Board flipping=exploit, how stupid, read on...

[Aaron T]

Addendum: 1. I do not do 5 minute missions, I fly for 30-45 minutes at a time so I can keep up with my current netflix show, without netflix in my cockpit in VR there is just not enough reason to even keep ED on my PC.

2. Before the update for as long as I have played the game I became allied with a station and loaded a ship 90% of the time on one board.

If FD intended the board to be opened one time, then you leave with whatever missions you have found on that one and only board, they would have never created the Beluga, period.

Because unless you want to make 30 jumps to 30 different systems, you would never be able to fill it's cabins.

So, many of you expect someone to take a mission going up a jump, then have to jump back down two jumps, then a jump to the left, and two jumps back to the right, then make 6 jumps, to a geyser, 3 jumps to a beacon, 4 jumps to a memorial, and then 20k+ jumps to Colonia and another 20k jumps back because that is what was available on the board?

Or do you expect us to take three VIP's to the next system in thew smallest cabin, with all the other cabins empty because that is the only acceptable job on the board, and for 150k, in a ship we have put 200 million in?

If there was to be zero board flipping they should have not ever built a larger passenger ship than an Orca, for the rare occurrence that it might even be filled, but most likely the Dolphin would be the largest ship we could legally use consistently for passengers with zero board flipping if it were an exploit as many say.

The best two possibilities are these:

Shut up and play your game and I'll play mine, which is preferable.

Or for FD to make 5-10 pages of missions for each mission type, flip through the 5 pages, pick your missions and go.

I am quite sure that FD would have put a stop to board flipping when they nerfed Smeaton if they had an issue with it

 

[Vorxian]

Usually passengers jump on a bus going in the direction they need to go.

Never heard of a bus going from London to Dover to Edinburgh to Exeter then to Sheffield to Norwich to Bristol to Bangor back to London.. just because passengers can't be bothered to queue for a number 9 or 7, 33, or 87 etc etc.. they all expect Bus 43 to go everywhere...

Where as if they were going to collectively pay me £4.8m then I'm all theirs!

IN ED, you board hop to emulate passengers wanting to go in similar direction. Which is perfectly reasonable against the pittance they're paying.

 

[Aaron T]

Usually passengers jump on a bus going in the direction they need to go.

Never heard of a bus going from London to Dover to Edinburgh to Exeter then to Sheffield to Norwich to Bristol to Bangor back to London.. just because passengers can't be bothered to queue for a number 9 or 7, 33, or 87 etc etc.. they all expect Bus 43 to go everywhere...

Where as if they were going to collectively pay me £4.8m then I'm all theirs!

IN ED, you board hop to emulate passengers wanting to go in similar direction. Which is perfectly reasonable against the pittance they're paying.

And let's not forget, that most of the passengers are picky, will bail on payment if you cannot divert on a whim, and how can you ever manage to get to 30 places all over the bubble and even outside the bubble in time to pass the missions?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

No.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Unless it’s used in an Official Post by a Frontier Employee or in the Official newsletter, I dismiss the use of the word “exploit” by the community. Doing anything differently or more cleverly than someone else is always decried as an “exploit”, when really the phrase “that’s more clever than I” is nearly always what was meant, but pride prevents people from admitting they are doing things the hard way.

Proof of this lies in the game itself. Anyone recall the last time they received a message stating CMDR %PlayerName% now has more credits than you.”? Or the last time you were denied access to a system or station or event because “You are too poor.”?

That’s right, you don’t. Because no one else’s credit balance has any impact on your game. Does it matter in the slightest that I made 165 million credits last night hauling to some fringe system suffering a terrible outbreak of impotence? *Maybe* if you were trying to shift the balance of power away from the controlling faction, and my efforts and buying power to be able to purchase 744 tons of at a time was countering your efforts, but I REALLY doubt it, and that’s all within the scope of normal game play.

And what of all those credits? Have I depleted some faction’s finite coffers, ensuring they are unable to offer up any missions paying credits? Not even close.Will I have any kind of advantage over you if our paths cross? Only if being able to cover my ship’s rebuy cost counts, and your goal is to bankrupt me into a sidewinder - and since I’m not an Open player, the odds of anything like that coming to pass are only slightly less than the odds of an Update being released this afternoon allowing us to land on Earthlike worlds.

To the OP: I don’t have any problems filling my Beluga’s cabins that necessitate board flipping, and I DO want to fly to multiple locations with multiple passengers, AND I’m clever enough to actually look at the destinations on the Gal Map and determine the ideal route that does not leave me chasing my tail.

Edit: I just happened to notice that my use of the brand name for the internet’s most famous “Little blue pill” used to counter ED is auto-deleted by the forum, yet “spaceviagra” will remain my nickname for “Performance Enhancers”.

 

[jrb]

Personal opinion....The need to board flip is a band aid....the fix would be for Fdev to evaluate why we find it necessary to board flip....maybe make the boards update automatically every couple of minutes instead of 10 - 15 minute cycles?

 

[Stealthie]

Here's a thought: Maybe FDev DO expect you to travel around in your giant passenger ship rather than just ferrying people to the same place continuously?

I've always said that ED should have "passenger routes" in the same way it has trade-routes, so that a player could, for example, make runs between, say, Sol and Achernar, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way.

However, just cos the game doesn't offer you the sort of passenger missions you want, that doesn't mean mode-flipping isn't an exploit though.

 

[Aaron T]

No.

Don't you have some cargo to deliver or exploration points to ear?

 

[Aaron T]

Here's a thought: Maybe FDev DO expect you to travel around in your giant passenger ship rather than just ferrying people to the same place continuously?

I've always said that ED should have "passenger routes" in the same way it has trade-routes, so that a player could, for example, make runs between, say, Sol and Achernar, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way.

However, just cos the game doesn't offer you the sort of passenger missions you want, that doesn't mean mode-flipping isn't an exploit though.

So a person is forced to make a 20k+ trip to make decent credits, are has to take small paying runs that would take 3 months to earn enough for one rebuy?

ED with it's nerfs, and calling everything an exploit should have no ships larger than a Viper.

 

[Stealthie]

So a person is forced to make a 20k+ trip to make decent credits, are has to take small paying runs that would take 3 months to earn enough for one rebuy?

ED with it's nerfs, and calling everything an exploit should have no ships larger than a Viper.

Nah, it's fine.

You just have to get out of the mentality of relying on exploiting mode-flipping to earn credits.

 

[WR3ND]

Board flipping as a means to compelling gameplay is stupid. I'd much rather see more reasonable missions being offered. I don't care so much about credits, I make more than enough for my needs just jump-honking along my way.

Yes, get rid of board flipping altogether and maybe the salt of the min/max meta grinders will be enough to enhance the mission boards.

Maybe then I could find more missions that I actually want to take for compelling gameplay reasons!

 

[Aaron T]

Unless it’s used in an Official Post by a Frontier Employee or in the Official newsletter, I dismiss the use of the word “exploit” by the community. Doing anything differently or more cleverly than someone else is always decried as an “exploit”, when really the phrase “that’s more clever than I” is nearly always what was meant, but pride prevents people from admitting they are doing things the hard way.

Proof of this lies in the game itself. Anyone recall the last time they received a message stating CMDR %PlayerName% now has more credits than you.”? Or the last time you were denied access to a system or station or event because “You are too poor.”?

That’s right, you don’t. Because no one else’s credit balance has any impact on your game. Does it matter in the slightest that I made 165 million credits last night hauling to some fringe system suffering a terrible outbreak of impotence? *Maybe* if you were trying to shift the balance of power away from the controlling faction, and my efforts and buying power to be able to purchase 744 tons of at a time was countering your efforts, but I REALLY doubt it, and that’s all within the scope of normal game play.

And what of all those credits? Have I depleted some faction’s finite coffers, ensuring they are unable to offer up any missions paying credits? Not even close.Will I have any kind of advantage over you if our paths cross? Only if being able to cover my ship’s rebuy cost counts, and your goal is to bankrupt me into a sidewinder - and since I’m not an Open player, the odds of anything like that coming to pass are only slightly less than the odds of an Update being released this afternoon allowing us to land on Earthlike worlds.

To the OP: I don’t have any problems filling my Beluga’s cabins that necessitate board flipping, and I DO want to fly to multiple locations with multiple passengers, AND I’m clever enough to actually look at the destinations on the Gal Map and determine the ideal route that does not leave me chasing my tail.

You are above those general terms I was using.

But you hit the nail on the head, and that is what I was hoping for.

It all boils down to someone realizing they have been grinding for months and made 5 million, and they found out someone made 80 million in one hour just now.

Instead of saying cool, they scream exploit because they did not think of it.

And as far as your smartness to find the proper path, kudo's.

I myself use Parutis, and several other runs and make 50-80 million credits/hour standard.

There is never one Smeaton, one Parutis, they are all over.

There are parameters to look for, you find those, you find a goldmine.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

The reason people board flip is as well known as where babies come from:

People are lazy and greedy. They want maximum rewards for minimum effort and will spend hours logging off and on to stack up 20 missions to fly for 5 minutes.

Go ahead do the math.

 

[Aaron T]

Nah, it's fine.

You just have to get out of the mentality of relying on exploiting mode-flipping to earn credits.

On 6/27/18 and for all the time I palyed before that once allied there was no need to flip, the missions were plentiful.

The reason people board flip is as well known as where babies come from:

People are lazy and greedy. They want maximum rewards for minimum effort and will spend hours logging off and on to stack up 20 missions to fly for 5 minutes.

Go ahead do the math.

I do not do 5 minute missions, I fly for 30-45 minutes at a time so I can keep up with my current netflix show, without netflix in my cockpit in VR there is just not enough reason to even keep ED on my PC.

 

[Jukelo]

Frontier said board flipping is not intended behaviour, and that there are technical obstaclesin the way of syncing all the mission servers to generate the same missions across all modes.

Sadly they've also said they have no plans to deal with all the exploiters.

 

[lemny]

AFAIK the mission server is one of the most stressed server at frontier.
I think it's mostly because of the board hopping, which is sadly sometimes mandatory to get larger ships running.

If you are in a specific role (trader, bounty hunter, warship, miner, smuggler...) and looking for missions, you go through the factions (lets say 5) with around 8 missions each.
Often you don't find any or only 1 good mission because you get ton's of missions offered which have nothing to with your current role or you are sitting in an ELITE Anaconda and should run 4 tons for 30k to the next system.

If you reload the board 3 to 5 times the mission server generates around 120 to 200 missions for the trash bin.

If I am an ELITE Cmdr sitting in a trading Cutter for example, I would like to be able to set a filter wich fits my needs. I don't need massacre missions or a harmless cargo run for 30.000cr.

I understand, that different factors like system states and other things are kicking in for the mission generator, but this could still be the case.
The state and other factors could massively alter the payouts for the different mission types, but should not change the number, because the number of missions leads to re-logs and to server stress.

Frontier already did this for passenger missions, they are only being generated if you ask for them. Why not use this system for all types of missions.
Make a sub menu (trade,smuggle,passenger,war,...) or a filter which stays the same until the cmdr changes it and don't offer missions too far below the cmdr rank.

I think this would avoid the board hopping for nearly all of the cases without changing the server architecture and take much stress form the server AND the players.

 

[ArchAngelofDeath]

I board flip. I do to load up missions and I do it at planetary bases to collect data for engineering. Don't give 2 poops if anyone else says it's an exploit. It's available in game, it works, and most importantly it effects no one but me when I do it. Combat logging I don't do because it DOES in my mind effect someone besides me plus its a wuss way out of losing a battle.

 

[Mxpower76]

You can fill a Beluga without flipping. You might just have to make a couple stops and they should all be local. If you're in a good station. But what you can't do with a Beluga is take the 54 first class passenger mission because it only holds 51

Btw those 30-40 minute flights don't show up that often. Just how it goes. I do them too sometimes. They're usually to spots at least 350,000ls out.

 

[Stealthie]

I board flip. I do to load up missions and I do it at planetary bases to collect data for engineering. Don't give 2 poops if anyone else says it's an exploit. It's available in game, it works, and most importantly it effects no one but me when I do it. Combat logging I don't do because it DOES in my mind effect someone besides me plus its a wuss way out of losing a battle.

Well, it's not available in-game, is it?

Also, it does have an effect on other people, in terms of everything from the BGS to personal wealth and stability of the mission server.

But, hey, kudos to you for owning your poop, and I genuinely mean that. [up]
Honestly, I feel the same way myself.
I'm quite happy to admit I re-log to get mat's & data.
What I'm not going to do is try to deny that it's an exploit or whine if FDev figure out a way to stop it.

 

[Aaron T]

FD should have never made a large ship.

I guess the original plan is for players to make a few million credits per month and after a couple of years buy a large ship, but be careful because it should take you 3 month minimum to save enough for a rebuy.

I have a condition that might leave me a few years or a decade or more, and grinding for three years so I can brag that I've been playing three years and have less than a billion in total assets and my largest ship is an Asp X the way FD intended is no my bowl of beans.

I am 71% away from being Triple Elite, then I imagine ED will be removed form my PC and thought of as a bad memory, with a few good friends.