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.
Let me throw https://www.fallenlondon.com/ into the ring. It has lots of options to acquire various items and qualities, and depending on our situation, spreadsheets can help a lot figuring out which one is most efficient. It even has the "bone market", an exchange where you can build skeletons from various bone types, and sell it to NPC vendors, some of which have non-linear payout curves. There's an optimizer for t…
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
#162Eve is the greatest game to read about that I have almost no interest in ever playing. I'm glad it exists.
Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, there's no comparison. AI doesn't come close to the breath of Eve. It's cool. It's a good game especially for a solo-dev (very impressive!) but Eve Online has so many avenues to gameplay.
The terror of someone else showing up in a system you thought was empty while you're carrying something super valuable.
Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
" and it’s common knowledge that those tools are better than real world logistics software" I don't know if this is true, but it would tell a lot about this world we are living in.
>I don't know if this is true, but it would tell a lot about this world we are living in. The real world is generally a lot messier than EVE data, but it's definitely true.
EVE released an update today (as it does most Tuesdays, and also often the next day or two in the week if there are issues). Part of that update included significant changes to a number of blueprints, which are the plans needed to manufacture items in game. Blueprints come in two varieties: originals and copies, and you can perform various activities on them (manufacturing, research to improve efficiency, copying of originals to make copies, etc.). I wrote a tool which imports the game's Static Data Export (SDE) and makes various calculations about all of blueprints in the game (profitability, etc.), so I ran it on the SDE from the new update. Each 'activity' has a set of fields, like what it outputs, etc. But, the 'copying' activity is hard-coded to output blueprint copies. There is a field to say what it outputs (and that field is sometimes present in the data), but the value is always empty. Except today it was not always empty. A relatively obscure blueprint for a Taipan (a kind of upgraded rookie ship given away as a one-off in a past special event) apparently had the information for its 'manufacturing' activity listed as 'copying' instead. So now it claims that if you copy an original, you get the actual manufactured ship, and not a blueprint copy. This broke my tool, because I had put in a check to see if this field was ever non-empty, because if it was it might mean the game had changed in a way that meant something in my tool needed to be updated.
If you look at the information for the blueprint in game, it still claims that the copying activity outputs a blueprint copy. They hard-coded it, too. It now takes as input all of the materials required to manufacture the ship, though. In this case, there are no blueprint originals for a Taipan (if there were you could make an infinite supply of these one-off event items), and any copies that might exist can no longer produce the ship, because you cannot copy a copy. The only valid activites for a copy are 'manufacturing' and 'invention', except a Taipan blueprint no longer has a manufacturing activity and never had an invention one. So I updated my check to ignore this type, and moved on. Needless to say, this change was unrelated to any of the actual announced changes for the update, not mentioned in patch notes, etc. Just another Tuesday in EVE.
Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#165Aurora4X (you're welcome). Similar to the idea of EVE ONLINE but much more indepth without the pesky things like graphics. Calling all Hackers: Lets make an open source Aurora4X style came that's played online.
Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#166Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
It's a stressful game, some enjoy the stress. Now that I'm employed, not so much.
Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really wanted to enjoy Satisfactory, but I found that a first-person perspective just plain sucks for factory building. I haven't played it in a long time though, so maybe they've made some improvements? I ended up enjoying Dyson Sphere Program so much more. It's the "Factorio but with a third dimension" that I really wanted.
About 40 hours into my save, I realized I could use the "foundation" blocks as a way to organize the factory since everything snaps to a grid when you place stuff on top of it. There's also a "hoverpack" item in late-game + some folks use fly-mods. I haven't gotten that far, so I end up using lookout towers + foundations to get things neatly arranged.
Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#169What 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.
- Archmage
- Archspace
I think back on those games fondly and haven't found anything that scratched the same itch.
Re: Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
#170What 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.
On the not so extreme level; DPS calculations to decide which item/ability combination is the most efficient in dishing out damage.