The Energon Pub

So, Glyph, Burn and myself have been given access to the panel behind the scenes again.
This is good.
Kinda.

Before we get too into detail, I need to temper your expectations. Glyph has poked and prodded all the things, and is currently working his way through the minutiae of what we can and can't currently do, but we are still extremely limited as to what we can play around with, and most of it is cosmetic.

What we do want to do though, is be as transparent with you all as we can.

We would all love to see some meaningful change to enhance our game but lets be realistic, we're almost exactly where we were 10 years ago. We still cant put anything on the faction bulletin boards for example. Maybe some of this will change, maybe it wont, but as always we are cautiously optimistic.

This is the stuff we can currently do (this list is incomplete, and ill fill it as we go...)

• We can mess around with alts, add/remove them, and create new classes, but we still cant create any new tactics.
• We can tweak mission frequency and potentially pay-outs, but currently can't alter the actual missions themselves.
• We can do tons of stuff with weapons apart from add/remove them from players own teams.
• We can restocks armour, but can't make any other alterations to it.

So, where does that leave us?
While Glyph makes his wish list of stuff he needs, I'm going to get back to doing what I enjoy the most, and that's engaging you lot while we plan some events, tourneys and whatever we can do to make this place more interesting than a Steve2275 post.

So, on the subject of transparency, this is you opportunity to ask us any questions you may have about what we can do, what we can't do, and what we hope to do.

What do you want to know?

Is faction swapping possible?

I really don't think there's much point in me being a Bot anymore.
Then again, not much point in me being a Con either...

With Glyph back we can eventually get that Mercenary faction working, right? ... right?

Need to nip this one in the bud and say that I can't add anything to the game - I only have the same control panel access that Burn and Psychout have, no ability to edit the actual code.

I'll echo what Psychout said above: our abilities are still very limited, but I'm cautiously optimistic that at least some progress will get made with what the control panel can do.

To answer the question though: yes, we can do faction changes if anyone's been dying to swap. I don't want to make it a regular thing on the forum, but am certainly open to switching some volunteers around to balance the forces a bit. Autobots & Decepticons only; no other factions are currently supported.

We're also able to make certain altmodes available for a bit (if you've already been bitten by the Armor Bug and can safely reset) so if anyone has a treasured alt that they haven't been able to get for years... drop a comment below.

Would it be possible to lower the frequency of the mission "Arise, Chosen of Primus"? It's not been worthwhile for anyone for a very long time now.

I mean, it's worth it if you're a low-level player who tends to be on when the big bots are asleep...

I'll take a look at the missions panel and see what options we have. A few people have mentioned that one so it may be worth tweaking if possible.

I can't even find "Arise, Chosen of Primus" in the list of active (116) or non-active (42).

Testing missions atm - I suspect the panel is only partially working at this point (I tweaked the Boltax mission and... haven't seen it generate since?) and don't want to break anything valuable until I'm sure of it.

BTW Burn - the panel shows the non-faction name of the mission, the one you'd see if you're not logged in. "Arise, Chosen of Primus" is the Autobot title for "One Bot. Alone." (Decepticon title is "Who does this Bot think they are?") - the parallel mission is "End Game" ("Autobots. Assemble" / "I. Am. Inevitable.")

I’d just be happy with the equip amour back up but as said that’s beyond your access

But good to hear that you have some access

It's on the priority list to flag for Ryan, but as you said, there's no ETA on it yet sadly.

Silver Wind wrote:Would it be possible to lower the frequency of the mission "Arise, Chosen of Primus"? It's not been worthwhile for anyone for a very long time now.

After doing some testing, I've reduced the weighting of the two 1v20 missions so they should hopefully appear less frequently. I've also reduced the lead time from 60 min to 30 min as there just aren't enough low-level players to fill it, so it shouldn't be quite so painful if you get stuck in one.

Thanks!

Glyph wrote:

Silver Wind wrote:Would it be possible to lower the frequency of the mission "Arise, Chosen of Primus"? It's not been worthwhile for anyone for a very long time now.

After doing some testing, I've reduced the weighting of the two 1v20 missions so they should hopefully appear less frequently. I've also reduced the lead time from 60 min to 30 min as there just aren't enough low-level players to fill it, so it shouldn't be quite so painful if you get stuck in one.

sweet now about custom colors

steve2275 wrote:

Glyph wrote:

Silver Wind wrote:Would it be possible to lower the frequency of the mission "Arise, Chosen of Primus"? It's not been worthwhile for anyone for a very long time now.

After doing some testing, I've reduced the weighting of the two 1v20 missions so they should hopefully appear less frequently. I've also reduced the lead time from 60 min to 30 min as there just aren't enough low-level players to fill it, so it shouldn't be quite so painful if you get stuck in one.

sweet now about custom colors

Unfortunately that is still beyond us Its definitely on the list though.

What with missions being borked and the arena seeing participation for a change, I've noticed how my energon currency is steadily decreasing (don't worry, still a multi-millionaire). Does the dashboard have any control over arena payout or even the arena itself?

None at all, I'm afraid - I believe everything about the arena is still handled directly in code.

I haven't used the arena since getting back on the site - it used to be that the arena gave higher Energon payouts while missions gave more XP, IIRC. Is that no longer the case? (Of course, the lack of mission win bonuses and more scoring opportunities with multiple opponents would also factor into this)

Arena winner gets +25xp and +50 energon.

So far less than what missions give these days. Base level missions used to be 50 xp 25 energon i think.

Anyway the energon bonus is low compared to the automatic cr chamber fee so result is net negative cash flow.

It's generally negative even with manual CR, which is what I'm set to. Ah, well.

I haven't had any issues with auto cr in the arena just getting cons to cr and my fellow bots ahead of me

sprockitz wrote:Arena winner gets +25xp and +50 energon. .... Base level missions used to be 50 xp 25 energon i think.

Ah yeah, that was it - ta. Wow, I forgot how low those original rewards used to be!