will you be missing board flipping????

[Morbad]

then that's a failure in the system

Cheating via exploit is impossible in a system with no failings, as there is nothing to exploit in a harmful manner.

However, everything has flaws and deliberately abusing them to gain an advantage should be discouraged until those flaws can, or even if they cannot, be corrected.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Still too many wing missions on the board.Is there a change in mission generation with today patch?

i guess there must be a reason but i still dont get why they are wing and non wing missions...... just make the missions ALL doable in a wing but vary the numbers and pay in them all and split the pay accordingly.

It would also be nice if the mission numbers (ie deliverable amounts AND pay) dynamically scaled to the amount of people in our wing client side. This is perhaps a bit gamey but we would not really see it as it would all go on behind the curtain.

 

[Morbad]

i guess there must be a reason but i still dont get why they are wing and non wing missions...... just make the missions ALL doable in a wing but vary the numbers and pay in them all and split the pay accordingly.

It's mostly an indicator of threat. A high rank wing assassination mission has three or four heavily engineered target vessels in a wing. A standard assassination mission of the same rank and payout is usually a single, much more lightly engineered opponent.

I think this is a poor way to distinguish target threat, and would rather such missions list the threat level or last known vessels rather than using the wing mission designation to do this, but that's not how it currently works.

 

[sollisb]

I am a straight shooter... if i wanted to try to insult you i would say something insulting.- i dont want to insult you btw just to make that clear! - ....... The board flipping IS an exploit, it is using the instance changes to gain an advantage in a way not intended.... this was confirmed by the devs.

I struggle to see how you can argue it, ergo fully logging off and logging back in again immediately to reinstate said board flipping is surely the same?.... That being said, I was not using the term to try to anger you at all, just calling it what it is! (as i see it). You are free to think it is not an exploit however and call it a feature if you like.

(and logging off to go and get a coffee is not in the context you or i were talking about, so on this it is you being disingenuous not I )

(btw the 5:1 engineering exploit was not considered to be an exploit by the ones abusing it either apparently!)

Let's be very clear here; The 5:1 problem was working as intended. I have screen shots of a Dev posting stating it as working as intended. Then when it became public knowledge, it was suddenly not working as intended. So that one just doesn't fly at all. When I see that kind of disingenuous activity, I lose faith and respect. And yes, I do have the screenshots to back up my claims. Bu the poster is no longer on Elite Development so it would be unfair to post them. Further to that I also have proof that the same problem was reporting in beta testing of that feature and again, it was stated 'working as intended'.

Anyways back OT. Is logging off and logging back in to refresh the mission list intended game play. No, no it is not. Is making me sit and wait for the boards to refresh at their behest intended gameplay? I don't know. If it is, it is very bad design. Do I feel righteous circumnavigating their bad design? yes, yes I do. Does it effect anyone else's gameplay? No, no it does not. Does it effect the BGS? No. The BGS is a mess, anything I do, is so infinitesimally small as to be not worth considering.

I play in backwaters way away from active bubble events. I currently have maybe 5 areas. One does not necessitate any flipping and hasn't for months, some of the the others benefited with flipping to fill up the 20 slots. The loss to me is about 10m per mission I don't fill. I have billions, so not a great loss, more a waste of missions slots not filled.

This won't effect my gameplay in the slightest. If it does in the other areas, I'll relog to refresh. Give me a game that entertains without causing me to wonder how this manure can be considered good game/fun design, and I won't need to flip boards. How many players do you see in Stormwind waiting for quests to refresh? Let's go further back, I never had to wait on the plain of Tranquility for quests to refresh. That's decades ago design in Everquest. Does anyone have to wait for new quests in Vice City? Decades old design.

We're being fed bad design, you can accept it, or fight it.

 

[sollisb]

Cheating via exploit is impossible in a system with no failings, as there is nothing to exploit in a harmful manner.

However, everything has flaws and deliberately abusing them to gain an advantage should be discouraged until those flaws can, or even if they cannot, be corrected.

Cheating is using an ability that no-one else has access to. If I write code to allow me to auto-navigate the galaxy while playing NMS on one of other PCs, that would be cheating. Do I benefit from using any legal method to gain an advantage? I sure do. I use multiple accounts to benefit my main account. I use my multiple accounts to wipe out planetary targets and gain credits on all accounts. Is that legal? Yes it is. Can you do it? Yes you can if you buy multiple accounts. Is it cheating? No it is not. I level up accounts using MC, gaining millions and millions of credits on an account sitting in the station doing nothing but soaking up the credits. Is that cheating? No! Can you do it? Yes if you have multiple accounts. Is it what was expected by the developers? I hardly think so, but not my problem. They said it was perfectly legal to have multiple accounts and to run them at the same time. I take it to the extreme for sure, but I keep it legal.

Board hopping.. This fix is an appeaser to players that 'think' that board flipping is the worst that is happening.

o7 Cmdr

 

[Deleted member 38366]

I'll definitely miss it - despite technically hating it.

But given the frequent and often severe Mission System failures, it saved the day countless times.
It meant the difference between logging off after unsuccessfully waiting and waiting - or being able to get at least one (1) suitable Mission. Something. Anything.
It often meant the difference between flying a 0-20% filled Ship - or a 20-100% filled Ship.
It meant the difference between being utterly BGS ineffective - or being able to counter Inf attacks by Opposition, which used aggressive Board flipping themselves.

As such, it was extremely useful and typically the last reliable resort to get anything BGS done if you were in a "wrong" System.

Ironically, there were still places that couldn't even be saved by flipping Mission Boards. Mission System failure was so severe and persistent that absolutely nothing could be done with Missions. At all. Nada.

Just yesterday still saw an oldschool classic.
Standard Missions : loads of large Wing Mining Missions only, nothing else. Good luck mining 14500tons of Water.
Passenger Missions : a few 2x22000LY longrange VIPs only. Good luck getting anything BGS done for this cycle.

Personal favorite still remains : zero Missions for one or more Factions. NIL. None. Over the course of several days (!)

Independents aren't much affected by such Mission System failures, but no later than having to work specific Systems for BGS purposes? You'll very quickly realize you're screwed in some places.
Removing board flipping I'd welcome any day - IF the Mission System was made far more robust, bug-fixed, reliable and useful (i.e. Faction state awareness).

 

[sollisb]

i guess there must be a reason but i still dont get why they are wing and non wing missions...... just make the missions ALL doable in a wing but vary the numbers and pay in them all and split the pay accordingly.

It would also be nice if the mission numbers (ie deliverable amounts AND pay) dynamically scaled to the amount of people in our wing client side. This is perhaps a bit gamey but we would not really see it as it would all go on behind the curtain.

I think, idealy, that wing payouts should be split on the work done. I can load up accounts, create my wing, do missions in my trade cutter and benefit on all accounts. That can't be right, or at least I think it's wrong not to split based on activity.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I think, idealy, that wing payouts should be split on the work done. I can load up accounts, create my wing, do missions in my trade cutter and benefit on all accounts. That can't be right, or at least I think it's wrong not to split based on activity.

I agree that would be a far far better solution than the magic pay increases.

Personally i see various options

magic boosts which we have now is the absolute worst. honestly i see no redeeming features for this system at all.

an even split by all people in wing - i would be happy with this, i have no issue sharing with those in weaker / smaller ships - but i get it may not be "fair".

splitting by "work" done - but i can see issues here with what is work? if it is a haulage mission, what about a combat ship flying escort.... they may not trade much but should probably get more than the few credits for a pssible few bounties picked up.

probably the "best" but also the most work would be the person who takes on the mission being the mission leader and then offering pay at the start (if they do nothing it would be either "work done" OR "even split" but giving the mission taker the power to be able to give certain members bonuses etc) but this may end up fiddly.

but what ever, be it work done or even wing split, anything is better than magic boosts - and to really lob in the hand grenade, i would rather ships bounties got split instead of magically boosted as well - but as a carrot i would rather there be areas we could go with far more mission targets to shoot at, so there would be much less waiting around thumb twiddling, and with some really hard pirate ship targets with bounties in the low millions. (these would be like an elite corvette in a wing with say a couple of FGSs and a FAS for instance) and the wingmates would possibly also have bounties well in excess of 500k.

(ie i am not just asking for increased grind, i want increased gameplay AND increased plausibility)

 

[sollisb]

I agree that would be a far far better solution than the magic pay increases.

Personally i see various options

magic boosts which we have now is the absolute worst. honestly i see no redeeming features for this system at all.

an even split by all people in wing - i would be happy with this, i have no issue sharing with those in weaker / smaller ships - but i get it may not be "fair".

splitting by "work" done - but i can see issues here with what is work? if it is a haulage mission, what about a combat ship flying escort.... they may not trade much but should probably get more than the few credits for a pssible few bounties picked up.

probably the "best" but also the most work would be the person who takes on the mission being the mission leader and then offering pay at the start (if they do nothing it would be either "work done" OR "even split" but giving the mission taker the power to be able to give certain members bonuses etc) but this may end up fiddly.

but what ever, be it work done or even wing split, anything is better than magic boosts - and to really lob in the hand grenade, i would rather ships bounties got split instead of magically boosted as well - but as a carrot i would rather there be areas we could go with far more mission targets to shoot at, so there would be much less waiting around thumb twiddling, and with some really hard pirate ship targets with bounties in the low millions. (these would be like an elite corvette in a wing with say a couple of FGSs and a FAS for instance) and the wingmates would possibly also have bounties well in excess of 500k.

(ie i am not just asking for increased grind, i want increased gameplay AND increased plausibility)

Maybe; to add to your suggestion; The mission owner [you] allocate wing memebers to roles which are already setup and their slice already dictated by the game. Example; Combat/Defense might auto take 1/3rd of the credits. It's up to you to decide if you need that defense, and up tot he participating player on whether they think that 1/3rd covers their 'risk'.

 

[Morbad]

Cheating is using an ability that no-one else has access to.

Cheating is utilizing an unfair advantage.

Anyone can hide an ace up their sleeve in a game of five card draw, or lie about the location of their ships in Battleship(TM), but it's cheating to do so because that's not how the game is supposed to be played.

I will not, and more importantly cannot be expected to, board flip. So, anyone board flipping to increase the rate at which their CMDR can accrue assets or manipulate the BGS, has an unfair advantage over me.

 

[Riverside]

I think, idealy, that wing payouts should be split on the work done. I can load up accounts, create my wing, do missions in my trade cutter and benefit on all accounts. That can't be right, or at least I think it's wrong not to split based on activity.

I don't really mind what the split of revenue is but I do agree the total reward for all participants should add up to the actual mission total. But I usually have a wing trade mission on the go & have used them to pay a newbie or potential aggressor to escort me to my destination. I'd like to still be able to pay them for their time but it would make more sense to not just create money & influence out of nowhere.

 

[Han Zulu]

i guess there must be a reason but i still dont get why they are wing and non wing missions...... just make the missions ALL doable in a wing but vary the numbers and pay in them all and split the pay accordingly.

Agree. I've been posting about that in the past after the wing missions came out. As a single player, I don't want to see the wing missions because I get paid more doing the single missions. About 10 times more. So either fix the payout so it makes sense for single player or have the option to remove them from the list, because occasionally I accidentally pick one and have to drop it, and sometimes pay a penalty. Stupid.

It would also be nice if the mission numbers (ie deliverable amounts AND pay) dynamically scaled to the amount of people in our wing client side. This is perhaps a bit gamey but we would not really see it as it would all go on behind the curtain.

Or have a more advanced bonus system. Fast delivery adds 10%. The bonus shouldn't pop up in messages but be part of contract.

 

[Sterling MH]

2.8% as what?

See I have board flipped (which includes the time taken to finish all those missions) for a total of about 3 hours in 200 hours of gameplay. That would be conted as 100% having board flipped at any time, but also counted as 0.7% of time board flipping was used. And since it was only 20 minutes of flipping total, would be 0.16% of time board flipping.

So when you deride the 2.8% board flipped, are you speaking the same language as FD?

 

[Sterling MH]

Luxury passenger missions

If you were hired by the simulation for a full party transit and this mission filled your beluga if you had one, or filled the orca or filled the dolphin, then the passenger missions would be a reason to have those ships.

I think the FDL needs to have one luxury passenger cabin compatibility.

I think the passenger lines need a full-on buff of, say, 10-20% on top of the payout for completing in one of those ships so they retain a bonus for being specialised ships.

These three changes, or any two of them, would make passenger missions more worthy and the passenger ships useful again.

 

[WR3ND]

will you be missing board flipping????

No, I prefer playing the game more than the game meta. Wish Frontier developed a bit more for that instead though. Just saying.

 

[Werewolf13]

Still too many wing missions on the board.Is there a change in mission generation with today patch?

If so it's barely noticable.

There may be a bit of a change in the cargo mission payouts. Seem a bit higher but not by much. Same ole massacre and assasinate missions. Nothing unusual that I noticed.

I was hoping for a scenario which I thought would show up in the mission lists but didn't see any.

Then - that's all just my impressions and perceptions. My wife tells me all the time "if it'd been a snake it would'a bit ya" so maybe there has been a major overhaul and I just didn't notice.

 

[jacozilla]

Can't really tell until system switches from None back to Boom state (for apples/apples comparison why I recorded passenger payouts at Allied) -but so far I don't really see the 10% supposed boost to missions as offset for flipping termination, at least for passengers.

As I thought before though re: flipping and passenger vip missions, passengers vip are ok - not going to be hysterical about it - flipping helped optimize some missions but at Allied, was able to fill ship just fine before and now with new change. (Anaconda at Hauser and Python at Robigo Mines). So far as filling up, just a small delta if any. However as predicted, getting the certain type of G5 mats is harder - not hugely harder or hyperbole like that, just somewhat harder.

*this may be lot harder though and different for short range bulk passenger missions, as there you really did need to flip a lot to fill up, but as that is no longer meta and vip passengers is the thing, that's all I recorded before the new update.

So for VIP passengers, the impact is mostly for G5 mats - before you could flip to get all same reward type you wanted, say bioconductors only instead of some MEF and EFC mixed in, now you just take what you can get - which is to be crystal clear, still decent - just not as optimized.

So passenger missions for credits and mats? Almost no change for credit purposes, maybe 10-20% off since we can't flip to take another 5M mission instead of settling for a 2-4M one but nothing to cry about. Some change for mats, but it's more a paradigm change - gotta slowly fill up on multiple mat types at once and not just chase 1 at a time, which kinda sucks since you can't trade data for manufactured or vice versa at material traders, so it makes complete logical sense to pursue only 1 type if that's what you're needing to trade with.

Overall though passengers didn't get much nerfed. What still sucks is matching up your desired activity type - despite the dismissive types saying 'just goto the right system and BGS for your missions..' it doesn't work that way. It's total RNG what you get, and you can sit in a boom state refinery/extraction all you want and it's total RNG where you get some mining missions instead of solo and wing massacre missions galore, or sourcing or whatever other random mission type it spawns.

 

[jonesskill]

Can't really tell until system switches from None back to Boom state (for apples/apples comparison why I recorded passenger payouts at Allied) -but so far I don't really see the 10% supposed boost to missions as offset for flipping termination, at least for passengers.

As I thought before though re: flipping and passenger vip missions, passengers vip are ok - not going to be hysterical about it - flipping helped optimize some missions but at Allied, was able to fill ship just fine before and now with new change. (Anaconda at Hauser and Python at Robigo Mines). So far as filling up, just a small delta if any. However as predicted, getting the certain type of G5 mats is harder - not hugely harder or hyperbole like that, just somewhat harder.

*this may be lot harder though and different for short range bulk passenger missions, as there you really did need to flip a lot to fill up, but as that is no longer meta and vip passengers is the thing, that's all I recorded before the new update.

So for VIP passengers, the impact is mostly for G5 mats - before you could flip to get all same reward type you wanted, say bioconductors only instead of some MEF and EFC mixed in, now you just take what you can get - which is to be crystal clear, still decent - just not as optimized.

So passenger missions for credits and mats? Almost no change for credit purposes, maybe 10-20% off since we can't flip to take another 5M mission instead of settling for a 2-4M one but nothing to cry about. Some change for mats, but it's more a paradigm change - gotta slowly fill up on multiple mat types at once and not just chase 1 at a time, which kinda sucks since you can't trade data for manufactured or vice versa at material traders, so it makes complete logical sense to pursue only 1 type if that's what you're needing to trade with.

Overall though passengers didn't get much nerfed. What still sucks is matching up your desired activity type - despite the dismissive types saying 'just goto the right system and BGS for your missions..' it doesn't work that way. It's total RNG what you get, and you can sit in a boom state refinery/extraction all you want and it's total RNG where you get some mining missions instead of solo and wing massacre missions galore, or sourcing or whatever other random mission type it spawns.

Robigo don't have changed too much - but another passenger routes are dry i barelly can find one good transport mission now.