News: Blacknova Traders

[Megalith]

Can anyone answer me 2 questions....

 

1/ What is "The Planetary Apocolypse"?

 

2/ What are the Xenobes? are these AI players? are there any active?

 

hmmmmmmm thats 4 questions i think ...

 

 

[Amnot Borg]

1. Planetary Apocalypse seems to be random disasters set up by the game admin to affect planets with certain population sizes.

2. Xenobes seem to be AI players of some sort also set up by the game admin. They can affect the ports, planets, and warp links.

 

Research is a little iffy but I think those are fairly accurate answers.

 

I have no idea if Nite has plans for using them in this game. I hope not. Still trying not to die in easy mode.

[TetsuoShima]

1) depending on whether or not it is activated or not and what the exact settings are, planetary apocalyps does exactly what you'd expect it to do: once a planet has reached a certain size, it becomes possible for that planet to undergo this effect, it means that the planet will loose a lot of colonists in a short amount of time (maybe other effects too, but unsure of that), the chance of this happening increases with the total population of the planet and the total population of the galaxy

 

2) yes, ai players, very buggy they say, so I doubt it is activated...

[S0V13T]

I don't know the exact figures when it kicked in, but last time around, I had events in my log saying that "all energy / organics were wiped out from planet X" Didn't SEEM to happen untill the planets effected had 3 out of 4 red squares in the main menu interface, I had 5 planets in THAT sector, and the planets effected had 70,000,000 out of 75,000,000 colonists.

 

I didn't see the exact words "Planetary apocolypse" anywhere in the logs, of course, but that's what I'm assuming that it was, just seems to click in.

[NiteShdw]

The apocolypse IS active, Xenobes are NOT. Apocolypse CAN happen to planets with, I believe, over 80 or 90 million colonists. The effect is losing all energy and 20% of the total population.

[Megalith]

Cheers guys just wanted to be sure :) in the first run i thought han solo was a xenobe but it would seem not :)

 

PS i like this 2nd run it has many advantages/disadvantages over the first run but i love that people have changed names ;) ;)

[atrus11111]

Does anyone know how the number of real space turns is calculated to travel from one sector to another? With level 14 engines it takes 2 turns to travel a smaller distance in sectors; While other times I can travel a farther distance in sectors with realspace using only 1 turn. Similarly, how is the energy gathered through real space calculated? The number of turns needed to travel in realspace is correlated to the energy gathered while through real space using a scoop.

[Tenebrae]

Yeah, I've noticed this too. Sometimes - randomly - a real space journey will take 2 turns.

[TetsuoShima]

nope, not randomly. it is calculated by a mathematical formula. same jumps take same amount. for your convenience, a code snippet that applies:

 

$deg = pi() / 180;

if(isset($destination))
{
 $destination = round(abs($destination));
}

 $result2 = $db->Execute("SELECT angle1,angle2,distance FROM $dbtables[universe] WHERE sector_id=$playerinfo[sector]");
 $start = $result2->fields;
 $result3 = $db->Execute("SELECT angle1,angle2,distance FROM $dbtables[universe] WHERE sector_id=$destination");
 $finish = $result3->fields;
 $sa1 = $start[angle1] * $deg;
 $sa2 = $start[angle2] * $deg;
 $fa1 = $finish[angle1] * $deg;
 $fa2 = $finish[angle2] * $deg;
 $x = ($start[distance] * sin($sa1) * cos($sa2)) - ($finish[distance] * sin($fa1) * cos($fa2));
 $y = ($start[distance] * sin($sa1) * sin($sa2)) - ($finish[distance] * sin($fa1) * sin($fa2));
 $z = ($start[distance] * cos($sa1)) - ($finish[distance] * cos($fa1));
 $distance = round(sqrt(mypw($x, 2) + mypw($y, 2) + mypw($z, 2)));
 $shipspeed = mypw($level_factor, $playerinfo[engines]);
 $triptime = round($distance / $shipspeed);

 

you can take it from here I guess, btw, this game is freely available and open source, so just grab it if you want to see how it works, it's only a couple of megs... :)

[NiteShdw]

Sectors are numbered, but that doesn't mean that they are next to each other. When the universe is created, each sector is assigned a certain distance and angle (I believe from the center of the universe). So Sectors 500 and 501 could be across the universe from each other.

 

Unfortunately, the game doesn't have any way of displaying what the universe looks like.

 

There is another branch of BNT called AA Traders. It has a much more complicated universe (no sector numbers), and a lot of more advanced features. I forget the website for it now, but I'd be willing to host that game as well. I do think that it would have a bit more of a learning curve, but it could be a lot more interesting as well.

[TetsuoShima]

wow, coool.

 

If the top flash sequence from this page looks anything like the game, it would look a lot more advanced than BNT.

 

Looks very interesting, more complex, but that's a good thing, else after 3 games you know exactly how the game is going to progress...

 

Plus, they've got a wiki, it should explain a lot (I'd hope).

 

Though, from what I just read (only had a very quick peek), it seems that it is still under serious development and bugs are all around, version 0.3 should bring some nice improvements. but then again bnt 0.55 isn't completely bug-free either. But what software is nowadays (not that i could do it better myself, so I'll shut up)

 

sorry, i'm a bit hyper today... :D

[atrus11111]

There is another branch of BNT called AA Traders. It has a much more complicated universe (no sector numbers)' date=' and a lot of more advanced features. I forget the website for it now, but I'd be willing to host that game as well. I do think that it would have a bit more of a learning curve, but it could be a lot more interesting as well.[/quote']

 

I would be interested in playing the AA Traders. The learning curve shouldn't be terrible as long as there is a some decent instructions for the game.

[Amnot Borg]

From what I read, there are several versions including one that hunts xenophobes.

[Tenebrae]

A more complex version would be more fun, I think.

[TetsuoShima]

I have found something that I consider to be strange behaviour.

 

When you transfer money somewhere using the bank, it does not add count to the turns used, but it does take them away from the number of turns left...

[Megalith]

i noticerd something similar today, i built a base with no turns and ended with -1 lol

[Amnot Borg]

The bank transactions are supposed to simulate realtime processing so several turns are used up during the transfer. I lose several every time I consolidate money on my current planet.

 

Not sure why it allowed you to build a base if you had no turns, though.

[Megalith]

damn i had a horrific accident it would seem :'(

[Amnot Borg]

Brought on by an attack from Tetsuoshima I believe.

 

Weird thing, Game won't allow me back to partner's corporate planets and won't let me capture them.

Still shows them in my alliance list though. All details.

[TetsuoShima]

Sorry bro, but you were taking a planet that was in my alliance, before the member got killed. We couldn't have that. Naturally, I had to take it just a little further and take some of yours too. You did try to do it to us. :p

 

I might have let you get away with it, but you were just standing there, so I thought: oh what the heck...

 

But maybe some comfort: The federation put a 3 billion credit bounty on me for doing that. Which I promptly paid so I could buy reinforcements for the planets (luckily I was saving for something big, will have to save a bit longer now though). They're all pretty well defended by now, as you just found out I believe. :p

 

Normally I'm not a very aggressive player, this was just my second attack in the entire game. But once I get my mind into wanting something, I get it or somebody dies (usually me, this time I was lucky I guess).

 

No hard feelings I hope, if you would have been in our alliance, I would never have done it. :)