2020-01-22 Site Overlap, Rare Resources, Friend Code, Mine Production

[Haxus]

Site Overlap
Site overlap test should be applied to all buildings.

All buildings are now tested for site overlap. Buildings cannot be placed if their site overlaps the site of another building.

This mainly applies to regular buildings. There are exceptions, such as street lights.

Rare Resources
A world reports a very low percentage of a natural resource but it can never be found. For example, a moon might report 1% lumenite but a thorough search of the surface reveals no lumenite.

Fixed. If any world can be found that still exhibits this bug, I would be most interested in checking it out.

Worlds that previously had this problem will now have the missing rock(s). No resetting of anything is required, though you might not find it if a building has been constructed there.

Exotic Fire
Fires don't burn in an exotic atmosphere. Jake built a fire on Pandora.

Fixed.

Friend Code
Someone reported the friend code didn't work.

Friend code eliminated. The web site will be updated after the server update is posted.

All new accounts now start with one week (7 days) of activation time.

There are limitations during the free trial period.

• Avatars cannot be transferred to another account.
  
• Avatars cannot offer teleport to their location.
  
• Avatars cannot accept teleport invitations.
  

Mine and Well Production
There was some concern that mines would not produce enough ore, because of the change to stacking rules and the larger size of buildings and spacecraft these days.

Increased the output of most mine and well processes by 2x.

Existing processes are unaffected. They would have to be restarted to pick up this change.

[Celarious]

Just saying I really like the new free trial you've added! Should be a lot simpler for new players to understand too

[Haxus]

Should be a lot simpler

That's what I thought.

[Vooker525]

So the only way to play with friend on trial period is to find him in galaxy? Not that bad.

Some worlds have ice in survey report but some of them dont have cold enough poles/mountains for snow and ice to appear

[jakbruce2012]

Nice!
now i just need to go restart all my mines, about 200 placed today XD

[Minty]

The new trial system is great. Just wondering, if you do buy play time before the 7 days are up, will you be allowed to teleport? Someone who knows they want to buy the game would probably want teleportation early.

[Vectorus]

Thank you so much for accepting the principle that there is a serious problem with yields, and implementing the start of a fix through increased output, which is a good solution. 

An increase of 2x, however, remains very low in proportion to what is needed. I will work on some more exact calculations, but it would be helpful for us to know what you consider a reasonable timeframe for gathering the resources for a ship, compared with the build time of that ship. For example, let's say a ship takes 30 days to build. How long do you think it ought to take a well-established, hard-working and efficient empire to fill the production order? If we know that, we can work out what the numbers should be.

Re: overlaps, how do you intend to fix the original problem of not being able to place buildings next to each other? In most buildings, the roof and gutters extend further out in the XY direction than the bottom of the walls. If sites can't overlap and all geometry must be inside site extents, how can you place a building flush against the wall of another? In the pic below, you could not make a very common street or block like this, because the tower and the tall house would not allow the smaller house to be flush with their walls, even though there is no obstruction. In the second example, you couldn't even place the building on a modelled street or square.




Here's a real-world example. In this case, the overhang is not necessarily large, but in Hazeron there is now 0 site tolerance and even this would be impossible. And the porch could not overhang the sidewalk, if the sidewalk were fully modelled:

[jakbruce2012]

A significant improvement, especially since missing rocks is now fixed. I do not think we will need any higher yield.

As for site overlaps, does this include aerial and sea platforms as well? They could be placed over a military base, and provide invulnerable cover from fire.

Although I do understand it would be nice to be able to have a platform hover above the city, there may need to be a specific exception to prevent them from being placed above strategic structures.

[Haxus]

if you do buy play time before the 7 days are up, will you be allowed to teleport?

Yes they will be allowed to teleport then.

The additional time is added to the end of the 7 days.

The account type is immediately changed to a regular account, instead of a trial account.

[Vectorus]

Perhaps one easy option would be to allow a small percentage overlap, say 5% or 10%, and for that not to apply to military buildings.

Once you start looking at sci-fi cities, the issue becomes worse since futuristic shapes provide more scope for overhangs