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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0001204AI War 1 / ClassicSuggestion - Game MechanicsNov 9, 2010 9:23 am
Reporterthemachineissentient Assigned Tokeith.lamothe  
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version4.030 
Summary0001204: mechanics to speed up the quest timings to avoid the waiting game
DescriptionPlayed a multiplayer game on 4.030 last night. Everything went smoothly. The new timings on the survey ship are certainly interesting. What happened though is that all the players seem to be in a holding pattern waiting for the ship. The same thing happened with the research station. I tried building multiple survey ships to speed things up to no avail. I wonder if there could be a mechanic to speed this up a little bit if players want to go for the quest first. In some ways, it feels like you should, as there is a timer.

The initial reward (I don't want to spoil it) is right up my alley. As I always say, the more the merrier when it comes to that. Other than that, gameplay is smooth, everything looks good.
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Toll

Nov 9, 2010 9:07 am

reporter   ~0003055

I'm on two minds regarding this, really... For the final release, I don't think speeding things up would be necessary; you'll have all the time in the world then.

However, when it comes to pre-release betas, we only have three hours; at minimum the current arc take a bit over 1.5 hours, and that's not counting construction time, time to take over the planets you need, time to move everything from one planet to the next, etc. A bit of pre-release speedup might be a good idea soon, so we don't run out of time :)

orzelek

Nov 9, 2010 9:20 am

reporter   ~0003061

I think we talked about this with keith on irc. That 45 minutes timer (I think it was 45) can be to long. it means that you need to wait that long only defending - I can understand that this maybe the price for discovery. But I can see that many people will simply resign from this due to that amount of waiting required.

Toll

Nov 9, 2010 9:22 am

reporter   ~0003062

Personally, I take the 45 minutes to build up my forces and take a few planets. Just like I would in a normal game.

keith.lamothe

Nov 9, 2010 9:23 am

administrator   ~0003063

I've already got a cheat implemented in my working copy for switching it back and forth between the real timings and the testing timings (which are much shorter, like what was accidentally in 4.029).

For final release I'll want to work out a decent timing that works for everyone. The reason the "find the signal" survey operations take 30-45 minutes is to give you a chance (and reminder) to go capture a planet or two, build up a fleet, etc. If you don't do anything other than follow the story events you're probably going to wind up with insufficient territory/resources/knowledge/etc at some point and get smashed. But we'll work on that balance too, and figure out what's fun.

Glad to hear everything looks good other than that :)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Nov 9, 2010 8:57 am themachineissentient New Issue
Nov 9, 2010 9:07 am Toll Note Added: 0003055
Nov 9, 2010 9:20 am orzelek Note Added: 0003061
Nov 9, 2010 9:22 am Toll Note Added: 0003062
Nov 9, 2010 9:23 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0003063
Nov 9, 2010 9:23 am keith.lamothe Status new => resolved
Nov 9, 2010 9:23 am keith.lamothe Resolution open => fixed
Nov 9, 2010 9:23 am keith.lamothe Assigned To => keith.lamothe