Section 9:
Recent Changes
I may begin to place some changes here again. There is a wide gap of changes that are not reported from the time the Black Jacks website was not used until I started using this page again.
KEY:
Added: New feature added to the game.
Changed: Balance changes, including ship stats, construction values, etc.
Enhanced: Changes to the game to make it look better or add to ease of gameplay.
Fixed: A bug that has been repaired.
NPC: Something having to do with the NPCs I’m working on for the game in the future.
Updated: Feature expanded for better gameplay and not falling under the Enhanced category.
· 8/14/05 18:18 Changed: Sonar Pulse now decloaks Advanced Cloak as well as standard cloak, price has been doubled to 15 mil. Hourly Maint will now recloak ships that have been affected by the sonar pulse; this was how things were originally but was broken at some unknown time.
· 8/14/05 18:18 Game updates can now be found here again
· 11/9 19:32 Future game updates will probably be posted at the BlacK JackS website
(currently http://www.yapquest.com/blackjacks/)
· 8/24 13:07 Changed: A single minefield can now damage both the shields and armor of ships entering the sector.
· 8/24 13:04 Changed: Draco Merchant level upgrade requirement increased.
· 8/24 13:00 Changed: Nuke price raised to 25 million, solar mirror 50 million, biomissile 200 million. We’ll see how this works. These weapons have gotten too powerful considering the immense amounts of cash available to most clans.
· 8/24 13:00 Added: Guardian Upgrade at the Upgrade Center for Guardians. Increases minelaying by 50%.
· 8/23 17:14 Fixed: The infamous attack bug has been fixed.
· 8/23 15:59 Changed: Pirates can no longer pick up Yap from planets. They can still pick up other goods including colonists, however.
· 8/12 17:48 Fixed: A couple bugs from the forum were repaired. Now, the “Next 10” link at the bottom of topics will only appear if there is another message to read on the next page, and the “Previous 10” link on the last page will go to the previous 10, not the beginning of the topic.
· 8/11 10:25 Changed: Melee game time extended to 5 weeks instead of 3. Turn limit in Melee changed to 400.
· 7/23 19:29 Updated: Minor changes in some places in the help files where I found information was outdated. I know I didn’t cover all of the outdated things, but I hope that the changes will help new players. The help files were so outdated in some cases, they assured players that it cost only 1 turn to move an entire fleet.
· 7/22 11:29 Changed: In Melee, you now only lose 25% exp if somebody attacks and destroys you. You still lose 50% if you die when attacking.
· 7/13 13:28 Added: Illusion, for Draconians. Illusion allows the Draconian ship to appear differently than normal.
· 7/12 17:07 Added: Advanced Sonar Sensors to the Original game. Same as Sonar Sensors, but can see Advanced Cloak as well. Available in the Human, Krioni, Hyperion, and Draconian race houses.
· 7/12 17:01 Changed: Defense Upgrade now costs 750000 and adds 250 max shields, 300 max armor.
· 7/12 16:57 Changed: Neo Upgrade and Cloaker now give Advanced Cloak.
· 7/12 16:56 Added: Draco Scanner added to Original for the Draconian Race House.
· 7/12 16:55 Added: Draconians can now see separate “Colonist Rating” and “Defense Rating” on planets in addition to the overall planet rating.
· 6/30 17:19 Changed: Yap Grenade, Sonar Sensor removed from Upgrade Center. Sonar Sensor will now be available at certain trader houses. Yap Grenades will not be in Melee for at least a short while until they are figured out.
· 6/30 17:18 Added: Adaptor ship added to Melee. Adaptors start out weak, but as you level one up and purchase special upgrades designed for the Adaptor they can become very powerful. 2 upgrades of this type were also added.
· 6/30 17:16 Added: Minelayer ship added to Melee. Minelayer Upgrade for Minelayer ship also added to the Upgrade Center.
· 6/30 17:15 Added: Drone Farm ship added to Melee. The Drone Farm carries more drones than any other ship and is available to lvl 8 players.
· 6/30 17:13 Changed: In Melee, you now lose 20% of your exp if you die to an autoturret. Also, the way you gain ship experience for killing ships was changed to depend on the ship killed.
· 6/30 17:12 Added: Trader Houses added to Melee game. These houses move at the maint like the race houses in the Original game. All races can access the trader houses with a few exceptions. Some races might get better deals than others at certain houses. Along with this addition comes a handful of new upgrades and weapons, including some to enhance cloak, enhance cloak detection, the Particle Accelerator which hasn’t been fully implemented yet, a Yodi’ki Deflector to protect against EM damage and a Draco Shield to protect against the shield damage from burn weapons. The help files have been updated to include these additions, please read there.
· 6/30 16:49 Added: In Melee, ships that have cargo will now start to use the cargo. Pirates and Frigates will capture Valuables from ships they destroy depending on the type of ship(NPC or human) and for human ships, how good the ship was. Boarding Vessels will capture less valuables than Pirates and Frigates, but will also capture fuel and prisoners from the ships. All of these goods can be sold at certain Houses.
· 6/30 16:38 Added: Weapons in the Melee game can now only be purchased by the races that are supposed to be able to purchase them as stated in the help files.
· 6/30 16:30 Big Update: Lots of changes since the last record here. Most are minor. One big change is that Yap is on a new server now. The user accounts and forum were wiped a week ago. Melee is currently down, undergoing some renovation. A new race was added a few weeks ago called the Draconians. Draconians specialize in speed. The Guardian ship has been added to Original as a minelaying ship. Soon there will be special upgrades for the Guardian to assist it’s minelaying capability. I’m sure there are other additions I have left out. It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here.
· 3/16 12:04 Changed: A few various changes in Original. Added two new ships, the Swallow for Humans and the Artillery Cruiser for Hyperions. 2 new upgrades, Piratize for Neothans and Maximize for Humans. The Yap buy price was raised 1000, as was the port price. The Evil Galaxy yap bonus was halved to +500 now as well. Tweaked the War Upgrade because it was too powerful. Also changed the leveling up on Pirates so they get more armor per level.
· 3/08 17:57 Big Update: It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, but a lot has changed. There is now a 2 hour limit on Hydrogen. That is, you must be gathering for 2 hourly maints before the daily maint or you won’t get your hydrogen. There is a Planet Bounty screen now on the right that lists the planet’s current levels for the experience you will gain for claiming them. There are numerous other small changes which I will not list here. I just added in an Edit feature for the forum where you can edit your posts. The biggest change lately is the addition of a new game, Quest for Yap: Melee. The Melee zone is currently closed to the public, but many things are ongoing inside it. It will be made public when the Melee zone becomes open to all. One thing that has been updated is that the cost of Yap has been steeply reduced at ports so it is not as profitable. Also, Hydrogen was nerfed to take away some of it’s power and Yodi’ki no longer have the Hydrogen Compresser. Also the logins are very much different. Accounts are now permanent, and you then join the games. At the resets, you will need to rejoin the games. Accounts which are inactive will be deleted over time. Accounts with over 1 million experience will never be deleted(unless something were to go wrong). Again, I apologize for not keeping this page updated, but I do not often have the time to write in here after making changes.
· 12/01 13:43 Added: Weapons Design, Queues, and overall weapons creation for planets. I’ve been working on this for a while. You can design weapons with the Weapons Design link on the right. Then, you build Weapons Factories on your planet. Take the colonist cost from the weapon you designed and allocate that many colonists to weapons factories and put the cash cost listed for the weapon on the planet, and for each weapons factory you’ll get a weapon built and placed on your planet. You can then go to the Weapons List on the planet to assign your weapons to ships. Have fun guys! Note that weapons design is an ADVANCED feature of the game and only for those of you who know what you are doing.
· 12/01 13:20 Enhanced: You can now check the balance of the clan bank from the Clans screen.
· 11/?? ??:?? Added 4 sectors around the Main universe in both the Original and Newbies games that have the special attribute that sector 1 has, with a ship shop, weapons shop, colonist pickup, etc. These sectors will move when the universe is generated and they are shown in green on the map.
· 11/18 09:35 Enhanced: You no longer are prompted whether you want to enter a sector with mines if the mines are from an allied clan and pose no danger to you.
· 11/18 09:28 Added: You now get a message sent to you when somebody lands on your planet.
· 11/18 09:16 Updated: There is now an Upgrade Fleet link for Targetting Computers and for Maneuvering Thrusters. This should speed up the upgrading process for you all.
· 11/17 23:16 Added: Put the 4 special shop sectors into the Newbies game.
· 11/17 23:00 Added: 4 new sectors around the Original game Main galaxy that have all the shops that sector 1 has. They sectors will be moved randomly when the universe is generated. Also, when the universe generates the sectors the extra shops are in will be a different color on the map. I’ll be adding this to the newbies game too. The purpose will be to expand the game away from sector 1, and help the entire universe to be utilized.
· 11/17 21:57 Updated: You can now fill your ship’s empty turret slots in one click rather than having to click once per weapon.
· 11/17 21:35 Enhanced: Averages for exp, score, kills, and lost now appear on the Clan Rankings page, but the ranks are still sorted by totals.
· 11/17 21:21 Updated: I’ve made a few bug fixes over the last month, but nothing else really. Just made it so that your transport will stop if you are supposed to be transporting shields or drones and you run out of money.
· 10/13 21:11 Enhanced: Help Files now have link to Ship Information page, and you can visit the main help page directly from the Original game.
· 10/13 21:08 Enhanced: Ships under newbie protection now appear in Green instead of White on the main screen. Your own ships will stay white regardless.
· 10/13 20:50 Fixed: You can now navigate from sector #1 in the newbies game.
· 10/13 20:39 Added: Put in some icons in the news in the Original game. More icons to come soon, as well as them being added to newbies. Also, I have been adding icons for ships a few at a time over the past few weeks, I’m sure you have noticed. They are done in the Original game I believe, but I’m still missing some in Newbies. I think the graphical aspects will help people to read information at a glance, and find news topics they want to find in the news.
· 10/13 10:10 Changed: In Newbies game, exp for killing a ship increased 5-fold. Killing ships should be a lot more important now. Also will be adding in Gates to the newbies game because they have become an important part of the game and should be in both versions.
· 9/16 10:36 Fixed: Shouldn’t have the wrong ships mysteriously follow you from other locations.
· 9/16 10:15 Changed: Balance changes in Original game.. Added a 2nd House of Hyperions(so there will be two floating around at any given time).. Col Transports cost 1 turn to move per 2500 cargo capacity.. Turns per day upped to 300.. Max turns upped to 3000.. Stealth Transport now has 25 max drones, 600 cargo..
· 8/28 10:24 Added: Maneuvering Thrusters upgrade. Increase’s ship’s maneuverability by 2. Uses 1 upgrade slot.
· 8/28 10:19 Updated: Clans with Alliances, NAPs, or Truces will no longer hit each other’s mines.
· 8/28 10:06 Updated: Clan Relations should work with planets now. Tell me if they don’t.
· 8/28 09:50 Updated: Pirates and Colonist Transports should no longer try to gather hydrogen. When they do, you can’t sell the hydrogen they gather.
· 8/25 15:37 Added: Experience and levels for ships. Once a ship has enough experience it will grow to the next level and get some special bonuses. The bonuses for each ship are listed on the ship information page. This is in the original game only. The first upgrade is gained when your ship destroys ten times it’s worth based on expgain. A merchant for example is worth 50, a Frigate is worth 200. A frigate would have to destroy 40 merchants or 10 frigates to gain it’s first level. The next level is at 25X.
· 8/24 09:05 Enhanced: Player Info and Clan pages now list locations of gates.
· 8/18 10:44 Added: Jump Gates. Gates cost 50 million and 1 daily maint to build. You can jump between any two gated sectors that you or your clan owns as if the sectors were next to each other. The usage of the gate is passed to whoever owns the sector. If you claim a sector with a gate, you will then be able to use that gate.
· 8/18 09:18 Updated: I’m back to coding Yap. I’ve been working on another project that I recently finished, so expect changes to start happening. I started off with a big one: The turn usage system has been totally revamped in the original game. Now every warp costs 1 turn per ship in the fleet. Navigation is multiplied by the number of ships in your fleet. It costs 1 turn to take off from a planet. It costs 1 turn to sell all to a port no matter how many ships you have in your fleet. Colonist Transports count as 1 ship for every 1000 cargo holds. So a colonist transport with 5000 holds takes 5 turns to move, with 100000 holds it would take 100 turns to move.
· 7/30 12:39 Added: Planet ratings. Planets are first rated by colonists 1-10, then by defenses 1-10, and they are averaged to get the total rating (which is all you can see). This way you’ll be able to compare other planet’s to your own. But you still can’t tell if a planet is a good deal to attack (lots of colonists, not much defense) or if it’s an empty fortress (with few colonists but a giant defense).
· 7/30 11:09 Enhanced: Clan Forum link won’t appear anymore if you aren’t in a clan.
· 7/30 11:04 Added: You can now rename clans. The option is on the Admin Clan page.
· 7/29 19:08 Added: Ability to “rename all” in the Original game. If it’s bug free I’ll add it to the other games. I made it pretty fancy, now I just hope people actually use it.
· 7/28 09:22 Updated: Buying goods is now turn-free. This means that transport turn costs will drop when transport is used to haul goods as well as the turn cost to trade between ports. Hopefully this will jumpstart trading as a good way to trade.
· 7/26 11:30 Added: Race Rankings. Almost identical to clan rankings. This is only in the Original game. On the race ranks, the only people figured into the stats for that race are people with at least 1 exp. This way, inactives and screwed up signups don’t count.
· 7/23 13:03 Added: Maneuverability Ratings for ships. Maneuverability will decide how much damage your ship takes in combat. Maneuverability is between 0 and 20. A ship with a maneuverability of 16 will take between 60% and 100% of the normal damage during combat, and a ship with a maneuverability rating of 8 will take bettwen 100% and 120% of the normal damage. Ships with maneuverability of 10 will always take 100%. This is only for the Original game.
· 7/21 11:15 Added: Ability to add ships to fleet based on ship type. Now, next to the type of ship on the main page, you will be given a link that allows you to add or remove all ships of that type from your fleet. This will help a LOT when you are trying to manage those big multi-ship fleets, especially in the Original and Test games.
· 7/21 10:46 Added: Clan Relations. I had already added them to the Newbies Game, but now I have completed adding them to Original and Test. Relations are controlled by the clan leaders and affect how the clans relate to each other. Alliances mean both sides can land on each other’s planets and can’t attack ships or planets, Full NAP means they can’t attack each other’s ships or planets. Ship NAPs mean you can’t attack each other’s ships, for Planetary NAPs you can’t attack each other’s planets. Truces are basically Full NAPs that can be cancelled on short notice. War doesn’t affect anything in the game, but it formally declares your feelings for another clan.
· 7/21 10:37 Added: Clan Forums. Everybody in the clan has equal access to the forum, and nobody else can access it.
· 7/18 09:22 Enhanced: New messages are no longer deleted with Delete All.
· 7/18 08:53 Added: Sell Ship feature. Go to a Ship Shop and click Sell Ships below the list of ships. From that page you will see the list of prices for selling ships. It is currently ½ the cost of the original cost, but I may change that sometime depending on balance issues. If you click Sell Type next to one of the ships in the list, it will sell all ships in your fleet of that type. The other way to sell ships is to sell them one by one, to do that click Sell Ship at the bottom of the page.
· 7/17 09:26 Updated: Now only certain members in a clan will be able to access all of the planets. If you are Commander or above, you can access all planets owned by the clan, but Members and Squad Leaders can only access planets owned by players ranked equal or less than them. So a SL can get to a members planet, but a member cant get to a SL’s planet, and a Commander can freely access any planet owned by anybody in the clan(as can a co-leader or leader). This will prevent lower ranked members(especially recruits) from messing with your planets.
· 7/13 11:53 Enhanced: Added a feature to see in the rankings all members of a certain clan, and changed the Clan Rankings a little bit. To see the members in the rankings from a certain clan, click on Ranks from the Clan Rankings page. To send the clan a message click Message. Pretty self-explanatory.
· 7/13 11:30 Updated: Made the ship limit in the Vet Game functional. The limit is currently set at 500.
· 7/13 11:16 Enhanced: Moved part of the Navigation code from warpdrive.php3 to maintest.php3. This means that when you click “Yes” after verifying the turn cost of your warp, you will go directly to maintest and to the new sector you just warped to rather than going to a screen that says “Your fleet has moved from XX to YY”. This takes out one extra click that is unnecessary.
· 7/10 N/A Just to keep you all in tune: Clan Relations are functional in the Newbies Game but not in any other game. I’ll work on that soon. Tell me if they aren’t working properly.
· 7/10 19:09 Added: Haven’t done much in a while except bug fixes. Now I made Yap cost +1000 in the Evil Galaxy in all games. So if you want to make the long distance run to the Evil Galaxy to sell your Yap you’ll make a few extra bucks.
· 6/25 17:14 Added: Test game. For testing new stuff and balance changes. It has the backbone of the Vet game, but I took out all the race ships and so actually now there are only 5 ships in the test game. They are expensive, too. I’ll be doing a lot of cool stuff to the game, read the forums for more info.
· 6/24 13:36 Added: Ability for ships to be classified “evil” to be only purchased from the evil galaxy.
· 6/24 13:33 Updated: Added variable exp gain to ports. So different goods will bring different levels of exp. The default is one exp per 10000 cash, but now, for example, Yap will only bring you 1 exp for every about 6667 cash(2/3 of the norm), and Coal will bring you 1 exp per 2500 cash. This makes the lower level goods good for exp.
· 6/24 13:30 Updated: Now newbies ships cannot be destroyed by Yap Bombs. Will only affect new ships to the game, any ships built before the changes will not be affected. Report any problems you have.
· 6/18 12:15 NPC: Just an update on my progress.. I’m working on the trade NPCs. Right now I have it set up so that with an admin value I can have NPCs created. The created NPCs have a number of random values to decide their behavior, from race, to strategy, to whether they work with their race or alone. I have finished Yap and Slave trading for those strategies as well, but port traders don’t trade yet. All trade NPCs already have learned to find themselves a sector to call home, and will eventually try to build a planet and defend their sector.
· 6/18 08:59 Updated: You can now send planets from the Planet Info page. This means you can send planets when you aren’t actually at the planet.
· 6/18 08:49 Updated: Added 3 new options to the Newbies Game to limit the load time of maintest.php3(but they turn off features). These features have been in vets for a longer period of time.
· 6/18 08:35 Enhanced: Brought the Planet Info page up to date. It was outdated in Vets game because it didn’t have the new buildings.
· 6/15 15:57 Added: There will now be a chance every hourly maint that a ship will become temporarily unavailable due to a shortage. Ships made unavailable will become available again within the next few hours.
· 6/15 15:21 Added: Put in a set of game values to mess with stuff. These include ship prices, yap price, and equipment prices, as well as a few other things. All I have to do is change the numbers and it will make changes. I’ll be putting in random events that will take place and change these values. For example, there might be a steel shortage, which would raise the price of steel everywhere.
· 6/15 15:17 Enhanced: You can now change the ordering of the bugs/updates page, from Area to Status to Submitted By. This is done just like the rankings, click on the heading to have it sort by that column.
· 6/15 15:06 Updated: Yap Mines should now be displayed in clan and examine pages. They will be displayed below the mines area.
· 6/15 14:55 Updated: Transport added to pre-equipped ships in newbies game.
· 6/14 16:53 Added: Hourly maint. Didn’t make one for vets yet, but that won’t take long. The hourly maint will do cleanup(fix shipnums, delete empty clans), and will also give out hourly turns. The hourly turns are still set at 0 though, so they won’t affect you just yet.
· 6/14 16:28 Added: Planet automatic transport. I only put it in Vets, but I’ll put it in newbies eventually. I’ve been working on it the past couple days. Right now you can transport pretty much anything and everything that you can get in sector #1 to your planet. This includes goods, shields, drones, and of course, colonists. Originally I was just going to have it do colonists, but I know a lot of people would want to transport shields and drones with their colonists, and I decided that while I was at it I’d make goods work too. To use the transport system, click the Transport link on the planet screen.
· 6/13 22:57 Fixed: Got rid of some problematic banner ads that were causing your browsers to crash periodically. Tell me if you still have problems.
· 6/13 22:52 Enhanced: This one’s for you Justice! Now it is marked VERY clearly when you are under newbie protection and when you are able to attack planets. This is shown both as a counter on the upper left and a flag on your Player Info page. Nice colors too, you can’t miss it. :)
· 6/13 21:56 Fixed: Newbie’s game automaint should run now. Vets appears to be working fine.
· 6/13 12:01 Added: AUTOMAINT!! YEAH! I’m hoping it’ll work now. Both maints are set to run today.
· 6/08 21:19 Added: You can now self-destruct all. Self-destruct all will destroy all ships in your fleet, but not the ship you are commanding.
· 6/07 13:10 Enhanced: I took out the almost useless join order from the rankings and made it an alphabetize function instead. So if you click “Player” on the rankings page you will get the alphabetized rankings.
· 6/07 12:37 Enhanced: You can now see what rank somebody is in their clan through the examine page. It’s listed on the clans page as well.
· 6/07 12:21 Added: Ranks within clans. The Leader of a clan can set Co-Leaders, Commanders, and Squad Leaders, as well as set all of these people back to the standard Member level. Still have to do some stuff with this, for example have players loose their clan rank when they leave a clan and have clan leaders start as a Leader when they create a clan. Right now, the ranks are unused, but I will add in uses for them in the near future.
· 6/06 17:52 Enhanced: Added new/old count for messages, so you now can differentiate between new and old messages on the right bar. If you have messages this will be in red.
· 6/03 20:42 Added: Ability to send to a player’s bank like you would send to their cash, accessible through the Examine page.
· 5/30 22:00 Added: Payments for clans. Clan leader sets payment to be sent to each member, and the payments are sent at every maint automatically.
· 5/28 10:22 Enhanced: Timestamp added to all messages. Messages will now also sort by timestamp, with older messages first. There might be times when this doesn’t work right, but it’ll be better than no sorting at all.
· 5/28 10:03 Added: Targetting Computer in upgrade center. Makes the weapons on your ship all have 20% more shield and armor damage. Only affects weapons that are on the ship when you buy the upgrade.
· 5/28 09:39 Added: Dump All for newbies game. I’ll add to vets someday maybe.
· 5/28 09:32 Fixed: Newbies game shouldn’t have any more problems with the game thinking you have more/less ships than you actually do.
· 5/28 09:27 Added: Put in 5 new ships for vets as race ships – Humans: Galleon, Krioni: Interceptor, Neothans: Stealth Transport, Artes: Mammoth Freighter, Hyperions: Hyper Merchant. See vet forum for more information.
· 5/27 08:29 Updated: Scouts now cost 1/3 of the turns to travel using the Navigation system. Scouts cannot have a fleet now either.
· 5/26 19:52 Added: Game Info page for newbies game(vets coming soon).
· 5/26 09:57 Enhanced: Right-side bar reordered, link to Recent Changes added.
· 5/26 09:40 Added: Clan banking system, available at all banks.
· 5/25 20:52 Fixed: Ships lost in 7/510 asteroids reported as lost in sector #0.
· 5/25 20:42 Fixed: Ships created in non-sector #1 ship shop appearing in sector #1.
· 5/25 20:38 Fixed: Problems with the navigation system in the Evil Galaxy.
· 5/25 20:27 Enhanced: Send Message and Send Planet lists alphabetized.
· 5/25 20:22 Fixed: Mines created before clan created not showing up as clan mines.
· 5/25 19:42 Changed: NG ship limit raised to 50.