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Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

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Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#131

Post by massysett »

bentcorner wrote: post #86
Taek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For cookie clicker and factorio the math was simple enough that you could mostly do it in your head, plus each of them had wikis that spelled out all the answers. I think you only really need a spreadsheet if the numbers are dynamic and continuously changing depending on your situation.

In Factorio I just let things buffer on belts and eyeballed things as I went along. The hard part was designing things such that I could arbitrarily scale out builders/belts as needs changed. Satisfactory requires you to be slightly more intentional with ratios but (at least when I played) I came up with some balancing belt designs that let me get away with not needing to be super accurate with matching input/outputs…

I always used Helmod (a Factorio mod) to plan my factory. I though using a spreadsheet would be too hard. But by the time I figured out Helmod I probably could have just used a spreadsheet.

But at least with Helmod it’s still in the game UI. Using a spreadsheet seems too much like work.

Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#134

Post by fbcpck »

martincmartin wrote: post #52

What are some other games where spreadsheets help? I'll start: - Kerbal Space Program. Figuring out the sizes of different stages, how many solid boosters to add, etc. - Factorio. Ratios of different factories, mostly for creating science packs. - Cookie Clicker. Figuring out what to buy to get the best marginal cookies per dollar.

Any games that have competitive, collaborative multiplayer aspect I think!

Especially Google Spreadsheets; perhaps not math/computation-heavy like EVE, but it's one of the best tools to organize data in a collaborative manner online.

An example: Inventory management/dashboard of a clan of 30 members: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tpbLmB4Fha_0TpMd4h3d...

I also see it (ab)used frequently as a mediawiki/online text-editor alternative, barely using any spreadsheet mathematical formulas, using it simply as a place to write text for others to read, e.g.: this gigantic reference spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JjK7Ws4gfzKChRs5ueox...

Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#135

Post by pjc50 »

user_7832 wrote: post #128
pjc50 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything stat-heavy. Genshin Optimizer: https://frzyc.github.io/genshin-optimizer/ for example; the game has no data export at all, so there's an OCR program you can run that screenshots your inventory for analysis.

Slightly tangential but do you still play Genshin Impact? I used to play for a while before I realized how terrible it was for my mental health and fortunately stopped.

I do .. lightly, and without spending money on it. It's a nice world to wonder around in. But I can see how people might fall down the gatcha hole.

Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#136

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

sitzkrieg wrote: post #129
AlwaysRock wrote: post #110

Eve is the greatest game to read about that I have almost no interest in ever playing. I'm glad it exists.

honestly as someone who played it for about 6 years at the peak fun time to play it, its a lot more fun to read about than actually play

I love the idea of the game. I love the mechanics of it, such as permanent loss of your ship. It means there's always a demand for crafting. I also really like the hands-off approach the devs/admins/etc take to what happens in game.

But...the gameplay is just boring as hell. This video sums it up: https://youtu.be/4c6jafaiPh8?t=65

Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#137

Post by Isthatablackgsd »

malfist wrote: post #80
blamazon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Satisfactory is like 3D Factorio.

Did they ever improve the belt system? I played it in early access and it was a chore to get belts to tile reasonably and be able to manifold off of them to feed more than one factory

Coffee Stain (Satisfactory Dev) made improvement with the games. They are on Update #5 now and soon will be releasing Update #6. Try it out now to see if they fix it.

Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#138

Post by jabroni_salad »

Shadonototra wrote: post #91

i'm probably missing something, but exporting a CSV would have been better choice than a proprietary format that locks users into a proprietary tool to me it sounds like microsoft is colluding with game developers to lock in users more than to help users

You can already do that. You can even just copy+paste tables out of the game to dump into a website or textfile if you want (which is how a lot of stuff works currently).

They also have APIs for a lot of stuff.

I used to use a program called pirates little helper that would monitor your clipboard for when you did a ctrl+a ctrl+c in your current chatroom's userlist and it would query those character's recent deaths to see who was likely to be a high value target.

Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#139

Post by antihero »

sitzkrieg wrote: post #129
AlwaysRock wrote: post #110

Eve is the greatest game to read about that I have almost no interest in ever playing. I'm glad it exists.

honestly as someone who played it for about 6 years at the peak fun time to play it, its a lot more fun to read about than actually play

Honestly for me it was the emergent meta gaming that made it for me. Sitting on a gate at 4AM with someone (tolon) playing guitar over TeamSpeak and getting drunk af and despite having sixth form the next day.

Sneaking into another halls at uni to cover a BoB guy’s door with bees I’d cut out and printed (we became friends over this!)

Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

#140

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

bentcorner wrote: post #86
Taek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For cookie clicker and factorio the math was simple enough that you could mostly do it in your head, plus each of them had wikis that spelled out all the answers. I think you only really need a spreadsheet if the numbers are dynamic and continuously changing depending on your situation.

In Factorio I just let things buffer on belts and eyeballed things as I went along. The hard part was designing things such that I could arbitrarily scale out builders/belts as needs changed. Satisfactory requires you to be slightly more intentional with ratios but (at least when I played) I came up with some balancing belt designs that let me get away with not needing to be super accurate with matching input/outputs…

> In Factorio I just let things buffer on belts and eyeballed things as I went along.

Same. I'm surprised how many people talk about spreadsheets with Factorio.

I cover a resource patch with miners, then keep building smelters until I end up with an idle one at the end of the line. When I discovered a new item I'd need to produce, I'd just built a small line of assemblers and see what my output looked like, and go back to fix any supply constraints.

Was it optimal? Almost certainly not. But I definitely enjoyed not playing it as a spreadsheet.

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