INFO & FEEDBACK [Alpha 11] CPU Points and Tiers - How does it work?

Discussion in 'FAQ & Feedback' started by Hummel-o-War, Oct 26, 2019.

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Did you understand the EXPLANATION on how the CPU and CPU Tier system works?

  1. Got it!

    46.4%
  2. Not really

    16.9%
  3. Do not care / do not see why we need CPU

    36.7%
  1. StyleBBQ

    StyleBBQ Captain

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    [innocent]

    Does Paint cost CPU?

    [/innocent]

    :D (somebodies gonna check!) :p
     
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  2. [RCF]Grodark

    [RCF]Grodark Lieutenant

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    ok lets see this thing about 1 ship or a fleet I will say you need 1 CV I know this is silly but here's why
    1 if you make a FOB (forward operations Base) CV with a mining drills medical stations enough cargo space to move at least 1 POI if not 3
    and enough guns to take out drones (this is not a MASSIVE COMBAT MONSTER ) you use it to drop to planet so you can switch to your
    Scout/Combat SV or HV you do your scouting find your target kill the POI guns return to your FOB pick it up move it to base with in 100m
    of the base then go in and raid it put loot in your ship move to next target when ship is full take off go to your HOME BASE (yes people ya will need a real base not just a big ship) now here's the good news you can make it cheap you can make it survive it dose not have to be 5 layers thick you have shields it dose not have to turn on a dime it needs to be able to land take off and survive getting a few shots put into it


    Now I will be publishing this soon but I will put here the builds I have done 3 of them a tank HV and SV (meant to dock to each other ) and a CV
    this is raid assault team this can be used by 1-12 players now single person could just use a different SV with the CV but 3 people to pilot all 3
    would be good
    The HV Small lots of fire power (4 rockets homing ,6 Gatling guns, and 4 plasma turrets, 2 mini guns in the back)
    The SV mid size 8 passangers 1 pilot(holds 9 1 tank pilot and 7 others + the SV pilot) 4 homing missiles , 4 plasma cannons
    maneuverable, fast, & shields
    The CV is small , moves ok, has top speeds can lift it's self fully loaded and with it's partners as well as a few other ships pinned to it
    5 pulse lasers in front (mostly for show but if needed in a pinch ya can use them), 6 mining Drills in front, 1 multi tool turret, 1 mining turret,
    4 Cannon Turrets (30MM ammo)(for drone, and critter defense)
    it still has room for some upgrades
     

    Attached Files:

    #442
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  3. Doc 447

    Doc 447 Ensign

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    I can't speak for everybody. However to me your system is messed up and out of touch even with your own game

    Lets take the CPU values for an SV - [SV: 6.000 (T1), 12.000 (T2), 24.000 (T3), 48.000 (T4)]
    Way to low and out of sync with actual use. For Instance, at level 7 you can make a shield for an SV. By the way it's CPU value is 16000.
    That means you cannot use it until you hit level 15 and are actually able to either...
    A: Chance upon the materials [No way you can sneak upon ANY POI's as they all have big cannons that can one shot you]
    B: Mine a **** ton of resources and buy the matrix from a trader at the cost of 1,500,000 each . yea you saw that correct 1.5 MILLION gold..

    The whole CPU Tier system seems to be out of wack. My suggestion would be.

    T1 = only the Core
    T2 = The Core + 1x T2 Extender
    T3 = The Core + 1x T2 Extender + 1x T3 Extender
    T4 = The Core + 1x T2 Extender + 1x T3 Extender + 1x T4 Extender

    And I would also LOWER the cost of buying the materials from a trader, as 1.5 Million each is insanely over priced.

    Oh and My suggested CPU Values for a SV [once again just my opinion] (T1) 10,000 (T2) 20,000 (T3) 40,000 (T4) 80,000
    I would also suggest that the CPU value for the Shields be brought in line Instead of 16,000 Make it 1,600 .
    That way you could actually equip and use it at level 7

    I am also having a ton of issues with the CV's Kinda the same thing, CPU Values to low, CPU Usage to High,
    To expensive to Buy all of the materials needed to function.

    I am not even gonna start on the BASE CPU Values! I was building a Space Station and I just have the blocks 1 Core, 1 T1 Generator, 1 Fuel Tank & 1 O2 Tank. I am over the T4 MAX CPU values!

    AAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

    Doc
     
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    Last edited: Nov 4, 2019
  4. banksman45

    banksman45 Rear Admiral

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    So now I've been told that Hummel said the turret values in the CPU system area too cheap and will be going up?? Elon I'm trying to make the best of this but this system is really taking the fun out of building. I'm watching a video from a builder right now who just like me didn't read the part about the efficiency being turned down and now he's extremely happy because he THINKS his ships are going to be usable when 10.6 is release to the public under the CPU system. You guys have to meet us builders half way on this CPU thing. This CPU feature doesn't even meet builders 5% of the way. The numbers on turrets are fine. The numbers on large thrusters and extra large thrusterse are what needs to be adjusted.
     
    #444
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  5. banksman45

    banksman45 Rear Admiral

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    Honestly I think that someone at Elon doesn't want to admit that they listen to a loud MINORITY who runs a certain server and that is why all of this happen. There are servers who do not use any type of limits, why won't they considered before making this change? I think the whole "Jack of all trade" ships idea was over exaggerated and sounds like something a group of PVPers would talk about. I don't see many ships in game that can be classified as "jack of all trades". Now I do understand the idea of making sure CVs aren't turning on a dime like SVs and can't fly as fast as SVs but CPU limits isn't the way to go on that. Creative freedom is what makes this game so attractive. The Class system is still there for performance reasons. This whole thing just seems like a continuation of what we've seen over the last 3 years. First it was keep your big ships off the planet, then it was we need a Class system to limit these big ships in Multiplayer period now it's the CPU limits to stop the "HUGE Jack of all trade" ships. I don 't understand why the devs won't try to optimize this game for bigger ships because they know there are a lot of gamers who enjoy them.
     
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  6. piddlefoot

    piddlefoot Rear Admiral

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    There is completely no point to even trying to build a huge CV with CPU.
    The game has been taken down a road of smaller smaller smaller.
    Its the complete opposite of what voxel building games should be, bigger is always better in that regard.

    A long time ago I saw all the same arguments, literally, for SI, good old Structural Integrity, and although its been good for survival the side effect, that I distinctly remember reading about back then was that creativity would be damaged, ask yourself how many huge glass domes you have seen in this game, in fact how many domes of a huge nature of any type, think super dome, have you seen in this game. None.
    Why is that, well even though you can turn SI off in your SP game, the public in general follow what the devs want so that testing the game, everyones on the same version, its generally accepted and on, pretty much most servers, 99% of em SI is on, so never do you see any of that creativity, and hardly anyone even bothers to try to build such structures knowing it cant be used on servers.

    The excuse ''you can turn it off'' is an utter fabrication because '' you can go play version 6a'' is the same excuse.
    Should the entire playerbase do that, imagine that.....
    If you follow the games history, and how servers have followed that, you know most servers will end up with CPU on, and thus forcing most players to conform to the system, rather than have freedom in creativity to do as they choose in there sandbox.
    So telling people its got an on off switch is just blatantly brushing it under the carpet so to speak, knowing full well that in the end there will really be no choice for all of those layers, short of not playing the game at all.

    CPU is a huge problem this game needs to find a better way than just blatant restrictions for future features, but then we land here with CPU and its a repeat of an old problem it seems nothing was learned from.
    Restricting what we already have, is never, ever, ever ever better than giving players new toys and new building freedoms and a whole new set of ship classes.

    And this guy hits on a few good points also, link below, its like the perspective of a new player, who comes into the game not knowing everything, buys it, jumps in to play it, dont expect people to read 50 pages to learn everything before they play, thats down right rude.

    CPU being the logical mind melting affair that it is, welcome to the party...

    https://steamcommunity.com/app/383120/discussions/0/1643178512755589823/

    How can CPU ever be balanced to allow for large builds ?
    And not de-balance everything else.
    Seems like a one or the other choice to me.

    Everything is being done on the assumption builders will be happy to build smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter, and blander and blander.

    And the excuse that all WS ships will still work is nothing short of a joke.
    The fact is, over 63,000 items on workshop are poorly effected by CPU directly, we are literally talking about 75% of ALL of Empyrions workshop. This excludes bases.
    Thats Sixty Three Thousand.

    I proposed a system that only effected there speed, and with the speed being 200 max now, would have meant they were basically uneffected in most ways, WS would have been placated, the CPU system effects turn rates, speed, roll rates, renders other blocks pointless, has penalties for just using steel blocks, it scrambles everything.

    Are we crazy ?
     
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  7. gamer1000k

    gamer1000k Commander

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    Agreed, this whole system feels like it was conceived exclusively for PVP and then forced on everyone. Like you said, I would expect that PVP is a minority with the vast majority of players doing SP or coop with friends. Far too many "survival" games have gone down this PVP first route and it doesn't end well. You can never please the PVP crowd, they're always looking to exploit the game and will min-max everything to get an edge, and they often tend to be the most toxic part of the community. Plus once they move on, the game will be dead if you've catered to them since SP/PVE won't be viable anymore due to the game being balanced around PVP.

    There's nothing wrong with having PVP in the game, but don't compromise SP/PVE gameplay for PVP. If you're having trouble balancing both, then use separate rule sets for each mode.
     
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  8. StyleBBQ

    StyleBBQ Captain

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    Someone, sry I forget who it was, pointed out the possibility that the CPU Tiers may well be designed as they are to support PvP 'zones'.
    So a Tier3 CPU ship couldn't jump back into a Tier2 or Tier1 zone where newer players are getting geared up.

    Which makes perfect sense to me.

    Yet I would also very much like to see the available CPU points be added in a more granular fashion within the tiers.

    From other games that have some kind of 'zone' system, there's usually only a "can't go down from here" gate.
    So a crazy pilot in a Tier1 ship could jump into a Tier2, 3 or 4 zone if they wanted to. And I'm assuming EGS will allow the same.

    Looked at from that light a question comes to mind;

    Would having steps within each CPU Tier cause significant harm to enforced zones?

    Tier1 is just the Core.

    A max extended Tier2 is double the CPU of the Core. But what if there were multiple incremental steps where the player is extending the available CPU points, until they cap out Tier2. With each expansion adding usable CPU points to the ship.

    I've no idea how the zones are enforced in EGS. Players have to build ships somewhere, and they're not always going to be maxed out ships.

    Point is that players are also restricted by how many resources they have, so I'd imagine that there would be quite a few Tier2 ships flying around in zone-2 with less than ideal weapon load-outs.

    And PvP players might even appreciate the challenge of flying less than fully topped out ships. But that would be their choice to make.

    As simply as I can; there will always be variations between player built ships. And I think I understand the reasons for the CPU Tiers. Yet I can't think of a compelling reason for the enforced, single-step, doubling between CPU Tiers.

    But I can come up with a couple compelling reasons to sub-divide within each CPU Tier:

    Leaving the current Material/Special-Part bits in place, right now finding one Special-Part for a Tier3 CPU Extender gains players nothing. They need to find/buy another. But if it were sub-divided, then they could immediately put that Special-Part to use and expand their available CPU points.

    Sub-dividing would also allow players to be more thrifty. If their ideal ship only needs 10% more CPU than it's current tier, then they just add the first expansion. No need for the other mats/special-parts required to max out that tier.
    ---

    Of course I may missing something very obvious. If I am I would appreciate someone sharing it with me. :)

    Edit: corrected my use of Tier0. No such thing in EGS, Core = Tier1. Sry for any confusion.
     
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  9. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    The thing is, it's not a great system even for PvP (in large part because mass/volume/thrust is nowhere near balanced). There are a number of ways one could conceive of designing the system to support ships built from properly-balanced blocks and devices that would promote fair designs, but this is not one of them. And, it's worth emphasizing that both PvP and PvE need a system that promotes fair designs.

    And because I'm here, I'm going to rant for a moment about PvE vs PvP. In my mind, there's no substantive difference. If the ruleset promotes fair designs, then that's good no matter what mode you're playing in. If the ruleset has to have exceptions carved out for either PvP or PvE, then that should be a clear indication that the ruleset isn't well-designed (probably in part because it makes a hash of basic physics). So, to be clear, I firmly believe that one ruleset can govern both PvP and PvE play (and that this is desirable from a building perspective), but it has to be intentionally well-designed.
     
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  10. StyleBBQ

    StyleBBQ Captain

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    @geostar1024 , since you're here ... :)

    When I've considered it it seemed to me that if there were decent Newtonian physics in place then the only thing 'needed' to segment up PvP would be power generation.

    So a few more sizes of genies, closer in power output than the current ones, and then PvP zones could be set as, "Allow 2ea T2 Generators", etc.

    Mass and size would be the primary constraints; power as it would relate to Thrust, Shields and possibly reworked/added Energy Weapons.

    Would have zero impact on SP/MP. Or am I missing something again? :)
     
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  11. Ian Einman

    Ian Einman Captain

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    But that's what I was trying to explain. The concept of blocks does not exist in Unity. A mesh is composed of a collection of points in 3D space (along with some texture coordinates that determine how the image is stretched to fit the pixels). There's no inherent concept of "voxels" (blocks) that is something they wrote themselves (or licensed - there are assets they could license for the voxel terrain; it seems most likely they implemented the vessel/base engine themselves though).

    Now, the engine they built on top of it to implement blocks may have limitations like that, but they have the source code for it, so they could change it. I am not making any statement about how hard/easy it is, I'm merely saying that the limitation is not coming from Unity.

    Additionally, I doubt that the limitation is some immutable part of their engine either, because they've had HV/SV docking with CV/BA for ages, and those are different block sizes. Moreover, you can dock at any angle, nothing has to align. So I've always been a bit puzzled why you can't dock CV->BA and HV->SV, I thought it was a choice they made rather than some type of technical hurdle.
     
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  12. banksman45

    banksman45 Rear Admiral

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    I agree. In my opinion the idea of trying to stop people from building ANYTHING that can be considered "over powered" doesn't work for games like Empyrion. Games like empyrion are still sandbox games no matter how hard they try to be hardcore pvp survival games. I think if people want a game designed for PVPers then Empyrion isn't the game they're looking for. It has pvp but it's not Battlescape infinity or Star Citizen and I don't think it should try to be.
     
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  13. banksman45

    banksman45 Rear Admiral

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    I always wondered why bigger CVs or bigger SVs with more weapons consuming more fuel wasn't enough of a restriction? That's how it would be in the real world. I am fine with Multiplayer having certain zones that Ships with a certain Class size can't enter but that should be as far as it goes.
     
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  14. banksman45

    banksman45 Rear Admiral

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    Yes assuming that all of us would be happy being smaller and more bland ships isn't a correct assumption and I doubt the devs actually believed that. They can look at the workshop and tell there is no way that idea would go over well.
     
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  15. Ian Einman

    Ian Einman Captain

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    Battles with hundreds of ships, maybe not. But there's probably no reason you couldn't have 20 ships in a fleet. Clearly "more than one" should be possible.

    You could also intersperse it with some pre-built ships, for example drone fighters and bombers you could deploy that just had set models for them, much like the drones that attack your base. Ships like that can be more optimized.

    If they wanted to do fleet combat, they could add it, even if it had some limitations compared to other games.

    At the end of the day, Unity is just an interface to your graphics card. It isn't quite as fast as other engines but it isn't an order of magnitude slower. Maybe 20-30% slower. But so much of that depends on your design.

    Unity's biggest problems are:
    • It scales poorly with larger teams - the IDE and file/project management system are kind of awful - this is the real reason most AAA-class studios wouldn't touch it
    • Most demos show and encourage game design approaches that will scale badly to a large game - if you try to make an open-world RPG by starting from something like "3D Game Kit" you will find yourself in trouble
    • Unity is designed to make game development easy for non-programmers by doing a lot for you, but to do anything "amazing" you need to write code and retake control of things at a lower level
    I understand why some people hit a wall with Unity but most of its limitations can be programmed around. (Or designed around.) None of this is to say Unity is a better engine than Unreal or CryEngine, it is not, but neither is it some bad choice that dooms a game to mediocrity.

    I don't think Eleon is up against Unity limitations, so much as being up against limitations of the engine they designed before having a complete vision of what the game would become.
     
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  16. Kieve

    Kieve Rear Admiral

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    *ding ding ding* Tell 'im what he's won, Johnny.

    Licensed, more likely. The overwhelming majority of their assets are (or were) sourced from the Asset Store, before starting to crank out their own stuff, which would include a voxel builder plugin.
    As for this "concept of blocks doesn't exist" business... yes, they're technically "meshes," but what I was trying to explain is that the Large and Small "blocks" are essentially the same thing, and only the voxel grid's scale differentiates them - gluing a "child" vessel to a "parent" is one thing, but attempting to actually merge them, as a mesh, would present scaling issues, because the grid size / scale that controls one is not the same for the other. And we both know that scaling is absolutely a thing in Unity.

    From experience, I can tell you that not all unity plugins are created equal - some are much easier to tweak and edit than others. They might have the source-code, or it might be a black box that functions well enough for their purpose, but isn't something they can really dig into without seriously re-writing the whole thing. Also, I don't know if you've ever worked with programming code before, but I assure you it can be a real headache to try deciphering and rewriting someone else's code, even if it's well-documented (something I doubt the majority of UAS plugins are).

    Docking is a "parent->child" relationship, something Hummel's explained in the past a few different times. The two objects are "linked" and one will adhere to the other's coordinate shifts and rotations - will move with the Parent - but they are not merged, and remain separate entities. In practical Unity terms, I'm going to hazard a guess that it means linking one Game Object to another, in the same way as a character might pick up a pistol or rifle, which is then "linked" to the hand bone, but the character mesh doesn't merge with the gun, they remain separate objects.
     
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  17. StyleBBQ

    StyleBBQ Captain

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    @Ian Einman , question about Unity that's been bugging me for ages that you might be able answer:

    Does Unity have a built-in basic physics 'engine'? Asking as I don't understand why EGS isn't using basic Newtonian physics for rotation.
     
    #457
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  18. Demonic

    Demonic Captain

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    Okay, I mulled over this a long time and I simply can't decide if I like it or not. And I continue asking the question what does it add to the game? What are it's benefits?

    Specialization?
    Maybe, but from what I read, the numbers doesn't really allow for that right now, even medium-ish CVs have trouble fitting in the CPU constraints. And does it really benefit the game? Sure, it can be fun designing a fleet of single purpouse vehicles (hell, I do it even in 10.5) but truth be told, I can see how it can actually detract from solo player's experience right now.

    Progression?
    Yes, it certainly forces player to progress more, it delays his ability to spawn/build huge ships and that imho is a good thing. Big ships should be earned by more than just "minig a f*ckton of stuff". The question is, how much of the progression it really adds?

    Boost to creativity?
    I actually don't think so, because at least now from what I saw, while it certainly encourages specialization and therefore probably enhances the creativity in that aspect, but if it strongly limits how big can we build, then it detracts from the creativity factor at least as much as it boosts it, so there is net zero. At best.

    Limiting the huge "Jack of all trades" ships?
    With the current numbers, that's exactly what it seems to be doing. Is it a good thing? Yes. No.

    Yes, because right now, "Jack of all trades" is the multiplayer meta. Why build purpouse built ships when you can just build one huge and be best at everything. There shouldn't be one best way how to build ships, there should be several equally good ways how to build ships.

    No, because in singleplayer, a mobile base is must for a lot of players. Not everyone wants to be tied down to one place where he has to come back every so often.

    Then again, "Jack of all trades" ships are usually larger then single purpouse ships, and so server owners can already deincentivise building huge by setting class limits on their servers, thus it seems to me this function is redundant in CPU.

    Eleon... please, let us know the reasons behind this, your vision where this should lead? I understand there might be some more ideas, cogs that will fit into the system making the CPU a logical thing to have, but right now, I fail to see it. It seems redundant in some effects and detrimental in others.

    At least in current implementation it really does seem to detract more from the game than enhance it...
     
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  19. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    It is (applied torque accelerates ship about center of mass). But:
    • rotation and translation are strictly separated
    • it's using a simplified moment of inertia that spreads the ship mass uniformly throughout the bounding box
    • there is a limit on the angular velocity for collision calculation reasons
    • sometimes it feels like there is some kind of angular acceleration limit
    • CVs have an anomalously high angular acceleration
    • torque due to off-axis thrusters seems to be incorrectly computed at present
     
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  20. Ian Einman

    Ian Einman Captain

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    Politics isn't explicitly banned, but it is toxic enough nowadays that I think it should be.

    I think there's enough reasons to argue already with CPU and volume/mass and survival vs. PVP - there's no reason to introduce new topics for conflict.
     
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