Glass - revisited

I understand that selenium (used to make glass) is not naturally available on all worlds. But you could solve all problems associated with extending glass use by allowing them to make low quality glass without selenium. Say, limited to 180 or so...

With that in place, you could then extend glass to it's more appropriate role as a building material - rather than as a household product. Also include it in more than just buildings, but also in the production of airplanes (all kinds - cockpit windshields), cars, jeeps, helicopters, shuttles, schools, hospitals, airports, bases, and space centers.

You could cover all the buildings and structures by making it a supply product for building materials, (which would also cover insulation) and then cover a few other things like aircraft canopies and automobile wind shields.

This would also stimulate space trading - needing to get a high quality product from off world or "making do" with the easily obtained but low Q domestic glass.


Come to think of it, if a basic model could be worked out so different worlds can produce a different Q product, you can use that as a template for other products. Eventually making it so one has to trade on all worlds to get the best Q of everything.

Or you could just make selenium available everywhere. But for the sake of diversity, this is the last thing I'd want to see happen.

In your view, do you believe that the more logical use of supplies in corporations will make the game more fun? What if the tweaks change the profitability of such corporations? Honestly, I would rather log in and see game updates that add to game-play and enjoyment than log in and see that a few of my corporations now need to use a new product. The weeks after such an addition, absolutely nothing will change in how I play the game.

As far as selenium, I think it should just be available everywhere. Other limited items make more sense but limited selenium just hasn't worked.

I think having a game that does not insult one's sensibilities is more enjoyable. Having buildings with no windows, fighter aircraft with no canopies, submarines that are visible to everyone at all times - these things may not seem like much to you, but the absurdities add up.

And, while I agree that not everything tried is going to work out. And some very good ideas are just too hard to implement. I think there should be stronger reason for people to reach for the stars and go to war. This is SimCountry. It's supposed to be a simulator - not just another fantasy game (as if there's not already enough of them out there).
I've already read plenty of complaints about the countries themselves being undifferentiated. One nation is exactly like another - no reason to covet; no limited resources, no economic gain to be had.

And yet, we have "fun" stuff like choosing a govt. type that has no effect on the game. Uploading national anthems and flags, again having no purpose or value while the chat randomly boots people off every minute or two, and docs that are sometimes years out of date.

And then there's that2] big pink elephant in the room. How does a guy who has almost no idea what he's doing end up ranked in the top 10 out of 2040? So I managed to keep a country from crashing. That puts me in the top 10? With a single purchase/sale, even a noob like me can corner a world market or flood it. If I can do it, then EVERYBODY can do it. Does that sound fun?
It was fun the first three times I did it. After that, it just became another absurdity. Just like the artificial limits on product prices and the artificially slow rate of change in product prices. When I flood a market, the price should be dropping almost immediately. Instead, it takes months - allowing the guy who floods the market to profit massively from months of artificially high prices. When I flood a market like I can in this game, I should lose my arse.

Like the migration/migration index. I managed to figure out how to get thousands to leave a bad country. But I've never found any way of getting thousands to migrate TO a country. The best I've ever managed was 12. I can see someone getting up to maybe 25 or so. Does that sound like fun? Figuring out that migration is pretty much one way? When was the last time any country had to lower its welfare index due to an immigration problem?

I'll tell you one other thing that I found soooo fun. Having a company that was making $700M/month for as long as the chart shows (what, about 21 months?), then seeing it plunge to a $300M/month loss in a single month - and stay there for 2 years before I closed it - having changed nothing and the market was red the whole time. The only thing that changed was the usual quality upgrades.
It can't get any more arbitrary than that.

And another thing is when my country has roughly the same spending limits whether it's making $20B/month profit or $2B/month losses. Just as absurd is the fact that I can cause widespread food shortages everywhere, yet not one citizen ever starves. Just as absurd is the fact that fewer hospitals INCREASES population growth. Let's just toss infant mortality rates on it's head - it's the LACK of health care that gets them to make more babies. Here's a suggestion, let convert hospitals into special abortion clinics that INCREASE birth rates.

Simulators are supposed to at least TRY to be simulations of the real thing. This is just a mislabeled fantasy game.

/rant

We agree on fixing chat and adding incentive to compete over differentiated countries/resources. On flags/anthems/govt types and such, I have called that "country dress-up" for some time. I picture players making their country look pretty and showing it off to friends like a pet.

On rankings, check up on docs to see how it actually works. Since it is linked with a penalty system for award winners, it is not a display of skill but is essentially a next-man-up gold coin distribution system. See this same forum for my Player Power Rankings suggestion. It would actually show the who's-who of the games most powerful players.

You are right that it is possible to buy and sell large quantities of products and have an effect on the market. This is intended and somewhat encouraged. You can bet many successful players do it all the time.

Migration numbers don't exactly make sense but are not game-breaking either. You should take a look at births and deaths as well. These numbers are similarly questionable when compared to monthly population growth/loss.

Did you ask anyone for help to look at that corp?

The absolute spending limit for any country is the same but factors relating to the economic strength of the country affect the monthly refresh rate of the limit.

Lots of things can be changed to make the game more "real" feeling but my opinion is that if I were to choose, I would choose features that make the game more fun and interesting right now to bring in more players. I know players who either used to play or I would like to try the game and selling a fun feature would go over better than convincing a friend to come back to the game because now certain corps use glass.

Also, if you would like to expand on the multitude of topics you choose to talk about, how about separating them into their own forum thread?

/truth

"Old people like me don't bother making points. There's... no point"
-Councellor Harmann

The above should be taken as just a rant from a cantankerous salty old codger with nothing better to do than to rant about things about which he doesn't care enough to get up and fix.