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Canadian Space Arm-and-Leg Agency "Where you don't pay what we have to!" "OK, so the last quarter wasn't so bad. We've staunched the worst of the bleeding thanks to the Communications array, so that's good. And after checking out the economics, I can see what's going on." The Director waited before making his proclamation. "Space Drugs. The hippies are in space and they want the wacky tabacky. Well, if they're going to pay out the nose for it, the least I can do is oblige." code:LIFE B in 6,11 and 7,11 (18 Credits) Resource Platform in 6,10 and 7,10 (21 Credits) Resource Platform in 6,9 and 7,9 (21 Credits) SOLAR Charge: 22 COMMU Charge: 18 PHARM Charge: 0/Offline RESOU Charge: 15 Mission; Maximum Research over the course of 2 years / 8 turns.
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Jun 3, 2021 13:22
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 Berryjon makes his move. I admit, I'm not sure why he switched off the Pharmaceutic Labs - I would have charged 14.4 for them, which would still make a profit, and he didn't build over his maintenance costs - but hey, it's his call.  The AI doesn't do all that much.  Comparing its demand predictions to my own, I note the three biggest outliers: it's much more pessimistic about the Weather Center and Resource Platform demand than I was, and, bizarrely, it's much more optimistic about the Pharmaceutic Lab demand than I was. Let's see how that shakes out. But first, the news:
Weather Center usage was 100%, Computer Lab usage was 96%, and Shuttle Port usage was 100%. Not bad, but could be improved. I'm moving to a new market prediction method this turn, and we'll see how it works out for me. (Incidentally, if we decide to stay competitive in the next mission, I'd be happy to share the code I use to decide what to build and what to charge - with the exception of the market prediction function. If you can figure out what the market's going to do, you put in the numbers and it'll spit out its suggestions.) And speaking of market predictions, berryjon got 100% usage on all modules... which leaves him with 50.3 available cash this turn. After paying my loan down to its limit (I discovered that interest can cause your loan to exceed its limit; no word on whether Li Yuen will send hostile shuttles after me if I don't keep it under control, and a secret bonus point to whoever gets that reference), I have 134.6. Therefore! In the interest of keeping this game even slightly competitive, I offer berryjon this generous offer: Fred looked dispassionately at the report on the CSALA station. By any measure, the company was doing poorly. They'd gambled on the pharmaceutics market and lost, hobbling them right out of the gate. The SPITE station was larger, more profitable, and almost certain to win the lucrative contract that awaited whoever was able to create more valuable research after two years. They'd won already, he felt; it was just a matter of time compounding his current advantage. And yet. What was better for society as a whole? One station producing incredible breakthroughs while another struggled to put out scraps? Or two stations, each producing solid growth? His decision made, he tapped a few buttons on his desk's built-in console, connecting a call to the director of CSALA. (That the director of CSALA might be uninterested in taking his call, or indeed that the director of CSALA might have to press a button to take his call, was irrelevant.) "Berryjon?" he said, mildly, his face appearing on every monitor in the other director's office. "This is Fred Sloniker, of SPITE." He pronounced the letters individually. "I have a proposition for you." Berryjon, I will loan you up to 134.6 credits at the same interest rate (10% per quarter) that the EOS Bank does. I will expect full repayment in two turns, but you can make a partial or full repayment next turn. Do you wish to accept this offer and, if so, how much will you borrow? Oh, and make your move while you're at it. FredMSloniker fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jun 3, 2021 |
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Jun 3, 2021 17:38
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That was supposed to be setting them to research, and at this point, I don't even know what my finances are like. Having this would help immensely. I can only blame myself for the failure of the Pharmaceuticals. I saw they produced Medical, did cost/benefit on them doing Medical work, and then failed to account for the fact that this is a C64 game, with all that entails. And I even had one! Let me think this over, but I think I'm not gonna pull out of this spiral without some serious luck. Your gamble on Transportation paid off, that's for sure.
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Jun 4, 2021 03:50
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berryjon posted:Having this would help immensely. Whoops! Here you go.  berryjon posted:Let me think this over, but I think I'm not gonna pull out of this spiral without some serious luck. Your gamble on Transportation paid off, that's for sure. Well, if you'd rather concede and just move on to the next mission, I can do that. My aim is for people to enjoy the LP, and if you're not enjoying...
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Jun 4, 2021 04:31
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FredMSloniker posted:Whoops! Here you go. But I do enjoy learning, and as such, I could sandbox for the thread while you push ahead, that won't be a problem. Also, how is loan repayment handled?
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Jun 4, 2021 04:34
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berryjon posted:But I do enjoy learning, and as such, I could sandbox for the thread while you push ahead, that won't be a problem. Well, if you wanna keep playing, the loan offer stands! If I lose because of it, well, that's on me. berryjon posted:Also, how is loan repayment handled? To the EOS Bank? It's not automatic; your debt to the Bank increases each quarter, as appropriate, and you repay them from the EOS Bank menu. To another player? You send them cash when they say so to avoid the face punchings. 
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Jun 4, 2021 05:33
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Canadian Space Arm-and-Leg Agency "Where you don't have to pay what we do!" The Director looked at the reports. "Wow. Space is hard. Who knew? OK, so SPITE's (but not S.P.I.T.E.) offer is good, but it's just trading one bank for another. We need to get our finances back in order somehow. And apparently I wasn't clear about the Pharm labs last time? OK, so no building this quarter We're saving money and stockpiling. Hopefully. Those Pharm Labs aren't pulling their weight." code:Repay 50 to Bank. SOLAR Charge: 25 COMMU Charge: 20 PHARM Research (Charge 12 otherwise) RESOU Charge: 20 Mission; Maximum Research over the course of 2 years / 8 turns. [/quote]
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Jun 4, 2021 13:20
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Here's my turn. Based on my new market model, as well as my assumptions about how activity demand maps to module demand, nostradamus calculated a module charge to use, how long it would take to pay the widget off (as a reminder, a widget is a hypothetical combination of an activity module and the necessary fractions of support modules needed to run it), and how reliable the prediction is (essentially, how good was I at predicting what happened this turn?) The results are: Name Charge Rank 1 Rank 2 Weather Center 26.2 1 2 Resource Platform 19.4 2 8 Shuttle Port 87.1 3 5 Computer Lab 41.0 4 1 Building Platform 26.2 5 9 Solar Collector 22.9 6 6 Communications 18.4 7 7 Space Telescope 26.6 8 4 Chemical Lab 14.8 9 3 Pharmaceutic Lab 12.7 10 10 What does this mean? It means the Weather Center was my number one pick to build, with a high degree of confidence. The Resource Platform was second, but it hasn't been behaving the way I expected, so I'm hesitant to build it. The Shuttle Port is pick three, with average reliability, and the Computer Lab is #4 in desirability and #1 in reliability. I have no idea what's going on with the Building Platform and even less with the Pharmaceutic Lab, which I wouldn't touch anyway. (For commerce, at least. Research uses different metrics, which I don't know; I assume modules produce research proportional to their base charge.) Remember, though, that widgets are hypothetical things, and the actual cost to add a particular module depends on what excess of Power, Life, and GGym I already have and how much it'll cost to buy whatever extra I need. (This includes extra connectors as needed.) With the 134.6 credits I had after paying down my loan, I could:
 I'm starting to run out of space, but it's not time to switch to research just yet; remember that I can buy a second station if I pay off my loan and have 250 credits in the bank. With that in mind, I set 26.2 for the Weather Center, 41.0 for the Computer Labs, and 87.1 for the Shuttle Port. I hadn't brought it up yet because I wasn't expecting berryjon to start researching so soon, but there are two modes you can put modules into when they're researching. In Enhancements mode, they slowly but steadily do research. Breakthroughs mode can produce four times as much research... emphasis on can. I don't know which pays out better over the long term, but in the short term - well. Berryjon, do you want to roll the dice or not? Once you decide, I'll process the turn.
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Jun 4, 2021 17:53
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The way my luck is going? Can I split the difference on the Labs, or go all in? If it's all in, Let's roll the dice this turn.
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Jun 5, 2021 00:28
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berryjon posted:The way my luck is going? Can I split the difference on the Labs, or go all in? If it's all in, Let's roll the dice this turn. All modules of a specific type have to have the same setting, but different types of modules can be set differently. You can see the AI's settings (though at this point they're purely hypothetical) on its module summary.  And speaking of!  Compared to my predictions, the AI is bullish on the Pharmaceutic Lab and bearish on the Weather Center and the Resource Platform. Everything else was within 10% of what I would charge. And now, the news:
 My Weather Center and Shuttle Port modules have 100% usage, and my Computer Lab modules have 98% usage. It appears the hypotheses I've been operating under about module demand is correct: module demand (a) is an average of the demand for all the activities it produces and (b) isn't actually 'demand' but is a multiplier, or close to it, to get from base charge to ideal charge. (Which is to say, building two Shuttle Ports didn't mean I had to charge half price for each; I could have as many Shuttle Ports as I could cram in and still collect full price on the Transport market.)  Berryjon, meanwhile, saw 93% Solar Collector usage, 90% Communications usage, and 94% Resource Platform usage. He also saw his Pharmaceutic Labs produce, well...  As I understand it, you tech up in activity from A00 to A99, then from B00 to B99, and so on. I'm not sure when you get tech points exactly; my testing earlier showed it's not a one-to-one relationship, but not what the actual ratio is. At certain points you can unlock new modules; for instance, at Medical B50, you unlock the Space Hospital, which is a cargo module you use to construct the titular station. More on that when it's relevant. Oh, and in case you were wondering: no, berryjon, you didn't generate any Medical research either. This isn't your lucky run. That said, not spending anything for a quarter did save you enough money to bolt more stuff on. As for me, the rich get richer. With my 247.4 available cash, I get pretty much the same results from nostradamus, perform pretty much the same station cost analyses, and, speaking of cramming stuff on, get:  Well, hello, another concept I didn't expect to have to explain this mission! You'll note my station is now classed as a Transbase, complete with new icon. (Previously it was a Class 2 station.) What do station classes mean? Well, here's the rundown, and the reason this update took over four hours to make:
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Jun 5, 2021 04:58
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This is turn 5, right? Canadian Space Arm-and-Leg Agency "Where you don't pay what we have to!" "Money is coming in slowly. Let's have the Lab Boys research carefully. No need to push through to ruin things just yet. Well, yet being a relative term. Yes, I have a good idea here. Let me run the numbers..." code:Long Connector in 5,7 and 5,6 (8 Credits) Solar Collector in 1,7 through 4,6 (60 Credits) Weather Module in 6,6 (17 Credits) SOLAR: Charge 25 COMMU: Charge 22 RESOU: Charge 20 PHARM: Research (normal) WEATH: Charge 30(!) Look, with Agriculture demand being as high as it is, I feel I can charge out the nose for that and still catch the tail end of things.
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Jun 5, 2021 19:21
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berryjon posted:This is turn 5, right? Correct, turn five of eight. Which means it's time for me to start thinking about my endgame strategy. But first, your move. Note: the Weather Center's cost increased to 18.7 last turn, and the Solar Collector went up to 66.3 during turn three, so you only had 11.4 available cash remaining. Here's a list of the relevant cost changes; there were no changes this turn.
 Here's your improved station...  ...and here's the AI's.  Compared to the AI, I was optimistic about the Weather Center and Resource Platform and pessimistic about the Pharmaceutic Lab. Let's see who was right. But first, an odd item in the news:  How do you pronounce that, exactly?
... Agriculture starts falling the moment berryjon buys a Weather Module. Berryjon, are you cursed?  Oh hey, my loan limit has gone up! Get your income high enough, and the bank starts trusting you with more money. And I have enough cash on hand to start a second station...  ...which answers my earlier question, as well as another question I had. You have to pay 250 credits just to start a new station, on top of whatever modules you want. Good to know. It's time for me to start thinking about the end game. I've been evaluating the desirability of modules based on how long it takes to pay off the associated widgets; a widget that pays for itself in one turn is better than one that pays for itself in two. (I went into this in more detail when describing how I planned my first turn.) However, I now have to consider whether a widget will have time to pay itself off. The Pharmaceutic Lab, for instance, I currently estimate will take over ten turns to pay itself off - which is six turns more than I have. It could still be worth buying a module that won't fully pay itself off by the end of the mission, if I could generate more research with it than with modules that would, but it's something to keep in mind. I have 352.9 credits available and very limited space to work with. With three Computer Labs and a Weather Station, I'm over halfway to completing the requirements for the Science Lab Station; I'd like to finish doing that.  So I do. (Since it also qualifies as a Transport Base, it's now a Class 1 Station.) Once I pay off my debt, I still have 175.3 credits, which I stick in the bank. (Technically, I'm not out of building space yet - there's a connection on the south end of the new Computer Lab and one on the west end of that Short Connector - but I wanna see if I can squeeze in a second station before the end of the mission.) I also lower my charge on the Weather Center to 29.8 (that ding in the Agriculture market has me worried), but raise my Computer Lab charge to 45.9 and my Shuttle Port charge to 91.8.  Berryjon's module usage was:
 And his two Pharmaceutic Labs produced an enhancement, which put him at tech level A02 in Pharmaceutics and A03 in Medical! Unfortunately, this isn't enough to earn a single tech point, so he isn't winning yet. Berryjon, you have 108.9 credits available. Go. (By the way, when preparing the images for this update, I was running into a weird issue where things that weren't supposed to be transparent were turning transparent. If you see any issues with this or other issues in the LP having blank spots where they shouldn't, let me know.)
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Jun 5, 2021 22:13
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I should now have just enough money to do this without going broke. Turn 6, 7, 8 No building. All Modules perform Research, set to Normal.
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Jun 5, 2021 22:18
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berryjon posted:I should now have just enough money to do this without going broke. Let's find out. But first, a test. I paid off your loan and put all of your funds into savings, then ended the turn. Your operating expenses were 28.2, and in a news bulletin, I was told that the EOS Bank had issued you an emergency loan to cover those expenses. Interestingly, (a) they didn't charge interest on that loan this quarter and (b) you still collected interest on the money in savings! This is exploitable, I feel, but I don't know what would happen if I tried it; my operating expenses at this point are well above what the EOS Bank is willing to lend me. At any rate, since it did you no harm, I go ahead and accept the results of advancing the turn.  The AI continues to build.  Compared to the AI, I overestimated the demand for Weather Center by 6.9% and underestimated the demand for Pharmaceutic Lab by 14.8% and Chemical Lab by 7.2%. Aside from the news about berryjon getting a loan, three items of note came up:
 I only got 82% usage on the Weather Center - I wasn't worried enough about the Agriculture market - but I got 97% on the Computer Labs and 100% on the Shuttle Ports. With 609.6 credits without taking out a loan (and my loan limit has gone up to 84.4 credits), I can easily afford to buy a second station license. Of course, I immediately take that loan to fund the construction of the station:  Unfortunately, I goofed the math at some point - I thought I'd be able to build three Shuttle Ports total, but I ran out of funds here. Ah well. I set the Weather Centers to 27.0, the Computer Labs to 50.7, the Shuttle Ports to 94.2, and my brand-new Solar Collectors to 30.6, though I mainly threw them on for a bit of extra research at the end.   The AI is starting to put modules into research mode as turn seven starts. ...or is it turn eight? The calendar says Winter 1998. In a moment of paranoia, I check my previous updates as well as the manual. ...son of a bitch! The scenario started in Summer 1996, where the manual said Spring 1996, and it supposedly ends in Spring '98! I mean, I could back up my poo poo and advance a quarter, see what happens, but you know what? It's a victory lap at this point. I'm going to throw on those two Shuttle Ports I wanted -  - throw everything into research mode, and pull the handle. If I'd known this was coming, though, I'd have tried to plan it so I could have spent every last dime on researchy stuff. As it is, I'm gonna have nearly 500 credits not making research.   The AI certainly thinks these are the end days.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp9SmaXjovE ...what. The. Hell? Okay. Okay, deep breaths. Where did I go wrong? Well, I got the number of turns wrong for starters, but also: in the end, I had six Shuttle Ports, four Computer Labs, three Weather Centers, and two Solar Collectors running for a single turn kicking out research. I left them all on enhancements (another mistake; I should have set them to breakthroughs and used the Science Lab Station bonus). Shuttle Ports produce Transport activity, Computer Labs produce Information activity, Weather Centers produce Physics and Agriculture activities, and Solar Collectors produce Energy activities. So I should be able to see a direct correlation between the modules and the tech they produced, which is:
Meanwhile, berryjon had his station in full research mode for two turns. He had two Solar Collectors (Energy), one Weather Center (Physics and Agriculture), one Communications (Information, Communications, and Entertainment), two Resource Platforms (Resources, Forestry, and Agriculture), and two Pharmaceutic Labs (Pharmaceutics and Medical). I failed to record his research progress on turn six (another mistake), so I don't know how many enhancements and breakthroughs he got then, but over the two turns he got a total of:
But. Now we know.
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Jun 6, 2021 04:11
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Interesting. I knew having a smaller station meant that I would need to start researching earlier to try and keep up with the larger stations, but seeing the AI like this was... wow. I don't know what to say. And of course, I abused the fact that the end-goal was Research, not financial solvency to drive myself into the hole to do research. Scenario 2 is going to be one hell of a show. We need to build a Drydock, which is a Station with 20 Dry Dock Modules installed. To build a Drydock, we need to reach Construction B50. To research that, we need a Building Platform, and preferably lots of them. Scenario 2 - Turn 0 Canadian Arm-And-Leg Space Agency "Where we pay so you don't have to!" "Director Sloniker... can I call you Fred? Listen, it's become apparent that our competition has... advantages over us. Especially as the requirements of our job grow ever and ever more complex. To that end, I would like to propose a ... partnership of sorts. I think it would be mutually advantageous if we were to pool our resources and support each other in this coming objective. One of us focuses on supporting the other financially, while the other focuses on research and development, providing funding as well. What say you?" Proposal: Fred and I abuse the hell out of the 'Trade' system to team up and beat 2 AI opponents. This of course assumes that we don't get more players involved. Which should be done because that's always fun.
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Jun 6, 2021 04:50
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I've been spending the three hours going over my information on the modules and station classes in the game and making corrections, updating the second post accordingly. I'd like to draw your attention to a few altered entries. Pharmaceutic Lab: "A laboratory used to study and produce exceptionally pure pharmaceutical products." Costs 32 credits to build, two shuttle tons to launch, and 2.5 credits to operate. Uses three crew. Requires ten Power, three Life, and three GGym to operate. Part of the Life Sciences Station. Provides Pharmaceutics and Medical activities at a base charge of 20. The Pharmaceutic Lab is a poor choice for commerce unless both of its markets take off. That said, it's a really good research module. It's compact, it has two attachment points (though their placement is a little strange, making it effectively a 1x2 module instead of a 2x1), and it's cheap to run. Oh, and it's essential for the "Mars Rescue" mission. Underestimate this at your peril.  Resource Platform: "Resource Platforms provide equipment for manned study of Earth's resources." Costs 21 credits to build, two shuttle tons to launch, and 1.5 credits to operate. Uses one crew. Requires ten Power, one Life, and one GGym to operate. Part of the Life Sciences Station. Provides Resources, Forestry, and Agriculture activities at a base charge of ten. One of the worst modules for commercial activities, but one of the best for research. You need Resources research for the last two missions, and this module not only provides Resources research but provides the research you need to unlock the other two sources of Resources research: the Agriculture Lab and the Forestry Lab. Given the Agriculture Lab's poor performance for its size and the Forestry Lab's much better commercial performance, this is still likely to be your primary source of Resources research even once you've researched them. And, most importantly,  Shuttle Port: "Shuttle Ports provide facilities to dock a shuttle to a space station." Costs 77 credits to build, four shuttle tons to launch, and 9.5 credits to operate. Uses five crew. Requires 70 Power, five Life, and five GGym to operate. Part of the Transport Base. Provides Transport activity at a base charge of 74. The second best commerce module overall, and the best you don't need to research for, so long as the Transport market doesn't tank. But it carries a terrible cost: its research efficiency is the worst in the game, due to its huge size and huge costs. Just use it to make money, you say? Well, here's the thing: you need Transport research to build several mission-essential modules starting in the fourth mission, and the only other source of Transport research, the Space Tug, itself requires a full level of Transport research. This shining seagull quickly becomes an albatross. Note: the two station tiles next to the Shuttle's cockpit on the right are not part of its hit box. So yeah. Going whole hog on those Shuttle Ports crucified me when it came to the end game, and I'm going to have to spend some time on that cross every mission starting with the fourth. I'm probably going to take a day off the LP, but I'd like to see if there's any more interest in people joining in now that we have some more idea of what we're doing - if only by counterexample - than we did when we started. If you're interested, but it seems daunting, ask your questions, and I'll try to provide answers! I'm also considering not playing all seven missions in the LP, because they're only going to get longer. The remaining missions are:
Oh, and berryjon, regarding your offer: berryjon posted:Proposal: Fred and I abuse the hell out of the 'Trade' system to team up and beat 2 AI opponents. Running a station purely for profit is, I feel, largely a solved problem at this point. I can improve my market model, but once I know what I expect demand to be next turn, I almost literally push a button and get told what to build. (And with a bit more work I could make that actually literally.) Having been schooled in how research works, I also believe I could run a pure research station 'properly'; I just change the metric of what to buy from 'makes its cost back most quickly' to 'generates the desired research most efficiently for the money and space'. The thing I don't know yet, which is therefore the fun bit, is how and when to properly switch between the two. That said, if you want to do something more cooperative, we have options. For instance, in the 'Shuttle!' mission, we could try to get our lowest score higher than the AIs' highest; we'd both have to do commerce and research, but if one of us falls behind, the other would have incentive to catch them up. I might have other ideas after a good night's sleep. FredMSloniker fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Jun 6, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 08:20
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I think that we should do Dry Dock as it will help show off specialization of stations, and having multiple stations.
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Jun 6, 2021 16:13
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berryjon posted:I think that we should do Dry Dock as it will help show off specialization of stations, and having multiple stations. If you wanted to do that co-op, I think the best solution would be for us to run a single company. We'd have to be careful not to cede the interesting bits (namely, figuring out how to split growth activities, research activities, and winning the mission) to one of us, so there'd be some back-and-forthing. Or we could try to beat the AI on the same turn, meaning our companies would have to support each other in a three-legged race. Or we could compete again, this time without the sucking. I'm holding out hope that someone else will want to play too, though!
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Jun 6, 2021 16:28
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FredMSloniker posted:Or we could compete again, this time without the sucking. I'm holding out hope that someone else will want to play too, though! rolls up his sleeves. "Let's do this!" But come on, it can't be just the two of us! Please?!?! berryjon fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jun 6, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 17:00
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This is cool to read about, but way too complicated for me.
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Jun 6, 2021 17:26
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It looks complicated, but it's not. It's a space-management (in both senses of the word) where you have objectives to complete in each scenario. They build on each other in order, from easiest to most complicated and if you want to jump on, the sooner, the better. Honestly, the hardest part for me is the market as I already have a head for space optimization and design thanks to working in a warehouse. So designing stations isn't hard to me. Hey Fred, as an option, if you're so inclined, we could re-run the first scenario again to get some more experience and to give all of our players more time to see how things are going. And to join in. PLEASE JOIN IN! I could probably do with more detailed write ups of my own, as I can't let you do all the hard work on that end. I already have a plan for Scenario 2 in mind, but practice does make perfect.
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Jun 6, 2021 17:38
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If you want to take part, I can polish the code I'm using and send you a program where you plug in what you think the market will do next turn and what you want to accomplish and have it tell you exactly what to build. I automate that part myself, and I see no reason not to share it for the sake of a more interesting LP. I can even give you some advice on predicting the market, though of course I won't share my exact prediction model.
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Jun 6, 2021 18:24
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Nah, I'm good. I have my own methods. hides his tarot cards behind his back. Besides, it's fun!
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Jun 6, 2021 18:36
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The offer was meant more for anyone else who wanted to jump in on this LP but was hesitant about the complexity. You beat me in the last mission; you don't need the help. On a more serious note, I'm kind of concerned about the viewership of this LP. These are all the posts that aren't by me or berryjon: Gideon020 posted:I will admit, an LP born from spite was not something I expected, but somehow feels particularly Goon-y. Kangra posted:I played Project Space Station a lot, and I always wondered what EOS was like, so I'm interested in following this. AtomikKrab posted:This game makes me think of how loving idealistic we were about space just in the 1990s, we were gonna DO poo poo... and we don't After The War posted:Argh, I'd forgotten how badly the Station Power and Solar Collector modules make me want Chex mix. Veloxyll posted:So is each mission self contained? Or do you play the same company throughout all of the missions? Because I can see tanking the first mission to win harder later on with your disgusting economy seems like it'd be a legit strategy Kangra posted:For some reason I think PSS had a refitted Enterprise orbiter as well, though I may be misremembering. Kangra posted:Yes, the shuttle piloting minigame was one of the best parts, but I'll hold off discussion till the potential LP of that game. (I think I also recall that you don't really do stuff for the ESA so much as bid on contracts that they'd otherwise take.) habituallyred posted:This is cool to read about, but way too complicated for me. That's nine posts out of 64 and less than 2,000 characters. Am I setting my expectations too high? Am I doing something wrong that's discouraging thread participation? Is there just not a lot of interest in the game? I'm willing to keep things going as long as someone is interested, but I'd really rather it be more than someone.
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Jun 7, 2021 02:19
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I'm quietly following it, but it's also my means of spending sleepless nights, so I wouldn't expect coherent posting on my part.
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Jun 7, 2021 03:05
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FredMSloniker posted:That's nine posts out of 64 and less than 2,000 characters. Am I setting my expectations too high? Am I doing something wrong that's discouraging thread participation? Is there just not a lot of interest in the game? I'm willing to keep things going as long as someone is interested, but I'd really rather it be more than someone. I'm following along, it's a cool game/thread! But unfortunately I don't have the time to participate at the moment 
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Jun 7, 2021 06:32
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The infodump in the OP was very intimidating to me. Also it's like a puzzle game but with a lot of RNG thrown in which honestly doesn't sound like a good game design decision since it effectively punishes meticulous min-maxing. But if you want someone who will definitely build suboptimally and sometimes screw things up I can throw in! Watching the first round helped a lot, I think if you had some kind of tutorial mission or run-through it would have helped a lot with participation. I am Eloi Wusk of Spacey. A maverick billionaire who made his fortune in the 1980's installing payday loan storefronts in redlined neighbourhoods, he's turned his focus to hurling that fortune into space. And accusing people of being pedophiles in his monthly Playboy column. But mostly the former. His ultimate goal is to make a space station shaped like a giant robot version of himself, which will then transform and fly to Pluto.
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Jun 7, 2021 19:09
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Woo! A third participant! I'm working on improving the tools I've been using to be as easy to use as possible; once I'm done, I'll throw them up on a Google Drive and everyone can download them or not at their pleasure. (Please be aware that the interface will be rather primitive. Also be aware that you'll need Lua installed; if that's a deal-breaker, let me know what OS you have and I'll see if I can compile something for you.) Once the tools are ready, I'll also start the Dry Dock mission. While I work, though, let me fill you in optional rules. There are three of them, and this mission introduces two, but you can turn them on or off for any mission.
Decoy Badger posted:The infodump in the OP was very intimidating to me. I'm working on improving the OP as we speak. The second post is going to have to stay an infodump, but I'll try to organize it better. I'm also going to be removing negativity from the first post, as I'm over it now and it may be turning potential readers off. Decoy Badger posted:Also it's like a puzzle game but with a lot of RNG thrown in which honestly doesn't sound like a good game design decision since it effectively punishes meticulous min-maxing. There's RNG, but not as much as you might think. By and large, I was able to predict what the market did, and the occasional market hiccup will only hurt those who predicted less accurately. Decoy Badger posted:Watching the first round helped a lot, I think if you had some kind of tutorial mission or run-through it would have helped a lot with participation. Yeah, I guess... consider the first mission the tutorial? I'll bring that up in the OP. Decoy Badger posted:His ultimate goal is to make a space station shaped like a giant robot version of himself, which will then transform and fly to Pluto. You'll be pleased to know that Pluto (a) is in the game, (b) is still a planet, and (c) is a valid Settlement location, as is Charon.
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Jun 7, 2021 20:08
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I've improved (I hope) my first two posts in the thread. I also discovered something interesting while looking at screenshots: before we started having technical difficulties, the "Research" mission started in Spring '96 as it should. It was only on our final run that it started in Summer '96. Before I start the next mission, I'll have to make sure I haven't somehow borked the mission disc. (I did copy it as instructed, but maybe I need a fresh copy?)
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Jun 7, 2021 20:55
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Decoy Badger posted:I am Eloi Wusk of Spacey. A maverick billionaire who made his fortune in the 1980's installing payday loan storefronts in redlined neighbourhoods, he's turned his focus to hurling that fortune into space. And accusing people of being pedophiles in his monthly Playboy column. But mostly the former. His ultimate goal is to make a space station shaped like a giant robot version of himself, which will then transform and fly to Pluto. Yay! Welcome to the party! Here's hoping we get a fourth, but if people want to wait a bit, I won't mind. FredMSloniker posted:Before I start the next mission, I'll have to make sure I haven't somehow borked the mission disc. (I did copy it as instructed, but maybe I need a fresh copy?)
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Jun 8, 2021 01:17
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It may be a few days before I start the next mission; I'm still working on improving my LP tools, as well as other routine RL stuff. I'll keep you up to date.
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Jun 9, 2021 04:37
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Scenario 1 Retrospective - Canadian Space Arm-and-Leg Agency Scenario 1 - Research! While Fred was doing all the heavy lifting of running the game and doing the LP work, I was free to make plans of my own. After looking at the two example stations the AI built during Fred's test runs, I decided to just wing it for the most part. However, my end-game was always going to be the same. I'm going to skip the technical difficulties part, as I'm sure Fred has had much to say about that. Or not a lot. Their choice. Or they just kept the words inside their head out of politeness. Regardless, the result of this was showing how the AI optimizes for space, and that was a lesson I took to heart. To that end, I designed a 'core' to my Space Station that I tried to keep through multiple iterations - that being: code: My choice of modules were two Pharmacy Modules, and this is where I screwed up. You see, I didn't fully understand how the game calculates Commerce income, and so when I saw that Medical demand was rising, I figured the station would focus on Medical for Commerce. Turns out, not so much. I did some math on the next turn, and it seems to me that a Module that can provide multiple commerce options, will do so. However, it will favor one over the other, and my back-of-the-napkin math showed that in my case, the two modules applied 2/3 of their commerce to the more successful Medical, and 1/3 to the far less successful Pharmaceuticals. This mistake would help in the endgame though. For turn 2, I switched over and built a Communications Module, again because I saw the relevant upsides in commerce over the downside. That, and I wanted more information to build a model of how the game handles these things. It wasn't pretty. As an aside, I have a personal rule when it comes to responding to market forces like this. Never go for the Top Performer. This is the theory that other actors will go for the high-end income - which in this round was Agriculture - and they would interfere with each other, dragging things down on their own. However, this isn't happening in this game, so I need to pay more attention to the top performers as time goes by in future scenarios. Next turn, I decided to start riding the Agriculture Train, and built a pair of Resource Modules as well as an additional Life B module to support things. There was some confusion over the Pharm modules as I intended to set them to Research, but they would up off to save money. Oh well. This turned out to be a solid choice as the two Resource modules would keep me solvent enough through the last couple of turns. I then took a turn off, and just let things run to build up some cash flow. I made a mistake on the next turn, building a second Solar Collector when the time-over-money calculus was pretty bad. I also added a Weather Station with the leftover funds. Then, I had just enough money to go for broke. Literally. You see, there's one thing that I think Fred missed in their planning and that the end goal of the scenario isn't money, it's research. So for the last turns, I drove my finances into the red, and set everything to Research. Fred got the memo a turn too late, and pulled his switch after me. But I had just enough of a head start to pull ahead of him, though had the scenario gone on even one more turn, his weight of modules might have let him catch up to me. But the computer schooled us both. C'est la vie. Yet, with lessons learned, I think I'll do a lot better in the next scenario. I have a plan this time.
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Jun 9, 2021 16:17
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berryjon posted:You see, there's one thing that I think Fred missed in their planning and that the end goal of the scenario isn't money, it's research. So for the last turns, I drove my finances into the red, and set everything to Research. Fred got the memo a turn too late, and pulled his switch after me. But I had just enough of a head start to pull ahead of him, though had the scenario gone on even one more turn, his weight of modules might have let him catch up to me. I didn't miss it. I misunderstood the way research worked and thought that, the higher a module's base charge, the more research it could produce. My plan was to spend nearly everything on the second to last turn building as much as possible, then switch it all over. Unfortunately, (a) I got caught out by the unexpected end of game and (b) thanks to my misunderstanding, thought I was going to win anyway, so didn't bother buying a bunch of stuff to put in research.
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Jun 9, 2021 16:42
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Regardless, one more turn, the turn we thought we both had, and I think you would have pulled ahead of me.
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Jun 9, 2021 17:24
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Eagerly looking forward to the next mission!
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Jun 10, 2021 04:46
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Me: "Man, it's hard work having to pull every screenshot into GIMP, crop it, make the corners translucent, save it again..." Also me: (spends hours using minimal Python knowledge and a PNG module grabbed online to write a program that will do it for me)  No AI player this time; I doubt any of us want to find the game suddenly over because the computer beat us to it. We might have AIs on future, time limit-based missions. I didn't find the news too useful last game, but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. In the interests of presenting all available data to aid your decision-making, here it is:
 Note the new option at the bottom. As previously mentioned, this mission introduces advertising. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to use it - worst-case scenario, everyone spends 500 credits for everyone to have permanently reduced their usage percentages by 50% - but that doesn't mean I won't retaliate if attacked. Don't start none, won't get none. The first-turn market changes are:
 For now, I'm focusing on growth. I like the look of the Pharmaceutics market, so I'm grabbing some of that, and I'm using a Solar Collector mainly because it's something, commerce-wise, and meets my power needs for a while. I'll charge 34.1 for the Pharmaceutics Labs and 20.5 for the Solar Collector... unless one of you yokels gives me reason to do otherwise. Berryjon, you're player 2; Decoy Badger, you're player 3. There's still time to join as player 4, though not a lot. You each have 200 cash on hand and 50 in potential loans. Have fun! Oh, and those tools I mentioned aren't quite where I want them to be yet - they do what I want, but they're not bullet-proofed or anything - but if you want a tool that, given your predictions for market demand, suggests what to build next, just let me know.
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Jun 10, 2021 20:47
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 Spacey is proud to introduce our new space station with Full Self Operation technology! The advanced automation means that there are zero surplus crew needed on board! Charge 26.5 for both building platforms.
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Jun 11, 2021 03:22
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Decoy Badger posted:
You do that picture manually, or you hack a program together? Either way, it looks nice. More precisely, it looks like this:  I can put together a pack of the images as used in Appendix F, i.e. without the outlines I use in the LP images, if you like. Actually, some sort of 'turn your station design into a pretty picture' program isn't a bad idea.  You have a lot of funds left over, though. Might I humbly suggest you consider investing it in growth opportunities?
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Jun 11, 2021 04:14
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.... That is literally the station I started with in the first game (try number 3). Just organized a little differently. Well, if you're gonna steal my start, I'm gonna steal yours! BWAHAHAHAHAHAH! Canadian Space Arm-and-Leg Agency - "Where you don't pay what we have to! "Did someone screw with the clocks?" "No Director," the Nameless Intern stated. "It's Spring, 1996." "God, it feels like I just spent two years trying to design a space station that didn't suck and wound up losing to someone running their CAD on a C64." "I wouldn't know sir. Regardless, the Prime Minister has sent this message." "Hand it over." Director Berryjon reads. "Huh. He wants me to build a dry dock in LEO in order to facilitate future expansion. But we don't have the knowledge to do that yet, do we?" "No sir." "And we're not using public funds. We'll have to be financially solvent this whole time, right?" "Yes sir." "Well, I think I have a better idea of how to start this station off than in my dreams. I'll copy the design from the winner in my head and make it better!" "Sir?" "No, nothing. Start making rental space in the Shuttle Fleet. American. Russian. French. We'll need it."  200 Cash, 50 Loan. Command Module (3,9), (3,10). Facing "South". 25 Credits. Long Connector in (3,7) and (3,6). 8 Credits Long Connector (8 Credits) Solar Collector (4,9 through 7,8). Connection to COMMA at 3,8. 60 Credits Shuttle Port (1,8 through 2,7). Connection to COMMA at 3,8. 77 Credits Logistics (1,6), (2,6). 15 Credits. Life B in (4,7), (5,7). 18 Credits. Galley and Gym in (6,7), (7,7). 25 Credits 236 Credits Spent; 14 Left in Loan. +3 Life, +19 GGym, +10 Power (yikes!) Energy: Charge 20 Transport: Charge 74 berryjon fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Jun 11, 2021 |
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Jun 11, 2021 04:52
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berryjon posted:Shuttle Port (1,8 through 2,7). Connection to COMMA at 3,8. 77 Credits The Shuttle Port is shaped like this: ...## .#### .#### +#### Where the + is the connection point. Please advise. e: for clarity, the + is not part of the Shuttle Port, just the place on the Shuttle Port where it can attach. See also: 
FredMSloniker fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Jun 11, 2021 |
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Jun 11, 2021 05:47
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