Let's discuss RARES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And how it unbalances Powerplay.

[DemiserofD]

I don't think it is good for players to be able to max out their power rank so quickly. The current situation clearly calls for some sort of Nerf, though how much exactly is Up For Debate.

One thing I'll say is that the current situation heavily incentivizes the use of Fleet carriers. Having the restock timer be 10 minutes, which is so close to how long it takes to Dock and undock twice, makes that a natural default. I have long thought that the restock timer should be quite a bit longer, to encourage players to use a wider diversity of rares. Anywhere from once an hour to once a day would be acceptable, in my mind.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

I concur with Rebel Yell. The other activities need to be boosted, not rares to be nerfed. It takes about a million control points to take a system from acquisition to stronghold, so we need for everything to be buffed, otherwise once the module shoppers have what they want, PP 2.0 will become a bit of a wasteland as the remaining players can only focus their efforts so much.

In fairness, it's not just about modules. I had most of them already and unlocking them with one power meant I could clear out my module storage.

For me, it's also about the perks. In the case of LYR, I'll eventually get 100% bonus on Exploration data (already up to 80%) and be able to refuel/rearm/repair my ships for free in his space. His stronghold carriers offering me everything (same for all powers) for sale, with his his 15% is another big bonus.

I enjoy reinforcing, but not really into undermining (other than very minor mischief). Only powers I would target would be Jerome Archer, Antal, and Yuri... and I'm not really all that motivated to go after them.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I don't think it is good for players to be able to max out their power rank so quickly.

Most players don't, though.

Top 10% for a Power is 50,000 weekly merits or so. That's four months to max out your rank, and 90% of players are (significantly, in most cases) slower than that. Top 50% is about 5,000 merits. The median player will take over three years to max out their rank.

Looking at my Power's leaderboard, there are three (3) players who had reached rank 100 by the end of week 2, one more who almost had, and a fifth who might make it by the end of week 3. That's it, in the entire power.

Judging how balanced the progression curve is by the fastest of the fastest speed-runners is a terrible idea for the remaining >99% of players.

 

[Mrc_NorthEast]

I don't think it is good for players to be able to max out their power rank so quickly.

I also disagree. Someone who plays 4 or 5 hours total per week, will not max out the ranks for years at the current earning rates. A nerf on merits will only make it impossible for any average player. FC's have been breaking the Elite economy since they were released. The game should be balanced around the average player not the 1% players.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

I don't think it is good for players to be able to max out their power rank so quickly. The current situation clearly calls for some sort of Nerf, though how much exactly is Up For Debate.

One thing I'll say is that the current situation heavily incentivizes the use of Fleet carriers. Having the restock timer be 10 minutes, which is so close to how long it takes to Dock and undock twice, makes that a natural default. I have long thought that the restock timer should be quite a bit longer, to encourage players to use a wider diversity of rares. Anywhere from once an hour to once a day would be acceptable, in my mind.

Just stamp rares stored on carriers with some kind of meta data that invalidates them for powerplay. While the process is slightly different, commodities sold to a fleet carrier by other commanders are marked and grant no Trade XP bonus for the fleet carrier owner when sold at a market.

I can do a full loop from 3 different systems and back to my target in under an hour, so your proposed time increase would adversely affect me delivering them in my Type-8 - you know, the freighter designed for PP. If you crank it up that high, or to even a couple of hours and you can toss your medium freighters in the bin and might as well hit every rare system in your Cutter or Type 9. Blech. That's fine as an option, but I like doing the quick runs in my Type 8. Yes, after 3 weeks, I'm up to rank 67 (or 69... somewhere in that range). I'm not like our lead commander for week one that spent all his time loading up his carrier and then unloading it (before everyone else realized how good it was) and went up to rank 118 in the first week!!!

 

[Greasetrap42]

Another odd factor with hauling rares for PP merits: Because of the distance factor there is a strong incentive for cmdrs to deliver the rares to systems at the farthest edge of their power's region.

I understand why the mechanic exists, but it places a bias on systems on the edge of the bubble that might not really be that important. Meanwhile some other power might have a "farthest edge" that is bordering my power, but I don't care because I want to maximize my merits.

 

[DemiserofD]

Most players don't, though.

True, but most players don't know what they'd actually enjoy most, we tend to focus more on avoiding what we don't like.

IMO, as I've said elsewhere, the answer is to rescale the rewards to be more frontloaded to relieve the compulsion to max your rank to get all the bonuses. Most players shouldn't be aiming at rank 100, their goal should be, say, rank 25, at which point you'd have the majority of your Power's bonuses, with the remainder being doled out in much smaller portions to reward the hardcore players.

I do think SOME activities need to be buffed moderately. Trade, for example, currently caps out at something like 2400 merits per hour, which is pretty low for maximum efficiency. But at the same time, getting ~20k-40k merits per hour for Rares is clearly far too high, especially for something like Rares Trading which isn't particularly skill-based, it's just pure time investment.

I can do a full loop from 3 different systems and back to my target in under an hour, so your proposed time increase would adversely affect me delivering them in my Type-8 - you know, the freighter designed for PP. If you crank it up that high, or to even a couple of hours and you can toss your medium freighters in the bin and might as well hit every rare system in your Cutter or Type 9. Blech. That's fine as an option, but I like doing the quick runs in my Type 8. Yes, after 3 weeks, I'm up to rank 67 (or 69... somewhere in that range). I'm not like our lead commander for week one that spent all his time loading up his carrier and then unloading it (before everyone else realized how good it was) and went up to rank 118 in the first week!!!

That's definitely not ideal either...but clearly something needs to change. As things currently stand, Rares are either going to be better than normal trading and be the only thing anyone ever does, or worse than normal trading and never get done at all. There is no middle ground.

 

[Shadowsnog]

Another odd factor with hauling rares for PP merits: Because of the distance factor there is a strong incentive for cmdrs to deliver the rares to systems at the farthest edge of their power's region.

I understand why the mechanic exists, but it places a bias on systems on the edge of the bubble that might not really be that important. Meanwhile some other power might have a "farthest edge" that is bordering my power, but I don't care because I want to maximize my merits.

i dont know how others, but we look for rares that are furthest from the system we operate in, not the other way around...

 

[Ian Doncaster]

As things currently stand, Rares are either going to be better than normal trading and be the only thing anyone ever does, or worse than normal trading and never get done at all.

That doesn't have to be the case.

Trading is very dependent on system economies - especially Acquisition trading where you have no choice about the trade route to use. It also has a faster loop time, so more chance for side merits with holo-hacking, scans, etc. In many cases you can also run it both ways and get merits in two systems rather than Rares where the chances of the pickup system also being in your Power's space are pretty low.

Give rares a slightly lower baseline so that trading is better on average but rares are a simple "automatic" choice if you don't want to think about economies, system states, etc. and that should be quite nicely balanced.

 

[Greasetrap42]

i dont know how others, but we look for rares that are furthest from the system we operate in, not the other way around...

Is there a benefit to picking up the rares from a system controlled by my power? I thought it was just longest distance. I have been picking them up from stns with the combo of highest qty and highest merit payout on delivery. And of course I deliver to a system on the far edge of my power's region.

 

[Greasetrap42]

That's definitely not ideal either...but clearly something needs to change. As things currently stand, Rares are either going to be better than normal trading and be the only thing anyone ever does, or worse than normal trading and never get done at all. There is no middle ground.

IMO weeklies should get a good boost for completing the 5 tasks. In the time it takes to complete weeklies a typical cmdr should make much more than any other task in the same amount of time. Then weeklies become the defacto highest priority for completing. But they can only be done once per week.

A cmdr can then supplement their PP with secondary activities such as trading, combat, escape pods, etc.

 

[Shadowsnog]

Is there a benefit to picking up the rares from a system controlled by my power?

none that im aware of

 

[Greasetrap42]

none that im aware of

Right. So you get the best rares for qty and merits from far away. And deliver them to a system on the farthest opposite edge of your power's region. To maximize the distance from wherever you got the cargo.

 

[Shadowsnog]

Right. So you get the best rares for qty and merits far away from your system. And deliver them to a system controlled by your power on the farthest opposite edge of your system.

pretty much.
i use inara list of rares with the system im operating in as a reference. sort by distance, look around the 200 ly mark, check which ones are in good stock and from those i try to make a selection that would fill my cargo and not take too many jumps.

 

[Greasetrap42]

pretty much.
i use inara list of rares with the system im operating in as a reference. sort by distance, look around the 200 ly mark, check which ones are in good stock and from those i try to make a selection that would fill my cargo and not take too many jumps.

You will get significantly more merits by delivering a full cutter load of rares to a system on the far edge of your power's region. As I was pointing out, this is best for the cmdr but it doesn't make strategic sense for your power.

 

[Shadowsnog]

You will get significantly more merits by delivering a full cutter load of rares to a system on the far edge of your power's region. As I was pointing out, this is best for the cmdr but it doesn't make strategic sense for your power.

do the merits increase above the 200ly mark? i thought that at the 200ly i would get max merits as that offers the max credits as far as i know. or is it affected by something else?

 

[Greasetrap42]

do the merits increase above the 200ly mark? i thought that at the 200ly i would get max merits as that offers the max credits as far as i know. or is it affected by something else?

I don't know. I wasn't aware of a 200Ly threshold.

I simply looked up the best locations to get rares in INARA. I chose a good spot that happens to be a distance of 120Ly away from my power's region... or (by chance) 180Ly on the far side of the region. So of course I dump rares at the far side. And it looks like it is very popular for other cmdrs too.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Most of the documentation I've seen says that rares cap prices somewhere around the 170 LY mark. I haven't tested it recently though.
(It certainly doesn't increase forever or I could have retired on the ones I sold to Jaques once...)

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Most of the documentation I've seen says that rares cap prices somewhere around the 170 LY mark. I haven't tested it recently though.
(It certainly doesn't increase forever or I could have retired on the ones I sold to Jaques once...)

most of the documentation also claims the profit caps around 17k per unit, but I got around 39k per unit on my last rares sale, and that was without any power bonus (Kaine doesn't offer one for rare trading as far as I know). So maybe a lot of the documentation is now either wrong, out of date or both.

 

[Factabulous]

I did try bringing some of Jaques special back from Colonia a couple of weeks ago - sadly I am not retired from the proceeds ...