Focused Feedback - Balancing Ship Engineering & Material Gathering

[Scrumpy_Jacks]

the game itself barely gives you any clues as to where to find them, specifically manufactured and encoded.

this argument can be used for nearly the entirety of the game its not really a valid argument yes it would be easier for some but the majority use external apps as it that give us enough detail
it sounds more like a lot of people just want an easier route/way to get things with out putting in work
I have only been back a week and has found certain things frustrating but finding info has not been to difficult I'm not sure if having the info available in game would help much or make things any easier then using external apps

his is a problem when alot of said materials only spawn in specific signal sources, in systems that are in specific states and controlled by specific factions.

the only thing I can agree with here is the faction control as I play alliance and support them it makes no sense to have to go to another power and do work for them in order to get a permit to another system just to unlock an engineer I should not have to gain my rep with a power I have no interest in especially when I should be considered hostile i want to decrease the powers influence not increase it

Now in regards to trading materials with other players, not being able to isnt a problem sure. However the ability to do so in my opinion would be healthy for the game. I will forever reference kirres icebox, june 2020 on steam we hit a peak of around 21k. People WANT a reason to use their fleet carriers for more than just the obvious perks to owning one. Giving us the ability to store and trade materials on an FC gives us incentive to move our FCs around and actually interact with other players, or at least their carriers to participate in an actual player economy. Look at odyssey, people like the addition of the bar, they just want to be able to trade at higher volume and be able to set their own price instead of operating at an arbitrary galactic average and only controlling percentage. Im not saying everyone wants this, thats obviously not true, but another 5-10k people actively getting into elite and participating in a player economy would be nothing but good all around. Especially when this doesnt interfere with the way anybody currently plays

now this I absolutely can agree with giving players the ability to use there carries for more could open a lot of new doors and change the way people play but i wouldnt like to see everyone having the ability to sell/buy certain materials willy nilly it should be kept to groups who specialize in the discovery of certain materials an example would be to let one or two groups in each faction who track and discover Thargoid POI to hold a permit to sell gathered materials on there carriers these carriers could then ask other players not necessarily in there group to aid in stockpiling and moving materials about and be rewarded either with credits or an amount of materials we then have a player based market we then have the opportunity to control areas outside the bubble creating wars and treaty's

 

[HowardHughes]

this argument can be used for nearly the entirety of the game its not really a valid argument yes it would be easier for some but the majority use external apps as it that give us enough detail

This is the exact problem, the game itself doesnt give us good enough information and the community has had to step in and do all the footwork to provide this information.External apps are GREAT, however frontier needs to step up and offer alot more of the information players regularly need in game.

but i wouldnt like to see everyone having the ability to sell/buy certain materials willy nilly it should be kept to groups who specialize in the discovery of certain material

I see your point, the issue is we are talking about people, people that drop from the game for whatever reason for weeks, if not months, if not years, if not permanently. Trying to get a group to commit to trading specific materials with some sort of permit is far too convoluted and dependent on people doing their job in a video game. K.I.S.S, simply letting us trade and store materials on all FCs keeps it simple across the board while having huge positives for those that want to engage in such trading.

 

[Scrumpy_Jacks]

This is the exact problem, the game itself doesn't give us good enough information and the community has had to step in and do all the footwork to provide this information.External apps are GREAT, however frontier needs to step up and offer a lot more of the information players regularly need in game.

can we really trust frontier to deliver in a good enough way i would almost guaranty that even if they stepped up the player base would still turn to external apps

I see your point, the issue is we are talking about people, people that drop from the game for whatever reason for weeks, if not months, if not years, if not permanently. Trying to get a group to commit to trading specific materials with some sort of permit is far too convoluted and dependent on people doing their job in a video game. K.I.S.S, simply letting us trade and store materials on all FCs keeps it simple across the board while having huge positives for those that want to engage in such trading.

people drop that does not mean groups will drop there are already groups out there that hunt and collect data on thargoids/gaurdians why not give them more reason to do it

 

[HowardHughes]

can we really trust frontier to deliver in a good enough way i would almost guaranty that even if they

A man can dream no?

people drop that does not mean groups will drop there are already groups out there that hunt and collect data on thargoids/gaurdians why not give them more reason to do it

Agree to disagree, in my opinion player to player trading shouldnt be so complicated and ristricted to this that and the other. We already have it in odyssey via an FC module. Just give it to us as a second commodity list on FCs for horizons materials, add another FC module if you really want to. The only question is, if a ship can hold roughly 28,000 horizons materials, how much should a carrier be able to hold?

After doing the math im confused why we only got 1k combined storage space for odyssey...

 

[myothershipisacobraiv]

So now that I've been unlocking engineers for the first time again in Colonia, I've seen that early rolls aren't one and done until you hit higher overall grades with the engineer.

Why can you only pin a single blueprint, again? Wouldn't it be nice to at least be able to pin any new one from that engineer, say, once a week? Or pin any new one from that engineer, say, up to 24 hours after you left their place?

 

[HowardHughes]

So now that I've been unlocking engineers for the first time again in Colonia, I've seen that early rolls aren't one and done until you hit higher overall grades with the engineer.

Why can you only pin a single blueprint, again? Wouldn't it be nice to at least be able to pin any new one from that engineer, say, once a week? Or pin any new one from that engineer, say, up to 24 hours after you left their place?

We can pin any 1 single blueprint from each engineer while we are there. Im surprised we even have this to be honest, personally a non issue, i dont pin anything I just go see the engineer. Just for the fact that the engineer locations break up the constant monogamy of all the other locations, they are all pretty unique places I like to see everytime.

If we could pin any blueprint from anywhere at anytime, even with a cooldown, what would be the point of unique engineer locations?

 

[styles784]

Gathering materials itself isnt a problem, just a few QOL additions that would be nice. Theres so many materials, and the game itself barely gives you any clues as to where to find them, specifically manufactured and encoded. Theres essentially no reference for players in game to tell us where to find manufactured materials, and this is a problem when alot of said materials only spawn in specific signal sources, in systems that are in specific states and controlled by specific factions. Everything about material gathering makes sense, except how the player has no in game reference of how to find them. Encoded is similar but doesnt suffer nearly as much, what im sayibg is material gatheribg could be buffed, but its not necessary, what we need is in game information about where we can find all of these materials.

Now in regards to trading materials with other players, not being able to isnt a problem sure. However the ability to do so in my opinion would be healthy for the game. I will forever reference kirres icebox, june 2020 on steam we hit a peak of around 21k. People WANT a reason to use their fleet carriers for more than just the obvious perks to owning one. Giving us the ability to store and trade materials on an FC gives us incentive to move our FCs around and actually interact with other players, or at least their carriers to participate in an actual player economy. Look at odyssey, people like the addition of the bar, they just want to be able to trade at higher volume and be able to set their own price instead of operating at an arbitrary galactic average and only controlling percentage. Im not saying everyone wants this, thats obviously not true, but another 5-10k people actively getting into elite and participating in a player economy would be nothing but good all around. Especially when this doesnt interfere with the way anybody currently plays.

Being able to set their price is the root flaw - it will be exploited, just as it is with commodities bought and sold on fleet carriers. Players will intentionally buy high and/or sell low, not because of any market-related factors, but as a means to transfer credits between accounts - that is not the intended use of trading, and it undermines the effectiveness of the market simulation. Players who want to see a real player-driven market are undermined by this exploitation of the game mechanic.

Prices should be set automatically by the BGS system, or at the very least, restricted to a relatively small range. Perhaps the calculated price can factor in nearby supply, encouraging players to set up shop in areas where the goods they sell are in lower supply (hoping to find higher demand). This would add to the market sim, instead of undermining it.

 

[HowardHughes]

Prices should be set automatically by the BGS system, or at the very least, restricted to a relatively small range. Perhaps the calculated price can factor in nearby supply, encouraging players to set up shop in areas where the goods they sell are in lower supply

This is literally already how it works, the BGS ticks every two days and every system gets new supply/demand and prices that reflect this. Galactic average might also climb or drop a few credits, and then we as players can set buy/sell orders based on that galactic average. How can you talk about a "root flaw" in trading when you havent bothered to understand how trade in elite works? Moving credits to other accounts via FCs literally makes no impact on anyone so idk what difference that makes.Especially considering most people arent generous and are only doing this for alt accounts. I have roughly 100 billion cr on my account, im sure as hell not wanting to give handouts, I would however love to buy materials and modules from other players. I buy commodities from miners and flip them to stations for upkeep costs, but this mechanic is shallow and only provides convenience for miners.

Players who want to see a real player-driven market are undermined by this exploitation of the game mechanic.

A player driven market would have nothing to do with trading to stations, quite the opposite really. The loop of a player economy in elite dangerous would be player (1) obtaining resource (engineering material), selling it to player (2), player (2) either consumes this resource (synthesis) or uses it to create gear (engineered module), and then either use it themselves or finally selling it to player (3), where finally it is used or just put back up for resale.

Odyssey has come really close to this loop but not quite and has flaws. Other than that the only thing that comes close is mining where player (1) gathers resource, sells it to player (2) for less than its maximum value, and then player (2) sells it to an NPC for its maximum value. The BGS market is shallow and actually using it for market flipping is pointless if you want to earn credits, seeing as profit margins are at most, around 30k/t. The credits made doing this arent awful by any means, if you like doing it theres nothing wrong with it, but if a player just wants good credits, BGS trading is easily outpaced by other activities.

 

[styles784]

This is literally already how it works, the BGS ticks every two days and every system gets new supply/demand and prices that reflect this.

Not on fleet carriers - the owner can most definitely set their price. What I'm saying is that that should not be an option, for any commodity, because it gets exploited rather than used as intended.

Moving credits to other accounts via FCs literally makes no impact on anyone so idk what difference that makes.

Moving credits has no effect? I'd say the account that gets the credits is definitely affected, and anyone that player interacts with has the potential to feel the impact of that player's inflated bank account, and it ripples out from there. This is not a single player game - literally everything any player does can have some impact on others.

As for what difference it makes - if I've gathered a surplus of some sellable item, and hope to sell it for profit, but someone else is undercutting my prices by unrealistic amounts, I'd say that makes a difference. And if I set up a buy order at a reasonable price, but someone else decides to pay out 1,000% of the galactic average, who do you think people will sell to?

A player driven market would have nothing to do with trading to stations, quite the opposite really.

Agreed, that's why I have been talking about player-owned FCs this entire time. If you have been assuming I was referring to players setting the prices at station markets, I'm almost morbidly curious how you managed to reach such an obviously ridiculous conclusion... almost...

Odyssey has come really close to this loop but not quite and has flaws. Other than that the only thing that comes close is mining where player (1) gathers resource, sells it to player (2) for less than its maximum value, and then player (2) sells it to an NPC for its maximum value.

Except that quite often, player 2 will purchase for maximum value in order to help out his friend, player 1, then sell it back to player 1 at the lowest value, rinse and repeat. People don't set their prices competitively, because they're abusing the game mechanic for unintended uses. If we were meant to be able to give each other credits, FDev would have included a mechanism to just give each other credits - and one player abusing the mechanics will absolutely affect another player trying to use it as intended. That's why there is currently no real player-driven market, despite FDev's attempts (which have instead resulted in mining being nerfed, for example)

Players should not be able to set prices - the value should be based on supply in the surrounding area, encouraging players to move goods to areas with lower supply, looking for higher demand, without enabling them to ignore the intended use entirely in favor of exploitation

 

[HowardHughes]

Not on fleet carriers - the owner can most definitely set their price. What I'm saying is that that should not be an option, for any commodity, because it gets exploited rather than used as intended.

Except more often than not it IS used as intended, of course you might know this if you were actively at popular mining sites, or kept your eye on community trading. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/new/

Moving credits has no effect? I'd say the account that gets the credits is definitely affected, and anyone that player interacts with has the potential to feel the impact of that player's inflated bank account, and it ripples out from there. This is not a single player game - literally everything any player does can have some impact on others.

Give me an example of how me having 100b effects you.

As for what difference it makes - if I've gathered a surplus of some sellable item, and hope to sell it for profit, but someone else is undercutting my prices by unrealistic amounts, I'd say that makes a difference. And if I set up a buy order at a reasonable price, but someone else decides to pay out 1,000% of the galactic average, who do you think people will sell to?

Business 101, why would anyone be regularly buying and selling at astronomical losses? This is a problem in an open market that fixes itself, most people arent ballin out like mr.beast.
Lets use Tritium as an example, which as of writing this is at a galactic average of 51,707cr/t.
Lets say I have 10 billion and you have 5. If im buying at 1000% the average, im going to be able to buy up 19,339t of tritium. I could keep all that and be broke, or sell it to a station and make back 1.2b if i sell it by myself and save myself from my carrier being repossessed. People will sell to me sure, but guess what, now im out of the market until i can save enough credits to become competitive again.
Now lets say you set a reasonable price, lets say you are willing to buy as high as 46,707/t so that you can make 5k/t profit. Yeah people will sell to me first but you will be able to buy 107,050t of tritium, and at 5k/t profit, which is quite generous for the miner, in total you made half a billion and can stay in the market for the foreseeable future.

Agreed, that's why I have been talking about player-owned FCs this entire time. If you have been assuming I was referring to players setting the prices at station markets, I'm almost morbidly curious how you managed to reach such an obviously ridiculous conclusion... almost...

No, as carrier owners we have to set our prices in accordance with station prices, because thats where we make our profit. If the market worked how you wanted it to, and we had no control over our fleet carrier prices, we would set up at popular mining sites, and because of abundance we would only be able to offer the miner TRASH pay for their work, in which case why bother with carriers at all?

What you are suggesting only works under the pretext that us as players have something to actually do with the commodities we are purchasing, otherwise why buy them at all? As is, the only reason to buy anything from players is to skim profits off the top once we sell to stations, thus the direct corellation with station prices.

Except that quite often, player 2 will purchase for maximum value in order to help out his friend, player 1, then sell it back to player 1 at the lowest value, rinse and repeat. People don't set their prices competitively, because they're abusing the game mechanic for unintended uses. If we were meant to be able to give each other credits, FDev would have included a mechanism to just give each other credits - and one player abusing the mechanics will absolutely affect another player trying to use it as intended. That's why there is currently no real player-driven market, despite FDev's attempts (which have instead resulted in mining being nerfed, for example)

Dude what, FDev HAVENT until the introduction of the bar in odyssey attempted anything near a player driven market.

As for why mining was nerfed you are flat out talking out of your bum mate. It was nerfed for two very specific reasons, before fleet carriers it was easy to find a station with high demand and continuously sell mined commodities to them until the next tick, however because you couldnt move a whole carrier there, it took significantly more time to mine, and then sell. Fleet carriers entirely threw money making as a miner off whack, you could make absurd amounts of credits because stations never dropped their demand and crackable rocks didnt have cooldowns, leading to fast mining because of mapped mining. Not to mention overlapping hotspots made crackables spawn in way higher density, of course this didnt matter all too much because you still had to travel back to a station safely, the activity was high risk high reward, and fleet carriers turned it into VERY low risk, VERY high reward.

 

[avow555]

Greetings Commanders

Now that Update 8 for Odyssey is live, we'd like to reignite the series of balancing changes that started before Odyssey's release. Now, it's time to turn our attention to ship Engineering. We recognise there has been significant feedback for on-foot Engineering too, but we'd like to approach these one at a time due to the number of aspects involved. Specifically, we'd like to look at the balancing of the Engineering grind, which largely relates to...

Material Gathering

Availability and Time Required​

To obtain them as fast as possible, materials within Grades 1 to 3 are typically traded down from Grade 4 and 5s. To make them worthwhile to gather by themselves, should their availability and the rate at which they are obtained be increased?

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

We're also aware that some materials are much harder to find than others as they are tied to rarer BGS states. Let us know which materials ought to be made more readily discoverable.

Any estimates regarding how long it took to earn a given Engineered module by gathering materials will also be helpful in addressing this aspect of balancing.

Alternate Gathering Methods​

We appreciate that the repetitive nature of material gathering may not be for everyone. Some have called for ways to earn materials while engaging in the specific types of content they already enjoy.

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

Another idea is to allow materials to be "bought" with items that are not obtainable at Commodities Markets. This could include things such as Exploration Data, Bounty Vouchers, Void Opals and Thargoid Hearts and would allow players to earn materials while playing within their chosen disciplines.

Rolling for Engineering Improvements​

Some time ago, Engineering was changed so that some improvement was guaranteed with each roll. However, the amount by which your progress towards the next module grade is still random. This means sometimes the same number of materials will produce a minimal increase. Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier? This would allow Commanders to know exactly how many materials are needed.

Other Feedback and Suggestions​

Feel free to respond with other ship Engineering balancing feedback and suggestions that go beyond the ideas mentioned above. To keep the conversation on-topic and help us collect the feedback, this thread will be closely moderated. Please only reply with responses to the topics mentioned and keep feedback constructive. Unrelated or unhelpful posts may be removed during clean-up. If you find this has happened to your post, consider raising your points in another thread within the Dangerous Discussion section.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

O7

Time for a SITREP young Bruce.

 

[zimms]

Time for a SITREP young Bruce.

Frontier are collecting more feedback than BH collects stuffs. In both cases, nobody quite knows what happens to it all afterwards.

 

[styles784]

Except more often than not it IS used as intended, of course you might know this if you were actively at popular mining sites, or kept your eye on community trading. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/new/

"More often than not" is still less than the 100% of the time that it should be.

Give me an example of how me having 100b effects you.

I'll use your own example:

Business 101, why would anyone be regularly buying and selling at astronomical losses? This is a problem in an open market that fixes itself, most people arent ballin out like mr.beast.
Lets use Tritium as an example, which as of writing this is at a galactic average of 51,707cr/t.
Lets say I have 10 billion and you have 5. If im buying at 1000% the average, im going to be able to buy up 19,339t of tritium. I could keep all that and be broke, or sell it to a station and make back 1.2b if i sell it by myself and save myself from my carrier being repossessed. People will sell to me sure, but guess what, now im out of the market until i can save enough credits to become competitive again.
Now lets say you set a reasonable price, lets say you are willing to buy as high as 46,707/t so that you can make 5k/t profit. Yeah people will sell to me first but you will be able to buy 107,050t of tritium, and at 5k/t profit, which is quite generous for the miner, in total you made half a billion and can stay in the market for the foreseeable future.

If you have 100b, you can disrupt the market for a lot longer than if you have 10b, and my 5b will be that much less effective in that environment.

The people abusing the system in this manner aren't making their profits from the commodity market in the first place, so the open market is less likely to fix itself (and will take a lot longer, if it happens at all - although so far, it hasn't, and FCs have been in the game for how long now?)

What you are suggesting only works under the pretext that us as players have something to actually do with the commodities we are purchasing, otherwise why buy them at all? As is, the only reason to buy anything from players is to skim profits off the top once we sell to stations, thus the direct corellation with station prices.

Except that this discussion is about engineering materials, which players actually do consume - I'm using the existing example of the commodity market to demonstrate why this shouldn't be extended to engineering materials. The current system is broken - introducing consumable mats will only take that exploitation to the next level, making matters worse.

Dude what, FDev HAVENT until the introduction of the bar in odyssey attempted anything near a player driven market.

If players can set their own prices (or choose a percentage of the galactic average, ranging from way below to way above that average, as is the case with commodities), then players can directly affect the market. One player can vastly over pay to ensure that they get the business first, if they have more money than materials and want to change that quickly. Another player could massively under sell in order to offload a surplus they don't care about (because they already have more credits than they know what to do with), flooding the market with supply, making it harder for other players to make sales at reasonable prices. In both cases, the market is undermined for entirely unintended purposes.

The only way to take the players' influence out of the equation (the "player driven" part) is to... take away the players' ability to influence the equation, quite literally: the price should be set automatically by the game, according to the surrounding region. That way, the only way a player can charge more for a product is to transport it to a region where supply is lower. Some players will still make the effort of jumping back and forth across the bubble in order to shift funds, but at least their activities won't undermine the legitimate market.

As for why mining was nerfed you are flat out talking out of your bum mate. It was nerfed for two very specific reasons, before fleet carriers it was easy to find a station with high demand and continuously sell mined commodities to them until the next tick, however because you couldnt move a whole carrier there, it took significantly more time to mine, and then sell. Fleet carriers entirely threw money making as a miner off whack, you could make absurd amounts of credits because stations never dropped their demand and crackable rocks didnt have cooldowns, leading to fast mining because of mapped mining. Not to mention overlapping hotspots made crackables spawn in way higher density, of course this didnt matter all too much because you still had to travel back to a station safely, the activity was high risk high reward, and fleet carriers turned it into VERY low risk, VERY high reward.

So you mean to say that it was... too easy? And FDev wanted to change that? So we agree, then - I guess that means you're talking out of your bum as well?

My point is that, at least that was determined by the simulation - players could capitalize on it, but they couldn't control it selectively to control who it benefits. It was fair game for everyone.

 

[HowardHughes]

"More often than not" is still less than the 100% of the time that it should be.

Stop moving goal posts,100% intended gameplay is never an obtainable goal. Without carriers people transfer credits via dropping cargo for eachother and using limpets to collect, should we retroactively remove this feature? you know since its not 100% used the way the developer intended...

If you have 100b, you can disrupt the market for a lot longer than if you have 10b, and my 5b will be that much less effective in that environment.

The people abusing the system in this manner aren't making their profits from the commodity market in the first place, so the open market is less likely to fix itself (and will take a lot longer, if it happens at all - although so far, it hasn't, and FCs have been in the game for how long now?)

LOL you think the average player is anywhere near having 100b? You think people with a few billion in their accounts just disrupt all the popular markets for the memes ayy lmao? These theories are as if pulled from the air, everybody with credits to seriously trade arent running around draining their accounts disrupting a market with infinite supply and infinite demand.

Except that this discussion is about engineering materials, which players actually do consume - I'm using the existing example of the commodity market to demonstrate why this shouldn't be extended to engineering materials. The current system is broken - introducing consumable mats will only take that exploitation to the next level, making matters worse.

The only good example you could use is tritium, because it IS consumed by players. Idk where you have been but tritium market has been a pretty stable in terms of prices between players, with the high point being 100k/t as a player import. The only thing you have demonstrated is you have no idea what you are talking about other than some people on occasion transfer credits to eachother via fleet carriers.

players can set their own prices (or choose a percentage of the galactic average, ranging from way below to way above that average, as is the case with commodities), then players can directly affect the market. One player can vastly over pay to ensure that they get the business first, if they have more money than materials and want to change that quickly. Another player could massively under sell in order to offload a surplus they don't care about (because they already have more credits than they know what to do with), flooding the market with supply, making it harder for other players to make sales at reasonable prices. In both cases, the market is undermined for entirely unintended purposes.

The only way to take the players' influence out of the equation (the "player driven" part) is to... take away the players' ability to influence the equation, quite literally: the price should be set automatically by the game, according to the surrounding region. That way, the only way a player can charge more for a product is to transport it to a region where supply is lower. Some players will still make the effort of jumping back and forth across the bubble in order to shift funds, but at least their activities won't undermine the legitimate market.

Except players have no effect on the market to any degree, players are uncapable of affecting galactic averages. Players massively overpaying or underselling have literally no effect on overall market or demand/supply. Sure I could enter a system with good supply and set a high buy order and drain that ONE system, doesnt matter when the bubble consists of how many systems? How many stations? considering they all tick every couple of days, even if a huge group of griefers COULD drain a bunch of systems all at once with a combined trillions of credits, it would be for naught because the BGS would reset all of these stations and the market has become normalized again AND this group would then be broke. You are talking about a fundamentally impossible scenario that isnt sustainable.

So you mean to say that it was... too easy? And FDev wanted to change that? So we agree, then - I guess that means you're talking out of your bum as well?

My point is that, at least that was determined by the simulation - players could capitalize on it, but they couldn't control it selectively to control who it benefits. It was fair game for everyone.

Heres what you said:

Except that quite often, player 2 will purchase for maximum value in order to help out his friend, player 1, then sell it back to player 1 at the lowest value, rinse and repeat. People don't set their prices competitively, because they're abusing the game mechanic for unintended uses. If we were meant to be able to give each other credits, FDev would have included a mechanism to just give each other credits - and one player abusing the mechanics will absolutely affect another player trying to use it as intended. That's why there is currently no real player-driven market, despite FDev's attempts (which have instead resulted in mining being nerfed, for example)

Heres what I said:

It was nerfed for two very specific reasons, before fleet carriers it was easy to find a station with high demand and continuously sell mined commodities to them until the next tick, however because you couldnt move a whole carrier there, it took significantly more time to mine, and then sell. Fleet carriers entirely threw money making as a miner off whack, you could make absurd amounts of credits because stations never dropped their demand and crackable rocks didnt have cooldowns, leading to fast mining because of mapped mining. Not to mention overlapping hotspots made crackables spawn in way higher density, of course this didnt matter all too much because you still had to travel back to a station safely, the activity was high risk high reward, and fleet carriers turned it into VERY low risk, VERY high reward.

Not sure how you see this as agreeing why mining was nerfed, I'm almost morbidly curious how you managed to reach such an obviously ridiculous conclusion... almost...

 

[styles784]

Stop moving goal posts,100% intended gameplay is never an obtainable goal. Without carriers people transfer credits via dropping cargo for eachother and using limpets to collect, should we retroactively remove this feature? you know since its not 100% used the way the developer intended...

That's where my goal post has been this entire time - your inability to understand is a you problem.

Using limpets to transfer cargo one at a time is, at least, tedious enough to discourage the majority of players from relying on it to any significant degree

LOL you think the average player is anywhere near having 100b? You think people with a few billion in their accounts just disrupt all the popular markets for the memes ayy lmao? These theories are as if pulled from the air, everybody with credits to seriously trade arent running around draining their accounts disrupting a market with infinite supply and infinite demand.

Give me an example of how me having 100b effects you.

You asked for the example - who is moving goal posts now?

The only good example you could use is tritium, because it IS consumed by players. Idk where you have been but tritium market has been a pretty stable in terms of prices between players, with the high point being 100k/t as a player import. The only thing you have demonstrated is you have no idea what you are talking about other than some people on occasion transfer credits to eachother via fleet carriers.

I guess you've never heard of the Vang Double Dip, where FC owners with more credits than they know what to do with (from extensive Thargoid hunting, mostly) buy at up to 1000% of the galactic average and often sell that same commodity at well below the galactic average, for the sole purpose of giving away free money...

Except players have no effect on the market to any degree, players are uncapable of affecting galactic averages. Players massively overpaying or underselling have literally no effect on overall market or demand/supply. Sure I could enter a system with good supply and set a high buy order and drain that ONE system, doesnt matter when the bubble consists of how many systems? How many stations? considering they all tick every couple of days, even if a huge group of griefers COULD drain a bunch of systems all at once with a combined trillions of credits, it would be for naught because the BGS would reset all of these stations and the market has become normalized again AND this group would then be broke. You are talking about a fundamentally impossible scenario that isnt sustainable.

Draining that one system is still affecting more than the zero percent you keep trying to claim. I never quantified how much of an effect is acceptable - I'm saying that no effect is preferred over any effect at all, because players have demonstrated that they're happy to exploit the mechanics instead of using them as intended. Which, again, would be fine if they could operate in isolation, but Elite is one shared uiniverse.

And players being able to set their prices while buying and selling anything that is part of the market, effects the market - there's no way you can rationalize that it doesn't, without, well, moving goalposts to suit your bias...

Heres what you said:

Heres what I said:

Not sure how you see this as agreeing why mining was nerfed, I'm almost morbidly curious how you managed to reach such an obviously ridiculous conclusion... almost...

We both agreed that FDev made changes to mining because it was too easy to make money - are you really so dense that you can't see how being able to transfer billions to other players by exploiting the FC commodity market is also too easy?

 

[HowardHughes]

That's where my goal post has been this entire time - your inability to understand is a you problem.

Your comment went from:

What I'm saying is that that should not be an option, for any commodity, because it gets exploited rather than used as intended.

To:

"More often than not" is still less than the 100% of the time that it should be.

Which one is it? Should players setting price on commodities not be an option because "it gets exploited rather than used as intended" (inferring most carrier owners are in your words "exploiting" it) OR because the amount of people that are using it as intended are less than 100%? If the goal is intended gameplay why can we transfer credits like this at all? It would be easy enough to get a buy/sell cooldown in effect for carriers, I dont think Fdev really care all that much about it either way if they havent done anything about it. Im wondering where you have this "intended elite mecahnics" bible, i mean just because we cant officially trade credits, doesnt necessarily mean the developer is against it, just that they dont want to provide a simple way to do it.

I guess you've never heard of the Vang Double Dip, where FC owners with more credits than they know what to do with (from extensive Thargoid hunting, mostly) buy at up to 1000% of the galactic average and often sell that same commodity at well below the galactic average, for the sole purpose of giving away free money...

Ok, can you pull up some references for this behavior with market data and show me how regularly this happens?

Draining that one system is still affecting more than the zero percent you keep trying to claim. I never quantified how much of an effect is acceptable - I'm saying that no effect is preferred over any effect at all, because players have demonstrated that they're happy to exploit the mechanics instead of using them as intended. Which, again, would be fine if they could operate in isolation, but Elite is one shared uiniverse.

And players being able to set their prices while buying and selling anything that is part of the market, effects the market - there's no way you can rationalize that it doesn't, without, well, moving goalposts to suit your bias...

This is semantics at this point, draining one system for a period of 2 days at most has NO effect on a market beyond those two days. This happens regularly just because of BGS demand, players drain a demand, and then in a couple of days theres new demand somewhere else. If somebody singe handedly crashed demand/supply in ONE system nobody would even notice because this happens naturally anyway by design.

We both agreed that FDev made changes to mining because it was too easy to make money - are you really so dense that you can't see how being able to transfer billions to other players by exploiting the FC commodity market is also too easy?

The ease doesnt matter, theres no effect that this has on the game beyond credit balance going up or down. If i transferred half of my credits to an alt, how would this effect you actually?

 

[styles784]

Your comment went from:

To:

Which one is it? Should players setting price on commodities not be an option because "it gets exploited rather than used as intended" (inferring most carrier owners are in your words "exploiting" it) OR because the amount of people that are using it as intended are less than 100%? If the goal is intended gameplay why can we transfer credits like this at all? It would be easy enough to get a buy/sell cooldown in effect for carriers, I dont think Fdev really care all that much about it either way if they havent done anything about it. Im wondering where you have this "intended elite mecahnics" bible, i mean just because we cant officially trade credits, doesnt necessarily mean the developer is against it, just that they dont want to provide a simple way to do it.

Where is the inconsistency? In both cases, I stated that players should not be able to set their own prices because some exploit it when none should be able to...

As for intended mechanics - if FDev intended for us to be able to transfer credits between accounts, they would have implemented a method to do that directly. Whether or not addressing the exploitation is a high priority is another matter - they certainly have had their hands full with other, bigger issues, but the existence of this thread indicates that rebalancing game mechanics is on their radar for the future.

Ok, can you pull up some references for this behavior with market data and show me how regularly this happens?

No need - you're not the one I'd need to convince, and you're not going to acknowledge it in any case (how many times have you moved the goalposts already? I lost count)

This is semantics at this point, draining one system for a period of 2 days at most has NO effect on a market beyond those two days.

Incorrect - mathematically speaking, even draining a system for one minute has a greater than zero impact. We can debate how much of an impact, but as long as your position is that it has no impact, you're simply wrong.

The ease doesnt matter, theres no effect that this has on the game beyond credit balance going up or down. If i transferred half of my credits to an alt, how would this effect you actually?

If you're doing it by exploiting the market mechanics, then it interferes with my attempt to use those same mechanics as intended - I have already elaborated how drastically over or under pricing impacts everyone else who is trying to price competitively. If FDev did implement a mechanic to just directly transfer credits, then you could do so without exploiting the market mechanics, and therefore without affecting the market.

So, where are you moving the goalposts next?

 

[HowardHughes]

Where is the inconsistency? In both cases, I stated that players should not be able to set their own prices because some exploit it when none should be able to...

This logic is amazing, you are arguing to remove features because the system isnt 100% bulletproof, to YOUR personal standard of perfection. Fdev havent taken a stance on this either way except that gold for money markets are against TOS. So unless FDev take a stance against credit transfer "exploitation" then everying is working exactly as it should.

No need - you're not the one I'd need to convince, and you're not going to acknowledge it in any case (how many times have you moved the goalposts already? I lost count)

I like how i mentioned moving goalposts once and you are continuously parroting on about it as if playing an uno reverse card. Commodity trading between players is stable, regardless of if you want to argue extremes of the spectrum that are FAR from being the norm.

Incorrect - mathematically speaking, even draining a system for one minute has a greater than zero impact. We can debate how much of an impact, but as long as your position is that it has no impact, you're simply wrong.

You are acting as if this is a wide spread problem that is adversely affecting the game, which it isnt at all. So sure, yeah dude ur right people can drain systems of demand/supply with absurd amounts of credits. However when this is what people do regardless of credit balance, it doesnt matter because whether or not you like it, this is by design.

If you're doing it by exploiting the market mechanics, then it interferes with my attempt to use those same mechanics as intended - I have already elaborated how drastically over or under pricing impacts everyone else who is trying to price competitively. If FDev did implement a mechanic to just directly transfer credits, then you could do so without exploiting the market mechanics, and therefore without affecting the market.

You are essentially arguing that me moving a wad of cash from one pair of my pants to another has an effect on you going to the market and buying your cucumbers. Sure I could be insane and buy all the cucumbers from the store you regularly go to, but why would I? and more to the point theres always more cucumbers to buy.

Im glad we came to logical conclusion about all these non issues you personally have with the game, we can talk more about it once FDev take an actual stance on these "root flaws" that have not at all been detrimental to the game as a whole. At the end of the day it seems you have alot of personal gripes with the game mechanics in elite as a whole and how others are playing, which is honestly just a you problem. I wouldnt suggest you play another game, because elite needs its existing playerbase but tbh it sounds like you are looking to play another game with far less features and player interactivity than elite.

Now to get back on topic with the OP im wondering how you feel about these two points

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

We're also aware that some materials are much harder to find than others as they are tied to rarer BGS states. Let us know which materials ought to be made more readily discoverable.

I cant say I agree with the first point, however I would say G5 materials should definetly see a buff.

 

[styles784]

This logic is amazing

Thank you, I'm glad you like it

...you are arguing to remove features because the system isnt 100% bulletproof

I'm identifying a flaw in the current implementation, and backing it up with real world examples that prove it can be (and is) exploited.

I like how i mentioned moving goalposts once and you are continuously parroting on about it as if playing an uno reverse card. Commodity trading between players is stable, regardless of if you want to argue extremes of the spectrum that are FAR from being the norm.

Thanks, I thought using your own words was a nice touch. I also like how you went from claiming it has zero effect to downplaying the effect that it does have, without once acknowledging that you were wrong about it having no effect (which was the foundation of your counter argument, until it wasn't)

You are acting as if this is a wide spread problem that is adversely affecting the game, which it isnt at all. So sure, yeah dude ur right people can drain systems of demand/supply with absurd amounts of credits. However when this is what people do regardless of credit balance, it doesnt matter because whether or not you like it, this is by design.

Widespread? All I've stated is that the problem does exist (because, again, you originally tried to claim that it doesn't). So that answers my question about where the goal posts are moving next, eh?

You are essentially arguing that me moving a wad of cash from one pair of my pants to another has an effect on you going to the market and buying your cucumbers. Sure I could be insane and buy all the cucumbers from the store you regularly go to, but why would I? and more to the point theres always more cucumbers to buy.

If you move that wad of cash by purchasing all of the cucumbers, then selling them again at prices that completely ignore the market, then yes, it would affect my ability to buy cucumbers at the market. It's not a private transaction, separate from the market - it's an unintended abuse of the market. And no, a system that can be depleted means that there is not always more to buy - sometimes, the supply is depleted

Im glad we came to logical conclusion about all these non issues you personally have with the game, we can talk more about it once FDev take an actual stance on these "root flaws" that have not at all been detrimental to the game as a whole.

You can dismiss mathematically demonstrable flaws as personal gripes all you want - they're still mathematically demonstrable, real flaws with the current implementation.

At the end of the day it seems you have alot of personal gripes with the game mechanics in elite as a whole and how others are playing, which is honestly just a you problem.

We've discussed one issue this entire time - if you consider that to be a lot, your concept of numbers in general shouldn't be relied upon for any qualitative judgement - but that's a you problem (hey, that's one of mine - look who's parroting now, lol)

I wouldnt suggest you play another game, because elite needs its existing playerbase but tbh it sounds like you are looking to play another game with far less features and player interactivity than elite.

Interesting take... I'm largely defending the game as it has been, up until FCs were introduced, while you're arguing for even more changes... and you think I'm the one trying to turn it into a different game... sounds like the real issue is that I don't agree with your vision for the game, so you're resorting to any and all logical fallacies due to your absence of logical counter-points...

 

[HowardHughes]

Thank you...

You're welcome, but like i asked how do you feel about horizon mats being more readily available, and getting more of them when collected? Specifically g4/5