I think he means mission only engineer cargo, i.e. Modular terminals, etc.
There are a few sights that are persistent that will gain you antimony and others, that can be refreshed by mode switching.
ED gameplay it's all about -> logoff/logon
- Thread starter Altarf
- Start date
I think he means mission only engineer cargo, i.e. Modular terminals, etc.
There are a few sights that are persistent that will gain you antimony and others, that can be refreshed by mode switching.
Ah, ok.
Now I remember those UA fragments and what a pain getting those modular terminals for that engineer was.
Modular Terminals and Articulation Motors are the big 2. But there are others that can also only be found by missions. Using this this exploit increases your effectiveness by 300%. It's broken.
It's not just mats either, as TargetLost pointed out, there can be serious impacts on several competitive parts of the game where not mode switching will put you at a crippling disadvantage.
I wouldn't call the folks who constantly relog to refresh missions idiots, by any means. If that's the way they want to do it because they prioritize gaining that "reward" at the expense of gameplay, that's their right to do so. However I think they are being silly. Using the relog method to do this may be frustrating and boring but as Brett pointed out upthread, that isn't the way the game was designed to be played so since they are doing it to themselves they've got no right to ask FD to "fix" it, to ask them to support exploiting a wrinkle in the games architecture.
If anything I'd instead expect FD to be more likely to make the mission boards persistent across all game modes, so that once any cmdr requests the mission board and it is generated, it is cached so every subsequent request, by any cmdr, for the mission board at that station sees the same board until after the refresh interval expires. When it refreshes, if any cmdrs were looking at it, overwrite the cache. IF a refresh interval passes without any cmdrs eyes on the board, purge the cache entry. Presto, no more relogs to refresh the mission board, because a refresh WOULDN'T refresh the mission board.
Aside from everything else, this would be a useful project for FD to look into because the mission board is far from the only area where additional persistence would be a benefit. If a server-side persistence cache was suitably designed it could end up serving those other areas also. It would be a lot of work to get right, of course, so I wouldn't expect it quickly or without a few bugs to iron out, but the mission board seems the ideal place to start as it would seem to present fewer challenges than some of the situations where increased persistence would be a plus.
If anything I'd instead expect FD to be more likely to make the mission boards persistent across all game modes, so that once any cmdr requests the mission board and it is generated, it is cached so every subsequent request, by any cmdr, for the mission board at that station sees the same board until after the refresh interval expires. When it refreshes, if any cmdrs were looking at it, overwrite the cache. IF a refresh interval passes without any cmdrs eyes on the board, purge the cache entry. Presto, no more relogs to refresh the mission board, because a refresh WOULDN'T refresh the mission board.
Aside from everything else, this would be a useful project for FD to look into because the mission board is far from the only area where additional persistence would be a benefit. If a server-side persistence cache was suitably designed it could end up serving those other areas also. It would be a lot of work to get right, of course, so I wouldn't expect it quickly or without a few bugs to iron out, but the mission board seems the ideal place to start as it would seem to present fewer challenges than some of the situations where increased persistence would be a plus.
Philip Coutts
Volunteer Moderator
I've never logged off / logged on or mode switched and never will, it would spoil my enjoyment of the game. If other people want to do it then good luck to you.
I'd completely agree with you - having a mission where you deliberately have to leave/revisit a PoI to get the job done isn't great design.
The game would be better without the engineering commodity goods. Stupidly hard to find, attract NPC pirates 100% of the time, they make taking courier missions impossible without cargo space, otherwise worthless. That stuff isn't mission reward, it's punishment. Gladly I'm only interested in mods that don't require those things. I did a lot of "grinding" just to avoid having to "grind" for that stupid stuff.
Back to topic. I agree instance reset by relogging is really something FD should fix.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
I am no dev however i dont buy this. If the BB was mirrored in each of the servers then it would not be an issue (i am guessing its a matchmaking server thing rather than a mode thing per se)
Pretty sure the people that do, would be the first to demand it back, if by magic, tonight " logged off / logged on or mode switched " to refresh missions, spawns etc, ceased being a thing
Or maybe just fly to a different base on the same planet or a different POI that spawns them to find your next few skimmers? Unless the mission says you have to kill all 12 at the same POI in which case I'd file a bug report about skimmers not respawning, because with a mission couched in those terms it's obvious that FD intended them to.
You cant really get around the MT or AM grind. Not unless you want a fundamentally subpar ship or are primarily focused on (non-alien) Exploration or fly ships where speed and firepower are somehow unimportant (like the T9 or T7). OR you are fine flying a small ship with Enhanced Drives and grade 3 mods. So yeah, I guess there are some people that are unaffected, but only because their interests are a small subset of what is possible in the game.
Last edited:
This thread seems to have gone a bit mental. 
For the record, I don't believe the OP is an idiot. Nor do I believe that Elite's mission system is perfect the way it is. It's fundamentally flawed. No economy could/should exist where huge payouts are given for trivial goods that could be more easily sourced at local markets, unless there's something fundamentally wrong with that economy. Likewise a system with 2 billion population shouldn't be generating zero missions across the board. I also agree with those saying that the lack of persistence on the mission board, through the hybid-p2p-client-server architecture, allowing free mode switching, lack of consequences for crimes, AI that doesn't seem to have a middle ground for people, and the disparity between engineers/non-engineers ships, are all contributing to a giant mess, that may well be unplayable for some people - who therefore feel the need to maximise any chance to get, well, not even ahead, but an even break.
I'm lucky. I've been enjoying the game. Picking up single to a few missions here and there in a cluster of Imperial Systems. 'Grinding' rep with local factions. Ignoring engineers. Playing my way. It's taken me almost 7 months to get from Tycoon to 60% Elite. To celebrate my first billion credits, as an experiment I tried a few Sothis runs yesterday, just to check my vehement gut reaction that they are completely out of whack with the rest of the game was correct. I'm now 75% of the way to trade Elite and 60 million credits richer for 8 hours work. That's just stacking missions, no mode switching involved. 60 million credits for hauling excrement and hydrogen - the two most common commodities in the Elite galaxy. All because the payout is massively skewed to distance primarily, rather than more influenced by type/scarcity of good, or demand for that good in the target system. Errrk! OK!
So. My glib, initial response of 'just don't do it' *IS* facetious. There is a demand for more answers from the Devs. The game's economy and mission system *IS* definitely flawed in my mind, due to being nonsensical and having excessive payouts in certain circumstances. And the more I think about it, that bugs me far more than whether people mode switch to pick up a few extra missions.
It's not whether people make more or less money, or a 'cheating' by stacking or switching. The underlying structure *is* borked to encourage such activity. The OP isn't an idiot. And the game is still playable with such obvious flaws, but nowhere near as good as it could be (could have been?). I'll stand by my assertions that payouts should be lower, and the game should take time to get to the good stuff, simply because that is one of the things I value most about all iterations of Elite. To me 'the grind' is 'the game'. Sad innit?
For the record, I don't believe the OP is an idiot. Nor do I believe that Elite's mission system is perfect the way it is. It's fundamentally flawed. No economy could/should exist where huge payouts are given for trivial goods that could be more easily sourced at local markets, unless there's something fundamentally wrong with that economy. Likewise a system with 2 billion population shouldn't be generating zero missions across the board. I also agree with those saying that the lack of persistence on the mission board, through the hybid-p2p-client-server architecture, allowing free mode switching, lack of consequences for crimes, AI that doesn't seem to have a middle ground for people, and the disparity between engineers/non-engineers ships, are all contributing to a giant mess, that may well be unplayable for some people - who therefore feel the need to maximise any chance to get, well, not even ahead, but an even break.I'm lucky. I've been enjoying the game. Picking up single to a few missions here and there in a cluster of Imperial Systems. 'Grinding' rep with local factions. Ignoring engineers. Playing my way. It's taken me almost 7 months to get from Tycoon to 60% Elite. To celebrate my first billion credits, as an experiment I tried a few Sothis runs yesterday, just to check my vehement gut reaction that they are completely out of whack with the rest of the game was correct. I'm now 75% of the way to trade Elite and 60 million credits richer for 8 hours work. That's just stacking missions, no mode switching involved. 60 million credits for hauling excrement and hydrogen - the two most common commodities in the Elite galaxy. All because the payout is massively skewed to distance primarily, rather than more influenced by type/scarcity of good, or demand for that good in the target system. Errrk! OK!
So. My glib, initial response of 'just don't do it' *IS* facetious. There is a demand for more answers from the Devs. The game's economy and mission system *IS* definitely flawed in my mind, due to being nonsensical and having excessive payouts in certain circumstances. And the more I think about it, that bugs me far more than whether people mode switch to pick up a few extra missions.
It's not whether people make more or less money, or a 'cheating' by stacking or switching. The underlying structure *is* borked to encourage such activity. The OP isn't an idiot. And the game is still playable with such obvious flaws, but nowhere near as good as it could be (could have been?). I'll stand by my assertions that payouts should be lower, and the game should take time to get to the good stuff, simply because that is one of the things I value most about all iterations of Elite. To me 'the grind' is 'the game'. Sad innit?
Last edited:
That's not "end game", that's the end of progression.
End game is supposed to start after you finish progressing, but after progression there isn't a whole lot of new things to do.
You get your cutter/vette/whatever A-rated, fully engineered...and then what? It's the same "go here and kill x dudes" or "take this pile of s*** from here to there"
There isn't any real content that is designed around an end game built ship, like say a threat 50 USS with 5 hostile capital ships that rewards 30 modular terminals on completion
And let's not even get started about having something made for a wing of 4 of said cutters/vettes/whatevers
Aside from instancing being as good as that pile of s*** you're delivering, having a wing like that is only good for 2 things: stacking cz missions (which requires switching modes, so it creates a "muh immursion" issue) and
CZ stacking is fun for a while, until you realise that you have 10 billion credits, but there's absolutely nothing to spend it on. Not even a pile of sulphur to reload your multi cannons while salt farming.
So the result is a wing of top-tier shiny shiny ships enhanced with unobtainium shooting shieldless adders at cgs
The other choice is buying an asp, plotting a course and pressing J 2000 times while writing essays on how pvp and ship transfers will ruin the game, because shorter travel times mean that the game is easier, but it's supposed to be hard, but if it's hard because the AI is smart then it's too hard so it's supposed to be easy and difficult at the same time, or maybe it's supposed to be easy but time consuming...ok I'm just gonna drop it here
This thread seems to have gone a bit mental.
I'm lucky. I've been enjoying the game. Picking up single to a few missions here and there in a cluster of Imperial Systems. 'Grinding' rep with local factions. Ignoring engineers. Playing my way. It's taken me almost 7 months to get from Tycoon to 60% Elite. To celebrate my first billion credits, as an experiment I tried a few Sothis runs yesterday, just to check my vehement gut reaction that they are completely out of whack with the rest of the game was correct. I'm now 75% of the way to trade Elite and 60 million credits richer for 8 hours work. That's just stacking missions, no mode switching involved. 60 million credits for hauling excrement and hydrogen - the two most common commodities in the Elite galaxy. All because the payout is massively skewed to distance primarily, rather than more influenced by type/scarcity of good, or demand for that good in the target system. Errrk! OK!
So. My glib, initial response of 'just don't do it' *IS* facetious. There is a demand for more answers from the Devs. The game's economy and mission system *IS* definitely flawed in my mind, due to being nonsensical and having excessive payouts in certain circumstances. And the more I think about it, that bugs me far more that whether people mode switch to pick up a few extra missions.
It's not whether people make more or less money, or a 'cheating' by stacking or switching. The underlying structure *is* borked to encourage such activity. The OP isn't an idiot. And the game is still playable with such obvious flaws, but nowhere near as good as it could be (could have been?).
Excellent post
It's not that mission board isn't persistent across game modes - it actually can be and I see that a lot. it depends on which server you connect to - it seems each server maintain their own list of available missions. Relogging is one way to (maybe or not) change which server you connect to to get your missions.
This seems like a simplification of server side design, removing the requirement to synchronize data between the different server instances (which may or may not be different than the in-game instance - I have no idea if those are connected).
You could just do something else.
If this is what you find fun, then its your fault.
If you are telling other people that its not fun because you said so, then its your fault.
If you would rather gather the materials in this manner than go about it legitimately, then its your fault.
If you assume everyone else but you does all of the things in your list, then its your fault. That is unless you are omnipresent.
Just because these are things that you do, doesnt mean that everyone does them. This is only an issue because you chose to make it your issue. Most other people just go out and play the game. You can play the game as well there is no need to do anything that you are stating. You cant dictate how other people should play a game on which they spent their own money.
IF they consider that a problem.
Honestly, the only deep and meaningful mechanic to this game is the manipulation of the BGS. Having pushed out Elite status in the prime 3 categories at first revealed how little of a life the user actually had. These days, to throw someone's rankings at them as an argument against their knowledge of the game really shows how immature said thrower is.
Being Elite in combat doesn't mean you're a good fighter. It means you've taken the time to kill thousands of NPCs who, arguably, aren't that much of a threat to begin with.
Being Elite in Trade means you've got a recurring subscription to an TV/Movie streaming service and have plenty of time to kill.
Being Elite in Exploration means that some part of your soul has died out there. (j/k)
Trade isn't for everyone.
Combat isn't for everyone.
Exploration isn't for everyone.
Using the rank of any of those three as a metric to judge someone's ability to comment on the mechanics (or lack thereof) of this game is decidedly immature and only goes to show how much stock other readers of the forum should put into your own comments.
<3
Let me just back you right up, Deadspin: you act as if I attacked that poster when in fact all I did was point out that with his lack of experience he was not in a good position to comment on the poor quality of "end game" concepts. Seems like a valid observation, and certainly no disparagement...unless you're overly sensitive about perceived lack of accomplishment and feel like a nerve has been poked, which in the case of your remarks to me makes me wonder if that's not the case with you; you certainly seem to have a problem with Elite ranked pilots, going so far as to enumerate how worthless you think their accomplishments are. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, and while I think you're a bit off your rocker attacking me here, I do apologize if you feel disparaged.
I'll be going in and out of Trophy Camp in Open in a couple hours if you'd like to take the time to have further discussions on this matter
The thing is, mode switching does not refresh the mission board. What happens in fact is that the servers have multiple parallel mission boards at the same time. Instead of for example 60 missions in one mission board, they have 20 missions in open play, 20 in a private group, 20 in solo, each set different, so you have to log around to view the entire set of 60 missions.
What FD should do is unify the mission boards across all modes so that you always see the same mission board which now contains the total sum of missions you would otherwise be able to see if you checked out each mode.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
I still vividly remember the people defending 2.1 with claims such as "but this is entirely optional, if you don't like the grind/RNG/power creep/etc, just don't do it". Yeah surely the devs would add a method to increase your ship's performance that greatly without also either immediately or gradually over time ensuring that at least the new, if not all, content requires those upgrades.
The devs did actually add a method of balancing engineer power. The game throttles the difficulty based several factors, the 3 biggest are:
1) bounty status
2) ship DPS /type (these are 2 independant variables)
3) presence of engineer mat cargo
So they effectively make it a gauntlet to get the mods in the first place, and then they make it so that if you misuse your powers, you will face an army of extremely deadly assassins. Now of course you can go back to playing a mid tier, unmodded ship, devoid of engineering cargo, and the difficulty spikes will virtually disappear. I guess you can argue about the realism of such a throttle mechanism, I personally think it makes sense, but the effect on gameplay means that there is a comfort level of difficulty that anyone can dial in to their exact preference.
Last edited: