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. GTVADeimos

    GTVADeimos Lieutenant

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    1. Perhaps if the placeholder of 7500/size 5 worked well enough if people bothered to design to it and it was not too restrictive why reinvent the wheel?
    2.Pretty hard to have any restriction designing bases when they needed no RCS or Thrusters.
    3. The issue is there is no hard cap or sensible implementation of what was the placeholder rather than this dogs breakfast of a concept.
    4. A brick can fly if you put enough lift on it but its still a brick. Its neither an intelligent solution, optimised, aerodynamic or fun to use but it flies.
     
    #421
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  2. Well....right now they might. We don't know how severe the penalties will get though down the road.

    Eventually 500% over the limit might equate to thrusters only having 5% of their original thrust, thus probably making them unable to leave the ground. We don't know yet.

    By the way I really dislike that we aren't using the full penalties right now. I want to see how things are really going to be. It's hard to give a true opinion when i still don't know the whole picture.
    The final penalty values are going to have a huge impact with volume and mass turned on, so we really need them now for proper testing.
     
    #422
  3. banksman45

    banksman45 Rear Admiral

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    After playing with the CPU system for three days... Here what I believe has to change.
    CPU Values for Large thrusters and XL Thrusters need to be REDUCED !!!! XL larger thrusters CPU points need to be reduce by at least 50% and Large thrusters need to be reduced by at least 30% .
    With this current CPU system the only ships that can benefit from larger thrusters and XL large thrusters are ones that do not need them and can easily get pretty good performance from Medium size thrusters. Most CV builds right now may only be able to use one XL thruster if they have enough CPU points left, which a good number of CVs won't have enough CPU points left for any. I believe changes to these values need to be made so that every CV should at least have enough CPU points to have 4 XL thrusters on them. Right now 4 XL thrusters alone with a core block, NO RCS, no hull is already a tier 4 ship which is insane. I don't see how that brings balance or forces specialization.
    Also there is no reason for hull blocks to use CPU. They are not devices. I feel like I understand the reasoning behind it but with the current W/V system you're punishing players who use certain hull blocks in their build two times by two different systems instead of one. I get that players have shields now and should be able to build more ships using regular steel blocks but those shields aren't very helpful at this point. They're gone in a matter of seconds if you're using a CV.
     
    #423
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2019
  4. Frigidman

    Frigidman Rear Admiral

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    Exactly.

    Kind of like the pistons and rotors in use on the retractable turrets and extending ramps. Integrated into a block that has motion and purpose.

    Not, connect a block to the end of a piston and then it will push that block to a new location on the structure. Same with rotors, making custom turning hunks of blocks on a structure. Just not going to happen, they don't want to deal with the fallout those two things bring (given how much pain and suffering they gave the SE devs).
     
    #424
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  5. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    My "Base"....
    lvl 26, you know?;)
    Two Year EGS_2019-11-02_23-55-43.png

    Oh. and my just (almost) finished CV..currently Size 11...and rising.;)
    Two Year EGS_2019-11-03_14-15-05.png Two Year EGS_2019-11-03_14-17-19.png Two Year EGS_2019-11-03_14-15-48.png
     
    #425
  6. banksman45

    banksman45 Rear Admiral

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    hmmmmmm well that does sound pretty cool thanks for clearing that up.
     
    #426
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  7. sillyrobot

    sillyrobot Captain

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    Technically not true. The cap is soft, but if your thrust efficiency drops too far, you won't fly.
     
    #427
  8. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    If true or not...I tried it with one of my CV's(26.000.000 CPU) it still moved.
    Back to SP:)...all this "theoretical" Squabbling here gets on my nerves.:rolleyes:
     
    #428
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  9. I mean it's not theoretical. We were told directly that the penalties are toned way down for experimental and will be increased for public release, and then either increased further in future patches or lessened.
    We were also told that right now only certain systems are affected by the penalty percentage and more systems will be affected later.
     
    #429
  10. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    Must be the reason why I keep all my builds below the current CPU Limit.:).
    But thanks for reminding me;).
     
    #430
  11. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    #431
  12. piddlefoot

    piddlefoot Rear Admiral

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    124 votes, and 435 posts ! LOL !
    Make that 436 !

    SV - HV docking - awesome, speed increase - awesome, CPU restrictive and creativity limiting.- not so awesome...

    Another building limitation, over building freedom, a confused mess, likely to stay a confused mess with the numbers forever changing, what a joy to look forward to for all the builders.

    A flight control system that uses penalties on the current flight control system, which is the same for CV and SV hence why CVs turn on a dime, over actual proper flight control system, giving the game a truly diverse set of flying ships, proper ship classes and far more moddability.

    You dont get any new flight controls at all with this system, you only get restricted on the same flight control system you already had, would have been great if everyone realized and properly understood how this game was built from day one in that regard, flight controls are directly and hard coded to your starter blocks.
    The only way you ever get true new flight controls in Empyrion is with new starter blocks with new attributes.
    A truly huge missed opportunity.

    Never will we see, proper atmospheric flight controls, ever with CPU.
    Never will we see any true distinction between the flight control system of CVs and SVs, ever.

    Sorry but I can not back a system that is so inferior to doing it the way it was done from day one in this game that worked perfectly for, the entire life of this game so far.....

    16,000 hours in this game, and I never thought the building side would get so restrictive.
    And if you try to comply with CPU, it is restrictive.
    I wonder what my hours will be in a year from now.
    I average I guess 2500 hours a year.
    I honestly cant see me playing all the time with the new CPU system, building should be less restrictive in a voxel building game where half of the game is literally building.

    Turning it on or off is no fix for the fact anything you build wont be used in servers, whats the point of building for workshop at all, its not a hotrod car show, its a place we get ships to use in game, seriously loosing track of what Empyrion, Em - p - rye - on, , , really is anymore.

    But ok, CPU it is, like I said, oh joy......
     
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    Last edited: Nov 3, 2019
  13. GTVADeimos

    GTVADeimos Lieutenant

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    [​IMG]

    3 Ships designed to comply with 10.0 7500 CPU or below and Size 1.

    Middle ship well under 7500 built as a starter without more than 1 constructor, armour locker etc so definitely not flash and with enough lift to make it useable on 3G planets with some cargo carrying ability, t1 shield and the pathetic projectile turrets only. 10.6 with all RCS removed, some engines removed and other deletions it barely scrapes under 400k CPU.

    Left ship a more advanced starter with same shielding and guns but more cargo capacity and 4 constructors, 2 small 2 advanced but pretty basic otherwise with 5G lift was under 7500. 10.6 removing the RCS scrapes it under 800k CPU with even more deletions, engine removal etc taking it down to 650k. Again definitely no mobile palace, death dealer, huge cargo ship or vehicle transporter.

    The last ship I class as a Light Patrol Vessel with 30-40 m/s acceleration, t2 shield, 2+ layers of hardened steel hull, no greenhouse, no bling, 1 of each basic item (constructor, armour locker etc) all 3x3 turrets to vanilla max, no artillery, equipped with direct fire rocket launchers but no pulse lasers. 1 Drill Turret but limited cargo space. No monster in size and already having to forgo some firepower and a lot of cargo space to fit under 7500 CPU. 10.6 without RCS and some minor modification its just under 800k CPU.

    So pre 10.6 if you built to 7500 CPU you already had to make sacrifices and specialise somewhat even in size 1 ships with larger ones needing more compromise or the use of horrendously inefficient thrusters. After a point even cutting the number of thrusters by using larger ones was not enough to get you under 7500 and you had to specialise even further.

    If performance was the objective and smaller more specialised designs was the desired outcome all that had to be done was set the 7500 as live, end of issue. Perhaps a T2 CPU could have been added to allow another 5k CPU but the T2 CPU could perhaps have the penalty of not being useable in atmosphere keeping larger CVs as orbit only.

    Now we have a dogs breakfast where even a pretty bare-bones ship barely scrapes below the T2 limit and larger combat vessels cant get below 1.6M CPU. There is a point to implementing a CPU limit that at its bottom end is going to end up with you having little more than a moped with a pizza box on the back? Or you can have a ship that ignores the limits with when full penalties apply 50% reduction in efficiency making a ship that large pointless?

    An exercise in futility.
     
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    Last edited: Nov 3, 2019
  14. gamer1000k

    gamer1000k Commander

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    The more I've been reading this thread, the more I think that a weights/volumes/energy/thrust/armor/damage rebalance would solve what the devs are trying to accomplish with CPU in a much more logical and sensible way.

    Balancing these things doesn't have to be overly hard or time consuming either. Set up a formula inspired by RL so it "feels" right and just calculate the values and do a bit of tweaking as necessary to make things fun. The devs will have to do a boatload of tweaking with this CPU system anyways (and there's no RL formulas to take inspiration from so in many ways it's even more work to make things not feel annoyingly arbitrary and punishing), so I would rather see them put that effort towards tweaking these other values instead.

    In terms of specialization, that will emerge from properly balanced components. For example:

    Vessels will ultimately be limited by volume/surface area. Volume limits how much room there is for cargo/armor/generators, surface area limits how much room there is for weapons and thrusters (at least provided we get proper rules against internal thrusters). A min-max DPS combat vessel will be completely guns and thrusters on the outside with just enough internal volume for generators and ammo storage. If you want a tanky combat vessel, now you're wanting to minimize surface area to limit how much armor you need to protect everything, and have enough thrusters (and generators) to handle all the extra mass from the armor. A min-max cargo hauler will be volume limited, with as much volume as possible devoted to cargo storage with just enough thrusters and generators to power them to make the thing move. If you want to land on a planet, then you'll need to devote a lot more volume to thrusters and generators.

    You can mix and match to build a jack of all trades ship, but it will always be worse than a specialized ship of the same physical size at combat/hauling/maneuverability.

    To help encourage specialization, here's a couple of thoughts I had. For combat specialization, add more high-tier LARGE weapon systems that necessitate building a ship around the weapon. Part of the problem we have now is that the best weapons in the game don't really take up that much space/energy, so it's easy to just slap them on everything. Add some huge spinal mount railguns/lasers/etc that are powerful enough to make players want to build a ship around them. Rebalance armor and shields (and let us stack shield generators so shield aren't just an all or nothing system) so that small weapons can't really damage heavy armor. You can build CV decked out with boatloads of small turrets and it will be able to slaughter SVs, but won't really be able to do much against an armored CV. Likewise a ship with a large spinal mount weapon will need to make the tradeoff between maneuverability to dodge SV torpedoes, or become much larger and less maneuverable to be able to field the turrets in addition to the spinal weapons. Same goes for SV/HV's add torpedoes or other heavy anti-CV/BA weapons that necessitate building the SV/HV around the weapon system.

    For cargo, add some end-game resources for the top tier stuff that needs a LOT of ore to justify a CV with massive cargo capacity. Make the refining facility for this ore so large and heavy that it's pretty much restricted to a base (or a giant mobile refinery CV). Add some improved auto mining to make acquiring that much ore reasonable in SP without excessive grinding. Especially with fuel, maybe make some systems to set up a fuel refining operation to run the larger capital vessels and create a niche for a fuel tanker CV to bring raw fuel to a refinery, and then refined fuel to a fueling depot. Again, make sure there's sufficient automation so once it's set up you're not manually having to mine new resources all the time (especially for SP).

    To prevent a rush to giant ships (which I think may have been the original motivation for the CPU system) instead limit the buildable volume around a core much more than it is now to encourage more efficient ship design. Allow cores to be upgraded to increase this, or repurpose extenders to extend the buildable volume.

    Better yet, add some in-game systems that more naturally limit vehicle sizes without needing so many arbitrary restrictions. In RL this is the ultimate constraint to vehicles (cars still need to fit on roads, ships on piers/through canals, aircraft on runways). In EGS, these could be things like jump gates, or max warp bubble size for warp drives to put an upper practical limit on CVs. SVs and HVs could be limited by the largest hangar door available, and if there's more friendly POIs to land at they could have size limits on the pad. Maybe make it so that for mobile vehicles (HV/SV/CV), you need to have a sufficiently large base to construct them, with limits to how much they can be modified outside of drydock. IRL this is also what generally limits the maximum size of vehicles.

    TL;DR there's nothing wrong with encouraging specialization and limiting vehicle sizes, but it needs to be done in a logical, sensible way that "feels" right without a bunch of arbitrary restrictions that limit creativity and punishes SP gameplay.
     
    #434
  15. Tyrax Lightning

    Tyrax Lightning Rear Admiral

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    This sounds Bug Report worthy! :eek:

    As for the rest of it... that's quite an interesting Read... many thanks for Sharing! :)
     
    #435
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  16. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    My brain can not accept that we are told that CPU has nothing to do with pc performance while at the same time we are told that huge ships are not wanted on servers for pc performance reasons.

    I see how the "specialization" criterion is forced into our heads to justify CPU limits, but that is the story that is not holding itself together now that we test some builds. The only "constants" that come out of designs is either "small" or "slow"... and "complicated".

    This doesn't point towards "specialization" : it points towards "pc performance".

    Sure I read the walls of text regarding optimisation, but I don't think it is realistic to expect that to happen to that extent. But first we have to be told a story that holds itself together, or at least get more serious cues as to why "specialization" is so important that it makes the "pc performance" explanation the one that is unable to hold itself together.
     
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    Last edited: Nov 3, 2019
  17. Arkudo

    Arkudo Ensign

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    I had to change my vote, after almost 50 hours "testing things" in 10.6 I realized that nowhere are explained how they work or apply penalties for exceeding the tier.

    EDIT:

    From the empy discord:

    Taelyn™Today at 11:11 PM
    Thrusters power, torque, constructor crafting times, turret rotation, power out put
    If your efficiency is 98% then your thrusters output is 98%. Same for the rest.

    EDIT2:

    As of the last edition of the post, the experimental build is broken, referring to the cpu system. Nothing gets penalty.
    In short, it is impossible to understand the system itself by playing it.

    EDIT3:

    From discord some minutes ago:

     
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    Last edited: Nov 5, 2019
  18. GTVADeimos

    GTVADeimos Lieutenant

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    Downloaded J Randalls MX15 for the sake of interest and its now sitting at 185k CPU so likely will end up with a 50% efficiency penalty on everything. The Rapid Phantom is now 235k CPU and my modded, shielded and otherwise reworked Tanto Blade 252k. Only way to really get away with excellent designs like those examples is to just forget about CPU entirely and turn it off making the whole point of implementing it worthless.
     
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  19. Tyrax Lightning

    Tyrax Lightning Rear Admiral

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    *Wonders if some clown out there will start a CV & make it into a ginormous 200x200x200 Block Size Flying Truss Block in shape...?* :p
     
    #439
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  20. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    At the actual block cost, one could build a 25 x 25 x 25 plain steel cube ( 15 625 x 12 = 187 500 CPU) and add the very basic small gen + cockpit + fuel tank + 1 thruster and call it a T4 specialized steel cube ramming meteor...
     
    #440

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