Game balance needed.

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by xtended2l, Jan 13, 2021.

  1. xtended2l

    xtended2l Commander

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    I made analysis on balancing issues of the game, after playing both vanilla, Project Eden and Reforged Galaxy. While vanilla is unbalanced like hell, and all issues could not be fit in one post, it is needed to highlight, that Reforged Eden scenario fixed most of the issues and made the game pretty balanced and smooth, in terms of item availability, weapon damage, trader prices, construction times, power usage, recipe ingredients, weight and volume, ammo types and so on. Still, there are issues which are still in the scenario too. So here they are, weird balance for both vanilla and RE scenario:

    1. Oxygen Bottle(250 O2) vs. Oxygen Canister(75 O2). Oxygen Canister is a lot cheaper to produce and if we compare the same amount of O2 - Canister weighs 3 times less and takes 2 times less volume, which makes it ideal for transportation. Canisters are also universal, could be both used for vessel tanks and refill your suit oxygen tank. The issue is that Canister is the item that is available from the start, crafted in big quantities in portable atmospheric condenser along with water(!), and there is absolutely no reason making O2 Bottles, which unlock later. This also makes O2 extractor in RG absolutely worthless. While in PE there is another endgame item to refill your suit, canister is still the only viable option for you bases and ships.
    Suggestion: Oxygen Bottle should weight less or contain two times more oxygen.

    2. All portable devices have inventories with unlimited volume. For an instance "portable constructor", while it cannot be accessed by F4 "Logistics tab", still could be used to store unlimited amount of excess resources, for almost no storage cost. It also uses no energy to craft so many things, and along with unlimited inventories usually used as a free furnace too.
    Suggestion: Portable constructor should have limited amount of space, needed to start your base, like 500-1000. Construction speed should be way slower than small constructor, 4-5 times maybe. It is also advised to make all other portable devices a part of the base, because oxygen condenser, extractors and miners can collect amount of resources, which do not fit into 320K container.

    3. Cargo boxes, containers and container extensions need power and CPU. Weird moment is that we still can access them while vessel/base is turned off, which is illogical. These should not use any power or cpu OR should not be accessible while the power is turned off.
    Suggestion: Make the power togglable, but the constructor and other devices cannot access containers while the power is off.

    4. Collecting big tall rocks gives you like 7000XP. I don't think it is intended, because you can hit lvl.25 in an hour(using HV) just by collecting stone.
    Suggestion: Reduce amount of XP at least 10 times.

    5. Item stacks and the number of slots in inventory and containers are a rudiments. Why? Because we already have weight and volume limits. "The stack" is just a code limitation and is illogical when we have realistic limits as weight and volume.
    Suggestion: Increase item stack numbers drastically for everything, it is just the same int32 and will not affect the performance too much. Slot numbers should be extended too. If you want to avoid performance hit, just implement pages, like first screen - second, etc.

    I am building a huge ship currently, and pitifully did not started logging this weird stuff from the start, but I remember there were a lot, so if something new will show up I will gladly share. Also, I decided to post in common suggestions, not RE, because these mentions are related to both vanilla and RE. Also, I think Scenario developers are around anyway. So, please give it a try ;) Thanks!
     
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  2. Vermillion

    Vermillion Rear Admiral

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    The main problem here is that the Atmospheric Condenser, Oxygen Generator, Hydrogen Generator and all Autominers have broken power inputs and outputs that don't accept any changes. They will always output the same amount of an item regardless of "source quality" in the same amount of time per fuel value. Increasing fuel consumption has no effect on their function so the production rate of items in the Oxygen and Hydrogen generators will only ever be a convenience thing until it's fixed.
     
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  3. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    Can you give an example with numbers please? Increasing fuel consumption increases the time they operate so they should produce more. Quality is no big deal if it is the same across the board.
     
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  4. Vermillion

    Vermillion Rear Admiral

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    Increasing fuel consumption should decrease the time they operate. However, changing the value does nothing for any of the terrain-placeable devices. The numbers on the device changes, but the speed items are produced and time a fuel cell lasts in the device will always be the same.
     
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  5. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    I asked for an example with numbers and you did not provide. Nevertheless, you are wrong....Do the math and you will see. Vanilla values.Also there is a bug with how time is calculated. Specially during sleep when the game time is set to 1 with real time.
     
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  6. Vermillion

    Vermillion Rear Admiral

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    Very well, although this serves no purpose I will relay tests and math here in a family-friendly environment.

    An Oxygen Generator with an EnergyIn value of 15 should deplete a 30PU/h power cell in 60 minutes, and produce 30 items at 2 minute intervals.
    An Oxygen Generator with an EnergyIn value of 150 should deplete a 30 PU/h power cell in 6 minute and produce 3 items at 2 minute intervals.
    There is no setting on any device for production speed (The rate at which an item is produced) it is fixed and unrelated to the rate of power consumption by the device.
    Yet, if you set the energyIn to 3, 30, 300, 3000 or even 3000000 an energy cell will always last 24 minutes in an Oxygen Generator. It will ALWAYS produce an item every 2 minutes no matter how fast or slow it's set to consume energy.

    This can be done with the regular O2/Water Generator. Except the production rate will always be every 75 seconds and a fuel cell lasts for 45 minutes.
    22 Nemerson_2021-01-14_01-53-15.png 22 Nemerson_2021-01-14_01-53-26.png
    22 Nemerson_2021-01-14_01-53-50.png 22 Nemerson_2021-01-14_01-54-01.png
    Now, since you're under the impression that increasing the power input makes a fuel cell last longer let's apply some math.
    If an engine consumes 1 liter of diesel an hour at 500RPM and you feed it 1 liter of Diesel. It will deplete that diesel in 1 hour. (obviously)
    If you then increase the fuel it consumes to 100 liters of diesel an hour still at 500RPM and you feed it 1 liter of diesel. Will it still take an hour to deplete that fuel? No, because it's consuming 100x more fuel an hour, so it will only run for 36 seconds.

    Time settings have no effect on these devices. Since these device run on real life-time and sleeping in-game applies an unknown variable. But for thoroughness, these tests were carried out a second time with the O2/Water Generator AKA Atmospheric Condenser at 1x time at default EnergyIn and 10x power consumption with no difference between the two, despite completely different energy consumption settings.
     
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    Last edited: Jan 13, 2021
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  7. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    There are two times in the game. Actually there are in every game, at least two. Game time and real time. In Empyrion you can match them by means of dm and the speed slider. I suppose you refer to the game time which is 6x real time be default. Correct me if I am wrong please.

    Where did this come from? I do not know. Again please show me the exact words of mine pointing exactly that conclusion. I am talking about consumption. You talk about input (rate).


    This is where I think you got it all wrong. Even though your example stands as is, it has nothing to do with what I said. Now I think I know your misunderstanding. You are talking about two things (factors) fuel consumption values per device and time. I am talking only about time. Bellow is my way of thinking. I hope you understand


    1. Since the player can not alter the input values about power consumption with a usable result, aka there is a bug as you noted, player has the means to change the second value which is time.

    2. By means of debug mode, slider of time speed alteration and the availability of sleep mechanic, the player can speed up output production. The caveats here are two. First there must be a benefit on consumption of whatever fuel input is used, meaning the device must consume less fuel than it produces. Either it is water or or oxygen. Remember water can be converted to oxygen and this step needs fuel to be done. Also water needs to be converted to hydrogen bottles which it turn are converted to Fusion cells. Again more fuel is needed. The second caveat is that the time mechanic either does not work properly, it is buggy, or it is not intended to work properly. Bellow I explain what i mean by that.

    3. After having set the speed of game time to equal the real time , the player should benefit by the use of sleep mechanic by speeding up total production. Remember fuel is still being consumed at whatever rate is set. The goal is to save real life time on SP game waiting for something trivial to complete. Everything needs power to work so the player can go on playing. Waiting for anything to be produced is a waste of time. I know there is a setting that can set construction speed to instant production, but let's agree that this is called "cheating" by some, because it kills immersion. The problem i have objection is that as it is now the time does not work as it is logically supposed to. Set a water generator install fuel and see what i mean. Lets say the water generator has remaining operation time of 10 hours. Now go with a vessel on the part of the planet that is early night and try to sleep for lets say 10 hours exactly matching the remaining time of the water generator. Remember before doing this, to set game time matching real time so (according to definition by the developers) set the speed slider to 1. After you sleep visit the water generator. It is supposed to have consume its fuel, right? Wrong. It always has remaining time to operate if the sleep time is equal or less than the loaded fuel time.

    Also time has no effect to the hunger of the player. It is supposed to affect hunger as time passes faster during sleep. Same goes for the infections, radiation etc that may be applied to the player before sleep. They are never accelerated. This might be on purpose. I don not know Only developers do. Also Time is not applied properly between two planets. Set the water generator to planet A and go some jumps away to sleep in planet B. Return to planet A and check the remaining time of the operation of the water generator. It is like time did not pass during player sleep on another planet. This has no logic at all. Brakes immersion. Remember, we are introduced with teleportation devices now.

    To sum up :
    A.
    Can be increased by use of sleep mechanic. I refer to real life time consumed to produce the. What you refer is in-game time. Misunderstanding.
    B. The sleep mechanic does not work as it is supposed to either due to a bug or by design. Nevertheless immersion is broken. In real life I put the chicken in the oven and set a program on it to cook for 1h, before I go to sleep for exactly 1h setting my alarm to wake me up in 1h. When I wake up and go to the oven it is turned off, the clock on the oven shows remaining time of 00:00 and my chicken is ready roasted. The same does not apply to the generators. Hence there is one more imbalance the OP did not mention at all.


    Thank you for your patience to read my lengthy post and to understand what I mean.
     
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  8. xtended2l

    xtended2l Commander

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    As I understand the concept of the time in Empyrion (and in many other games), the time here is not equal to real time. We have ingame ticks which are equal to the reallife "time flow", but as soon as you shutdown the server - the time stops. And the amount of time passed while you was offline is never calculated or fast forwarded when you start the game next time. But it does not apply to the dedicated server which is always online, I have never seen such things on my a dedicated server, and generators along with autominers are working as intended there for me.

    Tbh, the suggestion around oxygen was to decrease the weight/volume of oxygen bottle or increase the amount of O2 in them. I understand that extraction rate cannot be changed and it seems it is hardcoded (pitifully). But faster production of underpowered item does not make it not underpowered :)
     
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  9. Pembroke

    Pembroke Commander

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    Uhm... couldn't you simply just make the canister more cumbersome to carry? Increase its weight and volume. I mean, the *purpose* of the canister is to be an in-the-field item for immediate consumption by the player *character*. You are not supposed to be carrying an insane amount of them on your perseon, nor are you supposed to be crafting and storing them by the hundreds and/or using them as your primary device for your base/ship O2 needs...

    If the canister would just take up more storage space then you'd have an obvious incentive to use the O2 bottle instead as the primary vessel to store O2 and to fill up your ship/base tanks. Plus, it wouldn't screw up any other balancing that is already there, whether intentional or not.
     
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