same?
Now everyone can be different! There are (about) 17 new player
characteristics that can help you out. At player creation you can now
select areas to add points.
These stats will benefit you in areas like shield regeneration, weapon
damage, increased experience, and many more.

That's cool, but what if I want the admins to know how I like the new
stuff?
That is exactly why we added the voting section on the play game page!
Now we can ask you questions about anything we want and get some good
responses!

Is Player ABC really that good? I want to know how he fares against
other players
We have a new advanced News section. You can search the news for
different criteria such as all player ABC news, or all of alliance A vs
alliance B

Why can I not have two level 5 weapons on my ship but I can have one
level 5 and two level 4s?
Maybe your captain couldn't do the math? Well now we have retrained all
captains and they know the math. Your ships now have a power limit.
You can use this power limit in any way you want. If you have 10 power
and 3 weapons slots you can use two level 5 weapons, or you can use
three level 3 weapons.

Isn't there some kind of technology out there other than the 4 basic
ones? Seems like the races are pretty stupid otherwise
Races have begun to release different technologies. These are not ship
specific and are not race specific either. This means any player can
have these technologies, or as we have come to call them "Gadgets"

Sounds neat, what do they do?
Well, the creators have been pretty secretive about it. Some details
have leaked such as the details to the increased planetary damage gadget
and the increased maneuverability gadget.
No information has been heard about the Phase Shifting Weapons gadget
yet....o wait, now it has, but what does it do?

How do I know when someone is using one of these gadgets?
These gadget activations will appear in the combat logs.

Why can a huge capital ship hit my tiny trader so easily?
We have added MR and a "triangle" factor to solve this problem. Smaller
ships can now dodge larger ships, also capital ships will be better at
fighting hunting ships than they will be at hunting trading ships.

Seriously...we need a rescan button
Okay

That was easy.
Not sure how to respond to that one.

What is so cool about planets now?
Planets now support each other. You can build 9 types of planets that
range from research to shield reinforcements to a lander/bank planet.
An alliance will want to take down all support planets before they work
on the main lander.

What do I do if I find a bug?
None of my code has bugs, if you find one its probably because Spock
modified some of my code secretly. You can report this on the webboard
and I will fix it.

I heard the GP won't be available at launch
Yeah, the GP writers' strike is still hurting us all.

What about stats obtained during the open beta?
Unfortunately it turns out that the writers track all that stuff, so we
will have to wait for their return.

No one ever asks me to do anything while I am flying around the galaxy.
Why is that?
Well, there are probably several reasons, but we won't get into those.
Missions are now available. Missions will guide you through several
tasks and offer some cool rewards once completed.

Forces in racial galaxies and neutral galaxies are annoying
Fixed

How?
You will see eventually. (i.e not fully decided yet)

SMR-News annoys me.
He is cool, get used to him.

So tell your friends to come back and anyone else you might interact
with that SMR is new and improved.

~The Admin Staff
MrSpock, Azool, Prince Valiant, BOB, Jester, RCK, RandyOrsolo


Thank you,
SMR Support Team

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[JettJackson]

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