2019-06-27 Star Map Cities, Star Map Search, Star Map XML Nerf

[Deantwo]

Obviously, you have not tried the new search tool.

The search tool is nice, but I can already see a few quality of life changes that are missing.
But you will be spending a lot of time fixing minor quality of life issues on this. That is why leaving it to the community is easier and more community friendly.

And as mentioned already, you are trying to fix a major issue by making the game hard to play. That is definitely the wrong way to do it.
Yes it is wonderful that we now have a search tool in-game, it allows players that don't know about the third-party tools to play better. But having this in-game search tool does not mean that third-party tools are undesired or useless.

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Poll: My friend is a friend of my enemy. When asked for known city information for star map queries...
[X] I don’t want my friends to reveal my positions to my enemies.
[_] I don’t want my friends to conceal the positions of my enemies when asked.

I don't think you should automatically get the "friend of friend's information" at all. It makes setting someone as friend a security risk in way too many ways. As i stated earlier, we can't see who another empire is friendly or enemy with.

If we want starmap information from someone, they should give it to us themselves, by also setting us to friend.

But if we end up talking about survey information, we still very much want a way to share that with other empires. For example by burning a sector onto a disk (or download multiple sectors onto a thumb drive) and sell it to the other empire.

[Vectorus]

So, the functionality of the search seems like a good start - no search by number of moons yet though - but compared to the third party tools it's VERY, very slow. Searching my entire starmap takes about 5 seconds using RFinder. Using Hazeron, it's taking up to 20-25 MINUTES to search just one galaxy  :D  Can anything be improved there?



Moreover, I cannot do anything else while searching, my character is stuck in place - even with a slow third-party search, I can at least play some Hazeron in the meantime. The current system does seem as if it could eat up a lot of our valuable playtime doing something we could already do quite easily using XML...

But the principle is sound, and the tool seems robust, so thanks for that!

[AnrDaemon]

I wonder why other people's information is included in export at all to begin with.

[Haxus]

I will remove the information provided by friend empires. The complexity of checking the political stance of everyone involved makes the task too much work for the server, particularly for those people who have explored thousands of systems.

[pizzasgood]

The search tool is nice, but I can already see a few quality of life changes that are missing.
But you will be spending a lot of time fixing minor quality of life issues on this. That is why leaving it to the community is easier and more community friendly.

And as mentioned already, you are trying to to fix a major issue by making the game hard to play. That is definitely the way way to do it.
Yes it is wonderful that we now have a search tool in-game, it allows players that don't know about the third-party tools to play better. But having this in-game search tool does not mean that third-party tools are undesired or useless.

This is a commercial game.  Having the option to use third party tools is always nice, but it should never be required in order to reasonably play the game.  That has long been one of the most glaring issues with SoH, and I'm glad work is finally being done to correct it.

It would be nice if we could keep using those tools, but sometimes the best way to get something done right is to smash people's crutches and force the issue.  This is especially true when a developer is too busy developing to do thorough play-testing.  Time is finite, so indie game devs have to rely heavily on players to report issues that they might never notice on their own.  If those players can just opt out of the built-in systems by using superior third-party tools, the feedback for the internal tools is liable to be sparse and newbie-centric.  Furthermore, when alternatives are available the tools feel less important to fix and the improvements get perpetually delayed.  As much as you might feel that's acceptable, it isn't.  This is a commercial product.  It needs to stand on its own feet.

Sometimes growth is painful, but Hazeron will be better for it over the long term.

[AnrDaemon]

pizzasgood, I would just leave it here.

[Deantwo]

This is a commercial game.  Having the option to use third party tools is always nice, but it should never be required in order to reasonably play the game.  That has long been one of the most glaring issues with SoH, and I'm glad work is finally being done to correct it.

No one said it was bad to have an in-game search tool. I even just said so.
It is nice that knowledge of third-party tools isn't required to play the game.

It would be nice if we could keep using those tools, but sometimes the best way to get something done right is to smash people's crutches and force the issue.  This is especially true when a developer is too busy developing to do thorough play-testing.  Time is finite, so indie game devs have to rely heavily on players to report issues that they might never notice on their own.  If those players can just opt out of the built-in systems by using superior third-party tools, the feedback for the internal tools is liable to be sparse and newbie-centric.  Furthermore, when alternatives are available the tools feel less important to fix and the improvements get perpetually delayed.  As much as you might feel that's acceptable, it isn't.  This is a commercial product.  It needs to stand on its own feet.

Sometimes growth is painful, but Hazeron will be better for it over the long term.

I can see your point about how third-party tools can mean that some in-game issues become less important. But that doesn't mean they aren't found at all.

Either way, I have heard no good reason for the total removal of at least just the survey data XML export.
The XML export did not give anyone an advantage that others didn't have. Unless we consider people with no knowledge about third-party tools. But that issue has now been eliminated by the implementation of the new in-game search tool.
The XML export was not being unfairly exploited, anything in it could be read/found using the in-game star map with minimal effort. This is again, a non-issue because of the new in-game search tool.

The only effect that removal of the XML export will cause, is upsetting the community by making their cool third-party tools no longer work.
The third-party tools are a great thing to bring the community together. Highlight different issues in the game and brainstorm new tools that would help make the game better.

The XML export wasn't broken, it didn't need fixing, and it probably isn't much of an issue to maintain it.
I can't think of a single reason to remove it that outweigh the positive it does to keep it.

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pizzasgood, I would just leave it here.

Without ranting even more. Yes other games also have great success with allowing players to create third-party tools.
Thanks for the example link Anr!

[pizzasgood]

No one said it was bad to have an in-game search tool. I even just said so.

I wasn't saying anyone said it was bad to have.  I was pointing out that it is necessary to have, not just a nice thing -- unlike the option to use external tools, which is only a nice thing, not a necessity. If Haxus needs to nerf a nice thing in order to ensure sufficient development happens to a necessary thing, that is an acceptable trade.

A Hazeron with both good internal and external tools would obviously be the best, but a Hazeron with good internal tools and no external tools is better than a Hazeron with bad internal tools and good external tools.

[jakbruce2012]

I am very deeply saddened by the removal of starmap XML. Having even just the resource and world data was nice.
I'm out of sub anyway so I guess it's time for a break.