Dread's Season 9 Wonderland

So a lot of time I post here either wanting something or complaining about something. I get it that a majority of posts are these. So I wanted to do something different.

I wanted to give as much input and ideas as possible that might help in the long run. So I compiled a list of changes for Season 9 I think will help. This is all my opinion and others might not like it. I expect there will be some trolling but please try and keep it to civilized discussion as likely ZERO of this will happen.

My goals.

  1. Help with the first 2-4 weeks when the server has an influx of new players.
  • Veterans getting all the good stuff
  • Newbies having a hard time on harsh starter worlds
  • Veterans killing newbies
  • Core limit reaching critical mass almost daily on starters and some worlds.
  1. Create more dynamic PvP spots so there are more unique places to hunt

  2. Give the PvE guys more options.

  3. Reducing lag.

This is a very early rough draft. Be kind.

@RexXxuS @Jascha

Everything is updated. Feedback and thoughts and ideas wanted.

4 Likes

Dreadstar’s Season 9 Wonderland

NA and EU Server (Identical)

Freelancer/Lawless/Alliance Cryo (PvP)

  • Class 3 (basic resources to get off planet)
  • Hard conditions but won’t die to elements
  • Large amount of medium to hard NPCs
  • OCD not useable
  • Kills do not give you RP or Kill Count
  • A couple friendly EGS facilities with weaponry that will shoot guilty players only
  • 5 kills insta-guilty (EGS facilities unaccessible)
  • Moons and resource loudouts same as season 8.

Prototype (PvP)

  • Class 2 (basic resources to get off planet)
  • Very Harsh Conditions
  • Massive Amounts of OP NPCs
  • OCD useable

ECC & ECC Orbit

  • Class 1 (only time people go here is for the EGS items)
  • 0 Private/Faction/Alliance BA’s (Keep the core limit and lag down)
  • 0 Private/Faction/Alliance CV’s (Keep the core limit and lag down)
  • The only cores left here are those for sale. It would be nice that after 48 hours if a ship not for sale is left on the docking pad it starts to get taxed. A small amount that gets bigger and bigger until the ship is finally deleted by the decay timer.
  • A large shipyard in space for selling CVs. You can teleport to ECC from any of the stations in space so no need for CVs to be on planet.
  • Everything else for ECC and ECC Orbit the same as Season 8.

Peacekeeper East and West the same as Season 8.

Donare East & West

  • Class 2 (rest same as Season 8)

Revery East & West

  • Class 2 (rest same as Season 8)

Honore East & West
Class 2 (same as Season 8)

Sathon & Jupidor

  • Class 2 (same as Season 8)

Homeworld Sector

  • Syndicate Star (see The Syndicate below)
  • 5 seperate areas with 4-8 gold asteroids clusters
  • EGS Star
  • Supergate (2 if possible with 1 to 1 connection)
    ** Connected to ECC and Titan

Homeworld Planet

  • Class 3 (everything else statwise like Season 6)
  • Iron & Sathium crust in the amount that the non red gold layer is on GG
  • No deposits or meteorites
  • Standard simple to medium POIs. No alien POIs.

Lavaworld Planet

  • Class 2 (less lava than currently)
  • Thin layer of Copper crust
  • No deposits or meteorites
  • Standard simple to medium POIs. No alien POIs.

Iceworld Planet

  • Class 2 (no changes)
  • Thin layer of Cobalt crust
  • No deposits or meteorites
  • Standard simple to medium POIs. No alien POIs.

Desertworld Planet

  • Class 2 (no changes)
  • Thin layer of Silicon crust
  • No deposits or meteorites.
  • Standard simple to medium POIs. No alien POIs.

Waterworld Planet

  • Class 2 (no changes)
  • Thin layer of Pent crust
  • No deposits or meteorites
  • Syndicate Outpost (see The Syndicate below)
  • Standard simple to medium POIs. No alien POIs.

Black Hole Orbit

  • Same setup as Season 8
  • Deathstar(time for a change make it a great big gold diamond for season 9)

Armageddon (Same CV restrictions as GG for Season 8)

  • PvP/PvE rotation
  • Indestructible crust
  • Clusters of decent deposits of common resources
  • Clusters of small deposits of rare resources
  • Season 7 rain of many gold meteorites during prime time

Golden Globe

  • Lighten the gravity slightly but still make it hurt
  • 6 BA Limit per Alliance, 2 BA Limit per Faction, 0 BA Limit per Private
  • Keep everything else the same

Titan Orbit

  • Same setup as Season 8
  • Syndicate Outpost (see The Syndicate below)
  • Supergate (2 if possible with 1 to 1 connection)
  • Connected to Pandora and Titan
  • 4-6 clusters of fold asteroids spread around the orbit

Pandora Orbit

  • Syndicate Starbase (see The Syndicate below)
  • Supergate
  • Connected to Titan
  • 4-6 clusters of gold asteroids spread around the orbit

Pandora

Pandora Planet

  • Class 3
  • Thin layer of crusts of rare resources minus gold
  • No POIs
  • Several small Syndicate owned spawn pads(server owned)
  • Super light gravity like the old GG
  • Limits:
  • 0 Private, Faction Bases
  • 0 Private, Faction and Alliance CVs
  • 0 Private HV(3k block limit), 5 Faction HVs(3k block limit)
  • (Max 5 Faction, 10 Alliance HV on planet)
  • 1 Private SV(3k block limit), 20 Faction SVs(3k block limit)
  • Wipe Schedule - Every restart crust is wiped
  • Try to keep any of the additional shaders to minimum here (think performance)

EU/NA CSW

  • Same as last season but this takes you from EU to NA

Sanctuary CSW (If this isn’t possible just stick it with EU/NA CSW)

Alien Sector

  • Keep it the same as it is now.

Strayom Sector (Remove)

Sanctuary (PvE Oriented)

Sanctuary is setup for those new players and players who are mostly PvP.

Same Setup as Season 8 except the following.

  • Blackhole Orbit (Remove)
  • Titan Orbit (Remove)
  • Homeworld Sector (Remove)

Strayom Sector is put back in this server

Homeworld Sector replaced with Sanctuary Sector
Orbit

  • PvE
  • Asteroid field like in GG
  • 2-3 clusters of 3-4 gold asteroids

Sanctuary Planet

  • Class 3
  • Setup like Homeworld Season 7
  • PvE

Planet 1,2,3,4

  • Class 2
  • Similar to Lava,Water,Desert, and Ice worlds in Homeworld
  • PvE

Blackhole Sector replaced with Guardian Sector
Orbit

  • PvEvP Rotation
  • Deathstar
  • Asteroid Field like in GG
  • 2-3 clusters of 3-4 gold asteroids

Planet 1

  • PvEvP Rotation set to prime time
  • Common deposits and meteorites
  • During prime time during PvP Eres, Zasc, Neo meteorites

Planet 2

  • PvEvP Rotation set to prime time
  • Common deposits and meteorites
  • During prime time during PvP Pent, Prom meteorites

Ok so a few things.

If you have less than 20 hours in HWS you must start in Sanctuary.
If you have more than 100 hours in HWS you must start in EU/NA
This will do several things. Newbies still have a easier time getting adjusted to the server. Veterans won’t be able to grief and instantly grab all the good resources. Newbies won’t be spamming up the EU/NA servers with tons of cores.

Sanctuary is setup as a more PvE universe. It has a lot of PvEvP rotation planets to ease people into PvP on their terms. This will hopefully help new players get established and then move to the EU/NA servers.

Make the decay timer on cores half what it is on EU/NA. This will keep those people who show up and never come back from screwing up the cap limit.

There is no gold planet, the PvP hotspots, or the Alien worlds I’ve left/created in the NA/EU. This will hopefully help drive the newer players who stay long term to move to the NA/EU servers.

This place is also for the the 1-2 man factions who aren’t interested in PvP 24/7.

I’ve still made the EU/NA the prime servers and the risk vs reward is much greater here. I think people will migrate from Sanctuary to the EU/NA server once they figure this out.


Syndicate
Syndicate is a shady organization in opposition of EGS. Think of it as the Rebels and EGS is the Empire. Members of Syndicate don’t like how EGS as a galactic power. Syndicate is a place for those guilty people to go to access all their server feature needs. All Syndicate ships will be solid black with different colors of trim. All EGS ships will be a light grey/white with different colors of trimming. This will allow you to know instantly when you see a garage ship if its a Syndicate or EGS garage ship.

The Syndicate starbase is like ECC for Syndicate. The Syndicate Outpost is a smaller outpost, and the Syndicate Star like EGS Star.

If you aren’t guilty and you show up at a Syndicate facility you will be targeted. (if possible)

The same rules that apply at EGS Star apply at all Syndicate facilities

There will be a few unique ships that are only available at Syndicate and a few that are only available at EGS.

A Syndicate Facility will allow you to reset your guilty counter once per week. Meaning your next egs:noguilty will be 100k credits and 1 RP. Think of it as if you just paid off a hacker to clean your record. This will of course cost some amount of credits and rp.

Syndicate PDA missions that upon completion will turn you not guilty or give you a free use at the hacker to clean you record.**
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Pandora

This is the SV Wonderland I spoke about on the other thread. Take the risk of jumping from Titan to Pandora then to the planet then back to the exit Supergate through Titan to Supergate to safety.
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Armageddon
I loved the PvPvE rotation of last season and the rain of golden meteroites. Let’s not lose that. Maybe make it so that 100 block CVs, 0 SVs, 0 BAs, and tons of HVs are the only thing allowed. Make the place for good HV combat.

TLDR

I tried to fix the following problems.

** 1.Starting out the server always has a lot of new players and there are always the same problems.**

  • Core limits
  • Veterans getting all the good stuff first cause they know how and where
  • Newbies having a hard go at it
  • Newbies getting griefed by PvPers
  • Not much real lead up and introduction to PvP

2. Added in Syndicate to help add the other needed mechanic to go with the new Guilty rules. Also gives guilty players a ton of RP reasons. Also gives some unique RP reasons for the server and unique ships for both sides.

3. We need to have more contests.

  • Design the best Alien POI
  • Design the best 3k SV fighter
  • Design the best 4k HV miner
  • Design the best Jack of All Trades CV
  • Design the best SV miner

The idea to let people design the bunkers for season 7 was great. We really got some cool custom bunkers. We have a lot of creative people. Let them design NPC ships, garage ships, POIs and reward them with gold, RP, alien cores, packs, ect.

4. Created more PvP hotspots.

  • Homeworld last season was secondary PvP spot. Its not this season because of the lack of crust and the thought that Titan would be a new hotspot.
  • Armageddon just isn’t kicking like it was last season cause there not much reason to go there.
  • Titan while cool the first couple of times doesn’t have the “reward” that season 7 homeworld or Golden Globe has.

To create more PvP hotspots I’ve added in a ton of stuff.

  • Syndicate bases which should be hotspots for finding guilty people doing guilty stuff.
  • The clusters of gold asteroids. The few that are in Homeworld, Titan, and BH are great for finding people mining and create PvP conflict. Gives the PvPers somewhere to hunt and the PvE guys somewhere to try and ninja mine. More would give the PvE guys a better chance of succeeding and the PvP guys more ground to hunt in. win-win for both groups.
  • Resource crusts made Homeworld the hotspot it was last season. Lets get those back in as they were then.This is saved.

6 Likes

Thanks for taking the time to read this RexXxus.

My only comment is the filler tool. Lets be honest 99% of the time its being used for breaking rules.

3 Likes

I skimmed through most of this and was not bad until you got to the faction and alliance sizes. 20 man faction alliance 2. So potentially 40 people fight 40 people at once in one area? I know it does not quite happen like that but does no one else think much smaller groups would not be better? For one it allows More PVP as there are more than potentially 2 groups. Server is big but likely 80 people in 4 factions. This still does nothing for those that choose to play with just their buddies or solo.

I think 5 man faction with no more than one ally for a total of 10 vs 10 would be much better. This lowers the chances that a solo/small group run into a overpowering number and balances PVP for all. If you truely want to ease PVE players toward PVP it has to feel like they have a fair chance to check it out. Threat of running into a faction of high numbers would turn them off the idea.

Its a long read but it is well thought out. The player base should read it through and voice their thoughts, the admins should consider using this as a template for next season and balance it with their own experience and player commentary.

I would personally like to see the admins fresh start themselves on their own server, work their way off starter planet, and accumulate 50k of each resource except pentaxid.

This is a good litmus for the noob-difficulty of your server.

Motive:
Personally I hate that as a fresh spawn, the environment is calibrated to kill you on the starter worlds for instance, I thought this was poorly planned out. Lots of aliens or drones is fair and something to fight against, but fighting the cold without an EVA is… well really boring and un-nessecary. So is ECC space being so darn hot.

Last season, resource accumulation was extremely easy. This made anyone who played even 2 weeks of last season very strong vs. anyone starting this season. I agree that resources were slightly too easy last season, but the extreme in which they were reduced actually only benefited those who were already ahead – new factions have reported actual stonewall-denial of resources due to scarcity and I believe them that its real resource shortage and not that its just harder than they are willing to work.

I don’t even know where to start. Right now its unlimited vs unlimited with unlimited alliances.

This brings it down to potentially 40 total people in an Alliance. Both the Rebel Horde and Empire have more than 40 members on their combined Alliance roster as it is on NA. As it stands I’ve never so a aggregate fight over 20 participants in the last season. Your 10 vs 10 if both sides had 100% online would be basically what the largest fights get to now.

You are basically disagreeing to what you want. I am not sure where your disconnect is.

The faction member limits have no bearing on how many can fight in one playfield. That is what the playfield limits are for. You have to look at the bigger picture.

Only a few would want to cap it at 5. I have more than 4 friends I want to play with, because you don’t doesn’t mean RexXxus would ever consider doing something like 5 faction members and 2 faction in alliance. Its a non-starter.

As rexxxus has already stated, a 3rd server designed for pve is not possible. Also, forcing new players onto a 3rd server would kill the populations of both EU and NA. Ironically, these people make up the largest share on both servers.

1 Like

yes we need a third server like sanctuary.
the cross server warp works very well.
I noticed that there’s a lot of PVEer that want to play on a PVP PVE server.

Hey @Dreadstar

I had a good read! Thanks!
It’s always interesting for me what player have in mind and what if they play the “god” role to create an environment / server for thousands of players. I try to pick the best out of everything and merge them together.

Some things for example can’t be made possible such as a third server again. That would kill me.

I said already that this is possible with the HWS Config, but removing a game feature for possible useful stuff? Hmm… for now let’s see if rules are enough.

While flares are just there for bling-bling, how do you want to light up CV rooms? Force people to run around with flashlight is again rather a first-aid solution I think.
But we could limit the overall amount of lights no matter where. But… what value makes sense? It’s a fixed value. 20? For a class 7 base too few maybe? Tricky.

The Syndicate idea is cool and I like to integrate more role play. But some things would be again tons of hard work to make them somehow possible. I’m a bit tired of all of our workarounds to create basically our own game, because Eleon wants a different game. It’s a bit a challenge “who creates a better game” :wink: But well, I focus of course on MP…

Overall, don’t think it was wasted!

I am away of the failed Homeworld and Armageddon for example. Or the failed regenerating POIs. Or resource distribution. All of that was sadly running out of time.
It’s already fixed in the meantime for the next season but yeah, let’s wait for the wipe.

The Gold Cluster will come, the 1:1 Supergates, lot better resource crust in some biomes (not the whole planet). Some will be dangerous, some interesting.

I will also try to create more dedicate PvP planets to different game styles (only SV, only HVs, etc.)
Even hotspots should have a kind of story… will think about it.

But for sure performance is always the main key factor.
I think by now some realized that the HWS universes are not as others “let’s click on the generate button and boom have fun with 200 planets”. Maybe my universes are boring or the names are shit but at least I can say it is 100% handmade and a purpose.

At least every feedback is welcome to make it better each time.

I said already HWS 8 was (unfortunately) a test. I was again the test bunny for bigger planets and new wipe / reset commands which didn’t work in the end…
We know what failed and will improve for sure in HWS 9 :slight_smile:

4 Likes

Not sure that I have absorbed all of your gigantic post in the first read, just wanted to congratulate you on such a detailed, positive and thought provoking post. It must have taken you quite some time to pull all of that together! :clap::clap::clap:

… though the counter EGS Syndicate, in particular, does sound really cool to me :sunglasses:

This is actually an interesting prospect. You are spot on that bases will need more lights than moving ships, especially sprawling modular built bases. But in my experience if you adjust the settings for intensity and range on the lights, I have NEVER had a need for more than 10 lights (not flares cause those are not even nearly the same effect) on anything that would be mobile. I can only think of a few of my designs with more than 3, honestly. I know the chatbot can be configured for limits per block or type, etc, perhaps a poll post putting this forward more formally might allow for a positive change. Some people may just not even realize the effect putting 15-30 lights per hv has on the playfield. Giving a hard tangible limit instead of just “it will up your class size” may help atleast the pvp areas quite a bit.

As mcprouty said, I wasn’t aware that putting lights on vehicles or bases had any effect on anything except my own computer rendering that light. I always mount a ton of lights to everything I have, if it taxes the server with the amount of lights, I’ll definitely cut down on the amount I put on things I build.

I dont see a problem in limiting lights too. At day time theres enough light and at night gentleman sleeps, as hes drinking since noon.
I never used more than 3 in CV, actualy i could even say i never used light. But i saw many not nice structures where owners thought that more light will make it nicer, it wont.
I would go with 15, thats more than enough and gives opportunity for zombies to hide in darker corners.

Guys only problem is as usuall that someone will come with bp from creative with 200 lights wondering why he or even she cant spawn it.

Are we really talking about lights here? How desperate we have become. :space_invader:

Yeah, I think after so long time it is our responsibility to improve the experience! Eleon is too busy with SP or other stuff…
Hence we try the light approach slowly with a limit of 61. (to make this crazy Prefab CV Tier3 blueprint compatible to HWS -.- )
But these are some structures on HWS EU by the way
image
Of course almost all of them are “Farm” Bases with a lot of plant lights. They will be not limited for now.

Best to do it also with Thrusters, Hover Engines and RCS to make it more interesting but maybe later.

The problem with taking something away (like reducing turret amount): the blueprint is red for the player and he doesn’t know why, because the HWS Config is unique.

We will provide details in the Guide so they can adjust their blueprints.

Ah great, skip that. We can limit lights but blueprints are still available to spawn :hear_no_evil:

1 Like

skip the skip. This works for prefabs but as soon as you save your blueprint fresh again it gets “checked”.
Hence it turns orange in your F2 list with “Exceeds max number for certain block type…”
61 lights for now.

1 Like

:sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

So this is across the board? No way to check specifically for “not Base”? Because like you said, a mega farm has a very valid reason to have that many lights, and if we limit their lights, the best counter will be to have many small farms. AKA more cores for the same job. It is rare that I see a farm in PVP, or even in a heavily travelled area. I dont suppose Eleon can come up with a different count for grow lights? Cannot remember if it is in the detailed feedback list on p menu, or if the Chatbot can see that info, and subtract growing lights. Loads of questions, not alot of solutions I know. Just brainstorming for the best option.

Eh as I said. We can differentiate between “Lights” and “Growing Lights”.
Lights = 61
Growing Lights = infinite

We could even limit each of them (right click) different.

2 Likes

Beautiful. I personally think that would be the best method. Absolutely no one needs 61+ normal lights, and Ill be happy to explain to anyone who disagrees why that is the case :), particularly when the valid counter argument of large farms is removed from the equation.