Upcoming change regarding homeworlds for missing players

Problem: Home systems for players who have yet to join the launched game appear as unnoccupied planets. Players claim them and then when the true owner joins, all the planets revert back to the planned owner and the squatter loses everything.

The current solution that we have in mind is to turn the planets invisible until the player joins. So your probe might fly through and nothing is there and then a few days later when you fly through there will be planets and a new player.

We don't see a downside to this solution, but comments are invited.

Damn, didn't know this was even an issue. I hope I haven't taken any that are "owned". That solution you stated sounds like a decent one to me. No complaints here. It's better that that lose all the time you put into that colony.

I wouldn't have it so that if you miss it a first time, you need to enter that location again to see it. I would rather it just pop up on the map if I have already visited that location. There are some parts of the map that are 3 squares away that I haven't seen since the beginning of the game. Under what you are proposing, there could be a whole system right next door and I wouldnt even know about it.

Unless there are more general fog of war-ish type changes coming later, right now this conflicts pretty strongly with the "once you've visited you know what is there" standard that seems to be in effect.

I can't think of anything more obnoxious than having to re-probe a the entire galaxy on an on-going basis to make sure I didn't miss some latecomers.

Yes, pop up is better. But I would also mark those squares as black from the beginning of the game. So we would know that something is there but not exactly what.

Wait, won't we see the planets as soon as they appear of we check an already explored sector where they exist? If not, I don't like this. The sector where they appear should at the very least become unexplored, though that would still be problematic since unexplored sectors are difficult to spot if surrounded by explored sectors.

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Originally Posted by mardril

Unless there are more general fog of war-ish type changes coming later, right now this conflicts pretty strongly with the "once you've visited you know what is there" standard that seems to be in effect.

I can't think of anything more obnoxious than having to re-probe a the entire galaxy on an on-going basis to make sure I didn't miss some latecomers.

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Yes, I second this. If it magically pops up into view once they've taken ownership, then I'm fine with it. But if we have to re probe, it's a deal breaker.

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Originally Posted by Royce

Wait, won't we see the planets as soon as they appear of we check an already explored sector where they exist? If not, I don't like this. The sector where they appear should at the very least become unexplored, though that would still be problematic since unexplored sectors are difficult to spot if surrounded by explored sectors.

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If you had already been to that system with a probe, you would see the planets when they decloaked.

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Originally Posted by Tsagoth

If you had already been to that system with a probe, you would see the planets when they decloaked.

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Oh then this sounds like an adequate solution.

As long as it was probed and we see it than fine.

Although this option seems to solve an existing problem, I think there is a better option. Here goes, my 2 cents.
I would create a system that once a server started, all players that had joined are assigned there home world planets automatically without them having to log in. Inevitably some of those systems will go untouched as there will be some players who join a server but never actually play, or quickly go inactive... So be it. At least the planets and systems will exist from the start.
Was this option considered? If so, why did it get voted down??

The problem I see with the above suggestion is that if someone logged in a day late they could conceivably find all their home system outposts lost, and start the game in a huge hole.

It was the first consideration, but with the current architecture it is impossible. The game server doesn't know who the players are that will be joining. Changing the launcher and the game server to do that would be a lot of work. We also considered just assigning them to me, but that introduces a different set of issues. So turning them invisible seems like the best solution for the least development effort. There's only me server-side, and new code has to compete with fixing serious bugs, so if we want a new feature, right now it has to require little time or it won't happen.

Having to redo our entire payment system twice in the last couple of months put a lot of things on the backburner.

I think the invisible planet solution is a mistake. If a player doesn't join shortly after a game forms, they may die, because a nearby player could take the planet. The reason a game has a start is to get players to join at a specific date or near that date to start playing.

I don't think any player would have the power to take another player's system for a week (can't you give home worlds unclaimed a higher pop for defense?). If you don't join in a week, then well, your loss.

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Originally Posted by ravenzachary

I think the invisible planet solution is a mistake. If a player doesn't join shortly after a game forms, they may die, because a nearby player could take the planet. The reason a game has a start is to get players to join at a specific date or near that date to start playing.

I don't think any player would have the power to take another player's system for a week (can't you give home worlds unclaimed a higher pop for defense?). If you don't join in a week, then well, your loss.

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You can't take their homeworld, but you can easily take all their outposts in far less than a week, and showing up to start the game with a colony and 0 outposts would not go well for them.

If you join five days late, well then, that's the player's loss. That's how timed strategy games should work. We all have the same amount of time to complete our victory conditions.

Maybe new players start on the edge of the map and are protected (cannot be attacked or attack anyone) fo two or three days

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Originally Posted by GeeWhiz

Maybe new players start on the edge of the map and are protected (cannot be attacked or attack anyone) fo two or three days

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Spawning the galaxy from the middle out, which I think you're suggesting, was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. However, I think it would be bad to remove the complete randomness of starting positions as it could allow people to set up strategic advantages by joining at specific times.

Oh, another reason I don't like the invisible planets solution - it will mess up probe exploration. How do you deal with probes that map a whole chunk of the galaxy and then new solar systems come into being? Do you mark those sectors are unexplored or do the new solar systems appear as though they have already been explored?

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Originally Posted by ravenzachary

Do you mark those sectors are unexplored or do the new solar systems appear as though they have already been explored?

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That was my question too. They said it would be the latter.

Another idea - provide protection for starting solar systems for the first 5-10 days, like you do permenantly on the tutorial servers. If a player doesn't join a game 5-10 days in, they probably aren't going to join at all and they would be at such a severe disadvantage anyway, let the other players take them out.