I have just pushed a bigger logic update to the HWS Connect Skill Tree. To ensure the 90-day season remains engaging from day 1 to day 90, we have moved away from static patterns to a dynamic Inverted Gaussian Reward Curve.
What is the “Inverted Gaussian” Curve?
Instead of a flat grind, rewards now follow a “U-Shape” trajectory:
The Launch: High-value gains to kickstart your season.
The Mid-Season: A strategic dip in values (around Day 45) during the heavy grind.
The Finale: An explosive ramp-up in stats and XP as you approach Day 90.
HWS RE
Total ST: 4,010 | Total HP/FO: 4,000
Unlock Points: 6,400
Total XP: 9,500,000
HWS+
Since it / will be more casual orientated, the stat capacity is increased by +5,000 points across the board.
Total ST: 5,677 | Total HP: 5,666 | Total FO: 5,667
Unlock Points: 6,400
Total XP: 9,500,000
Note: the math is off for this season, since I can’t revert your already made stats, so it will be rather relevant for the next season. Feel free to give me feedback about that though.
Reworked HWS Tutorial. Added more steps to also explain other features and give Reward at the end for completing it (one time reward in total)
Added new “HWS Online Players” page to make it consistent and splitted it from the Hunter Board it was before at the bottom
Improved Hunter and Kill Board handling of 4 servers by not showing all 4 servers
Overall improved some background services
Changed logic of Hunter Board => you must be online to receive up to date data now, otherwise you get a cached version of it (to prevent some auto scrape bots). I might offer this service on my own in the future
recently we got couple of errors and server start issues related to out of memory playfield exceptions (even though the server had enough of its 512GB RAM available).
Investigating these errors, we found out, that since 10 years there is a hidden config file, determining how many job workers and memory is allocated to what degree.
With the next server restart in 45 minutes, at 18:00, I’ll do the first test, changing the config to good and proper values.
Right now, the default is pumping all available hardware at the issue and prey for the best ([PhysX] Initialized MultithreadedTaskDispatcher with 24 workers.)
This is probably not the best on big busy servers…
In terms of allocated memory, I did some local comparisons and it’s quite serious how bad the default config is (see screenshot):
Let’s see how the real test goes. I can change the config parameters with any server restart without a problem, so if I see within the first hours something is not right (please report back to me if something is off) I’ll do another server restart at 19:00 and revert it.
On RE EU we have these in playfield logs right now:
The goal is to reduce these millions failed alloc counts. Reducing this might have big impact on your overall experience - invisible ships, missing items, bugs, etc.
Let’s compare later/tomorrow, before I go to the hospital.
another investigation was being done, why the server suddenly behaved strange / dead.
Apparently, a 114GB log file was growing, that caused server wide issues.
Well, apparently the EPM events run in a file descriptor leak. One line of code fixed that.
Today, I saw that the CPU was running non stop at around 50%, which should not happen either. Serious issues were found in that regard (db, EPM events) and got fixed too. Overall the result:
TL;DR:
PostgreSQL “idle” processes: 66-64% → <1% CPU
PHP epm_events scripts: 14% → 2-5% CPU each
docker-proxy: 40% → <5% CPU (should auto-improve)
Total CPU reduction: ~170% → ~3-10%
This should make HWS Connect more responsive for you again.
added Bundle packages to offer multiple packages at once on a 20% discount.
added Player Info cards at the top to better relate to packages and what you need.
added sticky filter section
Logic change: you have to login now to be able to buy something. This fixes some purchases where the Username was written wrong and better auto apply to you (steam/epic ID)
Bundle packages do rotate. Right now I configured them to be available at end and start of seasons.
Like in EAH, you can easily see a Before / After change of your EB credits. Those entries can be cross-checked with your Player Activity Log on the Dashboard page. Or, as Patreon Veteran and up, you have this convenience feature right away at hand. Clicking on the link brings you directly to the row in the Activity Log
Massive performance boost for the Teleportation Device on the HWS Universe page (it lagged sometimes)
Added more Hotview options and a setting icon on the right sidebar to quickly change it
a new convenience feature for Elite+ Patrons, so they do not have to track all their Marketplace transactions by hand.
Finalized the Wanted Feature with a 3 Layer Progression. See the guide for more information how it works: HWS Marketplace
<:hwsstar:535932728886034439> <:Patreon:1159147296378859540> : All Patrons can access the Wanted Marketplace feature now as Early Access - please provide feedback if possible, so we can have a stable release for everyone.
This still needs to be fully tested and polished but in the new season I try to migrate from EAH Event Manager to the new HWS Connect manager!
It is not only visually more attractive for you but will give you even more features than before!
Example for the Battle Royale Event:
After some time, outer house POIs are replaced by dangerous turret POIs, that force you to the center (the Pyramid).
Cross Server Marketplace Feature + Combined HWS Marketplace
New Feature: HWS Marketplace Combine and Cross Server Marketplace
as per request, Buy / Sell and Wanted offers have no a new column “Server”. The server pair will that way always be visible to you. (HWS RE EU <> HWS RE NA and HWS+ EU <> HWS+ NA). That way you do not need to toggle between the server back and forth all the time to check out the offers from the other server.
as Master Patreon you have the convenience benefit on top, to be able to buy offers from the other server, without the need to be online on that server of that offer. This also works for the Wanted feature - so you can fulfill an order from the other server, even though you are not online on that server.
I want that CSW should be one of the core feature in the future (and improved further), that’s I think it’s a win-win.
Redesigned Sale banner
Added fixed / sticky header for marketplace tables
merged item icon column everywhere into item name column to safe space
Reordered Marketplace columns for better conversion / overview
CSW+ is up and running! I updated the Forum Guide about it and the LCD at the top shows you in 3 steps how to do it. Quite simple with just the white-list and csw:start command in mind.
White listed for now are just the Reward Tokens you can farm on all 4 servers. More to come.
HWS+
fixed couple of HWS Connect issues, should be smooth again
fixed missing .dll caused items not showing up (o:supply, ocd:get)
fixed zones (EGS, Bank, Quadrolith, etc. on ECC)
fixed corrupt cutted structures
investigating all PDA / Quest related issues
HWS RE
fixed HWS Connect item icon were wrong
fixed zones on ECC
fixed some broken Dialogues
increased Personal Container Volume Capacity
Known issues
The Logistics Terminal suddenly does not work anymore (I blame some patch from last October to now). Investigating…
The new EGS HQ has a little Logistic issue with the Patreon reward volume. I’ll update the EGS HQ asap to a better system, so you have no issues regarding volume there anymore
LCDs are super duper screwed sometimes. Not visible, only with a relog and with an offset sometimes. This must be fixed by Eleon asap! (I’m on it)
cb:sethome is not working properly right now. I am currently reworking how EAH reads and works with playfields
HWS Servers Changelog (with the next server restart in 6 hours)
<@&1444237017708756992> <@&1444237190375804948>
General
I reworked the EGS HQ Support Officer Patreon reward logic. You get now XS and XL Tokens in your inventory, which you can then bring to the T.E.A.M. Tower. There, in the Logistics Room, you can talk with the Reward Token Exchanger to convert those Tokens to resources. You also get a Waypoint/Bookmark in your HUD, after you got the Tokens.
This solves the volume issues you had and motivates you to check out the new TEAM Tower content as well
Fixed the Logistics Terminal issue
Fixed Star Fragment Defense Tower at SF 1 had invul turrets
Improved/Fixed the EGS HQ visuals here and there.
Known issues
still the 2 above regarding cb:sethome (it’s a bigger rework for EAH and how it is fetching the Playfields) and the LCD not showing sometimes until you relog.
older Stargate Missions need the exit Stargate destination fixed, so you can come back to EGS HQ (just relog if it does not work). Also some loot is legacy and will be fixed one by one
fixed bug that the full stack was sent to ingame, even though you split it with right click - because a filter was used before
HWS+
fixed playfield issues
HWS RE
fixed wrong Tokens were given at TEAM Certificates - please delete the Golden Sphere Tokens you got
fixed PDA EGS Quest
fixed that cb:sethome didn’t work due wrong starter playfield check. For that I reworked EAH quite a lot that the Playfields are now fetched from the global.db instead of reading ALL *Sectors.yaml files in the Sectors folder, which can reach thousands after some time. Should improve speed of EAH.
Known issues
I have to repair many old Stargate Missions still
I have to repair some teleporter exit points still
Unfortunately reproducing the LCD missing wasn’t that easy. Still investing time finding a good repro…
fixed Quadrolith Teleporter had old legacy name set, so teleports were broken
fixed missing Certificate conversion not working
fixed sneaky EGS Flying City Door user to get to the EGS Repper Trader :>
changed that HWS Star Dust could be converted to Reward Tokens before all Star Fragments were delivered. You have to deliver all Star Fragments now before conversion is possible => contribute to the Community instead of selfish reasons :>
fixed missing DenyMicroWarp property from couple playfields (e.g. Black Hole)
fixed couple of Stargate Mission issues (e.g. Alien Labyrinth legacy puzzle or teleportation stuck at Alien Asylum or missing Dialogues for Elemental Space Race). There is still a lot of legacy around, I will pick up one by one - thanks for your reports!
HWS+
I realized I was stupid to just rename my Elements to a Sci-fi version (Ionic instead of Aqua). This broke my blueprints / POIs which I have to cherry pick fix today one by one in a very long process. It needs to be done though. Please have a bit of patience since with this couple of issues will be fixed like the current issues in the Homeworld Sector
Overall I tackled about half of the tickets. Sorry for the delay for some. I’ll continue resolving all of them hopefully today.
added requested and long planned feature: “Show Dialogues variables in HWS Connect”, under a new page called “HWS Quests”. In this case to start things off: You can see the progress of the Star Fragment Hunt in HWS Connect! A very cool convenience feature which I added for everyone for free. (it updates the progress of the delivered Star Fragments every hour more or less)
This is just the beginning of something much bigger. For example where HWS Connects functions as Mission board - like a NPC ingame. That way you will soon have Quests you can start/complete in HWS Connect - strengthen my original philosophy of “play Empyrion on HWS over your smartphone/web browser”.
finally completed my feature of the new Com Center page. (previously called HWS Faction Chat => it is consolidated into Com Center at the bottom)
With our EAH Zones, I can create “Proximity zones” wherever we want and once players enter them and conditions* are met, those messages will now broadcasted to HWS Connect! (many seasons ago they got broadcasted into ingame globalchat, which some people found too noisy).
See screenshot of how it can look like:
It makes overall PvP / PvE a bit more exciting / active
optimized HWS Marketplace desktop + mobile view to a more compact version
added a pagination to the Elemental Bank Transaction History table
consolidated the sidebar link “EGS Stealth” into “Structure Commander”.
consolidated the sidebar link “Tax List” into “Elemental Bank”
re-ordered the sidebar links to a more logical order
added feature, that lets you re-order the sidebar links as you want. Go to Settings > General and drag and drop the move handler for list items
fixed HWS Trader amount couldn’t be set
*) conditions are right now: Proximity Messages trigger only for players with 50+ playhours entering the zone
(see here:<#1460400430361088080> )
ATTENTION:
