Flipping the board

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
So can the clever collective please educate me.

A lot of the exploits I see posted (Quince, Rhea etc) involve board switching.

Is there a technical reason why I get a different mission or passenger board if I flip between solo and open?
Despite Elite being a multiplayer game, the mission / passenger board experience is personal.
Only you can see what you can see. A lot of what you can accept is dependant on your specific commander build (friendly, cordial, allied, tycoon, mostly harmless, deadly etc).

So why isn't the board linked to you, meaning that flipping boards still has you viewing the same board?
If a board visit generates a certain set of missions, why can't that key be attached to the Commander so that if he / she opens up the same board, in the same system, within the a certain time window that he / she will see the same content?

(on a related note, why do the boards update so often? As you take / complete missions, why don't the boards dry up?)

Mission / Passenger boards are not the only feature of Elite these days (cartographics, engineers, mining, search & rescue, Thargoids, Guardians, blackmarkets, general trading...) but because of the way that they can be used to exploit the grind they are (potentially too) dominant.
 

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
That is okay to start, but once it has been G'd, why can't that be assigned to a commander for the next x minutes? Wouldn't it reduce the server load caused by board swapping
 

CMDRBeranu

C
The issue you run into with creating a RNG based board on the individual basis is that you need to generate a seed variable for every player that sticks with the account. This in itself isn't necessarily a problem until you run into extreme number crunchers who can mathematically prove that a seed can be inferior to other seeds.
 

Be4st

Be4st
Snowymonk said:
So can the clever collective please educate me.

A lot of the exploits I see posted (Quince, Rhea etc) involve board switching.

Is there a technical reason why I get a different mission or passenger board if I flip between solo and open?
Despite Elite being a multiplayer game, the mission / passenger board experience is personal.
Only you can see what you can see. A lot of what you can accept is dependant on your specific commander build (friendly, cordial, allied, tycoon, mostly harmless, deadly etc).

So why isn't the board linked to you, meaning that flipping boards still has you viewing the same board?
If a board visit generates a certain set of missions, why can't that key be attached to the Commander so that if he / she opens up the same board, in the same system, within the a certain time window that he / she will see the same content?

(on a related note, why do the boards update so often? As you take / complete missions, why don't the boards dry up?)

Mission / Passenger boards are not the only feature of Elite these days (cartographics, engineers, mining, search & rescue, Thargoids, Guardians, blackmarkets, general trading...) but because of the way that they can be used to exploit the grind they are (potentially too) dominant.
Click to expand...
They also give new boards for each private group. Which is why I have 3 groups and cycle between them all. Need more though ;)
 

Vorxian

Vorxian
Conch said:
not the case.

think it goes something like this.
everytime you load the main menu, there is a chance of switching servers, if the server is switched, you get a new board.
Click to expand...

Aye Conch is right. If you quit Elite, and reload it, you're actually given a server number in the bottom left I believe.

you log in have access to that server instance sessions, each with a board. log out, and log back in different server, different sessions. You will get the same session periodically, and see a board you cleared. but on flippy-doo you'll get another.

Something like that anyway!
 

Drelthar

Drelthar
Sometimes (often, as, looking at my net logs, connecting to any of the servers generallty fails about 5 bajillion times before it even gets one at all) you end up connecting to a different mission server.

Each mission server generates its own missions for you.

Re-connecting to the game (and swapping mode forces it to re-connect due to it needing different stuff and to do a bunch of checks) can therefore change mission server, giving you different missions.


If they didn't do it this way, it would make sense, so that's obviously the primary reason, the secondary reason is, they would need to have some kind of link between the servers (possibly, your client, which might allow nefarious dudes to fiddle with missions somehow, potentially, though unlikely I suspect) which would require a re-write of a load of stuff.

So this will likely never change.
 
Last edited:

Padaxes

Padaxes
The problem with Elite is caused by it's greatest strength, predictable random numbers.

You can see it over and over , USS resetting if you leave, missions board flipping etc.

They decided to go MMO lite to save money not having to run a machine like EVEs Tranquillity server and we pay the price. It is neither a good MMO or a good Single player game as a result. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Don't get me wrong they have done well, but within a set of restrictions they created for themselves.
 

Noctover

Noctover
Snowymonk said:
So can the clever collective please educate me.

A lot of the exploits I see posted (Quince, Rhea etc) involve board switching.

Is there a technical reason why I get a different mission or passenger board if I flip between solo and open?
Despite Elite being a multiplayer game, the mission / passenger board experience is personal.
Only you can see what you can see. A lot of what you can accept is dependant on your specific commander build (friendly, cordial, allied, tycoon, mostly harmless, deadly etc).

So why isn't the board linked to you, meaning that flipping boards still has you viewing the same board?
If a board visit generates a certain set of missions, why can't that key be attached to the Commander so that if he / she opens up the same board, in the same system, within the a certain time window that he / she will see the same content?

(on a related note, why do the boards update so often? As you take / complete missions, why don't the boards dry up?)

Mission / Passenger boards are not the only feature of Elite these days (cartographics, engineers, mining, search & rescue, Thargoids, Guardians, blackmarkets, general trading...) but because of the way that they can be used to exploit the grind they are (potentially too) dominant.
Click to expand...

Board is randomly generated depending on the system state, your rep, rank, ship type/size etc etc etc.

Basically all factors based in board generates random missions.
 

Augustus

Augustus
FDev should just install a Refresh Button on the Mission Board...

Problem Solved!

Let's face it, IRL, if you are hunting something up on the InterWebs do you run your search One Time Only?
Or do you do Multiple Searches to Get The Best Deal, or Multiple Searches to get numerous Views or Opinions on what you are Hunting?

It is Unrealistic to expect someone to sit staring at One Board Only (Vasili) waiting for RNG to bring you Missions...

Let Them Eat Cake! Errr, Mission Board Refresh Button!!!

-ShoeButton
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
Let me get out my crayons and...

BasicLB_2.jpg


What you see here is a pretty basic load balancer. This helps distribute the load (number of people connected) across multiple servers, so that no one server winds up doing most or all of the work.
Since each server in the pool runs its own Mission Board, each one will produce different results - thus "board flipping".

Now, this could potentially be eliminated by completely reworking the architecture, creating a single Mission Board server that generates all missions for all players - but this could mean 3-5 minute or longer wait times for missions to generate, especially with a large number of active players generating missions. So it kind of comes down to which is really more important - performance, or conformity.
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Conch said:
not the case.

think it goes something like this.
everytime you load the main menu, there is a chance of switching servers, if the server is switched, you get a new board.
Click to expand...

Actually, Dom has previously stated that if two commanders loaded the mission board at exactly the same time in the same station, they would receive the exact same mission list from the server. Mode is irrelevant. What the commander sees, however, depends upon various things such as their rank and influence - so the two commanders could still see a slightly different mission list.

Vorxian said:
Aye Conch is right. If you quit Elite, and reload it, you're actually given a server number in the bottom left I believe.
Click to expand...

But that server has nothing to do with missions. ;)
 

Jamey

Jamey
Has board flipping been 'solved' now? Since the last update (I'm on PS4 BTW) I can only get two boards per station - one from Open, one from Solo (Private is usually same as Open). And if I keep switching I get the same board for each.

To get a new (third / fourth) board I either have to wait for them to refresh naturally or fly to the next station, which is usually faster.

Tried leaving the station, going into supercruise for a few secs, dropping, waiting a few secs, and then going back to the station but still get the same two boards.

How long does it normally take boards to refresh naturally?
 

Jamey

Jamey
willowfan said:
Missions refresh every 10 minutes.
Click to expand...

Thank you. And does the ten-minute counter begin ticking when you first open the mission board, or is there some kind of mission board clock constantly running in the background? If so could I potentially catch it halfway through and get a board refresh quicker than ten mins?

Hypothetical - let's say I open the passenger lounge and take a look. Then I wait five minutes and open the normal mission board. Will those two refresh separately, five minutes apart from each other? Or will they still both refresh together? If the latter then would that refresh be from when I opened the first one (passenger lounge in this case) or when I opened the second one(normal mission board)?
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
Snowymonk said:
So can the clever collective please educate me.

A lot of the exploits I see posted (Quince, Rhea etc) involve board switching.

Is there a technical reason why I get a different mission or passenger board if I flip between solo and open?
Despite Elite being a multiplayer game, the mission / passenger board experience is personal.
Only you can see what you can see. A lot of what you can accept is dependant on your specific commander build (friendly, cordial, allied, tycoon, mostly harmless, deadly etc).

So why isn't the board linked to you, meaning that flipping boards still has you viewing the same board?
If a board visit generates a certain set of missions, why can't that key be attached to the Commander so that if he / she opens up the same board, in the same system, within the a certain time window that he / she will see the same content?

(on a related note, why do the boards update so often? As you take / complete missions, why don't the boards dry up?)

Mission / Passenger boards are not the only feature of Elite these days (cartographics, engineers, mining, search & rescue, Thargoids, Guardians, blackmarkets, general trading...) but because of the way that they can be used to exploit the grind they are (potentially too) dominant.
Click to expand...

Yes, there is a technical reason. It's called "Load Balancing". There is no one game server. There are several. We do not actually connect to any of them, we connect to a Load Balancer instead, which then decides which server to route us to based on (usually) which has the least active connections. Each server generates its own mission list, and does not share this information with the other servers, thus changing connections can connect you to a different server and thus a different mission list.

The boards repopulate so that one person doesn't take all the missions leaving the rest of us with nothing to do. Could you imagine the salt?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom