Movement SC Cost

[Infinity]

I said on the other thread too that shooting costs too much.... and it does, really. Trading is peace of cake now comparing to hunting.

[Kahless_]

I think your looking at it the wrong way. I think moving is still too cheap.

[Edgecrusher]

Well, it all depends on from where you're looking. In my opinion the balance between trading and hunting was quite good in old SMR. I'd like to have the same balance in new SMR. That doesn't mean you have to screw them both. The idea behind sc was that people were able to play more, and by increasing the movement cost you aren't going to achieve that AND you aren't improving the balance between hunting and trading, because it will also affect hunting.

[Infinity]

I think moving is still too cheap.

Nah, it's not. Don't want to explain why, except that it feels as if xp gains per day are lowered to reasonable measure, movement cost shouldn't go up more than this.

[Edgecrusher]

Well, as much as I agree with you that the current generation of players is spoiled when it comes to cash and xp (on average, I'm not mentioning names), you must also take into account that:

- Azool wanted it this way. Why else switch from turns to SC? Don't blame us...
- The imbalance you are talking about concerns trading, but any suggestion you make (increasing movement cost) will also affect hunting, which is in my opinion already really screwed. If you further increase movement cost, I am gonna quit, simply because you will have drained the last fun out of hunting.
- Your (and my) judgement of people being spoiled is relative to the old game. This is a new game. To be succesful, you need to do much more then trade. You also need to excavate. Which takes a big portion of your sc as well as your cash.
- With this few people playing, we're not gonna attract new people if they can't do more than walk between drained routes, searching for leftovers.

All in all, people are looking at only one side of the problem here. Is the larger amount of cash and xp a problem? Maybe, but I'd like to hear arguments instead of sentiment.

[Infinity]

If you further increase movement cost, I am gonna quit, simply because you will have drained the last fun out of hunting.

Hell yeah, and not only you, bunch of people will. Old grumpy vets (please, no offense, it's just a joke) have to except that this isn't the same game anymore. Look forward.

[Kahless_]

Well i obviously haven't been clear enough with how i'd like to see things. I am not just saying make everything more expensive to the point where you cant do much in a day.

What i'd like to see is a better balance between the amount of SC it takes to perform certain actions. Even a more dynamic way of determining how much SC an action takes (But this is for another place and wont happen for a long time and requires alot of extra stuff so i wont bother here =) )

At the moment, there are 3 major action you can perform, other than moving. Trade, Excavate, Shoot.

(Please not all numbers are from limited testing in beta, open to correction)
Trade: 1 trade takes approximately 5 to 25 times the SC it takes to move (1 to 5 SC per trade)
Excavate: 1 excavation action takes 5 times the SC it takes to move (1 SC per excavate)
Shoot: 1 shot takes anywhere from 10 to 35 times the SC it takes to move (2 to 7 SC per shot)

I think the balance lies with these 25-35 times being smaller BUT PLEASE DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND, this does not mean that my proposal is to simply increase the amount of SC it takes to move. No. I think the amount of SC it takes to move should be increase YES, BUT i also think the SC it takes to perform actions like trading and shooting (not so much excavating), need to cost less to compensate.

SC to move in my mind should be 0.5 per sector and yes this seems like alot, except it isnt as bigger deal if it costs you less to trade and shoot, because it should even out if done properly..It just puts the honous on you to think about your movements. You still get as much play, you just dont get to run around like a chiken without a head, you have to keep your head, suddenly chasing all those awesome routes in every corner of the galaxy becomes not the best option for making xp and momey, but one of the options, a trader might find if they confine themselves to one area, more dangerous cause hunters then know of patterns, they might find they make better xp by being turn efficient with movement..

The look at hunters, a hunter who decides to confine themselves to a small area can have to turns to spend a long time hunting, whereas a hunter who wants to hunt every corner of the universe will have more targets but might be hurt in again running around like a chicken without a head..

It just brings in another aspect of thinking to the game, another challenge to spice up game which needs spicing up..You know, when it actually matters as a trader if you take a wrong turn on your trade route and add 5 moves to a route, or as a hunter, knowing where minefields are so you can plan your way around instead of wasting turns getting there and trying to find your way through. Or even all those extra turns spent trying to avoid traders scouts, now you might just have to bite the bullet and go straight through and try to catch the trader before they realise whats happening..


PLease read this and don't just say "Your just a cranky vet who doesn't like how the game is, you just think everyone has it easy".

[Kahless_]

And "Thats just how it is, get used to it" is not why i was asked to be on the beta team. It was explained to me that i'd be helping to get the game right, and just because it is how it is doesn't mean thats how it should be.

[Freon22]

.5 per sector is
100 / 0.5 = 200 sectors

As it is now .2
100 / 0.2 = 500 sectors with a random chance of a low cost or higher cost.

Not taking into account the 1 SC it cost to go through warp.

To trade a 10 sector route, if it was 10 sectors to your route you would only be able to make 9 runs

10 sectors to route 10 back = 20 sectors * 0.5 = 10 SC
10 sectors between ports * 9 round trips = 180 sectors * 0.5 = 90 SC

Now this does not include the SC cost of the trade at each port or the random chance of a low cost or higher cost per move. Don't know how this would be on hunting but it will hurt trading and exploring. No if you want to do something to cut down on moving then look at the repairs. I know this is not the old SMR but you had 400 to 600 turns depending on the game speed. 200 sectors per 100 SC sorry I just don't see the players going for this.

[Infinity]

Thing is, not only us, but most other players really kinda like the ability to move more, even most cranky vets

I'm not going to quote as new FF isn't compatible with my "Paste Quote" extension but.... I've traded, excavated and shot people under these new conditions, so I feel pretty competent on what I'm about to say.

When trading, my routes are partly in Omar, partly in Salzik, I DO have to think about the order in which I am going to trade as moving 40 sectors is now 8 SC, round trip is 16, on PSF my trading effectiveness goes down rather fast. When trading in neutrals, only going to a repair shop costs half of the amount you're repairing for, add 2 and a half trades to it and you have to repair again. I can't go for just any offer as it might not pay off cause of movement cost. XP gains in the game and my own are now scaled down to some regular proportions, eg. there will not be a spooky after 4-5 weeks of the round.

Hunting is a :D, honestly. Distances between two neighbouring racial galaxies exceed 30 sectors at most cases. Only laying scouts on only one side of the universe takes so much SC that I sometimes wonder why the hell am I trying to kill traders anyway. I mostly limit my self to two galaxies and honestly one round of running between them and I'm already stacking up repairs like mad. Here we come to refreshing forces. I don't even do that anymore it doesn't pay off as by the time I have to refresh I'm already on about 80-100 past repairs and a round of refreshing brings me into the zone when I need more than 4-5 shots to kill a PSF, so instead of that as the hunting day progresses I limit my self to only one galaxy. Add to that hitting trader's mines (and they leave 50s cause someone smart let them buy forces at racial HQ) and warping (omg! warping... that hurts too). Then trips to CA and back to your lurking spot... at least 7SC from any spot on the map, and you have to lay more than one scout on each port so you don't refresh every two hours. Also, since scouts expire so freaking fast there's no way of collecting vast amounts of scout reports and studying them so you know where people trade without actually having scouts at their trading time. One other thing, it's absolutely not possible anymore to go search for someone, that is, it is possible, but it's a complete waste of both time and SC.

0.5... DC speed is 6CRPH, that's 30 turns per hour for 0.2 per sector, with 0.5 it would be 12 turns per hour on a map that's twice the size we played when DC had 15TPH.

Shooting... COSTS TOO MUCH. I have absolutely nothing else to say about it.

Excavating is on average more than 1SC, but don't forget excavating is mostly moving, cost of excavating start is nothing comparing to selling goods and donating, takes decent amount of optimizing to fit more than 4-5 asteroids into 200SC, esp if you're excavating in non-racial galaxies and you can't really sell goods at any port or donate at any outpost.

I'd like Edge to give his opinion on hunting, he's better than me at it