Randomized movement cycle

[Marian]

I think it's just lag...which is horrible at the moment, and the entire game keeps going down, too

[Chris Johnson]

I think it's just lag...which is horrible at the moment, and the entire game keeps going down, too

That's correct - the lag (and the fact that it's horrible) . This can causes a slippage in timings - No random element has been introduced ... not that we know exactly what the cause of the lag is...

[Seeker]

I like this idea, I've lost characters before because of people knowing exactly when to log on and when not to, I don't have a set time for when I play cantr due to school and studying.

[N-Aldwitch]

I think it's just lag...which is horrible at the moment, and the entire game keeps going down, too

That's correct - the lag (and the fact that it's horrible) . This can causes a slippage in timings - No random element has been introduced ... not that we know exactly what the cause of the lag is...

Well if you don't know, could it be your host? There aren't easy ways to determine that, at least- I cannot. Perhaps you can!
But it could be a shared host, which means (well... you know the answer, this is for others), that other companies using the service provided, share the throttled internet speed. (is it throttled?)

[Jos Elkink]

But it could be a shared host, which means (well... you know the answer, this is for others), that other companies using the service provided, share the throttled internet speed. (is it throttled?)

Cantr has a dedicated server ...

[Doug R.]

The lag is worst from about 12noon EST to 5pm EST. Playing at night or in the morning is still fast.

[N-Aldwitch]

But it could be a shared host, which means (well... you know the answer, this is for others), that other companies using the service provided, share the throttled internet speed. (is it throttled?)

Cantr has a dedicated server ...

Ah, dedicated, right, sorry lol.

I should have figured that myself...

[Mafia Salad]

I’ve played Cantr both while I was in school and had a lot of OOC obligations to meet, and now over the summer break were I can log on whenever. So I now have experience in different ways of playing Cantr, and the turn system is a lot of help for people who don’t have freedom to log on whenever they want to. I’d really hate to see any major changes to it because all the suggested changes will benefit the people who have a free schedule to log on.

I think that making all events that are instant (undocking and dragging most importantly) take time would be a good way to balance it out without spiting slow game players. And it still leaves the option of planned surprise attacks and drags that create interesting events stories and role play that wouldn’t happen otherwise. Plus people could know when to be awake to counter these things. Although most of the surprise drags result in a quick death these days that’s because of a lack of creativity of the players parts.

Making it possible to work against projects, including dragging and undocking (as a project that requires x man-hours of work depending on the size of the ship) would open up a lot of freedom for the players to decide what is best instead of the wiki telling them what is. I think the game mechanics and open information have level the playing field too much so people are resorting to turn click sniping and instant events to get the upper hand.

[N-Aldwitch]

You've made some very good points and raised some very good ideas in that, and I'm inclined to agree with most if not all of it!

[Chris Johnson]

Several recent posts have been made about this suggestion in the following thread

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 766#171766

In answer to a lot of them, who express the less concern about randomised finishing being added to travel than to projects, Project timing is the key area where this should be implemented. The list of potential (and real) abuses were primarily based on exploiting project timings not travel.

As tiddyogg says you just need to log on 30 minutes later instead and be assured your project has processed. If it's finished and you need to set up another one - you loose no processing time - If you set up the new project before the next processing tick then you still get a full Cantr's hour of processing - Admittedly to be safe you only have 3 rl hours minus the maximum delay to ensure you set up before the next project - but thats the only drawback of this proposal

[Mafia Salad]

I’d like to take this from another angle now. When widespread problems arise in the game it seems like the programming department works to get rid of the problems instead of providing the freedom to the characters to solve the problems themselves. How about instead of stopping hit and run pirate attacks or similar abuses of the turn system, provide a way to counter them in game. If characters don’t have physical advantages over each other, then Cantr continues to become more monotonous as fewer options are left open for players to do.

In this case, just get rid of instant events. That would lets players get online for a few minutes to get what they want done, it doesn’t get rid of any strategies that work now, and gives time for the other players to get online and react. The problems of the turn system are solved, and the convenience of it is not lost.

P.S. I don’t have any pirate characters and have been hit by several hit and runs, so I don’t have any characters loosing an advantage because of a turn system change. It just makes sense to me to let characters solve character problems.

[Hellzon]

While getting rid of instant actions is a decent idea (Pretty much only moving, attacking and dragging, right? Not picking up stuff or using it on projects?) it would make unloading vehicles an unbelievable pain in the arse, if I understand it right.

[AngelSpice]

While getting rid of instant actions is a decent idea (Pretty much only moving, attacking and dragging, right? Not picking up stuff or using it on projects?) it would make unloading vehicles an unbelievable pain in the arse, if I understand it right.

I don't want to spend 3 days loading or unloading a car or trying to coordinate handing stuff to an awake friend to unload the car or load it.

If that's the case, then I definitely vote NO!!!!!!!!

[Marian]

Just make undocking take one hour. With that and the randomized project times they're probably going ot add, pirates wouldn't be impossible to stop, but they'd still have a good chance if they planned right.

Either that or just make it easier for a boat to dock to another boat. How does it work right now? You can't dock at all if it's moving? I think you should be able to dock to anything that's moving slower than you, (unless you can already, and in that case just ignore this).

Also all the little boats should be able to dock to each other.

[Mafia Salad]

I’d say moving through doors and picking up/dropping/passing stuff should remain instant, but moving a car, a boat, or another person should take some time. I don’t know if it would be better to put a delay for leaving town on a road would be a good idea, but it might be. It would be easier to say that last word as someone leaves town.

Maybe this needs its own suggestion thread, but I think it has several already.