Minimum Batch size issue?

[griesch]

It appears my trade ships will not get materials unless the minimum batch size is 50. Even if I have plenty of room for say 250-500 units the ship will not get materials unless the minimum batch is 50. Am I missing something? Also what does the default batch do? I was thinking that the minimum batch would be how much must make it on to the ship before leaving and the default batch would be a quantity to load if available but I don't think that is it.

On an unrelated note and purely my opinion but the research that is done fills memory. Why then do we earn or use XP as if we are fighting something and not filling up GB or TB which would be related to memory not XP. I just think it looks odd that we have memory restrictions and the units being counted is XP. Just my humble opinion and other then that no issue with the mechanics of that.

[graphitepaddle]

Not an expert, but can help,

• Default Batch Size: Ignore this. It has no impact on individual routes. (Hoping TaosX either moves it to the Options menu, or removes it outright, in the next major release.) I fell into this trap too, trying to change it, but seeing any impact.
  
• Minimum Batch Size: Not enough for at least one trade ship to have this much space. Using a value of 50 as an example, if your destination station doesn't have 50 units of open space, for that product, a trade ship won't execute the route. Ditto for the source station --> Say your product is Fe Ingots, and source station has a 100 unit Trade Zone. Trade Ship should execute the route, right? Maybe not. Suppose a Teleportation Relay is gobbling up those Fe Ingots, such that there are never more than 40 Fe Ingots in the Trade Zone at any given time ... no trade route executed; Trade Ships don't wait around.
  
• Memory (XP): Don't fully understand your question, but the basics are, a) XP is consumed by research items; new things or taking something to the next level (e.g. Extractors). b) XP is increased by adding population (either by colonization or satisfying orders on an existing colony), or un-researching things. Been at 0 XP a few times in my 1st games, but managed to move on by satisfying orders. (Gave me more XP to research techs, which helped satisfy the demands of my colonies.)

Hopefully this helped a little.

[TaosX]

Thank you, Graphitepaddle!
The batch size is fully explained in the previous post. And yes, the default min batch will be moved to the options menu in the next update.

About XP and TB/GB. I agree that GB/TB or even Exabyte are more approriate for data volume. I'll fix it in the next update. XP is a leftover from early builds where where no memory and a player got XP from machines work.

[griesch]

Awesome Guys thank you for clarifying! So the min batch size is dependent on both the source and destination and the trade ship will not carry over any extra so it needs to be able to hold the cargo and transfer 100% of it at its destination. Setting a size to big would be a problem. I did notice afterward I posted that the ship will grab more then 50 so I was ok with that.

As for the GB/TB and XP, TaosX got my reference. I am in the technology world so I guess that's why I thought of it but that was merely a visual thing for me not game play affecting. @Graphitepaddle, if you didn't get it, memory is normally stated in Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes... etc. So visually to see XP as if it were experience points using up memory I felt like I was have a mix of Dungeons and Dragons and Data World terminology throw at me, not that there's anything bad with that as I enjoy both worlds. :) It makes sense if it was a hold over from even earlier days. You both answered my questions, appreciate it.

[TaosX]

Griesch, thank you for sharing! I greatly appreciate all the feedback. It really helps to make the next update a bit better. Sometimes even the fact that someone's asking a question mean that there is something to improve.

[graphitepaddle]

Simpler game player is not always the answer: Just explain the rules. Like other game developers, you created a special universe for Final Upgrade ... those rules need to be conveyed. Examples:

• Player is trying to colonize a sector, who's colonization energy value is in red ... say 100,000MW. Being in red, suggests a problem, but doesn't tell the player how to correct it. Improved --> When player tries to claim the sector, display a pop-up message, saying "Your ship has the battery capacity, but they don't have enough energy." or "To claim this sector, you a ship with more battery capacity, and containing at least 100,000MW". Better --> Display those same messages at the bottom of the screen, when the ship jumps into the sector.
  
• Player suspects a problem with a Trade Route, but doesn't know how to debug the problem. Add a 'Trouble shooting' button in the Trade Route dialog box. Clicking it would display the things that we talked about it in this message thread.

As a software developer, I DESPISE documentation ... the ugly 'D' word. But it's a necessary evil. So be careful making Final Upgrade too user-friendly. To quote one of Murphy's Laws of Computer Programming, "Make an app so simple that an idiot can use it, and only an idiot will want to."

[TaosX]

This is quite an interesting topic to discuss.

Regretfully, ‘explain better’ doesn’t always work:
1) Players easily overlook the info provided.
2) If they find game too difficult to play, they quit.
3) If the tutorial is too long, they quit.

When I started to develop the game, I had several assumptions based on my own 30+ experience as a player. Now I see that I was wrong is almost every of it. When the first build hit the alpha testing, I got a huge surprise. A completely unexpected behavior and reaction. I learnt the simple truth that every assumption needs to be proof tested on the real auditory.

What I learnt from the anonymous player behavior data (relative to the subject):
1. Most of players hate a hard-steps tutorials, especially if they are long. They try to break it. They try to power-skip it. They want to learn in a different order. They quit if stumbled upon something unfamiliar.
2. The best tutorial is no tutorial at all. When all basic mechanics are intuitive, and the learning curve is flat. If it’s not possible, then it’s optimal to use a hint system, giving info when players experiment with the game.
3. Players’ time is a precious resource. Can’t underestimate the importance if this. A game developer must maximize the fun-per-hour rate.
4.A small number of hardcore players can easily chew through any mechanic. But their number is too small to keep up with the development. To reach the potential auditory, the game must change. Dramatically.

What main issues I see in the current build:
1. Base mechanics are too complex. A new player gets overwhelmed with too many new things.
2. An unsatisfactory percentage of players reaches the end game.
3. Replayability is below my expectations.

In the Update 2 I’m going to improve and streamline the gameplay. To remove all what is clunky and to enhance the best parts. After Update 2 release, the current build will be available forever as a separate branch. You will get a brand-new gameplay to test and I look forward for the feedback.

[TaosX]

Another indicator of huge importance: fun-per-effort.

[graphitepaddle]

Hate to say it, but agree w. your 3 points. For point #1, as an example, claiming sectors by using energy was covered early in the game, but by the time that 100,000MW sectors became available, completely forgot that game play mechanic. For that, and so many other things that I asked about in this forum, elected to make written notes.

Going through a wargame phase now, which are insanely complex. Had these in mind, when I wrote my review of Final Upgrade ==> No comparison. Final Upgrade is simplistic by comparison. But comparing to Final Upgrade to some other games, and yes its complex. It's a balancing act: Too complex, you lose audience (as you mentioned). But ditto if it is too simplistic. (Have shelved Slipsways, because there is very little depth.)

Started the tutorials for CMO (RTS wargame) on Friday, and best estimate is that it will take 40 hours to get through all of them, competently ... maybe more. And as much I want to run through those, it's daunting, so I'm procrastinating. Next step after procrastination, abandon ship.

Playing Final Upgrade is very long commitment. (Have only spent more total time on 5 games since the TI-99 days.) Holding off on starting game #2, until the next major update comes out, because it's such a huge time investment. Have talked to friends & family members --> NO ONE has that kind of patience.

Don't envy your task, of having to please so many masters. Looking forward to update #2.

[Chriso]

I think the game does an overall fine job of introducing the mechanics to new players IF they choose to follow the hints at start, but at the same time actually try to think for themselves. In fact, I did find myself a bit lost early in the game and resorted to watching 2 episodes of some let's play video before I picked the game again. I see just a few problems with the current system:

• Current hints are not very smart. If you blindly follow the hints, you will likely get yourself stuck in the technology tree. Not to mention they become annoying after a while, and it took me 3 days to figure out how to actually switch them off (as it's neither in the game options screen nor in the hint area itself).
  
• Starting ship is massive and extremely versatile - this is really overwhelming (not mention it takes out the fun of designing the ship yourself). I've become attached to my ship, and for quite a while made jumps with it whenever I need to work on a colony (even though I already had a fleet of builder ships). It took a day to realize that I can move around in "god" mode and specialized ships are just better, and that's how the game is meant to be played. I'm not sure we need to start with a ship at all, rather some Earth shipyard which generates a bit of iron/s and has a build cannon to make basic ships.
  
• Game lacks direction for most of the time. Currently, the only real task we have is "Get 1,000,000,000 population" (which sounds easier than it actually is), and the job of breaking it down into smaller subtasks lies with the player. Now, this is fine for certain category of players (which are probably your target audience anyway), but even they would appreciate certain milestones along the way.
  I would appreciate having some "missions" to complete. Not random, but well though-out ones, which would also nudge me in the proper direction of completing the final objective. For example, "Sustain iron ingots production of 300/min, reward: 50k memory" or "Claim 15 sectors, reward: 25% faster hyperjump" or "Make a lvl 9 colony, reward: +1 yield to all gold deposits". Advancing in population ranks should have some reward as well. Permanent rewards are an important source of dopamine and would help with player retention. Even something as simple as steam achievemnts can help a lot.

You did a pretty good job on "not wasting player's time", but there's still at least one annoying part - claiming sectors. I saw that energy requirements seem kinda harsh for new players, but in fact they are not a blocker at all. It's very easy to build an enormous "battery ship" and start claiming T3 sectors right away, probably doable even on starter batteries. Problem is, that's 100+ jumps, all of you have to do manually and ask the ship to restock regularly. Even on max speed that's a lot of repetitive manual work. I don't know how to improve it (maybe change the claiming requirement completely to make them more diverse and interesting, requiring some customed ship?), just pointing out the problem here :)

You've touched the question of replayability, and I must agree that it's rather low. In fact, I cannot even bring myself to finish my second run -- too much work for too little satisfaction. Once you've figured out how to to build complex products there's not much incentive to optimize builds futher - the building space is virtually unlimited, power and inter-sector logistics is cheap.

I would really appreciate having more complexity to the builds. Currently it's just "route two resources to a fabricator, copypaste 16 times, route output to storage/relay". Routing is easy once you get a hang of it and thus becomes a chore. Teleportation relays are "too good" in moving resources around, and trade ships are even better as they can just teleport stuff to any storage, so you don't have much chance to become entangled in "pipe spaghetti". In fact, I believe that finding creative solutions to avoid "pipe spaghetti" is what should be the most fun part of any factory-build game, but really, there not much of a challenge in the current state. At least, you could add some recipes requiring 3-4 inputs for some T3 items (should be safe as players are already comfortable with the mechanics at this point). Or even make some items to be only craftable near stars of specific type. Add a technology to slowly harvest hydrogen directly from stars (balanced to complement traditional method rather than making it entirely obsolete). Basically anything to break the standard processing pipeline and force a player to think out of the box once they are down with the basics.

It's really cool that you can put machines onto the ships, but... why would you want to do this it if the storage is so massive anyway and they can auto-restock anytime? I want to have a reason to build nuclear-powered battleships with reactors and coolant circuits, but they work so slow (compared to laser turret energy demand), that it's much more space efficient to just put in a few plasma batteries and recharge them after every battle (also, I find that lasers suck anyway, especially considering how deep they are in the tech tree). I can make Miner ships to extract metals from ore inside, but ore doesn't "compress" when being smelted, so it's easier to just haul the raw ore, and even if it did compress - as I've said, logistics is cheap, so it doesn't matter how much stuff you move.

In conclusion, I believe the most engaging gameplay is when things are "easy to learn, hard to master" AND give a substantial reward when mastered. You're on the right track, but possibilities for improvement are endless :)

[graphitepaddle]

Originally posted by author="Chriso":

In conclusion, I believe the most engaging gameplay is when things are "easy to learn, hard to master" AND give a substantial reward when mastered. You're on the right track, but possibilities for improvement are endless :)

Very well put. To contrast that, just look any TBS or RTS wargame --> So many things to understand, and rules to memorize. And while building, say a very efficient Steel Shell production facility takes work, building a basic one is straight forward.

I too am concerned long-term replay-ability. Playing 5 is pushing it. 10? Nah!

[TaosX]

Thank you, guys, for your thoughts. I see some brilliant ideas here. Yeah, the possibilities are endless. I have limited resources and I need to figure out how to spend them to the most benefit of players to keep the project going forward.