Maturation of Exploration Rewards

[jtokarsbr]

I think it would add an exciting new dynamic to Mars if some portion of the ruins/volcanoes/abandoned homesteads were special in that the longer they have gone unvisited, the higher the reward when an explorer does happen upon it. Any thoughts?

[Anthraxus]

This actually wouldn't be that difficult to do, coding-wise.  It might be somewhat tricky to come up with a good balance for how the abandonment duration impacts the number of minerals or amount of cash found.

[nigey]

An idea for how the abandonment duration impacts the amount of cash found:-

 Abandonment duration       reward
   1 month                         original reward +10% bonus
   2 month                         original reward +20% bonus
   and so on up to 1 year                           +120% bonus

However in order to control inflation, any square visited within the past 24 hours reward = 0

Minerals and star cards would have to work differently, with the original reward +100% bonus after a certain period of abandonment.

[jtokarsbr]

Jason: Yes, that would be the tricky part. If you wish to put a cap on the total amount of rewards available on all of Mars at any given time(if you don't already have that), you could turn the maturation into a percentage rather than a numerical amount. If this were to be the case, the initial reward would also have to be a percentage, I think. That would not be difficult, as you already have that randomized to fall within some range.
For example:

Abandonment duration        Reward
   1 Day                                     initial reward % + .05% (.0005 as a decimal, to clarify)
   3 Days                                   reward % + .1%
   1 week                                   and so on (they certainly do not have to double, lol, i just typed              in a number)
   2 weeks
   1 month
   2 months
   3 months
   6 months
   1 year

I have absolutely NO idea what the percentages should, could or would be lol, so please, disregard these. They are only an example.

This way, as some coordinates go longer and longer without being visited, the regularly visited areas will actually be somewhat vacated for the lucrative explorations. Over time, two things might happen (that I can think of), hot spots of exploration would move around the map, or the entire map would be traversed more equally. This, of course, depends on the number of active players.

My proposed increments are somewhat different than Nigey's. It's just different, that's all.

Nigey:
Thank you so much for the contribution. What do you mean by "However in order to control inflation, any square visited within the past 24 hours reward = 0" Would the idea be that if a coordinate were explored (that is, the link was clicked on), it would then return to zero?

I think the biggest decision, like Jason said, would be the incremental increase in value. But, as proposed, if the rewards are percentages of a fixed total, then Jason need not worry about putting too many rewards out there. However, this would be a bit less fun, knowing that there is only a fixed amount lol. Perhaps you could code some to be part of a fixed amount and some able to go higher, based only on the time between visits. The explorers, of course, would not know the difference.

Any thoughts?

[nigey]

" any square visited within the past 24 hours reward = 0"  I mean any coordinate that has been explored (by any player) within the last 24 hours would not give a reward.

[jtokarsbr]

It's a possibility that it would make things interesting, but I'm not sure that it is necessary to control anything.

[Anthraxus]

Past experience shows that there have to be some limits.  Or you will have those veterans with 50K anytime moves, cruising all over the place in the outer sectors where the most abandoned homesteads/settlements would be.  That would cause a serious spike in their MD values for the frequent big rewards.

[jtokarsbr]

Yes, this is true, but there are many of such veterans, so the high rewards may not be AS common as one might think. More people would probably head to the outer regions, alliance or no alliance, thus spread travel a bit more equally around the map. I suppose that I am trying to think of ways for newcomers to be interested for a few days or weeks, at least. They will be less likely to be intrigued by alliance rivalry, opening a store, or the later missions if they see little reason to play for a month. I remember, when many people were playing prior to the second war, digging was extremely popular. It was popular because there was a gamble for something big, like a red star card. Perhaps mere exploration might be more exciting if a bit of gamble was added. By that I mean a few jackpots out there that are more than 150MD lol. This maturation idea is just a step up from normalcy.