ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing

[D.D.Hariman]

Then what's the problem?

Quite a few stations buy Tritium. When I entered the game a couple days ago to verify something, I made good money by buying a T9 full of it at one station and selling it at another station one jump away. The price difference was about 10000 credits per ton. I could have been going back and forth many times.

Maybe it was an EXPLOIT because commodity prices had gone into a direction that can be assumed to be INTENDED by BALANCING. I haven't done that because it would have been "BOOORRRING", and it is something better being automated.

You keep saying it's taking you hours to get your commanders logged in while your family is getting in the way and so many things aren't working. Why don't you play another game you like better wich is not boring?

heheheh. I live alone and my cat doesn't care about me playing the game. I do have grass to mow, home repairs and maintenance to do and a business to run.
NO It takes me hours to get logged in because Frontier DUMPED the F___ C(ommoners) into the game without adding the server capacity needed to support them. This results in my two ships not being able to get into PG and even when they do they may not be able to get into wing when the are sitting nose to nose looking at each other.

I published the "exploits" to make it clear to the F___ C(ommoners) and people like you, that if you are willing to go into the black, tritium is easy to find and mine. No particularly specialized equipment required. Just a mining laser and a collector controller, some limpets, and a PWA. Easily 90% of the rocks that light up, no matter the brightness/color/ shape will have tritium and Laser mining with collectors requires absolutely no skill. Imagine your profit if you had mined it at effectively no expense since fuel with a scoop is free and sold it at the GA of 50,000 cr/ton.

 

[limpetdwarf]

Without areas like Robigo, this game would be FAR to much work, in MAT grinding alone. This is an example of GOOD, not EVIL.

You're wrong. It's a bug --- or call it evil if you like --- that every other place has no passenger missions that are going to the same place. They are all going to different places, and that doesn't make any sense and it is one of the things that makes the game bad because it's not convincing in the least and only shows that passenger missions are badly made. (And what do you think where these passengers are getting all the materials from? Do they have their own ships in which they gather them in order to become a passenger? Why don't they just use their own ships and use the materials for themselves?)

Why aren't passenger misssions depending on population and migration? If there's a lack of food or medicine or jobs for example, people would eventually be forced to leave, and there would be demand for transportation to better places. But no, passenger missions randomly go only a couple systems further whereas it could be expected that systems with a large population would experience a lot of passenger traffic, and that would mean that there would be many places to and from which many passengers travel while other places just don't have that much passenger traffic --- and perhaps more mineral trade instead if mining is automated (because otherwise mining takes tremendous amounts of people and ships to do it and those don't even exist). What does it mean when a place says 'boom state' or how it's called? There should be lots of passenger missions going to such places from heavily populated places.

And what about moving missions? Apparently everyone is leaving everything they own behind when they move to another system. Some passengers should book cargo space along with the passage or book it seperately.

 

[aRJay]

You're wrong. It's a bug --- or call it evil if you like --- that every other place has no passenger missions that are going to the same place. They are all going to different places, and that doesn't make any sense and it is one of the things that makes the game bad because it's not convincing in the least and only shows that passenger missions are badly made. (And what do you think where these passengers are getting all the materials from? Do they have their own ships in which they gather them in order to become a passenger? Why don't they just use their own ships and use the materials for themselves?)

Why aren't passenger misssions depending on population and migration? If there's a lack of food or medicine or jobs for example, people would eventually be forced to leave, and there would be demand for transportation to better places. But no, passenger missions randomly go only a couple systems further whereas it could be expected that systems with a large population would experience a lot of passenger traffic, and that would mean that there would be many places to and from which many passengers travel while other places just don't have that much passenger traffic --- and perhaps more mineral trade instead if mining is automated (because otherwise mining takes tremendous amounts of people and ships to do it and those don't even exist). What does it mean when a place says 'boom state' or how it's called? There should be lots of passenger missions going to such places from heavily populated places.

And what about moving missions? Apparently everyone is leaving everything they own behind when they move to another system. Some passengers should book cargo space along with the passage or book it seperately.

For me the big issue with passenger missions is how come so many passengers survive the mission when they are so annoying.
The only ones I take are station rescue where the journey is light seconds and they are still cueing up bribes and demands before they have arrived, sometimes before undocking.

 

[Random Player]

You're wrong. It's a bug --- or call it evil if you like --- that every other place has no passenger missions that are going to the same place. They are all going to different places, and that doesn't make any sense and it is one of the things that makes the game bad because it's not convincing in the least and only shows that passenger missions are badly made. (And what do you think where these passengers are getting all the materials from? Do they have their own ships in which they gather them in order to become a passenger? Why don't they just use their own ships and use the materials for themselves?)

Why aren't passenger misssions depending on population and migration? If there's a lack of food or medicine or jobs for example, people would eventually be forced to leave, and there would be demand for transportation to better places. But no, passenger missions randomly go only a couple systems further whereas it could be expected that systems with a large population would experience a lot of passenger traffic, and that would mean that there would be many places to and from which many passengers travel while other places just don't have that much passenger traffic --- and perhaps more mineral trade instead if mining is automated (because otherwise mining takes tremendous amounts of people and ships to do it and those don't even exist). What does it mean when a place says 'boom state' or how it's called? There should be lots of passenger missions going to such places from heavily populated places.

And what about moving missions? Apparently everyone is leaving everything they own behind when they move to another system. Some passengers should book cargo space along with the passage or book it seperately.

Ha! I get that it doesn't make ANY sense, I am just glad it's there. It, umm, helps, you know? Makes things less incredibly tedious in this game. And don't tell me that you haven't driven Dav's Hope 100,000 times. Everyone that's played this game for any good amount of time has. Really, this is "game play"? I can't even think of another game, in the history of the million games I've played, that has anything like a Dav's Hope or the "re-log" to respawn system of gathering stuff. Ha!

 

[Random Player]

For me the big issue with passenger missions is how come so many passengers survive the mission when they are so annoying.

Maybe, in Odyssey, we'll be able to SHOOT them! Ha!

 

[aRJay]

Maybe, in Odyssey, we'll be able to SHOOT them! Ha!

In Odyssey thanks to Apex we will be them.

 

[limpetdwarf]

NO It takes me hours to get logged in because Frontier DUMPED the F___ C(ommoners) into the game without adding the server capacity needed to support them. This results in my two ships not being able to get into PG and even when they do they may not be able to get into wing when the are sitting nose to nose looking at each other.

Perhaps you need to get a carrier so you can keep your ships together.

I published the "exploits" to make it clear to the F___ C(ommoners) and people like you, that if you are willing to go into the black, tritium is easy to find and mine. No particularly specialized equipment required. Just a mining laser and a collector controller, some limpets, and a PWA. Easily 90% of the rocks that light up, no matter the brightness/color/ shape will have tritium and Laser mining with collectors requires absolutely no skill. Imagine your profit if you had mined it at effectively no expense since fuel with a scoop is free and sold it at the GA of 50,000 cr/ton.

Ok, and why would I mine Tritium? There are two different methods of mining and it doesn't really matter what is being mined since you use one method or the other anyway.

Laser mining is very boring, and core mining is buggy in that so many so-called hotspots are indicated where there is a void of the mineral indicated by the hotspot rather than the abundance of it which would make the place a hotspot to begin with. That makes core mining also boring because 99% of the time you don't find any cores to mine but fly about with the fire button taped down to keep the PWA (which is broken nonetheless) firing. Why doesn't it fire at least automatically on a toggle?

Mining should be automated, especially laser mining. Conducting autmomated big style mining operations could be fun. Can someone explain where the huge amounts of minerals some stations are selling are coming from and how stations plan to ever fulfill their huge demands? "Big style" means about 10000-200000t per hour per deployment, depending on how much you built up your mining operation. The 200t the hobby miners playing with their little mining lasers can get per hour are pathetic. Just look at all the stations and imagine the kind of resources it must have taken to build them, not to mention all the ships that are being destroyed every day ... How many miners would that take, and where are they?

So yet another fundamentally bad implementation --- or call it exploit if you will --- doesn't make a difference, or does it?

 

[limpetdwarf]

Ha! I get that it doesn't make ANY sense, I am just glad it's there. It, umm, helps, you know? Makes things less incredibly tedious in this game. And don't tell me that you haven't driven Dav's Hope 100,000 times.

Yes, I know how painful it is, and that doesn't make it non-evil. If the implementation of stuff --- passenger missions in this case --- wasn't fundamentally bad, you wouldn't have to go to places like Robigo.

And no, I haven't done many passenger missions at Robigo. There is another system you can go to close by which is closer to the nav beacon so it takes only one jump instead of two. So I went there instead but unfortunately, I got the impression that everyone working for Sirius isn't being scanned because I wasn't when I was close to Sirius doing illegal stuff and wasn't scanned and wasn't scannned at Robigo, either. But at the other place they scan you and I ended up in detention due to the wanted passengers. I didn't feel like going all the way back because these missions didn't pay that much anyway.

Everyone that's played this game for any good amount of time has. Really, this is "game play"? I can't even think of another game, in the history of the million games I've played, that has anything like a Dav's Hope or the "re-log" to respawn system of gathering stuff. Ha!

Well, I found that going to Davs Hope for materials is pointless because there's almost nothing there. I found it more rewarding, more efficent and fun to shoot NPC pirates in RES, bringing limptets to collect the materials and a kill warrant scanner to collect the bounties. (Just don't go to singal sources when you can avoid it.) Unfortunately, you can't gather materials in a combat ship because those are way too limited (unless you pick the materials manually instead of using limpets and take ages).

So what sense does it make that you have to bring a freighter to do combat??

It's a way of game play when you respawn and get to do it all over again. It's like one of these bad movies which are so bad that they are almost good because they're so bad.

 

[F4fred]

Maybe, in Odyssey, we'll be able to SHOOT them! Ha!

On the other hand maybe they could shoot us?!

 

[Random Player]

It's a way of game play when you respawn and get to do it all over again. It's like one of these bad movies which are so bad that they are almost good because they're so bad.

Good analogy! What system were you being scanned? I'd like to try that. Robigo is boring, I wouldn't mind adding in the possibility of getting scanned, drop a heatsink, whatever.... sounds more, um, fun.

 

[Random Player]

On the other hand maybe they could shoot us?!

Ship Jack? Yeah! Good game play! You take on an "illegal" paseesger and he, and maybe some of his pals, try to jack your ship! Good game play for multi-crew!

 

[limpetdwarf]

Good analogy! What system were you being scanned? I'd like to try that. Robigo is boring, I wouldn't mind adding in the possibility of getting scanned, drop a heatsink, whatever.... sounds more, um, fun.

I don't remember the name I think it's on the line between Robigo and the system with the nav beacon everyone is going to, but a little closer to the beacon. There isn't so much around, it should be easy to find. Maybe there are even several others. I think it was less than 40 LY from the beacon, about 31 or 32.

Hm, or was it like a sidestep? Look for stations that sell fighter hangars close to Robigo. IIRC I wanted to fit another passenger cabin instead of the fuel scoop, and the place had them and also sold fighter hangars.

 

[limpetdwarf]

Ship Jack? Yeah! Good game play! You take on an "illegal" paseesger and he, and maybe some of his pals, try to jack your ship! Good game play for multi-crew!

We should find derelict ships in the void every now and then, like ones that ran out of fuel and the crew died, repair them and have them return to a station on autopilot. Or the crew was eaten by indigenous life forms or somehow mysteriously disappeared on a planets surface ... Or we could learn about a missing ship in the bar on the station and only have to find it ...

It's not my idea, though. X2 and/or X3 had the derelict ships; Vegastrike has (had?) bars in space ports where you could find quests. Are there gona be bars in Odessey?

 

[aRJay]

Perhaps you need to get a carrier so you can keep your ships together.



Ok, and why would I mine Tritium? There are two different methods of mining and it doesn't really matter what is being mined since you use one method or the other anyway.

Laser mining is very boring, and core mining is buggy in that so many so-called hotspots are indicated where there is a void of the mineral indicated by the hotspot rather than the abundance of it which would make the place a hotspot to begin with. That makes core mining also boring because 99% of the time you don't find any cores to mine but fly about with the fire button taped down to keep the PWA (which is broken nonetheless) firing. Why doesn't it fire at least automatically on a toggle?

Mining should be automated, especially laser mining. Conducting autmomated big style mining operations could be fun. Can someone explain where the huge amounts of minerals some stations are selling are coming from and how stations plan to ever fulfill their huge demands? "Big style" means about 10000-200000t per hour per deployment, depending on how much you built up your mining operation. The 200t the hobby miners playing with their little mining lasers can get per hour are pathetic. Just look at all the stations and imagine the kind of resources it must have taken to build them, not to mention all the ships that are being destroyed every day ... How many miners would that take, and where are they?

So yet another fundamentally bad implementation --- or call it exploit if you will --- doesn't make a difference, or does it?

We aren’t the bosses of huge corporations that can do industrial scale mining we are owner operators of small ships, the 34th century version of “white van man”, not big important people on the galactic stage.

 

[F4fred]

You're wrong. It's a bug --- or call it evil if you like --- that every other place has no passenger missions that are going to the same place. They are all going to different places, and that doesn't make any sense and it is one of the things that makes the game bad because it's not convincing in the least and only shows that passenger missions are badly made. (And what do you think where these passengers are getting all the materials from? Do they have their own ships in which they gather them in order to become a passenger? Why don't they just use their own ships and use the materials for themselves?)

Why aren't passenger misssions depending on population and migration? If there's a lack of food or medicine or jobs for example, people would eventually be forced to leave, and there would be demand for transportation to better places. But no, passenger missions randomly go only a couple systems further whereas it could be expected that systems with a large population would experience a lot of passenger traffic, and that would mean that there would be many places to and from which many passengers travel while other places just don't have that much passenger traffic --- and perhaps more mineral trade instead if mining is automated (because otherwise mining takes tremendous amounts of people and ships to do it and those don't even exist). What does it mean when a place says 'boom state' or how it's called? There should be lots of passenger missions going to such places from heavily populated places.

And what about moving missions? Apparently everyone is leaving everything they own behind when they move to another system. Some passengers should book cargo space along with the passage or book it seperately.

You need to pay more attention next time you are at Robigo. Not all the passengers are going to Sirius Atmospherics. A lot are, but then it is a local famous tourist attraction so makes perfect sense to me. Secondly you quite often find passengers going to the exact same places or tourist round trips at other stations. Robigo Mines is an Outpost station with low security you will very rarely get scanned there, but will get scanned sometimes at Hauser’s Reach or the stations in Ceos. You need heat sinks and silent running to beat that. As to payment in kind rather than cash. A lot of the passengers are criminals so paying in untraceable commodities might well be better for them.
Dav’s Hope I personally think is useful, particularly for commanders new to engineering as a quick way to get a lot of G1-4 manufactured and some data. Each loop gives 1-3 drops of data and 10 drops of manufactured. You can easily do 30 loops an hour for which at 3 mats for each drop is 90-270 data and 900 manufactured. With that you can start upgrades on some modules and weapons and build up rep with engineers.

 

[F4fred]

I don't remember the name I think it's on the line between Robigo and the system with the nav beacon everyone is going to, but a little closer to the beacon. There isn't so much around, it should be easy to find. Maybe there are even several others. I think it was less than 40 LY from the beacon, about 31 or 32.

Hm, or was it like a sidestep? Look for stations that sell fighter hangars close to Robigo. IIRC I wanted to fit another passenger cabin instead of the fuel scoop, and the place had them and also sold fighter hangars.

That will be Ceos!

 

[F4fred]

Ha! I get that it doesn't make ANY sense, I am just glad it's there. It, umm, helps, you know? Makes things less incredibly tedious in this game. And don't tell me that you haven't driven Dav's Hope 100,000 times. Everyone that's played this game for any good amount of time has. Really, this is "game play"? I can't even think of another game, in the history of the million games I've played, that has anything like a Dav's Hope or the "re-log" to respawn system of gathering stuffr. Ha!

I have found similar respawn mechanisms in other games that don’t normally involve relogging. Play one where pirate fleets and pirate bases magically respawn close by as you kill them. I am pretty sure the relog technique is not Frontiers preferred way it should be played. I think they originally envisioned engineering as something people would do over time gradually picking up materials as they played the game and unlocking engineers over time, not as the mad scramble everyone does to get the upgrades. The fact that relog works and they haven’t fixed is probably a pragmatic realisation that there would be an enormous outcry from the players if they did.

 

[Random Player]

You need to pay more attention next time you are at Robigo. Not all the passengers are going to Sirius Atmospherics. A lot are, but then it is a local famous tourist attraction so makes perfect sense to me. Secondly you quite often find passengers going to the exact same places or tourist round trips at other stations. Robigo Mines is an Outpost station with low security you will very rarely get scanned there, but will get scanned sometimes at Hauser’s Reach or the stations in Ceos. You need heat sinks and silent running to beat that. As to payment in kind rather than cash. A lot of the passengers are criminals so paying in untraceable commodities might well be better for them.
Dav’s Hope I personally think is useful, particularly for commanders new to engineering as a quick way to get a lot of G1-4 manufactured and some data. Each loop gives 1-3 drops of data and 10 drops of manufactured. You can easily do 30 loops an hour for which at 3 mats for each drop is 90-270 data and 900 manufactured. With that you can start upgrades on some modules and weapons and build up rep with engineers.

Well stated! Also, right there at SOTHIS and CEOS is data delivery missions to move up in Fed Rank. Mindless moving data from one system port to another BUT, the one good thing here is the INSANE amount of Anacondas they send out to kill you! I've had to fight 4 Deadly Anacondas at one time, and thankfully the security stepped in and helped! These Anacondas are pretty easy to kill, as far as hired assassins' go, and they drop LOTS of G5 MATS! I am finishing off "Admiral" just to get the G5 drops from all these 'Condas, plus it helps with combat rank too and is hella fun, although can get a little stressful when you see 3 or 4 ships on the radar and ALL trying to get you at once!! "Found you my little fishy!" Ha!

 

[Random Player]

The fact that relog works and they haven’t fixed is probably a pragmatic realisation that there would be an enormous outcry from the players if they did.

People would have a fit, me included! They would have to think of some other way to gather ALL those MATS you need, and you need LOTS and LOTS of MATS to ENG a good fleet of ships, all for various purposes. There's not ONE ship in the game, or ONE weapon, that works for every situation, so you NEED a fleet of ships. I had 21 at one time, but cut loose about 10 ships, was just too much MAT gathering and had ships I was never going to use.

 

[D.D.Hariman]

Ok. Left the Tritium Hot Spot and went to an Alexandtite Hotspot. First bright rock had fissures LTD's a Subsurface Tritium which I didn't bother with. Second bright rock didn't and it was a significant amount of Bromolite but had some Tritium Surface deposits.
First rock failed to crack on the first set of charges with a charge load that used to crack rocks. Planted a High Power Charge In a High Strength fissure and got what should have been a very "Optimal" reading but on got 10 fragments. Blasted off the surface deposits and ended up with 11 tons and a bit of refined LTD's.

The moral of this story is that:
1. Tritium is everywhere so the F___ C(ommoners) need to quit crying and start mining for themselves.
2. The designation of the Hot Spot still doesn't match what will be found.
3. The SC meter may still be out of whack.