The issue i would like to highlight/pick up on is that dispatch, and the channel at large, doesn't need to know if you are standing by, or ready or whatever when a ratsignal comes in. If you type 5 jumps, i think it's safe to assume that you're ready to go immediately, if you're not ready don't say anything. If everyone who was waiting to go said standing by, we could have 15 superfluous lines in IRC getting in the way and confusing the client.
Out of Fuel? - Explorer Rescue Service, The Fuel Rats
- Thread starter Surly_Badger
- Start date
Hey,
very happy about the positive response!
My personal opinion, like I said in the original post:
In my IRC client, PMs are immediately visible, just like hilights in #ratchat.
If there are two ratsignals and I miss one of them, yes, tell me, immediately. I'd prefer if you did it with a hilight in #ratchat or with a PM.
If you have a different preference for your own dispatching, just tell people!
There's never going to be any recrimination from me as long as you're not actively hindering the rescue effort
Intervention is necessary sometimes and everyone has to act by their own judgment.
very happy about the positive response!
My personal opinion, like I said in the original post:
In my IRC client, PMs are immediately visible, just like hilights in #ratchat.
If there are two ratsignals and I miss one of them, yes, tell me, immediately. I'd prefer if you did it with a hilight in #ratchat or with a PM.
If you have a different preference for your own dispatching, just tell people!
There's never going to be any recrimination from me as long as you're not actively hindering the rescue effort
Intervention is necessary sometimes and everyone has to act by their own judgment.
Rats Cap
I dont know if my message got through earlier but those of you interested in the Mice of Mischief cap can you please fill in the attached spreadsheet and sed it to me on a pm so that I can fill out the master spreadsheet so that I can put an order in. I need at least the ones on the list. If you aren't on the list but would like one please append the list with your info and I will add you. Cheers.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/elpfdptkdkj74sn/Fuel Rat Caps.xlsx?dl=0
Pic of cap.
I dont know if my message got through earlier but those of you interested in the Mice of Mischief cap can you please fill in the attached spreadsheet and sed it to me on a pm so that I can fill out the master spreadsheet so that I can put an order in. I need at least the ones on the list. If you aren't on the list but would like one please append the list with your info and I will add you. Cheers.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/elpfdptkdkj74sn/Fuel Rat Caps.xlsx?dl=0
Pic of cap.
Presume colour choice is hat/trim ... and text colour is superfluous?
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Hat colour is hat & trim colour. Text colour is if you want a personalised text embroidering in addition to the fuel rats logo. For example you may wish to have your CMDR name on the side or a motto such as 'Always tanked up!' or whatever you like. The additional text is at extra cost and can be any of the listed colours, of course there is no need to have anything at all.
TALES FROM THE RAT-O-SPHERE:
For those that don't know, the word "ratsignal" is sat to make a Very Loud Noise for most of the Rats logged into the IRC.
This is kind of like accidentally leaning against the Fire Alarm.
<Traveller_GG> Holy Hell
<Traveller_GG> I forgot I'd set up a flipping vocal warning for the RatSignal
<Muffindrake> ...
<lowranker> Heya
<Kubuxu[NotDispatch]> ...
<Traveller_GG> I damn near jumped o ut of my skin
<KahouAoki> PLS
<&Cpt_Shinobi> ...
<Fullmetal1212[Mac]> ...
<&Cowbelle> ...
<Salad[PC]> 3 jumps from Traveller_GG
<Steamlined[PC]> Traveller_GG...
<lowranker> ...
<Nexus[PC]> and you set it off again
For those that don't know, the word "ratsignal" is sat to make a Very Loud Noise for most of the Rats logged into the IRC.
This is kind of like accidentally leaning against the Fire Alarm.
The irony... Oh the sickening irony... although to be fair I did think it was only in the other channel
_
Greetings
Thanks for your help Fuel rats and to Rockslice especially.
3kly from the bubble I run out of fuel due to a seemingly never ending run of unscoopables and I didn't know about the star type filter, doh.
Anyway I was on my way back from Sag A , around 70000 ly trip and I run out of fuel 3kly from home and I would have lost all that data.
So big thanks ,really appreciate the help.
Btw when the fuel transfer was taking place sparks started flying and my hull went from 96% to 55% which caused me to panic , can anyone explain what happened.
Thanks for your help Fuel rats and to Rockslice especially.
3kly from the bubble I run out of fuel due to a seemingly never ending run of unscoopables and I didn't know about the star type filter, doh.
Anyway I was on my way back from Sag A , around 70000 ly trip and I run out of fuel 3kly from home and I would have lost all that data.
So big thanks ,really appreciate the help.
Btw when the fuel transfer was taking place sparks started flying and my hull went from 96% to 55% which caused me to panic , can anyone explain what happened.
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Glad they could help, nothing worse than running out of fuel. There is a field of unscoopables at that distance just at the same height as Sol, go up or down to avoid in future
.40% loss in a few seconds sounds familiar from some other rescue....Over-enthusiastic rats sending too many limpets at once I suspect.
PSA to all rats. If the client is not moving multiple limpets will clog up around the clients cargo hatch and do serious damage! Fire one at a time unless its a code red and oxygen is going out in which case get that first fuel limpet in there!
This is documented in our rescue procedures. Anyone who wants to call themself a Fuel Rat should know better than to have made such an embarassing mistake.
Edit: SOP is for the fuel rat to point their ship toward the client, and slowly reverse (doesn't need to be going very fast at all!) have the client follow, then fire the limpets backward at them. When the limpets are done refuelling, they fall away behind the client and explode harmlessly. Also: don't spam limpets; take your time and fire a new limpet when the previous is done transferring fuel. You do not need a big expensive refuel limpet controller; just fire one at a time and only have one in the air at a time.
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My personal SoP is to fire one limpet as soon as i'm in range (to make sure there's enough fuel to power systems) and then wait for the client to power up their shields before sending more. If they don't have shields i advise them to thrust up to get away from the collection below them.
And i agree that controllers that fire two or more limpets at once are a bad idea; the 1D is all you need, or 1A if you're feeling flush (or want the range for instant limpet delivery as soon as you drop into the instance).
And i agree that controllers that fire two or more limpets at once are a bad idea; the 1D is all you need, or 1A if you're feeling flush (or want the range for instant limpet delivery as soon as you drop into the instance).
Sorry about that, xxThe_Dice_manxx. Still a bit new to ratting, and forgot about that...
For anyone curious why we wrote this into the SOP; limpets 3d skin is just a smaller version of a regular container. That means that it can bounce off of ships, shields, space hamburgers, etc. When the client isn't moving, the first limpet will deliver cargo, move away and "burst." This does not mean it has been removed from space; the used limpet now takes on a burned out cargo skin. if the second limpet is fired in quick succession, it will generally bump into the first one on its way to the cargo hold. If you target the 2nd limpet, you can see it take slight dmg before it reaches the client's cargo hold. The 2nd limpet will deliver fuel, float away and "burst" creating more space debris.
.
Any more than 2 limpets fired at a client without them moving will cause this debris to damage a ship's hull due to the 3rd limpet knocking the first two near to the ship. Shields will protect the client just like shields will protect you if you bounce a container off your ship.
.
Bottomline: especially in multiple rat situations, advise the client to move a bit in any direction if more than 2 limpets are fired. Following the SOP will also prevent damage.
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While that's not entirely true (I once fired four limpets at once and had no problem, you just need to wait for them to drift away enough for the second to have a clear path, or make the rescuee spin his ship to change approach vectors ; sometimes limpets gets locked UNDER shield and grind until your rescuee is dust...) I won't ever ask you to remove a layer of security to the SOP.
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EDIT // I HAD to do one of these :
View attachment 62515
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Michael Brookes
Game Director
Hello guys and girls... and in-betweens and outsiders... Everyone !
Administ-rat-rivia time !
As some of you know, I've been appointed "Fuel Rat Respresentative to the Player Group Initiative" and as such have gainedinsight into another dimension... access to knowledge beyond compair a special forum where we discuss Player Groups and how best to improve upon that idea ; and by that I mean what can Player Groups do to improve the ED experience for all and how can Frontier help Player Groups in that endeavour. Some of that information is publicly available on these forums, some of it is restricted to the place I was refering above.
As I am but a single Rat and as such cannot squeak for the more than 500 Rats (and one Cheer-Leader, wink wink) of different tastes and opinion that make up this Mischief ; and I know some of you are pretty opinionated on things, have a strong will and sometime opposing viewpoints (someone said Aisling's better than Arissa, pshe !) and such, I come to you today with some kind of Reader's Digest from the Forum.
I cannot go into details (as it could be boring, I don't wan't copy paste a whole forum section, and maybe I shouldn't be doing this because it is a restricted forum part) but here's what we've discussed so far :
It seems Player Groups are now called Player Faction, and this brings me to another point I'd like to raise with you Rats. If you look at some systems (PHIAGRE is the first that comes to mind) in the galaxy map, you'll see a description about the player group "residing" there. We have played around with the idea of making FUELUM our home because that's the only system in the whole game that you can find by typing "fuel" in the search bar, it has an anarchic faction called the FUELUM CREW that we could maybe ask to be renamed "Fuelum Rats". It's also on the border of Imperial and federal spaces, is not far from Sol, has a Coriolis... So my question to you guys is : should we make FUELUM our official home ?
Also, I've seen on that forum that some groups have more than one representative. As we are a very diverse gathering of people, I thought it would be nice to have someone with a different viewpoint to maybe join me in my Propaganda Campaign so as to better represent this Glorious Mischief of ours. I know some people are interested but there was to be more takers I'd like to know.
Oh yeah, nearly forgot. Today we had the first Skype Conference between Frontier and the Player Groups. It was mostly to organize things (how often do we meet, exchange business cards, send Fuel Rats Mugs to The CODE...) but I managed to get two informations that are worth knowing :
Everything else we spoke about was organizing stuff for upcoming Events (you may have heard about "The Mayhem" happening on the Stress Test, there are some pretty nifty things planned Community-Wise and Lore-Wise, but we didn't get any specifics nor the impression Frontier had specifics to share to begin with.
God I hope I'm not breaking any implicit agreement not to say anything.
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You're very welcome ! Get us a picture of how it looks when you use it, maybe ?
Administ-rat-rivia time !
As some of you know, I've been appointed "Fuel Rat Respresentative to the Player Group Initiative" and as such have gained
As I am but a single Rat and as such cannot squeak for the more than 500 Rats (and one Cheer-Leader, wink wink) of different tastes and opinion that make up this Mischief ; and I know some of you are pretty opinionated on things, have a strong will and sometime opposing viewpoints (someone said Aisling's better than Arissa, pshe !) and such, I come to you today with some kind of Reader's Digest from the Forum.
I cannot go into details (as it could be boring, I don't wan't copy paste a whole forum section, and maybe I shouldn't be doing this because it is a restricted forum part) but here's what we've discussed so far :
- Group Definition : What's a Private Group, a Player Group, how do they interact, what are their goal and motivations...
- Group Management Tools : Group creation and naming, Ranks (Founder/Leader, Officers...), Group Icons on the GalMap...
Paint Jobs, Decals - Group Activities : PvP, PvE, Community Goals, Events...
- Wishlist for the User Interface : Group Chat (like local chat), meet-up point setting (to arrange rendez-vous with Groupmates)...
It seems Player Groups are now called Player Faction, and this brings me to another point I'd like to raise with you Rats. If you look at some systems (PHIAGRE is the first that comes to mind) in the galaxy map, you'll see a description about the player group "residing" there. We have played around with the idea of making FUELUM our home because that's the only system in the whole game that you can find by typing "fuel" in the search bar, it has an anarchic faction called the FUELUM CREW that we could maybe ask to be renamed "Fuelum Rats". It's also on the border of Imperial and federal spaces, is not far from Sol, has a Coriolis... So my question to you guys is : should we make FUELUM our official home ?
Also, I've seen on that forum that some groups have more than one representative. As we are a very diverse gathering of people, I thought it would be nice to have someone with a different viewpoint to maybe join me in my Propaganda Campaign so as to better represent this Glorious Mischief of ours. I know some people are interested but there was to be more takers I'd like to know.
Oh yeah, nearly forgot. Today we had the first Skype Conference between Frontier and the Player Groups. It was mostly to organize things (how often do we meet, exchange business cards, send Fuel Rats Mugs to The CODE...) but I managed to get two informations that are worth knowing :
- Instancing is here to stay. For now, it's the way the game was designed and it would require a lot of code rework to address this issue. The devs "are looking into it" but don't expect a solution in the near future (I'd not raise my hopes for Horizons either)
- Credit Transfer between Players is not coming soon. This is something they're considering but it's a system that could be abused really fast so they are thinking how best to address that as well.
Everything else we spoke about was organizing stuff for upcoming Events (you may have heard about "The Mayhem" happening on the Stress Test, there are some pretty nifty things planned Community-Wise and Lore-Wise, but we didn't get any specifics nor the impression Frontier had specifics to share to begin with.
God I hope I'm not breaking any implicit agreement not to say anything.
-
Thanks for the lovely gifts
Michael
You're very welcome ! Get us a picture of how it looks when you use it, maybe ?
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Thanks for the lovely gifts
Michael
Remember, it's not a bribe... it's just a big nudge
(hint hint)
My thoughts as a half-dormant rat that spends more time on the forums than in game.
I'm more than happy for you to broad stroke it, no need to copy it all if you're going to do the hard work of gathering the information into easy to read bullet points
As Surly and many others have said we don't really fall into the standard group category. We are not grouped for our own gains and often don't meet outside of rescues except for the occasional rendezvous at 30,000Ly from Sol to pass limpets across...
For the management tools/user interface/activities:
-I've mentioned before a re-fuelling CG would be epic if it could be coded. Re-fuel Jaques station, re-fuel a capital ship etc. I expect it would also be fun to watch unaware players sending the last of their fuel as a CG contribution and having to call us to help
Ooh, we could even set up a limpet chain to give 1 person crazy contributions!-A way to add everyone in the group to your friends list at once so that I can add every rat instead of doing it part way into a rescue if I haven't raced or rescued with them before.
-We could maybe organise an event to get to Barnards loop without fuel scoops although after the neospike rescue it all seems kind of tame in my head...
Fuelem as capital, yes. To be honest it really doesn't matter where since as above we don't really meet outside of rescues. As you say there are good reasons to make our unofficial home official.
On the whole multiple points of contact I'd say 3 would be absolute max. From my past experience any more and the message gets crossed, diluted or over-emphasised. I'd be willing to help out but as above I'm not on the rats site and in game as much as I'd like although I am pretty much on here most of the time and I do like to comment
I'd also be very happy not to do it if there are others that are willing, especially more active people within the group. Put me down as a "if no one else wants to"..
Haha, I half expect to see a mug or tshirt in the next dev update/newsletter/meet the team
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I had some thoughts about instancing the other day, which I didn't have time to mention (other RL crisis intervened) If someone is interested in thinking this through more, be my guest. This is all kind of half-formed.
When we encounter instancing problems in a CASE RED our usual reaction has been to carpet bomb the area with rats, bounce everyone's connections and hope for the best. I believe that is PLAN C or maybe PLAN D. That may not be the best option, actually. Here's what occurred to me: it appears the matchmaking service may be trying to assign people to instances based on things like network speed and protocols reachable through firewalls, etc. Could it be possible that more rats in the scene make for a higher likelihood that the rats will group in the instance and the client will be determined not to be as compatible? Imagine if we had 3 fuel rats with good high speed connections, and a client with a kind of sketchy ping-time. Might be that the matchmaker server would keep grouping the rats in the same instance and pushing the client to their own. Boom. Dead.
What I guess I am thinking is something like this: next time we have a clear set of instancing problems amd nobody is dying of lack of air, maybe we should poll the client about the speed and quality of their connection, whether they have weird NAT devices or firewalls, etc. Then - instead of dropping multiple rats on them, try dropping just one rat that has the closest comparable connection speed and type (i.e.: group the guys on FIOS or whatever) I bet that if we knew more about the compatability decisions the matchmaking server performs, we could game it and pick and choose who got in instance and who didn't. Maybe PLAN C should be a one-rat attempt with a speed/compatible rat. Just a thought. I have no idea how FD coded this thing.
On another topic re: groups - it'd be neat if we had the option to be visible to our group. That way fuel rats could all tell where other fuel rats are. It'd make dispatcher's job less exciting, I suppose. So who needs that?
When we encounter instancing problems in a CASE RED our usual reaction has been to carpet bomb the area with rats, bounce everyone's connections and hope for the best. I believe that is PLAN C or maybe PLAN D. That may not be the best option, actually. Here's what occurred to me: it appears the matchmaking service may be trying to assign people to instances based on things like network speed and protocols reachable through firewalls, etc. Could it be possible that more rats in the scene make for a higher likelihood that the rats will group in the instance and the client will be determined not to be as compatible? Imagine if we had 3 fuel rats with good high speed connections, and a client with a kind of sketchy ping-time. Might be that the matchmaker server would keep grouping the rats in the same instance and pushing the client to their own. Boom. Dead.
What I guess I am thinking is something like this: next time we have a clear set of instancing problems amd nobody is dying of lack of air, maybe we should poll the client about the speed and quality of their connection, whether they have weird NAT devices or firewalls, etc. Then - instead of dropping multiple rats on them, try dropping just one rat that has the closest comparable connection speed and type (i.e.: group the guys on FIOS or whatever) I bet that if we knew more about the compatability decisions the matchmaking server performs, we could game it and pick and choose who got in instance and who didn't. Maybe PLAN C should be a one-rat attempt with a speed/compatible rat. Just a thought. I have no idea how FD coded this thing.
On another topic re: groups - it'd be neat if we had the option to be visible to our group. That way fuel rats could all tell where other fuel rats are. It'd make dispatcher's job less exciting, I suppose. So who needs that?
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