O 1.8.150 includes:

- Increased rate of Escort mission posting and leaving-without players. This should result in more (and somewhat smaller) convoys in flight, while the average number of Escort missions posted remains roughly the same.
- Masses of all Valkyrie ships increased by 100kg.
- Optimized graphics rendering for all platforms.
- Killing NPCs now properly give faction penalties when appropriate.
- New demo scenes for Android version.
- Volume control on Android version.

FYI, the valk nerf is in regards to this thread. I welcome feedback, but please keep it civil, moderate and constructive.

Also, people should be getting a Newsletter today.

This should be interesting.

I love you (about the newsletter).

Nice!

Now, IMPLEMENT PONIES!!!!

Killing NPCs now properly give faction penalties when appropriate.

Awwww, too bad. But man was that fun while it lasted :D

"Masses of all Valkyrie ships increased by 100kg."

Why waste time on that^

Another GREAT update!

Seems that Guild software shifted 5th gear! Way to go!

Hhmmm... Poney would be a good name for that utility capship proposed, slow as a slug and shaped as a brick... even paint some ponies to its sides :)

Masses of all Valkyrie ships increased by 100kg.

Small, but something!

slow as a slug and shaped as a brick

We already have that, it's called an Azumi.

You are so POSITIVE Alloh!

It's ok... I'm not trolling you. I like it. So much bitching and moaning in forum (and game) these days. (Including from me.)

I am not your mother Lecter. You must have swapped the images in your head somehow.

@incarnate

[[[- Increased rate of Escort mission posting and leaving-without players. This should result in more (and somewhat smaller) convoys in flight, while the average number of Escort missions posted remains roughly the same.]]]

Oh i see that You have implemented one of my suggestions, at least partially. Thanks.

This is not bad, but much more traffic is needed to make the game feel "full" though. Like 10-20 times the traffic it has now is bare minimum.

(From the "fix for the space emptinees" thread)

I've been planning to increase traffic density since like 2003, when we first started experimenting with automated convoys. But there have been tradeoffs and problems with CPU usage on the server, and convoys getting stuck, and excessive use of docking bays and the like.

Anyway, yes, it's still something we're continuing to work towards. I have a specific vision of the amount of traffic density I want.

@incarnate

Suggestion: If You are having such difficulties handling the traffic with CPU, maybe You should try GPU which has hundereds the power of CPU in certain solutions ?

Perhaps use CUDA, or better: OpenCL on ATI/AMD Cards for simultaneous calculations of large number of objects.

Yeah i know that CUDA is great and beautiful, but ATI/AMD Radeons 5xxx and 6xxx have like 300-400% of NVIDIA's processing power for the same price.

(EDIT: Radeon 5970) has total power of 4,8 Tflops, extremely good memory bandwidth PLUS it has the best price per Teraflops. Imagine having 3 or 4 of these cards in a server.... that is just fcukin' too much power.

----
EDIT:
IF You are working on the problem from 2003 with no luck, then i come to simple logical conclusion from a programmer's point of view:

1. The problem cannot be resolved without a heavy rewrite of critical and complex parts of the code. So unless You have already done most of the work, You are pretty much in deep shit.
2. The only other solution apart from code rewrite is increasing the processing power of the servers: use CUDA or OpenCL. Well, actually this will require a lot of programming too, but perhaps much less than code rewrite.

Why was the valk mass increased?! DUMB!

Correction: Of course i meant Radeon 5970 which has 4,8 TFlops. There is no such model as "Radeon 5980".

Yes.. we're well aware of GPU computing. I actually have a 5870 (1/2 of a 5970) in the machine I am using to write this.

And no, we don't need CUDA or OpenCL to do this. We've already done most of the work to optimize for the presence of many ships and the like, back in '08. But "making more ships fly around" has not been the A1 peak priority. My point was simply that this has been in the works for quite some time, and will continue to be tweaked and improved as we get availability from other projects. It's a very old idea, but there are other ramifications that have to be thought through, beyond just "ships flying around", and our time is not unlimited.

But, thanks, it's good that people are enthusiastic about it :).

"Killing NPCs now properly give faction penalties when appropriate.

Awwww, too bad. But man was that fun while it lasted :D"

That's okay doc, now you have a new game to play.

Chase a trader, and when he drops mines, lead the sf into it, killing the seekers and costing him faction points.