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Scalorn

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  1. discordauth:a19b5VFjFsetRMPNYMff3BPHF_R6G0V_3IJ2Z0-yu9E=

  2. After looking over the pre alpha gameplay video for scanning and mining I've been thinking about how will this work longer term in game. Some assumptions There will only ever be hand scanning There will only ever be hand mining There will never be ore scanning or ore mining elements on dynamic cores. There are apparently 5 tiers of materials. I derived this from the post about 15 new materials (3 types in 5 tiers). There are 5 tiers of materials then they will be most likely at successive depths. I derived this from the scanning/mining video that says most low level ores can be detected with the default scanning depth of 400m. Exploration: Initial exploration will be done with random surface scanning and then hunting it down through manual triangulation. Deeper exploration will have to be done via exploratory grid tunneling. For tier 2 a 800m hole down to scan might make sense. But longer term layers of grid tunnels make more sense. The ideal layering of tunnels would appear to be a square grid of 800m tunnels. First layer at 400m down, second layer at 800m down offeset by 400m from the first grid. From above the tunnels would appear to be a 400m grid because of the offsets. This makes sure that all material is within 400m of a walkable place and can be scanned. This can be repeated all the way down to maximum dig depth. Tools to help with exploration: Ideally in lua script all scan results would be available - i.e. a scanResult hook that would include scan datetime, scan Type, position coordinate, facing vector, scan result vector of (ore type and distance). This information could be processed to be turned into a map of probable ore locations. The more scans involved in a concentrated area, the more accurate it becomes. It is up to the user and scripts/devices they use how the data is processed and stored. A data card of scan data becomes the survey result item people have asked for. Able to be traded, sold, etc. A centralized warehouse of scan results for an organization can help leadership plan mining operations, etc. Being able to scan while standing on a dynamic construct means you would be able to have say a mining mule that you could have controls that would say go x meters in direction y. This allows for consistent scanning of an area which leads to higher quality survey results. Imagine the mining mule is remote controlled rather than sitting in a pilot seat. Your standing on a platform spot on the mule with clear access to the front/sides/above. Being able to mine from the same dynamic construct means the mining mule works for scanning/mining and probably some cargo space for what you mine. None of this go against the basic idea of no scanning/mining automation IMO. You still have to scan manually. Your just being helped on precise positioning and recording of the data. You still have to mine manually. But you can do it from a machine that can get you into a close position with some storage. In both cases there will be a tug of war between bigger machines holding more vs smaller machines getting into tighter spots. You can't have it all so make your trade offs and build appropriately. It also opens up a category of things for players to develop and sell to improve the scanning/mining experience. They might be sold on the market.. Or they might be tightly held competitive advantages that people will do anything to protect. Definitely looking forward to getting access to the Alpha this month
  3. Dialing gates would be my preferred option. Restrictions: You must have permissions to use the source gate. You must have permissions to use the target gate. You must be in range for the source gate. You get a warning if the target gate doesn't have the range to reach back to the source gate. i.e. if you use a gate with a 1000 ly range to connect to a gate with a 100ly range then you could be stuck on the other side. You should at least be warned that this is the case. Permissions could be split into who has permissions to dial out/who has permissions to dial in. Again a warning should appear if the permissions are such that it would be a one way trip.
  4. Economies are tricky beasts. Here are some of the NPC based faucets/sinks I can see: a) Buy/Sell Raw Material Blue Print designs c) Assembled devices d) Go scan/explore an area (grid reference, moon, asteroid, solar system). 1) NPC Pricing If pricing is fixed then materials have a floor value. i.e. if the NPCs always buy iron at 1.3 credits per unit then no player will sell below 1.3 credits per unit. If they sell for 13 credits per unit no player can sell above 13 credits per unit.. But the farther you are away from the ark ship the less true that becomes. If you are a 3 hour flight from an NPC then 20 credits per unit might be the best offer you can get. 2) Cash availability If NPC orders are unlimited for buying/selling then you have an uncontrolled economy that can spiral into hyper inflation/deflation. On the other hand if there is a hidden bank account that is the NPC money supply - when it runs out then the NPCs can't buy any more. This leads to problems with new players starting. Unless you pair it with an account per player. i.e. each new player gets 1 million credits in their hidden account. They can sell that much to NPCs to get initial cash. When that per player hidden account is empty then the NPCs have to have funds in the global hidden account or they are broken and can't/won't buy. Maybe selling doesn't refill the personal hidden account or maybe only up to a certain amount. If the money supply is shown to be too restricted the devs can add more to the hidden global account and the NPCs start buying again. Maybe it's determined that 100 credits/second should be added to that global account to keep things smooth, etc. 3) Bartering This one would take a bit more work on the devs part to allow the market units to have individual values for bartering materials. If on your market unit you could say you value iron at 1.5 credits per unit and are selling a particular widget for 15 credits then they could buy the widget with 10 iron units. This gives lots of flexibility and makes more sense long term to me. Credits have almost no meaning if I can't turn them into something I want. And when your dealing with rare/hard to acquire material you will probably want to trade for other materials. i.e. I want to put a superb engine I built up on the market for 20k credits + 100 units of dark matter crystals. If you wanted to be really fancy you could support multiple "prices" per item. i.e. 100k credits, or 20k credits + 100 units of dark matter crystals. Add in the ability to lock those offers to certain people/groups. i.e. alliance members get special pricing.
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