Restart Checklist - Megatopic

As a restart is coming in the next few months, this thread is what people think needs to be in game in the next reset.

For me:

-starting planets need a admin centre to help maintain the current POP infrastructure
-the pop growth system is a little obtuse-it’s be nice to get a little bit more detail on what effects what. Like for instance how much does a POPI infrastructure support?
-starting LM as CX’s will off planet.
-Katoa area rebalance to be a little more newbie friendly.
-The ability to see that map without starting to get a lay of the land.

-Argon being able to be extracted at Tier1-Tier2 without dev intervention :slight_smile:
-Gas Giants being able to generate at other temps then cold temperatures-would like to see Hot/Temperate Gas giants(which might solve the Argon problem)
-More varied resources on higher-tier planets(Gas Giants should have a mix)
-Sector naming(XK should be able to be named) I-G the Katona should have its own name like CIS

  • Early map release would be nice. I realize there is a test server where early access might be in place to see the layout of the universe prior to starting, but it’d give people a chance to maybe plan or provide feedback or incorporate it into tools prior to going live with the new map.
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If you’re referring to http://www.prosperous.freecluster.eu/ that is user made, so, depending how different the next universe is, may take me weeks to remake if its even possible.
-Seeing the screenshot of Moria Station I’m surprised the station has its own orbit rather than orbiting Montem, like Hotei Station orbits a planet. This is going to make CXs a real pain to trade at as heavy things and urgent things just won’t ship well enough.
-I’ve yet to see widespread use of built ships in this universe, and their impact on trading and newer player’s shipping opportunities, so I don’t see how Ignition! is fully tested.

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In general, things are not fully tested until someone is angry at someone else.

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-starting planets need a admin centre to help maintain the current POP infrastructure

No way, We will be looking at tax fraud accusations all game long and considering the condition of starting without a CX it will give the governor a huge head start with zero visibility or control over funds.

-Katoa area rebalance to be a little more newbie friendly.

Total random universe as far as I recall.

What I would like :

  • surprise us but not sure the space CX is what I had in mind :rofl:
  • I love the orbital sales/buy shop thou, maybe move the manufactured goods MM’s in space while keeping ore/gas MM on planets.

I’m VERY concerned by that CX’s orbit, I’m against any kind of offworld CX. But orbiting the star?!?!? 7+ hours to get to the CX? Potentially hours longer? There’ll be zero heavy items traded for months.

I need to make a separate forum post.

imho the entire ressource system needs an update. We have way too many good low tier planet (T1-T2). We need more incentive to work into getting in higher tier population.

Currently, with the electronics MM being so low (which tbh is a good change), the only reason to go up the tech tree is to get to a ship (very high leap from T2) or to get into luxury consumables. Most ppl don’t seem to use the KOM/ALE/GIN even when it’s readily available, and the REP/SC/VG needs literally a handful of producer to feed the entire universe. It doesn’t seem to make sense that HSE/INS/TSH planets aren’t a lot better than MCG/SEA, kinda like how the O/H/HE3/N planet are much better on GG than the others (exception of etherwind…)

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I disagree about two many Tier 1 planets-they are pretty rare outside of the scripted dev planets. The ones we have are necessary to even get a second base.

It took 2-3 months for GDP to have their first base, and another month for the rest of the players to get another one. With the added costs such as degradation, ship maintenance , and POPI maintenance is going to be interesting to see if the game loop can hold up.

A planetary admin took almost a year to setup-with POPI now in, a governor is essential to running things smoothly.

Off planet CX’s are going to very horrible for Metal/Refiners due to the weight.

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If there is no ADM on start worlds, we will loose money to the void from day 1.
Depending on MM being present or not, this means less money each day.

I am not thinking numbers, I am thinking how their ressources concentration makes it to easy to vertically integrate entire chains on them.

Best example would be umbra vs XT-992e. Both can fit a 10 POL/10 INC setup off making your own MG. Umbra needs 4 EXT, 992e needs 1 EXT + 3 COL and doesn’t need H import. There is little to no reason to spend an extra 1.5m to not import H and have the same output.

If hypothetically Umbra had 5x less ressources, you would have to upscale to 5-6 EXT + 8 INC/POL. Than upgrading to 992e for 20% more production and local sourced H (less hauling) can be interesting

Also opens up more option about specializing bases early on and work with others! Not sure how many PG base a full EXT base can feed and the overall increase in production/player, but it’s something that can help promote it early on.

I don’t think it’s something essential for this reset, just something that would make the game more interesting in the long term

With the player base confined to a small handfuls of players. I’m 100% certain we will be able to elect some previously tested, reliable, and trustworthy governors to start as the initial governors.

Umbra’s resources are easily obsoleted by other sources.
The H was there so we would have a tier 1 source of fuel. The MG is nice, but to be honest when I ran a chem setup on Umbra I outsourced my MG production from other planets, as you don’t need a whole lot of MG for POL production, so you can ship that stuff in.

I’d wager most people on Umbra don’t have EXT-they just buy it from the Kat exchange-at 41/unit is much cheaper to buy them extract yourself(and EXT’s consume a fair bit of space). I’d wager if someone bought up the MG supply there would be a lot of pain.

PG’s so light that most MG bases are viable.

yea kinda of the point

Except that now, we do it since we have readily available HSE/INS. There is little to no reason to go for those early-mid game since they will provide no significant advantage over people spamming T1.

Similar things with DW off Etherwind, and even O/SIO until there was a shipping crisis there. Almost no one on T3 HAL planet since FO-705c + Apoth will feed just about everyone with their CL needs. We are 2 years in (or so not quite sure) and we are just starting to see Berthier running out of local ALO and need to import it.

I strongly feel like there needs to be more “rewards” for going down the tech tree. That is the main goal tbh, the idea might not be the best :slight_smile:

I think you are considering this in the wrong way - the problem is not that the concentrations on T1 planets are too high - they are not. The real problem is that the quality of T3 planets is just too low (in general). I would like to see more planets like CR-534d and Ironforge, with 4 natural resources in good abundance. Different combinations of resources can make those planets very useful for various purposes. We have a few of the good ones today, but many other T3 planets are floating around in space and have zero reason to settle them. If they had additional combinations of resources it could make many more viable targets for settling and developing.

There is a very limited supply of T1 worlds, and even without resources they would be valuable to players both new and old due to the relatively low cost of building a base there. To be realistic, they need to have some resources in moderate abundance just to make the beginning of the universe and teching up possible. Later on as players mature they will likely replace any resource extractors they have on those planets with production buildings, and ship in resources from their resource taps, or buy them from other players who build a cheap production base there to supply the market. This is what has happened with planets like Berthier and Apothecary, and I think that is a good model to hope for in the future if players are willing to subscribe for access to the LM.

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Honestly that could work too! Mix of ressources could def be interesting to make some low-maintenance bases vs higher build cost

I am sure there is other ideas to make it more interesting to work towards tech/eng.

I always felt like we should have higher-end, higher-cost, lower time recipes demanding high level building (kinda like B-fabs from PP2, where BBH is better, but the others are similar/worst, HYF vs FRM). That sounds like way more work than we can expect until reset however

I know higher level STOs have been thrown around too

I always felt like we should have higher-end, higher-cost, lower time recipes demanding high level building (kinda like B-fabs from PP2, where BBH is better, but the others are similar/worst, HYF vs FRM). That sounds like way more work than we can expect until reset however

I think having more technician and/or engineer buildings that make low level recipes would be critical to help grow the workforce. Right now the workforce demand is just not high enough at the tech/engineer level to support significant growth of scientists.

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Are we still going to have multiple currencies? I have yet to see multiple currencies add anything to the game. It seems to only add frustration to the early part of the game.

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I like the idea of more varied resources on high tier planets-it’s what makes the starting planets so good.

Added it to the top checklist.

While trying to plan a flight I added:

Sector naming(XK should be able to be named) I-G the Katona should have its own name like CIS, prom being ICA, NCC etc.

I had an idea, what if some planets get buffs that attract certain populations. Basically population infrastructure that is permanent to the planet. i.e. planet-x has geological anomaly buff that provides education to the planet. It could be a tool for devs to sculpt a galaxy map with.

Like a natural COGC bonus! The risk is if it doesn’t synergise with the resources then it will be pointless, and if it does then it may be overpowered. Perhaps it would have value in pushing the planet’s use/cogc in one direction if there are a few viable choices.

I do think there should be more resources, even if most of them are trace amounts only good for bootstrapping. Maybe 2 or 3 should be the minimum, and up the maximum to 5?

I also like the way PP2 can do B-fabs, and think it would be useful, and flexible, if more recipes could be done in more than one building. A PP3 that also does L-fabs, for example. DRF can be done that way. PE should be BMP and POL. OVE should be possible, but not optimal, in a CLF…

I feel like a better approach to dealing with planet resource issues and tier levels is to restrict available area rather than resource abundance. A tier 1 planet may have good concentration, but terrain that is poorly suited to base building, ergo they have a smaller buildable area per plot.

I feel like this would strike a good balance between making higher tier planets more desirable, while not significantly impacting the early game experience on lower tiered planets.

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