Patch Notes Update Elite: Dangerous 1.02 change log

[Zplintz]

That's fine, but you didn't answer my question on the big ships for elites.

I've only had my Asp for 1 day and already considering selling it, I love the ship, but I just cannot see how I'm ever going to afford to kit it out and maintain from this point. I feel as if I'm being forced back into my Viper, which I probably will do...at least I'll be able to kit it out to the max and have a little fun. Anything larger just doesn't seem viable for me personally.

Even in previous releases (when it was easier to make money and everything was cheaper), tt was often necessary to stay in the lesser ship until you had a financial cushion to fall back on.

The larger ships (with their larger holds) do up the amount of credits you can make per trip - this will need to balance with how much it costs to maintain and equip + any accidents (but this holds true whether you play for 10 hours a week or 40) - the cost of running the ship per hour versus your ability to make credits per hour would remain the same.

I think the issue may be what you think is a reasonable time scale. I am in this for the long haul, I don't mind if progression is slow as long as I progress each time I play (where possible - everyone has bad days).

As Michael says the balance (and dealing with over zealous npc traders) is still being dealt with and the game is only technically 2 days old - keep going and see if you still have issues after a couple of weeks.

 

[Ericlas]

Answer appreciated. One quick question: why wasn't this change called out in the change log? Even other purely server-side changes are often mentioned, yet this one was left to be discovered.

For the record, it seems like the right choice, and 70 tons @20k each isn't chump change.

Why was it even introduced?

I read about ppl working at home, really happy about a possibilityto get in the game occasionally to fill up their hold and deliver the stuff after 3 hours, just to make the same profit as someone trading normal goods between stations in the same amount of time.

 

[GJ51]

I haven't read all the posts here, and I'm not going to...
Game play is REALLY good. Most things work and if you pay attention, you can make a living and progressively upgrade your kit. Starting to feel "bout right" to me. I don't want to blast through ships and upgrades without challenge and effort, but I certainly want to feel as though I can make progress. I think it is definitely moving in that direction. It takes some work and you have to make astute observations to be successful.
Comms is still borked for me. Attempts to send text fail even though I can receive them. I probably will stop getting any if I don't get the ability to respond fixed.
Great job on the release - I was certainly skeptical as Gamma came to a close, but I'm very happy that my suspicions turned out to be incorrect. Kudos.
Regular trading and hauling missions can still use some tweaking. I think all the ways to make reasonable profit should be attractive, if even on a rotating basis, to keep things fun and prevent boredom, but all options should make sense with risk/reward reasonably balanced.
For anyone struggling, patience is the key. Just because you see some of us driving Cobra's and ASP's doesn't mean that we didn't pay our dues by grinding out our expertise during the beta/gamma experience. Slogging up from a Sidewinder is a challenge, but the fundamentals learned are necessary. Nobody hops in a Ferrari 6 speed having never been behind the wheel of a car and heads to the track with success. If you have patience and perseverance the rewards of gameplay are well worth it. This is the deepest most diverse and complex gameplay environment I've played so far and after a while you see the enormous potential for continued growth and development. Be of good cheer - if it was easy anyone could do it - and no one would be Elite!

 

[orfeboy]

No more than your quota for each rare will be generated.

Michael

Maybe a solution to this problem might be to make rare commodities and their value something that has a bearing on how likely you are to be interdicted. Afterall, if a pirate scans you and sees you are carrying very valuable cargo he is more likely to attack. Players carrying valuable cargo over large distances might well find themselves attacked many times thus creating a risk vs profit scenario. It is not even beyond the realms of possibility that more than one ship might attack you at the same time...(heres me hoping for pirate groups as per the old Elite (Please? )

 

[Starbuckz]

That is actually not what you said, and neither is that what I said. We can debate the topic but please stop straw manning me and moving the goal poast.

the profession I was talking about was the wonderful job of a nomadic rare trader that stayed in a system for a day or two while loading up my hold, running missions and exploring the area, then moving 150'ish ly and doing it again. Making friends with new stations and earning enough by the rare trade to keep my asp running.

I never claimed it was "my whole point in playing the game" I said it made this way of playing that was amazingly fun to me possible.

And if your big issue is that people should "calm a bit" then... really why are you feeding the flames with straw man arguments and moving your own goal post around?

I see and understand why you might find that way of playing enjoyable and am sorry if you can't continue with that. But also I think it was inevitable. As I said, rares are only a part of it. If the state they were in before was damaging the economy, then they'd to change. No one is to blame for that, fewest of all the devs.

 

[Khushrenada]

I have tested a Python taking different missions, playing about 2-4 hours per day. I had no problems making 6-7M Cr of pure profit taking into account that my ship was in top condition, all maintenance repairs were performed when required.

erm. how many days are we talking here?
did you stay in a close area of systems, all allied to you?
i assume you scooped fuel, as otherwise the fuel costs would eat up a hughe margin of your profit if you have large jumps with full cargo hold in between missions!

such a large profit only doing missions seems pretty odd i must say and without further infos i simply don`t believe that statement...

i have a phyton as well, but with only missions that amount of profit?
some "bring me that" and "transport this" missions net a nice profit, but you need:

A) luck to get them, most missions are little payouts
B) a good place where you have all those systems in range to haul cargo to and get the goods you need to bring back

i as well know such a place, i am allied there, but 6-7M Cr? no way. best profit i ever made in a mission was like 300k hauling 30 gold or something like that, never saw that mission pop up again... ever...

 

[SlickReed]

Dude, that was Gamma. Gamma 1.05, which was pre-rares nerfs.

I know it was gamma. This was before the rare timer nerf. Even after the nerf, one trip with a fully loaded lakon 6 would net you over 2 mill profit. Please tell me ANY profession in the game that you can make over 2 million in under 2 hours?

 

[Tihor]

Rare goods are intended to be a low volume, high yield good that needs to be transported over a distance. For small ships you can fill the hold with a few tons and make speed run. For larger ships you supplement normal trade goods with rare items or do large loops, picking up small quantities along the way but carrying a variety.

Michael

This was my strategy, flying around 6 or 7 system across 100 LY collecting rates but also trading normal goods along the way. Once full with rates I fly 200 LY to sell the rares and do the same at that end of the Galaxy. This way I see the universe and make credits. But it was only viable if I could with cross over stops - I don't this this will work anymore

 

[Resentina]

before 1.02 i had lot of fun doing all ED can offer at the same time (but mine ): exploring, trading, killing, doing faction missions. Fantastic. whith my cobra, This was: picking the rare good (1 to 12?) pick missions, launch, doing missions, exploring the mission's system, killing the interdicotrs, and such... going back to station, picking rewards, rep, and the rare goods again... pick missions, launch... and again unitl cargo full... launch, plot route, jump, explore new systems, pich USS, kill interdictors, until reaching rare good station and start again. Accordinf with my RL stuff, this took me 1 DAY to travel by station, 1 DAY filling my cargo. and, of course finding and trying new fantastic equipement. This is not grinding, this is not "doing what the game doesn't want".

This is not just pressing keys, jump fast as i can, grind money. i think this is a part, maybe small, of what ED can offer, and i was really enjoing it.

DEVs pls think about that and try to balance it.

 

[corvinus]

Yay! Thanks for responding Mike... i was just criticizing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H erm, commenting on the communications around here. *cough*

Ary you kidding? There were no answers of any kind in that "reply." It was like watching a politician.

 

[Michael Brookes]

As I'm sure you can do the math as well as any of us, I think a little clarification is in order.

In Gamma 2, with no AI trading, it was possible to find 1000CR profit-per-ton that lasted for ~12 hours, with appropriate HIGH demand and HIGH supply. It wasn't super rare, but it wasn't normal. If you took a few hours, you could find it, then profit from that route for a full day, at least.

Now, that same number has dropped to 700CR profit-per-ton, and it lasts for about an hour before it's down to under 500CR profit-per-ton.

Given the absolutely staggering ship, upgrade/outfitting costs, are you absolutely certain that you "disagree that it needs to be a lot more lucrative"?

At 500CR profit-per-ton, and a 30 minute trip time (round trip, 15 each way) that leads a average casual player to 50,000 credits per trip of profit, or 100K CR profit per hour. That means 174 hours of running 100T trips in a Type6 before a player could afford a base Python.

At 1 hour per day, that's 5 months 24 days to progress from a Type 6 to a Python.

That's the current design goal?

I said I disagreed that it needs to not be a 'lot' more lucrative. When we fix the AI we'll take another look at the balance. I'm not sure about your figures though, I just station tramp trade and make 300-600 per ton and do a trade every 5-10 minutes. A bit longer if I stop to do some exploration. In any case we'll take a look.

Michael

 

[reload]

Much preferred the 1.01 method. Gave a 'realistic' feel whilst not negatively impacting solo users (with the same global pool of goods for all users, solo players would probably never see any rares).
Limited stock allocation would perhaps work with a reputation mechanic, but as is - it's now utterly pointless. As others have said, waiting at the station to build up stock for a long trip to another rares producer 160ly away was good for casual players and encouraged people to go 'exploring' and making long journeys.

This just encourages people to go back to the grind.

 

[Falxftw]

I know it was gamma. This was before the rare timer nerf. Even after the nerf, one trip with a fully loaded lakon 6 would net you over 2 mill profit. Please tell me ANY profession in the game that you can make over 2 million in under 2 hours?

actualyl a fully loaded lakon netted you about 1.5 mil. This took about 2 hours.

Regular trading can far exceed that time for profit, (providing the economy is working correctly, which at this time is up in the air) except the fact is, its boring, its tedious, and it is just plain not fun. Mining can outperform it as well.

 

[Seboss]

Please reconsider this decision to force others to trade "my way or the highway".

So you want to force your playstyle on the developers' game then? Rares have been nerfed, surely for good reason. >hy not giving FD the benefit of the doubt? Nerfs always annoy some people, but now we'll just have to deal with it and find another ways to maximize profits. A week from now, everybody will have moved on.

 

[Mutant]

No go play your own style of trading traders...

I'm sorry Mike, but i was with you all the time, through all the balancing and tweaks.
But I just can't follow this idea. People were ok with the rare-goods in the release version, as we all agreed they were too overpowered before.
But limiting a good, depending on how much someone already has is just not logical at all.
I believe you are well aware of all the arguments brought by the trading faction, so i don't go over them again.
And you know as well, what effort is needed to find some good profitable trade routes, suggesting to do that on the fly on a rare trading trip...
I think i need a break from the game after all.

I dont want to tell you whats fun, but for me this feels better than before. I still can fill my 100t with rares quite quickly, I just have to use more stations now. And I was already finding nice traderoutes for normal commodities while 'farming' rares. Limiting rare stuff depending on how much one already got is quite usual in my eyes.

 

[TinyPwny]

Michael, thanks for the quick response, much appreciated to know what the intended design for rare goods is like. I think there are more elegant ways to balance rare goods than this though. Some random thoughts:

* Make rare good trading really lucrative but highly dangerous (more pirate attacks if you carry more rare goods, many rare goods could only net max profit if sold in systems where they're illegal so you gotta smuggle them in)
* Vastly increase the distance to max profit (gives even more reason to travel far!)
* Require certain rep to buy rare goods or unlock individual rare goods with missions

I hope the current situation is not the final solution!

But limiting a good, depending on how much someone already has is just not logical at all.

Me: "I want to buy these 2 bottles of milk please."
Shop keeper: "No."
Me: "No? Why not?"
Shop keeper: "You already have a bottle of milk in your fridge. Finish that first."

Can't see how that's logical either.

 

[corvinus]

There seems to be an issue with the AI trading in that in some circumstances it's over trading leading to producer economies becoming consumers for the same good, this has the knock on affect of reducing profit margins.

Michael

So why not kill AI trading altogether?

 

[Draxinusom]

I said I disagreed that it needs to not be a 'lot' more lucrative. When we fix the AI we'll take another look at the balance. I'm not sure about your figures though, I just station tramp trade and make 300-600 per ton and do a trade every 5-10 minutes. A bit longer if I stop to do some exploration. In any case we'll take a look.

Michael

So do lots of us and we steadily see margins drop when we expect them to rise, especially after jumping up the "ship tier". The balance between upkeep cost and profit really needs a long hard look. Perhaps this https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=78843 "funny mechanic" or bug, whichever it is also really needs to be looked at.

In the mean time, unless that AI fix is planned to go out soon, could you just, you know, switch that thing off again? At least that would give a test bed to see if restocking/consumption at stations work as they should, something that the concerned traders aren't too sure about right now.

 

[Michael Brookes]

So why not kill AI trading altogether?

Because it's a core component of the background sim.

Michael

 

[SpaceUK]

Even in previous releases (when it was easier to make money and everything was cheaper), tt was often necessary to stay in the lesser ship until you had a financial cushion to fall back on.

The larger ships (with their larger holds) do up the amount of credits you can make per trip - this will need to balance with how much it costs to maintain and equip + any accidents (but this holds true whether you play for 10 hours a week or 40) - the cost of running the ship per hour versus your ability to make credits per hour would remain the same.

I think the issue may be what you think is a reasonable time scale. I am in this for the long haul, I don't mind if progression is slow as long as I progress each time I play (where possible - everyone has bad days).

As Michael says the balance (and dealing with over zealous npc traders) is still being dealt with and the game is only technically 2 days old - keep going and see if you still have issues after a couple of weeks.

Sorry, but no.

From a semi-casual gamer POV, to outfit my Asp now is a grindy mammoth undertaking of biblical proportions that I find unacceptable, and it really doesn't pay for itself in the way you described. I would be better off sticking to my Viper (for combat) and buying back a type-6 for my trading needs, and staying right there, indefinitely. The cargo hold isn't so much bigger than the type-6. The fuel, maintenance and insurance costs of the Asp, assuming fully kitted in A mods aren't worth it after the current nerfs and state of the economy, unless I'm prepared to grind my face off, and I can basically write off any chance of a Python or anything else. This is basically it in a nutshell.