Current Critical Game Issues

I believe I may be able to post again so here goes, we'll see if this message takes. I've been compiling some critical game issues that can hopefully be discussed and addressed. Every one of the things presented are, at least in my opinion, active or potential points of frustration for players as they're encountered and provide no discernible benefit to gameplay as they currently exist. Some are outright errors, some are just potential GM oversights. I would absolutely declare that every one of the issues presented here though should be considered important as fixes to real current and future issues in game.

Anyone needing more clarity on any of these, absolutely ask. Anybody with a dissenting opinion on any of these, absolutely share. I know I feel these issues are important and very fixable, but I also think discussion before change is important because players shouldn't be blindsided by changes.

Wind Farms & Finance Index
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Yes, another attempt at dealing with the Finance Index inaccuracy where Wind Farms are concerned. This is brought back up now that the GM has determined a fixed quality value for the Electric Power provided by Wind Farms, as well as pointing out another recent unannounced change that has made the situation with Wind Farms even worse where the Finance Index is concerned.

I present my current country for an example of how the Finance Index is currently determined vs the true values with accurate accounting. Note this is not calling for any change in income or expenses, this call is purely for accurate accounting for the sake of accurate Finance Index values.

Current Country:
1856 Wind Farms Operational
377,500 Electric Power Price
783,000.00M Finance Index reported Wind Farms Income

The FI reported WF income actually dropped to its current level 2-3 days ago, to a point where it is no longer makes any discernible sense at all. Even at the 'quality not included' calculation that was used prior to this recent unannounced change, the FI reported WF income would be 875,800.00M, which has a significant impact on overall FI.

With the current end goal for WFs being EP production at 120Q, I beg the calculation for FI reported WF income to reflect 120Q EP being provided by the WFs. Again, this is not calling for WF changes, this is purely calling for accurate accounting because the fact is WFs, while generating a lot of money for players, is sinking game levels because of its detrimental impact on Financial Index due to its inaccurate reporting.

Wind & Electric Power Quality
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I know you recently made your intent known that you want Wind Farms to produce Electric Power at 120Q regardless of any other factors and have begun taking steps to reduce the quality to that level. Everyone would agree that the profits of Wind Farms was far above reasonable levels and needed to be tapered, so I completely agree with wanting to reign those numbers in. At the same time however, I ask you to reconsider the specifics of how you want the Wind Farms to produce their power because of the other impacts of your current plan that may not have been considered and have a couple possible concepts that with some refining could help address the main issues.

One of the main 'hidden' negative impacts of the blanket 120Q EP wind policy is in the Consumption Quality Index. As a key contributor to the all important Welfare Index, Consumption Quality Index absolutely matters to every player. A country generating EP through wind however will also see their Consumption Quality Index decline because the farms also consume a small amount of EP in their maintenance as you shared in a recent forum post and that EP is counted as spending by population. A player willing to share data from his country with 5390 Wind Farms showed that the Electric Power consumption by population for his country amounted to 71.5% of total spending when combined with all other products consumed. Having EP generated by wind capped at 120Q artificially drives down the Consumption Quality Index which will reduce a country's Welfare Index in a sort of hidden way that will see players that are generating more income through wind actually unintentionally harming their own country's welfare despite improving its finances.

The 120Q Electric Power also has the side effect of making both Wind Farms and Wind Turbines worse as a player improves them, especially for the purpose of self supply. For the self-supplier, which appears to be your intended path with wind power (which is not a complaint), any improvement to their Wind Farm or Wind Turbine corporation from quality upgrades to purchasing supplies at any higher than 120Q is actually a loss of income in the grand scheme, which is the exact reverse to every other corporation type in the game.

I don't have the programming expertise that you do so I can't rightly say how simple a sensible solution would or wouldn't be. The standard fix for most people that makes sense would be to have the EP quality provided be equal to the quality of the WTs consumed each month. Then they'd be able to maintain indexes and would obviously also take on the higher maintenance costs of maintaining higher quality WTs. The income reflected in the Finance Index would increase but the maintenance cost in it would also increase so relative balance would still be maintained. It would also allow you easier flexibility in making small changes to keep the income in acceptable levels because higher/lower incomes would be directly tied in with higher/lower expenses which with the blanket 120Q system isn't the case.

Game News & Detailed Maintenance Reporting
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I completely understand that maintenance is challenging because you don't really have a test server of sorts so sometimes maintenance comes with its own unintended bugs and I don't envy you having to do everything 'on the fly'. At the same time, it's an issue that's been brought up repeatedly, I think better communication with players especially in giving specific information on what you change in the game when you change it will not only help players feel more involved, but it will give them better opportunity to actively help you identify and correct issues as they appear in the game. Your reports on the forum help, but to be honest the forum is clunky, search options don't necessarily help in finding answers or receiving updates because of the forum interface.

Game News should absolutely become relevant again. Three messages are sent to newly gained countries automatically from the game, one directing the player to Game News to see updates. For a new player that reads those first three messages and says 'oh I click this Game News link and can see what's changed' right now it would appear the game hasn't had GM involvement in nearly 8 months. Experienced players obviously know that you've been here performing tasks, but a new player that sees the page that they're directed to for updates is going to look at that, think dead game, and never return. Even those most recent updates that you have posted in Game News, if you recall I had to beg you for back then when it hadn't been updated for almost another year at the time. That Game News page is critical as an early stop for newer players and should be a reliable read that experienced players should be able to go to weekly and see 'okay base price of this product has been lowered by 2%'. I appreciate that you give a narrative with your updates on what the intended outcome of your changes are, but I feel like its more critical for players to know what the changes are than to know what your intention is without knowing what actually happened.

When you make a change to a detail in the game, write it down. When you're done making your changes for the day, post those changes to Game News. Updates are currently only really provided on the forum, and those updates are full of vague concepts and your personal opinion on what you hope to accomplish with some changes, but severely lack in detail on specific changes made. Most information on actual detailed changes in game is sourced from players who stumble on the information, which is honestly not a fair practice when you yourself are a player as well.

Space Transport (Wind Turbines)
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Wind Turbines are what brought the issue to my attention, but it does appear to go beyond them and apply to other products as well. In anticipation of your upcoming change enforcing Wind Turbine shortages having detrimental effects on countries and their Wind Farm setups, I have sought to begin moving some excess Wind Turbines from countries that have a surplus to countries that have a limited supply.

When scheduling a new transport request, the request seems to dispatch only 20 shuttles, regardless of the number available to the owner. While that number isn't overly inconvenient for many products, for Wind Turbines it makes transportation downright unfeasible. A full 24 hours of transportation moved less than 2500 WTs on a transportation route that didn't even leave the planet (enterprise to country). If WT shortages are going to become an enforceable issue, then the transfer of them from within a player's own circle of enterprises and empires needs to be smoother. A possible solution include reducing the Wind Turbine storage space for the purpose of shuttle transport. I understand in your mind the blades on these Turbines are huge when you visualize them. But consider that their listed storage space for shuttles is 100000 units. For Helicopters storage space is 240 units. The last posted WF limit per country was 5,000 (though some countries have exceeded that). Storage space for WTs should be reduced, allowing for more on a cargo shuttle, to a point where at the very minimum a scheduled transport of 20 shuttles can move 30,000 WTs in a 24 hour period to line up with the expected usage in a WF 'capped' country.

Another alternative that more players would probably like would be to move WTs into Direct Trading. Obviously there would be benefit to players but I honestly personally wouldn't want that change even though it would benefit me. I kind of like that Direct Trading focuses on more 'service' type goods than 'product' type goods. WTs definitely don't fit that theme.

Direct Trading & TA
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Especially after the recent change that sees corporations start with no supplies, a new player on Tiny Atlas quickly has the wind knocked out of their sails when it comes to being motivated to play on the world. My personal experience after opening there was met quickly with realization that almost, if not every corporation in the game, requires Electric Power and Services in its production process. High Tech Services as well if I'm not mistaken. None of these goods can be transported by shuttle, only moved via Direct Trading. Direct Trading is also unavailable for countries/enterprises for their first 7 days after registration, meaning a new player on TA is completely unable to produce anything for their first full week on world. Paying 30GC to register on a world and then being completely unable to do anything there for a full week is absolutely a problem.

I was lucky enough to have a player on discord have an inventory on planet already that they could sell to me to get up and running, but other prospective player may not be so lucky. Seeing that you essentially can't do anything for your first week on world because essential goods that are critical to literally everything can't be brought in until after that first week. That alone is enough to prevent prospective players who are aware of it from joining the world, and for players that don't already know about the 7 day restriction they would surely get quite upset after making the realization after spending their GC and registering.

We are convinced that the computation of income and maintenance of wind farms is correct.
differences can arise from the moment when the computation is done.
trading is ongoing and the price of materials is taken at the moment the computation is done.

The financial index depends on the ratio of total income to total cost.
This year and partially the previous one.
The more income and cost if the country depends on wind turbines, the more influence they will have on the financial index.
If these numbers grow, you create a major factor in the country finance that depends on the profit ratio from a single product.

Not only income grows, the cost grows too.
The maintenance cost is quite stable but it takes its tall in forcing the orders of many wind turbines, people working in maintenance and other materials.

we have, from the start, advised players to limit the number of wind farms.
we think that even 1000 is far too many.
More is better is a bit simple for wind power.
It is very profitable, good for the country but not in unlimited quantities.

Imagine, wind energy will be the main factor in the country income and cost and imagine a situation when income could become lower or equal to the maintenance cost, the financial index will be pushed to around 100.

we advise less than 500 wind farms in a country with a population of 100 million people and some more if there are 200 million or more.
It should not become the main factor in the country finances..

The effect on the average quality of products you purchase can become a problem if you have far too many wind turbines. Another reason to keep the numbers as advised. At smaller numbers it will have a small influence on the index.

Transporting Wind turbines on the cargo shuttle.

This should be impossible like it is impossible to transport ships, schools, production plants, airports and military bases.
as I explained to auditor in a mail, we have allowed this because of start issues on TA and wind turbines transport made it easier to set up energy production.

Huge items, all fixed assets, should not be moved around on a cargo shuttle.

TA

we were active on TA from the start and never produced anything in the first weeks.
It took time to set up transports, get the cargo shuttles and start transports.

Electric power was the least of our problems.
Using direct trading, moving electric power in large quantities was trivial.

This was the least of our problem.

We think that the features we plan to add to TA will make it more attractive. but players will decide for themselves of course.
Some left, some stayed and others will join when they see advantages.

wind power was seen here as unattractive and everyone screamed for a removal function.

Now, there are more than 10.000 corporations producing wind turbines in a single world and huge shortages. many countries are energy independent with wind farms and more have a positive cash flow because of them.

Game News

we will make an effort to provide more and timely game news.
Some exact specifications are provided and updated in the game documentations, for example weapon functionality.

Other details have always been discovered by players and this is the way it should be.

publishing the technical details and formulas will be an advantage to several players and a problem for others.

Players are setting up corporations, choosing parameters, watching the results and improve.
They also discuss between them and get advise.
This is part of the game.
many times, the results are better than ours.

I'll go back through these point by point covering your responses, please reach out again if you have further questions. There does seem to be a fundamental misunderstanding that makes me believe that the interface and information that you have as a GM may be radically different from a general player.

Wind Farms & Finance Index
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You are convinced that computation of income for Wind Farms is correct. Please elaborate. I have shared countless amounts of information proving that it is not correct. Even though I've done this plenty of times, I will try once more. Please specifically respond to these numbers and tell me how you feel that they are correct. My country 'Panacea' on LU is used as the example in this situation. 2024 WTs consumed last month, meaning 2024 WFs generated 1250 EP each @ 135Q as you stated you have set quality to. Market value of EP is 377,500 per unit, so:
2024 WFs * 1250 EP * 377500 SC$ * 1.35Q -> 1,289.35B income

Assuming quality is not factored into the income as you said before it wasn't, the total reported income would be:
2024 WFs * 1250 EP * 377500 SC$ * 1.00Q -> 955.075B income

Wind Farm income reported on the Financial Index this month is showing as 853.875B income.

Please explain and be specific how you feel that that reported 853.875B income is accurate with the given information. More IS better with wind farms, your accounting reporting just inaccurately doesn't match the actual revenues and damages players via incorrect Finance Indexes and limiting their game levels due to an inaccuracy that I still can't wrap my head around how you don't understand.

Wind & Electric Power Quality
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I will concede that from the start of Wind you have urged players not to overinvest in it. At the same time, you then and now have had some fundamental misunderstandings about it. Wind was allowing players almost unfathomable amounts of money for many months since its introduction, to the point that investing into anything that wasn't wind was doing a disservice to oneself. Advising people not to overinvest into something and then randomly and arbitrarily changing quality output of said items without notice are very radically different. Your players that allowed their corporations to naturally grow and get 'better' now have Wind Turbine corporations that actually damage the player that buys their products. Granted higher quality WTs hurt in your old way of factoring EP quality as well, but it hurts so substantially more now and these changes have been just on the most random of whims. You introduced a product that you touted as being one that you wanted to be extremely important, factor into a future plan for pollution in countries, and solve the planets power shortages, and have avoided 'make sense' fixes at all opportunities.

Game News and Detailed Maintenance Reporting
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I believe you misunderstand the request. Nobody is asking you to disclose formulas or technical details. What is being asked is that you report changes that you make as you make them with detail of the changes. Your June 1 update says 'we have made another effort to balance the markets. several types of corporations that are producing products that are in very high demand and show large shortages, are now producing a bit more and the shortages might decline.' What corporations and how much production change is absolutely not something that players should have to datamine themselves. Strategy games should challenge players tactics and creativity, you're fostering an environment where nobody ever knows when a change is coming, what the change is, or if it was even intentional or a bug. You're free to disagree with me on this but you can't rightly look at the player count in game and feel that everything is great and you shouldn't put in more effort to improve player experience.

Space Transport (Wind Turbines)
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Trying to inject the logic of something's physical size into their restriction to transport to other worlds on a space shuttle is arbitrary at best. Wind Farms are a fixed structure. Like schools, like hospitals, I completely understand that and your players completely understand that. Wind Turbines, on the other hand, are by all means just a maintenance item that you introduced to the game. Maintenance items cannot rightly be treated as fixed structures. And using real life size comparisons to justify that they shouldn't be transportable at all? Trucks move turbines and blades all over the world, cargo ships transport them to offshore wind farms. I just had a single shuttle load 200 Cargo Airplanes onto it. So just for clarification one more time, Wind Turbines are absolutely NOT a fixed asset. Wind Farms are. Wind Turbines are a maintenance item, and maintenance items should absolutely be able to be transported within the current space transport system in a way that they can be comfortably supplied via space at a rate that at least keeps up with expected daily maintenance maximums (30k WTs per day minimum). It would be incredibly easy to just adjust their cargo space required. And when you try to compare their physical size to the physical sizes of other items in game, the fact that only one can load per shuttle is unreasonable already.

Direct Trading & TA
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See your response here is one of the leading frustrations that ends up getting me forum banned. You say in your personal experience, things like Electric Power were a non-issue for you getting started on TA because you could just direct trade as much as you wanted; and it took you a couple weeks to be productive because you had to setup your shuttles and supplies.

Some players understand that supply shuttles can be readied before spending the 30GC and registering for the world, the GC cost being something you personally don't have to contend with. And the instantly moving things to your TA empire/enterprise with Direct Trade is something that players cannot do, which is exactly what I said. For the first week on TA, regardless of any preparation done by the player before jumping into the world, the player can do nothing because Direct Trade is unavailable. You've heard about how important a first impression is right? The very first impression to anyone venturing to that world right now is paying 30GC for a month, and for the first 25% of that month being able to produce nothing because the most critical supplies that they need can't be shuttled and can't be transferred by Direct Trade.

Conclusion
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I honestly don't know how to spell any of this out more clearly to you. There are all these problems that people bring up that you just say 'I don't see a problem' and player count continues to decline. I beg you, please look beyond your own personal play experience and look at the bigger picture here. The concept of the game is enough to keep some leaving players coming back, but your treatment of it really is a huge turn off that makes it hard to stay invested in the game. Please give the game the care it deserves.

I've mostly stayed out of recent game discussions like this as I find it tiring. Conversations go in circles. However, with more long time players leaving and posting why in chat, I feel I should add thoughts here.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

we have, from the start, advised players to limit the number of wind farms.
we think that even 1000 is far too many.
More is better is a bit simple for wind power.
It is very profitable, good for the country but not in unlimited quantities.<!-/Quote-!>

The problem with this is that it's been very bad advice. Players who ignored this advice and bought more wind farms are now all the richest players in the game. Players who ignored this advice have made quadrillions of profits in game cash. I think what you're trying to say is you *intend* to make wind farms function in a way where 500 or so farms is optimal. Until recently, 5,000 was optimal regardless of what you think or say. That's what was best for players. You not understanding how many of your players play or want is part of the frustration that's expressed at you on the forum and looks like GM disconnect from the game.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

wind power was seen here as unattractive and everyone screamed for a removal function.<!-/Quote-!>

A removal feature was requested because you repeatedly insist players should not buy too many wind farms and there was no reasonable way of removing them if you had too many. Even still, I would be willing to bet most players don't even know where the button to do it is. I didn't know until I started writing this post. There's no instructions for almost anything and most updates get buried on the forum within a couple of days. The communication of updates and game changes is poor. Most players do not have time to go searching for details on game changes you posted 6 months ago. Most players don't even see the changes you post on the forum at all and will never know.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Now, there are more than 10.000 corporations producing wind turbines in a single world and huge shortages. many countries are energy independent with wind farms and more have a positive cash flow because of them.<!-/Quote-!>

This is because it has been better to have thousands of wind farms than hundreds. That many farms require that many turbine corporations. Wind turbine corporations also are possibly the best corporations in the game, so it's no wonder that players are building them. If players could build thousands of mining corporations, they would. Players *can* make thousands of wind turbine corporations, and they are.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Some exact specifications are provided and updated in the game documentations, for example weapon functionality.

Other details have always been discovered by players and this is the way it should be.<!-/Quote-!>

I understand what you're saying. However, too many things are broken, too much of the documentation is wrong, and too little is posted about updates for this to sound reasonable. For example, if I look in the documentation and see how to calculate welfare index and then look at my countries, it's wrong. So much of the documentation is wrong. Changes are made with no notice and the documentation is left wrong. Players do not enjoy the current information landscape and have asked for better information for a long time.

As it is, there are too many clicks, too many broken buttons and features, and too much investment in things only a few players may use. Investing huge development time in TA while things like new corporation settings sit broken is not what players want. I know you didn't realize that function was broken, but it still supports my view. Basic functions need fixing. Common markets, federations, and basic ways of interacting with others need improvement. Players are too isolated (there's no reasons to interact within the game) and information is too inconsistent.

I understand this is your game, not mine or not ours the players' game. However, you have many long time players who hope for the game's success. Staying silent doesn't help the game.

We know exactly the computation of potential income from EP and keep it as it is to prevent oversized profits.
Wind power is not going to become more profitable than it is now.
It is too profitable as it is. We can argue about the price used to sell it but then, if we go with the market price, versus base price, and higher quality, the profits will jump.

If players want us to do it, we will consider but maintenance will require 2 or 3 wind turbines per game month and the profits will remain as they are now.

another alternative, is to reduce the output of a wind turbine from 1250 to 800 a year.

the profit level will remain around the current level.

Making EP the main income source of a country is not part of the game.

We can go for full market price and full quality.
I think it will double the income and cut the output of wind farms buy about 50%.

we know exactly what income could be. It is intentional to keep the income and cost in some balance and there are many ways to do so.
we do so with nearly every product.

Another alternative will be to increase the output of power corporations to 10 times the output of a wind farm and in the process, cut the price of EP by 50%.
That too will create a better balance and it might even reduce the potential disaster level in case EP surplus might make EP power price to drop.

Best solution?

The best solution might be to gradually reduce the output of wind farms, gradually reduce the base price of EP which is quite high as we have seen in the health system, and allow for higher quality to be introduced in the wind energy market.

This can be done in several smaller steps while we are making sure that having wind power is very profitable but not shooting to absurd levels.

You could put this solution to a vote.

Shortages of EP are smaller now and with the pace of new wind farms coming on line, oversupply is around the corner.
If your country depends for its income on wind farms, the risks are growing. The maintenance cost could sink too if wind turbines are in oversupply but the shortages of wind turbines are currently very large.

The experience here is that as long as products are short and their market price is high, there are no complaints about profitability.
once there are products with oversupply, and some corporations begin to show losses, everyone is upset.

What are you even going on about? Almost none of your response actually has anything to do with anything brought up and you just went flying off on a wild tangent about doubling or tripling maintenance and slashing production of everything wind. I implore you to actually read what your players write to you and respond on topic, put it through a translator if English isn't your primary language.

The one thing you actually touched base on was the FI computation, which you keep insisting you know and then fly off on your tangents. This issue, that has been brought up to you multiple times, could easily be solved if you just share your math. I've shown you mine that says you're wrong, show me yours that says you're right and the issue can be put to bed.

"We know exactly the computation of potential income from EP and keep it as it is to prevent oversized profits.
Wind power is not going to become more profitable than it is now.
It is too profitable as it is. We can argue about the price used to sell it but then, if we go with the market price, versus base price, and higher quality, the profits will jump."


Andy, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Are you saying that changing the computation in the financial index to include the market price + quality, will make any difference in my real profits when I sell that 135 Quality EP on the market? Because it does not change anything in terms of profit. The only thing it changes is my Financial Index score. When I sell that EP, the money I get is not base price, it's market + quality. I make that profit no matter what the number in the financial index says. We just want the FI to reflect the profit I am already making, by selling the EP.

The value of EP that is delivered to the country is shown on the financial page as income from wind farms.

the EP can be used in the country to cut cost, or sold to corporations for cash or it can be sold on the market for cash.

In all these variations, it is income for the country.

In the process, It also influences the financial index, as it indeed should.

The value of the EP depends both on quality and on the market price of EP.
several other parameters are involved and set to adapt gradually.

I have said before that we will make some changes that will keep profits in place and will gradually become more transparent to players.

Wind farms remain a very profitable function to countries and can help in creating income.

very large numbers, as we said already many times, are very risky as the price of EP can decline and income will plunge and in addition, when there are so many wind farms, they employ many workers that are involved in the maintenance of these wind farms.