User created content can improve games a lot.
The next days, I will publish some example of the texts the users created in the Communication Network of the current Empires in Space game.

This was the first rather nice message:

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away (Andromeda B), a group of sentients began to achieve hyperspace travel on various planets. On one of these planets, around the star Praecipua 935, since ancient times there has been a prophecy. That one day the Frog God Kek will return to the Galaxy and Make It Great Again, transcending all living beings to a higher plane of existance.




=== The Three Tablets of Kek (super rare, do not steal) ===



Long have they hoped that the prophecy will fulfill by itself, but eventually they understood that their future is in their hands, that it is they who need to fulfill it. And the time is near. The frogs achieved hyperspace technology, and can now travel the wast stretches of space to achieve their destiny. But in the beginning, it is hard for every spacefaring race.



=== Feels lonely, man ===



So the frogs decided to invite any other like-minded race, to work together to achieve what was promised. Strength comes from multiple individuals working together- that is a central tenet in frog philosophy.



=== Together, we can achieve anything! ===


YOU ARE INVITED TO the alliance of the Frogs. You can come, but you have to come LEGALLY. Send a message to
Pepe, and you will receive an invite.

Together we will Make Andromeda Great Again!

New Layout, UI and Features

Quite a lot of things got implemented:

User interface and layout got an overhaul. 

On the right is the old layout, the left side is the suggestion I got from Thomas Dittrich. 

 

I transferred this layout to most panels in the game. Eventually all buttons will get a blue background, a white text-shadow on hover and a red background when clicked.

There is another new thing on the image showing the colonies list - the space nebula.

This image shows the old nebula:

And now the same part of the map with the new one:

It wasn't even much work to implement the new one. 

The old nebula consisted of a 180x180 px image, which was put in an overlapping way on the html canvas. A single field has a size of 60x60 px and the nebula was painted with its upper left corner one field to the left and one field up, so that its center was right where the nebula is according to the database, while the border of the nebula overlapped just a bit.

For the new nebula, Thomas did provide an image with a bit less transparency. I used it as 240x240 px size, and increased the overlapping area. The upper left corner of the image is put one and a half field to the left and up.

And additionally, the nebula is rotated in steps of 45 degrees. I used the unique nebula id and the mod operator ( % 8 ) to determine how far the nebula is rotated.

Aside form this eye candy, all changes to the game are in the changelog on the homepage.

The most important ones since the combat overhaul are:

• Colonies can be invaded
• Pirate ships spawn and can be raided (poor Pirates)
• Colonies can be abandoned
• New diplomatic mode "Hostile" which is between War and Neutral and which allows combat, but does not allow occupation of colonies
• Conversations instead of single messages

At the moment, the "create first contact" requirement is being removed. Until now, one has to meet another player before that player gets visible in the contacts list. Alternatively, one has to visit a communication star base, then one gets all contact data of players that have previously visited this star base.

In the new version, one will have all contact data right from the beginning, and one will also have access to the one communication star base in the center of the galaxy right from the beginning.

Average weapon damage and experience modificators

I am currently working on an overhaul of the combat system.

Here are some game statistics - not yet implemented, and suggestions are as always welcome.

Weapons get a "to hit" value.
Ships get an evasion modifier

                  Evasion
Scout:        :     80
corvette      :     60
frigate       :     40
destroyer     :     30
cruiser       :     20
battleship    :     10
s-battleship  :      0

The  "-> X dmg" at the end of each line is the average damage when doing many shots. The behavior in combat is different: either the enemy is hit and receives full damage, or not hit at all. But for the evaluation, the average is better suited.

The + at the end of the lines indicate that the weapon deals the highest average damage.

"Green" crew versus "Green" crew (no bonus whatsoever)

Attacker with Laser (140 to hit ratio - 15 damage) versus:

Scout:        : To hit 140 - Evasion 80 -> 60% ->  9 dmg  + 

corvette      : To hit 140 - Evasion 60 -> 80% -> 12 dmg  +

frigate       : To hit 140 - Evasion 40 ->100% -> 15 dmg  +-

destroyer     : To hit 140 - Evasion 30 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

cruiser       : To hit 140 - Evasion 20 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

battleship    : To hit 140 - Evasion 10 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

s-battleship  : To hit 140 - Evasion  0 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

Attacker with Rocket (90 to hit ratio - 30 damage) versus:

Scout:        : To hit 90 - Evasion 80 -> 10%  -> 3 dmg  -

corvette      : To hit 90 - Evasion 60 -> 30% ->  9 dmg  -

frigate       : To hit 90 - Evasion 40 -> 50% -> 15 dmg  +-

destroyer     : To hit 90 - Evasion 30 -> 60% -> 18 dmg  +

cruiser       : To hit 90 - Evasion 20 -> 70% -> 21 dmg  +

battleship    : To hit 90 - Evasion 10 -> 80% -> 24 dmg  +-

s-battleship  : To hit 90 - Evasion  0 -> 90% -> 27 dmg  -

Mass driver to hit 50 ratio - 60 dmg:

Scout:        : To hit 50 - Evasion 80 -> 1%  ->  1 dmg  -

corvette      : To hit 50 - Evasion 60 -> 1%  ->  1 dmg  -

frigate       : To hit 50 - Evasion 40 -> 10% ->  6 dmg  -

destroyer     : To hit 50 - Evasion 30 -> 20% -> 12 dmg  -

cruiser       : To hit 50 - Evasion 20 -> 30% -> 18 dmg  -

battleship    : To hit 50 - Evasion 10 -> 40% -> 24 dmg  +-

s-battleship  : To hit 50 - Evasion  0 -> 50% -> 30 dmg  +

Experience levels

                  toHit/evasion

                 green       normal        veteran      elite       garde            

Scout:        :   0/0         10/5          20/10       30/15        40/20

corvette      :   0/0         10/5          20/10       30/15        40/20

frigate       :   0/0         10/5          20/10       30/15        40/20

destroyer     :   0/0         10/0          20/5        30/10        40/15

cruiser       :   0/0         10/0          20/5        30/10        40/15

battleship    :   0/0         10/0          20/0        30/5         40/10

s-battleship  :   0/0         10/0          20/0        30/0         40/0

Elite (+ 30 to hit ) versus Elite (various evasions)

Laser 15 damage:

Scout:        : To hit 170 - Evasion 95 -> 75% -> 11 dmg  + 

corvette      : To hit 170 - Evasion 75 -> 95% -> 14 dmg  +

frigate       : To hit 170 - Evasion 55 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

destroyer     : To hit 170 - Evasion 40 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

cruiser       : To hit 170 - Evasion 30 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

battleship    : To hit 170 - Evasion 15 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

s-battleship  : To hit 170 - Evasion  0 ->100% -> 15 dmg  -

Rocket 30 damage:

Scout:        : To hit 120 - Evasion 95 -> 25% -> 7.5dmg  -

corvette      : To hit 120 - Evasion 75 -> 45% ->13.5dmg  -

frigate       : To hit 120 - Evasion 55 -> 65% ->19.5dmg  +

destroyer     : To hit 120 - Evasion 40 -> 80% -> 24 dmg  +-

cruiser       : To hit 120 - Evasion 30 -> 90% -> 27 dmg  -

battleship    : To hit 120 - Evasion 15 ->100% -> 30 dmg  -

s-battleship  : To hit 120 - Evasion  0 ->100% -> 30 dmg  -

Mass driver 60 dmg

Scout:        : To hit 80 - Evasion 95 -> 1%  ->  1 dmg  -

corvette      : To hit 80 - Evasion 75 -> 5%  ->  3 dmg  -

frigate       : To hit 80 - Evasion 55 -> 25% -> 15 dmg  -

destroyer     : To hit 80 - Evasion 40 -> 40% -> 24 dmg  +-

cruiser       : To hit 80 - Evasion 30 -> 50% -> 30 dmg  +

battleship    : To hit 80 - Evasion 15 -> 65% -> 39 dmg  +

s-battleship  : To hit 80 - Evasion  0 -> 80% -> 48 dmg  +

Current Development and new Features

The refactoring of the communication messages is now completed. The reminder button at the top about unread messages will not appear anew after reading messages (and logging off and on).

One major feature is now available:
The "communication center" can be built on a colony. This building provides a communication node and works as a trade hub.
A feature soon to be implemented will be that the owner of such a building can set who is allowed to read/write to the communication node, and who may trade at the hub.

Regarding research and module statistics:
Cargo space of modules adapted
Research "Superconductor II" does now provide +15% energy output

Tables in various panels now remember the sorting order applied by the player. That may come in handy when sorting the colonies by available assembly points. The Ships panel will soon get a column dedicated to the interstellar movement points, so that ships may be sorted by remaining movement points. The sorting order is saved in a browser storage: if a player logs out and logs in, the last sorting order will still be applied.

And finally, the Contacts-panel now does show population victory points and research victory points of all known users. There seems to be a bug regarding the research points, which will be removed soon. At the moment, there are two other values which are internally used to compute the overall ranking: ship victory points and goods victory points. Both will be removed, and instead a new value "ascendance victory points" will be added. These are gained by helping building an ascendance construct. When the game is finished, only the ascendance victory points of the construct that was finished do count - all other players loose their progress.

The background story for this:
As the ascendance construct was finished, a galaxy wide ascension was triggered, and all sentient species left the physical realm. Their influence in the dimension they are now existing in is determined by their numbers (population), their knowledge (research) and their contribution to the ascendance construct.

Technically, an overwhelming successful player should be able to have the highest score, even if he did not contribute to the ascension construct.
I will try to balance this out, and will publish the formula in this blog...

Current Development

The alliance bug was finally found and removed. It was a side effect of the last big refactoring of the code, which started about 9 months ago and is still ongoing.
The trade screen got a small overhaul: labels, graphics and design all got tweaked a bit.

The following is just some technical stuff for the interested ones:

I am using unit tests, and have enhanced the framework in the last few days. The framework now uses actual game data that is user independent (base data): researches, goods, star-systems and so on. The game server uses interfaces to exchange data with a backup system, or exchange data with clients.

Now I can for example test the method that is used when a user joins a game: user placement in a star-system, placement of the first colony-ship and all the rest that does happen is now easily reproduced, without the need to mock each element of the base data that is needed.

The unit test framework now uses the sql connector to read the base data of the game, and changes back to a dummy data-connector during testing, so that nothing is written to the database. Works like a charm.

Now the communication network is on the focus. In the game, that will only be seen by the fact that the bug with the "there are unread messages in the comunication networks"-Buttons will be removed.
Work in this area will be useful when doing the next overhaul of the "direct message"-system. And soon, the colony building "communication center" will create a player controlled communication network, and work as a trade station.
Both did work before starting the refactoring ( this was implemented in sql stored procedures) and have to be reprogrammed to be executed by game server procedures.

First In-Game Event

On Wednesday, the first in-game event was launched.
Players logging in get displayed this message:

"Some reinforcements have arrived

Three ships just arrived at your colony, coming from your old homeland. Their engines barely made the trip, and their captains report that more ships were sent to you, but only these three ships made it.

Perhaps a search commando should be sent out to find the missing ships and secure the cargo on them."

Each player got two small fighters and one freighter. Over the whole map, debris was distributed containing resources.

3600 fields now have some spaceship debris on it, distributed on the XY-coordinates between 4700 and 5300. The debris contains goods, which can be as common as building material or even be rare ship modules.

In addition:

• Some labels were corrected
• The goods panel on the lower right was unified, 
• A bug regarding "colonies of unknown players in star systems that were already discovered" was fixed, 
• The receiver is now shown in the sent-messages-tab instead of the sender.
• Colony renaming does now work.

I am working on a critical bug which I can't reproduce yet. The game-server does "forget" alliances, or the data sent to the browser is false.
The database does contain the correct information, so a restart of the game-server restores the right state.

If you have information about an action which might trigger the bug, please sent it to me ingame (Skratti, id 157) or via mail.

Current Development

The star map now shows colonies in all star systems that are discovered. Previously, only colonies in scan range of ships and colonies were shown.
The change was needed to give permanent information about other nearby players.

The implementation is not yet time sensitive. One will always get the current colony data.
A better way to solve this will be to enhance the Fog of War data structure, and include the discovered colonies there. Then you will see the colony data of the last time you had the solar system in your scan range..

The "Explore" part of Empires in Space needs improvement, since there are no great gains in discovering new worlds and players. I am preparing a small in-game event to make exploration more fun.

In preparation for that event, the cargo space of the scout vessel was reduced to 2. From now on, a ship with a cargo module is needed to transport bigger amounts of goods.