Planetarion

Final Week of Round 26

Fri, 09 May 2008 20:08:29 +0000

Final week is here and as announced vacation mode has been disabled and most free limitations have been lifted. The planets that has requested it have been put back into vacation. We would also like to remind ppl to send in their suggestions for next rounds name. So far we've only had two suggested names, not counting the +1000 spam emails, so please send in your suggestions to roundname@planetarion.com. Sadly we seem to have been experiencing some DNS issues today due to an unscheduled downtime at Jolt, for this we apologise. The issues were short lived, the first one lasting less than 30 minutes in the middle of a tick, the second lasting only a couple of minutes. None of those give any reason for a rollback though it is unfortunate if people have lost ships/roids as a result of this, however due to the short lived nature of the issues we won't be refunding any such losses. Again, we apologise for this having happened and any unfortunate impacts this has caused.

The end is near

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:29:30 +0000

We're approaching that time again, and as usual we're removing vacation mode and disabling the free limits the last week of the round starting on Friday the 9th May. Anyone wishing to enter or stay in vacation mode after that should mail me at cin@planetarion.com explaining why they need to stay or be put into vacation. As a note, the higher ranked you are the better your reason have to be, this is to avoid high ranked planets to "hide" and trying to preserve their rank. With the end of one round, a new one is just around the corner and it's going to need a name. If you have suitable suggestions for round name please mail them to us at roundname@planetarion.com. On a final note, with the recent happenings regarding login details to alliances sites floating around, we advice ppl to change their passwords and not use the same login details on several places. Though the login details has not come from us, it's still good practice to not use the same username/password for several places.

And we're off

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:44:41 +0000

Easter is safely out of the way and hopefully you are all well rested for another 7 weeks of little sleep. Besides the minor signup glitch in the first ticks the round is progressing nicely and as always there will be a shuffle at tick 36. You can join or create a buddypack up to then, but after that the only option to play end up in a friends galaxy is to sign up after tick 336 and take advantage of the late signups feature. It's probably spread around in the community already, but to limit on 60 working finance centres is no longer in effect. The truth is, it hasn't been for several rounds, this is mainly to a glitch in the resource updating in the ticker which we were unaware of. So instead of fixing this we thought leaving it would provide a new "tactical" option in terms of what constructions to build. Best of luck to all of you, have a great round, and may the best planet/galaxy/alliance win, kinda obvious that one.

Round 26 Update

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:32:19 +0000

We would like to announce a couple of updates to Round 26. As previously announced, the alliance limit this round is 75. However, it has been decided that only the top 60 members will count towards the alliance total score. Another change since our previous announcement is that there is now no maximum limit of finance centres that have an effect on your income. We'd like to invite you all to vote on next round's name HERE Finally, we'd like to remind you all that we have an ongoing speedgame based on Round 25 code at http://speedgame.planetarion.com and a public beta at http://beta.planetarion.com.

Round 26

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:13:59 +0000

Round 26 We would like to announce the following changes for Round 26: Buddy Packs will be reduced from 5 to 4 players. Galaxies will consist of 1 buddy pack of 4 or 3, or two packs of 2. However, 2 new signups can be invited to join the galaxy at tick 336, instead of 1 as in Round 25. Alliance limits will be increased to 75 and the support planet rule will be in effect. The major change this round regards the in-game alliance defence system. It is now possible to report an incoming on overview or gal status by clicking a link beside the incoming to report it. It will then automatically get added to the in-game alliance page. The in-game alliance defence page has been improved to automatically detect the latest scans of the hostile planets (similar to the alliance attack page), and to also auto-detect the (pre)launched fleets at the same ETA as the incoming hostile fleet. It's possible to change the status to one of a variety, and there's a notes section. We are going to have a Creators Hour in #planetarion on Netgamers on Wednesday, 12th March at 20:00 GMT, where we can answer questions about the coming round. We'd like to remind you all that we have an ongoing speedgame at http://speedgame.planetarion.com for the rest of this week, and for all of next week, in some form. Signups for Round 26 will open on Friday, 21st March at 20:00 GMT with the round starting Friday, 28th March at 20:00 GMT Suggestions for roundnames can be sent as a forum pm to Appocomaster or Cincinnatus

End of Round 25

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:59:34 +0000

Round 25 will end, as announced, at 20:00 GMT on Friday 29th February. On Friday 22th February we will remove free limitations and vacation mode. If you wish to enter vacation mode or remain in vacation mode after 20:00 GMT on 22th February, please let us know as far in advanced as possible - contact us with a support ticket or PA Mail 1:1:4 so that we can make a note of it. End of Round Ceremony The End of Round Ceremony (EoRC) will be conducted in #planetarion at 21:00 GMT on Friday 29th February on the NetGamers IRC network and consist of interviews with the winning players, galaxy and alliance of Round 25. After the End of Round Ceremony, the game will be 'havoced'. This consists of donating resources, asteroids and constructions to all members of the universe. Havoc Havoc will consist of everyone gaining the following: - All technologies completed - 300 million resources (spread over metal, crystal and eonium according to your planet's race) - 2000 asteroids (spread over metal, crystal and eonium according to your planet's race) - 20 of each factory, 30 wave amplifiers, 35 security centres and 30 finance centres ADDED to their respective planet Fleets will be recalled, but not deleted. XP will NOT be reset. The maximum construction limit will be set to 500 constructions, and asteroid mining limits will also be increased. Havoc will be running 15 min ticks until (at least) Friday 7th March.

New Speedgame Starting Friday

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:40:29 +0000

A new speedgame round starts Friday 8th at 20:00 GMT and will run until 20:00 GMT on Sunday. It will then be reset and a new round starts on Monday at 20:00 GMT and runs until 20:00 GMT on Thursday. 4 member private galaxies are available with a player creating the galaxy, with the joining code available on the preferences page. The other members may join the galaxy by entering the code on their preferences page once signed up. The random galaxies will be around as normal and there will be plenty of bot fodder too. Feel free to join the #speedgame irc channel on irc.netgamers.org to join in the fun!

Speedgame

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:33:39 +0000

We'd like to announce that we have a FREE private-galaxy Speedgame setup with 8 man private galaxies (or bigger random galaxies) now open. Signups are at http://speedgame.planetarion.com/signup.pl, with Ticks starting at 12:00 GMT today (Sunday) for everyone to get back into practice, and then tomorrow evening at 17:00 GMT we'll reset, with ticks starting at 20:00 GMT and running, with havocs, throughout the week. Tick speed will be 1 minute, with stats and the rest of the game settings based on Round 24. There will, however, be no in-game alliances.

Round 25 & Creators Hour

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:08:43 +0000

Happy New Year to you all! We have a couple of announcements that we'd like to make. Firstly, the previously announced alliance limit of 70 has been dropped to 60 this round. Secondly, stats have been finalised (pending minor last minute amendments). The stats are available from here. An analysis of the stats is available from here. Finally, we'd like to remind everyone that we have a creators hour on Wednesday, 2nd January at 19:00 GMT in #planetarion. To ask a question please /msg CH_Bot <your question>.

Round 24 Havoc and Round 25

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:22:32 +0000

Round 24 has now ended, with havoc to commence at 10:00 GMT on Saturday 22nd December. Havoc continue until (at least) Sunday, 30th December, as previously announced. The round ended with the following top planets, galaxy and alliance: Top Planets: #1 LukeyLove of TGV (5:4:2) #2 Caj of CT (5:4:6) #3 jerome` of (CT 2:2:8) Top Galaxy: 5:4: #1 | 1ka, of Urwins #2 | LukeyLove of TGV #3 | Kentaminated of xVx #4 | arc of Conspiracy #5 | The Seal of NewDawn #6 | Caj of Conspiracy #7 | rasputin of Vengeance #8 | IsilX of Urwins #9 | Tearz of eXcessum #10 | Dauphin of Mercenaries #11 | Sandman of ROCK #12 | Tesla of Ministry #13 | nin4th of eXcessum Top Alliance & Allcomp winner: NewDawn Round 25 We'd like to remind you that signups for Round 25 open on Friday, 4th January. We can confirm that the XP formula, buddy pack setup and alliance limits will remain fixed. The Round 25 stats will be based somewhat on Round 24's stats. We're pleased to announce some of Round 25's features and a long-awaited bug fix. Firstly, we will be seeing a return of Quests, with (at least) a general introductory quest similar to one many rounds previous being put back in place. However, the system is much more flexible and will be able to support the creation and modification of a broad range of quests in the future. Watch this space for quest competitions! Secondly, we'd like to announce the trial next year to give the ability to invite a player into your galaxy after tick 336. This is to encourage players to get a friend to join your galaxy who's starting late or new to the game. This will be limited to one at first to see how often it is used and to stop private galaxies forming mid-round. Finally, we'd like to say that asteroid capture in combat is finally user id-independent, as has been long desired. In conclusion, we'd like to remind everyone that we'll have a speedgame on-going for most of Christmas - and indeed at some point after Christmas it'll be upgraded to Round 24 code, and then continue throughout Round 25. It will, as always, be located at http://speedgame.planetarion.com. We're also going to be running a Creators Hour on January 2nd in #planetarion at 19:00 GMT, to discuss issues arising before signups open. If you wish to ask the PA Team a question, please /msg CH_Bot <your question> on the NetGamers IRC network. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our Players :-) PA Team

End of Round 24 and Round 25

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 07:57:18 +0000

Round 24 will end, as announced, at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 21st of December. As is traditional, on Friday 14th December we will be removing free limitations and vacation mode. If you wish to enter vacation mode or remain in vacation mode after 20:00 GMT on 14th December, please let us know as far in advanced as possible - please contact us with a support ticket or PA Mail 1:1:1 so that we can make a note of it. End of Round Ceremony The End of Round Ceremony (EoRC) will be conducted in #planetarion at 21:00 GMT on Friday, 21st of December. As always, it will be hosted on the NetGamers IRC network and consist of interviews with the winning players, galaxy and alliance of Round 24. After the End of Round Ceremony, the game will be 'havoced'. This consists of donating resources, asteroids and constructions to all members of the universe. Havoc Havoc will consist of everyone gaining the following: - All technologies completed - 300 million resources (spread over metal, crystal and eonium according to your planet's race) - 2000 asteroids (spread over metal, crystal and eonium according to your planet's race) - 20 of each factory, 30 wave amplifiers, 35 security centres and 30 finance centres ADDED to their respective planet Fleets will be recalled, but not deleted. XP will NOT be reset. The maximum construction limit will be set to 500 constructions, and asteroid mining limits will also be increased. Havoc will continue until (at least) Sunday, 30th December. Round 25 Signups for Round 25 will open at 19:00 GMT on Friday January 4th, 2008, with ticks starting on Friday 11th January at 20:00 GMT. If you think you have a name that might be suitable as the round name for Round 25, please e-mail roundname@planetarion.com with it by Wednesday, 19th December. Speedgame Round 24 code will continue in private galaxy speedgame style from Monday, 24th December at 12:00 GMT, with signups opening on Sunday 23rd December at 12:00 GMT. This will initially consist of 10 man private galaxies against 20 man random galaxies, and will consist of 1 minute ticks. The game will continue during Round 25 with resets approximately once a week and two or three havocs per 'round'. Beta Testing The Round 25 beta testing will be predominantly private until Thursday, 3rd of January, which is the estimated time of public beta testing. Ticks for the public beta testing will start on Friday, 4th of January at approximately 12:00 GMT. Creators Hour We are also scheduling a Creators Hour for Wednesday, 2nd January in #planetarion at 19:00 GMT. More information will be available on this nearer the time.

Changes to the Forums

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:20:41 +0000

The forums rules have been revised to make them both clearer and more applicable to the current usage of the forums. We hope this will be a start towards making the forums a more friendly environment. The new rules can be read here. The old rules can be viewed until the end of this year here. From the end of this year users will be able to see the comments people made when giving reputation. This is to try to make people use the reputation system for the correct purpose: giving feedback to people on the quality of their posts. This will also make historical comments given visible, which is why there is a delay before this is implemented. We have made some behind the scenes changes to how some aspects of the forums work - these have no impact on users but should increase reliability. In the new year more work will go into improving the stability of the forums. In the final bit of news Furball has been made the official forums deputy. If you have a forums issue that you feel a moderator has not dealt with properly please contact either myself or Furball. Kal

Round 24 Signups opened!

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:04:24 +0000

Round 24 - "Shattered Stars" signups are now open at http://game.planetarion.com/signup.pl. Ticks commence at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 2nd November, with the "shuffle" occurring at 7:00 GMT on Sunday, 4th November. Ticks end at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 21st December. There are a few main changes this round: The XP formula changed: XP gained = roids*10*bravery_factory bravery_factor = (min(2, target_planet_value / your_value) - 0.1)*(min(2, target_planet_score / your_score) - 0.2) Ships have up to 3 targets, 100%,60% and 30% damage to their first, second and third targets respectively. It is not necessary for the first target to be present for the second or third ships to be hit. Democracy has been tweaked down, with the mining bonus dropping from 6% to 4% and the construction bonus dropping from 20% to 10%. Salvage is changed, with all defensive salvage going to the fleet that lost the ships, rather than being shared out according to value. Attacking ship losses are still shared out according to value. Salvage is also increased by 50%*(1 - your_score / (average_top_20_planet_score)) - it cannot be negative. Please remember that Beta signups open tomorrow at 12:00 GMT, with ticks starting at 18:00 GMT, and that there's a speedgame ongoing at http://speedgame.planetarion.com, with Round 23 code but with private galaxies of 5 (and random galaxies) instead of alliances. Also, we have a Creators Hour in #Planetarion at 20:00 GMT on Monday, 29th October. It will be on the NetGamers IRC chat network. If you wish to ask a question before or during the hour, please /msg CH_Bot <your question>!

Round 24 Signups

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:07:55 +0000

Round 24 signups open at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 26th October. The buddy pack setup will be staying the same, as will the alliance limit. The formula for gaining XP when a fleet captures asteroids is as follows: XP gained = roids*10*bravery_factory bravery_factor = (min(2,target_planet_value/your_value) - 0.1)*(min(2,target_planet_score/your_score) - 0.2) Combat will undergo some changes. Each ship now supports up to 3 targets. The ship will fire at their first target class first. After all the possible targets have been killed, any ships that have not fired will fire at their second target (if one is there) with 60% efficiency. If all of these ships are killed, then the remaining firing ships fire at their third target (if there is one) with 30% efficiency. Some changes will also be made to salvage: Salvage will be allocated by defending fleet losses, not defending fleet total score. Smaller planets (by score) will also gain up to 50% more salvage. More details will be available when Round 24 signups open on Friday. A beta version of stats next round will be available on Wednesday. Beta Beta signups will take place on Saturday 27th October at 12:00 GMT, with ticks starting at 20:00 GMT. Speedgame The speedgame has been ongoing all round but will be reset on Wednesday evening, with signups starting on Thursday morning and ticks starting at 18:00 GMT on Thursday. Creators Hour We will have a CH on Monday, 29th October at 20:00 GMT. This will be in #planetarion on the NetGamers IRC chat network. To ask questions for the CH, please /msg CH_Bot your question before or during the Creators Hour.

PATeam, Portal and Game Update

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:33:30 +0000

We are pleased to announce that Aryn has rejoined PATeam. She will be getting involved with various parts of the game including community aspects and the game manual. In other news: - Kal is now acting as forums admin and hopes that the forums will improve from a community point of view over the coming months. - Wakey will be acting as forums deputy (in a non-PATeam capacity) in the short term. - Lunar_Lamp is now acting as Head of Support and he hopes to improve the level of support we offer over the coming round. We are also happy to have the updated portal, even if the passport facilities are not quite functional yet. Finally, we'd like to remind you that ticks start at 20:00 GMT this evening, with the shuffle occurring at 7:00 GMT on Sunday, 2nd September. It's not to late to sign up, to pay or even to make a buddy pack to play with your friends!

Round 23

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:25:22 +0000

Signups for Round 23 - Echoes of the Past, a paid round, are currently open on our game server. The game starts ticking at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 31st August, for 7 weeks. The XP and buddy pack setup has not changed from Round 22. Alliance limits are set to 70. Major changes from last round include: -New forum system -Cluster traveltimes have been increased by 1 on both attack and defense traveltimes, but to compensate for this the -4 hypergate traveltime has been introduced. -Analysis of ship targeting for individual planets, for all planets in the galaxies (for the MoW) and for alliances (for alliance HCs). -MoWs can scan whole galaxies at once -Time waiting between alliances has been changed to 48 ticks -Structure killers now kill a maximum of 10% of a planet's structures (increased from 5% last round) -Signup and upgrade resource bonuses are increased: Tick 0-72: 5000 of each resource and an additional 5000 of each resource when you upgrade. After tick 72: 5000+2000*tick of each resource and an additional 5000+1000*tick of each resource when you upgrade. Also, to reiterate a change made last round, astropods that are EMPed, stolen or killed can no longer capture asteroids (as has been the case at points in the past). A complete list of changes is listed in our manual changelog. We also have updated and clarified the Multihunting rules, with a thread on the topic located on this forum thread. In other news, The Round 23 preview is currently occurring at http://beta.planetarion.com, and we have a speedgame on Round 22 code at http://speedgame.planetarion.com. We hope you join us, either as a free or upgraded account, in Round 23. The PATeam

Round 22 signups are open!

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 21:15:42 +0000

Round 22: Shards of Infinity has just opened its signups. This round is a FREE round. Ticks will start on Friday, 22nd June at 20:00 GMT, and finish on Friday, August 10th at 20:00 GMT. The ticks (turns) will be 1 hour in duration. A list of the major changes can be found here (some of which were mentioned on this portal article): -Research, Construction and Production have been recoded. They use "units", and they act in "real time", so the time it takes to research / construct / produce changes depending on population settings and so on. -Alliance scanners can scan (up to) a whole galaxy at once -Layout/skin changes -Galaxy banner not stretched -Notes on "scan" and "news" tags added -Galaxy fund log now includes selfexile 'donations' -Overview race key fixed (only shows up when you have ships not yours, and then it only shows the colours of the races you have stolen). -Character counter added to mails -Smilies have been updated -Multiple mails can be deleted at once on the mail page -Able to toggle galaxy mates scanning through your distorters -Option to send a "welcome message" to new galaxy members when they join the galaxy -When sending a mail to all alliance members, it only saves one copy of the mail. -25,000,000 resources in any 200 tick period is the maximum donation limit to a planet in galaxy -Donations in galaxy are done via score not value -Covert ops are improved in terms of damage. -Covert ops page modified slightly too to display more information. -Government bonuses have been completely altered to make them more balanced. -Auto exile to Cluster 200 of all planets that are set as "unwanted" by the galaxy ministers will be after 144 ticks (this drops to 72 ticks when the planet has less than 40 roids). -The shuffler will remove all planets more than 24 hours old that have not got at least 30 asteroids into Cluster 200. This happens at tick 36, as always. Ship stats are not final, but undergoing final tweaks such as EMP resistance changes. The speedgame is still being run at http://speedgame.planetarion.com. It will continue running until almost tick start. We will also be opening a public preview of Round 22 within the next 48 hours.

Speedgame Update

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:11:02 +0000

Just to keep everyone up to date on the speedgame situation: The speedgame (#3) is still running at 1 minute ticks and is about to be given a second 'havoc' donation of resources. It will be reset tomorrow morning at 7:00 GMT, and restarted at 9:00 GMT. There will be at least one more speedgame after this before the official end in approximately a week's time. Feel free to join in at any time - new signups get signup bonuses equivalent to havoc donations. Signups are, as always, at http://speedgame.planetarion.com/signup.pl. Please note that after tick 36 in-game and after tick 100 when signing up, you can't join a private galaxy.

Speedgame and Round Name competition updates

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:06:43 +0000

Saturday evening and most of Sunday were spent playing the "Capture the Flag" speedgame. We apologise for the technical issues during the game, especially at the beginning. We last night started a more normal speedgame, with 1 minute ticks and private galaxies. This will receive havoc donations at 18:00 GMT and continue throughout the night and into tomorrow. The havoc donations will consist of giving everyone a complete research tree, 300 million resources total, 1500 asteroids total and a fairly "standard" setup of 10 of each factory, 20 wave amplifiers, 10 of each refinery, 20 security centres, 20 finance centres and 0 wave distorters and research labratories. We'd also like to bring to your attention the shortlist for the Round 22 name has been released for voting. You can vote on this forum thread to vote for your favourite name.

Speedgame Information

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:33:38 +0000

We're pleased to announce that signups for the speedgame will open at 9:00 GMT on Saturday, 9th June (tomorrow morning) at http://speedgame.planetarion.com/signup.pl. The code and stats will be identical to Round 21, with alliances disabled. Galaxies will be either private galaxies or random galaxies. Private galaxies will have up to 8 people in them while random galaxies will have up to 15 people. The first round of the speedgames will be in the form of "Capture the Flag", with ticks starting on Saturday at 20:00 GMT for 24 hours. Ticks will be 1 minute in duration. At tick 72, a "Capture the Flag" asteroid will be placed in each galaxy.The idea is to capture as many flags as possible and keep them in your galaxy, whilst protecting your own. The calculation for points is 5*score_of_holding_planet/1000 for your asteroid in your galaxy, and 1*score_of_holding_planet for another galaxy's asteroid in your galaxy. There are no points for keeping an asteroid and then losing it at the last minute. If the majority of the active players wish to continue, we will extend (and possibly havoc - i.e. donate lots of resources) the speedgame. After this, the CTF asteroids will be removed, and the game reset, with those planets in c200 being removed. There will then be a brief downtime of 12-24 hours, during which players can create and join private galaxies or join bigger random galaxies. The speedgame will then recommence (Monday or Tuesday evening) and continue at 2 minute ticks until the weekend. During this time, more information will be made about future speedgames, which will depend partially upon the feedback given by speedgame users. The official channel for the speedgame is #speedgame, on irc.netgamers.org. PA Team