.....

[Ursus]

By the way. Is it possible to have a vertical trade lane? (i.e. orthogonal to the plane).

There are a few of these in the new Gallia systems

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Ursus]

BTW, right now all the players are off exploring, looking around Gallia, testing mining fields etc. You need to go out and test as well, and see where they will be congregating, then you will have people to interact with again. If you are trying to hang out in O7 then yeah you are going to have trouble finding people.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[teschy]

More psychedelic colors please:P

http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu13/te...09-41-41-87.jpg

[Ursus]

One more PS--the game has always been bigger than the player base. I mean, there aren't enough login slots to support ~30 NPC factions, so some of the factions have always been dead.

That's the wrong way to look at it though. Number of empty factions or systems does not matter; the thing we care about it is the number of systems that have player activity.

For example if 200 players are spread over 5 systems then the game feels more active than if 200 players are spread over 20 systems. It does not matter if there are 200 empty systems, since we don't look for other players in empty systems. Right now everybody is exploring and tooling around so they are spread out over the whole map. We will see if they come back to 5 systems or 20 systems

Point is that a large number of empty systems don't affect anything

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Zahas]

only 255 players can connect to a FL server sadly.

[Linkus]

Old and new.
The game is roughly 8/9 years old.
The mod is not as old but it is over 5 years old.
Consider that some systems are over 3 years old, even some are older.
Our knowledge of the game and mods for it is far greater than it was even 2/3 years ago.

It isn't only knowledge and techniques that have got better though.
Gallia is something that we had to finish as so much had been put in already. Unfortunately that meant it pretty much ate up time. Lack of motivation and thus organisation led to further issues.
This meant that Sirius took a back seat, so many systems were ignored.

Guard systems are extremely hit and miss, due to different developers doing them, different plans by factions and different levels of skills involved in making the system.


Overall:
Time. Skill. Knowledge.
We didn't have enough of the first, we've gained a lot more of the last two compared to the systems you might be disappointed in.


One thing that you could do to help though is to list the systems you think need looked at.
Whether it be starspheres or other stuff, please list it.
We'll look at those systems when bug fixing is done to a good enough point.

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Facilitating the rise of robotics since 0 A.D.

[Dab]

Trust me when I say many many devs fully agree that Discovery has too many bases and too many systems, and I've tried hard to encourage people not to make new bases without a purpose, or bases that are redundant. All new bases need unique backgrounds, unique lore, their own trade routes set up for them (making sure those bases receive traderoutes is part of the system dev's job as well as the trade system's. They need to work together, but unfortunately some system devs have just dropped new systems onto the trade system's lap and said "give me routes").

Gallia's massive amount of bases and new systems were not added in by the dev team, but by the mod lead, Igiss. And I know many people who think it was a very bad way to go with Gallia, spreading out the systems so much that player interaction will be hurt by it.

That about summarizes my opinion on the size and quantity of Discovery's systems and bases.

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[Ursus]

Biggest problem with empty systems is when you have to cross them. It's sad and lonely feeling to cross through Bretonia and see nobody else. But if they are up in a corner of the map and you don't go through them, they have no affect on anybody. Those are like guard systems, hurts nobody to have an empty system if you never see it.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Toaster]

Stopped reading after page one.

I agree with the OP, there are too many useless systems being added. The devs should be concentrating on improving those systems that are actually important / should make fewer, higher quality systems. These would then also be visited more often, I assume.

Though, guard systems really don't need much of an upgrade. Only little time is spent inside them, and by only a few people.

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Olivia Sable
On hiatus

[Tomtomrawr]

Though, guard systems really don't need much of an upgrade. Only little time is spent inside them, and by only a few people.

Guard systems don't really need to exist. Jump holes could lead to mined-off areas in an already-existing system high above the plane. Would actually help stop people taking OORP short cuts through guard systems. Of course unique factions like the Coalition and RoS can justify having their own system.

And yes. I don't have time to continue my post further but I will say that time used in making new systems could have been used improving old ones.

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[17:45:39] Wolfs Ghost (Murphy): Tom, you have problems. Go kill yourself.
[19:25:12] Johnny (Jam): Tomtom, I will beat you with a spoon.
[14:22:56] Prarabdh Thakur: KILL HIM WITH A SHEEP.
[17:40:48] Eagle (Junes): Tom should be slapped with a spoon.
[11:32:18] Warspite: Thank you for being so awesome Tom. <3
[18:17:36] Metano: I love you tomtom
[20:06:24] Warspite: I will seriously give you epic head.

Edit: also, Tomtomrawr, fappin' like a boss.