News Items - All news items will be posted here.

[wufeylong]

*** FINAL RESET APPROACHETH ***

The final reset will be Monday morning at 10:00AM EST. The next round will start 24 hours later, Tuesday at 10:00AM EST to give everyone enough time to log on and make their opening moves. The following changes will be implemented:
- Legend Sandworm speed set to 80
- Cavern hangar size per level set to 3000
- Kdrones can be scrapped for 250 of each resource

[wufeylong]

Lots of old news that didn't get posted.

*** FIXED ***

The problem with local attack option not appearing sometimes has been fixed.


*** CONTINUOUS ORDERS CHANGE ***

From now on if you go into debt while continuous orders are active, only the active orders will be canceled. Paused orders will be left intact.


*** NEW FORUM FEATURE ***

As many know, I have been pushing veteran players to help make the wikimanual a living, breathing source of info for new players. In line with my theme of more player participation at a quasi-admin level, I am adding a new feature to the forum. You can now vote good/bad on post quality. Below a certain threshold (currently 5) of "bad" votes, the post will not appear. I think pretty much everyone means well in their posts, but sometimes act hastily. This could help a good deal in keeping threads on track - you as a community will have a voice in what is acceptable or not. Govern yourselves accordingly, and please vote honestly.


*** BC TV CONTINUOUS ORDER FIXED ***

If you go into debt in any resource while in BC TV due to a continuous order, all active orders will be canceled; all paused orders will remain untouched; only the resource that went into debt will be zeroed.


*** SMALL FIXES ***

- Secure Hangar sizes are now the same per level as Cavern Hangars.
- If you have two different continuous orders for the same unit, i.e, 100 Tarantuala, 500 Tarantula, you can pause/resume them separately.
- Occasionally when attacking using TW, the defender "sees" an extra army appear; this has been fixed.

[wufeylong]

*** NEW CLEAR CRYSTAL USES ***

Added quite a few. This should help support an attacker base and crystal miner base, as the market for clear crystals will increase. Clear crystals can now get you the following:

- Advanced Layout (100% accurate even through caverns)
- Full Layout (100% accurate + base layout)
- 6 week force field charge

The prices might be tweaked upward if necessary.

[wufeylong]

Fixed

- Tar rush general loss: You no longer lose your general in a basic rush attack, collectors included
- Negative score from attacks: if a score penalty wipes out your score, you get 0 score instead of negative
- Rep from refineries: this has been corrected, 1 point per refinery
- Units repaired that are not assigned to mech bay: if not assigned to a Mechanics Bay, units will not get repaired after attack
- Proxy orders fixed (again!)

Changed:
- BC rule for next round: Let's test this out. Everyone gets up to 3 free "operating" BC per day. These do not stack - you only get them if you used up all of your BC from the prior day. You can still get 3 free BC from not having logged on in 18 hours or from referrals.
- I noticed a lot pages have help-type text on them that most advanced players don't need. So I removed it, the help text only appears if you have Basic Menu selected, which is the default for new players.
- OVerstock = system overload: you can no longer launch an army to attack if you are in overstock. Your system is too overloaded to manage the units.

[wufeylong]

List of old news items from the Chaos round:

- Fixed proxy order, need plans to fill an order
- Changed starting space to 100,000 (each terraform level give 20,000)
- Changed starting hangar space to 1,000 (each hangar gives 200)
- Changed starting max res to 1,000,000 (each coffer gives 200,000)
- Maint changed to kick in once you expand past the default hangar space
- DEFCON effectiveness increased
- Removed starting CDS-50, all will be forced to defend
- Starting BC raised to 20
- Starting RC, GC, OC reduced to 0
- Starting KD raised to 300
- Starting res 500,000 apiece
- Unit plan costs drastically lowered
- Maurader raised to level 2
- Scorpian raised to level 3
- Tungsten raised to level 4
- Titan raised to level 4
- New unit added: Corsair-SU[2]. Basic pillaging unit, unarmed, takes 25 res, the amount Pirates used to take; this lower level pillager will be used to force defence
- Pirate amount doubled to 50

- ALL space projects (research or construction) require a space port to be built first
- Asteroid mine deduction research doubled from 200 to 400 per level.
- Base Ops will now show FFG cooldown time after using CC
- Base Ops will now show number of resource coffers and max storage
- Scrap & cancel checkbox added back to unit purchase page
- Missile attacks give no score, same as destroying drones or busters
- Switched score bonus to percent base with x3 multiplier
- increased rep range from 25% to 33%
- Resources allocated to market fixed, so this cannot be used to get around the coffer requirement

- Added Lunar Cannon, level 2 Wolf LRMW that targets space structure
- Lowered KD for crystals trading cap to 1500
- Everyone starts with the tarantula plan

- Cost of steal Kdrones mission greatly decreased
- Defcon level now effects success of steal kdrone mission, but does not effect the price. In other words, if you raise defcon the espi pro would not know and could get caught
- Kdrone accidents threshold is 1000 (this applies to resource kdrones only, crystal kdrones unaffected)
- Kdrone crystal cap at 1500
- Kdrone control research now lowers risk of accident and also guarantees protection for a certain number of kdrones in the event of an accident)

- Price of Tarantula and Maurader each lowered by 100 of each resource apiece

[wufeylong]

*** MWA: CHAOS TIME **

It's been a long time, but Round 1 is over. HOF is posted, summary soon to come after I get some feedback. If you played in Round 1 and have any comments for the summary, mail me. We will have a 2 week Chaos Round (10 free BC per day, max spending limits raised) for testing. I don't think we will add much new, maybe a few tweeks but mainly just check for bugs before starting Round 2.

If you have any suggestions or find any bugs, please post in the forum. I am aware of a display issue on some browsers not showing the visited areas on the map correctly, I will work on that first.

For those new players that don't know, MWA is Minewars Advanced: Lost Mines. It has a few different features over the main game, most notably, there are many different types of outposts you can build and there is fog of war, meaning you cannot see who or what is in an area on the map unless you build an outpost there to check it out. You also start out with an enormous base to protect yourself, and, even more critically, there is no rep limit to attacks. The goal of the game is different than the main game - there, your objective is to find each of the three Lost Elemental Mines and successfully build and defend Research Outposts at each one.

After that, you must find the final area, the Endless Shifting Mines and move your main base to it. Be among the first five to do so and defend yourself there for the required amount of time and you will have proven yourself worth recording and memorializing your exploits in the Hall of Fame.

There is one other little difference. There, unlike here, you can destroy and be destroyed - completely. The main base has a command center, if someone destroys it, the account is deleted. Hence, the RIP Board lol

- wufeylong

[wufeylong]

*** FIRST SET OF CHAOS CHANGES ***

Here are the initial Chaos Round changes, there may be more to come.

- You can cancel unit plans that you do not need any more now, thereby lowering your rep and making it safe for you to purchase lower level unit plans for limited, purposeful use.
- Several level 1 units have had a slight decrease in build time so that none are over 4 weeks, except the Tarantula.
- The Kdrone Control research (which virtually no one used before) has been amped up considerably. Read the description to find out how.
- Initial amount of space docks raised to 1000 to match the vehicle hangars.
- Starting next round, max Salvage will be 60%. If you are over 60% right now, nothing will happen, but if you cancel and restart salvage research 60% is the new max.

There shouldn't be any bugs in these, since it is mostly tweeks. The only new thing is the ability to cancel unit plans. Please test these things out, post your thoughts on the forum.

I will do my part before the new round and start purchasing ads before the next round starts, whether I finish the new Taylor bot or not. The number of players we get from google alone is not enough.

- wufeylong

[wufeylong]

*** TWEAKS ***

- All rep points were doubled except coffers, unit plans and terraform. This is temporary and will likely be changed, need to give the rep tweak some more thought.
- All ground-based base def received a boost in defense and a detriment in offense except the Tesla Coil. The idea here is that base def will be a supplement to your army and something very hard to take down, but not an absolute defense. They will be too weak offensively for that, so you will need some amount of army to support.
- Base def costs have come down a lot. This will probably be changed again as well, as they are real cheap now.
- New level 1 base def added, Sparrow Hawk Launcher-WO, which can be built from the beginning and attacks all space-based units.

More to come later, let's test these changes a bit. After we finalize these tweaks, we'll have a chaos reset, probably this weekend.

-wufeylong

[wufeylong]

*** ROUND 24 END ROUND SUMMARY ***

I know you all have been waiting for it. Please have a little more patience, it will be a bit different this time. From now on, I am working on weaving round-defining events together (somewhat liberally) to create an ongoing story - in true story form instead of just a recitation of who did what and which clan attacked which as past summaries have been. Instead, I'm creating a plot, extra characters, etc, and mixing it in with the actual events as described to me in the war update letters I received from you all. The end result just might be worth the wait.

If I do not finish before the end of this round, I will just post what I have written so far and update it chapter by chapter as it gets done.

My goal is to paint the world that you are fighting in and give added meaning to the numbers you are seeing and battles you are waging. Have you ever really imagined what this place must look like now, having seen literally thousands of battles with hundreds of thousands tanks, planes, mechs, wreckage and more? If I do anything, I do my best at it, so I'm giving this first "End Round Story" my best shot. Hope you all will enjoy it.

-wufeylong

[wufeylong]

*** ROUND 25 OVER; CHAOS ROUND BEGINS ***

The score has been recorded, now it is time for the Chaos Round of testing to begin. First up, let's test the following (no guarantee these will all be here during the active round, depends on the testing feedback):

- Base Admin Drones: see the description in research. So far all they do is pause continuous orders for you when you can't afford them and format k-drones if you are about to have an over-crowding accident. We can probably come up with more things for them to do to make them worth it.

- Invade Outpost: ASU's can go into an enemy outpost and take it over. The number of ASU's required is 10 ASU's for every level of outpost security. If you capture an outpost and do not have the Outpost Control research completed, you can still use the outpost but there is a highly increased chance of accidents happening there. All outpost ally codes are changed automatically upon capture to match your own ally codes, so you won’t be able to steal ally codes that way, though I briefly considered making it a possibility (would be pretty cool, you’d be able to instantly locate all enemy outposts until they realized and changed their codes).

- Limitless attacks: Tour of Duty now only affects how far you can travel. You can attack as much as you want, your only limit is the army readiness. Drive your army into total exhaustion if you want to. This will no doubt have many ripple effects that need to be explored if we are to consider leaving it in place for the real round.

- You are now free to move about the asteroid: Armies no longer disappear into the cosmos and reappear at home base after a battle. Each army will now have a physical location in an area as they travel. Since this allows for a recalculation of eta on the fly, armies no longer need to return directly to base after a battle. They can go anywhere you want them to and stay out and about as long as you want them to. There is, one catch, however. Readiness replenishes twice as fast at home base. This change could also have wide reaching ramifications that need to be explored this Chaos round. Or it's possible everyone is so used to having their army return to base that they'll just keep doing that and this change won't mean much yet. But armies having a location has a lot of potential for other uses we can explore.

Please test these new items and provide comments in the forum. Enjoy!

- wufeylong

[wufeylong]

*** TWEAKS ***

- Considering the decrease in value of Tour of Duty due to limitless attacks, for the remainder of Chaos ToD will be dropped to 2DM cost.

- In view of the discussions about the worthlessness of the Matador stealth mech by Surreal, especially now in the unit plans era, the mech has been reprogrammed as an (s) unit tank killer.

[wufeylong]

*** OOPS! OUTPOSTS HAVE BEEN LIBERATED! ***

While testing a bug fix on the new Capture Outpost feature, I accidentally erased the ownership of all exisiting outpost lol (don't ask how). That's why this is called Chaos period. At anyrate, I captured one of the liberated outposts. So now we have the strange situation of there being autonomous outposts sitting out there for the taking that anyone can capture.

Give anyone ideas?

What if we set up powerful outposts in the main round like this, hidden in various areas, but some might have hidden bonus loot? Like the plans for the IMM-X, or a cache of 500 clear crystals, a hangar full of Titan mechs? The list could be endless, could be some empty shells out there as well. We should explore the potential this mistake has unleashed, we owe it to ourselves

- wufeylong

[wufeylong]

*** FIXES, TWEAKS ***

- Fixed: items placed on the market will move with you when you move your base now.
- Fixed: when you move your base, previously your army was staying behind. This was part of the problem causing long travel times. That has been fixed.
- Tweak: the new Punisher M and A series have been added; the Punisher A series is level one, so it can be built by outposts. It only attacks ASU's.

[wufeylong]

*** MINEWARS STORY BEGINS ***

An email went out about it. Starting with Round 24, there will be an ongoing story that is played out based on events that occur during the round. Although the story for Round 24 is not complete, I promised I would post whatever I have, so the first couple chapters are up at http://minewars.net/hof24.php . I am thinking I might still write a mini-hof writeup to take note of records and achievments, but overall the End Round Summary is being replaced with the story for now (we'll see how it goes). Go ahead and take a look, it draws heavily on old Minewars lore that most have long forgotten, and includes players in it. Large scale events and the players' characters are based primarily on what happened in the round and the war updates I received from you all. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it

- wufeylong

p.s. Stars for the top ten of Round 24 have been given out.

[wufeylong]

*** NEW OUTPOST DEFENSE ***

In view of the feedback from the recent outpost changes, the following changes have been made:
 
- Sandworm, LS and Driller have all had their class changed. A new class exists now, Subterranean.
- Only ASU's can capture an OP, but a separate battle (interior base attack) will be required for this. Any ASU's that survive the main battle go inside for the interior base attack.
- Each OP has a defense level. An attack by ASU's can lower that level. Once the level reaches 0, the OP is taken.
- This should stop the simple ASU rush to take an OP.
- OP max defense level depends on security level and on a new research "Max Outpost Defense".
- OP defense level refresh rate depends on security and a second new research "Outpost Defense Repair".
- ASU's lower OP defense levels by their attack strength. So sending in 100 Busters is not the same as sending in 100 Wolverines.
- ASU's get destroyed in the internal base attacks. So it is most likely several waves of attack from multiple will be needed to take an OP over. This will make a person think whether it is better to destroy the OP or keep trying to take it over.
- By default the OP defense targets all ASU's at the same time. A special research will be available for the attacker (ASU attack tactics) that will allow ASU's to be slightly more efficient and to use a buffered approach, heaviest defenders at the front.

There may need to be some tweaking with how the OP defense level numbers (max and refresh) are calculated. Right now, max OP defense level is:
(Security_level + Max_OP_Research) x 5000

The OP defense refresh rate (this is how quickly damaged OP defense level goes back up per tick) is:
(Security_level + Max_OP_Research) x 100

If you have an OP, you can see these stats for each OP you have in Base Control. It may sound like a lot, but it is all pretty straight forward once you've seen it in action. If you attack an OP with ASU's and they don't have enough firepower to take out all of the OP defense level, the battle report will give you a second mini report of the interior battle.

Interior Battle
The OP has the defensive position, so it attacks first every time. The OP firepower is simple - its defense level. This means a high defense level can take out quite a few ASUs. If any ASU's survive the OP attack, the full amount of their firepower is the maximum amount of damage they can do to the OP defense level (but they could do some random amount less). If they fail to take the OP, the surviving ASU's will give you an estimate as to what they think the remaining OP defense level is. It will not be a 100% accurate report, only a good estimate.

A few battles and you all will get the picture quickly. Please test and post your thoughts in the forum.

Thanks, enjoy!

wufeylong