Founders of the Elite Benefits not implemented

[Michael Brookes]

Edited post: This is the start of the thread from this afternoon:

£150. Be a founding member of ‘The Elite’ in the game, plus all rewards above.

From the Kickstarter page:

What does it mean to be a ‘Founding member of “The Elite”‘?

“The Elite” are a secretive group of intrepid pilots. Throughout human space, there are a great many people that have been helped by “The Elite” over the years, and because of this “The Elite” are treated well, wherever they go. Whether it be discounts on buying special items or repairs, and the small number of founding members even greater benefits. Other benefits include a greater likelihood of being offered rare missions or opportunities. Membership is offered to pilots who have proven their ability by reaching “Elite” rating within the Pilot’s Federation, but the founding members are not put through such an indignity. All “The Elite” are entitled to display a special silver “Elite” emblem, and the founders a golden one with the word ‘Founder’ beneath it.

The Founders World itself already provides discount benefits and Founders themselves are exempt from the bulk sale fee. We do plan additional benefits in cost savings for Founders members in the future once we have support for account based rather than commander based benefits.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Whats the bulk sale fee?

It's a charge for selling large quantities of the same item.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Is the exploit there fixed yet? That's not part of the benefits I hope?

Yes the exploit should now be fixed and we'll be dealing with people who abused the exploit.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

You guys were able to glitch your way into billions of credits, what are your founders complaining about?

People who used this exploit will be dealt with shortly.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

This sounds like confirmation that the ability to have more than one save commander on the same account is coming soon, or does this more refer to discounts on store merchandise, paint jobs and so on?

Multiple commander slots are on the list, but not soon I'm afraid.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

-- Thanks for the response Michael.



^^^^ Agreed the benefits were not just financial, will we see the missions, reputation benefits etc in due course?

Maybe, we're more focused on getting the missions to a state where we are happy with them generally.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Are these properly implemented now? I thought they were bugged, and just displaying the discount without actually applying it at the point of purchase?

They should be working correctly.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Indeed. The randomly generated signal sources feel so disconnected from everything.

Actually they are generated deliberately based on the system and its state, but we can do more with them.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Thank you for the reply.

However with the benefit for that extra £50 being described in the Kickstarter as inter alia:

"...and the small number of founding members even greater benefits. Other benefits include a greater likelihood of being offered rare missions or opportunities..."

I am not sure that 'Maybe' is the right answer. Understood that improving missions is a priority, but implementation of what is offered for that level backing (unless technical issues make it impossible - not so in this case) this should be a 'when' not an 'if'.

We'd need to have rare missions for that to be applicable, which isn't the case at the moment.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Michael, are you SURE the ship price discount is working properly, I have been charged twice "the normal", not the displayed amount when bying ship, Type-7 and Asp more specific and not so many days ago.

I believe the discount was supposed to be just for the outfitting. The benefit for the ships was that there is a good selection.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

I think the principle is applicable regardless (ie 'when', not 'if' on implementation of necessary rewards), though the 'when' of implementation may be later for FD to generate the correct type of mission to make good on its pledge.

But I appreciate your recognition that there are Founder rewards yet to be implemented.

Well the text says rare missions or other opportunity, the if indicates that it might be one or the other. Maybe both.

Michael

 

[Ian Phillips]

£150. Be a founding member of ‘The Elite’ in the game, plus all rewards above.

From the Kickstarter page:

What does it mean to be a ‘Founding member of “The Elite”‘?

“The Elite” are a secretive group of intrepid pilots. Throughout human space, there are a great many people that have been helped by “The Elite” over the years, and because of this “The Elite” are treated well, wherever they go. Whether it be discounts on buying special items or repairs, and the small number of founding members even greater benefits. Other benefits include a greater likelihood of being offered rare missions or opportunities. Membership is offered to pilots who have proven their ability by reaching “Elite” rating within the Pilot’s Federation, but the founding members are not put through such an indignity. All “The Elite” are entitled to display a special silver “Elite” emblem, and the founders a golden one with the word ‘Founder’ beneath it.

 

[tricky]

Whats the bulk sale fee?

It's a charge for selling large quantities of the same item.

Michael

Can you explain this in more detail? Does this mean that non-founders get charged a percentage fee for selling large quantities of commodities?

 

[Larrow]

Indeed. The randomly generated signal sources feel so disconnected from everything.

Actually they are generated deliberately based on the system and its state, but we can do more with them.

Michael

The randomness is not so much the fact that they are generated based on the system and its state which is fine and can clearly be seen from the act of selecting missions that come from these states but i find its more the randomness of just being.. well randomly placed. Take for instance a mission i did recently, which went something like...

"Commander a convoy carrying a precious cargo of rare paintings heading to our new offices has been attacked in XYZ, could you please go and see if anything is retrievable" - general idea cant remember the proper flavor of the mission text.

This is followed by going to XYZ and randomly flying around until a USS spawns for you to jump into. It would be so much more involving if it would be something like...

"Commander a convoy carrying a precious cargo of rare paintings ordered from planet A has been attacked on route to our new offices at planet B , could you please go and see if anything is retrievable"

From this the player can make assumptions.
It will be somewhere between A and B and is probably more likely to be located near the trade lanes (the routes you see the AI take between locations).
The player feels more involved, has had to use the information given to work out what to do and where to check. If planet A and B are not in the same system then you have just given the player systems X and Y to investigate without having to specifically state these locations.

I realize it is early days but this is the randomness that kills the missions for me at the moment as they lack any depth of player thought and just involve randomly flying around until the RNG seems to say lets spawn a USS for the mission the player is looking for. I do hope it is possible in the future to add more depth to the missions in this fashion, and this is a relatively tame example compared to missions i would really like to see happen.

 

[Larrow]

Can you explain this in more detail? Does this mean that non-founders get charged a percentage fee for selling large quantities of commodities?

I maybe wrong Tricky but i believe this is a game mechanic that applies to everyone. Say a station needs 2000 of product X and is willing to pay 500cr above galaxy average. If you were to go there with 1000 tons you would not get 500cr for every ton, but would get a diminishing margin due to the fact you have just saturated half of their demand.

 

[tricky]

I maybe wrong Tricky but i believe this is a game mechanic that applies to everyone. Say a station needs 2000 of product X and is willing to pay 500cr above galaxy average. If you were to go there with 1000 tons you would not get 500cr for every ton, but would get a diminishing margin due to the fact you have just saturated half of their demand.

I just trying to clarify this, "The Founders World itself already provides discount benefits and Founders themselves are exempt from the bulk sale fee." -- M.Brookes

 

[Kubicide]

It's a charge for selling large quantities of the same item.

Michael

Ummm... This doesn't sound to good. Sounds like another tax so to speak. Is this really necessary - creating new ways to punish players? Or am I misunderstanding what the bulk sale fee would be?

Edit: your prior post suggests this is already implemented. Is this why some of us see a decline in trade profits on each trip while others (backers) don't? Has this fee already been silently implemented?

 

[Beermachine]

Ummm... This doesn't sound to good. Sounds like another tax so to speak. Is this really necessary - creating new ways to punish players? Or am I misunderstanding what the bulk sale fee would be?

Edit: your prior post suggests this is already implemented. Is this why some of us see a decline in trade profits on each trip while others (backers) don't? Has this fee already been silently implemented?

If tricky's quote is accurate then it could have been implemented for quite some time. Noticed a discrepancy in trading a while ago https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=78843. Thought it was a bug but I'm guessing it could well be this feature.
Edited additional - KS basic game package backer here.

 

[AndyJ]

I'm a founding member, and the most profit I see is about 1k per tonne, and I've sought out a par of systems that seem to be relatively less visited to get 1k one way, 800 back. Perhaps I've not travelled far enough, I don't know.
Black market I've heard has little profit, I've tried it myself twice with slaves and they were actually selling for less than I bought them at, and from a system that exported them. Don't think I'll bother risking it again!
I don't think "Founding Members of the Elite" (which are the KS backers who pledged £150+) are seeing trade benefits at the moment at least ... not heard of the bulk sale fee before - not sure anyone has. Hope its not happening- it's hard enough to earn a profit trading already.
[edit] if it is happening, then this is half the problem right now: the lack of transparency and documentation. If every player had started at the same level it could be part of the "mystery" of the game, but there are umpteen packages KS and later, and unfortunately if implementations/benefits aren't explained to each group they'll continue to wonder if they've been left out.
(and I'm still of the opinion that FMotE's have been with just the £5 Founders World benefits and nothing else beyond beta access + start positions)

 

[Commander Baracus]

Ummm... This doesn't sound to good. Sounds like another tax so to speak. Is this really necessary - creating new ways to punish players? Or am I misunderstanding what the bulk sale fee would be?

Edit: your prior post suggests this is already implemented. Is this why some of us see a decline in trade profits on each trip while others (backers) don't? Has this fee already been silently implemented?

I've done some testing of commodity prices versus demand.The diminishing returns on successive trips appears to be down to demand being satisfied. However, if you fly into a station with no goods and then fly in a few minutes later with a full load of something then you can see that the buy price has gone down while demand and all other prices remain unchanged. The difference can be quite a bit, from 70t of gold to 30t of gold I saw prices change by about 100cr. I assume that this is the effect Michael is referring to.