wow, look at all the old warhorses here! Looking forward to jumping back in. I think to play a beginner game to help remember game mechanics lol
Hello everybody, Happy holidays and thanks very much for all your work looking for bugs and feedback.
I have been traveling, so not very communicative but I have been reading all your posts and taking notes. I have fixed many bugs you have logged and should be able to push out a new version this weekend.
I think its nearly time for me to jump into the next stage which is to re-implement the AI and when I have a first pass of that, I will upgrade the server and database, then invite everybody to join some larger games.
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Happy holidays to you too!
I just realized that messages have an RT-timestamp, but no Prod-Turn-Tick-timestamp.
But often exactly the latter would be (more) useful. Especially in turn-based games.
Any chance of including this info somewhen?
Also… this being more general feedback / feature request than a NP4-thing. Would it be more apropriate to send a mail, or is there a dedicated forum thread maybe?
I like the Lanchester-idea. Maybe this could also be linked to a technology.
Something like “fleet coordinaton”, effectively increasing the front size:
- 5 + X ships per fleet fighting at the same time.
- (5 + X)% of a fleet fighting at the same time.
- 10+10*(X**1,5) ships carried and commanded per carrier. All fight at the same time. (Would then probably profit from increasing carrier prices or carrier upkeep or some other limiting factor to the number of carriers.)
Although I must say it feels good to not be forced to consider spatial distribution and doominess of doom-stacks just because it’s the most economic way… Or anything else to be honest. Right now there is two aspects: Health (Ships) and Att (Weap) as first degree and as first derivative Health Regen (Ind*Manu) and Weap Research (Sci/Weap_cost). That already makes for nice battles and wars. (Although I agree that the battles on the tactical level at times feel a bit static. Reinforcements and research need a long time to have an effect. And sacrificing a defense position to combine fleets to take another point is already possible.)
I feel there are a lot of possible ways to change combat and fleet action, but an increase in complexity does not automatically equate an increase in fun.
Just an idea for the ‘Bulletin’:
I just had a flashback to MoO2. (Or Uciana):
There are random events, that are broadcast to every empire. “A computervirus has destroyed X RP in an unknown empire.” “A wealthy benefactor has donated X $ to an unknown empire.”
While random events also could be fun, I thought more along the line of broadcasting news about notable events: “The capital of [[empire]] has fallen.” or “A huge battle in [[Star System]] was recorded.”
Hello Jay, I wanted to respond to one point you made in this post:
I decided to just have players use their real aliases all the time, except in “extra anon” games where I will roll a random alias for each player.
I think rolling a random alias in extra-anon games is an awesome idea.
However, if I may advocate for retaining the power to change our names in regular game modes, it can be a really fun way to get into some role-playing in matching your name to the character portrait you select or just messing around with different cool names to change it up. Especially in custom games that have a role-playing element, like the classic pirate games. If I am always Macomber, then I can’t be the ancient pirate Toothless Pete in one game and the star-renaming intergalactic fiend BLORT in the next. It is certainly not an essential part of the game but it adds to the fun. Certainly, there are many players who don’t bother with this and always use the same name from game to game.
Just my two cents, of course. I’d be interested to hear your thinking on making the change. Perhaps it is to maintain some accountability for players in tying their actions to a single name throughout different games? I could see that being a reasonable factor.
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I’m on it but i’m pretty new. Is it normal for these testing games to take so long to fill up?
Hey Tired_im, right now there are only a handful of players who even know about the test servers. The 64 player game will never fill, and its unlikely that even a small game will fill up unless I make a bit of a push to find players.
Right now I’m trying to get the AI working again so will defend itself, but in a week or two I will push the changes to the new server and try and kick off another game!
Thanks for helping test!
I joined the Turn-Based Game (Pi Errai, Game 9), and I found some issues:
My homeworld star is showing NaN for Econ, Industry, and Science. My Research ETA calculation won’t show up either (probably related to NaN Science total).
The Galaxy screen for buying upgrades only shows $E and $I upgrade prices, and does not list $S upgrade prices.
Thanks @Portmanteur I will be submitting some new code to the server today, and it means I will have to delete the existing games. I will test the turn based games after I do, see if the economy issue persists.
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I made a fun custom NP4 game - KILLDOZER’s Game
Join me!
For @JayKyburz 
:
-I’d love to see Wormhole configuration and whether mirroring is enabled under the ‘Review This Game’s Settings’ Menu once the game is created/joined. Thanks!
Sorry, there were some games that were corrupted. You might need to rejoin some games. I will add the wormhole feeback soon.
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Hi forum folks. I have been playing for over 2 years now (15 Jan 2022) and just now joining the forums. Stoked to try out a new version of this, which I wasn’t even aware was in development so that’s an exciting surprise.
I spent a couple hours reading through existing brainstorming and feedback and I REALLY like everything I’ve seen so far. Gonna join some NP4 games and see how it goes.
So far a few things are already standing out to me:
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At least from just reading the changelog it feels like this is going a long way to combine the best parts of Triton and Proteus. I know that it is a lot of work (thanks Jay) but it’s so much appreciated.
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I hope you won’t be afraid to be aggressive with testing out new mechanics and combinations of mechanics. Increasing the number of customization options and game modes will really facilitate mechanic experimentation (pun intended).
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I know these new servers will have new bugs to explore but I’ve already felt like some annoyances from playing on mobile have improved. (The weird double click bug in the UI is gone maybe?! But I think zooming is worse)
Changes that I am most excited about:
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Ledger in main game
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Dropping the carrier cost escalation from Proteus (I use a lot of carriers haha)
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Improved anonymity controls
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Def bonus is back, baby!
Worries:
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I like simplifying tech but worry that it reduces the options for play.
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I’m afraid to try out the strengths/weaknesses. Also will they create some kind of meta game where everyone with premium is able to play to the meta with custom races and non premium players all play the same race all the time? (Maybe more people will buy premium though)
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My favorite style of play is being a bit of an underdog (barely 2nd place) so not as to cause other players to form alliances against me. Then I rely on a solid understanding of the travel and fight mechanics (plus strong carrier network and a little creativity ) to win fights. I felt that Proteus severely punished me for this style of gameplay so hopefully NP4 gives me that freedom back.
Thanks again and sorry I wasn’t on the forums before. I’ll be back!
Edit: A few things that other people recommended in other places that I think would be good:
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Delay between last join and first tick to give people a chance to finalize initial setup.
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koth mode sounds fun.
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Yeah, I noticed one of my games dropped which is a shame I was just getting the good part but whatever helps the new version come along I’m okay with. Love the new game and how much you have improved. One small typo in the change your alias spot it says you instead of your.
I think my custom game ended up corrupted once it filled up 
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The 64 player games are the best especially with the bulletin and warp gates the whole game is super interconnected and complex. Before you wouldn’t communicate with people far away as much. The character limit on the bulletin is a shame though. It really limits those that want to share information on the bulletin board. I get that spamming could be a problem but only like 5 people post currently. Also it was annoying if you misclicked and accidentally sent it after only writing a few words because you just wasted your bulletin for the day. Also if in the galaxy tab if you could add a button that would make stars/carriers sort by experience that would be cool. One question do warp gates affect worm holes? I love Eta Syrma!
Thanks for the feedback tired_im. I might push the limit back up later.
I’m pretty sure that gates won’t effect wormholes, but I will check the code and make sure. then make a note in the docs.
I’d like to second this point about the character limit. I’m in the same game as Tired, filling the role of the news reporter. It’s a lot of fun, but the new character limit basically makes it impossible. I understand the reason for the limit, but in this community, truely ill-intentioned spammers are fairly rare, and spamming can hurt your reputation, resulting in a quick downfall. I think that the bullitin is a good way to make the galaxy more connected, and allows players to publicly build their reputation. However, it might be a good idea to remove bullitin rights on KO is a good way to prevent chronic spammers. But yeah, it would be nice if the chatacter limit was removed
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What might be best is raising the limit to something like 999 so people can say what they want. We can suggest ideas but in the end it’s just up to Jay.