Game Updates

Feb 1, 2005

Feb 12, 2005

Sabotage is a new covert operation mission type... While it does not take turns, it does come at a cost. Success rate is dependent on covert strength vs enemy covert strength... and the relative ranks of the 2 sides (see battle modifier below for more detail). Weapons destroyed is a function of the difference in Covert Strengths. Weaker weapons are always targeted first, and will keep being destroyed until the next weapon is stronger than the remaining 'destruction strength'left. (Therefore big weapons are much harder to destroy as the minimum value must be met).

Left Navigation Panel, in the display area, there is a new 'clickable' option that varies by race, although function is the same.... you can hide away resources, making them safe from enemy attacks.

Battle:
A new modifier is in place that decreases the gains when attacking lower than your rank, and increases when attacking higher than your rank --- rank defined as overall rank. It is scaled, such that attacking just below is not that different, but a lot lower has a much greater effect. (same with attacking higher).
Casualties equation has changed. It is a function of both army size, and army strength differences, within limits. Attack and defender casualties are also calculated differently, favouring the defender. It is not heavily dependent upon turns used, so a 'quick scout attack' will suffer almost the same casualties as a full turn attack. Going to war has costs....
Untrained units, while still engaging in attack and defense, are not as good with weapons as trained units (they used to be 'almost' as good, now they are significantly worse...)

New users get a bit of protection and more resources to start with. This gives them at least a chance to get a running start...

Cost of mercenaries dropped.

Naquadah per military unit (excluding mercenaries types as always) has gone up. Mercenaries have no interest in ongoing resource missions - only war.

Feb 15, 2005

The battle modifer of Feb 12, 2005 also applies to attacking army power, although to a lessened degree. Over-confidence is a nasty thing in battle.

Feb 19, 2005

A maximum amount of damage on weapons from a Sabotage attack has been set (whereas it used to be unlimited). The concept is that in order to not get caught, you can not keep destroying weapons indefinately -- at a certain point the destruction will be noticed. Your away units will automaticaly stop sabotaging and return home just before they are about to get caught.

You can now click on the Commander name in the user stats view, to directly view the Commander stats.

This log of game improvements implemented.

Feb 20, 2005

Maximum covert operations against a realm imposed -- more than this and the all covert networks become aware of the activity. The target realm would surely be prepared, so the operation is aborted at last minute knowing it will almost surely be discovered with the additional defense of the alert realm on a mission to stop all incoming subterfuge! Over time, this state of preparedness reduces.

Protection (per above) now has a time limit of effectiveness, then disappers.

Home Base Screen updated to reflect above Covert Operation Capacity.

Some additional Admin Functionality ....

Untrained Military Units, while still going to war, suffer far less casualities than other unit types... similar to the red-jackets in StarTrek, they hang back and are not front line of the battle....(although unlike the red-jackets, they do not die in the first 10 minutes of battle...). The real story: it is the attack and defense specialists that really fight the battle....the rest are non-skilled observers who occasionally can jump in and help.

Feb 25, 2005

Cost of repair altered slightly. All bugs around displayed cost opposed to actual cost (hopefully) all resolved. Button and display of cost to repair to full capacity added.

Covert Operation - Recon:

The success calculation changed, making it easier to succeed - even versus a stronger opponent. The higher the covert skill level,the better the chances of succeeding against more powerful opponents. It is still based on spies/agents SENT opposed to those owned (while defense is based on total owned.)
Death Rate on Failure: This has been changed to reflect the relative strengths of the attacking covert forces and defending covert forces. If you lose, the amount of covert deaths will vary based on the above.
Thanks to all the players who provided feedback on this one - you know who you are :)

Hacking:
A number of measures put in place to stop any hacking attempts. While this has not been a problem, we do not want it to ever be a problem.

Control of Galaxies:
The control of the galaxy is in the hands of the top 1000 most powerful realms. The top 10 have a greater influence on overall power than the rest, although not enough to carry it alone! To control the galaxy, you will need both numbers and power!
(stats visible on main homepage to show the current state of affairs....)

Mail:
You can now compose an ingame mail to someone by typing in their playername.

You can also now send an email to all of your officers by using the 'send to all officers' button instead of the 'send' button. If you use the 'send to all officers' button it will go to all officers, and only officers, even if you are replying or typed in a 'to' address.

Unit Production, Recruiting and Commanders
The cost to upgrade Unit Production has been decreased.

When an officer of a commander gets a 'unique link' click, the commander also benefits.

Mar 6, 2005

Officer Screen
If you have officers, you will see the officer heading underlined, and clickable. Clicking it takes you to an officer management page.

Officer / Commander:
You can only make your commander one of your own race. This will not cancel existing officer/commander relationships, but going forward all officers must be the same race as the commander.
Commanders can give mercenaries (or racial equivalents - any being who fights for currency and not honor of the realm) to officers.
Commanders can dismiss officers.
Commanders can set a '% Income to Officers' rate. It varies from 10 to 30 percent. This does three things:
1)For every unique click that an officer gets, the commander gets a portion of an untrained military unit as well.
2)Every turn that the officer earns untrained military units,the commander will earn a portion of a unit as well, adjusted by the '% Income to Officers' setting (the higher the setting, the more untrained military the commander will get).
3)This percent of income per turn is held back from the commander, and divided equally amongst all officers.

Commanderless Warriors:
If you have no commander, you have 2 alternatives:
1)Keep no commander. You will get a 10% bonus on income, and a 10% bonus on military unit generation when you have no commander. This is the lone wolf stamina kicking in.
2)Make yourself your own commander. This will earn you a 20% bonus on military unit generation (including unique clicks)as your self-inflated ego will draw additional troops to you.

Mercenaries:

Mercenaries (or any race equivalent of paid military) can now be sold, as well as bought. The immediate value you get for cancelling the mercenary contract will be less than what you paid to initiate the contract.

Ultimate Supporter Bonus

The increase in covert skill level has been replaced with a 50% increase in the normal Off-Site Naquadah Storage (ie the 'bank').

Mail:

Added 'delete all' messages button. Added reply and delete to the viewmail screen.

Mar 11, 2005

NEW SERVERS!!

Vacation Mode Added (see bottom right of main screen)

Battle logic adjusted, so that less of an army force is left to 'chance' .... both for offensive and defensive forces.

Mar 15-17, 2005

Offsite Storage (aka 'bank')

The maximum amount of storage has been increased to 2 earth-days worth of income.
The 5% charge for transactions with the offsite storage has been moved from withdrawl, to being charged on deposit. (all bank amounts have been reduced 5% to compensate for the 'free withdrawl').
Small display bug on those with ultimate supporter bonus also fixed (display was not showing the correct maximum).

Realm Alert Rate

This is a new, adjustable setting that you, as the realm commander (supreme commander?) can set at will. Located just below the covert stats, this setting determines how alert your realm is for incoming covert operations - both recon and sabotage. It does 4 things:
1) increases your covert defense. The increase will never be more than the equivalent of 1 covert skill level, but even that can tip the results of success versus failure.
2) Decreases the maximum amount of damage a sabotage attempt can inflict.
3) The higher the rating, the higher the chance you will determine who has sent agents against you, even when you cannot stop the attempt! Vengence becomes a possibility, where before there was only cursing and confusion...
4)Decreases your per turn income, decreasing more for each level of alert. At the highest level, you have great protection, but each turn gains you only a small percent of your 'possible' income...

Make this user my Commander

A previous change to dis-allow multi-race user/commander relationships has been over-turned, and reverted to having no restrictions on which race you can employ as officer or commander. The players have spoken on this one :)

Mar 20, 2005

NEW GAME SERVER!!

Have introduced "http://QuantumWars.gatewars.com". This is linked off the main page, and is a version of the existing game, with some differences:
1) Resets every 3 months.
2) It is faster, more turns given, and more resources are given per turn.
3) It resets.

The concept is this: The main game is 'reality number 1'. This is the reality we live in. But... there is a 'quantum gate'. This has differing versions of reality, close or not so close to our own. They exist along side ours, and each is as valid as any other. The quantumgate wars explore each of those worlds, one at a time, for about 3months each. When the 3 months is up, histroy is recorded, and a new reality begins....
Read another way - it is GateWars: Main with 3 month resets :) enjoy. admin.

Mar 24-31, 2005

The quantum servers have a higher income per military unit per turn. With the '3 turns per turn' we have just increased the income (at the advanced rate) to also be '3 turns per turn'worth.... This should greatly increase the game speed, spoils of war,and activity level.

Mercenary rate increased.

Maximum of 50 units per day from the unique link clicks.

Covert/Spy Level cost decreased by 50% per level.

New race bonuses:

asgard - 10% off defense units and weapons

tauri - 10% off offense units and weapons

goa'uld - no banking fees

Replicator - Covert Level increase costs decreased 10%

Regular Server

Increased income per military unit by 50%.

Mercenary generation rate increased substantially.

Maximum of 50 units per day from the unique link clicks.

Covert/Spy Level cost decreased by 50% per level.

New race bonuses:

asgard - 10% off defense units and weapons

tauri - 10% off offense units and weapons

goa'uld - no banking fees

replicator - Covert Level increase costs decreased 10%

Apr 2, 2005

Recruit function (unique link clicks)has been even further secured.

Side effect: this may cause you to log out of your game session if you click links while logged in.

'No Loitering' Rule If you go to a page, do not take any action for a set period, and then click on an action - it will not accept your action. Instead it will remind you about loitering, and ask you to do it again.

This is 100% for security reasons as I have become aware of 'auto refresh browsers' that can take advantage of bank, armory, etc by continually refreshing a set page for hours at a time... this is cheating (automated process) and also cheating (continually hitting refresh, causing server load to increase).

Side Effect: You cannot keep a 2nd window open, and click (successfully) when you want to 'activate' it. It will reload, and remind you about loitering.

Apr 4, 2005

Adjusted the maximum percentages of the fortification and seige technologies of each race, slightly.

The balance still favours attacking (seige) giving more of a bonus than defense (thus one attack weapon will generally add more strike power than one defense weapon adds to defense power), although not to the same degree as before.

Attack Rank Modifier

The 'rank modifier' on attacking up and down ranks has been slightly reduced. It still exists - attacking more powerful opponents gives your troops a rush, increasing the attack power, while attacking down the ranks breeds overconfidence and decreases attack power. The effect, though, is not as strong as before.

These changes are to balance the game - both changes are small changes, and believe good ones, even though the effect will be fairly small or not even noticable to most.

Apr 6, 2005

You cannot attack/sabatoge your own officers. You can dismiss them, and then attack.

You cannot attack/sabotage someone from your own IP address or where they were attacked recently by a different realm also from your IP (you will get a message about being at the same location).
This prevents multi-accounts milking themselves. This will have a side effect that if you are attacking someone on your own LAN or behind your own router but on a different computer - it might not work depending on your setup. Again - if you get these messages - it does not mean you are cheating! There are other explanations for why you would have the same IP.. .

The commander benefit of receiving .25 of a unit for each officer unique click has been removed (although they still get a share of daily unit production).

There is a 24 hour waiting period after joining (or being dismissed from)one commander, before you can join another.

Apr 8, 2005

Commanders can now see their officer intel and attack histories. You can see these by clicking on the icons beside their name in the officer management screen (you can get to the officer management screen by clicking on the word 'Officers' on the main screen if you are a commander.)

Look of Quantum

Changed color scheme in quantum server slightly, so that it is more obvious when you are playing the quantum server, that you are playing the quantum server.

Apr 19, 2005

To improve efficiency, add some 'pre-work' for some other upcoming enhancements, and get the 'next turn in' timer closer to when your turn really comes, some large changes to the turn engine, and vairous other functions have been made.

The largest visible impact is that the 'income per turn' now incorporates ALL bonsues, and deductions including what you give to officers, bonsues for having no commander, income from your commander, race bonus, etc.

Apr 21, 2005

To both stop cheating (through macro programming) and to put some realism into the 'bank' or off-site resource storage, the number of visits to this facility has been limited to 20 per day in Quantum, and 18 per day in regular servers. These bank transactions CAN be 'saved up' and used at any time in future... In reality, every time resources are gained, they are not 'shipped out' to a storage facility - they are kept on hand, spent for goods, or saved for later. When the sum grows to a significant level, then one might ship it into storage. The maximum visits to the offsite facility per day includes deposits and withdrawls. You can see how many transactions you have left on the left navigation, in brackets, beside your balance resting off-site. Realistically - this amount is high enough that it should not limit normal activity...especially as they collect while you sleep, it will, though, limit the benefit of running macros.

Apr 23, 2005

Armory and Bank 'submit' buttons move slightly to stop mouse macros.

Commander Ranking Screen

Off the main ranking screen, is a link to the commander ranking screen. This lists all commanders, ranked based on the total combined power of all of their officers.

Apr 23-30, 2005

The ability to officially make other players enemies (on their stats page), and view just enemies rankings.

Your commander (or you if you are a commander) can declare war, peace or neutrality on another player, or another commander and all of their officers. This status changes your status, as well as that of all your officers.

Being at war: Adds enemies to enemy ranking. Increases the Naq you will gain per successful attack. Doubles the military losses your troops suffer (you give up caution in favour of trying for excessive gain in battle).

If both sides have declared war -- the Naq gained again goes up, and the military losses on BOTH SIDES increases substantially.

May 6, 2005 (big changes)

A new unit type has been introduced - the "super solider" or .. generically.. an upgrade on the basic attack or defense unit type. You will find these 'uber-units' twice as good as the basic trained military type.
note: It is the regular trained units that get further training to reach this level, so you need trained units to convert into these unit types.

Naquadah Income

The super units, as well as the regular trained units, have ceased to be involved in Naquadah production. The military has now taken on a much more active role, and are no longer involvedin the 'mundane' tasks such as gathering Naquadah. So - now your untrained units are solely responsible for the income generation of your realm.
PLEASE NOTE: for the next few days, people can untrain their trained attack/defense FOR A FULL REFUND of the training cost. It does not say this on the training screen, but the Naquadah will be fully credited back until May 10th, 2005.

Attack Types

THIS UPGRADE HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO PLAYER FEEDBACK

A new attack type - "raid" - is now available. This attack type will attempt to kidnap, convert, solicit or otherwise steal untrained military type units to your side. No matter what race you are dealing with, when it comes to income gathering, all contribute equally and are called by the same name. So - -if you can 'steal' these units, your income production increases accordingly. Like regular attack, these units must be fought over and involve a full military action to acquire.

Attack Casuality Rates (death rate)

With untrained units no longer heading into battle, the casuality rate for those trained (and super trained) units in battle has of course increased. It is still based on the percent of those sent, although is higher than it was previously.

Other Stuff

A few formatting changes, spies are now unassignable (the only unit not able to be reassigned, is the super units, since at that level of specialization, they cannot go back to regular life), and various other fixes and small enhancements. War and Peace Relations - RESET

A bug fix for the war/peace relations has been put in place. This is meant to address the 'too many people are at peace, or at war, with me' (that did not actively do this themself) problem. We are not 100% sure it is fixed, but it might be. To ensure a fix, and since we cannot 'undo' the past issues, all relations are reset to neutral. If you want to be at peace or war, you will need to re-declare this.
PLEASE NOTE: If the problem persists, we will address it, but may need to reset the relations again!!

May 7, 2005

Regular server only.

What is it? ... wait for it.... :)

May 18, 2005

Further to the last update, the casuality rate has decreased by about 20% on the regular server. It is ALSO now affected by the relative army strengths...if you are battling a much stronger foe, expect a higher casuality rate.

Relations

These may now be fixed - still investigating. Will not reset the relations at this point though.

Additionally, if you are at war with someone, or they with you, you can not make them your commander.

New Server

The new web server finally went in over the last few days. It was not a perfect transition, and apologies for the couple 'hiccups' we saw, but things are now much faster.

May 28-30, 2005

Further to the last update, Alliances are now live. Alliances are (at this point) a way to keep track of groups of other players / commanders & officers. You can still attack members of alliances, although now you will be very aware you are doing so. Alliances are UNOFFICIAL ... unlike peace/war declared by commanders... everyone has a choice to follow thier alliance or not. But beware - those that betray alliances are often hunted by those they betray!
Alliance Page added - linked off member count on alliance ranking.
Ability for alliance leader to send message to all alliance members added.

Attack Damage (weapons and units)

There has been a significant 'tweak' in death rates and some other aspects of battle -- in particular the attack versus defence strenghts are now accounted for in the death rates of units. It used to be simply army size and rank that determined death rates -- now those also count, but a larger factor is the attack/defence scores. In particular -- if an attacker attack strength is UNDER 20% of the defender defence strength, no weapon damage is done to the defender. Additionally, since your army is 'overwhelmed' before even getting to the enemy, no enemy troops are lost.

Peace/War Relations

We are fairly sure the peace/war declarations are now bug free (no more logging on to find you have made a whack-load of peace treaties without your knowledge :)). Additionally, a 24hour minimum commitment is now applied to all war and peace declarations. This was to stop the: declare war, attack, set neutral; in order to get a lot more Naq. Now- you risk the opponent declaring war on you,and some REAL damage being done to each army.

Unit Income

Untrained Military Units now produce 50 Naquadah per unit, opposed to the 30 Naquadah they used to produce. This does at least 3 things: 1) it 'adjusts' for the fact that trained units no longer make Naquadah, and 2) it 'speeds up'the gameplay and 3) it accounts for the higher death rate of units introduced recently... with more Naquadah produced, more can be won, and each attack should be worth more, so losses are more easily accepted :).
NOTE: The 'bank' rate stays at 2 days of income at 30 PER UNIT... ie - the bank capacity has no increased with unit Naquadah production increase....

Blocking Messages from Specific Players

When reading a message in game, you can 'blacklist' or block that user from sending you any more messages. If you get crude, rude, offensive or otherwise tasteless messages,blacklist them. This does 2 things ... 1) stops you from having to read any future messages from this player and 2) if the number of players blocking said message sender gets high enough, we will look and see if they need a 'speaking to' or worse :)

Various balance and display adjustments

June 9, 2005

Sabotage
Sabotage damage has been increased. It will now do a maximum damage of the 'old' maximum, OR a percentage of the total weapon power of the enemy (about 1.5%). This number is affected by the ranking modifier, as it was before.

Income (regular server only)
The last update took income per unit from 30 to 50. After a couple of weeks of play, this has been fine tuned to 40 per unit. The offsite storage (the 'bank') is still 2 days worth of income at 30 / untrained military unit (adjusted by the ultimate supporter modifier if applicable).

Kill Ratio
The amount of military dying in an attack (or defense) has been raised slightly, back to what is was during the last update. The death rate of 'super soldiers' is 50% of normal trained units. Remember that the rank modifier, whether you are at war, and the difference between attack and defence action also play a role in the kill rates. Also remember that base attack and defence damage ranges from 75-100% of total possible (the number you see on your command screen).

Supporter Status, and Supporter Benefit Changes
1)Via the 'upgrade' link on your main command page, you can choose a realm other than your own, into which you can donate. You will need their "player ID" (less spelling mistakes possible this way) which you can get by following the instructions on the page. This will ensure that if you are donating to another player, you DO NOT need their password nor need to log into their account.
2)Supporter transfer of resources will no longer work if you are transferring to the same internet location (ie both players have the same IP at last logon). This is to stop multi-account abuses.
This will take effect within 4 days in order for any 'legitimate' same IP transfers to be resolved. Advanced notice now given.
3)Additionally - starting within 4days, "protected planet treaty protection" or PPT, will be an official part of the benefits of donating. Until this time, it was done simply to ensure one never lost their bonus to an attack before the player could log in. Obviously, this benefit has become a strategic option. In order to balance it to be a bit more fairly, the infusion has changed (see below)
4)The ability to transfer untrained military units was meant as a 'gift' or military enhancement. It has recently been used as a 'mobile Naq mining force' passed between realms. This is not what it was intended for, although, not illegal by any means. The constant transfer of troops, though, will now carry a cost: starting within 4 days, transferring untrained military will result in a 1/2 of 1% defection rate -- meaning if you send 200 units, only 199 will show up in the receiving realm. The minimum defection during any transfer is 1 unit.

UPDATE ON SUPPORTER FUNCTION: The $10 'infusion' bonus has changed to a 'Protected Planets Treaty' bonus --offering JUST 48 hours of protection (no other bonuses). The Supporter bonus now includes a 10% increase to 'bank' maximum capacity, and the supporter and ultimate bonuses also include the Protected Planets Treaty bonus.

Race Change
Changing races is now more costly than before. It will eliminate your offsite storage (bank) resources, eliminate all of your trained and super trained military units, but continue to leave untrained, covert level and unit production.

Name Change
Remains free. It is now found in the 'options' menu

June 20-25, 2005

Some new technologies - along the lines of seige and fortification technology - have been added. The interface for updating these has moved from the armory page, to a new link called 'technology'. A covert technology path, and race unique technology path, have been added. Officer Maximum Quantity (quantum server only for now)

A maximum number of officers a commander may command is now in place. For quantum this value is currently set to 10. If someone tries to make you their commander, while at or over the limit, they will be notified that you are at your maximum capacity of commandership. This will add some strategy to officer/commander, opposed to the "hungy-hungry-hippo" methodology currently in place. This feature will ultimately move over to the main server, although with a higher limit.
For those with over the maximum limit already, only the top 10 unit producers will contribute to your own unit production.
Additionally - 'rolled up benefits' to commanders of commanders is now in place.
What this means is that unit production for every realm will be a combination of 'natural realm production' and officer contribution to production (as it is now). While only the realm production shows on the main screen, both contribute to "total unit production".
Now - when you have a commander as an officer, you will get a percentage of their TOTAL unit production -- which includes the contribution they receive from their officers, ontop of their own realm production. (or if 3 levels deep, you get a percent of your commander-officer, who in turn got a percent of their commander-officers.)

As a commander, you can now see your officer stats via the 'officers' page.
Everybody can now see their own daily unit production, as well as their TOTAL daily unit production (which includes any bonuses or penalties, as well as officer contributions.)

Quantum Reset

The first reset ever went fairly well -- a couple bugs discovered and fixed immediately, so looking good for a 100% bug free reset next era :) . Overall, very pleased with the first round -- be sure to check out the 'quantum legends' forever written into the quantum history books :)

June 24, 2005

The above updates on officer limits, technology and officer 'rollup' benefits will be applied to the main server.
At the same time, alliances will be added to the Quantum Server. This will bring the quantum reality and the main reality closer than before -- although differences, as always, will persist... the only question is to what degree...

July 8, 2005

Pretty self explanatory -- PayPal payments no longer need "human intervention" -- so the benefit is given instantly (or once funds clear if using online checks or such...)
This will also enable limiting the number of donations over a specific timeframe (thinking 2 per week as the maximum...) --this will hopefully address all complaints/questions/suspicions about unfair purchases, and some players always being in protection.
(Will it "stop it", or "stop the perception" that it is even happening? ... hmmmm... )

Admin Moved!

Yup - this last 2weeks, and likly the next week as well, is/has been majorly focused on moving all my stuff from one place to another.... sorry if my email and PM response is a bit slow :)
The new place, though, is much more condusive to some great game coding! ;)

Goa'uld Unique Ability

The effect of the ability has been doubled, in response to player feedback. (Hint: maybe mercs return mercs, normal units return normal units ;) ... )

Aug 8, 2005

The rules state a 25% maximum merc in an army - and now that is enforced. It is 25% of trained army, excluding agents...

Change of upgrade page

The page was redone to eliminate the 'middle step' - credit card now goes directly to the 3rd party secure site. As always - any issues with cards or paypal, contact us at support@gatewa.rs -- we can help you with anything.

Ascension Update

Expect the ascension server to be available (to those with enough glory points :) ) by the end of the month.

Aug 12, 2005

I never thought spam would be an issue in the ingame message system, but I was wrong. Players are limited to 50 mails per day now.

Multi Prevention on Commander/Officer Unit Production & Income

If the last IP or internet location of a commander & officer are the same, they do not contribute to overall unit production and income for each other. (they still earn full income&production, but they do not contrubite to each others production & income.)

Aug 20, 2005

In response to people believing 25% of army as Mercs was too low, there is now the ability for all to raise that level via tech options. Unlike the other techs, upgrading this tech makes the last upgrade obsolete (so a 10% increase, for example, ontop of a 5% increase from last upgrade, counts as 10% bonus, not 15%.) --additionally, this is the first tech to have a variable cost, based on your unit production. Enjoy :)

Aug 29, 2005

Hello, - This update is coming before the update, in response to many rumours and likely 1/2 truths, and some outright false information :)
Ascension approaches - It should be done for the 1st, give or take a day or 2... Minimally, the "cost" and details of ascension will be live for the 1st.
The basics are as follows:
Everything in your realm adds to your "ascension power" which coverts to "ascension power points" that you then take into your ascended account. These 'power points' are convertable to upgrades in the ascended realm...-now - you ask - what can you upgrade?
In the ascended realm, you have your own ascended self, with 10 stats ranging from strength, to life force, to life force growth and recovery speed, and so on...
You will also have control over a large 'physical realm'. This has attack, defence, covert and assassin abilities. These, too, are upgradable.
The realm can grow and get more powerful, so the 'ascension points' are really a running start and not (necessarily) an advantage that will always remain -- just as the person in the top 10 now, may not always be in the top 10 most powerful lords...
A bit more on the gameplay in ascension.... - you can fight realms just like in the current servers, although with a few more options.
Likewise, when you 'defeat' a realm such that it has no defences left, you can then attack the master of the realm (the 'self' ascended being in control of the realm). Be warned, though, that simply being able to win a physical battle does not guarantee being able to beat the ascended being, since that is a "one on one" fight between you and them. The armies of the physical plane can only take you so far....and then the fight moves to the ascended plane...

Your current realm in this plane will survive, but without any of the 'stuff' it had before you will have used all your 'stuff' to ascend. This means your untrained, weapons, covert levels, ops, Naq, mercs, and so on and so on, all contribute to your ascended power, and nothing of them remains. Your realm stays, but 'resets' to such a state that you are like a new player (although Supporter Status -ie the ability to transfer resources - will remain.) On the bright side, we will not leave you laying naked in a field on a foreign planet with no memories :)
Additionally - ascending is an OPTION. You can choose when and if to ascend -- there will be no automated forcing of ascension.

The rest I will leave for discovery...the message here is simply that everything you do in this realm can and will help you in your ascension, and that ascension itself is not a rumour :)

I also apologize for the slowness in my responses on the forums and mail over the last few days...I have been quite busy working on the next level of gameplay, and will continue to be for the next few days...

Thank you for your understanding :)
- admin.

Sept 9, 2005

In an effort to just generally make things better for you and I, the battle reports were re-written. The new format is in Quantum now, while I ensure no bugs surface.... Once declared tested-safe, it will move to the regular server.
This change also eliminated the need to limit weapons at 62,000 maximum per offence/defence. You can now buy as many weapons as you please, or can afford at least...

Sept 19, 2005

The bonuses have been slightly changed, and untrained units are no longer considered 'resources' that can be traded with Supporter Status.
Quantum Covert Action Score

The formula for how covert action is calculated has been changed. It is much lower than it used to be, and more in line with the other action scores now, which will make alliance power less heavy on covert, and more balanced with attack and defence.

Oct 4, 2005

Maximum turns set to 9999. It may be lowered a bit in future, but for now that is it. Anyone with more turns than this, gains no turns.

Sabotage and Recon cost of loss (and win)

Successful sabotage now costs 5% of covert agents sent (instead of 10%).
Failed sabotage costs 50% of your agents sent.
Successful recon does not cost agents.
Failed recon costs 20% of agents sent.

Oct 11, 2005

We upgraded our webserver. This has caused a few issues, mostly on some ISPs that do not update their domain name servers often (DNS). Eventually, the whole internet will catch up, and know how to reach the new server.
Unfortunately, over the last couple days, we also had an unrelated server issue, ISP issue and firewall issue. These are all solved, and apologies for any disruptions these caused. No data was lost, and the outages affected everyone equally.

MotherShips

A 'live beta' version of motherships has been released. The way they work is: A mothership must be purchased. Then, it must have shield and weapon capacity added. Then, it can be outfitted with weapons and shields.
A mothership can only be damaged by another mothership. A mothership attack must get by the defending mothership shields (destroying some shields in the process). If it has any attack left, it will then target the enemy mothership weapons (destroying some of them too - weapons are easier to destroy than shields...).
If it still has attack left, it will then assist the ground troops, up to a maximum of the total ground troop attack power (or defence power if defending).
So - in effect - a mothership can double the attack or defence power of the troops on its side.
Motherships do not add to 'raw' attack or defence power or rank, but have a rank of their own, which is determined by attack plus defence power combined.

I am slow on email and PM

With all of the above, and some personal things I had over the last few days, I am WAYYY behind on PMs and email again -- please be patient over the next couple days while I catch up...

Oct 31, 2005

Due to the difficulty in 'policing' the player to player trades, the number of people reporting being scammed, and the increasing time the game administration had to spend chasing these reports of being scammed, an official trading marketplace has been introducted.
The marketplace provides the ability for supporter status players (those previously able to trade resources) to exchange Naquadah for untrained units for turns for currency.
It also allows non-supporter status players to acquire supporter status with only ingame goods.
The market gets its goods from other players, and is initially funded with goods from accounts that have been suspended or deleted due to rule violations.
If one good becomes far more in demand than others (ie everybody wants turns, for example, and trades other goods for turns) the exchange rates will be adjusted to make the other resources more attractive.

'Lending' Units

Many players are trading for lending their units out. Ie - "I will give you 100,000 units for 5 days in return for turns" or such. While we are not stopping this - from this point in time forward if you use the "GIVE" unit functionality to give another realm units, and actually expect them back -- good luck, you are on your own. We will no longer chase accounts down to return goods that were (as the button says) GIVEN to that realm. Is this just some arbitrary decision? No - we have spent FAR FAR FAR too much time trying to clean up after trades gone bad, and cannot continue to do so while still enhancing the game. So - we have provided functionality that covers most of the real needs, and are saying "this is it - no more" to protecting people from themselves and their poor decisions and misplaced trust.

Glory and Reputation Points

In Quantum, the top 100 still get the 'G&R' points.
In the main server:
The top 1 player gets 10 per turn.
The top .15% (ranked players times .0015) get 5 points.
The top 1.5% (ranked players times .015) get 1 point. It is acknowledged that as the game grows, getting into the top 10 or 100 is harder, so in order for the Ascension server to be more attainable, this decision was made.

Maximum Turns

Maximum Turns are now set to 4000. Above this amount, and you do not get more turns as time goes by, although none are taken away, and you can 'hold' more than this amount. With the marketplace added, we can see no reason why active players (or even monthly players) should need more than this amount.

Maximum Donations/Trades per week

The maximum number of trades and donations (combined) per week, is now set to 3. This 'count' resets Mondays, 1AM, gametime.

November 5, 2005

It was brought to our attention that some images in game may be infringing on MGM intellectual property rights.
We in no way wish or intend to infringe on MGM or any other companies rights, so have removed the images in question, as well as anything else that may be questionable.
The artwork on the site will be updated, over the next few weeks.
The game itself has not changed - and - as always, will be continually improved upon as time goes by...
Thank you for your patience and understanding with regards to this change.

November 16, 2005

The exchange rate on the market is now dynamic (within a range) and will adjust to give more of what is 'in excess' in the market, and less of what is in demand. The rate is equal for buying and selling goods into the market. This should encourage more of the 'in demand' goods to be placed on market, since the reward for doing so is greater.

'Resource Farms' Limits

It has been noticed that some accounts exist solely to gain resources, in order to sell to other players via paypal or ebay or whatever. This disrupts the balance of the game, goes against the principles of the point of the game, and is no longer going to be allowed.
While the occiasional sale of 'excess' goods is not going to be chased after, any account that is clearly abusing this will be in violation and subject to penalty, suspension or deletion.

November 18, 2005

The ONLY thing that is not allowed per the above update, is CREATING AND RUNNING AN ACCOUNT SIMPLY TO SELL YOUR RESOURCES FOR REAL CASH TO OTHER PLAYERS.
In short - selling resources for real cash is not allowed, although the occasional sale while still being an active player will not be penalized.
The game was made to play...using it for other reasons than playing it goes against the principles of the game.

Protected Planet Treaty Application (PPT) Limit

The combination of donations or trades that result in getting PPT is now limited to 8 per calander month. This will still allow strategic use of PPT to obtain covert levels, or gather resources for an alliance war, etc, but prohibits continual and uninterrupted time on PPT...

November 25, 2005

Updates on Main Server only at this point

In a bold move - mothership shields and weapons are now 10 times more powerful than before.
Costs remain the same.

Limitations on Attacking/Sab

If you are EXTREMELY more powerful than your opponent, your covert and military forces will refuse to engage the enemy - they view such an attack as cowerdly and beneath their worth. They will, though, still spy on them.

Rank Modifier

This has been reduced. It is in effect when you sabatoge or attack another realm - it affects your attack power, and the amount of damage or goods you receive on a win.
(you can tell what it is from the text in battle reports saying 'you spend xx% of the time you normally would...')
The modifier is your rank+100 / their rank + 100.

Locking Officers

If you are happy with your commander status, and do not wish new officers to join you, you can now uncheck the "accept new officers" box on your main screen. This will disable anyone from making you their commander (including yourself). Leaving it checked means anyone can make you their commander if no other reasons prevent it (ie you reached max officers, you are at war with them, they are at war with you, same IP, less than 24hours since last change, etc)
Additionally, brand new accounts cannot choose a commander right away...

Advanced notice: Web Proxy Servers (aka anonymous proxy servers)

These will soon be disallowed for accessing the game. They are a source of cheating and avoiding the rules. Whenever there are reports of 'hacking' into other accounts, etc, these are involved.
So -- eventually some or all access via these proxy servers will stop. Regular 'workplace' or university proxy servers will be fine -- it is just the web proxy servers that will be affected.

November 27, 2005

December 6, 2005

PPT limit refinement
Opposed to 8 PPT per month, the limit has been changed to 2 per calander week.
This means each week you have a total of 3 possible trades/donations - only 2 of which can include a PPT bonus item.

December 15, 2005 - QUANTUM RESET/QUANTUM UPDATES

'Anti Covert' Units
These are military units. They break off a regular attack, and hunt covert operatives. They kill operatives based on their 'anti covert' action, compared to the enemy covert action (a greater difference, means more killed.) They are killed, though, in the course of regular battle... the stronger they get, the less likely they will die.
Like covert, these units have special upgrades.

'Raid' Attack Type
Yes - finally..it is back.
This type will -instead of taking Naquadah - take untrained units. This does NOT inlucde 'Miners' above.

Spying
You have a chance to see if an enemy has a mothership.
The 'covert killers' and miners are displayed as well.

Unit Production and Turns
Everything is geared towards 3 turns/30minutes.
Unit production increases by 6 each upgrade.

Glory
The ultimate measure of worth is how powerful you were throughout the round, and across quantum realms. Glory is the rank that measures this...You can see the most powerful on quantum legends -- the glory rank is the default view.

Enjoy!!

December 17, 2005

December 23, 2005

December 29, 2005

The 1% 'awol' rate for untrained transfers is now active.

Some changes to how 'exchanges' are done behind the scenes --mostly market and supporter transfers. Opposed to trade one-way, trade the other-way, record event -- it now bundles all these together and does them at once. This will ensure one side is never left out in the cold.Either both, or neither, go through - and if they go through, it is logged.

The mail you get when you are given supporter turns/naq/units now comes from YOU to YOU! This means nobody can 'fake' a message and claim they sent you things.

The alliance 'randomly get booted' and alliance tag/name bugs should all be fixed. If anyone has issues with alliances now forward, email me with the details.

Any issues, please use bugs/game suggestions. Any large issues, feel free to email.
thank you.

Jan 04, 2006

Quantum

Main Server

All of this support file work will facilitate Chaos server working well (which is the next update).

COVERT ACTION
This has been adjusted to be better in line with the other stats. The overall number has been reduced by a factor of about 10, and the number of units factored into the equation more heavily. The covert skill / spy skill is still the major factor, though - by far. Also - the relative rank/strength is the same as before - if you were 2x as strong as someone, you still are.

Supporter Bonuses
These have been updated to better reflect the state of the game. The existing bonuses were good during early game, but were becomming out of date with the goods on market, etc. The bonuses are now reflective of the age of the game, and will adjust (minorly, and slowly) accordingly. Any bonuses previous to this were just that - previous. This is 100% just a "go forward" change.

There are a few other minor changes that you will likely run across, minor but overall (i hope) useful.
Thank you - and - this is a big change both gameplay, and 'how it works behind the scenes' so your patience is much appreciated as we ease it in :)
admin.

FOR THOSE WHO LOST UU or MINERS
If you trained UU into miners BEFORE the automatic process converted them, you lost the miners you trained (and the UU were gone as they were trained away). THIS IS FIXED. Luckily, training your own created 'lifers' so it was fairly easy to increase your miner population by 10x your lifer population.
Again - for those who lost units, they have been returned as miners into your existing miner pool....sorry for the short term chaos :)

LOGIN ISSUES
These too have been fixed - a complication with cookies caused the issue. If more than one player plays from your computer (again - different players, having multiple accounts yourself is illegal) -be sure to use 'logoff' when done.This will clear the cookie. If you get an error, try to login again...Worst case, simply clear your cookies, and use logoff (and don't multi account) in future.

RAID before Protection
The amounts lost have been returned, although the ones who won did not have them taken away. Fortune favours the brave and quick, sometimes - and when quickness does not lose you miners :)

Missing Turns
A few turns were missed due to an error in the timer -both Q and Main (it happens sometimes when fixing other issues...)
Those turns were re-run so that no net turns were lost.

Action Scores (in particular Covert)
See above section 'COVERT ACTION' for details on covert action change.
The other scores -including covert- had a bug that I believe is now fixed..keeping an eye and the next 2 hours (11pm-1am gametime, jan 4/5) should update everyone properly.

final note - for those that emailed with login issues, lost UU issues, raided UU before protection &/or miners conversion, and other bug reports now fixed, thank you and I trust this update will suffice for a reply.

Final Final Note on server errors, etc from yesterday
This is probably more detail than needed, but I feel an explanation is warranted. The short version, if you do not want to read, is "We are almost error free, and serious issues should be gone. Unfortunately I have too many emails to answer, so if you did email, and are expecting a (quick) reply, please read below."
OK - I do apologize for the SQL and other errors/bugs yesterday.
They were affecting everyone, and some benefitted and some lost, due to being able or not being able to get to the game at certain times. Likewise for some other bugs that prevented certain actions in certain circumstances.
While the results were not equal for all, the environment was, and so the official stance to any queries around undoing things, is 'no'. The only other real option was a database rollback, and for a number of reasons, that was not a better choice.

I received a lot of emails (yes I did ask to email in case of errors) so thank you. I used them to identify larger yet less obvious issues more quickly, and am continuing to scan for open issues. I unfortunately am not going to be able to reply to so many emails. If you have an issue that is serious, and want a reply, please re-forward the email to admin@timesofconquest.com (my email, that does not have hundreds of messages already in the inbox.) That said, I will try to get to the emails needing a reply in the support@gatewa.rs box... in time. Additionally, please also give me some time to get to the admin@timesofconquest.com emails -- I will answer as quickly as I can, but it may take a few days. Your patience is appreciated.

As for the errors/bugs explanation:
It was a 5fold problem..
1)More users than we have ever had online at once by far (serves me right for giving protection for all ending at the same time)
2)The new code was not optimized as well as could be. This has been fixed, and on the plus side, all code that used the database heavily was optimized to some degree
3)The SQL server was not configured as well as could be for this number of users. This has been partially addressed, and will continue.
4)While trying to ease the strain on the database, I added some 'debugging' logic to the code in order to pinpoint where the biggest issues/drains on resources were (this could not be done in a 'test' enviornment as it is the 'real' load that tests this.)
This, and my changing some of the game code (once identified as a resource hog) to use the database more efficiently, caused some of the new 'bugs' that popped up. Most of these were solved relatively quickly, and I would not have taken this approach of 'live changes' if the situation were not as bad as it was, although something had to be done, so I did.
5)Still determining the cause/fix on this one, but it causes some connections to stay around much longer than they should, increasing the number of processes used (and therefore wasting 'real' resources). This is not new, but with all the above issues, certainly did not help. Nor did the fact that when things were quite bad, I could not get to the database, or test optimized code, myself, as I too was 'locked out' (thus the 'page is gone' errors that came for a while so I could fix things...)
Ok - that is about it :) .. was a long long day!

Now - on that note, this seems a good pre-opening for the chaos server..what better way to pre-announce it than complete chaos on the main realm server :)... After all these issues are dealt with, Chaos work will continue. I will set a firm date of Jan 30, considering everything going on, but will aim for Jan 15th official release.
Again - thank you everyone for your patience while these unfortuantely timed multiple issues are dealt with.
admin.

December 23, 2005

Feb 15, 2006

Gerernal Update

General Updates

Ways to contact the Game Administration

Introduction to the Game Admin Team

A confession, apology, vision and warning.

Whats next? We will be focusing on fixing any remaining bugs/issues, I will be looking back to the Ascended server to finish what I have long promised, watching Chaos to ensure it grows well in time, and in general fine tuning. There will be no major changes/enhancements/servers in the next few months, aside from what is mentioned above, such that we can really focus on ensuring everything already out is the best it can be. (this includes the long promised player guides).

I realize this is very very long, but it has been a while since we have updated everyone as to what is going on 'behind the scenes' so hopefully it was worthwhile if you have read to this point :).
thank you the site admin.

Feb 26-27, 2006

Feb 28, 2006

Chaos Server

Mar 14, 2006

Trade Broker

Market Supporter Status

Market to get Full Supporter Status

Market Quantities/Goods

Ascending and Lifers

Mar 15, 2006

The Great Outage of March 2006

UPDATE TO The Great Outage of March 2006

Comments?

Thank you. Admin & co.