General Q&A? Ask here.

Problem is that when you target 1000 players, it costs way more to support the game than any income you make. Spacewars is a niche game, and it gets me worried, as it isn't for the fast-clicking masses, but more for the thinking, strategic, patient player.

 

Yes, during simultaneous (all players do it at once) allocation round, it can be 40-60 seconds long, and each players' combat round can be roughly 30 seconds long.

 

Indeed the hope is that the skins/ship variants will generate enough income to support the game, but I won't know until the game gets off the ground. The reason why I didn't want to go for a subscription base is that the game is much better with a large community of gamers, where the universe is more alive with 100s of players being active on the server at any time.
But the subscription based model is still a possibility.

 

We've figured out several ways, that won't have anything to do with IP. Though the IP will be tracked, it won't auto-ban. It will be more that if the same player fights the same opponent over and over again, and there's an exponential loss in XP for every subsequent kill till it becomes nil.

 

--As a newbie starting player, you're automatically given 350xp. If you lose your starter ship (and have no other ships purchased), you are automatically given another starter ship, no matter how much XP you've accumulated.
--But if you lose any other ship (eg. Lose a Frigate you purchased later on) you don't get it back, or retain XP from it.
--However, the game is designed so that it is more about being routed than killed, so you're given decent chance to either move off the combat areas of the map and repair, or leave the system entirely. Successful captures of regions follow a points system that not only count how many kills where done on that map, but routes as well. So you're not supposed to lose your ship, but escape before you get to that point.
--Eg. a standard Frigate has at least 19 hull points, with some level of force field. Unless you really screw up, or get ganged up by several players, you shouldn't be insta-killed.
--One of the Captains' skills in the Genari skillset (Honorable Death I and II) actually gives you back a % XP from a lost ship.

 

When you die you lose the ship you died in (but your Captain/Avatar does not get affected). But your roster of ships back at your base remain intact. Yes, you do lose any officers you upgraded on that ship. If youre a newbie with only one starter ship, you get another starter ship.

 

Yes indeed, you can name your officers too -- sort of like FTL for those who have played it

 

Yes, there is a single player element, PvE, but XP is halved if its not a real human you're playing against. But in some situations it can even be player vs AI vs player

 

The pirate faction is purely AI for now, and it will be used for AI missions as well as 'harassment' of regions as a secondary faction. They aren't that strong against medium or high-tier ships, but will be some competition for new players.

 

If you want to start more accounts with the same race, the more power to you -- but you'll just have that much more to manage. I don't think it would be logical, and you'd be diverting your time from getting a good character built up.
The Fleet Commander skills give you all the XP from all your ships to your captain; if you had multiple accounts, the XP would be divided between those accounts.