Improve Presentation of Discovery's Rules

[Karlotta]

Added an improved Attack Declaration Thread post to forum rules (post nr 6 of this thread).

Also added the automatic 6 month char deletion to server rules. Please someone who knows exactly how it works check the spoiler of 2.10 to verify that the information is correct.

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[Jack_Henderson]

Add a "POB cannot be built closer than 20k from the center of a mining area"

I hate coming back and finding one sitting in the center of a mining field.
First action I am forced to do is: look up rules, post some half-assed pseudo-rp and smash the work and effort of someone I do not even know... just because the builder likely did not know better.

It needs to be in the rules because it has negative gameplay-wise consequences plus making the community "self-police" does not work. I hate destroying the work of the builder and he hates it being destroyed - lose-lose, yet it has to be done because pobs in mining fields are gameplay cancer.

[Karlotta]

I'm for putting what you say in the rules, but right now I only want to put existing rules into a clearer and easier to read format.

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[Alex.]

Also added the automatic 6 month char deletion to server rules. Please someone who knows exactly how it works check the spoiler of 2.10 to verify that the information is correct.

I think it's 200 days of character inactivity rather than 6 months exactly. I'm not convinced at all about what the spoiler says about what counts as inactive. The account manager looks at what it has for the character's last online time in it's database, which it's supposed to be pulling from the 'tstamp' attribute that FLServer saves to each character file. FLHook only messes with tstamp itself when you use /restart, so we'd need someone with better reverse engineering skills than I to find out what behaviour causes FLServer to update a character tstamp attribute (and save) and what doesn't.

Of course if we lost files or the game server and had to restore from a backup, any activity saved after the restored backup occurred would be lost and would not get accounted for in this type of activity check (if the web server continued to operate okay it'd still count towards e.g. faction activity).

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FLHook suggestions
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[Kazinsal]

As far as I can tell, tstamp is updated whenever FLServer writes to your save file.

That's literally it. There's no magic involved. If FLServer writes to your save file, it updates tstamp.

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Retired, permanently.

[Karlotta]

Thanks for the replies. And does it write to the save file as soon as you log on, or do you have to change something on your char (like credit balance, gear, location)?

I've heard many different versions of what makes the game write to the save, someone said you have to change something on your char, someone else said typing /time is enough, someone else said logging on and off is enough, someone else said you have to launch and dock.

Is it possible for someone who has access to the server to check if logging on and off will already make the game write to save, and if typing /time writes to save by checking the file date on a test char?

This question comes up regularly with several different answers every time, and mentioning it in a spoiler in the rules should answer that for everyone before the question arises to them.

(most recent I could find was here https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=159989)

If not, I'll change the spoiler to: The inactivity period is reset every time a character's equipment, ammunition, cargo, or credit balance is changed. Because rollbacks can occur due to server crashes, it's recommended to refresh characters at least every 3 months.

Although it sounds a bit cryptic.

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[Kazinsal]

I dug deep into the character file handling in server.dll last night to figure this out. Any time FLServer needs to write to your file to update it, the timestamp within is changed. Equipment/cargo change, reputation change, docking, undocking, and changing systems will all do it. Logging in and out won't since FLServer doesn't strictly need to update your character file in that case -- tstamp is solely the time of the last change, not the last login.

The /time command definitely does not update character files. It literally just prints the time to the player's chat log.

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[Karlotta]

Thanks for the information. I updated the spoiler for 2.10 and also did a few more minor edits.

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[Kalhmera]

So its been 2 months since my last post. I see no clear progress by the Admin Team, it seems they (by their lack of communication) don't like this proposal. So why not just move on?

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Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to struggle against entropy. - V. Havel

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[Karlotta]

Worked on the spoilers for 2.4 and 2.5, adding things that were in the rules before and are (as far as I know) still being enacted as "unwritten rules".

So its been 2 months since my last post. I see no clear progress by the Admin Team, it seems they (by their lack of communication) don't like this proposal. So why not just move on?

Because I care more for what's really constructive by being good for the community, server, and admins, than for what a few people may and may not "like".

Because the current presentation of the rules makes them unnecessarily long and hard to read, more inaccessible than they need to be, very obsolete in places, and leaving a bad impression of discovery to the kind of people the game is allegedly intended for (people who actually read and who want to do more than just shoot and troll around).

Because the way their presentation was improved here makes rules faster and easier to understand, up to date, and overall presented in a less amateurish way, with minimal work left to do for admins while putting them into place, and with a better result than anyone else has ever produced and anyone is therefore likely to ever produce.

Because interactions on the server and forums would be more fun if new people were able to learn rules and game mechanics faster. More fun for new people, more fun for those who like to interact with new people, and also more fun for those who don't care about new people, because they'll be annoyed by the results of new people's ignorance less.

Because making rules easier to understand and more accessible will help the admins too, by reducing rule violations as well as ever-reoccurring questions.

Because there is no good reason to not to put these rules into place. But if there is one that I don't see, I could adapt things accordingly if someone told me about it.

Because admins haven't given any reason, nor said that they wouldn't put them in place.

Because although admins haven't given comments and criticisms as requested, there can be several reasons for that, not just those alleged by a few people who had clear personal agendas (recognizable through their use of multiple logical fallacies, absence of constructiveness, and exhibition of purely personal matters to the public eye). Maybe (and I think this is very likely) admins are unsure or divided on what to do, and don't want to make a comment that could be understood as an admin-team endorsement of me doing this.

Because if admins sent out the message that they really are able and willing to look over personal feelings (whether they're about my ego, their own, or the egos of people they feel loyal/indebted to) when doing their job (as the rules promise), it could greatly restore faith (which has been gradually lost long before most of the current people were admins) in the integrity of discoverygc admins in general.

Because admins would do themselves and the community a huge favor if they presented the rules as shown here (or gave suggestions on how to improve it), and a huge dis-service if they didn't.

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