Fleet galaxies "update" ideas for G7+

[sterile lark]

there's a lot of room in g6 for advisor entries depending on fleet strength, especially if you're doing early GF levels

[crude token]

going off some of the fights in g5, there were some solves that were like... kinda thoughtless, I suppose?

like, if you tried to put thought into the setup you'd never land on them, because surely just putting all your ships in a line isn't the best way to do the fight

but yes, a lot of it's just being at uncommon statlines

[rancid tapir]

If they were NOT the obvious, they weren't "thoughtless," right?

[river spade]

yeah, but there's a qualitative difference. sometimes there's a logic or a story "i hid ship A above and behind ship B, letting ship A do a lot of damage"

it makes sense even if it wasnt obvious

other times it's "i turned the fighter weapon to the anti-shield one even though they were fighting armor and it's better because RNG"

[crude iron]

I read through this entire thread, and pondered on it. I have a few thoughts, which I'm gonna break into a couple comments to make them distinct.

First, regarding updates to galaxies themselves:

Implement some features of UT into new galaxies.
⦁ Multiple options for weapon/hull upgrades. Current galaxies have two options, "default" and "upgraded", for weapon and hull. Have multiple weapon upgrades and multiple hull upgrades for each ship.
⦁ Semi-randomize the node battles.
1. Each node is generated when you travel to the galaxy, so you can't cheese the battle by redoing it over and over until you get favorable RNG for every node.
2. You can redo a battle to improve your clear resources.
3. You can use the best clear of that node from any run for cases where RNG is unfavorable.
4. This would require a minimum difficulty as well as maximum difficulty be established for each node, so that each one is balanced where you want it to be for its location in the galaxy.

I also want to +1 the idea of having multiple smaller galaxies becoming available simultaneously. I expect that would be less variables for you to balance, with nearly the same amount of content as one big galaxy.

Lastly, event galaxies. Limited time access. Artifacts purchase small, temporary bonuses to FR, FS, Fuel gain (like a time skip that only works on fuel).

Regarding this comment:
1 seems altogether too active for an idle game. This seems like it would punish players who don't want to or can't do the entire galaxy in one sitting to get the bonuses. Will ultimately lead to everyone finishing content in a single day that you take weeks or months to create.

4 I don't love just because then it makes fleet seem nearly pointless?

5 seems fairly workable, perhaps in conjunction with other changes.

Regarding 2 and 3... I actually like 3, but I seem to be the minority in this opinion. I'll talk more about 3 in a moment.

If we're keeping reinforces, I think 2 is a fairly good option. Then you've got a clean R1-5, then R6-11 for each of the galaxies (plus however you'd do future galaxies, not sure how this would work if you're having multiple galaxies being worked at once). I haven't been keeping track of how many reinforces I've done, but I think it's more than 11, and I've only done one mid-G6 reinforce so far. I have at least one (if not two) more to go.

[rancid tapir]

I'd disagree with "RNG Node Battles" personally, but that's just me

[crude iron]

Now, regarding 3, eliminating reinforces. I agree with flc's conclusions here about what's come up in this thread. The theme seems to be that reinforces are especially painful, to the point where people would rather avoid them. I kind of like this option, and thinking about it got the gears going as to how this could work.

⦁ Gain galaxy bonuses on prestige. This would make prestige relevant again, it seems almost totally defunct by the time you hit galaxies. By that point, the only reason to prestige is a single prestige to unlock each key shard, and a couple to unlock grid squares on B6 (which mostly get skipped in favor of a base consumable anyway). Some capital systems would need to be rejiggered so that you lose progress on prestige, where currently you keep that progress until reinforce.

1. Reset reactor tiers - Perhaps once a particular OD is maxed out, it no longer resets? Or at T20, active boost is always active, T40 that OD no longer resets.
2. Reset crew - Either just adaptions, or everything on the Manage tab. May need to add adaption speed bonuses to other systems to make this feasible. Would also probably want a way to make "Additional Splice Slot" permanent - maybe in the upgrades tab?
3. Lose current specimens. Research levels don't decrease, but you go back to 0 of each specimen and need to reaccumulate them.
   ⦁ The idea here is for it to still be somewhat "painful" to reset and get the galaxy bonuses, but not AS painful as a reinforce is.

⦁ Unlock fleet condition - reach Sector 80 and prestige (instead of reinforce)

1. The R1 Reinforce Bonus gets added to the beginning of G1 as that galaxy's Enemy Strength Reduction - i.e., pre-unlocked. The remaining bonuses you get from R1 are either (a. a single capstone artifact upgrade) or (b. each bonus gets added individually to the artifact tree) or (c. some or all are added as a new base battle unlock to G1) or some combination of those three options.
2. The R2 and R3 Reinforce Bonus becomes the G2 Enemy Strength Reduction. Similar to above, remaining bonuses for R2 could become a mid-galaxy capstone upgrade and R3 an end-galaxy upgrade, or else individual bonus could be its own upgrade and/or BB unlock.
3. The R4 and R5 Reinforce Bonus becomes the G3 Enemy Strength Reduction. Remaining bonuses are mid-galaxy and end-galaxy capstones or individual artifact/BB unlocks.
   ⦁ Or, instead of combining R2/3 and R-4/5 into two galaxies, could spend a bit of time creating one more smaller galaxy that more closely maps to the sectors for what's currently R1-5. G1 is a good "tutorial" galaxy, that could just be rescaled for the amount of FR you'd get for Sectiors 80-84. G2 would be scaled for the FR you'd get in 85-89. G3 would work for 90-94. Create a new galaxy that's bigger than G3 but smaller than G4, which is scaled for 95-99. Then you pick up in what's currently G4 (becomes G5) at sector 100.
   ⦁ Another or, have a single reinforce at 80 which gives you the R1 bonuses, but it's a one-time deal (similar to the task list), then rebalance G1-G3 for sectors 85-99.

[rancid tapir]

T40 that OD no longer resets.
OD on reinforce will come LONG before we get 1e20x more OD speed

I don't mean to nitpick, just reading and commenting as I read

[crude iron]

It's an example, I'm not smart enough to math out the exact balance of a hypothetical upgrade for a discord comment. Maybe T25 or T30 makes more sense.

[rancid tapir]

I see

I reckon permanent OD is G7/G8

Also I kinda wanna read this whole thread LOL

[crude iron]

It took like an hour, lol.

[crude token]

I don't dislike the whole turn-reinforce-into-prestige idea but I think a lot of it comes down to UI, like... we have a "prestige" menu that's eventually just our ship loadout, so even though we still use the tab a lot, it feels weird cos we're only ever going there to retrofit--functionally, reinforcing is basically what prestiging used to be, only instead of bases giving us bonuses, it's fleet

but also anything short of turning reinforce into prestige would just be annoying at this point, and I think it's a good thing that we never need to prestige past a certain point (you'll still do it for retrofits sometimes depending on how often you use them and whether you're able to generate them via galaxy runs)

[crude iron]

we never need to prestige past a certain point

Except that we do need to prestige, it just happens in a different tab with a different name, and is more of a pain to get to where you were just at. To the point where it seems many people really don't like doing it.

[crude token]

yeah sorry, to clarify, I mean it's a good thing that we only really have one reset layer

but I also do like that there's a gradual transition, where in earlier reinforces you still can use prestige from time to time

[astral steeple]

I like reinforce just fine. I just don't like how fleet interacts with it.

[crude iron]

The only viable option I've seen so far is to put each galaxy behind a reinforce. Otherwise, there's either no point to reinforcing after R5, or there's a list of complaints about how reinforce and fleet interact. Which, I did mention in my second comment, I just personally like the idea of getting rid of reinforce better, and went down the rabbit hole a little bit about what that would look like.

[astral steeple]

The option I’m interested in is tying reinforce rewards to sector progress, with fleet rewards being activated immediately instead.

[crude iron]

What would be the reward for reinforcing? Pretty much all the big changes to sector are currently in fleet.

Post-R5, that is.

[astral steeple]

Up to Sylv.

[crude iron]

🤔 I could see maybe taking all the BB upgrades and the 1/1 artifact upgrades and instead putting them behind the same system as R1-5. Then fleet is more of a "pure" stat increase upgrade system.

Would still probably put fleet upgrades behind a prestige, if I was designing it that way.

That option would probably take the least amount of rejiggering the balance, depending on how much of a concern that is for Sylv. All the same bonuses in place, you just unlock them in a different manner.

[slim bluff]

a lot of work went into making fleet battles as deterministic as possible so almost certaintly more rng would not be reduced back, and I think sylv really disliked the idea of some procedurally generated/randomised galaxies/battles outside of UT

[slim bluff]

this just seems like way too much work, having to rejigger basically the whole game up from s80

it feels like removing reinforce altogether is too messy 🤔

[crude iron]

It's definitely a high-effort option. That's kind of the good and bad side of releasing a game in early access. You might find that a system needs to be drastically changed from how you originally designed it before it can go full release.
Realistically, it wouldn't be the whole game from 80 up. It'd be from 80 or 85 to ~110-115, depending how you did it. It could probably be designed so that G4 or G5 and onward don't change at all.

[slim bluff]

I think some things like stronger overdrive catchup would take more of the pain out of reinforcing, spending less time getting reactor and stuff about up to where they were

specimen research is also actually pretty significant too

if only there was a way to get it without veil piercer...

now would be a good time to bake in the vp core, just saying

[hushed berry]

If nothing else, moving Reinforce towards the Prestige layer grants Sylv another level of customization with the 2 remaining N/As he already has

I'm more of the same idea tbh but for challenges

it has 0 usage capitalwise sadly

[crude iron]

Getting a little off track at this point, but I think if challenges don't get anything for capital, it'd be better to remove them altogether and place their bonuses behind a different system.

[hushed berry]

and I'm still of the thought fleet would be useful if it got like puzzle gameplay on challenges because of the fact it's disconnected from main game

meaning nobody really has to bother with opportunity costs w/ reinforcing/prestiging

which was the one thing that many players complained about it

you could literally throw a few fleet upgrades there if you so desire

[tribal tide]

This is kind of like the 4th in my list earlier.
Issue is just making meaningful reinforce bonuses gas no room right now without needing fleet bonuses

[slim bluff]

how much is all of g6 compared to the r1-r5 bonuses

... I think, in part of why reinforcing for those felt better than reinforcing for galaxies, is those had more qol stuff and reinforce persisting stuff attached to them

it would be nice if galaxy upgrades included more upgrades that say, increased the strength of overdrive catchup

or like, a 'keep specimen research' deal for like 1% or something (because the first veil piercer pull is always the longest, after that you get a ton of specimen and pierce tech goes weeee and it's all good again)

[crude token]

start with 1e10 specimens and spec research unlocked with cap ship 🙂

[slim bluff]

you do already start with spec research unlocked

once base 5 is finalised going into cap ship auto caps meo, since the capital research upgrade gets kept on reinforcee

[noble zodiac]

If we tie Reinforce Bonus to Sector progress, it does not need huge stuff to be meaningful.
Think about the original reinforces,.. it was a laundry list every 5 levels, forced.
Just do the same,... but add a few per sector and the player is in charge as to when he considers it meaningful enough to hit the button. A little fiddeling at start, but could easily have this incorporated for the future. Just balance each sector as if people reinforced 4-6 sectors prior (or whatever you feel like is "not too often" as for the number of reinforces). If someone wants to be more active, they would reinforce more often and have easier progression... if someone is fine with letting the game run for a few days, they would prob. reinforce less often. This would give player agency over the WHEN to hit the button. Just make sure to not include any huge roadblocks into it, otherwise the issue would just shift to this, rather than being fixed.

I can 100% say, I love Galaxies and the idea of not having to reinforce for them, makes me even more exited as to what future galaxies bring. However I still think reinforce as a mechanic is kinda needed,... even if it just feels like a negative to the player. But in reality people need SOME form of negatives, to get joy out of overcoming them. Just a very hard balance thing to not make it feel TOO bad, but just bad enough that happiness can happen as well. 😉

[hushed berry]

with no reinforce you don't ever get to feel the joys of being powerful

you're just moving to unlock sectors

[tribal tide]

Ya the no reinforce option was quite unlikely, just a way to sus out more specific feelings on the topic

[hushed berry]

I'm more surprised people don't exactly like the prestige layer at all

(yes the reinforce layer is also the prestige layer)

(it is a standard of idle games)

i guess, ok fair, loss aversion

(time is also a cost)

but you can't feel strong without steamrolling the weak enemies you used to have issues with

[noble zodiac]

It kinda depends on how, when, why it is being used. The cost is pretty harsh. Both time investment AND active gameplay repetition. Not all gameplay is fun to redo, while other areas are less of an issue. If the gain is worth it, people don't mind usually. But to nail that is hard.

I agree it is needed, but far harder to balance around than at first glance.

[crude token]

it's also one of the main things that makes people quit idle games

[tribal tide]

Ya I think reinforces are decent overall and not running into that.
But I bet a few feel too samey or lackluster

[sterile lark]

but g6 also had more bases giving that stuff out too?

[sterile lark]

I don't like it when it just feels like repetition of chores for the sake of it

which I'm not saying is a thing with USI, just with general games

[astral steeple]

You were also never waiting on galaxies for the R0-R4 phase. As soon as you hit the requisite sector you were good to reinforce. Maxing out key shards was just a nice bonus before reinforcing.

Key shards and other shards.

[sharp crag]

speaking of reinforces feeling rewarding, the least rewarding reinforce is the one leading to r3. at least, at the time that I went through it, it introduced the veil piercer, and doesn't really let you get to do much with it until far too late. that's all I'm going to say about the topic though, as this thread is about galaxy update ideas

[crude token]

ok so I have compiled some thoughts. sorry for another huge wall of text lol

these suggestions are mostly just food for thought but I tried to put together some more holistic solutions that hopefully won't need much in the way of excess design work or reworking of existing content

Gameplay Suggestions

1. Add bonuses to each "advanced" capital system (asynth, splicing, tethering, maybe t3 cores, new reactor) that activate on reinforce so that there are more sources of reinforce power than just fleet. These can be capped as needed to prevent EoC balance issues.

2. Always give players at least the recommended FR when starting a galaxy, and instead implement a -5% fuel efficiency penalty per sector below the recommendation.

3. Move new feature unlocks to base battles exclusively so that you don't have to reinforce to start using them (maybe move splicing as well)

4. Dealing with fleet gating:

5. For every sector with additional scaling that you clear, significantly and multiplicatively increase fuel gain rate for the corresponding galaxy (not efficiency!). Make fuel galaxy-specific to prevent the exploits this would otherwise create.

6. Add main game upgrades for UT, and add galaxy upgrades to UT. Don't add main game upgrades for galaxies. Make UT a more central part of the game with corresponding AI automation upgrades.

7. Or, remove additional scaling entirely outside of EoC and R0-4. Lock additional scaling on a per-reinforce basis so that EoC players still need to reinforce when a new patch drops.

8. Dealing with FR blowout:

9. For galaxy "clusters" (e.g. G7 having 3 galaxies in it), divide your starting FR by the number of galaxies in the constellation.

10. Add a system by which you can permanently spend base FR to "supercharge" the bonuses in older galaxies. Entry to new galaxies (likely starting in G8) would require certain galaxies to be supercharged. Supercharging a galaxy would require a reinforce and would allow for longer stretches of sectors that don't need a corresponding galaxy.

11. Cap FR gain at ~S140 and change the method by which you gain it.

12. Alternatively, go with the ship tiers I've suggested before. Anything that isn't just a FR penalty with no benefit.

Fleet QoL Suggestions

1. Add an AI upgrade: if your saved layout for a previous stat line matches the layout of the advisor for your current stat line, allow for "repeat battle" to automatically update your clear to match that advisor. (make sure it's actually an improvement first)

2. Add a "mirror layout" button. Bonus: Automatically check mirrored layouts on symmetrical fights with the upgrade from suggestion 1.

3. During testing, create layouts that clear each fight and include those as "previous clears" that automatically populate your fleet grid. These layouts should be as basic as possible (simple, "logical" formations) while leaving room for improvement.

4. Include an option to disable this so that people don't have to click the "clear" button every time.

5. Bonus: Save a special, permanent advisor for every statline on every fight that lets you use the upgrade from suggestion 1 while still fully automating fleet battles.

6. Have "previous completions" update immediately with your best clear, even if you don't accept it.

7. Bonus: Include clears from practice mode so that you can "pre-clear" fights before doing your run.

8. Bonus: Automatically update your "previous completions" using the upgrade from suggestion 1.

9. Make S nodes increase stats by 0.2 or more (0.1 is fine for earlier galaxies). Remove the stat bonus from GF and change it to a larger FR bonus.

Galaxy Clusters

I think this is more or less definitely happening, so I had some suggestions related to it specifically:

1. Each galaxy should have a "theme" and every fight in that galaxy should work off that theme. Themes could include:

• A powerful, possibly galaxy-exclusive upgrade that you get early on (or start with).
• A modifier for the entire galaxy that affects both you and the enemy. (you could have fights where the enemy is heavily disadvantaged by the modifier just for fun)
• Switch up existing bonuses, e.g. give frigates shields and corvettes armour.
• Increased frequency of certain nodes, hazards, or support bonuses

2. Each galaxy in a cluster should somehow link to each other galaxy. For example:

• Galaxies completed sequentially (i.e. finish G7A before entering G7B) could have bonuses from S and R nodes carry over (and could have a unified GF node) to give a sense of continuity
• Galaxies completed simultaneously (i.e. do G7A and G7B at the same time) should have nodes that relate to the "theme" of the other galaxy, e.g. destroy a power generator in G7A to remove barriers from enemies in G7B (on top of the obvious ideas like cross-galaxy upgrades, hazards, support bonuses etc)

3. Each galaxy in a cluster should have its own set of reinforce bonuses. (this way there's an ebb and flow to upgrade gain rate and you have more choice over whether you reinforce or wait)

4. Avoid upgrades that increase fuel efficiency or artifact gain that require reinforces. (I see the vision in G6 but reinforcing for 10x B6 speed and losing the bonuses you get toward the end of a reinforce while also knowing you're going to reinforce again soon for the fuel efficiency kinda sucks)

What reinforce bonuses should systems give?

So far, we've had five main sources of reinforce bonuses that come from system progress: key shards, base finalisation, alien synth, splicing upgrades, and residuum. But these upgrades don't give reinforce power, they just persist on reinforce.

I think alien synth, splicing, tethering, T3 cores, and the new reactor (and all future new systems) should all have bonuses that activate on reinforce. For example:

• ASynth: I think it might be cool to have an asynth output quantity bonus that you can build toward, perhaps with an alien synth version of fixtures or synth points, especially since late asynth mats seem to be very heavy on pre-crafts.

• Splicing: Already pretty complicated, so I think an existing system should be reworked a bit. Since right now humanity is a bit harder to gain than corruption, perhaps Discipline could gain a high watermark bonus (similar to old crew levels) that activates on reinforce. Helps that it's aptly named too.

• Tethering: I haven't unlocked this system yet, but perhaps the majority of your discharge speed could come from reinforce bonuses, perhaps on finishing a skein tree or purchasing residuum upgrades.

• T3 Cores: Might be cool to have something that reduces the cost of core upgrades when reinforcing. Not sure exactly what you'd use to scale the bonus (could be compute, even), but one nice thing about a discount is that it helps to keep resource OoMs from going too deep into the triple digits long-term.

These bonuses are a bit more on the unique side because I wanted to highlight ways you could add bonuses to these systems that don't make people ask "why do I have to wait for a reinforce for this". Plus, if you wanted to add more power, you can always just add more conventional bonuses.

[slim bluff]

ooh more work to do in testing~

sylv did ask us to populate the advisor a bit but I guess that's just a better solution

for lazy people

[hushed berry]

how does one populate advisor exactly

if you already capped a galaxy

[crude token]

practice mode

[hushed berry]

does practice mode populate advisor?

i see

[turbid spindle]

without practice mode

[slim bluff]

alien synth points that activate on reinforce is interesting 🤔 but them sylv runs into the problem of why he didn't remove synth points which is that it's difficult to add them retroactively

[slim bluff]

or insanity

[crude token]

or player id 0

[turbid spindle]

?

[crude token]

you aint slick

[slim bluff]

cores hmm... compute also needs a rework pretty soon, because power x speed is approaching the number too big game explodes number

[slim bluff]

lost a few

[turbid spindle]

warp still gives compute
weird

[crude token]

anyway I've got a bunch more walls of text if people have questions about stuff but I'm gonna spare everyone for now

(this might be a threat)

[turbid spindle]

run

[tribal tide]

oh my

[tribal tide]

1, Do you mean as a replacement to fleet reinforce stuff or addition?
2. I suppose a big penalty on fuel and baseline FR would work well, the extra FR was meant as a crutch and a "different kind" of speedup for finishing the galaxy but its not really needed
3. A few (like battleship backrev and core changes) cant really work without reinforce, but I guess the rest could work.
The main issue there is that those systems are dependant on other variables. Unlocking splice from the base is dumb if you arent in a high enough sector, Tether without prev warp done etc etc. They arent really independant enough to do this in general and have it "feel good" I think, which is why its usually a reinforce thing.

4.1 Efficiency can be galaxy specific. Galaxy specific fuel in general seems wonk. youd just have G1 fuel sitting there tec
4.3 The scaling reallly just exists for eoc stuff. I dont think anyone is hitting it in normal play. I am not sure how to do a more graceful per-reinforce thing then the current one really

5. Im basically planning on a divisor, either spread amongst a group (is constellation a correct name for this????)
   Supercharging galaxies seems overkill unless go that way for reinforce bonusses somehow

[tribal tide]

1. this, and other advisor stuff is slightly tricky since its server side but thi smake sense, it feels a bit niche to be an AI upgrade. Although, this has a really big problem with impossible advisors actually. I dunno how to work around that efficiently
2. You mean the players layout? or mirror the enemy "smartly"?
3. This adds on to test/dev time T.T
4. not 100% sure what you mean
5. yes

I gotta run for now tho

[outer vector]

a part of what I think people dislike about fleet is the repeating of stuff you've already done, has there been a consideration of doing something where you like clear something and it's permanently cleared?

I'm thinking like you clear up to a point and next run that point's where you start from

kinda be like a multistage space dungeon crawl xD

[crude token]

1: in addition, and ideally in a way that gives something new and unique so that they feel deserving of being reinforce bonuses

2: yeah it's basically exchanging something that idle players have a surplus of (fuel) for the extra FR. kinda like launching a rocket from further away I guess lol

3: people unlock splicing in like s110 already no? I agree it's dumb but if people aren't happy about having to wait til reinforce to mess around with stuff, that's just one way to do it

4: yeah I hear you on the scaling. I definitely think if people aren't hitting the scaled sectors then they aren't really walled by fleet, so I figured I'd put something in for the people who are hitting the scaled sectors.

the reason I say fuel gain and not efficiency is because gain doesn't make runs you've already done less efficient. you still use 6h of fuel, you just gain it back in 4h instead, which I think makes sense for scaled sector clears where it can be hard to know when you can expect to clear them, especially a few days out. but also it's probably not even needed in the first place so I'm not worried either way

5: I was thinking constellation too but that's a star thing, a group of galaxies is... a group (e.g. our "local group" or a cluster (or a supercluster I think?)

anyway the supercharging thing might be overkill bonus-wise (it'd need to start at like s140ish at the earliest probably) but it's just another way of attacking the FR problem. and people keep talking about doing stuff with older galaxies so I figured I'd hit that point as well.

e.g. supercharging each galaxy could cost 1% of your per-sector scaling (so each sector is 1.09x instead of 1.1x after doing g1 for example). assuming you do g1 and g2 together, 1.08x FR per sector to s140 puts you at about 2170 instead of 4525 (which you can then divide again across the galaxies)

(if it's not already abundantly clear, I really don't want a straight FR divisor, no matter how simple and easy it would be)

[tribal tide]

It's the S nodes that force redoing things. So gonna turn those into single levels. That way you do a few reruns at most

[outer vector]

sure, just spitballing

I have no doubt there'll still be some people that will dislike having to redo something even if it's just a second time

it should be noted that I don't mind it as galaxies have been so far, though the grind does get a tad tedious at the end, I'm just throwing ideas out in case you hadn't considered it ^^

[wraith rapids]

Do idle player really have a surplus of fuel tho? It caps at 4 days and even doing a full repeat of the previous run is a better usage of it than dumping it into GF as long as you can reach uncapped green nodes

And if you are behind in sectors. GF won't make a big enough diff on its own

[crude token]

1: yeah I was thinking about the server side stuff since this is a proactive thing and could be done in rapid & automated succession. maybe a bulk advisor request to the server at the start of a galaxy might help? I figured it's too niche to be AI, but that's why I also thought it'd be a good idea to work it in with the default solves idea

2: mirror the player's layout, because sometimes mirrored layouts just work better. feel free to disregard this suggestion tbh, it's a little facetious

3: I do understand that but I feel like with fewer possible stat lines it wouldn't be that hard, plus you're already playing through the galaxies to playtest them right? so it's not like you're doing that much extra work, just saving the work that you're already doing. but maybe I've got the wrong idea on the testing process, if so all good

4. maybe repro steps might make it clearer

• Start a battle and set a new high score
• Hit retry (don't accept the result)
• Abandon the battle
• Re-enter the battle
• Click "previous completions". the result you got in step 1 isn't saved
  it's niche but iirc practice mode already does this kinda? it's not quite the same thing (I think practice mode just insta-uploads advisors when you set a new high score, I don't think it changes your previous completions)

basically, sometimes I quit out of battles that I've found a decent layout for (can be for any number of reasons) and forget the layout I used, especially on later, more complex fights.

even without quitting out of the battle, sometimes you get a good solve early in testing and then it's a pain trying to find it again to try and refine it

I know it sounds like a really tiny thing but it happens so much more often than you might think, at least for me, so if it's a small fix then it'd help make repeat runs a little smoother

[crude token]

relative to their rate of sector progress, yes.

think of it this way: it might take an experienced active player 8 hours to clear sector 120, and it might take an idle player 2-3 days (or even longer). the first player gains enough fuel for 1 run of g5 or g6, the second player gains enough fuel for 8+ runs. it's only natural at that pace that they'll get way ahead in fleet progress relative to their sector progress.

I think it'd be better if, instead of 8+ runs with a low FR, idle players could instead do like 4-6 runs with the recommended FR, even if they aren't at, say, s123 for g6

(also sylv aren't you supposed to be on holiday?)

[tribal tide]

I am and it's annoying lol, can't get anything done

[crude token]

brother.

it's ok to relax from time to time.

[slim bluff]

the problem with this is that in order to make galaxies last long enough requires making well, a lot of nodes which uses a ton of dev time

[slim bluff]

USI is basically your life now right 😂

[tribal tide]

I just generally don't fond things "fun" if it's not making progress towards some goal or is challenging.
So day I got to do a sick 8 mile hike was fun, but site seeing 5 days now getting sadge

[crude token]

dw I have the same problem on holidays lol

[slim bluff]

galaxy clusters sounds cool

[crude token]

but breaks are productive, your brain does good stuff when you allow it some time and space

[slim bluff]

well, some people also like the grind and seeing those incremental gains™

[tribal tide]

3. Ya just still adds on. Since something that happens a lot is tweaking fights. So setting it up on my run through gonna get changed a lot.

[slim bluff]

man I would like some of your goal motivation

[tribal tide]

4. That makes sense

[slim bluff]

Is just saving the last layout you balanced it around enough 🤔

you basically design battles 1:1 your stuff vs enemies, right?

[crude token]

that'd be perfect tbh

[tribal tide]

Basically no downsides other then neuroticism when I can't do things

[crude token]

I should frame "no downsides other than neuroticism" and put it on my wall

my version of live laugh love

[slim bluff]

seems fine, I need some of that

[crude token]

but yes, 1:1 layouts are exactly what I had in mind. can't do much better than "this is the solve this fight was designed around" for an auto clear AI

definitely a lot better than just handing people advisor clears

[tribal tide]

True and my test clears are usually not best can be

[crude token]

and hey even if they are for a fight or two, it'd be funny

[slim bluff]

they definitely aren't because players cleared b46 at 3.625x stats when it was designed around 4x

unless it's like, b1

[crude token]

perhaps a "Suggested Layout" button would be the way to go? or update the advisor to like

Suggested Layout:
(ship list)
[Use this layout]

High score:
[Check for best clear]

or something like that? idk

[slim bluff]

they are the simplest most 'logical' ideas that flc basically wanted for that point, right?

[tribal tide]

Suggested is good idea think

Ya

[slim bluff]

'possible' layout 😛

so in this sense, it barely adds any dev time because you can just throw in the test clears that you have to do anyways

[crude token]

I get that but the main goal is to give people who really don't like fleet (or can't figure out puzzles e.g. b29-30 in g5) a way to minimise how much they engage with it or otherwise ease them into it so that they can start to learn on their own

so the idea would be that they just wouldn't be at really low statlines

[slim bluff]

yeah the simplest 'I don't want to deal with it, please do it for me' option

although it gets kind of weird if they did it nice and optimised for the first few runs and then went 'screw it, go do it yourself'

[crude token]

optimises g5 for the first 6 runs
"why doesn't the suggested layout work for b16"

[slim bluff]

...hazard?

[crude token]

b16 is a big stat check and needs a huge overdeploy if you're not at 1.7ish or higher

[outer vector]

but a big part of the dev time has to be balancing around various power levels, if there's say no S nodes and the efficiency aspect only shows in maybe pushing a node further, dev time should be at least somewhat shorter

heck, could possibly make it randomly generated

and you get random powerups and maybe more ships every few waves

...I'm describing UT, aren't I? xD

[tribal tide]

Nah various power levels are np. I balance around what I expect stats to be at first go of X battle. Then do a few later playthroughs to see where total fr lies

[slim bluff]

hyper optimisers clearing battles with half the expected stats:

[tribal tide]

Ya lol

[crude token]

yep

[tribal tide]

G5 was overturned g6 over ><

[slim bluff]

just curious, what was the expected runs to clear b46?

or intended

eoc optimisers at s127 cleared it in like... 31-32 runs

[tribal tide]

Uh a little lower then the first test runs

Like 45 50

[slim bluff]

at what starting FR?

recommended, or max?

[outer vector]

I did it at run 37 for reference

[slim bluff]

test run took me 69, using recommended fr

[outer vector]

to beat B46, or finish the galaxy?

[slim bluff]

beat b46

artifacts not added

[tribal tide]

Recommend
But i tweaked things lower after your hits initial runs

[slim bluff]

such as making beam not trash and missiles not cancer, yes

[crude token]

haven't experienced beams in fleet yet but I'm guessing they're a lot like beams in game when you don't have laser boost or the lv70 speed node

i.e. absolutely useless

[slim bluff]

sylv had to buff them 3 times in a row for them to be basically on par with default weapons

[crude token]

yeah sounds right

[outer vector]

didn't the new enemy type have regenerating shields though? I seem to recall they shone against those at least

[slim bluff]

missiles enemies having native 2x armor damage and about 30% more firerate was definitely cancer

[crude token]

they would be helpful yeah, but 10% regen isn't so much that they'd make up for bad dps

(though I'm guessing there are enemy support slots that give higher shield regen?)

[slim bluff]

there are enemy support slots that give 2x hp

which is, effectively 2x regen

[crude token]

mhm

[slim bluff]

they used to have 20% regen which was just a liiiiiitle bit cancer...

[crude token]

that does sound profoundly ass

I'm looking forward to experiencing this for myself in........ 2d 22:30

[tribal tide]

If I do a "mediumer" sized redo of stuff, im leaning towards fleet artifact upgrades bieing immedieate or partially so.
In that ase this kind of reinforce upgrades system is too narrow I think. A lot of this is stuff that would fit the current system more then a redone one. But perhaps that is fine.
I am unsure if anything other then fleet artifact upgrades instant applying fixes the feeling of waiting on a reinforce though

[astral steeple]

From my perspective, I would leave the existing galaxies largely alone.

Maybe reduce the number of levels in S nodes and raise the bonus per level to compensate, but my main concern is for the design of future galaxies than revising existing ones.

[crude token]

A lot of this is stuff that would fit the current system more then a redone one.
yeah that was the idea. I'm not a massive fan of immediate artifacts cos I think it turns fleet into a normal system like warp or synth (and it has a lot in common with warp, i.e. spend chunks of time, receive upgrades). it has its merits and I'm sure there are ways to make it still feel "special", but it just feels like a shame for it to go that way.

I think it's ok to have times where you wait on fleet before reinforcing, just like you might wait on one last level of asynth or something. the trouble right now is that you aren't waiting for an upgrade of your choosing.

I think smaller galaxies will help with this a lot, especially if there's something else you can do to build reinforce power alongside them. hypothetically you could reinforce anytime during the 3 galaxies and because you aren't that concerned with reaching a new high (unless you aren't at max FR I guess), you can make do with an incomplete artifact tree cos you might be able to get more power via the other systems thanks to the partial upgrades from g7, which then pays off when you finally reinforce with all g7 upgrades.

to give an example: say you build up a reinforce bonus that gives you 4x asynth output. that makes the heliowhatsit basically 4x faster to create and you want to make use of that. so you grab the alien synth node from g7b to go with it and reinforce, planning to get your asynth levels up while finishing g7.

but I understand that this isn't necessarily how players will see things, especially when there are 5 galaxies teaching them to wait til the end to reinforce (and the only reason you don't for the 6th is because the fleet upgrades force you to). or maybe people get choice paralysis cos reinforcing is still a big commitment.

that's why I think it's key for the new cap systems to give power on reinforce. it's something to plan for rather than just another upgrade that happens to persist.

though I get that it's also really hard to find a good balance cos doing a galaxy at the previous patch eoc and doing it in normal progression are very different things

to go along with that it might be a good idea to put upgrades that can combo well with other (hypothetical) reinforce bonuses from other systems close to the middle of the tree so you can just dip in and grab them, and put more generic power bonuses toward the outside? or have one on one side of the tree and one on the other so you can get one or the other or wait a bit longer for both?

idk it might just be the same as it currently is with b6/fuel in g6

[gray oxide]

my main thing with that comes back to the recovery window and effort. ive got no problem with the concept of the reinforce itself, but progressing Od's are a pain, among other things but OD is by far the worst. and reinforcing not only resets that, but the catchup that is there does basically nothing since the 4 tiers it stops before are the worst anyway

so it becomes a cycle of 'do i really want to go through this pain of resetting OD and doing this again, just to do it a bunch more times and not get anywhere at all with it - which then comes to trying to build as much as possible per reinforce so you can both grab the bonuses while reducing the repetition of that pain

especially where its basically required for progression

[crude token]

tbh od catchup doesn't need the "highest ever level-4" condition, maybe highest-1 but highest-4 feels a bit like an eoc-proofing measure

I personally found that crew was more painful in earlier reinforces, just because you have to spam sleeves and prestiges for hours while you're rapid fire switching between systems

[gray oxide]

tbf that was also annoying so the supremacy persist was a godsend. once we do get the reactor 3.0 mechanic im praying for an OD persist aswell (as im hopeful it could happen), although i dont know what it would take to get that and dread the reinforces between now and getting that 😂

[crude token]

OD should be pretty chill from g7 onwards, probably like 2 days to cap them again or something (especially if there's an od key shard lol)

[gray oxide]

spose it also comes to whether we get the OD keyshard or not

[crude token]

but yeah it's a big barrier for every reinforce before that

[gray oxide]

lol snap XD

[crude token]

even if we don't get an od key shard, we're still getting od speed in reactor 3.0 so that'll keep stacking up over time

eventually you'll have so much that you just hit t20 at like s100

[astral steeple]

Discussion of reinforcing probably needs its own thread.

[river spade]

i really like the reinforce to unlock galaxy, immediate artifact rewards paradigm

the reward for reinforcing is getting to play the galaxy, and all of its rewards and the systems it unlocks

the one possible downside is not wanting to run galaxy because you're near a new sector

but that is both temporary and presumably the galaxy upgrades can help you get to that sector in the first place, cause they're immediate

so I don't feel like that issue would be a big deal

[crude token]

I think if you do immediate artifacts you kinda have to have reinforces unlock galaxies

(you'd need to make g2 not need a reinforce but that's whatever)

for current galaxies, it'd mean that you can hit the next galaxy's recommended FR pretty easily before you reinforce, so you'd be able to use your fuel as you get it

and I think it still works well with the reinforce bonuses from other systems

so maybe that's the play

there are downsides like reinforce literally only being for galaxy unlocks, so they're still forced, but... it'd probably feel a lot better cos you aren't waiting for bonuses you've already "earned"

and there's some choice, such as if you're close to a new high sector (which is likely since you're getting upgrades right up to the end of the reinforce) you can try and reach it while building fuel that lets you jump straight into running the next galaxy when you eventually reinforce

eoc players on patch day might have it tough in that you wouldn't necessarily be at the recommended sector for the new galaxy and you'd probably have 4d of fuel too, so you're scrambling to reach a new high sector while also instantly starting your first run (which wouldn't be too big of a problem with the guaranteed recommended FR suggestion)

and it might be a bit jarring when you go from g6 (designed for upgrades to activate on reinforce) to g7 (designed for upgrades to activate immediately)?

(also jesus christ this would be so much faster to play through, probably could do 25 days to s130 lmao)

(you'd be finishing g2 in like s109)

ok yeah I'm on board with ~the paradigm~

I didn't like the idea too much when I first saw it but I think in combination with a few other suggestions it starts to make a lot of sense

oh and g6 would be weird af with this change

you'd rush the b6 reno, then sit on your fuel til b6 is finished, then rush the fuel bonus in as few runs as possible lol

[tribal tide]

Those bonuses would probably change

And doing this way I think I'd redo it so it's that from g1

[rancid tapir]

Isn't it MORE work to rework 6 galaxies then it is to make G7/G8?

[tribal tide]

Probably not

[slim bluff]

honestly, if it was 30x speed instead of 3x then it would be more interesting

[slim bluff]

I like the idea too, although the 'scaling reduction' upgraddes would probably have to be reworked

the simplest solution to those would be to just move them to the end of the previous galaxy and make them some of those 'special' artifact upgrades that you still have to reinforce for

which, I guess is another way to add more power to reinforce

special free reinforce-activated artifacts, but they are only unlocked when you finish all the other artifacts

so it becomes a nice little boost

[astral steeple]

Probably not. The vast majority of the catch up time is spent on tiers that the bonus doesn't apply to.

[slim bluff]

yeah but it covers the really shitty part where you have to alternate ODs charging and can't just afk on one for a day

[river spade]

i dont see why? with 1 reinforce at the start and immediate upgrades, you can move the descalers to any point in the galaxy, sure. there's no special need for them to be first anymore. but there's also nothing wrong with it? having the inital upgrade be strong is fine

i think i'd have it either stay all at the start, or spread out one by one over the whole galaxy

• Reduce enemy capital scaling in sector 123 by 50x
• Reduce enemy capital scaling in sector 124 by 50x
• Reduce enemy capital scaling in sector 125 by 50x
• Reduce enemy capital scaling in sector 126 by 50x
• Reduce enemy capital scaling in sectors 127+ by 50x

or something

[sharp crag]

no lie, one time I delayed reinforcing because I wouldn't be able to pay attention to USI for a while. chugged some alien synth levels in the meantime

[rancid tapir]

Why... is that relevant? And that's half-acceptable

[outer vector]

ooooh, what about some thing in a galaxy that unlocks more stuff in earlier galaxies? if done right, could be fun the revisit old galaxies for a bit

I'm thinking the easiest thing would be a BB boss with unlocks, so the artifact tree won't have to be expanded

[sharp crag]

imagine if one day you looked at G1, and suddenly there's a super boss fight just chilling there

[outer vector]

would be kinda cool honestly

it doesn't even have to grant some massive bonus, just enough to actually promt us to revisit

but maybe that's just me

[sharp crag]

while cool, I don't know if there's any real incentive to doing it that way. it'd work well if we're doing multiple small galaxies in the same "step" though

[hushed berry]

the incentive is there for when you want to introduce UT shiptypes to galaxies and rely on starter ship printers to carry you there

e.g. g1 you introduce a few sectors with cruiser enemies

obviously if you throw a bunch of corvettes they'll get shaved if the UT shiptype unit is made to counter them whole

the incentive is to put a softlock to an upgrade (Base Battle Node)

[outer vector]

I disagree

[hushed berry]

the costs of getting there is negligible

[outer vector]

mostly in the softlock

people will try to bash their heads against the wall to push through

think the better solution is you unlock more stuff in past galaxies in future galaxies

[hushed berry]

i mean you could make it so the node isn';t there to begin with in the first place

until you reach a certain point

then it's just there suddenly

then you just have one or a few battles of specific special enemies catered to capped nodes

[outer vector]

I imagine it'd be a reward from a BB fight, just because that's how Sylv has structured rewards before, but could be a node you had to fuel aswell I guess

[sharp crag]

that's just annoying looking back through old, apparently definitively completed stuff to see if there's a silver bullet to your progression problems

[outer vector]

that could also be fixed with a tooltip popup

"you did this specific thing, now you've unlocked a new branch of G1"

[hushed berry]

i dont mean it literally

you get a tooltip node highlighting you have a pip in x galaxy

but basically that node doesn't exist

until it does

[hushed berry]

so this doesn't happen

[sharp crag]

you're also assuming people read everything. in a perfect world, this wouldn't be a problem. but alas

[hushed berry]

not my fault if people are library of ruina players

[sharp crag]

the devs will still care

[outer vector]

I mean, people missing a source of power because they don't pay attention to the information given sounds like a them problem 😛

[sharp crag]

then La Mulana wouldn't be described as an obtuse game then lol

(I'm exaggerating obviously)

more relevant to USI, there's quite a few people who get tripped up by tier 2/3 crew skills. they assume that the bonuses are all additive with each other, when in reality they are multiplicative

[hushed berry]

anyway going back i feel like you misunderstood some of my points so to clarify

[outer vector]

that's highly likely ^^

[hushed berry]

clearing some newer galaxy will unlock older galaxy nodes
new old galaxy nodes are catered towards the balance of the recent galaxy that unlocked it.

E.g. if there were no cruisers on G1, the G1 battle nodes now have them because by G5 you have the cruiser starter printer, etc.

[sharp crag]

I've seen a serial 6 hour time skipper get stuck in r1 because their massive reactor was donkeyballs. after they fixed their max void energy problem, they suddenly zoomed to near eoc lol

[hushed berry]

But having that, all stat upgrades and "infinite" fuel at that point defangs your progress; there's no resistance

which makes you ask why not just give you a passive outright

in that case

enter the UT ships

enemy fighters now have charge lasers, etc.

it's not so much a softlock than it is a challenge -- if you want to get the upgrade you have to beat this small gauntlet of ships

[outer vector]

I agree so far, it should be like a true challenge, especially if it'll only be like a node or two, since you'll want the fleet resources to still be kinda sorta all used for it

[sterile lark]

I think this would be a good way to make older galaxy content useful in some way

definitely not exactly a simple thing though

[outer vector]

Depends on implementation I’d guess

[slim bluff]

also, I don't think it's possible to just make a node appear with how fleet is structured

and another thing which requires reworking the system from the ground up will probably not be implemented

[outer vector]

but I'd rather spitball an idea that could possibly spark some inspiration for Sylv, even if the idea in itself is impossible/unlikely

[slim bluff]

ideas get somewhere

[crude token]

if we want to have g2 require a reinforce to unlock, would it make sense to put g1 in r4? maybe unlock it at like s94-96 since that's typically an idle period and the small boost to synth & cap stats is actually pretty timely around there

plus people can start building fuel for g2

[crude token]

you might be underestimating people's ability to ignore popups

anyway the whole "go back to old galaxies" thing is suggested pretty often, and it's not a bad idea, you just don't want it to be missable (in that people won't realise they can do it) and you don't want it to create dilemmas where you don't know what to spend your fuel on, hence my suggestion before about using excess FR instead of fuel for example

[outer vector]

oh on I'm well aware of people's ability to ignore into given, but at a certain point you just gotta stop handholding, an info popup and a missing upgrade from stats and info should honestly be enough

[crude token]

"should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence

plus there's also ESL people to consider, sometimes the localisation takes a while to catch up

[outer vector]

that's a more fair point, though holding back stuff because of ESL seems like a broader thing that doesn't relate specifically to this ^^

[crude token]

mhm

but yeah I'd like to see the old galaxies get something extra added to them too. as sylv said though it's partly a balance issue--you end up with way too many bonuses coming from fleet if you aren't careful about it, so it'd have to be something to do in stretches where there aren't any galaxies

[outer vector]

also again, issues with uninformed players missing out on upgrades seems like something Sylv probably has a better grasp on than any/most of us, I just wanna spitball ideas, see if I can even in a small way help inspire Sylv into making great content ^^

[river spade]

i think the most straightfowrard way is to "repost" them

galaxy 3 elite mode or whatever just has a separate galaxy entry

and goes between galaxy 6 and 7 or what have you

[crude token]

see that's why I'm thinking a "hard mode" version of old galaxies might not be the way to go and I was leaning more to some kind of like "logistic network" upgrade instead, at that point it's kind of a new galaxy anyway?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[hushed berry]

inb4 galaxies turn from dungeons into factorio

[kindred gate]

Interesting Idea, make Ship Fabricators increase in price unless another ship is picked. So people don't run the same ship every run aka Fighters most of the time cause strength in numbers :p

or have adapting battle nodes which counter your fabricated ships next galaxy run.

So if you picked Fighters on Run 1, beat the adapted battle node its just a normal battle node.
Then in Run 2, It will detect you used fighters the previous run and add enemy ship(s) to counter them.

Making repeat fabrications a little harder

[river spade]

an interesting idea with horrible consequences

this makes you want to change your builds every run

that was the whole problem with getting S nodes too often, you could reoptimize every battle every run. no chance to breathe

changing every run is bad, but having things change to become harder once could work though. basically a reverse hazard boss

it's in your way, but killing it makes the galaxy permanently harder

[kindred gate]

Ooh yeah

[hushed berry]

sounds like a feature i only want to engage in via recycled galaxies

[slim bluff]

sounds like a feature I don't want

what's worse than rerunning battles every run is rerunning battles but you have to think of new layouts every run

[hushed berry]

definitely

i didn't like repeating galaxies not because i can quickly repeat them

i hated repeating them because--and especially in G5

I had to repeat them quite a bit to optimize the runs

[crude token]

yeah I'm currently in the process of doing g6 and I'm already having to basically do every run twice because the ship you want from L1 changes run to run

[slim bluff]

[rancid tapir]

What? No it doesn't

Past G4 you always take Fighter, basically

[crude token]

in g5 corvettes are best because of how many early fights can be done with 10/20 or 11.25/20 and in g6 corvettes have been best for most runs until b18

and corvettes are already eating into the advantage fighters have in b19 after like 2 runs

but I needed fighters to clear b19 in one of the runs I did, even if it just resulted in 20 scrap and dumping like 8 FR in BE instead of GF (which is looking like it'll actually matter 2 runs later lol)

[slim bluff]

let's not talk about frigates

[crude token]

frigate? I hardly know it

[hushed berry]

frigadero?

[severe pewter]

frigaboutit

[tribal tide]

OK, had some time to idly think about stuff and re-skimmed this thread. It ended up kinda off topic in that we talked about improving existing stuff too but thats fine, I actually do want to do that. So this post is about applying things to G1-G6 (which will then apply to G7+ of course, but the focus for now is on retroactive things that can be done).

S Nodes Reduction

This will 100% happen, I see no actual downside. The remaining question is how MUCH of a reduction, enemy scaling, and how to set the cost.
reduction/levels amount:
Either 1 or 2 per node. 2 reduces rerun count by over half which might be enough, so 1 could be overkill.
enemy scaling:
This is the wonky part. Right now galaxies scale enemy stats gradually since you get some stat increase each run. Keeping that could be awkward as you will have tons of battles very under statted in some cases, but doing a big jump around where you should get a big S node acquired would be a weirdly big wall in some cases.
node cost:
Totalling up the current cost and making that the cost for the single level would result in a veeeeeery high cost and take a while to get. I think this might work ok since it gives you an actually big decision on getting another R level or just working toward the big stat gain, but if its too big you will end up with several runs with 0 gains/differences before you can get it. Perhaps thats OK though? I do still want there to be some grind in galaxies and dont mean these changes to reduce the raw run number.

Instant artifact upgrades vs reinforce

I am tempted to go this direction. The main roadblock here is how it makes reinforce feel soooooooooooo lackluster without it triggering a bunch of upgrades.
1 suggestion was to make reinforce activate some other system upgrades more, but that would require quite a lot of rebalancing or introducing a bunch of new stuff through G1-G6 that would be kinda difficult.
With that out of the picture for now, the only other idea I have is having artifact upgrades "split" their power. Something like 50% of it instantly, then the other 50% activates on reinforce. I thiiiiiink this would work ok, but it is literally a half measure, so still open to ideas here.

[astral steeple]

I'm still of the position that it's not necessary to change how the current galaxies interact with reinforce, and any changes are better applied to new galaxies.

[tribal tide]

ya I dont think its super important to backrev that one compared to the s nodes one, but if an elegant solution ends up coming up for g7+ stuff it would be fine to apply to rest too, ust dunno if ill land on something satisfactory there

[astral steeple]

I don't think there would be a way to change the existing galaxies without entirely overhauling the G1-G6 progression. They're all designed around the idea that you will reinforce to activate the galaxy bonuses.

Reducing number of levels in S nodes: Entirely onboard with this.

Enemy scaling and node cost: No opinion, since I don't have a good sense of the balancing involved.

(I'm also fairly sure that I am not good at fleet and definitely don't enjoy optimizing it.)

[rancid tapir]

Yeah I think keeping G1-G6 consistent with G7 isn't doable, but G1-G6 doesn't need to be reworked

Uh, say that G7 is a "far away megacluster" divide our FR by 5 or smth upon entry, jack up ship deploy costs, and build the galaxy off that

I don't think you would reinforce if artifact upgrades were instant, except to unlock a new galaxy

[daring hedge]

Add a fleet reinforce consumable so we can ignore reinforce as much as we already ignore prestige

[slim bluff]

yeah I think just change stuff up for g7, throw in some lore reason and call it a day

there doesn't seem like a particularly good way to change g1-6 without a looooooooot of work

[severe pewter]

For the reinforce. Make it a minor buff. 1/10th. 1/4th. 2/3rds, Whatever. You get a taste of the power (and it directly impacts your current run) but lock certain things to requiring a reinforce. Like Splicing. AKA if it only has 1 rank. Require reinforce. Otherwise, some fraction of the full power. Alternatively, make reinforces mandatory. "Oh. You got all this power and artifacts. Sadly you cannot place more currently. Your current ships cannot support more. But if you reinforce we'll have more room!"

Also, whispers reinforce is kinda fun. A "look back and see how long this took you. Now you're SCREAMING by"

It's a minor inconvenience at best and to some extent. I wouldn't mind if Galaxy 7 was like "Yup. I'll give you some massive buffs... But... uhh you lose EVERYTHING else" and suddenly people in S132+ are back in S5 trying to remember how challenges work

but that is off topic and I'd like people scream at me how horrible an idea that is in another channel 😄

[astral steeple]

My problem with the way fleet and reinforce have interacted so far is that my decision to reinforce has fairly little to do with the power those bonuses offer, and far more to do with when I finish out a galaxy.

So the main gameplay ends up more or less on hold while I finish out a galaxy.

That only really changed in G6 because that galaxy offers major bonuses...to Fleet.

[river spade]

make one of the first free upgrades in G7 "you no longer have to reinforce to get galaxy 7 upgrades (after you reinforce to get this one)"

no reason it can't be yet another "oh shit i get to keep that now" power

[slim bluff]

[hushed berry]

i tend to just throw everything

and more

if i cant beat

i try not to optimize and maximize things in the early game

except maybe for the first ten nodes near the start

[hushed berry]

i'm on board with this

besides capital gameplay used to be about

destroy turrets

get incoming damage reduction

destroy shields

get damage buff

destroy hangars
stop enemies from spawning

we just got funnier shit later on that runs inconsistent with the gameplay the game has

with torpedos being destroyed but not doing anything for the peashooter the capital ship has

or reactive armor not actually conferring a damage boost if you destroy it (as with standard red armor)

a random lore reason just goes well enough for most cases

besides USI already has that advantage here

it's an idler/incremental that refuses to stick to a central system, instead opting to destroy every system after it overstays its welcome and 'caps' them

[crude token]

With that out of the picture for now, the only other idea I have is having artifact upgrades "split" their power. Something like 50% of it instantly, then the other 50% activates on reinforce. I thiiiiiink this would work ok, but it is literally a half measure, so still open to ideas here.

I still think if you do any kind of instant upgrade, you'd want to have galaxies themselves unlock on reinforce (and either g1 + g2 unlock together or unlock g1 in r4 and g2 in r5) just to ensure reinforcing is always powerful, even if it removes mid-galaxy reinforces entirely. splitting upgrades is... fine, but you still need to wait for upgrades before reinforcing, and you still need to tunnel upgrades like b6 reno and instantly reinforce, so I don't think it actually solves anything

I know the game's balanced around not getting these upgrades until you reinforce but people are already not hitting the recommended sectors, so I'm not sure it matters all that much

Right now galaxies scale enemy stats gradually since you get some stat increase each run.

you can still have a gradual increase. and I do think 2 levels per node is probably the way to go.

ships don't all hit breakpoints at the same time, so even if you're gradually increasing enemy stats, you're going from easily killing things 1:1, to now needing, say, fighters to help with damage, to needing to get fancy with your layouts or overdeploy. just as long as you aren't incrementing enemy stats by .1 every fight while we're still at 1.0, it should be fine

if anything the gradual stat increase will make S nodes feel more powerful because you'll have fights that go from needing an overdeploy to being 1:1 or better.

[hushed berry]

you can still have a gradual increase. and I do think 2 levels per node is probably the way to go.

I concur

the gradual increase is fine

we have another tool in our toolbox

overdeployment

if anything the gradual stat increase will make S nodes feel more powerful because you'll have fights that go from needing an overdeploy to being 1:1 or better.

Yes

It goes from overt overdeployment to just hitting your normal capacity

to underdeployment

this miiiiiiiiight be hard to rework with g6 in mind

it's probably much better to just give this to G7 instead

but that depends on how much sylv is willing to rework the whole thing, because if he's 100% reworking past to present galaxies, then yeah it would be nice to have less nodes in previous ones.

[severe pewter]

Issue is if we include the power from reinforcing 'early' you'll also push harder faster which means Sylv needs to make fleet slower as it's still supposed to be a slog

[crude token]

we get fuck all artifacts early on in a galaxy, it won't be that fast

[tribal tide]

the only balance in that vein to do will be for s node squashin

I dont think even instant artifacts chnage progression speed in galaxy a ton or anything

[astral steeple]

I don't think so, either.

The full power of a previous galaxy is enough to reach max resources for the next without much trouble, and anything above that just gets you more fuel efficiency.

[severe pewter]

??? You don't think 3.75 more capital weapons help? Nor 3.5x synth? There a reason that you get so much further after reinforcing after completing a galaxy. Sure each upgrade by themselves isn't a ton but they feed into each other.

Sure it may be a single sector. However, that means research/crew/v device is that much better

[crude token]

you don't get that much power straight away though, is the point

the only way you're making obscene amounts of progress in a few days with fleet is by using 4 days of fuel all at once and doing reasonably optimal runs

but even then, with g5 for instance, 4 days of fuel doesn't even get me to b35 with an advisor clear on every fight, so it's not getting anyone else there either--so you're looking at about 9k artifacts tops

so it's going to depend a lot on how g7 plays. if it gives you a lot of artifacts quickly in the first mini-galaxy then sure, there could be an issue (but it'll be playtested, so surely that'd come up if it's a problem)

with older galaxies, best case it helps people catch up who aren't in the recommended sectors; worst case you get through the early part of fleet faster than intended

but considering how much faster R0-4 has become, that's nothing new either

[astral steeple]

You're misunderstanding what I said.

Having the effects of artifacts apply instantly wouldn't change how quickly you get through a galaxy by much.

[severe pewter]

More fuel

[astral steeple]

Doesn't speed things up by much.

[crude token]

nah it's more FR for most players, it definitely would speed up galaxy progression (but I also think that's a good thing)

[astral steeple]

I can only speak from my perspective, where getting to max fleet resources with the previous galaxy's power didn't present much of an issue. :)

[severe pewter]

IDK. Where you in the EOC channel? You may be a bit bias 🙂

As you're already starting past where the intended start is

[crude token]

right, but most players aren't even reaching the recommended FR, either because they're not very active or because they're not very efficient (usually both)

so that's how you get people doing g5 for example at s109 or whatever

especially people who aren't in the discord

[astral steeple]

That was more of a detriment than a help in my specific case, going from G5 to G6.

I reached 124 from when I finished G5 to when the G6 update ended, but I would have gotten considerably more sector progress if I didn't have to deal with EOC scaling.

[severe pewter]

Don't have to pause for shards. Alien far stronger than normal. Starting with more FR. I don't see how it's a disadvantage

[astral steeple]

And after the first reinforce I reached 129, so.

[severe pewter]

no reinforce needed

[astral steeple]

If G6 was active at the time I finished G5, I would have gotten past 124 in the first reinforce after G5 completion.

[severe pewter]

My point isn't "I want things to be slow". My point is "If we're trying to keep things as grindy we need to account for this"

per Sylv's comments

Including the power WOULD make things less grindy

[astral steeple]

I really don't think it will change much on that front.

Especially since giving power upfront would encourage doing the galaxies earlier into a reinforce, where fleet resources and fuel efficiency are less.

(I also think that lends itself to an interesting tradeoff of getting power now versus waiting until you can make more efficient use of your galaxy visits.)

[severe pewter]

The issue for me wasn't holding off. It was "I'm at 4 days and I haven't moved anywhere in this sector. Better run a few so I can delay a serious push a day"

[hushed berry]

by the time i reached a galaxy using suboptimal strats i was almost consistently late by 2 sectors

only by stockpiling fuel

WHICH DOES NOT FEEL GOOD I SHOULD ADD

did I get to around recommended

and mid progression got higher up to middle of the road

sure Sylv could probably change the recommended sectors up by like idk 2 sectors overall if he decided it's too unbalanced

[rancid tapir]

I mean, sure

But there's no reason we can't just skip to S150

[hushed berry]

wish granted

reinforcing is now nullified

monkey's paw

challenge mode exists again

one of them is called the Begin Again challenge

beat the game all over again from s1 to s135

with no upgrades

you can reinforce in the challenge to get the reinforce milestones

[kindred gate]

Something small, Base Battle Reward.
Universal Compute all compute allocations are at your cap of compute power.
Could also give a compute speed boost or some more spec point upgrades to put our points into.

[amber shoal]

Catching up in this thread made me think of something I would like for future galaxies - segmenting the massive galaxy into bite sized self contained chunks instead. (like having them in a separate tab inside the G7 tab)
Instead of having just G7 with the same size as G6 or god forbid bigger, have it split into G7-1, G7-2 and so on, each with a size around what G2 and G3 were. I think that would make balancing and constructing the galaxies much easier to do as each chunk is its own zone with its own mini end goal (ie base battle with the reward atached to it)
Completing the mini chunk will let you move on to the next and start from there while inheriting the stats ships and upgrades from the previous chunks
I think it will help with the fatigue/burnout that might come from the galaxy being too long, like in G6, because now it's visually and mechanically split into smaller chunks that will give a checkpoint/sense of completion taht doesnt really happen(at least for me) when doing one massive galaxy until you complete all the artifacts

The battle and resource nodes can also be balanced around each individual chunk so they are maxed out at around the point where you would complete the base battle and move on to the next chunk
Alternatively beating the base battle can max out all resource and battle nodes in the chunk as you've now "conquered" it. Might need some separate balance tweaking but it will remove the unnecessary backtracking into split paths just to put points into unmaxed nodes(G6 had a LOT of doing this)
This could potentially make it more engaging to optimize runs as now you have an incentive ie being able to complete the chunk sooner and having your resource/battle nodes max out automatically a few runs earlier than what it would have taken if you did scrap runs and fully maxed the nodes normally

[rancid tapir]

Alternatively beating the base battle can max out all resource and battle nodes in the chunk as you've now "conquered" it.
This is... weird?

[amber shoal]

I was just riffing whatever came to mind, not necessarily all good ideas

[kindred gate]

wonders of brainstormin

:p

[north yoke]

how about a network of galaxies

has a similar structure as galaxies, but each node is a galaxy in itself you have to conquer

call them galactic clusters or something

each run could have you going into sub galaxies and conquering them. Choosing which ones to conquer and follow different paths in the cluster

[severe pewter]

To go off PassMeTheCobb's idea. Like old school talent trees (or the warp tree really). You're presented with various options to start. You work your way down. Do you push hard for a specific node because it's OP but it makes you a 1 trick pony? Do you push for generalization until you naturally get there? Up to you.

[tender valve]

When I first heard about the galaxy content, I thought it was going to be similar to the following gameplay loop:
-Build ships
-Send them to the galaxy
-Wait for travel time
-Fleet returns with resources
-Spend resources to upgrade fleet
-Repeat until galaxy is captured or empty

Similar to those medieval mobile games where you build an army, send them to a neighboring node, and they autobattle when they get there. Now in my opinion, the current galaxy system is more fun than that would have been, but maybe there are some ideas to be pulled out that can help with your scaling problem?

Maybe an idea of a persistent fleet we can send out to capture nodes?

You could also potentially scale the size of the battles instead of the scale of the galaxies

I don't really know, hopefully an idea sprouts from this rant that leads to a solution

[slim bluff]

scale of size of battles is worse because of the exponentially more combinations of layouts for people to optimise

[tender valve]

See that's the thing though. I don't think we should be "optimizing" fights, I think we should be overwhelming them

I'm fine being in the minority on this, but I'm not a large fan of optimizing each fight to the fewest units possible just so I can push a little further into the galaxy. I don't hate it though.

[slim bluff]

optimisation is basically all you can do in the game though...

[astral steeple]

The fact that I don't have to solve battles I've already cleared before is a positive, since it means that I can focus solely on the fights that I haven't yet cleared.

[rancid tapir]

I would rather avoid RNG in galaxies like the fucking PLAGUE

[astral steeple]

👍

[slim bluff]

doubtful, as lots of work was put into making galaxies as deterministic as possible

it is fundamentally an incremental game and the possibility of being continously trashed by rng just doesn't fit

[hushed berry]

I echo the sentiment

I do NOT want to rerun stages in this game any more than I do want to rerun farming raids in any <insert_gacha_game_here>

[unborn venture]

Fleet battles are about the only "active" minigame in the game. So I don't have a problem with rng parts, if it means we get new content faster and I have a few runs to do every day. But that's personal preference I guess.

[brave forge]

my thought was to have multi-stage node fights, mostly so everything could stay on the same size grid as say g4 or g5, but essentially every time you beat a stage like UT you get a small bonus say mastery 1.005 and theres 2-5 of them. then once you beat all of them you get to pick on artifact tree upgrades based on what you currently have unlocked in the artifact tree as they look now. this will stay based on fleet resources but instead of as soon as the new patch releases everyone jumping straight into galaxy make the sector needed to even begin to make it through the multi-stage fights higher than it has been previously, so with EoC currently being around 132 make the new galaxy need a minimum of FR based around 133-134.

i suppose making the previous EoC actually force the players into somewhat finishing the previous patch before they can even start on the new stuff. I know this isnt an issue for everyone in EoC but it makes it more like an achievement or progress for the lower sector or new players to almost wait in the end game like the rest of us do waiting for new content. I also realise this and what i said previously would require an absolute shitload of reworking values and what not so yeah

[astral steeple]

Galaxies are already grindy. Having to redo nodes would make that worse.

[unborn venture]

I would argue that they feel grindy, because the time between making meaningful decisions is so long. You have to do several reruns with the optimizer and filling out the scrap in ressource nodes to get to the next battle where you decide a new fleet formation to beat the next level. If the nodes were dynamic and you have to make new decisions, it wouldn't feel as grindy.

[astral steeple]

I flatly disagree. Having to redo nodes would just be repetitive and filler.

In the current system, I can at least skip nodes I've already completed in order to focus on new ones.

[astral steeple]

It also makes situations where you need to optimize for fleet resources more frustrating, since you can't just get a completion you're satisfied with and leave it alone. You would have to redo the optimization Every. Single. Time.

And the idea of dealing with randomized nodes when going back just for artifact runs? Uggh...

[slim bluff]

ew

[slim bluff]

tbf you kind of already have to do that but at least there are a few stretches in between s nodes when you can spam repeat

[crude token]

firstly UT is already a thing

secondly how are you advocating for random elements while also saying that you use the optimiser and also complaining that there aren't enough meaningful decisions?

like... the only two decisions you make when completing a fleet fight are how much you want to optimise and how you go about doing so, and adding random elements cheapens both of these decisions

[slim bluff]

the meaningful decisions happen when optimising fights

[crude token]

if anything there are too many meaningful decisions in fleet--at least if you choose to optimise your clears every run. you never know when the extra FR that you save will be useful (and it almost always is) so you have to put off seeing new fights until after you've spent 2 hours redoing the first 20-30

[slim bluff]

if you just use auto-optimise no shit its boring

[rancid tapir]

Auto optimize takes literally forever since it checks every permutation for every battle

I once put it on for G6 and it got to like, battle 3 before I got back from my coffee break or whatever

[astral steeple]

If you're satisfied with the state of a node's completion cost, you don't have to touch it if you don't want to.

[tribal tide]

ya I dont think random battles or battles shifting randomly at least are the way to go.

[tribal tide]

Thoughts on this format for re-using galaxies/battles?

Smallish (G3 or so) galaxies.
You will do a fairly "normal" run of one of these galaxies and complete it by beating final base battle like normal.
Doing so unlocks "Warp Variations" (or something flavory) of that galaxy.
These variations don't change anything about the enemy setups or node layouts directly, they instead modify your ships significantly (maaaaybe enemy ships too?).
You choose a variation, reset the galaxy, and clear it again with this significant modifier.
Heres some very un thought out possibilitys, the key here is making it not feel the same even with the same enemy fight layouts. And for the most part, it will be making you more powerful. These would be one at a time most likely.

• A unique, powerful weapon mod
• Galaxy wide support, perhaps new/unique
• An ability mod on all your ships by default
• Just a silly high stat boost
• Fragile enemies that die in one hit

Clearing these variations gives you some upgrade so you choose which variation to do first partly on that etc. Or perhaps its linear and you can do 3/5 of the variation options to unlock all the upgrades.

A possible extension here would be doing it one more time at the end, but its instead harder, but you've gotten other buffs somewhere or something. This sounds potentially meh though.

Basically, the idea is to do more with less specific setup and mechanic creation on my end, but still feel new/different and not just ultra boring to do.

The alternative

As I see it, its the above kind of idea, or just pure gaps in fleet. IE finish a short n sweet galaxy -> aint nuthin but UT for a bit -> unlock next galaxy somehow

[rancid tapir]

Do we have "have" to re-use galaxies/battles?

I mean I understand that change needs to happen

Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by "re-use," but I've read this and it doesn't seem as satisfying the enemy layouts are the same

[tribal tide]

The issue is to solve the "Fleet takes too much of the dev time" issue theres only really 3 choices:

• Make galaxies grindier, more repeat last runs to get the fleet scrap needed basically
• Re-use galaxies with some broad overarching change
• Gaps in fleet content with no galaxy stuff to do

in the post above, re-use means reset the galaxy, give you a crazy modifier, run it again. Essentially its akin to what goes on in galaxies a little already where you do some battle -> unlock a new mod or remove a hazard -> re-optimize those battles with this new paradigm. Just that, but on the whole galaxy at once for a re-run

That said, I dont think gaps in galaxy content is a terrible idea either. And especially for a more casual player, it might be nice to have a week of game time where there just isnt anything to do fleet wise other then UT once or twice

[crude token]

you could have galaxies that play out similarly to the alternate paths you had in g5 for instance. similar fights, similar structure, so easy to tweak dev-side, but not quite the same thing every time so it's not quite as repetitive. and doing things like replacing swarmers with shotguns does change the fights a lot with very little effort

choosing a bonus doesn't sound too bad but it feels like something that you'd be stuck with and it might just turn out to suck a bit or be way too OP. which is fine if that's just how the galaxy is made, but the moment you add a choice into the matter and only need to do 3/5 or whatever, you get instant FOMO

re: gaps in fleet content, that's why I was so insistent on having other/more reinforce bonuses from other systems. if you got more of your reinforce power elsewhere (and made UT more of a central component, so fleet isn't just sitting there doing nothing), galaxies can still be "special" and warrant a bit more design work

[tribal tide]

hmmm, I wonder if theres a misunderstanding on the re-run.
Why would some new "effect" on every fight in the galaxy not be making the fights semi-new again, like happens righ tnow with mid galaxy mod/ship gains etc?

[crude token]

I think it's more of a mental thing. like it feels a bit shitty seeing the exact same thing again; imagine a player who's fine with fleet but not that into it, they're not gonna be all excited about the possibilities introduced by the new modifier, so all they'll see is the same grid as before

[tribal tide]

3/5 wouldnt be with a bonus locked in per choice, thatd just be linear 3 buffs. as opposed to heres 3 variations, you avhe to do them all, choose which upgrade ya want first. mind you these only take a few days at most to do

[tribal tide]

hmmm, I guess that might be the case. I just struggle to seperate that from "im entering this galaxy the 30th time and its the same galaxy"

which is the "more grind" solution

you mentioned swapping a fighter for a shotgun being different. Thats true, but its not "exciting" different.
The challenge with fleet dev time isnt strictly the battle layouts, I could "slop" out a bunch more battles no problem. Its the pace of new enemies, ships, mods, nodes etc
I don't think longer galaxies with more battles between each "new" thing is any better

[crude token]

there's also the finality of beating the last fight (and possibly farming artifacts?) so it feels like there should be something new

[tribal tide]

hmmm, maybe looping back to them later instead. final battle -> next small galaxy -> some other thing -> crazy modifier re-run?

[crude token]

although... maybe you could get away with it if you lean heavily into the "warp" (or probably "destabilised") galaxy

yep

yeah, so start with 2 new (g3-sized) galaxies. finish both, unlocks destabilised galaxies, which let you re-run those two (and eventually g9, g10 etc) galaxies with modifiers

[tribal tide]

a little seperation so you dont re-run the same one instantly, ya probably good

[astral steeple]

I'll reiterate that my biggest issue with fleet in its current iteration is that it acts as a pretty significant time sink between when you reach the last reasonable sector for a reinforce and when you can actually reinforce.

[tribal tide]

ok to further clarify the intended "feel"

• New galaxy takes 20 runs or something, optimizing is important similar to now etc.
• "destabalized" galaxy revist takes like.... maybe 10 runs, optimizing is a thing, but more like you are just stomping with a fun new toy

[astral steeple]

G6 came with a bonus helping of "You made no useful main gameplay progress this reinforce".

[tribal tide]

this is independant of that

G7+ probably wont even have artifacts in the same sense they have now as a reinforce thingy, not 100% sure there though

[astral steeple]

As for the grindiness of galaxies...smaller galaxies and time between galaxies would be my choice.

[tribal tide]

ya

I was leaning towards gaps a little as we were talkin

[astral steeple]

A large part of the reason that I was feeling rather exhausted with USI at the end of G5 was that it was just too much fleet back to back to back.

G6 presented less of an issue there specifically because it had an EOC gap between it and G5.

[tribal tide]

the stuff I did to try to give a break seemed to have bad results though, probably because it was entwined with reinforce

people lament having to grind artifacts after they finish it at all ><

[astral steeple]

That ties into two problems, I think. The first is that, once you're in the artifact grind phase, there's not really anything interesting to do with fleet in that galaxy.

The other is the "You need to finish out a galaxy before reinforcing" problem I mentioned earlier.

[tribal tide]

but that was the "downtime" buffer so . Think it just has to be more of an irrefutable gap. Your DONE with fleet until later, not heres a thing to farm and you can see the next one already

[tribal tide]

but thats the point, you arent "doing" anything interesting with fleet, its the break so you dont get exhausted

I think its more just that reinforce problem

in theory

[astral steeple]

It's not quite so clean as that. The artifact grind phase has a significant amount of overlap with leveling up S and R nodes, in my experience. I'm not able to do much that's interesting with the battles, but I'm also not at the point where I can reduce it to one button press for a while after clearing that last battle.

[tribal tide]

well R nodes dont matter, its just the S nodes that make it so you cant just hit repeat

plenty of r node grinding would be fine

hmmm? I dont get it

[astral steeple]

The R nodes do matter.

They change how many nodes I can do in a run, and I need to make sure that the fleet scrap gets allocated efficiently.

[tribal tide]

in the context of having to actually "do" something in fleet? You dont need to re-optimize a battle or anything. At most another R node level means you can find one more abattle to auto complete per run

[tribal tide]

I dont think that level of "doing something" is going to make this not a break from the arderous part of doing fleet though right?

the part its trying to be a break from is the slog of figuring out new battles and re-optimizing old battles with new stats/things. S nodes being left over breaks that, cause then you gotta redo stuff when you get a level there if your trying to optimize. But an R node level doesnt require that

eh, not that it matters, dont think the prev galaxies getting altered past the S node reduction at this point, and G7+ likely just wont have an artifact farm phase in the same sense

[rancid tapir]

The issue is to solve the "Fleet takes too much of the dev time" issue theres only really 3 choices:
Make galaxies grindier, more repeat last runs to get the fleet scrap needed basically
Why is this an option?

Make them take, what, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month so that we don't "get through it?"

[tribal tide]

because thats a full list of all possible options

and thats one way to do it

[river spade]

I think fleet could stand to be slower paced and grindier

the psychology is delicate, a pure timewall isnt fun

but so long as there's some kind of "numbers go up", even if those numbers arent that important, it still feels like progress

too many tiny stats boosts suck, because we have to recalculate every time, but fleet resources dont have that problem

so you could have near-infinitely scaling R nodes, that only add a tiny amount each

and it's just part of galaxy runs to hit as many of them as you can to build up fleet resources slowly over time

[slim bluff]

• A unique, powerful weapon mod
  hell yeah let the chaos begin

[slim bluff]

hmm true

[amber shoal]

kind of disagree on this. after i clear the final base battle and can start farming for artifacts it's just a brain off moment. press auto rerun last run and im done with it

once i get enough scrap to level an R node i just auto rerun to the r node, auto complete all the subsequent battles til the last artifact node and get one-two extra artifact node completes

rinse repeat til all artifacts are farmed

no need to manually run anything or optimize, there is no new galaxy after this waiting for you to instantly start after you're done farming artifacts

spending a bunch of time hyper optimizing just to squeeze out an extra 1-2 artifact node completions isn't worth considering you can just wait an extra 2 hours to get enough fuel and auto complete for 20 artifact nodes instead

[amber shoal]

this does sound somewhat promising of an idea, it would feel like a mini prestige inside the fleet galaxy itself which will grant you some form of global modifier to make the next run different

[amber shoal]

i think combined it with this might make it less samey/grindy

so you still get a global buff or modifier and it will apply to the next small galaxy in the series

assuming it's two small galaxy segments instead, you could do this "prestige reset" and go back to the first galaxy in the chain after clearing both small galaxies, thus keeping all your big boosts and applying some bonuses or new wacky mechanics that will drastically reduce the time it takes to clear them a second time

that way it won't be tedious and there will be a sense of progression as you now dominate the battles easily with your fancy new upgrades compared to the slow burn that was during the first iteration

ideally the bigger upgrades aren't just raw stat upgrades but some changes or additions to the mechanics of our ships/enemy ship/the battlefield so that it's visibly noticeable during the subsequent run throughs

it will probably take some extra dev time at the start to introduce all these different mechanics and changes but for future galaxies you'd already have a good starting batch of mechanics in place that you can either modify or add a few new ones to

[rancid tapir]

Out of curiosity, how do you make them more "grindy" without making them be a timewall

As in, imagine if G6 took 18 hours of fuel to travel to

It would be "grindy" but not a ton you could do to speed it up

[tribal tide]

itd just be less fleet scrap per battle or higher scaling on cost of R nodes

[rancid tapir]

Would we still "make progress" besides Fleet Scrap?

Like, a few times in G5 IIRC I did nothing more that run

No optimization

No stat gains

[tribal tide]

itd be the exact same outside of that change, well I mean more or less

[rancid tapir]

No resource gains

Just get scrap > put it into upgrade that didn't complete

[tribal tide]

or upgrades just have more lelves and lower per level, still get on every visit it just doenst matter as much etc

[rancid tapir]

Remember when Fleet testing

The stat gains were like

0.005 or smth

0.01

And balancing was a knifes edge

Please no

Lol

[tribal tide]

were talking R nodes here only. Stats are all only 2 levels at most on nodes

[rancid tapir]

I see

[stuck sable]

you gave me an idea that no need g7 at all. just a fleet-only-reinforce thingy where you get a bonus (so its feels a bit different) and restart g1 to g6. just need to work on new artifact trees for each galaxy, and can increase the strength of all enemies too, since our ships got stronger from all the upgrades. can implement as many fleet reinforces as you wish

[tribal tide]

OK, so G7+ will be smaller and have instantly applying artifact upgrades, thats pretty locked in ||well, most likely||
Heres the decision points left.

Multiple galaxies unlocking at once

With smaller galaxies, there can be 2+ in a "set", or at least close together. The question is how close. Theres 2 ways to go here:

1) All same "difficulty" and unlocked at same time

Unlock the set all at once and with the balance on them having the same intended sector. Allows you to pick which one you want first based on upgrades etc and one wont be "harder"

2) Slighting increased difficulty each galaxy

Unlock the galaxies kinda close together, but have them getting progressively harder. Youd still be able to start a later one sooner if you really like something in it, but it'd be a little.

WTF does reinforce do now

Having other systems get reinforce activated things can work, but Im not sure I want to go that route neccisarily, so theres several options

1) Reinforce unlocks more galaxies

Reinforcing at set sector unlocks the next set of galaxies. Each reinforce would still feel faster/more powerful due to all the previous galaxy upgrades you got, but it wont activate any new upgrades

2) Reinforce goes bye bye

There is a bigger shift coming at 150 that I dont actually fully have layed out, but its potentially workable to have one last reinforce post G6 and then its a grind up to 150 eventually. In this setup, galaxy "sets" would unlock when you reach a sector. EOC scaling becomes a concern here as reinforce is what lets EOC grinded saves play through the new stuff "normally"

3) Reinforce unlocks galaxies and activates some new reward

I dunno, I'd just be slapping some upgrades in a few spots for systems that need reinforce to activate I guess.

[slim bluff]

I like option 3, because I'd still like reinforce to do something more than unlocking galaxies, but I don't want to see it go away because then eoc becomes very messy

[sterile lark]

is there some kind of utility benefit it could have? like how prestiging went from being a key thing to progressing further, to basically now just being a retrofit refill if we run out for some reason?

[tribal tide]

I dunno what amount of utility could really counterbalance the couple day reset of reinforce haha

[sterile lark]

maybe lock in your current resources/specimen amount?

like you start next reinforce with that amount and can spend it right away

[tribal tide]

oh, more like make reinforce eassier/faster so even though its just unlocking galaxies, its less of a burden

[sterile lark]

just thinking about what is the most 'annoying' thing for me about reinforcing
yeah

I would reckon locking synth/module stuff in would be galaxy rewards if you put that in

[tribal tide]

ya maybe one or two of the galaxy artifact upgardes etc can be something that just turns X reinforce proof

I think Im liking that, it plays into the vague idea of 150 I have too

[primal sparrow]

i like 2 for the galaxy question

trying to go back and forth on multiple galaxies sounds messy so people will probably be doing them all in one go anyway

though you have to be careful of reward distribution so that you're not just doing "only run galaxy a up until you get this thing then switch to galaxy b because the rest of galaxy a isn't worth right now"
that's the kind of thing I dislike about the new warp trees

[astral steeple]

I'm personally in favor of R1-R5 style rewards for sector progress.

[rancid tapir]

There is a bigger shift coming at 150 that I dont actually fully have layed out, but its potentially workable to have one last reinforce post G6 and then its a grind up to 150 eventually. In this setup, galaxy "sets" would unlock when you reach a sector. EOC scaling becomes a concern here as reinforce is what lets EOC grinded saves play through the new stuff "normally"
Prevent EoC?

It's an odd thing, but straight up lock EoC at the intended galaxy

We can all take breaks

Dunno if your, Sylv, "daily active users" stats matter much

[rancid tapir]

Can we get like, 2 more Module slots or whatever per set of galaxies too?

I dunno, I'd just be slapping some upgrades in a few spots for systems that need reinforce to activate I guess.
This always felt pretty lame to me

[kindred gate]

If we go with 2) Reinforce goes bye bye, I think it would be fine to change the Key Shards to be on reinforce now and being nerfed slightly with how long we actually have to charge them for instead of going back a few sectors and overkill boosting them.

cause the key shards are very easy to charge now due to overkilling

Maybe be based off of specimen total instead of 1k kills

[astral steeple]

What would that mean?

[stray hollow]

I think progressively unlocked galaxies are better than them going at once, better for pacing and all. Reinforce is a tricky question though, there was something special about starting over with all the extra bonuses and blazing through stuff until blasting past the latest wall.

[stray hollow]

I feel some manner of 'refresh' like that is important.

A thought came to me that another way to reward reinforce is a bonus based on how long you've been in it. Maybe fuel 'overcharge' or a small timeskip pool. Kind of inspired by the spaceversary now that I think about it.

[slim bluff]

gain fuel equal to time spent in reinforce only need to spam reinforce to double your effective fuel gain

[stray hollow]

That'd be crazy

I was mostly thinking about an extra little perk for EoC reinforce since I think it's kind of necessary as a mechanic but st the same time Sylv's been steadily moving away from it.

[rancid tapir]

That would mean you cannot progress past EoC, you just win. Boss clear, then that's it.

Probably a bad idea, as I mentioned

It means you straight up cannot overgrind

[astral steeple]

So...does that mean that you wouldn't be able to progress past a certain sector at all?

Or perhaps that the game locks itself and you can't do anything once you clear that sector?

[rancid tapir]

This.

[astral steeple]

Yeah, that's just lame. And doesn't really solve the problem, since people could still grind without triggering that condition.

[rancid tapir]

True for both

I never said it was a good solution

I said it was the one I would prefer

Although either one works, not being able to kill a sector boss because it straight up cannot be damaged, stick the portal in the way, IDFK

[astral steeple]

Needing a reinforce when new content is added seems like the cleanest solution right now. It doesn't block people from playing, they can still work on things that will benefit the next reinforce, and it limits how much power even long stretches of EOC grinding can provide.

[tribal tide]

its just awkward to have it as a "solely here to prevent eoc grind" kinda deal :*(

[outer vector]

if you're removing reinforce as a part of galaxies, please oh please either make the other potential reasons to do it substantial, or don't force it at all

would honestly suck to do a reinforce for say 5x cap stats imo

I'm apparently in the minority of liking the galaxies being tied to reinforces, but I get how they can be annoying/motivation killing

[amber shoal]

you could technically rework reinforcing at this late stage to directly start you from the capital battle sectors, skipping the"early game"

it removes a bit of the starting tedium from the reinforce, and at this stage we're so overpowered anyways we're essentially already skipping those parts

[thorn sage]

this would amount to a 30 min timeskip at best, which is not something people will see as worthy of a R. Unless it's combined with greenguy's idea of making certain things R-proof

it's a tricky question how to move on from here... but if the system were to go away, I'd like it to be via a tasklist much like unlocking Capital in the first place

[thorn sage]

been thinking about this for a bit. What if the enemy scaling got reduced according to where you perform the R, instead of it being tied to galaxy? This way people can choose to R in order to push for more FR, or whatever galaxy upgrades, or both

there may be issues I'm not seeing though, just my 2 cents

it could be implemented as a new capability from completing G7+

[primal sparrow]

besides what teby said this is never gonna anyway, we had something similar in the past and skipping sectors at start breaks a lot stuff related to early game progression

[amber shoal]

but there is no early game progression at that point you just speedrun all the systems

at that point why not just start from capital battle with reactor overdriving, splicing, massive warp tree(original small one is fully upgraded), all synth upgardes and recipes maxed up til the end of the yellow synth mats, AF research starts directly, you get the point

[primal sparrow]

i think you misunderstand

[amber shoal]

combine that with making some systems or upgrades reinforce-proof and it can work alright

[primal sparrow]

the game breaks if you don't unlock stuff "naturally"

[amber shoal]

why would that break anything

[primal sparrow]

we had this when fleet first came out one of the artifact upgrades was "start reinforce at sector where b1 is" or something similar

and stuff broke hard so it had to be removed

[amber shoal]

you're essentially loading a backup save that starts from the first capital battle sectors

[amber shoal]

that sounds so scuffed lol

i missed that part of the game

[primal sparrow]

the overkill speedup is the replacement for that mechanic

and is also why starting at s75 is pretty unnecessary imo

[stray hollow]

I don't think you reinforce often enough for it to be inconvenient.

[slim bluff]

that was just having bases finalised and thus permanent, and then having the respective base security upgrade

you could prestige immediately and go to s73 and not unlock crew because the crew unlock was tied to killing s50 boss, and of course the game broke

[rancid tapir]

I've asked Sylv about this, and apparently it's "more fun" to zoom than to stat

It manes nothing to have to spend 5 minutes per reinforce zooming

And it's pretty fun

[tribal tide]

Hmmm maybe
I think that could work as part of the bonus? I just don't like when prestige style stuff is just that.
It might also encourage annoying eoc stuff but that's not a big deal I spose

For cutting off start of reinforce. Its just that it breaks how things work, so it's a decent amount of implementation work on my end to do, and not much of an advantage

||though 150 will do something like it I think||

[thorn sage]

Here's my reasoning:

1. Players at EoC will be softcapped anyway and could choose to R to push just that tiny bit more, which is still meaningful because sector = fuel, mastery, resources, specimen...
2. Obviously there will be a significant time investment to get back and push, giving you more leeway for developing content. Even could allow for spacing out the newer stuff to get more mileage out of it and assess/tweak things along the way
3. Should be easy to softwall/cap for whatever future plans hold, via other systems in the game
4. You can always throw in whatever bonus to make it more enticing/less annoying, so that it's not JUST scaling reduction... Maybe a small boost to max artifacts from UT based on progression from last R (?)

[stray hollow]

Byeah. There's elements that multiple reinforces did, like warp sync.

[crude token]

first question: ideally both. not at the same time. g7 could be option 2 to kinda ease people into the idea and then g8 could be either 1 or 2 based on feedback from g7

second question: 1 or 3. I prefer 3 (naturally, that was one of my main suggestions) of course but I'd be fine with 1.

other stuff:

eoc having a huge advantage/skipping content sucks. deleting/blocking eoc turbo sucks. reinforce is already a clean way of having both a long eoc and a reset for everyone, so removing reinforce is kinda shit

re: enemy scaling. I've expressed how much I think this sucks before but to reiterate, it feels really arbitrary to begin with but making it variable can easily disconnect scaling from your upgrade pace (i.e. enemy scaling kicking in before upgrades are exhausted/far into diminishing returns really sucks. if it's baked into the game you can design around it but if it's variable, you really can't)

[hushed berry]

This is just fleet/capital ship challenge mode

I'm all for it if you actually bother to reuse the tab

You could make it so g6 mechanics get back ported into galaxy, like certain nodes becoming support nodes and battle nodes for enemies having modifiers

The reward could be some booster for g7

You could make it so being on a capital ship changes the challenge page into something else

And then turn the challenges there into some kind of toggle modifier that switches the affected maps into a different layout (which is just the same but nodes different and the FR calculation changed)

And each galaxy having a gimmick, with higher galaxies g5 and above having a special modifier making it faster to proceed despite having the same overall layout

The gimmick being a certain stat focus

Where your ships have this ability mod, but enemy ships also have THAT ability mod too, or they have buffed tiles

Etc etc

If this replaces challenge mode, you stop other people from asking you to add more challenges

xdd

[slim bluff]

pls no more challenges 😭

[sterile lark]

just make them work without interrupting main progress and it's fiiiine

[rancid tapir]

Please no more

If someone suggests Reinforce challenges then I will die

[crude token]

suggestion: delete the challenge tab entirely after r2 so people forget it ever existed after a while 🙂

(except that one dude who was doing the challenges up to s74)

[slim bluff]

yes please

[hushed berry]

i mean there's no need for it to interrupt progression now

like what the greenguy said

just make it change modifiers in main game without needing to reinforce/prestige

that's the core issue of the challenges right?

[amber shoal]

yeah the reason i hate challenges in these games is they delete your run progress and make you play a more unfun version of the game

at least USI challenges rarely take more than 30 minutes and are fairly unique in gameplay

[outer vector]

ooooh, talking about galaxies in eoc sparked an idea, how about having like an enemy fleet moving from node to node, in a way like the old mario world games, or shovel knight

picking the fight with the fleet will prove a challenge, but comes with more fleet resources, or artifacts, or something, or you can circle around for a safer path

dunno anything about the implementation side, but again I like to spitball to give Sylv some potential inspiration ^^

[astral steeple]

Mobile enemies is an interesting idea.

[outer vector]

could be a static thing, as in set rotation, or random for some variation in runs aswell

would of course make it hard to have an autosolve solution, which might be a dealbreaker since I know Sylv has been considering ways to automate/skip fleet

[astral steeple]

Nah, as long as the mobile fleet is deterministic it can be accounted for.

[rancid tapir]

But then what's the point

[twilit skiff]

I think it would be cool to have interconnected little galaxies. Where you can start on any of them but at certain nodes jump for x fuel to another starting location and have each support only effect other galaxies but not the run you in. Battle numbers will still lead people the right way if it’s too confusing which way to teleport

Let’s say 6 G2 sized galaxies

[slim bluff]

thats a lot

[rancid tapir]

X fuel or X resources?

I don't think it's a "bad" idea but I think it would be in one galaxy as an introductory mechanic

[twilit skiff]

True 4 would be just slightly bigger than G6 assuming 24 nodes a mini galaxy

[vernal turret]

Hi everyone, I feel like I can join now that I have beaten G6 and moving along. I really like the idea of a megaman-esque galaxy. Small galaxies that when you beat them get certain rewards that help with future galaxies that all end with a single boss fight.

Would let optimisers go crazy with the specific order to complete galaxies, you can also have each mini galaxy end with a small boss fight

[hushed berry]

https://tenor.com/view/mega-man-8-playstation-1-saturn-mega-man-robot-gif-23992731

[stray hollow]

An actual galaxy-shaped galaxy when

[hushed berry]

when sylv grows old enough he puts the game on public domain with the code open source

[turbid spindle]

galaxy with black hole in the middle and nodes spiralling into it when

[tribal tide]

hmmmm, whaddaya guys think of this sort of hybrid setup to solve the "wtf does reinforce do now" issue. This could also backrev onto g1-g6 potentially:

Sector based reinforce rewards + reduced power instant artifact upgrades

• Reinforce is similar to R1-R5, where sectors reached have an upgrade, except its not every 5, its every sector
• Galaxy artifact upgrades are instant but less powerful
• The new reinforce sector upgrades + artifact upgrades are about the power of current artifact upgrades in total
• Any of the ship/new core etc upgrades are on the Reinforce sector ones not artifacts.
• Galaxy unlocks could possibly be linked to the sector reinforces? Maybe in groups? Not sure here really.

With this setup, reinforce will still be less of a huge boost then the current G1-G6 setup, but can still be rather significant.
It also decouples things a good bit from the "finish galaxy reinforce" paradigm that exists. So in theory youd have the "steady" gains from fleet and then once you have enough from the sectors (or your down to a crawl) you can reinforce.

I think this would work ok for either JUST G7+ or for galaxies from the start. And it maintains a way to lock the sector descaling behind reinforces gracefully

Thoughts etc?

[astral steeple]

Sounds like a good starting point. I'm still in the camp of "Leave existing galaxies alone" and save this for new ones.

[modern depot]

would be interesting with EOC I think, where you get to the end and then reinforce (and maybe be able to climb another sector after enough time)

[rancid tapir]

Nobody gonna do that

And it needs to "have" the EoC stuff, which would be changed evnetually, maybe disable it after EoC starts

[rancid tapir]

I thought the system you had for G7 was fine

[tribal tide]

There is no system for G7+ Reinforces?

[kindred gate]

Sounds like a good start

I'm personally fine with how the system is in general currently, but people don't like restarting completely over often, so im in the minority. Feel like key shards should be more apart of reinforcing too though. Maybe making them harder to charge (so you cant just overkill them and insta charge them) while also making the "Prestige to unlock" into a Reinforce to unlock. Since most people do it right before a reinforce anyway.

[sterile lark]

what I'm sort of getting from this is "rewards less from galaxy and more into reinforce"? making galaxy feel more optional/on-the-way for progress rather than direct hurdles?

I suppose as a system, reinforce is easier to lean into for future content than galaxy things, and follows the prestige pattern from earlier 🤔

[tribal tide]

depends on how you look at it. versus the current G1-G6 setup, galaxy will kinda reward more, at least compared to reinforce, since galaxy rewards are instant.

But yes, for total progress, less comes from galaxy, more comes from main game basically.

[kindred gate]

yeah the artifacts will help with sector progress which helps with getting to the max FR for that galaxy

[slim bluff]

I like this idea, but without changing existing galaxies (because it gets hella messy)

[crude token]

does it? pretty sure you'd have a good starting point by just halving the power of the majority of galaxy upgrades (except things like mastery keep, feature unlocks, etc) and dumping them in sector bonuses

there are a few things you'd keep the same strength in galaxies (e.g. the base bonuses that help you finalise) but I don't think it needs to be balanced all that precisely

I think it's messier to suddenly have sector reinforce bonuses appear at s130 personally

[slim bluff]

rebalancing pain

I guess one benefit of backrevving it is possibly reducing the gap between fleet and sector progress that can be seen in players

[crude token]

most of the early game changes that've been implemented over the last year or so aren't really balanced either, so I don't see much of an issue personally

[slim bluff]

xd

[crude token]

like s30+ is still balanced around the original warp progression pace but you progress warp so much faster now

haven't played through it since the challenges were compressed either but being able to do cc9 at s40 was pretty game-breaking too, which came as a result of kinetics being buffed

and then a bunch of things like OD changes made r1-3 way different and I don't even need to play r4 to know that the synth changes completely change progression through the mid 90s

[slim bluff]

right warp location rotations...

[tribal tide]

im gonna see how it feels in testing. And then possibly split still. I suspect it will be backrevved at some point unless something comes up though

[daring hedge]

Having a hard time visualizing this. Are the sector upgrades a little bit of everything? or is it like an uneven chipotle burrito where you sometimes bite through solid sour cream (fuel efficiency)?

The reinforces are naturally going to get less "deep" because of the drag of waiting for ODs and spec research, etc. Do you have a design target for how many sectors people will go before reinforcing? How long would it take to get back to starting position?

[tribal tide]

The reinforces wouldnt be "hard forced" like R1-R5 if your thinking that

itd be 1 upgrade per sector, rotating through different stats willy nilly more or less

Reinforces every 5ish sectors at MOST would be the idea

[daring hedge]

at most meaning, most frequent?

[tribal tide]

yes

well, nothing preventing you from doing it more often, just shouldnt NEED to

[daring hedge]

so where do scalers come in? or is the scaling just harsh enough that you need the reinforce upgrades?

if it's one upgrade it seems like it would effectively be hard forced anyway since everyone will reach a consensus on when you "need" to reinforce

[tribal tide]

just probably one of the sectors is a scalar reduction as the stat here or there, coming a few before youd need it

errr, imagine current patch was this new methodology

in that case, the reinforce upgrades probably stopped at 125 or so

next content patch would have more going to uh... 135 maybe. the 131+ descalar would be at 127ish.

[daring hedge]

is this like, reinforce to bank bonuses from newly reached sectors during that reinforce?

[tribal tide]

mapping roughly to how current galaxy ones work, ie in normal play you probably unlcoked G6 and reinforced well before the actual descaler was needed unless you were crazy efficient

[tribal tide]

ya, at moment of reinforce, highest sector determines what new upgraes turn on

[daring hedge]

i can see this having the side effect of making eoc kinda funny. just barely reach 134 and then reinforce to improve odds of reaching 135

[tribal tide]

thats one of reasons to stop them "early" each patch. Youd reinforce a tthe highest sector that has one and then doing it more wont do anythign for you

[daring hedge]

wow rood

[tribal tide]

it does mean pushing eoc further is pretty lucrative though, since you can then reinforce for more bonuses on pathc release then otherwise

[daring hedge]

if it stopped at 125 this time then we'd get everything immediately

[tribal tide]

ya probably 125 woulda been early I guess

[daring hedge]

125 was pretty quick iirc, like a week

hmm there's so many different flavors of bonuses in things like g6 that it'd be hard to cover with just one sector upgrade each. There's some that can be consolidated and reallocated to sectors. And then there's others that are utility like perma supremacy that I guess stay in the artifact tree. But you'd have to either give multiple bonuses per sector or keep some of the galaxy bonuses hefty if you were going to make it retroactive

which would kinda make new sectors feel like a ripoff in the g7+ era for newer players

[tribal tide]

Tehres 25-30 sectors to spread some of the G1-G6 stuff over if that happens

it woudlnt have to be too powerful

[daring hedge]

sounds like it'd be a mess

[tribal tide]

they could also be combo upgrades if needed. But just pulling 6ish upgrades out of each galaxy (or halving some of them etc) to put over there shouldnt be too weird.

[daring hedge]

or you'd get a synth bonus and then have to wait an eternity of 25 sectors for another one

[tribal tide]

what why?

theres still synth bonuses in the galaxies

[daring hedge]

yeah but lite

[tribal tide]

?

[daring hedge]

or it's not even clear that you would get anything from your description

[tribal tide]

uh, I dunno what the disconnect is

[daring hedge]

like do you plan on keeping the exact galaxy trees and just turning them down?

[tribal tide]

the same exact total satats that exist currently woudl still exist

some just gets sucked out of the now isntantly activating artifact upgrades, and plopped on reinforce activtaing sector upgrades

[daring hedge]

this is the part that's not clear

is it gone from galaxy or just split up?

[tribal tide]

either or

splitting would leave reinforce upgardes feeling lackluster I think? so maybe just pull a few out in the bigger ones in those cases

[daring hedge]

yeah i still don't see how you have enough sectors to do this without giving "stat bundles"

[tribal tide]

oh it might be sta bundles

[daring hedge]

without having massive timing issues

[tribal tide]

if needed

I dont see how we could ever have timing issues

a ton more power now exists without reinforcing, unless mega screw up something no ones getting stuck or anything

[daring hedge]

you have like 20 stats to give out. You get a big wad of synth at sector 101 and have to wait for 121 for another except for a trickle from galaxies

so you get weird leaps in each system at different times

[tribal tide]

you woudlnt get a big wad of synth at 101

[daring hedge]

rather than a spread every 5-7 sectors with current galaxy system

[tribal tide]

youd get the synth from g1+G2 at most

[daring hedge]

im just using synth as an example

[tribal tide]

hum, I just dont follow

the synth or whatever stat in galaxies wouldnt totally go away

even in the "fully pull it out" scenarios, itd be from 1 galaxy at a time, so if say g5 no longer has synth in it, one of the sector reinforce bonuses youd probably get around g5 will have it

[daring hedge]

you go from
5,0,0,0,0,5,0,0,0,0,5
to
11,0,0,0,0,2,0,0,0,0,2

[tribal tide]

uh, I mean, if I did it with those numbers sure?
worst case, it is kinda wonktastic stat bundles. and spread them out over 5ish sectors so you just get half of everything from reinforce and half from the galaxy it used to be in.

[daring hedge]

like this is just g6. you have 7 or so sectors that need to take this on somehow

[tribal tide]

no it only needs to take on about half of it

maybe we need 2 stats per sector to make it a little better spread, but thats fine

if it doesnt work for the g5/g6 galaxies with just 1 at a time, can start with 2 at a time from begi nning to keep consistent

[daring hedge]

there's 41? there

[tribal tide]

or I guess, slowly rampingb over time might feel nice anyhow?

[daring hedge]

this can also create issues if people fly through the early hundreds because of the upgrade migration

[tribal tide]

well no, itd be low stats in that area

but I mean, this would probably be a general speedup the whole way through unless I nerfed thigns too

upgrades applying instantly will make it faster then upgrades applying only on reinforce

just have to keep enoguh power in reinforce ones to not go crazy

[daring hedge]

if you keep the numbers low then you have to make them up again later with the same stat types which reallly means needing stat bundles

[tribal tide]

I mean stat bundles are fine, I think we might not need em but if it works out easier that way then whatever

though if it does backrev and going for more or less a split, it almost makes sense to do the earlier idea of splitting artifact upgrades to half instantly half turns on after reinforce

ah but that de-emphasizes the sector progress a little bit comparatively

[daring hedge]

are we done with prestige?

[tribal tide]

I dont have plans for it until 150

[daring hedge]

if we were approaching this blind it almost makes sense to have the galaxies spaced further apart

[tribal tide]

too hard to do now I think, but if I was doing it again, thered be bigger gaps and/or shorter to complete galaxies with them not tieing to reinforce at all I think

[daring hedge]

if each sector is supposed to be like 1-2 days of progress, g5/g6 would need to be like 10 sectors apart to line up with casual fleet optimization

[kindred gate]

yeah

[crude token]

most of these upgrades are already duplicated anyway so it's not as bad as it looks

there's also no reason you have to put everything into sector bonuses, some of it can go into like... buffs to AF research or warp upgrades to fill in some of the parts where previous eoc scaling fucked progression there

[tribal tide]

huh, is this just a stupid roundabout way of having artifact upgrades natively be half now half on reinforce?
Main difference with sector based is its more emphasis on main game progress and you more directly need to push main game. Which I guess actually is solving the problem of main game progress maybe feeling lackluster, im just not sure if that "problem" really exists, its kind of just a "main game doesnt effect fleet enough" problem more so

[daring hedge]

well there's players that bunch up at g6 with crap sector progress

[tribal tide]

uh, they get a boost since at least half is activating instantly for galaxy stuff so dunno if thatd still be as big a deal either

[daring hedge]

turn the knob enough and people just won't do fleet

[tribal tide]

wut?

thatd have to be like... 90% of the stats being pulled out of there lol

[daring hedge]

like, if the bonuses come from sectors more than fleet, some people just won't do fleet to their own detriment

[tribal tide]

I dunno how half at most would make sectors give more

plenty safe from that

[daring hedge]

this wasn't talking about half

[tribal tide]

oh

[slim bluff]

people can be really stupid

[daring hedge]

which is what you asked about

[slim bluff]

if the bonus in fleet isn't obvious enough, well they'll probably ignore it for a bit too long

[tribal tide]

oh, its never been a prospect to do more then half over to sector upgrades....

so

[kindred gate]

might need a fleet reminder flash lol

when you reach the max resources for a galaxy

[tribal tide]

I dunno why a bonus in fleet wouldnt be obvious?

no one is ignoring fleet now and the like formatting/screens wont really cahnge....

[sterile lark]

I don't think "what if people ignore the game while playing the game" is a problem you should spend time thinking about

[astral steeple]

Doesn’t fleet tab get highlighted when fuel is full?

[royal ravine]

Incoming essay so sorry ahead of time. I also haven't read this entire thread because well it's huge so also sorry if this is irrelevant.

TL;DR:

1. one galaxy per reinforce
2. new multiplier to main game systems based on total number of galaxy nodes completed
3. harder galaxy progression
4. new fleet multiplier based on current sector
5. instant artifact bonuses

The idea is to tempt the player to want to reinforce in order to make progress in a different galaxy so that they can get a larger main game multiplier and ultimately progress further in the game. Offer the decision of "should I stay in this galaxy a little longer and squeeze out another node or two or should I take the hit to reinforce so that I can get some low hanging fruit in the other galaxy". Put another way "will it take me longer to get enough new nodes in this galaxy to reach the next sector or will it be faster to reinforce, progress back to where I am, and then push into the next sector with the new power gained from more nodes in a different galaxy". Hopefully this decision is "fuzzy" enough that it's unique to each player and there isn't a clear cut optimal strategy.

Further elaboration as discord won't let me put it all in one message.

1. The player is locked into a single galaxy and can only travel to that galaxy during the current reinforce. This is what ultimately gives reinforce a purpose again by making access to a galaxy a limited resource. However, when to reinforce should be up to the player and not feel forced.
2. Add a multiplier to main game mechanics based on the total number of galaxy nodes completed. This is the "carrot" in incentivizing players to want to reinforce. The more galaxy nodes a player completes, the more powerful their main game systems get.
3. Make the difficulty of deeper nodes in a galaxy scale aggressively. This is the "stick" in incentivizing players to want to reinforce. Although someone could choose to tough it out and complete a galaxy in one go (by maxing out all support nodes) it would overall be slower than switching.
4. Add a multiplier to fleet based on the current sector. This has two purposes. First the multiplier itself along with the galaxy node multiplier enable the feedback loop of progressing back and forth between the main game and fleet. Second it is based on the current sector to prevent the situation where the optimal strategy is to sit at sector 1 after a reinforce.
5. Make artifact bonuses available immediately. This also has two purposes. First to make fleet feel rewarding more often rather than in large chunks. Second this can act as a failsafe for players who don't optimize fleet very well. As long as they keep doing fleet, even if they don't make efficient progress, they will still accumulate artifacts which should eventually provide enough sector progress to brute force the galaxy.

Balancing it all to make the progression smooth sounds challenging but hopefully it would result in a better experience for the player.

[tribal tide]

hmmm, locking to a galaxy feels rough

[astral steeple]

1. is largely irrelevant, since doing multiple galaxies in the same reinforce just isn't really a thing past G1 and G2.

2. There are already bonuses of that type, but perhaps they could be made more impactful. However, they are currently instant and not tied to reinforce.

3. How this will come off depends on how good the rewards for reinforcing the middle feels. It could feel punitive rather than rewarding.

4. It's not optimal to sit at sector 1 after a reinforce, period.

5. Agree with making artifacts instant, provided that it's in conjunction with reinforce rewards tied to sector progress or some other main game system instead.

[tribal tide]

Tieing fleet stats to main game sector (directly, or via scattered upgrades in systems) is something that might be interesting, but that coupled with having to reinforce to swap galaxies feels like too much. Youd be punished on galaxy switch really heavily.

I think that idea might have merit on its own in some form though. Changing fleet to another system you work on from main game directly and such. That is a good idea for even later I think, galaxies can be less self contained and much simpler to design in theeeeeeeory

5. is happening 100%

[slim bluff]

we locked into that option now I guess

I just hope there's still enough bonus from reinforcing to make it feel worth it

[amber shoal]

If it would take you longer to beat a few nodes in a galaxy compared to resetting your entire progress with a reinforce and pushing back to your previous highest sector, then it sounds like the galaxy is very poorly balanced/too grindy. I don't think "forcing" people to reinforce this often is a good solution

At least for me, back in earlier game i hated having to prestige to get more retrofits because it resets my current progress and that's never fun no matter what. So being forced to reinforce just to push a sector or two sounds even worse

[rancid tapir]

I meant G7 itself

[rancid tapir]

Why not S130? I'm confused why you would want a descaler 4 sectors before you get there

[rancid tapir]

Nah it's a good idea

[tribal tide]

So you have some choice, if the descaler is for clearing sector 130 -> reinforce, you literally HAVE to reinforce there. So reinforcing at 127/8/9 etc is basically just a gnarly trap and a huge mistake. This way even if you reinforce at 126 and miss the descaler, you can still go 4 more deeper before you have to

[rancid tapir]

Ah, I see, I didn't think you needed to reinforce to activate the descaler

My misunderstanding

[cobalt stone]

i dont know if this was discussed, but what if you had nodes that required a galaxy reinforce before progressing past it?
For instance, in G6, instead of spending 1000 resources in D nodes, you have to do a reinforce.? Once done, it is unlocked permanently (so next time, you don't have to do it).
You can even add a multiplier to previously completed nodes of that galaxy so that its easier to get back if needed.

[slim bluff]

ew.

this kind of hard forced reinforce to get past a single node in galaxy is really horrible for players

[thorny edge]

What if you unlock the artifact bonuses and get their effects immediately but the amount of bonus you get from them is scaled to your highest reinforced sector? It doesn't work for the things that give special abilities like +1 Shard Link or Crew Splicing etc. But anything that gives a multiplier, you get 10% of the total buff immediately regardless of sector, and that buff increases depending on the highest sector you've reinforced up to 100% at the Max Sector for FR (or one more than that).

Or would that still be too tied to Fleet for bonuses?