you wernt really ment to trade at all because he wants to be gone with groups of people forming trading blocks. Yes big players will always be big and have the advantage because they are big, but that also puts a target on them. I think jay is trying to get us to become allies to fight other people not to trade tech and win that way like in regular NP because 3 small players who trade together and never fight will always beat a huge player
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This seems to be the general rule. Once an empire reaches a certain level of momentum they become âexponentiallyâ stronger and virtually unstoppable without a serious concerted effort to form an alliance against them - but if timed right that is often not even going to stop them - other empires are too weakened/demoralised or âpetty squabblesâ between smaller empires are too entrenched/emotional by then to make peace and work together (Iâve seen it several times in my relatively short time playing, players would rather be wiped out personally as long as their bane doesnât actually win).
The only way I can see to reduce this is to add in some kind of maintenance costs as discussed previously/elsewhere. Possibly even increasing the costs as you grow (as a multiple/factor of Industry/Manufacturing maybe?).
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We are talking about two different things, I think: game mechanics and player behavior.
To dispense with the former, all I have been saying is that espionage started as an idea to make it worthwhile to keep investing in scanning throughout the game. I think it needs to be dialed back, not eliminated.
As to the latter, both @Zoquete and @SteveLawUK are correct, NP games almost always end with 2 or 3 players running away with the game. The earlier that happens, the greater the incentive for smaller players to go AFK. This game, despite all the great tweaks to mechanics, is ending the same way. In this case, the top three players arenât necessarily in a trading block or an unbreakable alliance. But the number 2 and 3 players apparently donât have a desire to finish number 1. When that happens, smaller players are just cannon fodder, which is not much fun. No matter how many tweaks are made to the game mechanics.
Agree in that being one of the small player in an advance stage in the game is not much fun because the hopeless sensation of not having a chance of win anymore. And if you have not chance to win itâs like no so much motivation to keep playing. What @SteveLawUK says about maintenance costs could level that part of the game.
But do you think is there a chance of avoid that completely? You know, you ally with someone to survive, then to keep expansion, then you and your ally/allies are so involved that is hard to break the alliance. The rest is just a crazy race of taking as many stars as possible before the allies. It happened in Proteus 2 also, and Proteus 1 (although there it was worse because gap was too big between strong and weak). And it happen in many games.
I cannot just imagine a game where that doesnât happen (considering games with limited resources). Maybe itâs because I donât know so many games or just my mind avoid thinking so much about it now.
Btw, here I copy the sequel of the HMS Thunder carrier story for the people who couldnât see it: you can see how it destroyed the star and green fragments were throw in all directions.
I am more likely than most to make a run for first, even if it means breaking a long time alliance to do that. If I am in a runaway alliance, I would do it in a heart beat.
But in my experience the great majority of players are not wired that way, and donât find it fun to shank a long term ally. So most games end like this. I just happen to think that is more fun for all to shank in this situation, even if the player in first place doesnât take it well.
So the only thing to do is to make changes to improve the odds that the outcome of the end game be in suspense as long as possible. The biggest single change I would make is to use wormholes to connect edges, in order to improve the odds that more middle players survive longer.
This is getting off topic really but I disagree with this (as you know 
). It may be more fun for some players, potentially even most, but certainly not all. For example, your own sentence contradicts itself: If the player in first place doesnât take it well, then itâs fair to say that they most likely arenât having fun (or rather theyâd have more fun if they hadnât been betrayed by an ally), therefore it isnât more fun for everyone.
Furthermore, if we accept your assessment (and you have more experience than me in this) that the majority of players wonât do this then doesnât that also suggest that they donât do it because it is more fun not to âshankâ an ally? So not even more fun for the majority.
Also there are different levels of neighbours, friends and allies. Some you might be more likely to turn on than others.
Would removing points for second and third place increase end game betrayal? Or would it just increase quits?
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Yup, you got me there, if the leader doesnât have the emotional maturity to handle a shank with grace, then he/she can make life miserable for all. Say, by a rage quit, where everyone is left with a massive AI to deal with. (Yes Iâve made that happen).
But a shanked leader can learn to love the new situation, as he solicits new allies, whose prospects have suddenly been improved dramatically compared to a long game of grinding attrition with no hope.
But I have already conceded the point, human nature being it what it is, that âDiplomacy in Spaceâ is just a little rough on the average player. Being a loyal mate is more natural for many. So I hope Jay finds the time to dust off his file for improved team mechanics.
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Would you like to be my ally?
I can give you a home for your hyper-mega-menacing fleet. In fact, would be the star to where they are directed >_>
There is chaos all around and being the leader brings lonely. Lonely and chaos is sad. Be my friend.
Is not surprising that thing about loyalty? How hard is for most of us to betray!! It gives me some hope on the humankind⌠the only problem may be that most of the time those who betrays are who get the power.
As itâs enjoyable to find a tough and cunning opponent, it is also when you get to know to a person who finds so difficult to betray you. (Although until end of game you never knows if the ally is being loyal or just preparing the final takeover in the darkness, itâs good while the dream stands)
Maybe, the only way to promote true competition is by playing in random teams.
For example 8 players game as 2 v 2 v 2 v 2. The teams are randomly assigned when game start and the victory conditions are for teams â1st team to reach 50% starsâ and so.
Itâs more easy ensure an all vs all thing because itâs unlikely 2 persons agree to ally unconditionally with other 2 persons.
Or just making games with two sides: 4 v 4, or 8 v 8, or all vs AI, or things like that.
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Thanks for all the great feedback in this thread guys. Iâll try and work my way through it and add my thoughts and comments.
Espionage:
Iâm a little undecided about it.
I didnât want to just make it superior tech only because I didnât want it to be only for players that are behind. I think smaller players already have enough advantages and I didnt want to punish players for being ahead on tech.
From a fiction point of view, I assumed aliens do things differently to each other, and simply observing thier science facilities would advance your own technology. You might use missile weapons, and they use laser weapons, but thier advances in lasers (although inferior to your missiles) let you add laser guidance which moves you closer to better missiles.
I did seem to level things out a lot, but Iâm not sure if thats becuase this was a very close game or because everybody was just getting heaps of tech everywhere. There were some large variations in start counts but not super large variations in tech levels. It may also be becuase tech prices increase so much more with each level now.
I like that you can âdo espionageâ by trying to get better coverage of the galaxy. Swapping stars with other players for example. I want to keep that for sure.
I think there are a few fairly simple things I can do - not sure which.
- pay half as much each hour. say 1 point for every 2 science.
- only pay randomly 50% of the time?
- perhaps the tech you are actually researching should get a hit more often. (or a share of the points)
I think I would like to play again with it as it is now before reducing its effects.
Its nice to get a surprise boost in a tech, but we also want players identifying thier weaknesses and focusing thier reseach on it. If espionage just means you dont fall behind in any tech we lose that notion.
Perhaps its intresting for players to decide to stop spending on science of thier own and rely on science of thier neighbours.
I think the number of points you receive should be based on your Experimentation tech. Scanning will get them in range, but Exp will turn them into reseach points. What this means is that, you need both good Exp and Scanning to do Espionage well, not just Scanning.
Wormholes
I have changed it so that every wormhole star is 5 resources so they are all the same worthless rocks. (there were issues with making them 0)
I agree that âshouldâ be on the edges, but Iâm not sure what the function looks like that tries to identify what an edge is. What is an edge on a loop, or some weird custom galaxy.
Iâm fairly serious about doing an galaxy editor with a nice interface for proteus so I hope players will have fun building fun, interesting balanced maps connected by wormholes.
Now that I think about it, I think the wormholes that ended in the center of the map were kind of intresting becuase there was a lot going on in the middle, a lot of stars changing hands, the players around the edges added an extra element of risk.
At the same time, those players around the edges were exposed to what was going on in the middle, the could not just ignore what was going on.
Another interesting thing was that a lot of different players own those center wormholes at different times. If they were only around the edges thier ownership would have been fairly stable.
Tech Trade Restrictions
Made the game very different and kind of feels like a weird arbitrary rule, but so far Iâm liking it and want to play more.
Fleet Price Increases
This was kind of a pain at the start of the game but I didnât really think too much about it after then. Might roll it back unless people tell me they really liked the change.
New Warp Gates
Liked them. Might rename them warp beacons as somebody suggested ages ago so they kind of sound more different to wormholes. (and different to Triton)
re shanking the leader.
The risk that it might happen is very important to keep the game exciting and suspenseful for the player in first place.
@wfmcgillicuddy is right, the game should be played this way.
Stardav and Evets have enough ships that they could take the game from Zoq. Zoq should be a little nervous.
Remember, there is no such thing as second place in NP, only the first loser.
re release
I hope in a few months. I think I could make a test game for you if you need it before then.
This would be cool if only you and your team mate knew you were in a team together.
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I was a little nervous already, and people inciting betrayal just increases that nervousness while the star counter is getting near the wining threshold.
My reasoning is that, if Evets and Saradav join against me, their situation will not change. What should follow? Me and one of them against the other who took the most advantage? And then, a different mix of two vs 1 and so until someone shuts down the server.
Also may happen one of them attacks me and the other jumps to help me. Or just the other sit down and look how their mates fight and then walk victorious over their ruins.
If your idea is to keep the suspense till the end, I must say you did it. I never, during this game, felt safe. Neither do now!
I forgot to comment on losing science as well as economy when you capture a star.
I did get the impression that the most aggressive players in the game payed a heavy price, and were never really able to reap the rewards properly.
I think an increase in cash, and perhaps a reseach bonus is needed to make it a big win to smash up a big star, even if you canât hold it.
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I would gladly bend a knee to you, if Evets and Sara attacked you. Or to Sara, if she made me a better offer. I would much rather fight on, than to die in futility.
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I think this point is important mostly for,random hex maps, not for circular. I would imagine that a custom map might have manually determined worm holes. I have no idea if this is helpful to you. I learned a long time ago that when it comes to a nontechnical user like me, âeasy to doâ is easy to say.
I donât know if this goes well with your data structures, but a naive approach with an approximate result would be:
- Get the galaxy center:
a. centerX = mean(stars.x)
b. centerY = mean(stars.y) - For each galaxy star get the distance to the center
- Sort the distances array
- Get the 10 stars with the biggest values, they are the most distant to the center
Else it could be used something like this people implemented in Boundary of a set of points in 2-D or 3-D - MATLAB boundary
Iâm sure there are an easy way to get the boundary. Did it as homework various years ago, but donât remember if that was for a calculus course or if was for a programming one.
Sure will be able to remember if you tweak the espionage now to give me always weapons, but only banking to the other players.
Edit:
Just to avoid linking with wormholes two adjacent stars:
- Take the result of the step (4) before.
- Represent a circle of radius âbiggest star to center distanceâ.
- Mark an even number of ticks in the circle, itâs not hard to know which ones are opposites there (trivial examples:
(r, 0)and(-r, 0)or(r*sqrt(2), r*sqrt(2))and(-r*sqrt(2), -r*sqrt(2))) - For the first half of the ticks list:
a. Get the nearest star (you can just measure the distance between all of the stars and that tick coordinate because there are not so many stars)
b. Get the opposite tick
c. Get the nearest star to the opposite
d. Wormhole between these two stars
Figure explanation:
- The big black thing is supposed to be a circle of radius
R, equivalent to the big distance of any star to the center - The marks 0-8 are the âticksâ. First half of the ticks mean â0, 1, 2, 3â. Their opposites are â4, 5, 6, 7â (that is just the index plus tick count / 2)
- The green dots are stars
- There are two stars surrounded by red: the nearer to tick 2 and the nearer to his opposite tick (6). A wormhole should be between those two stars.
Figure:
This could have some edge cases or not give a precise result, or not be the most efficient method, although the general idea could work.
Edit 2:
A simpler alternative could be just choosing pairs of distant points and creating the wormhole between them⌠algorithm - How to find two most distant points? - Stack Overflow
Ah, but the risk⌠If everyone knew for certain that everyone else was always, definitely, going to betray them at some point, then thatâs actually very different to there being a possibility that they might. Do you leave a reserve fleet on standby ready for your allyâs possible betrayal or do you go all in on your enemy?
After all, a wise man once said:
âJust because you can, doesnât mean you should.â - Steve. 
Ideally sometimes you will be loyal and sometimes not. Role-play can help with that (Iâm working on it ).
Thatâs how I feel about it to be honest. I highly doubt that I could win from my position, even with Saraâs help (and why would Sara help if not to get the win herself?). The only point where I feel I could have taken on and killed Z was early on, when no-one saw him as the potential runaway leader anyway, but that in no way means Iâd have ended up as the winner (I mostly only survived to the end and 3rd place (probably safe to say now) by letting Sâs and Zâs surround me as a buffer ).
If I attacked Z now (or a few cycles back) weâd both suffer, so all I could really do would be to slow him down enough for someone else to win, and why would I do that? If someone else is going to win anyway why shouldnât it be Z whoâs been a good neighbour and ally through the majority of the game? He and Sara played a good game and either deserved the win imo (which I like to think I helped with in my own little way). I totally usurped third. 
Anyway, now I need to read and digest the real stuffâŚ
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Makes sense to me, if thatâs what your scientists are focused on they are more likely to spot related exploitable ideas and techniques from the spying. Half goes on your focus, half random?
You could increase/decrease the espionage in those fields by a proportionate amount similar to direct research? These flavours are about your relative understanding of these fields so makes sense to me that you can get more or less from spying on otherâs tech the same way. If your weakness is weapons then it would take you longer to figure out how to adapt lasers as guidance for your missiles, using your example, than someone who was strong in that field.
Interesting but I suspect this just makes experimentation a lot stronger than scanning. Scanning is currently pretty useful/desirable, with the change I see it as a lot less so (Iâd be unlikely to take it as superior tech with the change but itâs tempting now). Better to first try and give range a usefulness boost imo.
On research generally though, did the superior/inferior fields makes that much of a difference? I felt they did early on, but fairly quickly became somewhat irrelevant.* Maybe allowing espionage to be affected by them will also help that?
It grew on me. I liked that there were generally fewer carriers and how that gave them importance and a little story. I was more careful sending them into battle - even if I knew theyâd have to be sacrificed I wanted it to be for a good cause. 
But that may have just been me looking at how many fleets Z and S are chucking around.
Presumably this will also mean you canât have a wormhole as your home star? If not, that should be checked. (I donât think you should be able to have a wormhole as a home star anyway tbh.)
* Tbh, I feel this applies to a lot of things. Useful/interesting early on but increasingly less relevance/noticeable as you grow. Maybe there should be more infrastructural knockback from the number of stars a player owns? Either things cost more or things return less as you get more stars. Insert your own things here. 
(Kind of similar to Corruption in the Civilisation games - the bigger you get the harder and more costly it gets just to maintain what you have never mind to keep expanding. In NP the opposite tends to be true.)
I believe that it is high time I add my own thoughts on this test game. Most of this was probably written before but still, here it goes.
Espionage
I started in a corner a bad place where I was able to reach only a handful of stars. When I managed to get to 8 or 9 all my neighbours had at least twice as much. But still I was able to (kinda) keep with the pace of scientific research - mostly due to the espionage. There was time when my espionage âincomeâ was 10 (or even more) times higher than what my science infrastructure provided.
While this was really good for me I still think that it is too powerful. I do like the idea but it should be toned down a bit. Also I believe that espionage should only get you points on technologies where your neighbours are already ahead.
I do get Jayâs idea that giving points only for superior tech would punish bigger players. This is a good argument. Maybe point should be awarded to all techs but superior techs should have slightly higher probability?
Also I like the idea of combining both Experimentation and Scanning for good espionage âcoverageâ.
Carriers
Incremental carrier costs seemed really hard at first but was no problem soon after. I do like this change but it might be somewhat dependent on cash income - the more you make, more you have to pay for new carrier. Similar to the infrastructure where prices really do get high. If carrier costs would increase in a similar way - well then the cost and total number of carriers would stay relevant even in the late game.
Cash
Getting cash every tick is also really nice change.
Trade restrictions
I donât like the trading restrictions - I believe this rule is too strict. In combination with (too) powerful espionage this was not that problematic but if smaller players wouldnât be able to keep up with the leaders⌠But then again I donât have any specific ideas how to change this so it would be easier.
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Ok, now itâs done, itâs safe to say this: it can also be because someone financing rebellions everywhere to keep others busy while s/he is working in their own business. So diplomacy played a role in keeping this balanced.
At a certain point there were players with weapons 6-7 levels behind, for example.
I even sent weapons/manu to MF while he was being attacked by me to avoid other weaker player take stars. I could afford more losses, the other guy didnât 
I feel this game required more cunning than previous games I played. It was enjoyable and everyone had a win chance at least once (except poor guy in the center with 4 wormholes in his territory).
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Congratulations Zoquete!
Its always good to see a player come out of a bad start to take the win.
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Everybody should have an extra Lab Rat Badge.
Thanks everybody for testing!
I have to do a few days work on Colossus (which has turned into a goblin pirate game), but after that I will get the next Proteus Test game set up.
Probably just need one more game before I push it out on everybody.
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