Post by acacGames in Update - What's Next comments

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Awesome, thank you for the feedback! What really makes me happy is that you really get what I was aiming for, whether or not I've succeeded at it, yet. You make a good point about the chance to get a mission. I'll give you the reason you might go for the captains, and it has to do with relationship levels and ranks.

So, the chance to raise relationship level is 100%, but your have to fill up the relationship points, which you do by doing missions. So, officer Bob starts at relationship level 0, with 0 relationship points. Because he's RL 0, it only takes 1 RPs to enable him to level up. So, after doing 1 mission for him, if you loop back to his station, you can ask him to level up the relationship, and he will (well, he might ask for a vow in return). To go from RL 1 to RL 2 with officer Bob, you need to do 2 missions for him.

Going back to the captains, you want to do missions for the other captains, because that's the only way to level them up. You want to level them up, because the other majors that they report to will not give you missions until 2 of these captains are also relationship level 2. So, lets say Major Alice will give you missions, and she's on the same station as Captain Bob. Captain Bob and Captain Charles report to Major Diana (C and D on other stations). Major Diana won't give you missions until Bob and Charles are relationship level 2, so you might still have to do missions for Bob, even though Alice is offering you more money right now.

But then, why level Bob above level 2, then? Good question. So you might be right about the keeping it below 100%. There is one more reason. Major Alice might pay you more, but she might send you to nowheres-ville station, and Bob might take you to a station with a better Major or a Colonel or to an Officer you are close to leveling up.

I'll think on it more. I might make it 100% next version, and if it's not fun in practice, I can put it back down to 60% or maybe somewhere in the middle.

On the other hand, if I could just signal to the player that, yes, sometimes you won't get a mission on the current station, but that's okay. It's not the end. Don't feel frustrated. Get some rest and recover morale. Or fly to a station where you can level up an officer or maybe get a high paying mission. If I can do that, then I'm happy to keep it at 60%. I would prefer that.

Ohh, could I ask you a question? You mentioned that indeed if you don't get a mission on that day, you can rest to recover morale. Did you know you can also fly to other stations (without doing a mission), as well? I'm not sure if I made that clear or not, it might not be.

I do have some more levers for managing the difficulty. I'm concerned about what you said, where weekly debt payment is just more than you can make in an ideal week. Others have said similar, as well. If the bonuses are not enough, then here are three things I can do. I can easily make the days between repayments longer. I can also easily make the missions pay more. Lastly, I can change the loan structure so that you pay for a longer period, but the increase between each week is smaller. I'm not sure if that will truly fix that problem, though. I think I'll have to trial and error a bit. But, player feedback definitely helps!

In regards to the officer ranks and distribution, sure I'm always happy for more feedback, thanks. :)

HoshiHonk2 years ago(+1)

It's good to hear that my feedback helps you!

So, the chance to raise relationship level is 100%, but your have to fill up the relationship points, which you do by doing missions.

In this case, you should consider implementing additional pay raises on top of the ones gotten by doing missions. e.g. 1 pay raise per RL and any more per RNG Nice officers could have a chance to give one for free while pervs would require the MC to wear skimpier clothes or do other lewd things. This would speed up the pay raise, currently the problem is that the debt rate raises faster than the pay increases.

But then, why level Bob above level 2, then?

More than that, why should the pilot keep wearing clothes she agreed for that captain if she doesn't need him any longer?

Did you know you can also fly to other stations (without doing a mission), as well?

Yes, but this option seems vastly inferior to just resting: I don't get morale but lose it and the differences between stations are not that big that changing it would pay. I admit that I've never unlocked any of the Colonels or the General so I don't know if they would pay much more than the Majors.

I can easily make the days between repayments longer. I can also easily make the missions pay more. Lastly, I can change the loan structure so that you pay for a longer period, but the increase between each week is smaller.

A fourth option would be making the Loan Shark make lewd offers (like the officers) in exchange for reduced rate. That would match the game's theme.

In regards to the officer ranks and distribution, sure I'm always happy for more feedback, thanks.

Thanks, here are a few annoying things:

1. the distribution of officers seems random, a Captain might work for a Major on the same colony or on a different one.

2. Some colonies have 2 Majors and 2 Captains, making it confusing who's the overall superior officer, others have a Colonel with Captains but no Majors.

3. any officer could offer any task.

This looks more like competing businesses and not like a regular, organized military.

Here's my suggestion to fix that:

There are 3 types of colonies: Red (Industiral), Yellow (Security) and Blue (Research). These immediately reminded me of Star Trek uniforms. I would therefore recommend assigning all officers (except the General) to 3 Branches matching these colours, e.g. Engineering, Security and Science. Each hierarchic tree (1 colonel, 3 Majors and 9 Captains) would belong to 1 branch.

- Officers would give tasks fitting their branch. e.g. only engineering officers would ask to transport construction materials and only security officers would ask to transport ammunition. Some goods (like furniture) could be send by any branch.

- Each of the 3 Colonels would be located on a colony of the matching colour and have 1 Major of the same branch on the same colony responding to them, while each of the 2 captains on that colony would belong to a different branch: e.g. Settler Security Array (Yellow) has a Security (Yellow) branch Colonel with a security Major reporting to her, a science Captain (reporting to a science Major on a blue station) and an engineering Captain (also reporting to an engineering Major elsewhere).

- 6 other colonies would have 1 Major (same branch and colour as the colony) and 3 Captains (1 for each branch). The Captain of the same branch as the colony's Major would be reporting to that Major: e.g. Pioneer Research Base (blue) would have a Science Branch Major, a Science captain reporting to him, a security Captain (reporting to a security Major on a yellow station) and an engineering Captain (reporting to an engineering Major on a red station).

- The headquarter would have the General (either from a random branch, or no branch at all, as she or he is the Commander in Chief for that sector) and 1 Captain from each branch.

- During the introduction each officer would state their job (e.g. I'm Captain Alice Smith, Security officer on the Horizon Industrial Array)

This would be similar to real and standard sci-fi military structures, with each colony having one senior officer and the different branch officers have their clearly defined duties. It would explain why officers are not on the same place as their subordinates and superiors: every station needs officers from all three branches to be run, so they assign their subordinates to nearby stations.

I hope you like that idea, it shouldn't be too hard to code.

acacGames2 years ago

Yeah, that's a really cool idea. I like its elegance and symmetry. Sometimes, I have to give up on something that makes sense story-wise, for the sake of game balance or simplicity. But, I think this is really doable. Do you mind if I implement it some day? It probably won't be any time soon, because I have a big list of to-dos, beforehand. But it's definitely a good idea.

HoshiHonk2 years ago(+1)

I'm glad you liked it!

And yes, you can implement this suggestion an any other I may give you later.

But I probably won't make any new ones until you've updated the game, the ones one your list already look good, I want to test them in the next version.

itch.io

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