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Posted by: sublight
« on: June 05, 2013, 06:57:12 PM »

HIATUS

The Return to Sol Multiplayer game is going to stop updating for the next few months.

The Venusian vacancy has come at a rather awkward time in-game. About 5-10 game years remain before I would have had to give up and end the game anyway. That isn't really enough time left for me to push hard at recruiting, but just long enough that I don't want it to end so soon. Still, as Maharava and Nightstar reminded me, playing SM for a multi-faction game isn't as easy as I try to pretend most days.

So, here is what's happening. I'm going to take the next few months off. Do some summer traveling. Replay old games, and get back into the Pulsar project. At the peaks before I extended turn intervals or shortened the time advanced being SM was eating nearly half my free time. Since being SM was a fun hobby it wasn't a big deal, or it wouldn't have been if I wasn't also committed to being a lead Pulsar developer.

I'll be back. After the Pulsar alpha release. Maybe I'll start a new improves scenario setup, or maybe I'll continue Return to Sol from where we left off. Feel free to drop me PM pokes to remind me to work harder.

Sublight Out.
Posted by: sublight
« on: May 15, 2013, 09:18:53 PM »

After over a decade of leadership niflheimr will be stepping down from leader of Venus.

The Venusian slot is now open again if any are interested.
Posted by: sublight
« on: May 10, 2013, 05:01:47 PM »

No SM turn this week on account of low player feedback. Only one order set has been received.

Next SM turn will occur in say, 3 days. (about 72 hours from this posting)

If half of you happen to university students taking finals shout out and I'll put the game on hiatus for the rest of the month. Otherwise please take your turn, or send me a private message saying 'Pass'.
Posted by: sublight
« on: April 27, 2013, 12:12:07 PM »

I had a player ask about victory conditions. There aren't any. Have fun.
However, I will be awarding titles when the game ends. Anyone competitive is encouraged to try for one of those.

Suggested Game Objectives:
Victory path A) Reclaim Sol to form the heart of a new Solarian Empire
Victory path B) Diaspora! Claim and colonize more systems than any other.

Ruler of Sol: Whoever meets two of the following when the game ends:
> +25% larger population than the next closest faction
> +25% more non-infrastructure installations than the next closest faction
> +25% more PPV in-Sol than the next closest faction (excluding ICBM silos)

Note: Conquering the Remnant is not necessary, unless going for the largest population category.
Conquered populations add their political reliability % to your population count for victory titles.

Ruler of Stars: Whoever meets two of the following when the game ends:
> +25% larger total colony population than next closest faction
> +25% larger mobile military PPV than next closest faction
> +25% more systems controlled than next closest faction. A system is controlled if one faction has twice the population and military PPV of all other factions, minimum 10 million total system population.

As of 2045 the Remnant was the undisputed Ruler of Sol, while the Syndicate was the Ruler of Stars with a mobile military worth nearly 200 PPV and a total colony population of 9.9 million.
Posted by: sublight
« on: April 24, 2013, 09:57:51 PM »

6 month time advances it is.
Posted by: Ektoras
« on: April 24, 2013, 12:50:43 AM »

I vote for 6 month increments, they might solve the problem for some game years. If they will save the game I also don't mind 3-4 auto five day turns.
Posted by: Conscript Gary
« on: April 23, 2013, 10:44:51 PM »

Hm. I think we're approaching the level of interaction where a 6 month increment might be good for more responsive player actions. This time of year I'd rather not increase the update pace, and autoturns often lead to silliness.
Posted by: sublight
« on: April 23, 2013, 10:07:59 PM »

The game has now gained  another +1 level of heat death and will have to either slow down, or loose resolution.

The current settings are:
Time Increment: 1 year
Player turn time: 4-6 days
SM turn time: 2-4 days
Average turn frequency: every 7 days.

Solutions include:
a) Shorten time increments to 6 months.
b) Begin extensive use of minimum number auto-turns. This will greatly diminish the SM's ability to promptly respond to unexpected situations.
c) Add +2 days to player turn time and +1 day to SM turn time, reducing average update pace from once a week to twice every three weeks.

Is the increased time between updates still the preference, or would people prefer one of the other time management options this time around?
Posted by: niflheimr
« on: February 19, 2013, 01:54:00 PM »

Will be doing my turn tonight - sorry for the delay but it took some time to figure out how things are going in my empire :)
Posted by: sublight
« on: February 17, 2013, 03:26:14 PM »

Panopticon will be stepping down from Supreme Commander of the Empire of Venus.
niflheimr has agreed to step up as the next Venusian leader.

Next SM turn will be about three days from now to give niflheimr time to review the situation and post orders. In the future I'll go with Conscript Gray's suggestion of taking a 1-year SM turn every 4-5 days up from every 3-4 days. Once players establish contact with each other and aliens are turned back on we may drop back to 6 month turns every 3-4 days, but that will be a discussion for another day.
Posted by: Conscript Gary
« on: February 16, 2013, 09:27:36 PM »

Yearlong increments are a lot easier to plan for than half-years. I'm fine with the time taken for updates
Posted by: sublight
« on: February 14, 2013, 09:30:46 PM »

Hmm. Thats twice in row now that I've needed two days to process an SM turn. If that happens again I'll need to either add an extra day or two between updates or else cut back to 6-month long turn increments.

Any players have a preference between slightly less frequent updates or shorter time advances?
Posted by: sublight
« on: January 26, 2013, 08:15:30 AM »

Ok. I'll post a current status pie-chart for "universes best" backed by the necessary historical trends (a mix of A and C).

Just to clarify for any player who's delaying taking turn: I try to post AARs to cover 2 turn segments each with a 10 year offset from the segment ending. Since the early game ran at an accelerated 2 years/turn at first, this has lead to a rather slow starting update speed. The next posted AAR won't come until after the 2042-4043 turn ends.
Posted by: Jikor
« on: January 21, 2013, 09:56:50 AM »

I like option A with perhaps the data that is shown each update is a little different. Kinda like how in Civillization you have the "wealthiest" the "strongest" etc updates every few years.
Posted by: Conscript Gary
« on: January 20, 2013, 09:07:04 PM »

Hm. I like A, but in combination B and C could give a nice overview of things