New O.R.S.A. Management Live

ORSA Management Changes

First, off this not a Full guide on how to use Extractors, this is more a heads up on changes and things to consider when using the new ORSA Office. On first glance you might be forgiven for thinking there is little difference, you’d be very wrong.

Secondly, this update/change has been required to begin to correct a few of the larger issues that have crept into such an expansive game such as this one. We have been around for well over a decade now, and we could not foresee the issues that might arise over such a length of time.

While you may feel there is an element of Coops waving the Bash Stick here this is for the good of one and all. There are some changes within this update, that will foster competition, planning and less ‘dump and forget’ tactics currently used.

Before we plunge in…
IF you had any extractors down at 10:00 AM on the 7th when the Server was taken offline, they have been pulled for you. All 879 were removed, their hoppers emptied and the resource placed in a local Commercial Store. Then the Extractors were placed back in your ships hold all 879 of them.

So onto the Office and its Changes…

The Offices themselves are still located, as before. Still named the same way and in that way have not been altered. You can find them the same way you always have.

Slots & Spawns
We have done away with the old day+ timed Spawn and 80 slot method. The new system gives EVERY site 20 spawn slots. These spawn a specific volume of Resource. This resource is to be shared by anyone who cares to place an extractor on it. The resource will remain in pace till its fully mined out. When it finally expires the ORSA office will see that the spawn is replaced by a new spawn.

Duplicate Spawns
No duplicate spawns on a single location. Whilst the number has dropped from 80 down to 20 the spawns themselves are unique per Office so there is no more finding five slots wasted to something no one ‘currently’ wants.

Estimated Time Remaining
The ORSA office will attempt to give you an ‘Estimated’ time remaining for this spawn based on the Extractors deployed and their total extraction rate vs the remaining ore. This is shown in Hours for you.

This ETR does not take into account any Extraction boosters the owners may be employing as these are only taken into account on an actual Extractor Tick. But the ETR value is there to give you an instant indication fo how long this spawn may last. Of course, you can see the volume of resources remaining and make your mind up about deploying.

Shared Spawns
It may be a novel idea for you to get your head around, but the spawns you see can be mined by anyone. Anyone who has the correct Survey Skill, and an extractor to deploy on that resource. No more One spawn per extractor. You are now sharing the same spots till they empty.

Now let’s move on to the next Major Change

From today onwards all players will be LIMITED to 15 Extractors of any type, mix or fashion deployed at any one time. This is regardless of Structure Points and only affects the amount Deployed at any one time.

You will see inside the office that your Global Deployed count is displayed along with the major types you have deployed. IE Standard, VIP, RAF, GUILD and of course CES.

Deployment Limits
In the top section of the Office and on the Deployment page a bar indicates your extractors deployed and how they break down. This should aid you in overseeing your ‘extraction gang’ and what’s left in your deployment limits.

The current game rules already have limits on certain deployment types. I’ll relay them here for those who ‘may’ be unaware, unsure or have forgotten.

Five VIP at any one time. These are obtained through VIP (Patreon Point Purchases) See the VIP Store from the CE Guides Tab.

Five CES at any one time. Unless you have an active PA account in which case your allowed count is increased to Eight.

Standard extractors like Personal, Commercial, Industrial and Expanse are shown in the standard count. The Guild extractors get their own count displayed to make it easier to mentally keep track.

All of these deployments count towards your Total Extractors Deployed limit. This is tracked for you on that both the main and deployment screens.

Deployment Screen
There are over 50 different Extractors in CE now. From the lowly Personal to the Indy and CES, VIP and everything in between. When we were testing this on dev I had to give the testers a few of every type and more than once we went to deploy and had to scroll back up to the top to remember what resource type it was.

So after some head-scratching, I managed to get the screen to ONLY display Extractors of that resource type.

You will also find that the deployment screen is keeping track of your CES and VIP limits and will close off the buttons to deploy if you reach your personal limits. Of course, it will also stop you deploying more than the allowed max 15 new limit.

Again the total bar is displayed at the top and with the buttons auto-sensing for you the type and amounts you really don’t have to think too much

What Happens When…

If the Spawn reaches Zero your extractor will be pulled and its hoppers contents placed in the local Commercial Store. Your extractor will then be returned DIRECTLY to your ship’s store.

If your hopper becomes Full your extractor will be pulled and its hoppers contents placed in the local Commercial Store. Your extractor will then be returned DIRECTLY to your ship’s store.

Office Daily Timeout
This is no longer needed. Extractors are processed on the tick so they are returned automatically as soon as they become full or the resource expires. We do not need to shut the office for this process to happen. In the past, it closes for a ten minute period. This is no longer required.

Resource Respawn
The entire code for extractors, ORSA and how these items work has been rewritten. This means that ‘Fresh’ spawns on a location should take no more than an hour or two at the most. Often within 30 minutes of expiring.

Planet Specific Resources
Whilst the new system only has 20 Spawn spots per location, the spawn system will reserve up to three slots per location (the last three) for the planet ‘Named’ resources. The max number of reserved spots is three but it may be less if a planet only has 1 or 2 named resources.

For those with 4 or 5, the limit is still only three and you will need to mine out one of the existing ones to get a fresh spawn.

This new system now removes the ‘gazumping’ that was taking place on named resources. Now anyone can join in on a named resource. On the flip side, it means you will need to keep an eye open for their volumes and the Estimated Time remaining when deploying on there.

View Extractors
The View Extractors screen (from the View Assets Tab) also displays the ETR making it somewhat easier to globally manage your gaggle of extractors. It may well mean a bit more jumping around tending to these unless of course, you own a R.O.R.I Service Pod (Remote ORSA Recall Interface).

Extractor Rates
Whilst working on the inner guts of what makes an extractor tick I had the opportunity to review the physical numbers that extractors gather. These have been reduced ‘slightly’ not by a major amount but enough for a slight rebalancing. If you’re not seeing your normal rates, don’t reach for the bug button. It will simply be that reduction in play.

Extraction Boost
We have several items in the game that add to the Extraction rate in the form of a ‘Boost’ to your extractors. This is displayed in the ORSA office and also on the View Extractors remote view.

After much consideration, I have decided to Cap this boost to 60%. This one is a Maya culpa on my part. When I added the Halloween devices a few years back I overlooked adding a max cap when fitted. This led to some players managing to obtain a whopping 105%. That with 30+ deployed extractors has really made the ship lean in the wrong direction.

If you have more than 60% booster fitted they will be limited to a max boost of 60%.

Settlement Owners
Up till now Settlements had deployed an ORSA office and the only thing they could do was increase the spawn slots with research. I had a long think about it as ALL ORSA offices are limited to 20 slots. I decided to swap out the research for more slots to research into a Passive Resource Income.

Each level of research completed will give the Settlement a 5% passive income of resources from any extractors deployed be it their own or visitors. Thus it makes sense to get players mining on your settlement now.

Small caveat : Initially for the first few hours after the roll out of the new ORSA you will not get any resources, but once I’m 100% sure everything in copesthetic I will release the lock and you will begin to earn a passive income. If you researched in Slot increases this has been converted to a passive income % already.

Final Notes

Big Bertha
One of the things I’m always being asked is can I swap some CES extractors for something else. If you’ve been with us for a long time you likely have a large collection of each extractor. This change to ORSA means I can start work on the final extractor set whilst soaking up your plethora of CES ones.

I like to call it ‘Big Bertha’ This extractor is still under wraps but will be one you obtain by trading in X CES extractors.

I won’t go into exact specific but the one thing that will make the Bertha an item to relish, and stand out from all others is the fact it can mine ANY type of resource.

I need to see the changes in place for a while and iron out any kinks before we can think about deploying these new extractors to live but they are in the mixer.

Scale of Update
This update has replaced over 40 pages of code. Most of it rewritten from scratch. It also removed a host of tables and replaced them with new ones.

Lastly, there were a total of four tickers maintaining the ORSA process, this is now divided into 1 for the ORSA extractors and one for the ORSA respawn. The staff have spent days and days testing this. We HOPE we have found all the kinks and quirks we could think of. But please bear with us if we hit any snags along the way in the first 24 hours. I will keep a keen eye on any reported issues.

Coops