How Opals have nearly made space great again

[Jaylem]

+ rep for the Lol factor. well written!

Yes, it is great to see for the first time an aspect of the game has been endorsed as a genuine gold rush! rather than being met with the nerf hammer at first instance. the again previous other forms were actually exploits whilst this is a unintended function (for now)

There are however some things I believe could be other gold rushes temporality to spike interest.


-Thargoid content (as it is currently the lowest paying activity in-game, both per risk and per hour)

-PvP, seeing the 2M bounty cap lifted permanently would be nice, and a new system added to friends list/ Ex-friends list cannot claim bounties (Preventing Exploits whilst genuine players get rewarded)

-'Gold rush' unique CG's, whilst there will come a time Void Opals will be reduced, some events may trigger the hype for a sorter time, and not just for opals, Thargoid and Guardian commodities as well selling for over 1M per piece during the time period!

-I wouldn't mind seeing a repair gold rush with Meta-Alloys selling for over 2M per station (they are very hard to farm now, unless the cap is lifted from D. Progress market.

-surface operations need more attention, it would be WONDERFUL to have some clean missions (blowing up pirate bases) and have them pay ALOT better!

 

[withnail]

No. If the most interesting thing someone can find to do in ED is killing novices, it's because they're obnoxious not because they're bored.

Nope. A novice in an anaconda is obnoxious.

How they get to that ship without grinding it like me suggests exploits and game weakness.

They'll get it every time.

 

[NeilF]

The problem with piracy is that it is completely pointless, has been like that since the game released. The amount of times I was pulled out warp, thinking why doesn't this guy just buy a freighter and earn 100x more than the scraps he is asking for. Same deal with mining, a pirate is better off just buying a cheap ship and doing the mining.

4 tons (around 6 mill) is rubbish for the effort involved.

It is a shame, piracy was going to be my main profession. Devs should really think about giving piracy and trade a big overhaul

Agreed... Some of my best moments in the game have been, being pirated and committing piracy. But it's just so out of wack, unbalanced and vapid at times it basically sucks the life and enjoyment out of it ultimately

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Agreed... Some of my best moments in the game have been, being pirated and committing piracy. But it's just so out of wack, unbalanced and vapid at times it basically sucks the life and enjoyment out of it ultimately

indeed i wish piracy was better. (not talking pvp piracy i know nothing about that).

but in all previous elite games i have been a bounty hunter / "reclamation officer" where i have killed pirates and salvages all the stuff they dropped.

but in ED it simply is not worth my time because the profits are so laughably small that i am losing money by spending 5 mins scooping when i could be doing something else.

it is why imo the economy needs a huge look at with payments in everything massively cut, as well as the expensive ship prices and expensive equipement cut as well... (but keeping trade items the same price).

that way piracy will be relatively more profitable.

i would also personally like mining to have its own elite rank - along with smuggling (possibly tie smuggling and piracy to its own elite ranking, and mining and legal salvage to its own elite ranking).

 

[NeilF]

indeed i wish piracy was better. (not talking pvp piracy i know nothing about that).

but in all previous elite games i have been a bounty hunter / "reclamation officer" where i have killed pirates and salvages all the stuff they dropped.

but in ED it simply is not worth my time because the profits are so laughably small that i am losing money by spending 5 mins scooping when i could be doing something else.

it is why imo the economy needs a huge look at with payments in everything massively cut, as well as the expensive ship prices and expensive equipement cut as well... (but keeping trade items the same price).

that way piracy will be relatively more profitable.

i would also personally like mining to have its own elite rank - along with smuggling (possibly tie smuggling and piracy to its own elite ranking, and mining and legal salvage to its own elite ranking).

Piracy needs a career and reputation. It needs missions to be offered based on this, and where applicable for those mission offer some form of "cover up" of the crime so fun gameplay isn't hit the head by a C&P mechanic aimed at punishing other activities for other reasons.

 

[Marra Morgan]

Piracy needs a career and reputation. It needs missions to be offered based on this, and where applicable for those mission offer some form of "cover up" of the crime so fun gameplay isn't hit the head by a C&P mechanic aimed at punishing other activities for other reasons.

Career and Reputation are nice-to-haves, but nowhere near needs.

Ways to broadcast your intent to both players and NPC, fixing the damn cargo bugs and disabling ships are the needs.

Also, C&P has never been a concern to any pirate worth their booty, I don't think a "cover up" thingy is particularly useful.

 

[NeilF]

Career and Reputation are nice-to-haves, but nowhere near needs.

Ways to broadcast your intent to both players and NPC, fixing the damn cargo bugs and disabling ships are the needs.

Also, C&P has never been a concern to any pirate worth their booty, I don't think a "cover up" thingy is particularly useful.

Possibly... Maybe...

To my mind, you should progress as a pirate and this would be achieved by a career and reputation. And to reward this, for example missions (offered from nefarious locations you slowly gain access to via your reputation - eg:asteroid stations), offer you the chance of undertaking more and more rewarding tasks. And part of this reward could be the fact the assassination etc you commit is covered up by the mission giver.

Roll this forwards and we end up with the potention of some dedicated OPEN only CGs where pirates are offered missions to steal cargo from the CG, to hand it in at a premium. Or indeed pirates are offered a limited number of seach and destroy (PvP) missions (potentially with a cover up). ie: The game can control the amount of PvP activity and its nature etc etc etc.

But ultimately the game needs to simply give piracy and its associated gameplay some TLC IMHO. eg: The hatch breaker and the cargo obtained via from it are not fit for purpose IMHO.

note: I've not "pirated" for year(s) now so it's entirely possible (likely) my views and knowledge our out of date now

 

[Kaltern]

Nope. A novice in an anaconda is obnoxious.

How they get to that ship without grinding it like me suggests exploits and game weakness.

They'll get it every time.

Just curious... how do you know if someone is a 'novice'? Because if you go by their ranks then that is not exactly accurate info...

 

[Rubbernuke]

Just curious... how do you know if someone is a 'novice'? Because if you go by their ranks then that is not exactly accurate info...

Just a cursory scan of the ship will highlight flaws. An experienced commander will know a well thought out build from an E grade coffin.

 

[Powderpanic]

Career and Reputation are nice-to-haves, but nowhere near needs.

Ways to broadcast your intent to both players and NPC, fixing the damn cargo bugs and disabling ships are the needs.

Also, C&P has never been a concern to any pirate worth their booty, I don't think a "cover up" thingy is particularly useful.

While C&P has never been a concern for a pirate or a griefer for that matter.

A balance to remove crimes and a career to base piracy or indeed any crime would add a lot of depth.

Many people including The Code had hoped that siding with Archon during the early PP days would lead to a crime syndicate and a little more depth around fighting for terrority/fishing routes.
Sorta, nearly but no.. after about a month or so, it was clear it wasnt going to happen beyond 5th columning and the odd wing skuffle.

This leads back to the whole credit sink notion.

Pirates having a Tortuga style system that required membership fees for protection (from other to be created game play threats.)
Building up the Tortuga station by piling funds into it, resulting in your own dock or better outfitting, cooler flags, accordion music etc

The punishment steps were a nice thing in that it atleast made the possiblity of being brought to rights expensive but it didnt balance it by adding anything interesting to make you want to commit crime in the first place.

Powerpanic
The Voice of Griefing

 

[Powderpanic]

Hey FDEV

Since your glorious release of Opals, you have made the cardinal sin that you made with smuggling. You made the number of end locations for miners so vast, you have made it near impossible for pirates to hunt.

You had its so right in the early days with rares.

2 Clear endpoints, a limited number of locations at each endpoint within a jump of each other.

This meant the smart trader could try and avoid a camping pirate but while still giving a risk of being pirated.

Pirates, in turn, had to be mobile and work together to find the next school of traders.

Smuggling came along and boom... The Leesti cluster became a ghost town.

Bring back "Trade routes"

Pirate can pirate
Defenders can defend
Miners can work with defenders for the super high rewards

Community greatness.

Make space great again

Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

snippy McSnipface
The billionaire players needs credit sinks. Simple as that.

Clear save button, as simple as that, the biggest credit sink out there.

 

[Ouberos]

Nice hat.

Does it come in Black?

 

[Bigmaec]

Hey FDEV

Since your glorious release of Opals, you have made the cardinal sin that you made with smuggling. You made the number of end locations for miners so vast, you have made it near impossible for pirates to hunt.

You had its so right in the early days with rares.

2 Clear endpoints, a limited number of locations at each endpoint within a jump of each other.

This meant the smart trader could try and avoid a camping pirate but while still giving a risk of being pirated.

Pirates, in turn, had to be mobile and work together to find the next school of traders.

Smuggling came along and boom... The Leesti cluster became a ghost town.



Bring back "Trade routes"

Pirate can pirate
Defenders can defend
Miners can work with defenders for the super high rewards

Community greatness.

Make space great again


Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing

I hate it, but I have to agree with you

It's annoying that the opal sell spots multiply to dozens. When it was only one or two it was great.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Just wait until you see what they do with all those Opals... the Wall will be magnificent!

 

[Ouberos]

Im guessing they are BGS led. Which means they will multiply.

You can watch for updates to Inara and Edmc then go look but that's only catching players who use it and doesn't differentiate between Open and other modes.

 

[biot]

Just wait until you see what they do with all those Opals... the Wall will be magnificent!

The Thargoids are gonna pay for that Wall

 

[AlexAndTheDJ]

I may have missed something, but on Xbox pirating can be a bit of a pain because its such a ballache to type without a keyboard. Its too slow. Unless I've missed some preset text somewhere its just not feasible typing out your demands one slow letter at a time while your target high wakes. Shame.