EL Tech Level, Building and Settings

[Rocinante]

I've been working with Jet on the Yodaverse server to try to figure out how building and the settings works and we're at a loss.
On the server side there are 3 on/off settings for Commodity Prices, Tech Level and Territory, we started with all of those "off" so only player actions have an effect.

Then we started building at Pearl with a 24 Economy level .. and after building and maxing the station modules in the sector it stayed exactly the same at 24.

Ok maybe we have a setting wrong, so we changed Commodity and Tech level to "on", restart the server and Pearl DROPS to 9 Tech level.
Well, we can't build in that sector anymore, maybe we have to build another sector .. so I start building one sector over and manage to raise the Tech level to 20 temporarily but then it drops again.

So we changed the Commodity price setting back off and only left the Tech/Econ option on, But the Tech level keeps dropping even though I keep building, it's now down to 2.
It was my understanding that building alone effected tech level, and qualified modules add 3%, so what's happening when I build 30 productions modules and watch the Tech level drop?

[Vice]

Are you gauging/testing right after you sign in? One possibility that comes to mind is you are reviewing the tech level right after you connect to the server and before all state data has been transmitted/received. One quick test you could try is jumping to Pices through the local gate, the back again to see if the tech level updates at that point.

If the problem continues, then I'm not yet sure what else it might be. Since you are working with the server operator, you can have them send me (via e-mail) their current 'universemulti.txt' and 'factionmap.txt' files from the server folder and I can look into it further. Also include whether they are using the 2D or 3D version of the server program.

[Rocinante]

I'll try that Vice aand then let them know, thank you

[Vice]

I ran some tests with both the 2D and 3D server programs and the tech level in Pearl behaved as expected when building production modules. An increase of about 3% occurs with each build event, updating clients later on after build completion and state updates. Verifying that the server properly recorded the increase also confirmed by exiting the server and reconnecting.

The server authorizes changes/actions to the tech level, so if there is an approval process that isn't working for the value and/or for saving the value, then that could cause it to not update properly when you sign in to the server. It also means the cause for the issue is likely server side, whatever it is (decreasing is particularly odd). You'll definitely want to test further with the simulation option for the computer changing the tech level disabled on the server.

Finally, just to be sure we are running on a consistent baseline for comparison, also double check that the server is running the latest version (1.0888) as displayed in the control window in either program (lower right section below the CPU gauge).