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Tsagoth
10-17-2012, 02:36 AM
I am in the process of launching a new tutorial test server tonight, Zabada. This server has the new combat mechanic applied to it. It also has other changes like fast travel, quick building and some other stuff. I plan on posting more about it tomorrow and then we'll open it up.

lordxorn
10-18-2012, 02:58 PM
I am having some bugs.

First, in a non homeworld system there was Whitelion's terraformer working on a planet I was planning on colonizing. I send in my Super Dreadnought and it disappears? I am really disappointed if it lost to a terraformer. Maybe there is a cloaked fleet? If there is a cloaked fleet I think I should get a message that a cloaked fleet destroyed my ship.

So I want to send in more ships, but I am trying to group them into one fleet. I can't manage to do this, even at the home planet. So I send them all individually.

Today I see another player entered the system, and I order all my individual ships to attack Raven. Nothing happens.

I am trying to move my ships out of the bugged planet now, but three fleets are stuck there.

So it is a little frustrating atm because I am losing the system to hostile players and can't do anything about it.

WhiteLion
10-18-2012, 08:10 PM
I hate to tell you how to conquer me... but I guess you'll learn at some point so I may as well help you out.

Simply you need the right amount of firepower. I forget the equation at the moment but if you search the forums someone posted how to calculate if you have enough ships to take over a colony.

Good luck. I'll try and fortify to hold you off. ;)

Tsagoth
10-19-2012, 01:30 AM
What system is this so I can have a look at what is happening ?

Tsagoth
10-19-2012, 01:57 AM
fyi, the server is down just now. I've fixed a few things and am uploading a new server. It should be back up shortly.

Tsagoth
10-19-2012, 12:28 PM
I've seen a few fights in the log. Are the email reports working properly or are people getting spammed ?

I'm working on adding more detail about the ships you lost to the mail.

Tsagoth
10-19-2012, 05:32 PM
Ok, there is a problem with combat. After a few rounds with lots of ships getting destroyed it's getting hung up and the fight gets stuck. I'm working on it.

Tsagoth
10-20-2012, 12:24 AM
There's another problem with taking over planets, the owing playerid is getting corrupted. I'm looking into it, but for now, quit attacking planets.

Tsagoth
10-20-2012, 12:29 AM
nm, I think I found the problem and am patching it now.

roywall
10-20-2012, 02:44 AM
Personally I like the old school mechanics. The thing that makes this game amazing is the dedication. It feels great to win a game after you have been playing it for 3+ weeks(about to win my second).

I understand as a dev you need to do what you think is best for the game and need to make money. In the long term and if the game grows, have old school servers for the people who want to play a server where strategy and long term planning wins.

lordxorn
10-20-2012, 05:04 AM
I hate to tell you how to conquer me... but I guess you'll learn at some point so I may as well help you out.

Simply you need the right amount of firepower. I forget the equation at the moment but if you search the forums someone posted how to calculate if you have enough ships to take over a colony.

Good luck. I'll try and fortify to hold you off. ;)

Is it a firepower issue with a dreadnought vs a terraformer and a fresh planet?

Besides Raven is the new big guy on the block. =)

Tsagoth
10-20-2012, 01:34 PM
I'm not sure to what you are referring. What mechanics ? Zabada is running fast because I don't want to wait three weeks for people to be able to build Dreads to see if they work. There's no intent to actually change the real servers to that sped-up state. Same for combat. Each round runs 10 seconds apart. In reality that will be 30 minutes apart.

If you guys want, I can easily remove the fast travel, fast build and put combat back to the 30 minute intervals.

roywall
10-20-2012, 02:50 PM
I thought you were thinking of changing the game to that style of quick build times. :eek:

Tsagoth
10-20-2012, 03:55 PM
No, not at all. Zabada is strictly a one-off meant for testing the new combat system. It's only going to be up probably for a few weeks and then I will push the changes to the other servers. Games that are currently running will not change, but new games will launch with the new combat mechanics. We'll hopefully push the new client at the same time.

I have halted game launches for now while the testing on Zabada is active. Once that's complete, I'll enable the launcher again.

WhiteLion
10-21-2012, 12:04 AM
I really enjoyed testing on Zabada. I'm kind of in a bind because I over built and destroyed units wasting tons of precious resources since I didn't know of the change in unit costs. But It was fun while it lasted. Now to find a way to compete in the hard environment.

Tsagoth
11-01-2012, 11:47 PM
I was looking at something else and I noticed that the combat email doesn't even work. So I'm working on that tonight and trying to fix why you can't attack the aliens, although initially it looks like a client bug.

WhiteLion
11-02-2012, 01:50 AM
Yikes… don't fix that bug too fast. It'll slaughter all my CO buildings...

WhiteLion
11-02-2012, 01:51 AM
Crap… just logged on and saw I have 28 messages. Apparently I just got rocked by Aliens.

Congrats, you fixed it! :D

Effectively my CO production is eliminated… hehe I was taking advantage of the center.. well it was good while it lasted.

Tsagoth
11-02-2012, 01:52 AM
Ok, I've fixed a few things tonight. Still an issue that you can't attack those guys in the middle, but if they see you enter orbit they should say hello now.

Tsagoth
11-02-2012, 02:00 AM
Congrats, you fixed it! :D


Well not quite. I still haven't quite figured out where the fault lies as to why you can't attack. I know why it fails, but it's not clear if it's the client or the server that is the source of the bad data. And now I see there's a bug with the email, it says (null) on the sender which is another symptom of the can't attack bug. Z and I need some FaceTime to see what's going on here.

WhiteLion
11-02-2012, 02:02 AM
Tsagoth… something seems off about my Reports.

Shows the same person attacked me multiple times in the same Galaxy and Sector. That's odd… should have happened either once… or in multiple different sectors.


Edit: Nevermind… I figured out what happened. I made a colony that had Aliens. It was a central hub for CO transportation. When the Aliens turned on and attacked all my Harvesters just sat idle in the Sector. Then someone came into the sector and they auto attacked. Clearly they died several times as they moved men in,

Tsagoth
11-06-2012, 02:02 PM
I've patched the aliens a few more times today. I'm watching them while I'm working on the push notification.

Tsagoth
11-09-2012, 07:53 PM
Just fixed a bug that applies to newly formed fleets that probably makes them go invisible when they change sectors.

Also, I had an email that said there was a bug with Terraformers in that you can't send them from one planet to another planet directly; you have to send them to the sun first and then to the planet. I've tried this and it works for me, my TF can go from one planet straight to another. Has anyone else had a problem with flying Terraformers around ?

WhiteLion
11-11-2012, 04:57 PM
I used to run into the Terraformers bug every time I moved it between planets.

I just logged on and tried it again. Didn't happen. So either something fixed it, or it happens only in certain circumstances… perhaps between outposts and not colonies… I don't know I haven't tested each scenario out.

Tsagoth
12-05-2012, 08:46 PM
I have coldstarted Zabada to coincide with some changes.

- universe is much smaller
- centre planets now owned, so you can't just claim them
- Advanced Material Collection skill is removed. Rare Ore can just be harvested at will.
- any player can build capitals. Planetkiller, Freighter and the CoreTap remain skill specific
- players start with all skills at rank 4, not 9
- push notification is enabled for Construction, Skill and Email notification.

I doubt push will work because there seems to be an issue with the 1.07 client that has it returning invalid APNS tokens. Unfortunately there is no way to test this because there's no way we can build an executable signed with the store key and load it to the phone ourselves for testing. It works fine with our dev builds, so I can only hope that it will work when we push a new binary to the store.

ravenzachary
12-10-2012, 11:34 PM
So far, the only problems I am seeing with this coldstarted Zabada server relate to item pricing. Remote Harvesters and one of the defensive orbitals are more expensive than listed (15CO instead of 4CO?). Also, mines are less powerful than listed in the build.

Tsagoth
12-11-2012, 12:33 PM
Yes, that's because the client uses a built-in database that is out of date. Z says with the store closing down for submissions over the holidays we probably can't get a new build up to the store until January.

ravenzachary
12-11-2012, 04:31 PM
Terraforming isn't working.

Tsagoth
12-14-2012, 12:09 AM
Terraforming isn't working.

I built a TF this morning and it was working fine; planet TF went up 4% while I was watching it. What isn't working for you ?

ravenzachary
12-15-2012, 03:08 AM
When my TF orbits a planet, I am given no button to terraform.

Tsagoth
12-15-2012, 08:50 PM
When my TF orbits a planet, I am given no button to terraform.

When you build one and it first pops out, will it show you the TF button ?

Raspenex
01-14-2013, 01:15 PM
Terraforming worked for me.