… but just before I go, the Revenge of the Titans Windows and Mac v1.80.4 patches are there now, and the Linux ones are in the queue uploading very slowly. The crash bugs are fixed (phew). Humble Bundle versions will probably take about another 12 hours to appear. Full scoop and proper update announcement around then.
28 thoughts on 'Off to bed…'
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What takes so long to upload the new versions? Do you have a narrow pipe feeding your physical location, or is it because you have to upload to multiple places? Or are there just too many package permutation?
It takes so long because, despite having to upload it just once, it takes time for the content delivery network (the array of servers from which you download) to sync and replicate the data.
Think of it as copying a file in one location, from where it is automagically copied to an array of servers around the world so that you can download from the closest one to you and get fast speeds.
And, I’ve got about 700mb to upload, and I only get 40kb/sec here 🙁
Probably because he has to upload the Puppygames Win, Mac Linux versions and the HIB Mac, Windows and Linux to both Puppygames and to the HIB crew.
Thanks so much for all the hard work guys! You keep pushing out new versions that keep getting better and your work does not go forgotten. Keep up the amazing job!
So many updates! D8 (not that it’s bad) I’m getting tempted to just wait until steam…. but the game is funn, I don’t really wanna stop :c
Coming back to play the new versiion.
There are two things that bug me about refineries:
– $250 per refinery taking $10 every 15 seconds ?! Was that intentional, because any early level will likely finish before refineries can pay for themselves. Four refineries on a small crystal is about enough to finish it off, but then the balance is $0 through salvage costs, and $500 you manage to mine everything.
– No more than four refineries can mine from a single crystal. This makes it impossible to finish any large crystal in the earth missions, and players now get unfairly penalised.
I noted that people were finding it harder. These penalties to economy would probably be it. Are these analyses right?
Nope.
Efficiency -> Collectors. $250 to increase gathering by 1 (1 what I dunno), stacks four times with all refineries in range.
Gathering Tuning (or something like that) -> Another bulding I forgot the name of (so you can tell I NEVER use them). Was $500, now $750, to increase money gained by 20%, stacks four times.
Four refineries (likely best scenario since crystals can be anywhere) + Four Collectors + Four Thingies =
($250 x 4 = $1000) + ($1000) + ($750 x 4 = $3000)
$10 x 4 x 4 = $160 + 80% = $288 per 15 seconds.
$5000 / $288 per 15 s = 4 minutes 30 seconds approx to break even.
Yeah…
PS. That’s assuming whatever crystals you’re getting last that long. Which they won’t, since they’re probably only going to have at most $3000 in them or thereabouts.
This improves far more when crystals are clustered so you can have 8 refineries all having the same benefits = $6000 ($1000 for 4 refineries) / $288 / 4 = $72 per refinery maxed out X 8 refineries = $576 per 15 seconds, so there’s a huge boost there unless I did my math wrong.
And even then there’s a 0.5 bonus you can get from one of those above mentioned research techs, + an unknown amount more for an applied tech…
Of course however, the crystals will still be limited and the Thingies are far too expensive to make up for it IMO.
I think perhaps the method they’re going for is Mine crystals ASAP, then recycle the buildings before they suffer ANY damage to get $100 per refinery or collector, $300 or so for each thingy, + $500 for efficient medal.
However, this would still not outweigh the construction costs considering how short a crystal will last with 4 refineries and 4 collectors. Removing the collectors to increase the life of the crystals only saves $1000 from the costs and then you’d JUST about make a profit from recycling afterwards, but likely miss out on the efficient medal and suffer damage to your buildings because the gidrah got that much time to wail on your defences.
And even then you got turrets to think about. So in the long run this will eventually cause a decline in total funds until you crash again later on.
On the other hand though, for some reason I’m only getting bronze medals now on the first playthrough of any mission, so dunno what that is about but it seems I will be able to finish the moon at any rate. :/
That’s the main reason why I’m currently trying to do a no-refinery run.
researching those fast thingy collector dobopers is one of the first things i do. i use them sparingly at first until i get higher up in the refinery tech.
the reprocessor whatsa ma call its i use even more sparingly, only when there’s a cluster of crystals.
a “no refinery run” i don’t even no what that means in regards to this game. you’ll probably be as successful as my “no turret run” on titan.
Actually, no-turret runs are extremely feasible up till Moon with the mine research route!
well, i guess i got what i asked for: lasers and blast cannons now target wraiths. however, the shots don’t hit / do damage. oops. the wraith does seem to stun a tiny bit as it gets hammered by dozens of laser and blast cannon rounds, but that’s about it. i’m going to go ahead out on a limb and say that this is still buggy. 😉
loof.
this happends with the x-ray scanner researched, of course. i assume without it they are still both ‘invisible’ (more transparent) and non-targetable, but i didn’t check.
This is intentional; blasters etc. can now see wraiths (and indeed, you can see them too, as they’re no longer almost invisible) – but they do minimum damage. The only sure fire way of taking them out is to hit them with the capacitor. This is admittedly made rather easier when you can see them more clearly.
i’ll play with it a bit more i guess, re-starting from earth. there are so many other balance changes, especially since guns are cheaper, that maybe the (apparently mandatory) capacitor is a more viable now for wraith levels.
that said, intentional or not the x-ray scanner upgrade still seems broken to me. the new behavior of the x-ray scanner is harder on the player than the old behavior: the lasers and blast cannons don’t do enough damage to the wraiths to matter, but if they target a wraith they waste all their effort on it. this means that researching the x-ray scanner is a triple waste: reduced scan range, a wasted research slot (or more), and the effect during battle is mostly negative. wraiths aren’t *that* invisible normally, and they follow such slow fixed paths they don’t ever really seem hard to spot/track. and to top it all off, the description is misleading — there’s nothing to suggest that when the turrets can see and fire at wraiths that they won’t do significant damage.
loof
I may buff the heavier guns vs. wraiths actually. Right now they all do a meagre 1hp damage. I might up this to some arbitrary amount … like perhaps apply the AP value of the round to the damage as well.
I’ve just finally re-beat the ultratitan on 1.80.2, and I’m still terrified of upgrading – I can’t make a backup copy of the save files because the folder named after my save slot doesn’t appear anywhere that I can find on my mac since version 1.80.1. Is ANYONE else having this issue?
Hmm. Actually, since I’m an HIBer, I cant get .4, but I just tried .3 and my info seems to have come over intact. Its just still concerning because i don’t have a safety net. For example, my current playthough is called “Twist”, but my 1.80 folder has only two sub folders with previous differently named savegames in it. No amount of searching for items visible or invisible will turn up a folder called “Twist” anywhere on my mac. Odd.
.4 isnt up yet on the HIB
Thanks, but I did say that above, if you re-read the post. My issue is about my current savegame from any version past 1.80 not showing up as a file anywhere on my computer, preventing me from making backups.
a stab in the dark here, but you seem desperate. for me, i started with version 1.80 (on linux), and it created the directory ~/.revenge_of_the_titans_1.80 — now, even though i’m on version 1.84, it still uses that same directory. so i guess either groups of versions use the same directory, or it searches for an existing dir from a prior version, or some combination of those.
so, on that note, it is possible you renamed your save slot or the like, and it’s actually stored in a folder with a different name? you could check the prefs xml file to see if there’s some mapping. or perhaps you have slots with the ‘same’ name across versions, and you expected them to be separate, but they are not, and so you’re looking for something that doesn’t exist?
if you can still play the save files, but just can’t find them, then you could tryusing the slot (i.e. playing a level to get it to touch the slot files), then exiting, and searching your entire home dir for something modified in the 3 minutes. to do the search, start up a ‘terminal’ (should be in your Applications/Utilites folder, you can start it up before you run RotT, and you can leave it running forever if you want), and run this at the prompt:
find . -mmin -3
to show that this works, watch me create (hidden) directory, and then find it. this is on my wife’s mac mini:
cwr:~ mo$ mkdir .foo
cwr:~ mo$ find . -mmin -3
.
./.foo
if that doesn’t turn it up, then perhaps somehow it’s not in your home dir? i dunno.
HTH,
loof
All OSes now use exactly the same directory structure with exactly the same names. I have a feeling you’re confused by the dot “.” at the start of the directory name; it won’t appear in the shell with a simple “ls” command, or Finder; but it’s there – do an “ls -al” from the shell and all the dot-prefixed directories appear.
Thanks for both of your help!
I’m embarrassed to say I’m going to have to call “user error” on this one. I’m not sure why the “.”ed folder didn’t appear last time I did a search of my application support folder with file visibility “invisible” specified, but this time it did, and I’m safely backed up and all that. Thanks again.
I gotta say I dont like what I’m hearing about the new economy and refineries…. like at all.
We shouldn’t need to upgrade every possible mining tech and stack a ton of buildings on one crystal just to make a good return.
The economy hasn’t really changed too much in the 1.80 series of releases… but the maths is highlighting a few interesting artifacts which I haven’t properly considered.
Right now a refinery produces $10 every 3 seconds – there is a mistake in the game description! An undamaged refinery gets recycled for $100, so the minimum cost of refining a crystal is $150, meaning you need 45 seconds just to make your money back.
Unfortunately, levels don’t last for 45 seconds until level 4 – so you’re actually just going to waste money no matter how hard you try until level 4 (and even then it’s cutting it fine).
Coincidentally you can research Refinery->Efficiency->Collector by level 4. Collectors cost $500 and are worth $200 when recycled, so that’s going to cost you $300 if it gets recycled. A minimum configuration on level 4 of one collector plus one refinery is therefore $450; however, with a single collector, a refinery produces money at the rate of $10 every 2 1/3rd seconds; so to make your money back with this you’re going to need 105 seconds! This won’t occur until level 14!
But this is where it gets interesting: if you have three refineries and just one collector attached, your costs are $750, but you’re making $30 every 2 1/3rd seconds instead – which means you’ll make your $750 back in just 60 seconds, which occurs by level 6 on Earth. On a small crystal this will lead to an overall profit of $250 as well if you mine the whole thing (which will take another 20 seconds, doable by level 9 or so).
See how this is working out now? It requires a bit of maths and some quick thinking to get the most out of the crystals on a level using the right combination of refineries, collectors, and reprocessors. Reprocessors are particularly tricky to use as they are very expensive; ideally you want to only use them when there’s a fat cluster of crystals.
i dunno it it’s a good thing or not, but you can actually finish mining as early as level 3, even with only 2 refineries, if you research barricades and stall the last gid. i was able to pinch out a bit more cash (+$300) that way as opposed to ‘normal’ mining. your mileage may vary depending on how well you can place the barricades and how many blasters you need to use, etc.