Maintenance

Post by **Azool** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:09 pm

Removed turns. Replaced them with the idea of maintenance.

As you move around, trade, shoot, etc, your ship will lost maintenance. Once it gets to a critical point you will have a % change (based on the maintenance of the ship) of "breaking down" for x seconds (based on your maintenance). When you are broken down there is nothing you can do (similar to having no turns). This broken down part isn't completely coded in yet.

Your ships crew will repair maintenance over time (based on your ship speed). You can also purchase repairs from a HQ (Eventually you will be able to repair on a planet and with special ships that an alliance will want to bring to an op). These repairs start at about 200 credits per point (20k for full repair). This cost ramps up exponentially based on how much you have repaired in the past 24 hours. If you have repaired 100 points in the past 24 hours your cost will be about 2500 credits per point (250k for full repair). 500 points would cost you 91k per point (9.1mil for full repair). After 900 points it will cost you 28.5mil for full repair.

If you do not log into a specific game for x hours you will get free maintenance points. For example, if you do not login that game for 12 hours you get 50 points of maintenance credit (for 24 hrs). What this credit does is it subtracts from your previous repairs. So if you have 60 points of previous repairs and then wait 12 hours and login again you will be down to 10 points of previous repairs, thus lowering your repairs for the duration of this bonus.

This bonus is not intended to encourage inactivity, rather it is to support players who want to log on and play only once per day and therefore can't keep up with bigger players (playing more will still offer a slight advantage). Also, this will allow alliances to log off for x hours before an op and allow them to repair more for cheaper over the course of the op.

These numbers will most likely be adjusted as we test it out, but thats what they are for now.

The effect this has:
Players can play longer. But the longer you play the more expensive it will be to repair (and also[probably], you will notice diminishing effect such as lower exp gain from trading). This also allows players to play for a short amount of time, or a long amount of time and still be competitive.

Note: newbie turns are still in and will work the same way. You have 500 moves before you come out of protection.

Post by **Baalzamon** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:52 pm

to quote what i just said in chat..

<Baalzamon> woah
<Baalzamon> i love this idea.

That is probably as close to appeasing everyone as you can get...i love it.

Harry Krishna · Post by **Harry Krishna** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:18 pm

This will also make the new tow truck ship type more useful

Ardbeg · Post by **Ardbeg** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:57 pm

It would be nice to have a small maintenance cost even if you do not move, to penalize that pesky auto-refresh browser. I like the idea, it will be interesting to see how hard it is to balance in practice.

N.ator · Post by **N.ator** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:57 pm

i like the idea.! still not fully sure on how you haev it planned. like are you going to get matience by the hour? but i still like the generall concept!

Post by **Azool** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:21 pm

Ardbeg wrote:It would be nice to have a small maintenance cost even if you do not move, to penalize that pesky auto-refresh browser. I like the idea, it will be interesting to see how hard it is to balance in practice.

I was thinking of adding a 1% chance of maintenance loss on refresh or something.

Poca wrote:i like the idea.! still not fully sure on how you haev it planned. like are you going to get matience by the hour? but i still like the generall concept!

You regain 6 * Game Speed * Ship Speed per hour(Shown on the trader screen). (The DB actually has 1k maintenance, but the display just divides by 10). But if you don't want to wait you can use the HQ/planet/ship repair.

Without buying repairs a speed 7 ship will regen from 0 to 100 in about 24 hours with the current formula.

Harry Krishna · Post by **Harry Krishna** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:32 am

Getting both error messages at once, sometimes, after I get below 40/100 maintenance. It seems random and I am able to keep moving. Probably because its not finished yet.

Sir, we have broken down!

SHIP STATUS : Newbie, our ship is getting shaky. We need to stop and repair it before components start to break!

I went all the way down to zero, could keep moving. Once after moving around for a couple dozen more sectors I got the error "You can't move to that sector because we have broken down".

I have to say that my initial impression is that this will give those players with tons of cash the ability to play all the time. Granted, I'm sure we'll work to make it as balanced as possible for all kinds of playing styles, but that is one aspect to look very closely at.

Post by **Azool** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:25 am

Harry Krishna wrote:Getting both error messages at once, sometimes, after I get below 40/100 maintenance. It seems random and I am able to keep moving. Probably because its not finished yet.

Sir, we have broken down!

SHIP STATUS : Newbie, our ship is getting shaky. We need to stop and repair it before components start to break!

I went all the way down to zero, could keep moving. Once after moving around for a couple dozen more sectors I got the error "You can't move to that sector because we have broken down".

I have to say that my initial impression is that this will give those players with tons of cash the ability to play all the time. Granted, I'm sure we'll work to make it as balanced as possible for all kinds of playing styles, but that is one aspect to look very closely at.

Interesting...I haven't coded anything for being broken down except that "Sir, we have broken down". Should be able to move, not sure what error you had that said you can't move.

As for lots of cash. It will hopefully balance itself out with the exponential curve and the offline bonus.

Ardbeg · Post by **Ardbeg** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:30 pm

why are we getting the broken down message before reaching zero maintenance?

Post by **Azool** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:34 pm

The lower you maintenance the higher the chance of breaking down. Once you hit below 40 (i think) maintenance the chance starts to appear (5% or so I think) and builds up from there.