AMA II: Question Boogaloo - Arthur, Bruce, Stephen and Paul
- Thread starter Bruce G
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Do you get an alert from any of your dev tools if a CMDR stumbles upon a previously undiscovered lore related location?
And if so, did a CMDR discover such a location and didn't share it with the galactic community?
And if so, did a CMDR discover such a location and didn't share it with the galactic community?
Can you confirm with no details that there are something currently in the Galaxy not yet discovered by players and it's not just a version of something already known (e.g. not just a new systems/planets)?
For now, it looks like players uncovering everything new in 1-2 days after it's added to the game in updates.
How did you decide which commodities to get their prices adjusted? And there's a follow-up question at the bottom. I ask because there are some rather big plot holes in commodities, which spreads out into other things (like mining).
For example - we can mine gold. That's pretty cool.
We can also mine bauxite and sell it for an average price of about 1,000 credits/ton. And that's where tings stop making sense. Let me explain.
Bauxite is refined into aluminium oxide, and you need 1.9-3.6 tons of bauxite to produce 1 ton of aluminum oxide. Aluminium oxide is ~53% aluminium per weight (it's AL2O3), which means we need 3.6 to 6.7 tons of bauxite to produce 1 ton of aluminium. Bear with me.
As an aluminium refinery we have now spent between 3,600 and 6,700 credits to get the raw materials to make one ton of aluminium. We then put this on the market, which has an average price of less than 500 credits per ton, and we're looking at a profit margin of negative 3,100 to 6,200 credits per ton.
But wait - there's more!
We can refine pure gold, but for some reason our shipboard refinery cannot refine pure aluminium.
"But wait!" I hear you say. "Bauxite is the main source of gallium, and gallium is worth a lot of money!" This is true - gallium averages around 6,500 credits per ton. But it only exists in trace amounts in bauxite. Even assuming that this means 10%, you'd need 10 tons of bauxite to get 1 ton of gallium. Se we'd spend 10,000 credits to get 6,500 credits worth of gallium and 3 tons of aluminium worth less than 1,500 credits, netting us a total profit of negative 2,000 credits.
I am sure there are other even worse examples of things that make no sense whatsoever, this is just the one I stumbled upon.
My follow-up question is this - is this something you think needs to be addressed? To my mind, a lot of the imbalances would be smoothed out if the value of commodities reflected the value of the other commodities it's used in (as in the example above).
For example - we can mine gold. That's pretty cool.
We can also mine bauxite and sell it for an average price of about 1,000 credits/ton. And that's where tings stop making sense. Let me explain.
Bauxite is refined into aluminium oxide, and you need 1.9-3.6 tons of bauxite to produce 1 ton of aluminum oxide. Aluminium oxide is ~53% aluminium per weight (it's AL2O3), which means we need 3.6 to 6.7 tons of bauxite to produce 1 ton of aluminium. Bear with me.
As an aluminium refinery we have now spent between 3,600 and 6,700 credits to get the raw materials to make one ton of aluminium. We then put this on the market, which has an average price of less than 500 credits per ton, and we're looking at a profit margin of negative 3,100 to 6,200 credits per ton.
But wait - there's more!
We can refine pure gold, but for some reason our shipboard refinery cannot refine pure aluminium.
"But wait!" I hear you say. "Bauxite is the main source of gallium, and gallium is worth a lot of money!" This is true - gallium averages around 6,500 credits per ton. But it only exists in trace amounts in bauxite. Even assuming that this means 10%, you'd need 10 tons of bauxite to get 1 ton of gallium. Se we'd spend 10,000 credits to get 6,500 credits worth of gallium and 3 tons of aluminium worth less than 1,500 credits, netting us a total profit of negative 2,000 credits.
I am sure there are other even worse examples of things that make no sense whatsoever, this is just the one I stumbled upon.
My follow-up question is this - is this something you think needs to be addressed? To my mind, a lot of the imbalances would be smoothed out if the value of commodities reflected the value of the other commodities it's used in (as in the example above).
What’s the views on increasing the impact of system security levels such that there’s elevated risks to activities accordingly.
For example, making trade, etc. more risky in anarchy and low sec, but with associated better rewards. Similar principle for other activities as well, but with the relation to system security level the other way round for some.
For example, making trade, etc. more risky in anarchy and low sec, but with associated better rewards. Similar principle for other activities as well, but with the relation to system security level the other way round for some.
Covid-19 has been taking its toll not just on peoples health but also on the way companies go about their business - FDev moved to working from home and as stated here and elsewhere this has slowed down the collaboration of the team. I was wondering if there was actually something positive a result of this? Any changes the team will keep?
Bruce G
Senior Community Manager
The specifics will need to wait until an announcement expected at the end of this week or early next, but those are both recognised as high priority features within combat.
Humanity can only cope with so much beauty.
Will the Dark Lord, The Pirate King Archon Delaine ever feature on Galnet?
Why can we store empty cargo racks in module storage at stations but not full ones?
Bruce G
Senior Community Manager
Not currently, but thanks for the suggestion/showing interest - I could see these being offered if there's suitable demand.Are there any plans on offering additional Non-English COVASes? I'd love to spend a few ARX on a different German-speaking one
Will players be able to double engineer modules at some point in the same way that where awarded to participants of recent CG's ?
Is there a way that could be introduced for system controllers to see market activity in a better way. Eg: x amount of item "y" was sold for a profit while z amount of bio-waste was sold at a loss. Like a line item budget report would be handy info to have and would give the sense of running a "Big Box Store" also for the bgs side of things as well
Is there a way that could be introduced for system controllers to see market activity in a better way. Eg: x amount of item "y" was sold for a profit while z amount of bio-waste was sold at a loss. Like a line item budget report would be handy info to have and would give the sense of running a "Big Box Store" also for the bgs side of things as well
We are contiuing to balance mining as an ongoing process - what numbers are you seeing and what do you think would be acceptable? I can then add this to our feedback.
They are very difficult to interview
Can I make a request of Remote fuelling for the Fleet Carrier like you can with remote movement?
Not currently, this is only for specific moments which we will carefully pick - Arf
I guess this kind of posts are good to keep the community engaged, so thanks for doing this. However, most of your replies are quite underwhelming:
"I'll pass it along"
"There are no plans at the moment"
"We don't have anything to announce"
"We don't have any details to share"
"We can't confirm anything about that"
Any chance we could get an AMA with the people actually doing the decision making in Elite? The Lead Designer maybe?
Thanks.
"I'll pass it along"
"There are no plans at the moment"
"We don't have anything to announce"
"We don't have any details to share"
"We can't confirm anything about that"
Any chance we could get an AMA with the people actually doing the decision making in Elite? The Lead Designer maybe?
Thanks.
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