Anathomical

Another potential solution to this problem would be a sharper delineation between valid and invalid click targets for scanning. Currently the border is very fuzzy, so you may THINK that you're clicking a valid scan site, but it turns out that you're not. I suspect that better visual distinction is actually a better solution than trying to have the system guess where you meant to click.

[quote who="Soren_Johnson" reply="3" id="3531157"] My concern about giving away too many claims on founding is that that would give players who found first too big of an advantage because they could claim all the high tiles right off the bat. (And, yes, I know that there is a problem with Expansive getting to Level 2 too fast right now...) [/quote] Something like this is my big worry, too. The suggestion of one claim drone might help, but even there you're going to

I feel like this has to be an idea that's been discussed, but the forum search tool didn't turn up anything... Currently it feels like there isn't really much of a decision about what to do in the early game. The advantage of going to HQ level 2 is SO HIGH (due to doubling the number of claims you have access to), that it's generally pretty safe to spend all of your level 1 claims on whatever structures will get you to that upgrade fastest (it's why we see so

I think the core idea is an interesting one, and quite possibly worth testing, but I'd prefer a much simpler system. Again, replacing Short/Surplus with Put/Call makes sense, but I'd be inclined to make it a bit more like the Offworld Market. You can Put/Call any resource, and it is a put/call of a fixed amount of that resource (probably want to do some testing to figure that out). Either option you pick starts a timer on the building, again you'd probably want

Due to the inter-connected nature of the game's mechanics (part of what makes it so sweet), another lever that might work here would be increasing the impact of early-game debt. If, for instance, debt acted as a multiplier on the cost to upgrade your HQ, there might be viable strategies to go into early life support to keep debt down and buy construction materials from the market. I don't know that this is actually a good idea, but it might be worth exploring.

That is quite a good point, one I hadn't thought of... What if you didn't start accumulating debt on life support for the first couple of minutes? Or maybe not until HQ level 2? Or... something?

Any plans to include team (i.e. 2v2v2v2) play, or anything like it, or is this all FFA for the moment?

I wonder if the real problem is that without Auto-Supply it's too easy to lose track of when you've run out of a necessary resource for one of your production buildings. If the resource was somehow highlighted when you had ongoing production demands for it and were out, would that help? I, personally, prefer to manually buy supplies, as it lets me be a bit more precise with pricing and being aware of when I'm about to spend more than I should for the output, but I'

So all HQs start with some amount of life support resources appropriate to their type. I, and I think all of the experienced players I've seen/talked to, start every game by selling these off for the cash, preferring to have cash on hand and start accumulating debt immediately. I can't think of a starting situation where I wouldn't do this. If it's actually the case that good players always sell their starting stockpiles of non-construction resources, does it

Often, right after I upgrade, I have plans for what structures I want to drop, and I've planned far enough ahead that I'm producing the necessary materials. Like I'll have my triple glass producing away so I can put down a bunch of farms, and I'm just waiting to build up enough of a stockpile to build. And because glass is so expensive, I'll see that helpful notification "Need $10,203 to build" (or whatever the number happens to be). Then that number goes

For some reason, I was under the impression that the colony can't fail in multi-player games. That this was a purely campaign (or maybe all single-player?) mechanic. Specifically to avoid trolling and "take my ball and go home" ing.

This is something I've also wished for. I think there might be a delicate balance to strike between the interface providing critical information, and it being something that players have to get good at reading off the map itself. Like, I'd love to see the starting resource count panel (or have it available) during the game, but also to see a breakdown of low/medium/high, AND who's claimed them. It'd help with underground nuke targeting, for in addition to giv

[quote who="SanderBuruma" reply="26" id="3528358"] That is what I'm trying to say coffee, that prices should be equally stable across 2p through to 8p games. [/quote] I don't think I have a problem with this idea in the abstract, but my problem, which I suspect I have not expressed particularly well, is that I just don't see how this is possible. An 8-player game does not generate literally 4 times the demand for any given good when compared to a 2-player g

[quote who="xCoffee" reply="15" id="3527801"] Quoting Anathomical, reply 14 I don't know that I'm absolutely against a stockpile, but two questions: 1. Does this do anything other than provide a hard limit on how much someone can buy of a resources (rather than a soft limit based on rising prices)?

[quote who="xCoffee" reply="11" id="3527731"] Quoting Anathomical, reply 10 Similarly, by having price volatility tied to quantity, not to players, it allows a single player to maintain the ability to have strong impacts on the game. A single player dumping steel can still crash the market. Scaling this by player risks no

[quote who="SanderBuruma" reply="7" id="3527594"] My question is, why should the price mobility be relative to absolute quantities, what does this add to the game versus making the price mobility relative to the number of players and to the base production rates? My argument is that there is more value in pegging price mobility on player numbers and base production rates so that the markets are not inherently volatile by design. It would add some variety to the game without ad

In some ways, the market is more volatile in 6+ player games as there are more participants. There's a higher chance of, for instance, two or three players in a row buying a bunch of glass for upgrades and driving the price way, way up, whereas in a smaller game fewer people would do that all at once. At the same time, larger games also have a larger absolute number of claims, which tends to have something of a smoothing effect on the market. It's rare for one player

I think it might be worth digging down a little bit and discussing the actual in-game situations you're trying to address with this suggestion. Is it to try to be more realistic? Is it to give you more time to adjust to shifts in the market for things like auto-supply? I ask because the initial suggestions don't seem very compelling to me, but I suspect that's because I'm missing something.

I think that this may actually be an artifact of playing a lot of 6 player and 8 player games. As the number of players (or, really, the size of the map) goes down, it becomes much more likely that any given game will be extremely constrained on at least one or two resources. If there's only one cluster of iron or water or whatever, initial founding location becomes significantly more important, and it can easily become a race for the correct spot. In similar vein, a

I've set up a shared Google Spreadsheet for people who want to throw in their Skype information and timezone stuff. Hopefully we can get something organized! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cScPT81CzqjS5zKEe27biJrnjSSJ8vWsRGCjnAsJMSo/edit?usp=sharing And people should feel free to share that around with interested parties who are not spamme

Last night a group of us were talking about trying out some team games, but the consensus was that you'd probably want some voice chat solution to coordinate that. Which means that, given how small the community is, we'd probably have to do some upfront planning. But team games sound like a lot of fun, so it's probably worth doing that planning. And perhaps this is the thread to do it in. So if you're interested in trying some team games, chime in h