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Turn PCU into currency

Timotei~ shared this feedback ago

Considered (Not Planned)

The PCU limit is a good way to limit the strain of the things people build.

Also, the quantity of PCUs is a fix number that currently is evenly split for all players/factions in a world. This mean that PCUs are the only limited resource in a world. The perfect condition to add spice to PVP.

If we turned PCU into a currency that people could fight for or share between each others. PCUs would no longer be a limitation but more of a compelling mechanics that could allow a player/faction to build more or less depending on their skills.

My idea just to consider PCU as a resource. I'll leave the details of how it will be obtained/shared to be discussed bellow.

We need to find a set of mechanics that respect those conditions:

- The server wide PCU pool is always the same.

- A player should always have a minimum amount of PCUs. No "lose or lose" situations.

- Keep players/factions from having monopoly on PCUs.

Let's brainstorm on this!

I like this feedback

Replies (5)

Timotei~ ●

My first idea would be to manage PCU as a percentage of the pool. This percentage would depend on the number of players currently in the server.

It would be a bit like shares in the stock market. Having more shares only give you a bigger percentage of the total income but you can never reach over 100%. Each players would always have a minimum share and could get more shares by, lets say, grinding/destroying enemy/neutral blocks. If your block ger destroyed/grinded by someone else, you loose shares.

Something like that.

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Timotei~ ●

I got an idea to merge into this one.

Instead of splitting PCUs between online players, split it between living astronauts.

The difference is that it now give a reason to keep your character alive when you log off. Otherwise someone else will consume all PCUs for themselves.

This is also a way to determine if a player intend to play again in the same server. If the character is left to die when the player disconnect, that mean that the player didn't intend to come back in the server and thus their shares are removed to let others use the PCUs.

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Mathias s ●

yes something needs to be done on servers, and something needs to be adressed, as now after our base was torned to pieces no pcu is left to even build something to get even/back, same with size on default earth should be alot smaller on 16 player servers. Now it takes 10-30 minutes to get to another settlement.

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DCar ●

The whole point of the PCU, as I understand it, is to keep any one player from building a monstrosity which takes entirely too much of the servers' processing resources. Allowing people to trade PCU back and forth would circumvent that idea because people would log in with alts and give themselves bonus PCU on their main account. Or, possibly, what if a server works on that percentage system you mentioned ... and suddenly your big fancy ship puts the server over that cap when some new players log in? Should you lose control of that ship or should it be deleted to keep the PCU under the cap?

Should PCU caps be raised somehow? Yeah, but this isn't the way to go about doing that.

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Timotei~ ●

Good point. I didn't think about the case of new player getting in and making you reach your max PCU. But I think it could be a case of "You reached your maximum PCU limit. Your stuff is safe but you can't build anymore unless you grind down/delete some of it."

In this case, the PCU limit may have been exceeded, but it can't go further than that, so I think it's acceptable.

Of course there is no perfect solution. That is why we need to think about what we see as the least worst solution. Using percentages is one that I'd like to see but maybe we can find something that fit better our needs.

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Seva ●

PCU is a performance system. It has nothing to do with multiplayer nor survival. PCU is already breaking realism on some servers. (Cough cough 6250 pcu on official servers like wtf ...) Skill points would be a good currency for the (possible) upcoming tech tree.

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Timotei~ ●

I see your point but my suggestion has nothing to do with realism. PCUs are a performance protection system and will always be. My point in this tread is to turn that boring limitation into something potentially more fun and less rigid. And while we're at it, why not get a currency system? That's what I suggest.

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Petr Minařík ●

Hi guys, we are sorry but we dont plan this feature for SE1. But I agree that it has big potential, maybe if we provide proper ModAPI methods then modder use this potential.

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