A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

I can't see any exploit.

Supposedly we don't because we accepted the workings as they are. Question is if a majority wishes to have a general change (or more like a complete overhaul) or not. There isn't one easy solution to it all, everything requires a truckload of fine tuning in the end.

Let's see when this year is over (with what I heard Q4 will bring as change) and then review things anew.
 
Does minning effect the BGS at all? If I mine 20T of gold and sell to station, would it be 100% profit and go towards the trade part of BGS?
 
Does minning effect the BGS at all? If I mine 20T of gold and sell to station, would it be 100% profit and go towards the trade part of BGS?
The good thing with mining, is it's pure profit. So you can use it even at places that offer poor prices and still count as a profitable trade. Also, if you collect the cheap minerals as well as the metals, you can get a high number of transactions from selling lots of different commodities. This increases the effectiveness of doing a mining mission.
 
The good thing with mining, is it's pure profit. So you can use it even at places that offer poor prices and still count as a profitable trade. Also, if you collect the cheap minerals as well as the metals, you can get a high number of transactions from selling lots of different commodities. This increases the effectiveness of doing a mining mission.

It used to be effective....
Sadly FD nerfed the impact of commodities that didn't had a purchase price so much into the grounsld, that it's definitly no longer worth in terms of time versus effort.
The influence you gain is lesser than half than from bulk trading :(
 
Agreed it was overly heavily nerfed, as is typical with FD. But still effective, especially in those oversaturated markets where it's difficult to find a commodity that actually returns a profit.
 
I would love to see the return of mining as a viable mechanic.

Painite and precious metal mining was heavily involved in the return of Leesti to the Alliance.
 
Honestly I dont understand how people can't see the exploit in being able to make two small deliveries have more an effect than an all day grind.

Definitions, definitions. I'm not taking a side here - I just don't care that deeply how others play - but I can see the argument.
It's the fact that it's the only way it works, whether or not a given player sees that.

You can imagine a chess computer game if no one knew how to play chess.
The people who figure out that a knight moves only in L patterns and from then on only try to move them in those patterns...it's hard to argue they're exploiting anything. It's the way it works, hidden only by obscurity which is always temporary.

Terming it an exploit places the onus exclusively on the players, when your principal issue seems to be with the design. The basis of the design cannot itself be termed a loophole IMO.

I wouldn't be too concerned though. They relied on obscurity alone and the more apparent it becomes that it's no longer so obscure, the more likely they are to change it as with unit trading.
 
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Definitions, definitions. I'm not taking a side here but I can see the argument.
It's the fact that it's the only way it works, whether or not a given player sees that.

You can imagine a chess computer game if no one knew how to play chess.
The people who figure out that a knight moves only in L patterns and from then on only try to move them in those patterns...it's hard to argue they're exploiting anything.

Terming it an exploit places the onus on the players very directly, when your principal issue seems to be with the design.

Of course. That's why some people who use it all the time are recoiling. At this point many use it because they must to stay competitive. But it doesn't make it any less than what it is, but it does take the onus off the player, because its been left that way for so long. I guess I could call it something else to preserve feelings, or people could accept reality and not see it as a personal attack because my group does it too, which should be obvious.

Get this... I've talked to people from Frontier who didn't know it existed like this. :D
To be fair, they all have their own part of the game they work on though.
 
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Get this... I've talked to people from Frontier who didn't know it existed like this. :D

Yes, sadly we've had Support - who unquestionably try very hard to do their best - give answers that were demonstrably wrong, both by dev statement and (quite literally) everyday experience ingame. One such answer caused some drama in this thread quite a while back.
It's reasonable that they make mistakes and don't know everything personally, but it's also reasonable to think they'd ask the right people for the question.../shrug.

Edit: On the topic: I think your basic argument stands just fine without the connotation-complications of the terms you chose ;)
 
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Yes, sadly we've had Support - who unquestionably try very hard to do their best - give answers that were demonstrably wrong, both by dev statement and (quite literally) everyday experience ingame. One such answer caused some drama in this thread quite a while back.
It's reasonable that they make mistakes and don't know everything personally, but it's also reasonable to think they'd ask the right people for the question.../shrug.

So I think you see what I'm trying to do then.
 
I should think a whole lot of us do, really. It's certainly a discussion that's come up in every BGS channel/room/whatever I'm part of, which is quite a few.

But, humans are humans and how you word things matters, and always will.

Then please, hold my beer. :D
I dont mind if people bump that OP because they've conflated exploit with cheat and keep making the post visible. Not all exploits are cheats, it depends on how the developer views it. Honestly didn't forsee that people wouldn't know this though.
 
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Most people here are going to equate "exploit" with "cheat", in the variant of "exploit" meaning "to use selfishly for one's own ends" or more specifically in computers "a flaw in hardware or software that is vulnerable to hacking or other cyberattacks" or "a piece of software that takes advantage of such a flaw to compromise a computer system or network". I doubt anyone thinks you meant "a striking or notable deed".

Perhaps you meant it in the sense of "to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account" but that's simply not how most people here will read it, because every other time some kind of money making scheme or quick materials method turns up in Elite it's called, often rightfully, an exploit.
 
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