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[Gaslamp-Daniel]

hey Daniel will there be beta and alpha testing for clockwork empire ?

Definitely!  We hope to have a playable game for people to start trying to crash/break by Feb/March.  I'll keep you guys up to date =)

[Girlinhat]

Will this be some lame Kickstarter "pay to be an alpha tester" or is the alpha/beta going to be a demo and full version for pay?

[ScriptWolf]

hey Daniel will there be beta and alpha testing for clockwork empire ?

Definitely!  We hope to have a playable game for people to start trying to crash/break by Feb/March.  I'll keep you guys up to date =)

woop cant wait till early next year now

[Descan]

Will this be some lame Kickstarter "pay to be an alpha tester" or is the alpha/beta going to be a demo and full version for pay?

They said they're going traditional, making the game and then selling it.

[Gaslamp-Daniel]

Will this be some lame Kickstarter "pay to be an alpha tester" or is the alpha/beta going to be a demo and full version for pay?

We won't make you pay to be an alpha/beta tester.  We'll likely just run this the way we did with Dredmor, where we just pick some people who get access to the builds as they come out, we get feedback from you guys, and eventually you'll probably end up with whatever build was one step from our GM copy.

As a rule, we're not fans of Kickstarter.  The only reason we'd run something like that is if we absolutely needed the money to get the game finished, and that doesn't look like it will happen at this point.  Even then, we'd have alpha and beta testers who weren't KS backers, because honestly, you guys probably know a lot more about testing than the average KS backer ; )

[Oliolli]

...you guys probably know a lot more about testing than the average KS backer ; )

You mean that instead of just playing it, we will start by thinking how the game can be broken as efficiently as possible? Trying to figure out things the game can't react to? Just making so large projects overall that the game engine simply can't handle them?

[Girlinhat]

As someone who's designed a Turkey Box of Horror to train infant dwarves into scared and powerful killing machines by age 12, I think I can rightfully say that at least half of the Bay12 community knows how to exploit facets of a game by forcing them together until it becomes broken.  Game mechanics are not rules.  They are tools.

[ScriptWolf]

So will we not be able to preorder at that point to be able to alpha/beta test or will you just only pick guys at random ?

[cerapa]

This talk of exploiting things sparked a couple of questions in my head. More precisely questions about conveyors and automation.

This shows a simple one destination conveyor, that can apparently filter what it takes in. Useful for combined stockpiles I presume, but how do they deal with overflow of one resource? Lets say a factory requires iron and wood, with no proper filtering if you run out of either of them, the other resource would fill up the input stockpile and make future production impossible. Or do supplier conveyors(as opposed to those who shuffle things between stockpiles) respond to the demands of their corresponding factories? Can you "reserve" stockpile space, making it impossible to fill it with the wrong type of resources and how do conveyors react to a filled stockpile?

And how would one deal with having a central stockpile and 2 factories that require an equal amount of resources? It would work fine(I presume) when the stockpile is filled, but when it isnt, does one of the supplying conveyors get precedence and always get incoming resources? Basically is there automatic flip-flopping of supplied conveyors? Or could you construct a flip-flop gate on a single conveyor, causing it split into two factories with both getting 50% of the supplied resources? (Sorry if the flip-flop thing isnt proper terminology, I'm just thinking in terms of Spacechem. On that note you should try out Spacechem if you havent, it deals precisely with this sort of automation.)

On another note, lets say you have 2 mayor stockpiles, one on one end of the map and one on the other. Is it possible to connect them with conveyors in such a way that they would always stay balanced, or are conveyors only useful for one-way transporting?

And lastly, can you change the amount of resources that a conveyor transports, so you could change the supply depending on how much a factory requires, and according to your whims?

[lordcooper]

Will this be some lame Kickstarter "pay to be an alpha tester" or is the alpha/beta going to be a demo and full version for pay?

We won't make you pay to be an alpha/beta tester.  We'll likely just run this the way we did with Dredmor, where we just pick some people who get access to the builds as they come out, we get feedback from you guys, and eventually you'll probably end up with whatever build was one step from our GM copy.

As a rule, we're not fans of Kickstarter.  The only reason we'd run something like that is if we absolutely needed the money to get the game finished, and that doesn't look like it will happen at this point.  Even then, we'd have alpha and beta testers who weren't KS backers, because honestly, you guys probably know a lot more about testing than the average KS backer ; )

I will trade you my firstborn child if you let me into the alpha.

[Girlinhat]

I presume that a factory with multiple inputs will have multiple inputs.  That is to say, two loading zones.  One for iron, one for wood.

[Gaslamp-Daniel]

If you're watching this thread, your chances of getting early access to the game are good ; )

As for the conveyor belts, I can't give you specific answers yet.  The thought process behind them is an automation of the otherwise human-intensive job of "hauling stuff".  It's likely that, as in real life, automating these processes sacrifices versatility for very specific use-case efficiencies.  It's therefore also likely that, in many cases, a conveyor belt won't be the best option.  But if you have a constant need for a particular commodity, and you invest heavily in one specific path to that commodity, conveyor belts will be your friend.

Also, I love Spacechem =)  However, if resource management in Clockwork Empires ever gets to that level of complexity, I think we have probably diverged too far from the game we set out to make.  I know more than a few people who have played that game, and only 2 that have completed it, including Zach.

[Oliolli]

As someone who's designed a Turkey Box of Horror to train infant dwarves into scared and powerful killing machines by age 12, I think I can rightfully say that at least half of the Bay12 community knows how to exploit facets of a game by forcing them together until it becomes broken.  Game mechanics are not rules.  They are tools.

I'm going to guess that the fact that Bay 12 places book on ethics and morality under "fiction" is also a large factor on those things being born... We are probably not alone in love for complexity and mechanic exploitation.

[Simmura McCrea]

Why did no-one tell me about this sooner? D:
Take my money yadda yadda yadda do want.

[10ebbor10]

As someone who's designed a Turkey Box of Horror to train infant dwarves into scared and powerful killing machines by age 12, I think I can rightfully say that at least half of the Bay12 community knows how to exploit facets of a game by forcing them together until it becomes broken.  Game mechanics are not rules.  They are tools.

I'm going to guess that the fact that Bay 12 places book on ethics and morality under "fiction" is also a large factor on those things being born... We are probably not alone in love for complexity and mechanic exploitation.

Insanity is optional, but encouraged.