Given the BGS reset/HGE availability issue, how about a Christmas sale at the Material Traders?

HGEs containing a range of G5 manufactured mats are currently not findable because the BGS reset has left the required BGS states scarce or non-existent.

This means that those players who were planning to engineer their shiny new Mambas and Phantoms over the Christmas break may have unusual difficulty in filling out their bill of materials.

It is possible, of course, to cross-trade at the Material Traders; but while those G5 HGEs that are readily available (Core Dynamics Composites, Imperial Shielding) are present in reasonable abundance, they're not so plentiful that collecting them and trading them off at a 6:1 ratio will be anything other than slow and painful.

So, until the BGS situation sorts itself out, how about a Christmas Sale at the Material Traders, where the cross-trade rate is reduced from 6:1 to 2:1 or 3:1?

Whether this was just for G5 Manufactured Mats or for all mats would depend on how finely the devs can tune the rates; but it would be nice if something could be done to alleviate the impact of a temporary mats drought that I'm sure the devs didn't intend.

PS I have no self-interest here: family commitments mean I won't be able to play over the Christmas break.
 
Considering you can fill up 100 G5s in short order due to the currently exploitable HGE, that would be an incredible ill thought out idea.
 
Considering you can fill up 100 G5s in short order due to the currently exploitable HGE, that would be an incredible ill thought out idea.

100 G5? In short order? Really? Have you tried this?


I ask because last night I was out acquiring Imperial Shielding, one of the G5 manufactured mats that is currently available.


I spent an hour and 25 minutes doing so, during which time I picked up 25 drops (75 units) of Imperial shielding. That's a rate of 17.6 drops/hr, which historically speaking is incredibly good - if you're looking for Imperial Shielding.


If you're looking to trade it off at the Material Traders, it's an effective drop rate of, call it 3 drops/hr - which is anything but incredibly good.


Compare with farming data mats at the Jameson Cobra, where the effective drop rate for anything other than AEC is roughly 10 drops/hr, after trading at Ray Gateway.


I don't think that having to put up with an effective drop rate of 3 drops/hr because the devs didn't think through the implications of resetting the BGS is acceptable.


And so I call the idea of a Christmas Sale at the Material Brokers an incredible well thought out idea.
 
I've already seen quite a lot of wars, civil wars and a few elections earlier today. The BGE will probably advance enough to bring all types of states back in a few more days, so the christmas grind is safe ;)

Nevertheless it sure is unfortunate to experience a material shortage simultanously with the release of new ships.
 
Finding stupid materials has gotten me so burned out, that i would happily pay with real money to fill up my reserves, instead of doing brain damaging, mindless grind and NOT playing the game.
 
I've already seen quite a lot of wars, civil wars and a few elections earlier today. The BGE will probably advance enough to bring all types of states back in a few more days, so the christmas grind is safe ;)

Nevertheless it sure is unfortunate to experience a material shortage simultanously with the release of new ships.

Bortas, I actually started a separate thread before posting this to see if there was any consensus about how long it would take for the BGS to return to normal. No consensus emerged.

I'm not suggesting that mats be sold for credits; only that a temporary adjustment of the trading rates - which the devs could do with next to no effort, and announce as a Christmas boon - would be a temporary fix for a temporary problem.
 
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"Christmas Sale - Materials"

Because the last time they tried something like that it went down a treat? ;)

Umm, GunnerBill, this is the first Christmas that there's been Material Traders. I'm not entirely clear on how they could have had a previous Christmas Sale.:)

I take it you're referring to some similar event, but I can't think what it was.
 
Umm, GunnerBill, this is the first Christmas that there's been Material Traders. I'm not entirely clear on how they could have had a previous Christmas Sale.:)

I take it you're referring to some similar event, but I can't think what it was.

The one where they reduced the required mats by 1 grade I presume
 
Umm, GunnerBill, this is the first Christmas that there's been Material Traders. I'm not entirely clear on how they could have had a previous Christmas Sale.:)

I take it you're referring to some similar event, but I can't think what it was.
I just remembered, it was actually Engineers, that had a special sale. So special no one besides FDev anticipated the result.

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The one where they reduced the required mats by 1 grade I presume
But they told everyone the blueprint requirements will be one grade less. In the end all but class 1 grade updates got new requirements. So inara and ED Engineer were mostly useless.
 
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The update went live on tuesday evening and reset all the bgs states to 'none. The tick happened on thursday morning so all the normal BGS activities restarted and states are now changing.

So for around 40 hours there was a 'shortage' ... given that for a proportion of that time access to the servers was somewhat problematic, are we really saying that this constitutes a 'shortage'???
 
Really... So, given that all Federation systems were set to none, wouldn't that make CDCs easier to get than ever before? Alongside bags of PropComp which could then be traded? Imperial Shielding... not a matter of state.

PS How about instead of 'waiting for the BGS' to sort itself, you go out there and make it do what you want.
 
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Umm, GunnerBill, this is the first Christmas that there's been Material Traders. I'm not entirely clear on how they could have had a previous Christmas Sale.:)

I take it you're referring to some similar event, but I can't think what it was.

Apologies, a while back they downgraded all the engineer recipes to require materials of one less level. Intuitively Cmdrs thought that would mean the existing recipes but not the grade 5 mat's but FD went sideways on it and no one had any of the right mats and many had spent days grinding completely the wrong stuff.

I wish I could have found the threads on it. Total shambles!

The one where they reduced the required mats by 1 grade I presume

Yes.
The salt was immense.

I just remembered, it was actually Engineers, that had a special sale. So special no one besides FDev anticipated the result.

Edit: But they told everyone the blueprint requirements will be one grade less. In the end all but class 1 grade updates got new requirements. So inara and ED Engineer were mostly useless.

Exactly that, I was so glad I'd done most of my engineering that I never bothered with that.
 
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I'd been hoarding mats for weeks in expectation of finally getting a Krait Phantom, but clearly I didn't hoard enough because I have been boring myself stupid for hours trying to find Military Supercapacitors to finish off the PD. Been going to one system after another in a war state, zilch. Finally bit the bullet and accepted that grinding for Core Dynamics Composites and then trading them in at that marvellous 6:1 exchange rate is the only way I'm gonna get this done.

I go at it too much I guess. After a while you kinda forget why you're doing it, and the excitement and joy of the new ships wears thin. *sigh*

Personally I agree with the OP suggestion.
 
Really... So, given that all Federation systems were set to none, wouldn't that make CDCs easier to get than ever before? Alongside bags of PropComp which could then be traded? Imperial Shielding... not a matter of state.

PS How about instead of 'waiting for the BGS' to sort itself, you go out there and make it do what you want.

Yes, CDCs and Imperial Shielding are easier than ever to get - just not "hey, we can trade these at 6:1 and not feel the pain" easy. Not Jameson Cobra easy.

As for the BGS, I, and a great many other players, simply aren't interested. "Play it your way", remember?

I'm very happy that the BGS exists and gives other players pleasure. As long as efforts to improve it don't do the opposite to my game.

I'll say again, this is a temporary situation; I think it's not unreasonable to ask for some equally temporary fix for the problems caused
 
Any change to material trader exchange rates that is beneficial to the player should be permanent.
I think if there were any chance of that happening it would have happened on Tuesday. For the moment, let's not spoil our chances of getting a few compensatory pebbles by asking for the moon.
 
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