RC3

[Aury]

well, TX2 doesn't have shooting at rocks for hours on end.
I'm going with my not-over-powered profit, high-speed mining model in TX2, so you get your ore fast, and it won't be overpoweringly profitable either. This should make it a balanced and viable and non-boring alternative to fighting/trading/missions/pie-eating/whatever

[Aury]

and the paths will be mutually exclusive too of course, because then otherwise 'doing everything' would be OP

[Sponge]

well, TX2 doesn't have shooting at rocks for hours on end.
I'm going with my not-over-powered profit, high-speed mining model in TX2, so you get your ore fast, and it won't be overpoweringly profitable either. This should make it a balanced and viable and non-boring alternative to fighting/trading/missions/pie-eating/whatever

First, and I don't mean to at all downplay all of the work you've put into TX2, this is a problem in vanilla Transcendence. I generally don't play with mods and don't like to turn to them to solve game problems.

Second, I agree with you that shooting at rocks is not fun. It also doesn't have to be the only method of mining. There have been quite a few good mechanics posted for more of a "build/deploy a mining base/auton/somethingorother and then defend it" sort of mining. This would be pretty entertaining, especially if there were special encounters, multiple methods of mining with various risks/rewards, and a rank system along the lines of Korolev to accompany it. When I speak of mining as a playstyle, I mean anything mining related. Fighting for mining stations, defending claims, etc. are all part of this. While a mining vessel may not be equipped to go head-to-head with the Sung/Ares/etc., combat-oriented mining missions don't need to be as difficult as, say, combat-oriented Commonwealth missions. There's a lot of potential here, and as such, I would hardly call relegating mining to a near-useless role a step in the right direction.

[Aury]

well, TX2 doesn't have shooting at rocks for hours on end.
I'm going with my not-over-powered profit, high-speed mining model in TX2, so you get your ore fast, and it won't be overpoweringly profitable either. This should make it a balanced and viable and non-boring alternative to fighting/trading/missions/pie-eating/whatever

First, and I don't mean to at all downplay all of the work you've put into TX2, this is a problem in vanilla Transcendence. I generally don't play with mods and don't like to turn to them to solve game problems.

Second, I agree with you that shooting at rocks is not fun. It also doesn't have to be the only method of mining. There have been quite a few good mechanics posted for more of a "build/deploy a mining base/auton/somethingorother and then defend it" sort of mining. This would be pretty entertaining, especially if there were special encounters, multiple methods of mining with various risks/rewards, and a rank system along the lines of Korolev to accompany it. When I speak of mining as a playstyle, I mean anything mining related. Fighting for mining stations, defending claims, etc. are all part of this. While a mining vessel may not be equipped to go head-to-head with the Sung/Ares/etc., combat-oriented mining missions don't need to be as difficult as, say, combat-oriented Commonwealth missions. There's a lot of potential here, and as such, I would hardly call relegating mining to a near-useless role a step in the right direction.

What I meant by the step in the right direction was fixing 1 of the two broken axises; it fixed the ore-type axis. Now the ore-yeild axis must be fixed.

btw- you should join us on IRC

[Aeonic]

You seem to have this warped perspective of "overpowered". How powerful the player is going to be is strictly up to the player with a bit of chance thrown in. If the player isn't interested in being powerful, they can fly through the game as quickly as possible, neglecting to upgrade much of anything. That'll result in them being very underpowered, so they'll have a very difficult game. But that's their choice. On the other hand, a player who wants to drain every possible trade route dry, destroy every possible enemy station, mine every rock and do every mission in order to generate an obsurd amount of cash so they can buy the absolulte best of everything is going to be very overpowered, so they'll have an easy game. But that is also their choice.

The ONLY thing that can make the player overpowered in the vanilla game is the player. The player chooses how powerful they want to be by how much time they want to invest in becoming more powerful.

And personally, I find the grind of long-range station bombardment to be just as bad as shooting rocks in most cases. But nobody ever complains about finding awesome loot in the wreckage of a station. But somehow if you trade that grind for another and now you find awesome loot in a rock, oh, that's horrible. Frankly I think mining and base bombardment both need a lot of work.

The only thing that matters is that the chance of finding something cool and the degree of coolness in what you find be the same regardless of how you choose to waste your time in this game. Just let the individual players decide for themselves what they want to consider fun.

[Aury]

if you were on IRC...

Ok, so let's say george puts a godmod weapon in there, does 1000d1000 dark lightning damage, takes 0 device slots, needs 1MW of power... etc. etc.
Guess what. It's overpowered. End of story.

Sure that was a bit exaggerated, but the thing is, is that something that is OP does NOT need to be used by that particular player to be OP, because only a few players will abstain from exploits and whatnot, especially in single player games where there are no other people to be exploited against. The point from the game/mod/whatever-designer's perspective is that something that is OP is something that has an overbearing advantage over other methods/paths/items/etc. Why? Because someone is going to exploit it. Sure, the player can choose to be underpowered, but it's up to the game designer to make sure that any player isn't going to get anything that would be over-powered. Not just ONE player here, we arn't taking about just you, or just me, or just george, or just taben or atarlost or little modder, or any individual or small collection of individuals; we're talking about EVERYONE who plays the game.

The 'awesome loot' in the station is nowhere near as good as the orthosteel. Why? the orthosteel is WAY above what you'd ever find in a station.

[Aeonic]

As I said, the only thing that matters is that the chance of finding something cool and the degree of coolness in what you find be the same regardless of how you choose to waste your time in this game.

The game designer should make sure everything is balanced for the point in the game where it appears. Its up to the player if they want to push ahead too early and use inferior equipment or linger behind and build up their ship through such things as mining, trade or base-cracking.

BTW, the game never forces you to mine, but it does force you to do long-range bombardment for many of the side missions (sung/hauri, commonwealth, charon pirates).

[Aury]

As I said, the only thing that matters is that the chance of finding something cool and the degree of coolness in what you find be the same regardless of how you choose to waste your time in this game.

The game designer should make sure everything is balanced for the point in the game where it appears. Its up to the player if they want to push ahead too early and use inferior equipment or linger behind and build up their ship through such things as mining, trade or base-cracking.

Yes, that's correct. However, remember that:
1) the loot is not as good as the orthosteel
2) the ship can (in a perfectly balanced game) only be built up so far for that particular level.

[Prophet]

Yay, thanks George!

It's the right size and it's exactly what I had asked for, the perfect present!

[Aury]

Yay, thanks George!

It's the right size and it's exactly what I had asked for, the perfect present!

XD
You are right about that!

[infomaniac50]

Just picked up RC3 and I like the Centauri Heavy Raiders in Eridani. It adds a little extra difficulty to the system. Although if i wasn't packing a fast fire laser cannon i would have probably been toast.

[Darth Saber]

I look forward to testing this latest version, George. I have one question though: according to the First Contact Monument, the technology which was learned from the Iocrym was, for the most part, declared classified by the military.

So my question is this: could you create weapons, devices, and armor based upon Iocrym technology, and make it available to the player while factoring in the player's military rank (i.e. - the higher the military rank, the higher the Iocrym tech is when made available to the player), and release it as either a patch to RC3, or as part of the next release?

[Aury]

The megadrive was.

[Song]

The megadrive was.

I also suspect that Lamplighter is based on iocrym data. The computer at the First Contact Memorial DOES mention antimatter.

[Aury]

The megadrive was.

I also suspect that Lamplighter is based on iocrym data. The computer at the First Contact Memorial DOES mention antimatter.

I wouldn't be too surprised either.