In preparation for the next update, changes to the base, jumpdrive and a number of miscellanous features are being tested.
Bases
The base commodities usage has been revised, in short the updated behaviour is:
Bases use more repair commodities like hull panels, robotics and basic alloys
Bases use less shield fuel commodities because the shield will turn off automatically.
Players cannot dock at bases if the shield is up
More commodities used per day for maintenance (from ~8 to 10k) but base takes damage more slowly (level 1 base can survive ~60 hours without repair). Base manufacturing and construction are slower by 1/3 but use the same quantities of goods.
The shield will automatically deactivate after a random period of time in the range 1-16 minutes and docking whilst the shield is up is blocked to all ships. A base administrator can manually activate or deactivate the shield using the /base shieldmod [on/off] command. A manually activated shield will remain up for one hour as long as there is sufficient fuel.
The fuel usage rates are:
Deuterium - 5 units per 16 seconds.
H-Fuel - 4 units per 16 seconds
MOX - 3 units per 16 seconds
Gallic Fuel - 3 units per 16 seconds.
This means ~15k/day to ~27k fuel used per 24 hours if base is being blockaded and constantly attacked.
Weapons platforms take damage when the base shield is up and are destroyable although they will be respawned automatically after 15 seconds.
Shop management changed to a better UI. The /shop newgoods command has been removed. Base administrators can buy and sell goods to their base without restriction and newgoods mode no longer needs to be enabled.
Minimum and maximum stock levels can now be specified and the base will not sell goods if the stock level falls below the minimum and will not buy goods if the stock level exceeds the maximum level. Goods can be removed and jettisoned to free up space or prevent any more of the particular good being sold to the base. [EDIT: For the record, the UI breaks after about 45 items..up from the previous broken limit of 30. This will be a job for tomorrow.]
Fuel usage remains the same. The drive is not usable less it is mounted. In the previous version in could be used and this was a bug. Also now, a jump into any of the 3 restricted systems: New Anglia, New Cambria and Bastille will result in ship death. This is primarily to stop people complaining to admins to be let out.
Cloaking Devices and Mobile Docking
I'm still working on these and they both should be rebalanced and available in the next update.
Update 5
It's in progress and will be released before the end of this month.
That's all for now. Have fun.
Proud member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
![[Image: base_shop_management.png]](http://discoverygc.com/wiki/base_shop_management.png)