Samedi

I think there are separate problems: control links (which is a more general problem), and access to multiple fuel tanks for refueling. I'd like to see some sort of control-hub to fix the first problem in a more general way than just fixing fuel tank links. The whole "wiring" architecture is insane from any kind of lore point of view (haven't these guys ever heard of a serial bus?!), and should be rethought in a way that maintains the desired balance restrictions but addresses the pain points. For the second problem I'd like to see a fuel-pump element which can move fuel between tanks. It could have some basic modes that don't require lua (auto-balance, explicit percentages, manual activation, activation when fuel goes above/below a level), but could also have a lua interface for complete control. Then we could actually build ships in a way that manages the physical layout constraints of mass and volume, but still have a way to move fuel around. I really don't like the idea of a hand-wavey fuel hub that magically distributes fuel (and presumably fuel mass) around the tanks (any more for that matter than I like the actual container hub!)

Yep, that's the other thing. Keeping the machines loaded with schematics is tedious in the extreme, even for a small factory. I've got 8 assmeblers right now, and I can never keep them (and the machines that supply them with parts) all happily fed! If the idea is to discourage mega factories, then they should have done something where the difficulty started lower, but scaled exponentially - so it was easy for small setups and much harder for large ones. This feels like the balance might be a bit off. In order to stock all the machines for a long time, I'd need a hell of a lot of money, to make a hell of a lot of schematics.

I don't have a problem with there being some money sinks, but the whole tile tax thing does seem badly thought out (like so many aspects of the game design). I grabbed a nice tile on Alioth near District 3. I started building out my factory there, completely forgetting about the tax. A week later, boom - nothing working until I pay my 500k. For now I've done it, but I'm seriously contemplating decamping the whole thing to Sanctuary, even though it will be a massive hassle. I'm not aiming to be making 10s of millions a week, so that rent is subtantial. The stupid thing about this from a game design point of view is that I like being based around a relatively high population area like D3, as it means that there are people around most of the time, which gives me a sense that I'm actually playing an MMO - even if a lot of the time I'm just doing my own thing. If I move everything to Sanctuary, I'll spend most of my time on my own (even though my tile there is also near the equivalent District 3, it is deathly quiet compared with Alioth). So the net effect of this bit of game design is to discourage me from basing myself near other people - which does not seem like a positive for an MMO... 😕

Yes, completely agree. There are many little immersion breaking details like this. They are not catastrophic, but are a constant low level irritation.

Yeah, good call, have now done it as a backup.

Possibly I am confused, but I thought that there was mention of a few free days at the beginning - enough to give us time to apply our DACs? As an alpha backer I also haven't had a paid sub in operation, and was assuming that I'd be ok to start with my DACs (or would have been clearly and explicitly told that I couldn't -- which hasn't happened). Like you I will be very annoyed if after all this time I end up losing out because I backed the game early. Although that does sound par for the course.

So bizarre. This is not how you do a release. Leave it another week, give QA time to make _sure_ it is working, and allow all your users to know for sure what is happening, when.

The “(estimated)” is mind-blowing. The idea that they might not have built sufficient margins into their schedule to be able to guarantee meeting their own launch date - the single most important release in the game’s history - where do I even start?

For a lot of the NQ staff, and especially at this stage of the process, the choice will be between reading/responding, or fixing the game. Depending on how much of a crunch culture there is, and how much of a deathmarch it has been, exhaustion and burnout are also a factor. For the person/people who’s job is actually community relations, this is less true - but they still may be overstretched or have multiple roles, particularly if resources are constrained. On the whole I think we have to cut these people some slack. Most of the time they will be doing the best they can with the cards they’ve been dealt. If there is fault, it will be with the senior management. Either for the way they’ve set up the structures, or just for trying to do too much with too few resources.

I posted up a small example for my Modula scripting framework. It's still early days, but hopefully it will be of interest to someone, somewhere (possibly in a galaxy far, far away...).

It was back to 100k on the PTS this weekend. Not sure if that is indicative of the final release.

Current count of 839 territories claimed on Haven for the PTS, so I guess a few other people are also infected.

🤣

You may be right. Three "Alpha: yes" with hope though. So whatever is wrong with us, it looks like it takes a while to get over...

No, I'm not saying that. Heaven knows there's a lot of "lore" that makes no sense at all from an immersion point of view. All I mean is that I like the idea of the real (main) instance being the place where everything happens. The more separate sandboxes and challenge spaces there are, the fewer people there will be in the main instance at any one time, and the less life-like it will feel.