Quote from: 5leepyJoe on October 10, 2016, 10:38:30 AM

Question: Does this mean the previous change made to the game where all blueprints are craftable in the Trucker is now null and void? Also, how would the large blueprints now be crafted seeing as other ships do not have enough space (I am assuming) to hold all the ingredients needed? Does crafting on planets also consume energy? (when the players use warehouses to craft, or maybe this is not possible at all, I haven't tried it)

Nope, there is a hard cap of 80 energy points. No single item "costs" more than that. This is sub-optimal (because higher-end items all fall into that range, despite the wildly varying cost), but at least it doesn't break the game.

Quote from: 5leepyJoe on October 10, 2016, 10:38:30 AM

The ways game balance is 'patched' for the time being seems to be things that are only going to cause even bigger headaches in the future. Please note this is my personal (and professional) opinion.

Absolutely.

Quote from: 5leepyJoe on October 10, 2016, 10:38:30 AM

If you want real balance on macro scale in terms of this being a faucet game then let me give you the formula 95% of real cash games follow because IT WORKS.

...

If this doesn't solve your problems then something much bigger is wrong here that we have no clue of. I hope it gives some food for thought.

It won't change a thing. Instead of millions of satoshi, people would just acquire billions of satoshi.

Same with introducing more powerful items that cost more. There has to be a cap somewhere, or this will become either a ponzi, either a endless power-creep scenario. Both are unsustainable.

(I.e., let's say we introduce a Trucker II, that has twice as much cargo space. And it would cost 10 mil. satoshi to buy. In the very short time, people would regain those 10 mil., but now we're looking a much larger problem - they can generate twice as much satoshi per click. Do we now introduce Trucker III, to eat away their funds? We can play this game for a long time, but in the end, we will lose).

Here's what really works great for MMORPGS in general: having no link at all between in-game currency and the real-world money.

Take World of Warcraft, for example. People pay the subscription fees. Those fees are what sustain the company. The in-game gold is completely untethered from this, and all prices can be fine-tuned to make the game as fun as possible. The rate of gold income can be fine-tuned too.

I don't know about any other real-cash games, that do not actually allow you to deposit. Those games are usually casino games (beneath the layers), and the house has the edge, plain and simple. Casino games are of-course easily sustainable because of this (they generate steady income, and players steadily lose money).

In SG, players always have the edge. Even if you cut gems, you will come out on top, if you repeat it enough times. Every single thing in the game works for your advantage.

So as you can see, there are a lot of conflicting interests tangled here. We could probably fix the game "once-and-for-all", by either:

a) Removing withdrawals completely
b) Allowing people to deposit
c) Adjusting the edge so you lose in the end

But that would go strongly against the founding principles of the game.

It's more fun to try to do it our way, even if it's not the most popular approach. Headache-inducing, yes, but as long as at least one person on this planet appreciates our efforts, it's all good.