SM vs SMR

Discussions about everything, SMR related or not.
LDedric
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SM vs SMR

Post by LDedric »

The biggest change I see from SM to SMR is how fast and easy it is. I'd like to make a comment on this, and if I can please and perhaps toss up a short 30 day game just to see how it works.

1st off income. It's way way to easy to earn money. Even as a solo player I could afford to jump into a 10 mil+ ship with a couple of days trading, Being in a big fancy warbird with all the bells and whistles used to mean something.

2nd off Exp, it's omg faster than before, pr's and jump routes for 23x woah. I traded a little in a PSF grabbed 20k exp like it was nothing.

What I'd like to see is some teeth added back in. Cap the distance of trade routes vs exp/income at 15, good enough for a jump route. and lower the income/exp by about 1/25th of what it is now so if you traded a 8x for 500k and 132 exp you would get 125k and 33 exp. Make it a challenge again to get into the good ships and being a top ranked player. At the same time the leaves more routes open to trade in and hunt at.

Here's a big one. I suggested this one way way back. If your race is wared with someone the multiplier to trade at that location is removed. So let's say your Alksant and sector 1701 sells circ and sector 1706 buys circ. nice 6x route however the Ikthorn port in sector 1806 3 sectors away also buys making it a junky route. If this change come in that route with ikthorn can be altered by a war status (taking it out of the loop for the port as these 2 will not trade with each other.) This makes Waring races mean more than controlling weapons but also controlling port multipliers. In home Galexies this is not a big thing but in areas like Sixpence this can have a major game effect, both short and long term.
silverx2
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by silverx2 »

it was never really as hard as you are making it out.

Even back when it was SM the biggest challenges people faced were an abundance of people, Small galaxies, and skilled players.

Now we have huge galaxies, very few players. Making a "hardcore" game based on past results of games with slower turn speeds, or weird map designs normally results in lack of activity
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Freon22
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by Freon22 »

The one thing I do agree with you on is "Cap the distance of trade routes". As soon as an alliance finds their galaxy they start to build their super route. Now I am not saying to cap it so they can't build a high end route. But just enough so they can't build super routes.
Page
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by Page »

One of the changes I made for 1.6 was to reduce the money gained from trading higher distance routes (and slightly increase it for < 3x I think), so that a higher distance route still makes more money per turn but the increase is not as drastic as it was in 1.2 (not that there seems to be any shortage of money all the same ;) )
LDedric
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by LDedric »

Honestly I'd just like to see getting a high end ships to be more difficult. It's just way too easy now, almost no challenge in making money. Gathering EXP is still a bit on the difficult side especially once you start taking pods, but that's a good thing. I started late in the slow game and I still have enough money to buy a new ship 5x over, so the only real drag is loosing the exp and wasting turns going to get another ship.
Freon22
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by Freon22 »

Look at the maps, look at the trade route. It take less then 5min from the time you start trading for the hunters to be hitting you. If you can't bank a little money for replacement ships then would not be much point in playing the game.
Blade
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by Blade »

Dont forget SM was harder because of the connection to the server too, lots of lag, more players draining your routes so on and so forth. The code is also slightly different and even the smallest change will make game play VERY different. Lets not forget the new race too.

The biggest change is what we start with though to how SM games started (With the exception of newbie games) Vet games started with a max of lvl 7 ports, lots of lvl 3-5's then very few 6's and 7's.

We currently start with 3-4 great routes from go.
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LDedric
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by LDedric »

With the older games *SM granted the "main" ports were just pods waiting to happen, and people would trade on off hours or build their own route. I rarely had a problem with connection lag. What I had a problem with is hiding and trading under the noses of 7-15 hunters every night or morning. With that general player base gone I see more stuff added but it still has a bit of the feel of the old SM.

I just pointed out something what I think needs to be addressed. Not everyone should be in a massive ship, I've had games I never got above a leviathan because the income was so low you simply could not afford as an alliance to risk the cost of a more than a couple of PSF's, because funds were so low.

Then port multipliers hit. I loved them, but I think they have been tweaked so much as to do 2 things I don't think were intended.

1st, The creation of "super ports" and red hot zones for hunters. Look at the slow game how many good routes are there. 5-6 maybe? People don't play there because the "super ports" are hunted. I trade them because the hunters are leaving me alone. If they weren't guess what I'd still trade and work on building my own route.

2nd, Loss of a challenge. in SM you fought tooth and nail for a better ship, you yearned for it and in the end you "earned" it. Their is nothing like the feeling of earning something that's really hard to get rather than having it handed to you with relative ease.
RCK
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by RCK »

Pretty much all those aspects you mentioned can be related to low # of players these days.
LDedric
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Re: SM vs SMR

Post by LDedric »

I'm of the belief that the low # of players is a result of making it too easy to get into the high end ships without the exp (accuracy exp) to back them up against the more experienced players. Anyone can hop into a racial in a couple of days time then it's a matter of the person who has the better accuracy ( more exp) will generally win.
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