Steam

[Minty]

alright, honestly, i had another huge post here...

but it was a little harsher than my previous posts, and i'm not really happy with that

no matter what happens with the steam release, we all love you and your life's work, dude. sorry to squabble so much about it; we just care a ton! 

[Slaxx]

so when will you finish the new creatures/creature designer?

[Vectorus]

I am now only skimming, but someone made a point about early access - it would be sensible, if we release as "feature complete", to ensure that references to unimplemented things like cybernetics modules, battleships or whatever are removed from the UI if they are not actually going to be in by the launch date.

[Norway174]

Hmm... Question. Is the decay mechanic still in? And if so, is it still going to be in when it's on Steam?

I know we've talked about this before, Haxus. And you made it clear you don't want to host the data of non-paying customers.
And I respect your stance on that.

But I'd imagine people not being happy with their progress being slowly erased if they're taking a break?

[pizzasgood]

Anyone who gets bent out of shape because they didn't pay for a paid game for months and their stuff decayed is too stupid to be worth the effort of worrying about, IMHO.

People who continue paying but don't log in to maintain their empire have a bit more cause for complaint, but it really doesn't take much to keep everything going.  Even if you want everything maxed out, you only have to log in every two weeks to hail your fleet and keep the capital happy.  If you have some morale surplus and trust the stability of your cities, you can log in even less frequently (monthly, or even bi-monthly).  It's really not a big deal.  If somebody can't even keep up with that, then they have no business running an empire.

And of course, all of the above is assuming a single-person empire, or a group empire where the whole group takes a break at the same time.

[AnrDaemon]

But I'd imagine people not being happy with their progress being slowly erased if they're taking a break?

The break should be long enough for it to not matter. Right now, empires could go for months without an attention and come back mostly unscathed, unless somebody interfere.
But it also should be easier (less cumbersome/tedious) to rebuild.

[pizzasgood]

Perhaps instead of being deleted, a decayed building should only be demolished down to the plot. The actual plots would only be removed once all buildings on the world have been leveled. That way recovering a half-decayed city would still cost materials and time, but it wouldn't require repeating the planning and placement steps.

[AnrDaemon]

Perhaps instead of being deleted, a decayed building should only be demolished down to the plot.

I approve of this product and/or service.

[Deantwo]

Perhaps instead of being deleted, a decayed building should only be demolished down to the plot.  The actual plots would only be removed once all buildings on the world have been leveled.  That way recovering a half-decayed city would still cost materials and time, but it wouldn't require repeating the planning and placement steps.

It would also make it a lot more interesting to find decaying cities, as they would look more like ruins.

But I don't know what even causes the biggest server load. I know officers are bad, but spacecraft already mutiny after 4 weeks. If slowing down or disabling most production from an inactive/abandoned empire was enough to lower the server load, then I don't think cities themselves should decay unless a really long time passes.
I would rather want to see empty/abandoned cities around, than nothing at all. The old-style city decay always just become empty systems with maybe a space station or some vehicles, this felt so sad and boring.

I was actually about to post a new thread (with a poll) to hear how people think decay for new-style cities should function.

[zephar]

Really look forward to see the game on Steam =). Haxus I check in on forums often. Funny I went to log in to post to realize that its been that long ago. That my account was missing apparently from when you reset the forums :P