Play-Testers needed. Help us improve the game!

[Uneron]

Hi all,

I've made some pretty significant balancing changes. Most importantly it should now be far more difficult to advance in the lategame. No instant research everything, once you reach quantum computing! Well at least I hope thats the case.

This release also includes a massive rewrite from MestreLIon and various changes from me and Juise.

Changelog:

* internationalization support (the big one)

* UI improvements

* new base: Botnet

* Huge ammounts of active jobs make you more suspicuous, as you form a significant part of the worlds workforce. (Difficult to stay hidden, when half of humanity has been replaced by robots)

* various balancing changes

* various bugfixes

For the compete changelog see: https://github.com/uneron/singularity/commits/testing

I need feedback so I can improve the balancing and hunt down bugs.

So, what I need you to do:

* Play the game and make further balancing suggestions.

* While the game seems pretty stable test if thats also the case with your system.

Don't forget to post the error.log if you get crashes and/or bugs.

Download: https://github.com/uneron/singularity/archive/testing.zip

Every help is most appreciated!

Cheers
Uneron

[james riley]

Ooh tasty. I was going to ask how I could help with the play testing.
Quick run-through on easy. Finished on 1Qu (quintillion?) because of
the new build times. And spent a few game-years waiting on builds to
finish. That bit towards the end that waits for a moon-base, then a
outer-base, then a transdimensional-base was largely screen watching.
On easy, at least, all the tension was gone since every possible
measure to reduce detection was already taken. There was a mild
inner-game of "how much of the working population can I replace with
simulcara and not be destroyed.

In short, intitally it seems that the late stage needs more danger to
keep it interesting. I found myself wishing it had a "fast forward
until next message" button.

Anyway, more play-test tomorrow on proper levels. Cheers.

James

> --
>
>
>

[Philippe Tetar]

For the botnet:
I dislike the use of cluster. Botnet is a network of PC. Second, the base is buggy (pre instead of pre_list) and unbalanced (the building need 48 days).
Here is my fix:

[Botnet]
size = 100
force_cpu = PC
allowed = pop
detect_chance_list = news:100 | covert:175 | public:75
cost_list = 0 | 500 | 4
maint_list = 0 | 0 | 0
pre_list = Sociology | Exploit Discovery/Repair

[Philippe Tetar]

Commit: * grace_time is now configurable per base in bases.dat

This commit breaks a important paradigm: Convention over configuration
There was a convention for the grace_time: the grace_time is equals to the labor time. This convention is good. So, add a specific way to modify it isn't worse. But the convention mustn't be deleted. So, a default value equals to labor time have to be implemented.

However, the modified grace_time isn't currently used. So, move this commit in a experimental branch.

Le dimanche 18 novembre 2012 21:42:04 UTC+1, Uneron a écrit :

[Philippe Tetar]

Also, why haven't you added my game balance ?

[Eagle Boy]

I tried running it in windows and when I click on Options I get the following Error

"UnboundLocalError: local variable 'screen_size' referenced before assignment"

I have a Dual Screen Monitor so I don't know if this is the reason for the crash or if it's something else.

[Uneron]

Mostly because I have been busy, honestly :P Next time I can work on it, will be the weekend again. In fact, I will only work on it on weekends for the time beeing. *shrug* Thats life for you.

And don't worry, all of these are experiemental, they are in a seperate branch.

Cheers
Uneron

[Uneron]

Thanks, I'll look into it!

Cheers
Uneron

[Uneron]

Thanks for testing!

Were this long wating periods cost related? I didn't increase any of the construction times, though that *could* be a merging error (there was a problem in that direction, I thought I fixed).

Cheers
Uneron

[Uneron]

Sorry for the quadrupelpost! But seems to make more sense in googles nice tree-view.

I agree with you. A modifier is definately preferable. I'll change that this weekend.

The botnets values weren't mine. They are from the jussi merge. Haven't paid too much attention to them, I fear (yeah, should have).

About the Cluster-Name thing: I realize a botnet is not really cluster, but as you said neither its a PC. But since they are a bunch of PCs (presumably) working together on a task it could be abstracted this way. Ideally we would just use a ton of Daemons of course, but thats not doable with current mechanics and display.

Cheers
Uneron