While trying to figure some of the finances on Proxion, I was clicking around the globe to see what I could find… ultimately low utilization cause some challenges for COGC funding…
So I’m clicking…
PPI 5fbdb08c (inactive, trial, founded 156 days ago)
PPI 5b397292 (inactive, trial, founded 158 days ago)
PPI 6b99256d (inactive, trial, founded 214 days ago)
PPI a32dcdd7 (inactive, trial, founded 183 days ago)
PPI b42eebc9 (inactive, trial, founded 296 days ago)
PPI 077a4bea (inactive, trial, founded 460 days ago)
You may think I’m cherry picking data… I’m not. Those are 6 random clicks on Proxion’s globe and pulling up the info.
These plots are costing COGC money by being there but not having any production (and thus no production fees).
It feels like there’s a non-trivial number of them on the planet and this then becomes concerning at trying to make the budget balance - especially with caps on.
Devs, please consider checking your cleanup scripts for abandoned bases… or look at adjusting the CoGC to not consider bases that have not produced any materials in the past COGC period.
Let me check on Vallis:
12x clicked, 12x “noname” with a inactive and age over half a year. The chances are pretty high that these accounts went inactive after the first session and their comps should be purged a few days later freeing up that plot.
(Btw Vallis was already full at the point they started so not sure why they got a surface plot and not me.)
I checked some of these and they seem to follow the current activity rules. The first one for example is a Steam account. Usually we don’t have an email address for Steam users, except they choose to do the “complete your account” step. So we cannot send them emails about the pending company deletion, which is why we decided that the deletion period is way longer than for regular accounts (200days+). We increased that value from the relatively short periods that are normally used, because we received some bad feedback. For a Steam user it absolutely not transparent why their company suddenly got liquidated.
The one with 296 days ago has BASIC and a last activity timestamp of end of May.
The last one also has BASIC and a last activity timestamp of early June.
Then it might be something to consider a change to how COGC bases are calculated.
What percent of bases on, say Proxion, have not produced a material in the last 7 days?
Each plot that isn’t being used is adding 2 RAT, 3 DW, 4 PE, and 4 MCG (about 1000 credits worth of materials) consumed each week for COGC without having contributed any production fees. Even having 100 of those represents 100,000 credits of resource consumption for COGC that represents a significant portion of a starter world’s income… which in turn means raising taxes on those mostly starter players to support the players who aren’t playing.
Setting up the deletion time from 11d (6+5) to 200d is a big difference as the majority of new players on starter planets play one session or maybe two and then never log in again (12/12 of the plots I tested only had the tutorial base or even less).
This drives up the CoGC cost which are the main cost on many planets and with it the taxes for other (newer) players. And then there is also the tax limit for higher tier pops which is reached on many planets and should be updated (or at least be updateable by the faction gov with the update).
It also artificially fills up the plot count of starter planets which is already a problem.
The max for very new Steam accounts should be 21d or max 30d as like 99% of them won’t touch the game again and after a longer time (45d+) they will need the tutorial again and even if not they need to repair their base for which they don’t have the funds.
So there is no use of keeping their base around longer than that, but they should get a message when they come back like “due to inactivity your company was liquidated to not put a strain on others in the universe.”
I agree. Also, I understand that the reason for extending the deletion grace period is because there is no way to notify them of a pending deletion and people were complaining. Maybe instead just make it more clear up front – “Welcome to PrUn. We hope you enjoy the game. Note that inactive Trial accounts get liquidated after 45 days so if you leave and come back much later you may need to start anew.” Or how about reference somewhere on the player screen that indicates “Account auto-liquidates after x days (depending on license) of inactivity.”
