ED is missing player agency.
Aegis station repair statistical analysis
- Thread starter DeathStroke
- Start date
I understand this issue
For in-game reasons it can be explained away that CG for stations are mostly meant that commanders pitch in for parts of station, not for whole of it. But if scaling in an issue and if odds feel too much tipped for favor of failure, FD needs to know that of course.
I dug through the forum history and found the figures from the CGs that created Obsidian Orbital.
Kaushpoos Metals CG
8888 contributors, 20,033,114t, tier 8/8
Kaushpoos Pd mining CG
7536 contributors, 875,268t mined, tier 5/6
Kaushpoos Trade CG
7535 contributors, 14,183,731t, tier 6/10
Total tonnage - 35,092,113t
That was when people were motivated and rewarded for hauling those numbers.
Where's the reward? What's the motivation? You couldn't get 7.5k players to all pull in the same direction as easily today unless it was a supremely worthwhile cause with good payout rewards.
People will grind rank to get Corvette/Cutter, and people will grind passenger missions to get rich quick.
They won't haul hundreds of tonnes 300-400ly away without some substantial personal gain.
Kaushpoos Metals CG
8888 contributors, 20,033,114t, tier 8/8
Kaushpoos Pd mining CG
7536 contributors, 875,268t mined, tier 5/6
Kaushpoos Trade CG
7535 contributors, 14,183,731t, tier 6/10
Total tonnage - 35,092,113t
That was when people were motivated and rewarded for hauling those numbers.
Where's the reward? What's the motivation? You couldn't get 7.5k players to all pull in the same direction as easily today unless it was a supremely worthwhile cause with good payout rewards.
People will grind rank to get Corvette/Cutter, and people will grind passenger missions to get rich quick.
They won't haul hundreds of tonnes 300-400ly away without some substantial personal gain.
With risk of 'crossposting' regarding another thread in the forum right now... why bother with a CG for 20 mill payout on top tier when you can do Surface Scans, Thargoid Scans or Smeaton runs for more than x10 times the payout in the same amount of time invested.
Now consider station repair missions with no CG style tier and payouts and compare those to the many other money-making methods of the game.
Doesn't take much imaginations to find out why the motivation for players to actually help repair those stations is at an absolute minimum.
and here some numbers as had quince
Astroid Base for the Nul
Current Global Progress: 30,000,216 tonnes collected
Current Contributors: 13,410
Current Reward Tier: 8/8
Aegis are not war mongers. /Facepalm
Well, they are in this case. And I don't believe their motives. There's something more sinister lurking behind their classic 'ohh humanity overreacts as usual' behavior.
There may be those, assuming the Communist ideology has made it into 3304 after having failed in the 1980s virtually anywhere on Planet Earth. There are Communist fractions around--one of them is in Maia I believe--but the Comrades haven't put out any call for the Worker masses to rise up and contribute to their cause. Nor is there a cause. In the real world, ships cost money, upgrades costs money, and above all, time costs money. No commercial enterprise would ship large quantities of goods into a war zone risking lives, profits without some positive risk/reward dynamic worth consideration. This is where Governments will need to step in including Government-funded NGOs such as AEGIS and other entities with interest.
In Elite Dangerous, the Federation of Independent Pilots have no allegiance to any particular Government or concern, AFAIK, so the motive--call it "narrative" should be profit-driven in terms of reward for the level of effort required. That seems to be the missing part Frontier either had not considered or was unable to implement within the current mission or CG mechanic so far. Adjusting rewards upward seems to be a constant struggle, however, at the same time they can most efficiently nerf any popular credit-making opportunities discovered within the game. Now this may not be a particular concern to those CMDRs with Billions in liquid assets at present time--until those funds are used up--but at some point losses and lost profits will eat those savings up, especially during wartime.
AEGIS had no issues with funding and placing dozens of stations in the Pleiades sector in a relatively short amount of time with no significant support from the Community, why is that they can't seem to be sending a few bulk-cargo ships with the materials needed to repair them? Calling on CMDRs to help defend the repair efforts should be a much more reasonable request with NPCs ferrying the cargo over to the damaged stations from a nearby parked mega-ship(s), which would offer free repairs and other incentives to those who participate in the effort along with a tiered reward system of a CG. But that would only work with active Thargoid attacks during the transfer players can respond to as opposed to just injecting the damaged assets into the game from one moment to the next. Been there done that.
AEGIS could dangle additional weapon upgrades and special favors for participating commanders, such as Huge AX weapons above certain tiers, etc, etc.
As Plan B, Frontier could also take the easier route and inject a magical Guardian Fleet Carrier or Mothership into the game to use it's magical healing beam to insta-repair the damaged stations using advanced Super-Meta-Alloy technology when it becomes clear that the community can't or won't participate in the effort needed to support the "narrative" and choose to continue to "Blaze their own trail" in exploring or continuing with whatever meta-credit path opens up, such as passenger missions to remote outposts and taking full advantage of their Netflix subscriptions.
What's the benefit of repairing these stations right now anyway?
They are not immune to attacks after repair.
If we would repair them today they could just be attacked again next Thursday without any chance of the community to prevent it.
They are not immune to attacks after repair.
If we would repair them today they could just be attacked again next Thursday without any chance of the community to prevent it.
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Where did you get those numbers from?
Last Trade CGs in Bubble, no rare goods back to Nov
7562
7877
4292
4699
4303
1727
5890
6785
Well more on average the 2000 to 3000, and still putting the target of getting a station back online in a week reasonable
Well
Now Obsidian Orbital has been hit will be interesting to see if the CRs from the Palin Missions being restored are motivation enough
One of the big problems for me is it's not worth it. There's plenty of other activities I enjoy playing the game regularly for which both turn a profit *and* achieve objectives I have a vested interest in achieving.
In other words, when I can ship goods for 1200-2500cr/t profit in a single jump to benefit my faction's expansion in the bubble, why would I go out and ship, say, Natural Fabrics many multiple jumps further for just 400cr profit I think it was, to repair a station I don't care about.
Conversely, When the stations are in a "damaged" state I gladly join in trading there because the goods sell for 2000-3000cr profit. I don't always have to be motivated by commitment to my group's faction, but when I do it needs to counterbalance that with something to compensate abandoning my everyday activities.
When I'm back from work today, I'll be doing the S&R CG and the Thargoid Killing CG, because both are fun, interesting activities I generally can't take part in in the bubble, and both will be adequately rewarded. But these are essentially just large trade requirements... in all honesty I might help out with one station at the moment to see it get repaired, and while I'd happily repair one of my faction's stations for free if necessary (because of non-credit motivations already explained), there's not much incentive for me to get down and help out these efforts.
Ideally, it should be a 2-3k profit margin (maybe more for the distant commodities) for these repair goods; bearing in mind there's no real return profit to be made with the station in it's current state. That, or doing these missions on the board should contribute to the repairs in some way.
tl;dr these repair jobs need to be incentivised way more to get people to abandon their day-to-day gameplay and help.
In other words, when I can ship goods for 1200-2500cr/t profit in a single jump to benefit my faction's expansion in the bubble, why would I go out and ship, say, Natural Fabrics many multiple jumps further for just 400cr profit I think it was, to repair a station I don't care about.
Conversely, When the stations are in a "damaged" state I gladly join in trading there because the goods sell for 2000-3000cr profit. I don't always have to be motivated by commitment to my group's faction, but when I do it needs to counterbalance that with something to compensate abandoning my everyday activities.
When I'm back from work today, I'll be doing the S&R CG and the Thargoid Killing CG, because both are fun, interesting activities I generally can't take part in in the bubble, and both will be adequately rewarded. But these are essentially just large trade requirements... in all honesty I might help out with one station at the moment to see it get repaired, and while I'd happily repair one of my faction's stations for free if necessary (because of non-credit motivations already explained), there's not much incentive for me to get down and help out these efforts.
Ideally, it should be a 2-3k profit margin (maybe more for the distant commodities) for these repair goods; bearing in mind there's no real return profit to be made with the station in it's current state. That, or doing these missions on the board should contribute to the repairs in some way.
tl;dr these repair jobs need to be incentivised way more to get people to abandon their day-to-day gameplay and help.
Just wanted to jump in and give you KUDOs for going through all that effort! I too watched OA's latest video last night and it was pretty much impossible not to totally agree with his/your premise that this whole station repair thing is going to be one of Frontier's biggest Boondoggles in their history!
As I have mentioned in several of the other threads related to this same topic today... The community is more than "Burned Out" on the whole Community Goal thing. The traditional ones were used into the ground in 2017, and this latest move to recycle that same tired gameplay mechanic minus the only redeeming quality they had left (The $$$) was beyond Tone Deaf!
The fact that none of the stations are currently anywhere close to being repaired is frankly "The DUH Heard Round the World"!
How the Frontier staff didn't see this one coming leaves me with far more questions than answers. None of them positive.
DeathStroke
Banned
Those came from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteCG/
I had a hard time finding data on them, Reddit was the best source I could find.
All good options, maybe work them together somehow. Too bad FD didn't think of those. Seems like FD don't do much thinking these days...:S
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It really comes down to where you find the 'reasonable' amount to be, even 15000 man hours if there are enough players could be done fairly quickly, and then again the persistent question remains, is all repair going to be successful or even intended to be?
The BGS only moves with player action, so what do you expect the BGS to do in making stations repair themselves?
DeathStroke
Banned
I think not. I haven't been to Shinrarta Dezhra in over a year, and ray gateway in over 6 months. Players would just abandon those ports.
Also, -Rep for poking that hornet nest, we all know who to blame if FD decide to take those ports now.
Stations in the repair state aren't burning, it's a different model. They have scaffolding on them and things like that.
Aw man, what has this community become?
"To get me involved, I want a handout" That's just a poor attitude.
Thankfully this wasn't the case 2 years ago. People got involved to improve things. That's why we don't have a plague anymore. Damn the credits and do something righteous.
Or just sit back, whinge and moan about what may or may not happen.
It's your call people.
The Oracle has the most progression for repairs right now. If you want to make a difference, help out. Even if you just drop one ship full of cargo.
"To get me involved, I want a handout" That's just a poor attitude.
Thankfully this wasn't the case 2 years ago. People got involved to improve things. That's why we don't have a plague anymore. Damn the credits and do something righteous.
Or just sit back, whinge and moan about what may or may not happen.
It's your call people.
The Oracle has the most progression for repairs right now. If you want to make a difference, help out. Even if you just drop one ship full of cargo.
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