Simcountry is a multiplayer Internet game in which you are the president, commander in chief, and industrial leader. You have to make the tough decisions about cutting or raising taxes, how to allocate the federal budget, what kind of infrastructure you want, etc..
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W3C - Game News Jan. 30

Topics: General: W3C - Game News Jan. 30

Andy

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 01:11 pm Click here to edit this post
1. New Mobile Units Added

Four new types of mobile air force units have been added to Simcountry. The four new types are: Mobile Helicopter Wing, Mobile Interceptor Wing, Mobile Attack wing and Mobile Stealth Bomber Wing.

These units can be upgraded to a quality level of 600 and can be transported by cargo shuttles to any country you own or traded on the space market. The Mobile Stealth Wings are auto response units and are slightly larger than the current stealth bomber wings.

The mobile units manual is unfortunately not updated yet. It will be updated within several days.

2. Mobile Units and Defending your Country

Mobile units will assume a more active role in the defense of your country in the coming weeks. When a target is attacked, any mobile unit that is within range of the target will actively participate in the defense. It means that if a military unit or a city, or a fortification or in fact any other target is attacked, by land or by air, the garrison at the attacked target will as before, participate in the defense but also any other land based mobile unit that is stationed close to the attacked target and has weapons that can be effective against the attacker, will participate in the defense.

3. Smaller numbers of munitions in military units

Military units used to be created with very large numbers of ammunition. These numbers are now reduced in new units which means that the units will be supplied more frequently in case of war but will be cheaper at setup time.

The change will have no influence on the cost of using the weapons.

4. Faster upgrading of Weapons & Lower Cost of Upgrading

The upgrading process of weapons is enhanced and it is now twice faster than it was until today. Upgrading twice faster requires twice as many upgrade products but the cost of upgrading products, for both weapons and ammunition is reduced.

5. Country Page Menu Restructuring continues

Several more menu features are now included in commands on the left frame of the page. The restructuring is part of a continuing effort to make the site easier to use, remove double references and simplify the interface.
The current changes include the common market, Federations and the security Council pages.

6. The Size of Land Divisions and Large Garrisons

Land Divisions have once more been reduced in size. The max number of weapons in these units is now reduced to 1100. Large garrisons are also reduced in size.

A further decline in the size of land divisions will help in reducing the cost of war even further by reducing the numbers of weapons involved in attacks and the number of destroyed weapons in each attack.

The change does not have any consequences for existing units. When building new units, the new numbers will be used.

All C3 countries are using the smaller units and smaller large garrisons in all wars that are staring after this upgrade.

7. The number of weapons in military bases

The maximum number of weapons a country can have is limited to about 20.000 per military base. The number is quite large and will be reduced in the future.

The number of weapons includes all the weapons that are stored in military bases or in military units and also weapons stored in space centers. Weapons that are stored on space stations are not included in this function.

8. Maximum Number of Weapons per Navy

The maximum number of weapons per navy, is limited to about 10.000. This number is too large and will be reduced in the future. Please make sure you have enough navies to station your navy weapons.

The reduction follows the reduction of the size of military units and is also a preparation for the introduction of navy units that will be smaller in size than current navies.

9. Main Entity

It is now easier to set your main entity to a different country or to an enterprise and back. Changes were limited to once per 30 days and are now possible one in 7 days.

It is impossible to turn an expired country or enterprise into the main entity.

10. Chat and Forum names

Some players switched their names quite frequently and confused others by assuming different names.

Following many requests, we have now reduced the possibility to change your name on the forum to one a week.

Laguna

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 01:29 pm Click here to edit this post
6, 7 & 8,

Will the numbers be the same for Fearless Blue?

Andy

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 01:59 pm Click here to edit this post
Yes.
they were the same on all the worlds before too.

These are not parameters that will make FB more of a war world. Differences might just create confusion.

War is cheaper on FB and should be made even more so on all worlds but even more so on FB.

Smaller army, faster building of the army and less war protection. (Already more expensive on FB).

Once (active) auto defense becomes more of a viable option, war protection should be scaled back, or made more expensive so that the auto defense will become a cheaper option.

Laguna

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:04 pm Click here to edit this post
I was just wondering. Thanks for the reply.

Jo

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:28 pm Click here to edit this post
Andy, following the concerns raised after the last game update that the CEO 'browse world' feature had disappeared, you reassured us that it would be re-instated in this update.

However, I can't find any way to browse the countries in the world from the CEO page any more, not even the limited options - list of best presidents and Presidents Hall of Fame - that were available after the last game update.

Am I missing something? Can you point me to where it is?

Hugs and respect

Jo

Laguna

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:33 pm Click here to edit this post
Sitemap -> Browse World

Clicking on the name of the planet in the map from World Overview works as well.

But yes, it should be on one of the menus.

Laguna

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:36 pm Click here to edit this post
Actually, they could just "merge" it into World Overview. All that page is lacking are the boxes to search countries and enterprises below the map.

Then Browse World would be redundant and could be done without.

Jo

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:38 pm Click here to edit this post
Ah! Got it.

Thanks Laguna :)

Hugs and respect

Jo

Jo

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:56 pm Click here to edit this post
Yes, it would be much easier to have the feature on the side menus or the world overview page ... pretty please, Andy.

Hugs and respect

Jo

dboyd3702

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 02:59 pm Click here to edit this post
None of the Moble Units are allowing the Quality to be set to 600 for the Weapons.
And I am still only being allowed to upgrade once for weapons and twice for ammo.

Andy

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 04:07 pm Click here to edit this post
Jo, Laguna,

Also try statistics on the CEO page.

dboyd,

I will have it checked immediately.

but I assume you are right.
this is when you set targets for weapons quality or when upgrading manually.

the automatic process goes twice faster for weapons but we are looking into it and will fix it ASAP.

Laguna

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 04:12 pm Click here to edit this post
Statistics is the same as World Overview. That page doesn't allow us to search for countries or enterprises on name.

SweetPea

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 06:12 pm Click here to edit this post
#2. We still have not defined ranges. You only mention proximity, but never a defined distance.

Does this mean it will be 35km or further?

Josias

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 09:56 pm Click here to edit this post
about the mobile units flying through space

if they are over 350Q, they get chopped down to 350 when they are loaded.

currently max quality that can be offered on the space station, or transported between planets is 350Q.

not sure that is intended that way or not. can you guys please clear up?

and thanks, so far i love the new mobile units, and the space station.

Josias

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 10:34 pm Click here to edit this post
also, the default ammo for mobile h and i wings is double regular units.

i bet it would make these units more affordable if you where to reduce the default ammo.

SuperSoldierRCP

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 03:39 am Click here to edit this post
Question

Andy what's the current rate at which weapons and ammo upgrade, its 2Q increase per month now correct?

and also the rate of decay is still standing at. 05Q a month correct?

dboyd3702

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 05:08 am Click here to edit this post
If that is the case it would take about 129 game months to upgrade from a 350 Q

Borg Queen

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 08:56 am Click here to edit this post
Are the market numbers a bit off?
On KB demand of Service was 11,590,188,100 last month according to the system but I alone have had buying orders up for more than 13B Service.

Andy

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 07:22 pm Click here to edit this post
what are you doing with 13B units of services.
this is probably 6 to 10T?

Supersoldier,

In the last upgrade, upgrading weapons went to 2 per game month.

we will see how the market goes and may increase more.
0.05 per game month is correct.
mobile units at 0.00

Josias,
we kept ammo in mobile units high because they might go very far from home.
The setup price might drop if ammo is low but the use of ammo remains the same.

In the last upgrade, we have reduced the ammo for some regular units. The reason is mainly to reduce the need for everyone to purchase such huge amounts of ammo. During war however, they will need more.

SweetPea,
I will check ranges.
you can check too.
when you plan an attack, you can see the distances per unit and you can see if it can attack.

Josias

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 08:24 pm Click here to edit this post
thats cool, its just that when i figured my cost, and added a healthy dose of profit. my prices came out, rather unreasonable. i could lower my profit margin, but mobile units, with the professionals, and upgrades do take allot of effort. but your point is good. shrug

but about the quality. currently the mobile interceptor and helicpoter wings that i have offered on the space station, are all 350 quality. but if you check, they were from the same batch that is still sitting in my country, "The DUofM," those mobile i wings are 380, and the h wing 360. i did upgrade since then, but you can't get 30 points in a day.

it doesn't bother me that the quality gets chopped down. i'm just curious if thats what you want. and let every one know, not to expect to build a 500q mobile unit on one planet, and shuttle it another planet for a war, if you do, you'll have 350q.

SuperSoldierRCP

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 10:50 pm Click here to edit this post
Andy

Can we get the defualt requirement for stealth bombers lower ammo wise?

Right now a wing of 20 needs 4000missiles.
20planes * 8missiles per round= 160per battle
4000Missiles / 160per attack = 25battles.

Stealth bombers do not last anywhere near 25battles and the defualt rate is extremely high to make them useable in large amounts for an empire.

Is it possiable to get it dropped to somewhere around maybe 1600? That still allows for 10attacks before they run out of ammo which is still aiming high as when auto attacking interecptors can eat up to 10-15 per attack. Its rare to even see a wing last more then 5 attacks.

Also mobile units of 24bombers need 8000missiles. They need almost double that of a normal unit.

Anyways is this something the GM can consider becuase the massive defualt rate makes it hard to have a good set in a nation for defence.
1600 for a normal unit
2000 for a stealth unit
those would seem to be good targets if this is somethign the GM can look into

darcus

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 11:05 pm Click here to edit this post
Yea please consider lowering ammo for stealth bombers. 4000 for 20 bombers is real to much.

They will get destroyed much faster, it is waste of ammo :(

Suggestion by SuperSoldier sounds good:

1600 for a normal unit
2000 for a stealth unit

Ty

SweetPea

Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 11:57 pm Click here to edit this post
You have to take into account that not always stealth bombers will not always face a weapon that will destroy them, and they run out of ammo too quickly. This is why I assume they were raised defaults in the first place, as I exposed the fact that they run out of ammo after a round or two, in a separate war. It was that or a very large coincidence. At any rate, be careful what you wish for.

The Unknown

Friday, February 1, 2013 - 03:16 am Click here to edit this post
Will c3s defenses be updated anymore

:TheUnknown

Pazuzu

Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 09:00 am Click here to edit this post
Ive noticed the quality has dropped badly since the update been put in. This could be bug. Could someone look it over.

Has anyone noticed quality dropped lately.

Crafty

Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 03:02 pm Click here to edit this post
Yes Pazuzu. I too have seen the quality drop in corps.

Be nice if we were told this might happen, or told why after the event. But no... no communication about it at all.

SweetPea

Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 03:12 pm Click here to edit this post
I still don't understand why leave 2001 weapon garrisons, and large air defense wings, while reducing the numbers of new units dramatically.

It is really off balance when you a 260 fighter MAX wing going against 3 air wings and possibly stealth units on top of that. Same with the new land unit numbers versus a 2001 weapon garrison.

Why not reduce the size of all existing units and return the excess to their stockpiles? This seems to be the most fair thing to do. Going against those odds are not very good and is certainly going to mean huge losses and a more expensive war.

I took a c3 today and I had 260 fighter wings at about 230+ quality attacking the c3 air defense and I was losing anywhere from 40-70 fighters each attack. And that is with only a single wing response, and no stealth units. You guys should probably eliminate this imbalance.

Pazuzu

Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 03:30 pm Click here to edit this post
Ok. Just thought i was seeing things.

Andy

Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 06:43 pm Click here to edit this post
SweetPea,

I agree. The drop in size of units in the past months was in total quite serious and may create an imbalance (although C3 countries are updated immediately).

I will check if we can start patching existing units, in small steps to the new size, returning weapons and ammo to base if the units use smaller numbers.

The changes should be small to prevent major shifts.

Andy

Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 07:01 pm Click here to edit this post
There was a tiny update of the production process in corporations. It caused a small drop in quality of the output probably less than 0.5 point.

There were many, repeated drops in the fixed cost in corporations and in the maintenance cost of corporations in the past months.

nobody mentioned it.

The profitability of corporations in the game model is one of the main parameters that is carefully watched.

Several trends in the game engine have brought the quality of output products closer to the optimal quality of raw materials that makes sense for corporations to purchase.

A year ago, the best Q for raw materials in corporations was 150-170.
Now it is 170-195.

SweetPea

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 02:47 am Click here to edit this post
Thanks Andy. I'm actually surprised I won't have to go down the road kicking and screaming lol.

Crafty

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 01:51 pm Click here to edit this post
To be honest I'm surprised Pazuzu mentioned the Q drop. I notice most of these changes, but dont post about them because I have learned that no one else seems to see them or at least no one else replies.

May I request that when the size of old existing units is reduced, any weapons returned to bases be returned in the inactive status. Imagine 100 def int wings, and say 50 are removed from each, thats 5000 ints just appearing as active in your stocks, taking a while to deactivate or transfer or sell. You know it will create large surpluses in the weapons market again, even though I am sure you will do it in small increments.

Keto

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 03:06 pm Click here to edit this post
And when the gms see the extra weapons/ammo in our countries, they will take them away because they wonder where all that stuff came from.

SuperSoldierRCP

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 07:19 pm Click here to edit this post
my question exactly keto +1

Crafty

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 10:28 pm Click here to edit this post

Quote:

There was a tiny update of the production process in corporations. It caused a small drop in quality of the output probably less than 0.5 point.


Probably more like 5% in reality. Quite a large amount in corp income for me at 85% profit transfer. Maybe 10% drop in income, around there.

Arccuk

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 10:40 pm Click here to edit this post
yep, I think you may be right crafty. I observed around a 20 point drop in output quality across public, state and enterprise corps in the same game month - roughly 5-10%
Some of that may have been exaggerated because I've been using CM orientated ASQ lately, so I have set up a few "test corps" to determine how much higher supply quality needs to be to get the same output as pre-update.

My guess is add 10-15 points to ASQ. I hope I'm wrong!

Crafty

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 10:44 pm Click here to edit this post
I've added 10, see where it goes from there.

Pazuzu

Sunday, February 3, 2013 - 11:01 pm Click here to edit this post
I added 17 points estimate.

Pazuzu

Monday, February 4, 2013 - 02:52 pm Click here to edit this post
Argh, its 309.6 quality output. There was no need to add anymore quality ASQ.

Arccuk

Monday, February 4, 2013 - 09:34 pm Click here to edit this post
@pazuzu, then you had your supply quality set too high to start with
8-P

Andy

Monday, February 4, 2013 - 11:50 pm Click here to edit this post
Keto,

If you have any problem with very large numbers of ammunition that have disappeared, please mail the gamemaster.

We did not wonder even one second about where the ammo came from.

Andy

Monday, February 4, 2013 - 11:53 pm Click here to edit this post
The tuning of quality caused it to go down by 0.2 points per 100 points of quality (max. 0.5 points), twice in the past two weeks.

If your quality dropped more, check the fluctuations in the average quality of your raw materials.

Pazuzu

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 04:35 am Click here to edit this post
Ok. I know small numbers shouldnt affect anything, its not quite big deal. I have adjusted the ASQ down again, i hope it wont hurt the p/e, it should only hurt the cost.

Thanks for the reply.

Arccuk

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 06:08 am Click here to edit this post
@Andy, it seems we are talking about 2 differant game changes. Max quality output of corps has indeed reduced by around 0.5points recently as you say. The required ASQ to get there seems to have increased.

For example, I used to use supply quality of 180ish to get a max quality of 275.6. Prelim tests have shown I now need to use ASQ of 195ish to get a Max output of 275.2.

Are you saying this increased requirement is unintentional? Or that it happened in an earlier update and I didn't notice?

Arccuk

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 06:10 am Click here to edit this post
oh, and it seems both changes of max output reducing by 0.2 occured in the same game month - for me at least.

Andy

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 10:04 am Click here to edit this post
Arccuk,

A good short question. You got yourself the long answer.

The changes in the corporation model have various results.
In general, the main goal we want to achieve here is that raw materials requirements will come closer to the output quality of corporations so that trading will become easier with no need for compromises.

As the difference becomes smaller, the compromise made at time of sale is also smaller and you end up getting the same amount for your output.

Not 100% the same. It can increase a bit or decline but not much.

At the same time, the cost of the corporation, both in terms of raw materials (quantities declined a bit) and maintenance cost + fixed cost, all declined.

The profit of the corporations should remain at the same level or increase (if the corporation is unchanged).

When you look at the country income and cost, the ratio of taxes to corporate earnings shows (long term) an increase in income from corporations and a small decline in income from taxes. The cost of the country keeps declining.

This process is in fact going on for a long time, reducing numbers as we announced many times in the past year or longer while stabilizing country income.

The changes in the model are close to the target. We are not there yet but most of the shifting has already taken place, country and corporate turnover are lower, the exchange rate too and it is now easier than before to keep your country profitable.

we intend to make the profitability of countries even easier. The harder part is to make countries extremely profitable. This might be harder than before and of course, the amounts involved are smaller.

another target was to make war cheaper and that too has come a long way but not done yet.

Arccuk

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 04:30 pm Click here to edit this post
Thanks Andy, I understand fully the reason for the changes and the goals you have set. I fully agree that eliminating any adjustment to pricing at the POS is desirable and will eventually make trades more predictable.

From that point of view it makes perfect sense to increase the required supply quality by around 10 points at this time. It also may make sense to increase it more in the future, after supply quantity drops a few more times. I only post these items to inform and discuss changes, not to confuse or complain. (usually!)

Although there seem to be a period of adjustment for the markets to settle, it also appears that corp profitability has not changed much in the last few updates, although the set-up to achieve the same level of profitability may have done.

I do have a suggestion that relates to several of your targets so post it here:-

With weapon and ammo max upgrade quality now topping 600, is it feasible to allow these corps to produce a greater range of quality output, dependent on supply quality/corp type?

The side effect of this move should be that higher quality supplies would be demanded by the market and adjustments to pricing at POS would reduce as a result.(assuming that high quality weapons/ammo will still be in demand)
Another effect would be that higher quality weapons would be easier to attain with less upgrades required. Both of these effects should decrease the cost of war vs c3's.

Crafty

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 05:25 pm Click here to edit this post
Maybe I didnt understand the 0.2 points per 100 of quality. To me, that means 0.2%. If I produce say 250, then I should have seen a 0.5% drop in quality. No, I saw at least a 10% drop in output quality, 20 times what you say Andy. You are welcome to go back through the history and see for yourself. The graphs have overrun that time periodd now so I cant personally show you.

An increase in input Q has fixed this, and I only post to make you aware that what you think will happen, or what you think has happened, is, infact, quite far from what did happen.

Arccuk

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 08:33 pm Click here to edit this post
Andy seems to have been referring to the max output of corps decreasing by 0.4 points rather than the total drop in quality output that we have experienced due to the increased supply quality requirement that was being discussed ;)

Damn, I promised myself not to bang my head on this wall again!

Scarlet

Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - 04:32 am Click here to edit this post
If there was a 10% drop in output quality in tandem with a change to bring REAL sale price to match the formula (Quality * Market Price), the drop in revenue shouldn't be more than 2-3% given previous observations.

Crafty

Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - 03:59 pm Click here to edit this post
Huh?


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