Issue #18
Monday, May 23rd, 2005OSN Vacations in Olphize
Early last week, OSN made another announcement regarding their purging of the Neutral Zone of weak and undefended buildings. Despite repeated warnings to make themselves strong, the sector of Olphize ignored the Shadow’s call (in OSN’s opinion anyway) and has been targeted as the next sector in OSN’s ritual cleansing. Starting early last week, OSN raged into the sector and has been slowly but surely taking out buildings in the Olphize area. There has been no public word from OSN as to how far they will go with their cleansing either on a per sector basis, or throughout the Neutral Zone but based on what we’ve seen so far, it will likely be complete (with the possible exception of PACK and/or SG). What sector is next? Time will tell.
Belly of the Beast
TPI, The Pardusian Inquisition, after their long hiatus, is back for the second crusade. With a goal of freeing slaves from slave camps, being used as drug test subjects, and being tossed into the “dome”, the TPI has begun their crusade anew. Last week, the TPI ‘sneaked’ their way past Ruby Legion’s MOs where they discovered a nest of drug labs and a dark dome that needed to be destroyed. TPI immediately set upon and destroyed the undefended structures in relatively short order leaving the tougher defended structures for later.
Upon the realization of what was happening, Ruby Legion closed off the MO’s to TPI members effectively trapping them inside Legion’s territory. The notice that went out to TPI was that the only way out was death. One by one, Ruby Legion and friends picked off the entrapped TPI members or TPI members threw themselves against the MO walls in a desperate attempt at escape. None were successful. While the TPI claims success at the freeing of slaves, it’s likely a short matter of time before Ruby Legion starts the game anew.
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TPI – The Aftermath (by Anonymous)
The much publicised Second Crusade of the Pardusian Inquisition is once again having troubles as forces continue to thwart their efforts to rid the known universe of drugs. Although they had some success in the Caanab sector of Ska’ari, an ambush set in Waiophi and Lianla resulted in the entire fleet being wiped-out.
Yet when they regrouped and arrived in the Keldon sectors, they were not prepared for the resistance that has been brought before them. A small group of traders and fighters have collected in Delta Pavonis to combat TPI. From different backgrounds and alliances, the group is mightily underpowered to face the Inquisition with mainly SSC’s against PASC’s and Nighthawks. Although TPI has suffered no losses as of yet, and the Allied resistance has suffered several defeats as well as some losses, the Allies keep returning to fight for what they believe in.
With “The Siege Of Delta Pavonis” reaching towards its third day, questions are starting to be asked about the morality of the situation as more and more innocent people are killed in the war, especially with neither side being able to break the deadlock that has ensued. Inhabitants are even beginning to turn from the Inquisition as their Holy Crusade blunders into the darkness of war.
However, rumors of larger forces coming to Allies aid seem to be bubbling underneath the surface of most conversations which, if true, could provide the necessary firepower to push back the Inquisition. However, there is no solid evidence to support these rumors and unless something gives soon, both sides could end up losing.
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Grand Opening – Almost
Scientists around the Federation and Neutral Zone are biting their nails in anticipation of completing the wormhole stabilization process. Independent exploration and science vessels are busy prepping up for new sites to see and places to visit. As big as the event is however, the overall pulse by alliances seems to be rather relaxed. There are likely several reasons for this. The first is with the dissolving of the Rangers by the Federation, several previously saturated systems opened up to recoloinzation by existing alliances in the Federation and Neutral Zone. This has somewhat eased the pressure to move for several alliances. Additionally, most alliances are currently well established in their ‘claimed’ system(s), and moving would be extremely costly and in most cases not worth any potential gain. It also may be that alliances are keeping mum on their plans to avoid competition in the new world. As I was recently reminded, nothing in Pardus stays secret for long, but still the spy networks (with a few exceptions) have been quiet regarding alliance plans in the new world. This suggests that alliances are either not planning on doing any mass movements, or that alliances are keeping things extremely quiet.
So what does this all mean? With roughly fifty new sectors opening up, this definitely means there will be quite a bit of time to expand and grow. The next few months ought to be interesting as the Rashkir are introduced and a new order is founded in Rashkir territories.
Did you know…
That a Babel Transporter has roughly a 50% more difficult time of cloaking than does a Gauntlet?
That in certain parts of Keldon, they sell human intestines ‘by the box’.
That ships require maintenance – the higher the cost of the ship’s equipment (weapons, armor, shields, misc. items) the higher the daily maintenance (seen by the condition on the ship overview screen or the ship repair area of the ship equipment screen on planets and most starbases).
Planetary Management – A Beginner’s Look
After working on a sector redevelopment project with a group of newer players recently, there were quite a few things that came up that I thought I’d go ahead and include in a few articles about the development of planets and sectors. We’ll start with planets this week and move onto sectors next week. This should be old hat for old-timers, but newer players will hopefully get something useful out of it.
The Planet: Planets are broken up into different classes. Each planet class requires different items for it togrow (upkeep), and produces different items when the upkeep is met. For example, a Class M planet requires energy to produce food and water, a Class I planet requires energy to produce water and embryos, while a Class R planet requires food, water, AND energy to produce metal, ore, rads, and embryos. Upkeep items are the yellow items on your planetary trade screen. Production items are the green items.
In order for a planet to grow, the planet must meet the upkeep demands for the planet: generally food, water, and/or energy with the exception of Gems on a class D. Production and consumption on a planet happens every 3 hours (commonly called a tick) and that is when you need to have the planet stocked. For ease of example, let’s use a Class M planet. A Class M planet requires energy to produce food, to produce water and to grow. If a planet misses its upkeep items, it only produces output equivalent to what was provided. So say this same class M planet only received 500 energy out of the needed 1000 energy. This would do two things: 1) the planet would produce 50% of the maximum food/water it would have produced if fully stocked and 2) cause the planets population to drop (it missed the required energy upkeep requirement). Assuming you’ve met the upkeep requirements, the planet will grow randomly between 1.2 and 2.4%. If you’re population is greater than 100,000 – the effect will be a bit less because of overcrowding.
Pricing on planets is pretty much a standard supply/demand kind of structure. When no demand has been met, the prices are the highest. As more and more demand is met, the price of goods continues to fall. This works in reverse as well. As goods are sold by the planet (food/water), the prices will climb as more and more is sold. This is a bigger deal in well developed economies.
Ok, so you’ve gotten on for the day, and are in the process of trying to make your planet grow. However, the upkeep has been met for this tick. What next? Different commodities on a planet will increase the base growth percentage on that tick if the needs are met. Say for instance, your class M planet requires 33 meds this tick, if you supply the meds, you’ll gain a bonus on your growth percentage.
The items that will give planets a bonus are listed below from those that give the largest benefit to those that give the least. This is the priority you should be supplying a planet if you want to max growth potential. Items on the same line have equal weight.
- Meds/Liquor
- Droids/Weapons/Robots
- Electronics
- Metal/Plastics/Optics/E-matter
- Ore/Neb Gas/Chems
As a general rule: droids, bots, weapons, and electronics are very popular because of the profit margin on these items. However, they tend to be overproduced and tough to sell at planets because of the excess production – especially in unregulated sectors.
The items above do not need to be provided in that order. The list is just a listing of bonuses from high to low. If you can only provide meds and electronics without anything else, do it. But if you have a choice of meds and ore, do the meds. However, meeting the needs of any of the items above will increase planet population percentages at the tick. In a perfect world, you want all of them.
Ideally, you want a sector to be able to provide the planet with everything it needs to grow to a manageable level. Eventually you’ll come across a constraint limiting planet growth: whether it is the price of food/water to the area, the inability to supply energy, or whatnot. What happens at this point is an article for another time.
Information regarding planet production, upkeep, and bonuses in a chart form can be found (from the manual) here: http://www.pardus.at/index.php?section=manual402
Tidbits:
Rumor has it that the DOW is considering joining the Federation as a Federation alliance. With the AWC as the only Federation alliance, the DOW has potentially indicated they want to show the Fed another peaceful and diplomatic way about protecting the universe from the oncoming weasel invasion. They want to prove that there is another way for unification other than through force. DOW has their work cut out for them, but they seem up for the challenge.
To the Citizens of Tiacken:
Your sector may have been destroyed, your homes pillaged, your friends captured, tortured, and eventually ‘taught’ the way of the Shadow, but you cannot give up hope! The Shadow wants you strong, and it is ironic that the strength the Shadow wants you to have will be the strength you need to break free of the chains of her tyranny, to be free of the pirates, to retake your homes, to kick OSN back into the Shadow from whence they came. Oh, but you won’t be alone people of Tiacken, all around the universe, former residents are preparing for the return. The Shadow wants a sign of strength? The Shadow will get a sign of strength as the TRUE residents of Tiacken show OSN the door. Repeatedly. Again and again until all that remains from OSN is a whimper and the whining of broken ships leaving the sector.
Forever.
The liberation is coming.
The editor would again like to express his thank you to Hitman for being substitute editor for next week. Everyone be nice to Hitman and I’ll return refreshed and ready for war on my return!