Mode switching for missions and Smeaton Orbital [200mill/hour]

The cynic in me just spotted a possible cause for this change in policy...
Player numbers have grown significantly since the Steam & Humble sales...
E: D's servers have been struggling a bit over the past week...

Nerf something popular like this -> player numbers drop; no need to invest in additional server capacity! Genius! :D

On a more serious note, I do wonder how expensive (on server bandwidth) board flipping is.
Evidently the way the BB's are implemented, they're a bit of bandwidth hog. (why isn't the mission generation done clientside, and simply validated by the server when accepting a mission?)
Moreover, reconnecting to server instances is usually quite an expensive operation, as lots of state has to be initialized, and as it's supposed to be an exceptional case it's not a priority for optimization.

It's certainly going to use a whole lot more server bandwidth than people just playing the game (exploring, killing stuff, etc)
 
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I think it was quite easy to average 125-175 million/ hour.

The issue is that this was so excessive on any scale, that if someone wanted to simply make credits - they would have only one smart choice - to do this.

It was funnelling player behaviour.

Things need to be balanced, whether upwards or downwards. But for example trading in the game has become a hobby rather than a way to make credits when compared to the passenger runs. same for missions which were not passenger missions. you did them for other goals rather than credits.

Cousin, you know that players will still be funnelled to the next fastest money maker, because most of things that most people enjoy this game cost money to do and make so little in return, regardless of how much skill or risk is involved in the activity.

It won't broaden what people do it will limit it, because people will be back to spending more of their time making money in game than doing what they enjoy in game.
 
Fdev have said repeatedly that there's nothing that they can do about how the mission boards work and switching sever instances without investing considerable time and resources that would have very little ROI.
So why fixate on that issue?


Fdev have also said repeatedly that missions are tied together. If you lower the payout on the high-end you will lower it on the low-end and visa versa.
So why keep suggesting it's a simple fix to change some variable?


So what's left?


Mission stacking.
Fdev have already shown that they have the ability to limit the amount of a certain mission type that can be accepted at any one time so just focus on the one solution that can work instead of beating those dead horses.


Yes I'm aware that some players found a limited work around for the 3 mission limit but it was still far more reasonable and effective than anything else implemented so far and actually doable right now.


We don't need them to keep burning down the house simply because there are a few mice.
 
Correct

Ummm, isn't that working exactly as it should? Why else would someone fly a passenger mission that takes forty minutes or so unless it's for the extra money it pays?

You are correct Magic Man. The system logic that says the further the voyage the more it should cost isn't broken. That's exactly how all transportation works regardless if you are in a taxi, plane, train, or Beluga Liner.
 
I mean, is the only thing that you could do that is satisfying is to play in an anaconda? Do you really need the ultimate ship after an evening of play? I know personally I *could* fly an anaconda but I don't, why couldn't you do everything the same but with a cobra?
I didn't get the ultimate ship after an evening of play. I got the ultimate ship after over a year of play. You missed the bit where I said I'd been grinding Hazres sites and doing smuggling runs (with a couple of months of shipping in a Type 9 in between). I had enough for an Anaconda prior to doing this evil, forbidden run, granted I now have enough to kit it out the way I'd like and have money left over.

But the point remains - so what? I mean, I'm not saying this to be rude or mean to you, I don't know you from Adam. That's the thing. If I was the sort to only get my jollies from flying an Anaconda... so what? What's it to you? What difference at ALL does it make to your own game?
 
Daaaaang! Missed this gold rush too - I was just gonna do it!!!! I did a bit of quince for the rank but didn't really take a credit approach to it, missed the Rhea madness, now this...and joined after the biowaste and slave hauling stuff...

Ah well, looks like I'll just have to keep playing the game, instead of accumulating the 10 billion extra credits I was thinking about!!
 
"We can confirm that this is due", "detailed investigation"... Are you serious? This was a feature that you introduced in 2.4. It's in your patch notes, for God's sake. Are you trying to insult us, or is it just incompetence? If you have decided, 6 months later, that this feature gives too many credits, just say so. Do you really think this way of presenting things makes you look better than that?
(snip)

Agreed.
Feature not exploit including the board flipping.
 
Hello commanders,

As some of you are aware, Passenger Bulk missions are currently generating extremely high credit rewards that we feel are excessive of what we would consider reasonable and balanced.

After a detailed investigation, we can confirm that this is due to an element in our mission generation algorithm that rewards credits based on the distance of the destination system from the star.

Due to this, we will be disabling (until further notice) the aforementioned element of Passenger Bulk missions to reduce the amount of credits offered as a reward. Commanders will still be able to select and complete Passenger Bulk missions, but will see less excessive credit rewards.

In the meantime, we will be reviewing the Passenger Bulk missions and correct the previously mentioned element – hopefully in time for you to test in the Beyond Chapter One beta.

Thanks to all the players who reported the issue.

Dear Will,
Please fix that relogging issue. Its blowing up over and over. Massacres, robigo, skimmers, passengers.
Please take care of it.
 
If you are getting interdicted 6 times on Seaton runs, you were doing it wrong. Once, maybe twice tops - And evading interdiction isn't hard.

Not if you have bounties from Power Play or some other activities, you must just be a good boy ;)

Maybe it's not about how "easy" escaping interdictions is in a large slow ship, which is debatable anyway, but it's more about the fact that you can't even sit and chill for the 45 minute journey you gotta start checking if you are about to be interdicted on the last half of the journey, before leaping back to the controls if you are. That is unless you personally are sitting fingers at the ready for the whole trip to which I'd say you are doing it wrong, but again that's debatable.

I'm not by the way complaining that there is additional risk involved, just making a point that 4-6 interdictions is not crazy and is an additional risk.
 
We didn't "get" any system back. We earned new ones! Besides, you guys all kill our haulers in open while you oppose/UM in solo or PG. and you outnumber us 4-1. so I have little sympathy for that line of thinking. As a hauling power who has to spend a lot of $ to remain viable and competitive, Winters players should be allowed to make decent money to counter being outnumbered and not having a way to stop her opposition when they refuse to show their faces while opposing our expansions.

So you claim but I was undermining in Open last night alone, and didn't see any of ya, went to your capital and interdicted haulers without attacking 'em looking for your combat pilots and didn't see any of ya.

I like you guys to, I mean as much as we are enemies we have more in common than divides us. But that Solo Open rubbish, is just rubbish.

We have players that play all modes depending on their preference, just as I know you do.

I say that as someone who would be happy for all PP to be done in Open, but it isn't and as you see from any thread about Open there are loads of players never want to play there. Well you more or less said it yourself, it's hard enough to keep the numbers of actives up, how is that gonna work if you start forcing everyone to play in one mode?

Try it and let me know how it goes, please.

Utmost respect from an adversary point of view though, I love you lot as much as I hate ya.
 

stormyuk

Volunteer Moderator
So what you decided wasn't an exploit and wasn't going to be changed is now an exploit and has been nerfed.

Not just nerfed reasonably of course, nerfed FD style with a wrecking ball.

It's a case of go big or go home it seems. Do or do not, there is no try.
 
This is legitimately hilarious. A mission type Frontier expressly added on purpose, with purposeful payout due to distance, the thing pointed out in beta, which of course Frontier said “this is fine” is suddenly not intended. And they’ve gone on to actually break other passenger missions types in their extreme fix to an extreme mission no-one asked for.

Holy god. Meanwhile, half this thread should have [citation needed] as it mostly reads like a therapy journal. Get a grip. Frontier added a mission type they liked. Made it hysterically high paying to attract interest. Ignored feedback. Then decided it was clearly not intended (thus obviating responsibility and triggering the usual crap fight between the usual suspects) and reacted with the same extreme change they always do, with the obligatory massive, massive collateral damage.

Just another week on the forums. Endless hot takes and confected outrage because it’s not an offline game, whilst the developer overcooks a response to an overcooked mission type no-one asked for that has become highly devisive.
 
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There's a big difference between can't, and won't.

Unless they've sacked all their competent programmers, their justification for not fixing/improving it is one of time(cost) not capability.

Fair enough. Semantics aside it's a clear hurdle and pointless to keep harping on that one thing when there's a perfectly reasonable solution available right now.
 
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