Fleet Carriers - Patch 3 - Known Issues

[Snowymonk]

It certainly looks like Tritium hotspots have an issue. I tried my usual hotspot today. Previously 370 limpets would get me 300-400 tonnes of Tritium. However today, I got less than 200 tonnes for the same number of limpets. Not tried other mineable types, but Tritium has definitely been affected

Same boat.

would usually spend a evening mining for Tritium for my Fleet Carrier. Two hours -circa 180-200t in a hotspot.
since the patch two hours - 79t on Wednesday night, 68t on Thursday night.
Single Tritium hotspot that should apparently be unaffected by the changes. Either the RNG gods have been cruel to me or something has changed.

Sorry DSSA guys, it’ll take a little bit longer for me to get into position than previously thought.

 

[Kestrel71]

While there was a rudimentary system resembling some bits of this when exploration projects systematically hunted for 3LTD spots, I don't think this simply is very feasible in broader scale. There isn't enough human players to make this sort of gameplay chain (or true economy) a thing, especially when you have the current system of modes and the necessity of maintaining them as viable approaches to the game.

The bubble and the imagined civilization in Elite is simply too large for it - heck, the entire 1:1 milky way is too large for it. Maybe in another game.

Oh, I agree - it may not be feasible because it relies on there being enough players in each role to keep things moving. The exact mechanics that would drive this kind of economy would be quite difficult to get right, but it would tie things together a little more.

In my style of play, trade gets you the money, combat is for fun, and exploration is the long term future -- as the universe opens up, more lore is incorporated, quests (for lack of a better term) drive the end game. I'm hoping that Odyssey is a first step in that direction, though I'm not sure how much I will actually play Odyssey since it won't have VR support -- I just can't go back to flat-screen mode, so I'll likely spend most of my time in Horizons.

 

[Kestrel71]

Whereas in my own experience yesterday, one hour in the middle of a LTD hotspot achieved 1T of LTDs, (plus half a bin in the refinery), and 10T of Tritium.

Another hour in a Void Opal hotspot gave me another 28T of Tritium, 23T of LTDs, no Void Opals at all, and an asteroid with an LTD core that proved impossible to get the LTDs from the asteroid fragments because the abrasion blasters have no effect.

Note that's using a ship outfitted for fully mining capability - lasers, displacement missiles, abrasion blasters and seismic charges so I didn't have to leave anything I found - I found next to nothing.

In a hotspot, there should be a greater density of materials named in the hotspot title than you could find elsewhere in the ring (outside a hotspot). The patch notes specifically stated that the intention was for the hotspots to still have a higher ratio of the relevant commodity (kind of the point of a hotspot).

If you're spending an hour searching to find literally zero of the commodity named in the hotspot, that's a mechanic that is broken.

This matches my experience. I went to a Void Opal hotspot that was pretty productive pre-patch and in about 4 hours, using a mining python (lasers, seismic charges, displacement missiles, abrasion blasters, etc.) I pulled out 83t of Tritium, 38t of Void Opals, 21t of LTD -- a pretty pitiful haul for the amount of time spent.

 

[ChipStar65]

Being able to find materials in the normal rings is irrelevant for the original point of the discussion though surely?

I've not seen anyone claiming that you couldn't find worthwhile things in general outside of the hotspots - the point of the hotspots is that (even by the patch notes) is that you should have a notably better chance of finding that named hotspot resource in that hotspot.

...[ a lot of deflection]...

If you had read the thread I linked you would see that the results I posted were for a single LTD hotspot, not "normal rings." And, as mentioned a number of times, the idea is not to refute the hotspot nerfing for tritium in particular, but to find a possible way around it as an interim solution. Most of what I see here in the forum is gripes and moaning, including your competely inaccurate statement:

"This is (currently, and hopefully a mistake that will soon be rectified) effectively a complete removal of any hotspots in the game by removing all valuable minerals and replacing them with worthless ones "

So you still stand by this?

 

[Archaicflame]

Just wanted to let you devs know that you royally screwed up by swinging the nerf hammer. If you remove upkeep and the decommissioning losses on fleet carriers they might be fun again, but as soon as you announced the patch I jumped to a system with a station and decommissioned it. The amount of money you could make mining LTD was the only way that the fleet carriers had a chance to be a viably fun part of the game. Needing to mine tritium to jump the thing is frustrating enough without you guys tanking the way people with lives outside the game can afford to upkeep the ship.

Not sure if there is any reason to keep playing now. I kinda skipped mad with this update and just ended up at disappointed in you lot. Best of luck with the game and hopefully I can find something fun to do in it now that my plan of laser mining enough LTD to afford the upkeep and hop around the black with my fleet of ships is dead.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

As I said in another thread, without a viably sufficient income source, new players to the game are going to find extremely time-consuming to make enough to just buy an FC, let alone the UC.

 

[ChipStar65]

I think 'near-disaster' is already an exaggeration.

For those approaching the Universe as you and I do, that's true, but folks like the DSSA group have made plans based on a certain stability in tritium availability that has been knocked on its a**. Their situation is comparable to a disaster, I'd say, which is why I tested out an idea that may offer a temporary bandage on the wound, particularly if they are mining in teams.

 

[howardtay]

It doesn't really matter how many billions of credits you can earn, you can't spend them on anything other than Ships, Modules and Cargo, and when you have all the ships and all the modules you want, you can only use the credits to buy cargo and then sell it, to create more credits ad infinatum. I'm happy with my 25 Billion I don't need any more, time to stop grinding and time to continue enjoying the flying and exploration experience. Fun things to do is what most of us want, I believe?

 

[cmdrNicolas]

A small update will take place tomorrow around midday for Xbox and Playstation users. This update won't contain any noticeable changes, but lays the groundwork for future bug fixes.

Thank you !

 

[darthanubis]

Thank you !

For what? There are no specifics. Is this the mauve Adder fix?

 

[Cmdr Tali'Shepard]

If you had read the thread I linked you would see that the results I posted were for a single LTD hotspot, not "normal rings." And, as mentioned a number of times, the idea is not to refute the hotspot nerfing for tritium in particular, but to find a possible way around it as an interim solution. Most of what I see here in the forum is gripes and moaning, including your competely inaccurate statement:

"This is (currently, and hopefully a mistake that will soon be rectified) effectively a complete removal of any hotspots in the game by removing all valuable minerals and replacing them with worthless ones "

So you still stand by this?

I stand by that statement as clearly some people (read the rest of the thread) have spent hours and hundreds of limpets to find no LTDs, no VO, and no Tritium. A Tritium Hotspot, in which you can't find any tritium, is practically worthless, it's certainly pointless.

If you want to be a complete pedant, I will correct it to, "This is (currently, and hopefully a mistake that will soon be rectified) effectively a near-complete removal of any hotspots in the game by removing nearly all valuable minerals and replacing them with worthless ones."

That fact that in a few instances, it is possible to get a rate of return for time that can be vastly exceeded by even doing the Robigo passenger run, even in a hotspot, proves the point being made by those who are not complaining about the attempted removal of the exploits but about the -poor way it's been implemented.

When dropping into the middle of an LTD hotspot, to find known asteroids that still have the same SSD's they had before, but now giving Brom. instead of LTDs (not referring just to 'the egg'), that is the definition of effectively replacing, "valuable minerals with worthless ones".

I noted your careful avoidance in the initial rely of not noting the time taken to gather those minerals - 6+ hours to earn that much breaks the mining mechanic. So either Frontier intended that, in which case why didn't they also rebalance the supply and demand mechanics, and also rename the hotspots? There's not a lot of point finding a named hotspot right now, unless you actively want just about anything except what the hotspot professes to contain.

My 'complaint' is not about what they were seeking to achieve, nor is it about the clear mistake. People are human, and mistakes happen. It's about the lack of any decent acknowledgement that they've made a mistake.

 

[ChipStar65]

I noted your careful avoidance in the initial rely of not noting the time taken to gather those minerals - 6+ hours to earn that much breaks the mining mechanic.

"Careful avoidance" -- what a load of horse hockey! Ship that to the Ag worlds, they use it to grow food.

I linked to the thread where my results were first reported and in the very first post there I state the time it took and that it was longer than usual, and farther down, also some conditions that affected that time. Again, a deflection on your part, but it ain't a-gonna work, Commander. It's not "pedantic" to be rational, truthful, and accurate, but I guess those qualities are not important to you.

Best of luck in your journeys!

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Before you start labelling other people into groups, you might want to evaluate your own reaction to what was actually written and being said. There is a 'psychological lesson' in which you might learn something.

Hey, I just read what you wrote in isolation. It was just a little bit spooky.

 

[Cmdr Tali'Shepard]

"Careful avoidance" -- what a load of horse hockey! Ship that to the Ag worlds, they use it to grow food.

I linked to the thread where my results were first reported and in the very first post there I state the time it took and that it was longer than usual, and farther down, also some conditions that affected that time. Again, a deflection on your part, but it ain't a-gonna work, Commander. It's not "pedantic" to be rational, truthful, and accurate, but I guess those qualities are not important to you.

Best of luck in your journeys!

"Careful avoidance" -- what a load of horse hockey! Ship that to the Ag worlds, they use it to grow food.

I linked to the thread where my results were first reported and in the very first post there I state the time it took and that it was longer than usual, and farther down, also some conditions that affected that time. Again, a deflection on your part, but it ain't a-gonna work, Commander. It's not "pedantic" to be rational, truthful, and accurate, but I guess those qualities are not important to you.

Best of luck in your journeys!

You must be a lawyer.

Most people do not speak so precisely unless they're in a professional / legal / engineering focussed situation.

If you were offended by the 'generalisation' of most people finding, at best a few tonnes of LTDs across many hours playing, whilst searching in a non-LTD hotspot, because searching an LTD hotspot gave them nothing at all, as an exaggeration by saying the valuable minerals were removed, you are being pedantic. To go from being able to mine 250+ tonnes of LTDs in an hour, to requiring 6+ hours for the 10% of that, (an approximate hourly rate drop of 98.3% using rounded figures) is close enough to be accurate for the purposes of the discussion.

And yes, you were clear in your linked thread, but the initial reply was worded without mention that it had taken you 6+ hours to achieve, and many (dare I say most even) are not likely to read the thread because they'd assume (wrongly) that all the pertinent information was stated in your reply and that the linked thread provided evidence.

You complain about inaccuracy yet are disingenuous in your own posts, Commander.

 

[Triptych]

Excuse me for breaking into today's argument.........does anyone know if the root cause of the Tritium mining problem has been identified, and if/when it'll be fixed?

 

[Lobey]

Well. last night I was still able to pull LTD, Alexanderite and Grandiderite cores without too much problem - just not neccessarily in hotspots with the appropriate name. It gets better 120 kms out from the core centres I notice - might just be some depletion issues across multiple instances - I was at Tollan 4 in single hotspots and just in the ring generally - one of my "go to" mining spots btw good location, not mad busy.
Non - "hotpsot" areas still prove good hunting for me just that you tend to get Bromelite cores about every second core out there.
Laser mining was still showing "ok" Tritium everywhere - 12-17% - but little else of value anywhere.
Each run was in my Cobra 4 that nets me 38 tons (32 cargo 6 in the refinery) per trip - each run was about 1 hour to an hour and a half without pushing too hard (ie taking time to kill pirates and scoop up remains - searching for best sell prices etc). Hopefully the laser side will pick up as it's a good way to "top off" the bins in that setup.

 

[Cmdr Tali'Shepard]

Excuse me for breaking into today's argument.........does anyone know if the root cause of the Tritium mining problem has been identified, and if/when it'll be fixed?

It's not an argument, it's a robust debate.

But AFAIK it's not actually a Tritium specific problem, it's a hotspot mechanic problem.

Based on the evidence, specifically that the likelhood of finding (for example Tritium in a Tritium Hotspot) seems to have dropped to near zero, albeit not to zero, I suspect the algorithm that determines the dispersal and yield of asteroids within HotSpots wasn't correct.

Best guess, there's a fairly complex algorithm to determine the yield and dispersal in a single hotspot, an overlapping one, etc, based around the items that should be in the hotspot, but there's one or more decimal points in the wrong place.

That then applies to all hotspot calculations, hence why you can find tritium in LTD hotspots, LTDs in VO ones etc, relatively easily, but not in their own hotspots.

 

[Triptych]

It's not an argument, it's a robust debate.

But AFAIK it's not actually a Tritium specific problem, it's a hotspot mechanic problem.

Based on the evidence, specifically that the likelhood of finding (for example Tritium in a Tritium Hotspot) seems to have dropped to near zero, albeit not to zero, I suspect the algorithm that determines the dispersal and yield of asteroids within HotSpots wasn't correct.

Best guess, there's a fairly complex algorithm to determine the yield and dispersal in a single hotspot, an overlapping one, etc, based around the items that should be in the hotspot, but there's one or more decimal points in the wrong place.

That then applies to all hotspot calculations, hence why you can find tritium in LTD hotspots, LTDs in VO ones etc, relatively easily, but not in their own hotspots.

So what you're saying - apart from the "argument" thing - is that I've a better chance of finding Tritium in a non-Tritium hotspot?

 

[Cmdr Tali'Shepard]

So what you're saying - apart from the "argument" thing - is that I've a better chance of finding Tritium in a non-Tritium hotspot?

Yeah, I spent an hour in a VO hotspot last night - didn't find any VO's but got about 20-25 Tritium and LTD's. Plus an LTD core I couldn't mine because of the abrasion bug.

 

[OldManKnott]

So is it fixed yet?