Rebalancing Rare Goods Trade

[DemiserofD]

Rare goods are clearly not working as intended, as seen with the recent powerplay shenanigans. Hauling constant loads of 600 tons is quite ridiculous, to be honest, and the vast differences in supply make it virtually impossible to balance it, merit-wise. Right now, even a casual Aisling player can manage 200,000 merits per hour. I wish I were joking. And to make matters worse, this isn't limited by destination state, like mining, but rather source state, so to claim, say, 50 systems like Aisling did last week, they only need to get ONE good state in place, rather than 50 like Kaine or Torval might need to do.

What IS the intended gameplay loop here? To me, it seems to be going to a lot of different stations, trading between them, and stocking up as you go. Not just back and forth between supply and destination ad infinitum.

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Here's an alternative idea. When you buy them out of stock, they don't resupply instantly, but rather resupply by 10% per 10 minutes until they're fully stocked, and after that, they supply an additional 1 ton every 10 minutes to a maximum of maybe +100 over the cap.

What does this achieve? Well, say Soontils are where they're currently at. You head over and buy your normal load of 600, sell it, all's good, right? Only when you get back 10 minutes later, there are only 60 there. BUT...if you head over to, say, Sothis, because you haven't been there in a few days, it's at 130 instead of its normal cap of 30.

This creates a situation where you can reasonably trade ALL the rare goods, because ALL of them will, eventually, reach a point where they're worth trading. Meanwhile, things like Soontil Relics remain well worth trading...but not ONLY that. You would grab a run every couple hours, in tandem with other activities, as it restocks.

This strikes me as a good balance overall, but I'm open to feedback. Thoughts?

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

As long as there's always a minimum available for any unlocks etc. Also, the present situation provides a much needed PvP choke point. Even just seeing people going about PP without any PvP is refreshing. I'm not happy with the situation, just thinking about what can be lost if it's nerfed.

 

[CMDROROK]

Rares mechanics should only apply to commodities that are rare. Soontill Relics are not currently rare. Maybe Rare should be defined somehow, maybe commodities are no longer Rare if you can fill up more than a Mandalay.

 

[DracoNB]

Hauling constant loads of 600 tons is quite ridiculous, to be honest, and the vast differences in supply make it virtually impossible to balance it, merit-wise. Right now, even a casual Aisling player can manage 200,000 merits per hour. I wish I were joking. And to make matters worse, this isn't limited by destination state, like mining, but rather source state, so to claim, say, 50 systems like Aisling did last week, they only need to get ONE good state in place, rather than 50 like Kaine or Torval might need to do.

Just FYI, everyone benefits from this, not just Aisling or those with a bonus ethos. The Control Points are the same for everyone. They just get more merits. They acquired more because they have the most people doing it, not because they are getting more merits.

So two people hauling, one Aisling, one Kane will both get the same ~6k control points hauling to the same system.

But I agree... rares are broken. They are either worth an amazing amount (and worth hauling at 400 or 600t) or completely worthless to haul and ignored.

There are way too many restrictions on other methods that make them not worth doing.

There is way too much grind involved with PP, I spent months getting to rank 80 and then went to rank 140+ hauling a handful of 400t rares a month ago in a day.

 

[DemiserofD]

Just FYI, everyone benefits from this, not just Aisling or those with a bonus ethos. The Control Points are the same for everyone. They just get more merits. They acquired more because they have the most people doing it, not because they are getting more merits.

I don't think that's the case? I know that Torval, for example, DOES get 50% bonus control points for mining, not just 50% bonus merits.

 

[CMDROROK]

I don't think that's the case? I know that Torval, for example, DOES get 50% bonus control points for mining, not just 50% bonus merits.

Right. e.g. :

• Sell rare goods - sell rarities in AS, but not bought in AS (EM A DP LYR PA†)

Also:
"Preferred" activities for a Power and target system are shown on the map display and receive a 50% bonus to both personal and system merits.
The equivalent here might be me being able to sell mined platinum for merits anywhere it is in Boom, not just within stronghold range.

 

[DemiserofD]

Right. e.g. :

• Sell rare goods - sell rarities in AS, but not bought in AS (EM A DP LYR PA†)

Also:
"Preferred" activities for a Power and target system are shown on the map display and receive a 50% bonus to both personal and system merits.
The equivalent here might be me being able to sell mined platinum for merits anywhere it is in Boom, not just within stronghold range.

TBH more like being able to get boom+expansion prices anywhere as long as the MINING SYSTEM is in that state.

The main thing keeping mining balanced is that you have to establish the right BGS states first. If you only had to get that state in ONE system for hundreds of others? It'd be insane.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The fair way is to police it via escalating NPC responses- the more merits you push, the more brutal and advanced the NPCs become, that way it can be applied to anything (which in PP2 is useful given powers are totally asymmetrical).

So if people are pushing 200 k merits, all PP NPC raiders are very active, spec ops level. At the very top perhaps even have Grom Containment missiles and reverb torps to really tighten the screws.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So if people are pushing 200 k merits, all PP NPC raiders are very active, spec ops level. At the very top perhaps even have Grom Containment missiles and reverb torps to really tighten the screws.

I think that would barely have affected my actual rares hauling this week - it doesn't matter if I get shot down on the way into Ngurii, because I have rebuys paid, and I'm not going to get shot down on the way to Acquire my target because that system isn't close enough to any other powers to get Power NPCs of any non-allied power showing up more than occasionally.

And that's assuming that they can appear fast enough to interdict me in the first place, given that I've got SCO and I'm not going to sportingly hang around flying slowly in a straight line in supercruise.

It's a good idea for balancing some things but it doesn't work for things like trade hauling where players aren't going to hang around in any instance long enough to be shot at to start with.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I think that would barely have affected my actual rares hauling this week - it doesn't matter if I get shot down on the way into Ngurii, because I have rebuys paid, and I'm not going to get shot down on the way to Acquire my target because that system isn't close enough to any other powers to get Power NPCs of any non-allied power showing up more than occasionally.

And that's assuming that they can appear fast enough to interdict me in the first place, given that I've got SCO and I'm not going to sportingly hang around flying slowly in a straight line in supercruise.

It's a good idea for balancing some things but it doesn't work for things like trade hauling where players aren't going to hang around in any instance long enough to be shot at to start with.

I mean that all of your NPCs wherever you are 'dial up', so regardless of what you do the more you push the harder rival NPCs push back- its consequences for extreme performance (like as with ATR when you kill too much). And since rebuys are paid for, there is nothing really to stop FD even trying harder NPCs for players who are PP 2 'aces'.
Its also a shame NPCs can't have SCO, or at the very least a special NPC wide angle capture module.


But you are right that because PP2 inherits PvE flaws there are limited places for ambushes. Personally I'd want PP NPCs to be far better equipped and risk more around stations.

The only other way to iron this out is go back to PP1 rules- all powers do everything so everyone has the same.

 

[DemiserofD]

The only other way to iron this out is go back to PP1 rules- all powers do everything so everyone has the same.

The problem is not so much the power bonuses existing, it's how widely applicable this bonus in particular is. Powers like Kaine and Torval have real bonuses towards mining, for example, but that's typically okay because the circumstances in which it's useful are so narrow. They might be able to acquire a system with good states in a handful of hours, but getting that system INTO those states takes weeks of consistent effort.

Rare goods apply everywhere. Honestly, it makes me laugh a bit that people are talking about the difficulty in getting Ngurii into these states when those states are what Torval has to do for EVERY system they want to acquire. A 50x-100x difference in effort.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

In theory the ethos bonuses could do quite well, if the activities were actually balanced against each other with consideration for their potential use.

Mining should be fairly good because with the location requirements it doesn't work at all in some systems and is terrible even with ideal states in most of the rest.
Megaship scanning should be a lot stronger than it is for the same reason.
Bounty hunting should be moderately strong too.
Odyssey content has limitations (aside from being turned off entirely, that is) but works more often than not so should be slightly weaker than average.
On the other side rares, exploration data, trade, power kills ... they pretty much work anywhere and should be a fair bit weaker to compensate: powers focusing on those will be beaten by a specialist power on the specialist power's favourable ground, but win everywhere else.

Then you have the ethos bonus to encourage powers to play completely differently and make it not purely a numbers game.


But there's more to the potential for balance than just within the Acquisition or Reinforcement lists. Make rares work for Undermining too (they really should, thematically), and suddenly something like activating Ngurii becomes a double-edged sword - sure, you can reinforce ridiculously fast, but if your systems are at the right range for that they're also suddenly really easy to undermine. That makes it a harder choice as to whether to go for it.
(And this absolutely is a risk for the symmetric Mining - if you get a system to super-high payouts, it can be Undermined almost as quickly as it can be Reinforced)

 

[Danieros]

Ever since decay was introduced I'd like to make a case that Frontier should look at every activity and make sure they are at a reasonable "how many hours of effort does it take" point for beating decay with. This includes undermining-only activities, even if undermining doesn't decay it's also important to make them viable.

Right now there are many activities (if not most) which are effectively impossible to beat decay with.

Rares are essentially the only sustained hauling method for acquisition contests, if you exhaust their supply like this then it becomes basically impossible to acquire through hauling (either "sell for large profits" limited to goods coming from a supporting system is too restrictive, or the conditions are to get good merits from a trade is what's too restrictive).

 

[skittlekiller]

If rares were balanced around profit and not total sell price, it would not eliminate the soontill issue, but it would mitigate it being the only reasonable source of rares.

I think a mechanic that rewards you a bonus for delivering multiple distinct rares in a single delivery would incentive interesting rare trade as well. (It would also more closely mimic the old rare good trade routes which is basically a defunct gameplay loop at this point)

Also for clarity, I've tested it extensively, the ethos bonus merits affect control score. They are not applied like the undermining bonus, and the reinforcement penalty.

The UM system strength and UM penalty also affect control score.