Dave's Galaxy

[Adriddae]

My old empire's up for the taking, I'm vacating everything and going for the edge of the galaxy!

Build a restaurant there!

[Vellos]

Build a restaurant there!

On my Haman account, I've had an arc headed for the literal edge of the galaxy for weeks on weeks now. I'm hoping when I get there I can build myself a nice little base.

[De-Legro]

On my Haman account, I've had an arc headed for the literal edge of the galaxy for weeks on weeks now. I'm hoping when I get there I can build myself a nice little base.

You and at least 8 other players that I've seen. One can only hope you are all heading to different edges of the galaxy.

[Chenier]

You and at least 8 other players that I've seen. One can only hope you are all heading to different edges of the galaxy.

I'm bringing a lot more than just an arc, though. My whole production. Plus a few military ships.

I'm going bottom right tail edge, more or less.

[De-Legro]

I'm bringing a lot more than just an arc, though. My whole production. Plus a few military ships.

I'm going bottom right tail edge, more or less.

Let me put it this way. I'm sending a modest colony fleet to one of the spiral arms, I've seen several much larger fleets. My fleet consists of a few thousand arcs and about 10k of battleships. I would send a second wave, but I have to go through enemy territory now so the first wave will just have to look after itself.

Lots of the big players are looking for space to expand into and are moving to the uncolonised area's all hoping to grab up large tracts of real estate. Some have scripts pumping out arcs from their planets as fast as they can make them. If you are unlucky in the your choice of position, that is what you will be competing with.

[Chenier]

Let me put it this way. I'm sending a modest colony fleet to one of the spiral arms, I've seen several much larger fleets. My fleet consists of a few thousand arcs and about 10k of battleships. I would send a second wave, but I have to go through enemy territory now so the first wave will just have to look after itself.

Lots of the big players are looking for space to expand into and are moving to the uncolonised area's all hoping to grab up large tracts of real estate. Some have scripts pumping out arcs from their planets as fast as they can make them. If you are unlucky in the your choice of position, that is what you will be competing with.

Well, that's what I'll compete with, then.

I barely play, and don't really care anyhow.

I honestly don't see anything fun with this game once you got your core worked out. It's way too much of a choir to do yourself, and scripts don't feel fair. And besides, why bother if you have scripts doing it all for you?

[De-Legro]

Well, that's what I'll compete with, then.

I barely play, and don't really care anyhow.

I honestly don't see anything fun with this game once you got your core worked out. It's way too much of a choir to do yourself, and scripts don't feel fair. And besides, why bother if you have scripts doing it all for you?

If you rely on scripts completely, then when someone like me comes along who uses very targeted scripts that still require my intervention, you will lose, that simple. Where some people use scripts to automate everything about fleets, I use a script that creates armada's. I can move 300 fleets like a single fleet, but I still need to move it.

[Chenier]

If you rely on scripts completely, then when someone like me comes along who uses very targeted scripts that still require my intervention, you will lose, that simple. Where some people use scripts to automate everything about fleets, I use a script that creates armada's. I can move 300 fleets like a single fleet, but I still need to move it.

Might be fun for you, doesn't sound very fun to me. I'll probably just try to settle and then abandon my gains for someone else to acquire.

[De-Legro]

Might be fun for you, doesn't sound very fun to me. I'll probably just try to settle and then abandon my gains for someone else to acquire.

Like all online games, it is largely what you make of it. If you haven't plugged into the regional politics and conflicts, then its likely to be a very boring game.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Yeah, I've long seen scripts that automate stuff to be a drain on the game. I take the time to run my empire within the mechanics of the game, and see some asshat pumping out !@#$loads of crap because he has a script run his empire for him. I don't care if your scripts need intervention. They still circumvent the gaming mechanics. How would you feel if someone suddenly started using scripts to maximize food  trade income on Battlemaster? or to automatically keep the tax at the maximum without causing the region to revolt? There'd be a !@#$storm about that, so why is this different?

[De-Legro]

Yeah, I've long seen scripts that automate stuff to be a drain on the game. I take the time to run my empire within the mechanics of the game, and see some asshat pumping out !@#$loads of crap because he has a script run his empire for him. I don't care if your scripts need intervention. They still circumvent the gaming mechanics. How would you feel if someone suddenly started using scripts to maximize food  trade income on Battlemaster? or to automatically keep the tax at the maximum without causing the region to revolt? There'd be a !@#$storm about that, so why is this different?

Firstly, it is likely someone already does that in BM. Secondly Dave approves of scripts, or at least the concept behind them, which is why he is working on a API for them to reduce the server load inherent in having to use web page scraping techniques. Somehow I doubt he would be putting in such effort if scripts didn't fit his vision of the game.

[Gustav Kuriga]

If I found out someone was doing that in my realm, I would petition the ruler for an OOC ban faster than you could say "Lazy player can't do his own work."

[De-Legro]

If I found out someone was doing that in my realm, I would petition the ruler for an OOC ban faster than you could say "Lazy player can't do his own work."

If the script was to automate activities, I would probably feel the same, though I think I would probably start a forum thread to get Tom's opinion or start a magistrate case rather then just make my own judgement. BM is a very different game and I'm not sure automation scripts have a place in it.

Of course scripts don't just automate things. I use two scripts in battlemaster. The first allows me to save messages into a indexDB database and provides message search/filtering capability. I created it to allow me to easily have a way to store messages past 30 days and to also allow me to easily find the messages I wanted. My second script reorganises the military tab on scout report and region pages, because I prefer to organise the date in a slightly different way.

For Daves Galaxy the main script I use is a planet search for my own planets. With some 250 pages of planets, it is much easier to find a planet that is referenced in the turn report by entering the name in a search box then flicking through pages to find it. I encountered a player once that was obviously using a automation script to send out arc fleets. Turns out he didn't log in much himself, so I set up fleets all around his empire and just killed every arc he produced for a few weeks until he actually logged in for himself. Scripts aren't an auto win, the more you automate and rely of them the more you risk someone taking advantage of the scripted behavior.

In all games people have advantages. For Daves Galaxy people with large amounts of time to dedicate to fleet and planet management have an advantage. People who understand the game mechanics have an advantage, and people that can either write or obtain scripts have a potential advantage. You don't have to use them yourself, but why critise players for playing is a way that has been approved by the creator of the game?

[Tom]

I've kind of lost interest in the game, I must admit.

With the 500 or so planets I now have, it is simply impossible to manage the empire without scripts. And I don't feel like playing a game of "who can write the better script".

Plus all of my core planets are suddenly starving for no apparent reason, and despite me having somewhere in the area of 400 trading fleets in the air.


There needs to be less micro-management in this game, and allowing scripting isn't the solution.

[De-Legro]

I've kind of lost interest in the game, I must admit.

With the 500 or so planets I now have, it is simply impossible to manage the empire without scripts. And I don't feel like playing a game of "who can write the better script".

Plus all of my core planets are suddenly starving for no apparent reason, and despite me having somewhere in the area of 400 trading fleets in the air.


There needs to be less micro-management in this game, and allowing scripting isn't the solution.

What society level are they? I've noticed that many empires seem to have massive starvation problems now. I know I do among planets I recently took over that just have massive society levels. Due to the trade fleet bug, big trading fleets might not be optimal. The amount a fleet keeps when it returns to the home planet seems to be fixed, not dependent on the size of the fleet. The end result is large fleets (like my fleets of 100-500 bulkfreighters) can't afford to fill their holds after returning to the home planet, and need to make some good trades to get to that point. Smaller fleets (I think < 10 or something) don't suffer from this.

Dave is talking about changes that should see Empire sizes not explode to the current levels, but then depending on exactly what the changes are, people might just use scripts to automate that as well.