g0nz0, i like many of your missile options ... do we want a new thread to carry on with wide ranging missile talk? i'm not opposed to turnnng this thread into a compendium of missile proposals, but i started out thinking just about how low $5k was for missiles and if maybe that low value could be changed for the better ...

anywhere we go is good - and i do like your list

:)

drunck, i kind of like your suggestion of a missle value that varies, primarily because "big" values are being contemplated for missiles - the distortion effects of lucky $1m networth missiles in the early game could get crazy

and i can also see that "big" values like $1m nw / missile might be needed to get the attention of netters in the long games - short games like tourney might need a smaller incentive

but there must also be an upperbound where the game devolves into who can get and keep the most missiles ... drunck suggests a cap of $1m, and marshal used $1m ... would anyone want an even bigger number? and should the "cap" vary by server?

in a recent topic about an option to harmlessly get rid of missiles, i was struck by the actual networth value of missiles -- which marshal informs us is $5000 nw - a figure apparently set in the time of myth when the god mehul created earth ...

can anyone shed light on how/why/if this is a "good" value for missiles?

my current thinking is that it should be much higher

if missiles were made sufficiently valuable for netters to pursue them, then we would get a game with a lot more missiles, which might lead to:
1) increased use of warefare tech to create valuable missiles
2) increased use of spys to defend valuable missiles
3) increased use of spys to destroy valuable missiles
4) greater use of missiles because there are so many more of them
5) increased use of sdi to protect against all these missiles
6) increased reluctance to use valuable missiles on low value targets
7) greater "dynamic range" of player networth during hostilities - implies faster changes in combat results and quicker movement toward humanitarian limits
8) more potential for frustration and diplomatic incidents to result in someone getting a face full of missiles
and so forth ...

if you like the idea generally, then what value might work for missile nw? $50k, $100k, $200k, even higher?
is there anything else that comes with high value missiles?

if you don't like the idea of raising missle nw value, can you help me understand why it needs to stay at $5k?

thanks!

(-¿-)
[bonus]

and getting just off the path, maybe missile nw is too low in the game as it is today

consider the above $50m figure. using $1b = $4m nw, a $50m missile coverts to 200k nw, rather than $5k nw as per today

if missiles were worth 200k nw, netters would chase them, and thus there would be many many more missiles in the game

and some players might be less willing to use a bunch of their missiles without good purpose because they had a big nw value

does anyone know why missiles are valued so low?

drunck, please help me understand

... because you are a very big and built country, you deserve $50m / missile, but everybody else deserves less for their missiles? why would anyone support that other than countries that like to get big and keep missiles?

and why cash? if you want cash, buy bus tech, ... missiles come from warfare tech ... i really don't see any connection ...to me, your suggestion seems to be adding a cash lottery aspect to warfare tech where the size of the prize is based on how big you are already ...

how does that make anything better?

missiles already have a net worth value, so there is an implicit range of cash they could be worth, which i think is probably smallish

the original post was just looking for a way to harmlessly get rid of missiles, and that could be easily accomodated with a private market sell for $0 ... just like shooting them at a dummy country and thereby loosing the missile's net worth, but without loosing turns doing it

if you want to keep the missile selling NW neutral, put the sell price apprpriately low

i agree that missiles should not be buyable -- my intuition is that buying missiles changes the game in big and unpredictable ways

i thought it would be cool to trade unwanted missiles for anything that would add small, interesting wrnkles and give missiles new value beyond war, but i don't see how being able to trade them for big cash could work well for everyone

in my opinion, it will be difficult to put a cash value on missiles without a missile market to "balance" things out

i suggested swapping missiles for turns, but it is true that turns aren't equally valued by the different strats, so that change would have winners and loosers ...

BUT, there is one earth commodity that is universally valued and almost always useful -- bonus points!

anybody else want to swap a missile for a bonus point?

and if 1 for 1 seems too rich, it could be 2 or 3 missiles per bonus point ... that would still work for me ... anybody?

welcome back!

.. many of today's active players first played earth2025 ... i found my way home again 2+ years ago

thete are many differences in today's game, but things are much the same -- so hats off to our benefactors who re-created and continue to maintain our beloved playground!

i suggest you jump in and enjoy the process of rediscovery

:)

perhaps add on option (maybe on the private market sell page) to exchange missiles for turns, one turn per missile:

each missle type has a numerical entry box to fill in the number of missles to exchange for turns, and an 'exchange" button to make it happen, as per exchanging bonus points

this would have implications at many points in the game and alter the value of warfare tech, but maybe all in good and interesting ways ... at least cruise missiles wouldl be more welcome in my game

has this missile twist been offered up before?

ps - near term, to dump your missiles, did you consider having your top spal team mate run diffuse missile ops?

i think it would be great if the last (time-stamped) results of any auxilliary spy report (spy allies, military spy, market spy) could be saved and accessed

perhaps the current saved spy ops page could be enhanced to have active links to the most recent successful auxilliary spy ops for every target

as it is, i keep paper scribbles

thanks!


[my weekly bonus]
(-¿-)

i'm sorry, but i'm not following your use of the word histories and how that get's to ugh ... can you help me see the issue?

i think i see how to go about this without any ugh moments, but of course i'm actually totally ignorant of the game's implementation, so that does seem a bold claim on my part

:)

a little more detail on what i was thinking before i move along

overall, we make the list of desired observables as complete as possible and do the easy ones first

i would like the UI to be a big page of all the observables with a time selector function that lets you pick any start and stop times ranging from the beginning of the set to the current time --> punch the button and you get the values for each observable at those times, with a computed difference between the start and stop values. it would be great if each observable value could be presented as a time graph

implementationally, i think the observables (regardless of whether they are derived using inspection, computation or metering) would need to be snap shoted and stored on a time slice, similar to how the current score list is done evey 5 minuets. the time slices would then be computationally used to produce the UI query results and the time graphs

cheers!

i'm pleased you guys generally like the idea

i really do think it would be fun to know how many jets had been used up offensively in the last 12 hours, or how many CM are in the game, or how many bushels were sold on private markets in the last hour ... and maybe useful too ...

practically speaking, i don't think i could really do much on the implementation side, but i could make a more comprehensive list of observables, help with UI design, and do some QA testing.

So when it looks like something like this might get to the top of the stack, please contact me and i will pitch in where i can

thanks again!
:)

:) ... i get that ... a good idea is the easy part ... but i am still happy to find another advocate

for myself, yes, there was once a time i did this kind of stuff professionally (i'm guessing, but probably some kind of scripting language like perl creating the guts of the game as wellas the UIs, both using embedded sql type database calls ) ... but my skills are 15 years dead cold ... conceivably, if someone gave me an implemented skeleton making example calls and also gave me remote access to a development environment, i could fire up and flesh the idea out ... i do kinda have the time and motivation, but it would take a substantial investment into me to get it rolling ... me starting from scratch is not realistic ...

continuing, i see at least 2 kinds of data that i am curious about

1) aggregated player data, i.e total turns used, total turns on hand, numbers of each kind of building and technology and so forth; this should be straghtforward using advisor page data for each player

2) world data,i.e. total turns used exploring, total land generated from explores, total land generated by ghost acres, total money taken out of game by commissions for each good, total number of each good bought and sold on private markets , and so forth; this kind of data might require code additions to meter each observed quantity

again, thanks for your interest
:)

i have always been curious about the "macro data" of any given set and would like to discuss the possibility of adding some info screens to make such things available to players. i am refering to things like gdp or money supply in general economics, but for an earth set it would mostly be player data aggregaed across all players.

aggregate macro data might contain things like total cash on hand, total turns available, total numbers of turrets currently in the set, numbers of bushels produced, numbers of bushels consumed, total turns played, total number of built farms and so forth ... almost any piece of player data, but aggregated over all players with some time selection criteria, i.e whole set, last 24 hours ...

i would hope that getting the data and displaying it might be straightforward (mostly database queries and form pages?)

i can imagine that clever players could make some use of such data to guide their development and timing

but i am sure that i would enjoy just watching the numbers grow and change as the set unfolds

any thoughts?


(~¿~)

[bonus]

welcome back ... your story is my story, and it is a common one ... i found my way home again a couple of years ago ...

i say go slow and enjoy the process of rediscovery ... things have changed, but they are much the same ....

and i concur with stanrools above - express is a very time efficient way to recover your skills and start to remember it all ...

cheers!

:)

last experimental results:

added mil tech to the theo and retested the market auto-buy thresholds - no change observed

more sales of $111 tanks showed that the original $111 order lost it's place in the queue, but the $200 order and the $300 order were each tapped one time, which seemed odd in that i was thinking that both sales should have gone to whichever new order made it to the front of the queue.

however, the most recent sale test went back to the original $111 order, which seems to show that the $200 and $300 orders didn't get their 72 hours at the front of the queue

thanks again for everyone's attention

(-¿-)

on second thought, there is very little help to be had from order minimums ...

perhaps it is very tuff ... consider that even if we raised the auto-buy thresholds to be above the private market buy prices of a maxed out theo, there may still be some room for the exploit to work ... steady streams of $350 tanks and $80 troops to a boost target could be enough to skew an express finish

what to do?

i am also considering "solutions" - actually i am looking for one and nothing is coming

and i am not sure this even can be problem on non solo servers, e..g. colusion on a solo server is just good team work elsewhere

technically and structurally, i can imagine it easier to address a "fix" for the issues from the order side, i.e. making minimum standing order prices that are vetted and enforced from the Orders screen - picking good minimums might be enough to reduce the value of rhe exploit to where it isn't really worth it

but i think these issues derive from the definitions of how the earth market functions, i.e. goods coming to market are not sold to the higgest bids available at the moment they arrive (as per a market sell order in a real stock market), but instead are sold for the asking price into the SO queue ... and i don't really see a way to preserve that overall architecture, preserve the ability to "fight in the market" over prices, supply and income, and fully eliminate the potential for abuse on solo servers

... but i'm workin' on it ...

:)

more experimental results:

i added military bases to my theo to reduce the private market sell prices to:

troops $26
jets $35
turrets $38
tanks $107
bushels $21
oil $44

except for oil, these prices were below the previously established thresholds for the market's auto-buy functionality to be activated

the sell limits were retested and no change in market behaviour was observed

again it appears that the market mechanisms are independent of the seller

note that this confirms that it is at least possible for some countries to sell units to the auto-buy functionality at prices higher than thier private market sell prices

my SO for tanks at $111 is still getting tanks today. also, the offer was again visible on the board today, so i added offers at $200 and $300 and will try to observe the $111 offer loose it's place in the queue to the $200 offer if the $111 offer gets cycled after 72 hours

new experimental results:

i switched to a theo from monarchy, still unmodified by tech or military bases

the auto-buy price points are not changed by the theo government bonus on private market prices ...

i t appears that the auto-buy/standing order functionality of the market is not related to the seller - but that is a broad conjecture and it will take more experiments to prove it

also, as previously posted, i left my standing order for $111 tanks active, and that order is receiving tanks today at $111

ps it occured to me that in the examples above about exploitation, i suggested the conspirators needed to be signaled by the boost target, but the game's search function shows nw, and a little math while watching your market timers count down could show when units are arriving at the target country, so explicit signaling between conspirators is not strictly necessary

conspiracy to boost one player nw - exploits

the standing order exploits depend on getting your order on the board with no orders beneath you, however, if your conspiracy's pockets are deep, you can clear the board beneath your price and then run the exploit

example, empty board on tanks. player A places massive SO at $200; conspirators feed player A tanks at $111; player A sells tanks on market at regular prices for 300%-500% profit

example, board with existing SOs at $500 and under. player A places massive SO on tanks at $501. conspirators sell tanks at $500 until existing SOs are filled and player A signals the conspirators that his $501 SO is getting tanks. conspirators sell tanks again at $400, until A signals he is getting tanks, and so on until A receives tanks at $111. conspirators continue to sell tanks at $111, player A sells on market

experimental data on standing offer price minimums, this set, express server

troops $28
jets $37
turrets $40
tanks $111
bushels $25
oil $13

units sold below these prices will be auto-bought; units sold at or above these prices will go to standing orders or appear on the market if no standing order exists

note on methodology

when the set began, i posted low standing orders for bushels and oil and got lucky with oil bid at $10 and $15 - when i sold oil at $15, my standng order was triggered and i got the familiar market messages containing the words "to a standing order"; on the $10 sale i got the "were sold" message as per tech sales at $1000 or less on express and my $10 order was not touched. from this i conclude that the three different market messages indicate the 3 possible ways goods can be sold, and i have used the market messages to deduce the numbers above. there have been standing orders on the market as i have been testing the mil unit prices and some lucky players have scooped up ultra cheap 5000 unit lots. however, the last tanks at $111 did make it to the board where i bought it out by placing a large standing order for tanks at $111. that order was on the board when i started writing this up

first experiments with lowball market sells

these experiments were performed in the current express set using a monarchy unmodified by military bases or technology

bushels were auto-bought at $24 and sold to standing offer at $25
oil was auto-bought at $12 and sold to standing offer at $13

i have not found the minimum auto-buy price for mil units, but have confirmed standing offer buys at

troops $30
jets $40
turrets $42
tanks $120

the goods always go to the end of their arrival timer before being sold
the price received was always the asking price minus market commission

this appears exploitable to me in a colusion to boost a particular player

buying substantial numbers of mil units at those prices seems problematic to me in itself
oil bought at $13 allows for a $60/barrel instant profit selling back to the private market at $73 (demo with mil tech)

collusion using these exploits does seems possible and material in my opinion

i will continue as time permits and plan to change to theo and build mbs as future experiments
but i did want to get this posted for commentary and to encourage others to experiment and ponder

thanks!
:)

thanks to all so far and especially for the skooling on how the market mechasims actually operate - the thing about standing offers being recycled to the back of the line after 72 hours was a brand new wrinkle for me

with respect to the idea that some country structures, like the theo farmer above, have a unique capacity to supress commodity prices can be seen as a special ability, like a demo that can act like a central bank and cash out unlimited public bushels at $36 at no cost to itself; the player lowballing the market could be trying to suffocate other players from needed cash (especially true before the market recall option was introduced)
-------
my current questions:

are the low price limits as they exist today sufficient to prevent unfair exploitation (cheating) on solo servers? generally?

do they work as advertised?

might there be enough interest to just go ahead and change things to mimic the auto-buy-from-pm funtionality that already exists?


i don't have time in real life to play express this week, but i will make a country to help do some experiments - private message me if you want to help me or need help checking something

:)

thanks for finding a "smoking gun" in a market history ... average price $13 on 2m+ oil ...

this was the last express set? perhaps an admin could research this sale for collusion or pilot error or whimsy?

regardless, i'm for a simple fix if we can get it

thanks again Celphi and thanks for everyone's attention

:)

this was my main concern:

at some point when there is no active offer for bushels on the board, player A posts an offer for 100,000,000 bushels at $5

later in the set, with plenty of offers at $35, $36 ... and bushels selling much higher, player B coludes with player A to boost player A's finish by selling 50 m bushels for $5 ... which player A will recieve via the market -- eventhough player B's private market net sell price would yield at least 400% more than the "deal" with player A ...

on solo servers, this seems out of bounds to me

or am i mistaken about how this functions?

there is precedent in game on the buy side - if you try to buy items on the public market that are cheaper on the pm, you get them from the pm at the pm price, unless you change this behaviour using a toggle in the preferences

perhaps we could make a symetric mechanism on the sell side

but this [SUG] was mostly about a graceful way to stop egregious market cheating; using this approach, we would need to add the code for the auto pm sell side functionality, add the item to the prefernces menu, and then disable the new feature on solo servers ... which i can see as a nicer way to fold this idea into the current user interface

i've seen goods sold well below private market sale prices on express, i.e. $1/oil. this looks like a very bad keyboard error or more probably an attempt to pass resources between players using market orders and lowball sale prices. i think that might be "outside the rules" on a solo server.

could we change the market sales mechanism to check for a better pm price before delivering goods to market? perhaps erroring out the operation with a message would be the easiest to code, or maybe just instantly sell them to the pm. but this would prevent disasterous pilot error as well as prevent the apperance of cheating on solo servers

[bonus]

(~¿~)

exactly ... you should have a game status page hosted on a remote server on another domain so that when there is any kind of outage, you can communicate to the community what is happening. there should also be a policy on what to do about a long unscheduled outage, perhaps something like anything over 2 hours stops the game clock, and causes an automatic restart at a later, announced time with a coresponding extension of the set's duration ...

just my 2 cents

sug: i think youcan do better than 14 hours + down tme with nothing but an oops i'm so sorry ... no nfo, no nothing, with resets destroyed in express and so forth ... sorrry, but you don't get a free pass on this ... one or two more like this one and it may be another 5 or 10 years before i try to play again ... you should have a better plan to make annoncements when the game is down and you should have a better plan for how to handle missing game time when outages go past an hour or two ... that's both my complaint and my suggestion