Needs attention Feedback on Volume / Mass balancing values

Two things stand out:

1. There doesn't seem to be any explanation about how storage technology actually works and so balancing volume is impossible. Are objects some how compressed in storage or do they maintain their "real world" volume? How does this tech work in general?
   
2. The players storage volume is WAY too high compared to HV/SV container volume limits. Maybe reduce the base player storage capacity to 250 (halved) and double the storage capacity of all other storage blocks. This will make the volume that the player can carry the same as a single HV/SV small storage container while maintaining consistency.

 

The difference between the weight of the T2 Fuel Tank (BA/CV) and the T2 O² Tank is one of my major issue - the Fuel Tank is far too heavy!

 

Hello,

think it is a wrong way ro decrease Player Volume/Weight/Mass. HC/SV must be Encreased by factor x5(1250). BuildingBlocks must be decresed. If i Raid a POI and find the Container, the BuildingBlocks have more Mass/Volume as the Container. And than one thing: I dont want to run arround as a Chicken to Load In and Out every 5 Mintues (without Wifi, early Game)

 

I agree...look

 

One of the first thing that comes to my mind that's been annoying me for the last couple of days is Gold.
Gold Ingots are 51kg each and 6 Liters (SU) and are made singularly from 5 Gold ore (34kg and 4L each). A 6L ingot of gold would be the size of a microwave oven. That's not an ingot.
Gold may be completely useless, but that scale and conversion rate for it is ridiculous.

Recommend accurate values of:
Gold Ore (2L and 28.4kg with a conversion of 1:1 to ingots instead of 5:1)
Gold Ingot (0.8L and 15.1kg)
Gold Coins (0.2L and 3kg)

Unrelated Note: It takes 5 ore to make 1 ingot and 1 ingot to make 5 coins. Each coin is worth $50. I can sell sandwiches to NPCs for more than that.

 

Aside from the alien loot container not having enough space for it's own loot, I don't see the problem.
If your plan was to carry that loot out by hand like Luzillus keeps trying to do, the problem is that you're not using a Wireless Connection on your ship outside the POI like you're meant to.

Put a wireless connection on your ship and you can connect your ship's inventory to the container and move everything in the cleared POI straight into your ship's storage containers without any running around.

 

Sorry @Hummel-o-War but I have to answer this

At lvl 4 you don't have that luxury of such a Vessel so I left it there until I had a capable Vessel to transport away--->
https://empyriononline.com/threads/what-did-you-do-in-empyrion-today.2826/page-875#post-311319

 

In general, there is poor to no relation between the masses of the things and their receipes. As an example: steel blocks.
You make 10 steel plates (1kg each) out of 2 iron ingots (5kg each). All right. Now you take those ten steel plates (10 kg) to craft a large steel block (1000 kg). mass gain factor 100... moreover, with 2 of those plates (2kg) you can also craft a small steel block (8kg). mass gain factor 4.
OK, now you want to make hardened steel blocks. For a large one you need 5 hardened steel plates (4.3kg each) in addition to the 10 normal steel plates. In sum you need 10kg steel plates and 21.5kg hardened steel plate to get a hardened steel block - of 2000 kg.
There are three iron laws in physics, that are valid in this universe everywhere and anytime. One of them is the law of conservation of mass. If you dont stick to this in your game mechanics, not only outcomes get unpredictable (to put it mildly), but you put yourself in a balance hell. Examples like the above are legion throughout the game, way too numerous to list them all. To alleviate this, you can go through every single item in the game, but i would introduce a game mechanic, that automatcally calculates the mass of all items bases on the mass of their ingredients (probably with a little loss at evera crafting step).
The outcome will produce concise masses and/or receipes in general, and you will have to twak manually only some specialties.

 

This ^^.
1,000,000,000 times, please listen to what @Moonsugar just said.

Until the volumes and masses are scaled correctly the whole way through nothing in-game makes any kind of sense.
If the devs really want feedback on volume and mass, this just summed it all up.

 

The huge discrepancy between item components and BA/CV blocks is for gameplay purposes. Those blocks would weigh around what we get from a semi-hollow block in those dimensions of those materials. The problem is that to make those weights from the allocated items, we'd need around 60x the current amount of plates per block and that would make a lot of people unhappy.
Personally, i'd like that kind of resource consumption. It fuels competition and advanced mining and salvaging practices. But only really works with a larger if not infinite number of planets to drain of resources.

---------
Now onto what I was about to post:
Radar Blocks. Specifically for SVs.
Last time I tried to use them on my SV it weighed as much as a CV block for something so small and decorative. It needs to be lowered.

 

This is true if you hold the weight of the allocated items and adjusted down to the components.

Whereas using the component’s assembled weight would mean a change of the weight of the allocated/finished item. (Depends on point of view: and we don’t know the thickness of the semi hollow block’s skin.)



Whether having the actual weights of items relate to additions of added components or not, it would be advantages to have some type of weight/volume relationship sequence for head cannon purpose if nothing else.



Just my thoughts on this in relation to my own mining and factory ship/base type play-through.

 

What aspect on playing a game is not on gameplay purposes?
One part of the problem is: there is nothing like THE discrepancy. Its another for literally every block and every device. The work of taring out all of this against everything else is something even Sisyphos would be deterred of.

?? This does not make any sense at all.
First: A block from iron with a size of 2x2x2 m and a mass of 1000kg would hava a wall thicknes of about 6.3mm. If this thing wouldnt collapse under its own weight, it would do so under the weight of the second block - let alone under fire.
Second: I am completely unable to retrive the density of Sathium or Zascosium from literature. I have some doubt, you could help me with this. But without this value you cannot tell at all what mass this thing should have - except you take the values from the ingots as a basis, what i propose here.

Why?
Is it, because you need more iron? There are ways: make more deposits, make them contain more ore, make the processing more efficient or do someething i just now have not thought of.
Is it, because you have to carry more weight with you than you can handle?
Make the blocks weight less (wall thickness is meaningless in a game anyway), make the chests bigger, make the thruster thrust more, anything.

There you name it: Well, just make the given deposits contain more material, and thats it. (I personally would settle even with the given amounts, but thats only because i am strictly SP and there is more iron and sathium even on the starter planet than i need for the whole game. Just salvaging two or three POI makes me saturated forever.)
We speak about balancing in this thread. First and foremost the balance of masses (and volumes, but this is not nearly as critical imo). But of course you are right, that the things are all connected with each other, and it will affect gameplay, do as you wish. I just think its better (if we are about to do changes anyway) to give the logic of gameplay a solid grounding, where further balancing can rely on.

 

by the way: Thats my all time favourite anyway

 

so base and CV container controllers have a max of 320k volume but also 128 slot cap. the slot cap is something i would like to ask about, as in y is it a thing?

It feels like we are stuck in a weird place between the old system and the new.
i have 2 different suggestions to get u past this and both will commit the game to the volume system. Of witch i quite like the idea of, but a few tweaks to make if feel smooth and efficient to use.

1. remove the slot limit or make it something really high like a 1000
2. remove the stack limit. ingots currently stack at 999, remove the limit and it will solve several other inefficiencies, inventory clutter being the first and biggest one.

I would prefer option 2 but in an ideal world i hope we could have both,

also ingots have different volumes i think they should all have the same volume of 1 SU, just with different mass.
good old standardization.

thanks for your time and hard work

PS just reposted this here cuz i think it fits better here

 

1. Games do not have to follow the same rules of nature that we use in real life.
2. Games do have to follow some rules.

So, you pick. This game is broken in the sense that it does not do either of the two things listed above.

I love this game, despite the inconsistencies, as do many others. But, how much of our discussion is spent trying reconcile this game with reality?

Real world physics are not at play here. As a programmer and scientist, I know it would be quite difficult to follow the laws of physics and still keep the game interesting. I think it would be more fun to program it than to play it. LOL.

But, the game MUST follow some sort of logic in order for it to BE fun. If it is completely random, it takes any kind of strategy out of the realm of possibility.

So, use one of the ingots as the standard for the rest. Gold for example. Keep all the ingot volumes the same, all the ore volumes the same, and change only the mass as it relates to gold. Assuming gold is the one with the most mass. This could be Sathium. It is not on the periodic table, so no telling.

Anyway , the point is that everything must relate back to a standard. Once you do this, your programming gets less cluttered with data because you can simply use algorithms to calculate everything instead of storing it in tables. And the only values you will ever need to tweak are the ratios between each type of material.

Ex.

Sathium = 1 mass unit = 1 SU (Sathim Unit) ha ha
Gold = .98 SU
Iron = .9 SU
etc.

These numbers are arbitrary. These are what we should be discussing.

Volumes are easy, all of them are based off of the geometry of the shapes. And, all the ingots should have the same volume.

Weight and Mass have nothing to do with Volume. Volume is just the amount of space the shape uses up.

Once you have the masses, and the volumes. Weight is calculated (not stored). Density = Mass/Volume. So if you have any two of the factors, you can calculate the other one. Then use the Mass and multiply it by the Gravity on the planet to get Weight.

So, we are storing stacks of things in tiny little containers that would fill a warehouse in the real world. Obviously, some "other worldly" things are happening. Maybe our little build gun has a tiny little matter to anti-matter converter or something. It doesn't make any difference. How much you can store should be based on the capacity of the container to hold matter, a.k.a. density. Each container can only reach some preset density. So, the number of items is irrelevant, as long as their combined density does not go beyond the threshold for the container.

Now, for people to wrap their heads around this is the real challenge.

 

Both correct. But the idea, to use the real world rules as gaming rules (where appropriate) is obvious? It saves you two headaches:
1. the real world rules work. proven.
2. you you dont have to explain your game rules to the gamers. they know them already and, moreover, they expect them to be valid in game, too, unless stated otherwise.

You dont have to follow every single ramification. And of course you will brake the rules whenever you see it fit. But for breaking them you need some rules in the first place => see above.

Thats exactly my point, yes. You can make the numbers just as you like, but they lay down the rules.

Bingo - thats the way i wanted to go. Dont store it, calculate it. Apply the rules.

And this is a nice additional idea for organizing storage. I like it.

Naahhh.. not too bad. At least regarding the mass problem, everything is started: set the masses of the ingots. Calculate the masses of the components. Not good? => change the receipes. Calculate the masses of blocks and devices. Look at the things, set their volume (or calculate it). Now take a look at the staorage demands for this stuff, adjust the container properties. Have a look at the material demands, size the deposits. done.

 

Yep, this is exactly what's needed.

There's really no problem with using real-world values for elements that exist IRL. That would be where I would start. Then adjust the extra elements (sathium, etc) and recipes as needed. As a bonus, from there one can then set the right scaling for thrusters too.

 

I agree, the Player inventory is already very limited.
Example, as I Play on a 'mission' Server and a Building Server I tend to experience to be 'out of reach' to my vessel, thus not beeing able to use.
Specific: One of Ramachandras POI Towers, wether you park Right at the Bottom or at the top's designated parking Slot, while doing the POI you WILL get out of reach.
Even more so with(in) their own instanced missions for 4 Players, those POI bases are HUUUGHE! (and I hope you can Image how hughe, when I say it that way!).
-> WiFi range too short

Back to Topic:
As I had suggested in somewhere else, I'd like to see the HV/SV boxes have like 1/10th of the volume of the BACV boxes (CC+CE) (so 800/400 SU).
This would - IMO - adjust the required Change to reduce the required CE's for HVSV to get the 32k.
That beeing 40 'full' blocks in total, for both the BACV's 320k and the HVSV's 32k Limit, which is still Pretty much for a smal vessel like a HV.