Balance, Balance, Balance

[dm0815]

I want I want...wah wah wah....
You can't see how having access to ALL the ships and ALL the builds (relatively) easily is a SURE SIGN the game is broken?

And it works the other way around, too. Having bad progression curves as this game cleary shows is a SURE SIGN the game is broken.

 

[V'larr]

And it works the other way around, too. Having bad progression curves as this game cleary shows is a SURE SIGN the game is broken.

Bad progression curves...? It depends. Credits are the primary method of getting newer ships/modules.

If you're trading, it's a pretty smooth progression; the bigger your ship, the more money you make. Nice and straightforward.

If you're trying to earn credits through most other methods besides trading...you're going to hit a wall sooner or later. Passengers is a newer possibility, certain missions might be, exploration can be (everyone who came up with/resorts to 'Road to Riches' can sod off, though, that's not even exploring at all reallly), mining is passable, and combat/piracy in particular are tough to get by with.

So it comes down to you and what you've been doing so far.

 

[Karamon]

Repair is not that low as you think , but most of repair price comes from modules . More damaged modules , higher price . Just repairing ship hull is not expensive.

For example after normal Thargoid fight in my Annie i pay150-200k for repairs but my shields never go down. When i was starting in badly beaten ship with badly damaged most of modules i paid something around 1.8 - 2 mil , add crew payment and i did not profit on those fights.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Well, because the Cutter is a one-time investment, and every run after that makes 70 times the profit. The Cutter isn't gonna pay for itself the first trade run, but after it pays for itself you are gonna be bringing in profits MUCH faster than that Sidewinder is.

It's not a 10,000 to 70 ratio. It's a 10,000 to (70+70+70+70+70+70+70...) ratio.

Right, sure, after it's paid for itself it's all profit. But it takes a very long time to get to that stage, and it takes much longer to get to that stage in the Cutter rather than the Sidewinder. Certainly the Cutter should cost more than the Sidewinder. The Cutter should certainly cost more than 70x as much as the Sidewinder. But 10,000x as much?

Let's take a simple trade progression: Sidewinder -> Hauler -> T-6 -> Asp -> T-7 -> T-9 -> Cutter. (With the aim of eventually buying a combat-fit Cutter)
Ships are fitted to the Coriolis "shielded trader" template, cargo profit is 3k/tonne, and the old ship gets sold each time. LYR discount of 15% used for purchases. Rounding errors used to pay for refuelling, and assuming NPCs continue to be trivially beatable in the interdiction step so no repairs or rebuys.

Sidewinder: 163,370 credits. 8t cargo.
Hauler: 201,909 credits. 18t cargo. (bought after 2 runs)
T-6: 889,058 credits. 104t cargo. (bought after 12 runs, 14 total runs) - rebuy is a 0.14 run setback, plus a couple more to make back the lost cargo
Asp: 10,476,378 credits. 120t cargo (bought after 30 runs, 44 total runs) - rebuy is a 1.45 run setback, plus a couple more to make back the lost cargo
T-7: 20,200,463 credits. 272t cargo. (bought after 27 runs, 71 total runs) - rebuy is a 1.23 run setback, plus a couple more to make back the lost cargo
T-9: 83,320,375 credits. 500t cargo. (bought after 77 runs, 148 total runs) - rebuy is a 2.77 run setback, plus a couple more to make back the lost cargo
Cutter: 225,919,435 credits. 728 cargo. (bought after 95 runs, 243 total runs) - rebuy is a 5.17 run setback, plus a couple more to make back the lost cargo
Cutter, combat fit: 833,228,386 credits. (bought after 278 runs, 521 total runs) - rebuys are 41 million each (so 19 trade runs after refitting it back for trade)

My opinion is that this is basically going fine until the T-7 purchase, and then after that it really slows down far too much. And this is in fairly ideal conditions - a beginning player probably isn't going to be doing consistent 3k/tonne trade routes.

As an aside: The number of runs a rebuy sets you back also means that the whole "why don't we have the high-profit trade routes in the Anarchy/low sec systems" thing is basically untenable, too - if you need to succeed 9 times out of 10 in the Cutter so that the rebuys don't mean you're actually going backwards - and probably more like 29 times out of 30 so you still make more progress than you would just going somewhere safer - then that's not a dangerous system because if you can succeed 9 times out of 10 then either a marginal increase in skill or outfitting will make you succeed 10 times out of 10, or a marginal increase in enemy danger will mean you're getting beaten out of your rebuy cushion very rapidly and have to head off to do 3 times as many trips somewhere safer instead. It's just not possible to balance the combat danger that specifically.

 

[tomalus]

Im tired of "balance",how bout some new fun,non sterile content instead?

 

[Vasious]

Given there are some stations that sell fuel at the pump for less than the commodities market, fuel certainly need looking at.

It does not make sense you would be buy fuel retail from a petrol station for less than the petrol station buys the fuel for in bulk from the commodities market.

 

[JonSnowman]

I'm skeptic of your view here. Balancing ought to involve dedicated math, formulas, and the correct use of them & accounting for necessary variables...sounds like something a programmer ought to know quite well, surely?

Any changes to the game would go through the same testing and release schedule as any other update. That means it has to be placed above other items in priority, and I don't think it should.

 

[V'larr]

Any changes to the game would go through the same testing and release schedule as any other update. That means it has to be placed above other items in priority, and I don't think it should.

Well, that is where you and I will have to agree to disagree, I'm afraid.

I've spent a lot of time in other games who prioritized "New Content!" over balancing existing content in order to set a predecent for any new additions to the game.

That's a large part of why I no longer play said games.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Great suggestions, especially income balance. Elite has always had a get rich quick scheme, which they have methodically changed every major patch, but the high ground is all activities are at a comfortable rate, at least getting rid of the negative attribute when you look at the credit part of any activity that isn't paying the best.

For fuel, i remember in DB mentioning that the philosophy was that 'energy was cheap' and freely available in elite, so it wasn't ever designed to be a factor. The menu option in stations was pretty much for ships without a fuel scoop (and it was an amazing element of play before you knew what a fuel scoop was.. or how to read the fuel gauge ).