thoughts on rare/difficult CG items having their contribution scaled please...

[Cobra1984]

Returning player chiming in to say I have no idea what's going on with any of this CG stuff.

I sat in Galnet last night trying to get up to speed and whilst I didn't expect a list of step by step instructions I thought there would at least be a knowledgebase of all the stuff that players have worked out so far.

Tissue samples? What? Is that dropped by a Thargoid, spawned by a barnacle, carried by a pirate, found in a USS or something else?

Once this is discovered is that knowledge supposed to be available in game or is it left out by design?

 

[Stealthie]

Tissue samples? What? Is that dropped by a Thargoid, spawned by a barnacle, carried by a pirate, found in a USS or something else?

Once this is discovered is that knowledge supposed to be available in game or is it left out by design?

It's all part of the new AX (anti xeno-something) equipment.

You can buy a research limpet controller, shoot research limpets at the Thargoids and then, if you survive, collect the limpet to gather a tissue sample.

You're not that far behind the curve.[up]
All this stuff only became available in the last few days and people are only just starting to figure out what to do with it.
Hell, even FDev still haven't figured out what to do with it in some cases, but the less said about that the better.

 

[Cobra1984]

It's all part of the new AX (anti xeno-something) equipment.

You can buy a research limpet controller, shoot research limpets at the Thargoids and then, if you survive, collect the limpet to gather a tissue sample.

You're not that far behind the curve.[up]
All this stuff only became available in the last few days and people are only just starting to figure out what to do with it.
Hell, even FDev still haven't figured out what to do with it in some cases, but the less said about that the better.

Why on earth is this not explained somewhere in the game? Is this stuff left out deliberately?

There's so much information spread around all over the place. I don't mind putting the effort in, I'd just like to be able to do it in the actual game.

 

[Cobra1984]

You know taking a break and coming in fresh for this update has shown me beyond any doubt that Frontier aren't getting feedback from new players, or anyone outside a hardcore group who have been really into all this stuff.

Either that or it's being done solely for the hardcore players.

Whichever it is, it has turned me right off it.

 

[Arkadi]

The last and now latest CGs call for Thargoid items, and commodities. Now I did 15 trips in my cutter and made top 10% with explosives, while another commander making 30 trips each taking longer than one of mine, but actually bringing the alien goods, would probably still only be in the top 100%. It isn't really fair to them and discourages contributions from those with small ships or that want to play rather than grind. Could a 10 to 1 or even 100 to one ratio work do you think? e.g. one (1) thargoid tissue sample would then be worth 100tons of a commodity. Seems fair to me...

Exactly this!

There is absolutly no reason why one should bring Cyclops Tissue Samples to the CG. It's not worth money, it doesn't add to the progress. It's just a foolish endeavour. And this is a shame becouse actually it would be good gameplay to hunt for the tissue samples and then deliver them to the CG. But if it doesn't even add to the progress of the CG in a relevant way - it is a fools play. This is really sad.

 

[Stealthie]

Why on earth is this not explained somewhere in the game? Is this stuff left out deliberately?

There's so much information spread around all over the place. I don't mind putting the effort in, I'd just like to be able to do it in the actual game.

I agree.

I took a break during 2.2 and didn't return until a couple of months ago and I found all the palaver with barnacles, alien bases, alien artifacts and hyperdictions a bit bewildering.

I understand that Galnet News accepts articles from players (although, ironically, I don't think that's made obvious anywhere either) so I suppose there'd be nothing from preventing any one of us from submitting some kind of synopsis of recent events.
Trouble is, that'd soon get buried underneath more mundane articles.
What's really needed is to divide Galnet News into a few different categories such as, perhaps, political, economic, combat and scientific news and have a section which provides an overview of significant events (updates) since the game was released.
It wouldn't be that hard to write the articles from an in-universe POV and still provide all the relevant information.

 

[Leo Sagan]

The last and now latest CGs call for Thargoid items, and commodities. Now I did 15 trips in my cutter and made top 10% with explosives, while another commander making 30 trips each taking longer than one of mine, but actually bringing the alien goods, would probably still only be in the top 100%. It isn't really fair to them and discourages contributions from those with small ships or that want to play rather than grind. Could a 10 to 1 or even 100 to one ratio work do you think? e.g. one (1) thargoid tissue sample would then be worth 100tons of a commodity. Seems fair to me...

Makes a lot of sense, would improve the game, doesn't require that much work ... FD will never do it

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

The last and now latest CGs call for Thargoid items, and commodities. Now I did 15 trips in my cutter and made top 10% with explosives, while another commander making 30 trips each taking longer than one of mine, but actually bringing the alien goods, would probably still only be in the top 100%. It isn't really fair to them and discourages contributions from those with small ships or that want to play rather than grind. Could a 10 to 1 or even 100 to one ratio work do you think? e.g. one (1) thargoid tissue sample would then be worth 100tons of a commodity. Seems fair to me...

I'd posted something along these lines in the suggestions forum the other day, you beat me to it but absolutely agree with the principal of what you are suggesting.

imho 1 Thargoid tissue sample would be worth 10,000tons of a purchasable commodity and sell for around 5M cr per sample. [yesnod]

 

[Jmanis]

Exactly this!

There is absolutly no reason why one should bring Cyclops Tissue Samples to the CG. It's not worth money, it doesn't add to the progress. It's just a foolish endeavour. And this is a shame becouse actually it would be good gameplay to hunt for the tissue samples and then deliver them to the CG. But if it doesn't even add to the progress of the CG in a relevant way - it is a fools play. This is really sad.

That's the crux of it.

2.4 is all about the Thargoids. And there's no shortage of things we can be doing with them,,,

- collecting salvage
- collecting tissue samples
- collecting hearts (for those who can take one down)
- getting ship/wake scans
- rescuing escape pods
- recovering scientific/military data

That's a *huge* number of activities if you break down some of the salvage types. And to date, 4/4 CGs, even though the Galnet plotline writing would suggest they're primarily about Thargoid material collection, are by designed by-necessity to be cargo-hauling from human commodity markets.

FD are literally making people *not* play with their new content.

 

[Drelthar]

Boggles the mind doesn't it!

 

[Ashnak]

Ok, since Jmanis pointed me to this thread, I'll (more or less) copy my nasty suspicion over here and, since we're all amongst ourselves (Paranoics anonymous?), elaborate a bit.

First of all, I agree - something doesn't add up here, in more than one sense.

But: what if it actually does add up?

So far, all the CGs have been pretty much one-dimensional: truck in a certain amount of stuff, and you'll achieve a goal depending on to which tier you get. But read the description of theses Thargoid CGs, Galnet and the descriptions of the stuff you can get from the Thargoids. E.g. for the current CG:

But for each new device we develop, we need huge quantities of Thargoid material so we can calibrate the technology and ensure its efficacy.

This could be a very strong hint for these CGs leaving the customary single dimension. The amount of general stuff delivered may decide of where the AX stuff will be available, and maybe even what classes will be available. The percentage of xeno material may be decisive in how well the weapons work initially or how easily they can be nerfed by the Thargoids (or might be the factor determining which weapons classes we get).
So, lore wise, the recent AX missile nerf might be due to the Thargoids adapting to our technology - but they might have been able to adapt so fast because our scientists didn't have enough samples to develop something better. Like in pharmacology. If you only get samples of one kind of virus, you can only develop a vaccine for that specific virus strain. That virus mutates slightly, your vaccine becomes useless and you're faced with an epidemic. H1N1 rings any bells?

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

things that really anoy me about those CGs of 2.4:

1. they mix rare comodities with non rares in one CG
-> usually rare CGs scale differently when it comes to how much you need per tier
-> because they are mixed, they use the base scale of the non-rare comodities
-> because they are story unlocks, they seem to have a multiplier to make each tier even harder to reach then regular CGs

2. the CGs do not tell a single word about WHAT they unlock. The information with preview wireframe can only be found OUTSIDE the games realm on reddit and twitter or livestreams.
-> for real FDEV?

3. the thing with the missile nerf. (i know, this one is offtopic)
i am perfectly fine with the story that the first itteration of experimental weapons would face a backdrop in efficiency fast,
but the execution was below amateurish...
- it did need a patch to happen
- it did show up in the patchnotes first, then there was a galnet article
- it was done by changing a visible attribute of our weapons, instead of a not visible attribute on the thargoids
- it did happen instantly, not gradually

4. The AX Cannon CG is at an engineer that has ZERO connection to projectile weapons.
-> and this probably just because Sarge is in a permit locked system, and the second cannon engineer already worked on the multicannon
-> going with the trend, if there is an AX Plasma or Railgun, the CG will be in Deciat for one of those

5. there is no official statement if there is even the slightest point in raising those CGs above tier 3...

 

[SushiCW]

This could be a very strong hint for these CGs leaving the customary single dimension. The amount of general stuff delivered may decide of where the AX stuff will be available, and maybe even what classes will be available. The percentage of xeno material may be decisive in how well the weapons work initially or how easily they can be nerfed by the Thargoids (or might be the factor determining which weapons classes we get).

It's an interesting theory, but it would be massively unfair of Frontier to have a "secret impact" like that.

 

[CMDR MrChips]

FD aren't stupid. Mixing market commodities with alien materials isn't an oversight, it's to guarantee that the CGs succeed even if nobody can be bothered to go looking for alien stuff. This is also why the goal "succeeds" at the risibly easy tier 1, with the higher tiers just determining how widely the modules are sold. The story of The Return - so far at least - is linear, and no failure state has been planned for. Participation medals all round, everyone's a winner.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the encounters and the fact that there's now some PvE content that is non-trivial for top-tier ships and coordinated wings. As far as I can remember, my first attempt at fighting a thargoid was the first time my Anaconda has ever taken hull damage from weapons fire, which was genuinely thrilling but also really brought home how lacking in challenge and danger the game has been since I progressed beyond the Vulture.

However, if this was a dynamic story with player agency we'd be seeing community goals where success isn't a foregone conclusion that actually required us to pull together and find the rare artifacts, incentivised by the aliens posing a threat to people who aren't flying into signal sources looking for them (seriously, how are we still doubling down on Signal Sources like they're a great idea?).

FD: I dare you to prove me wrong. Bring it on. Take off the training wheels. Let the galaxy burn.

 

[Jmanis]

It's an interesting theory, but it would be massively unfair of Frontier to have a "secret impact" like that.

Yeah... it's the same problem that exploration currently has; there's no way to tell there's even something to find on a planet (which, searching a single planet for a fixed planetary POI like a barnacle can take weeks) when there's plenty of other valid activities that clearly broadcast their reward.

It's been raised by a couple people, but if FD wants to secretly track who is shipping Thargoid materials because it has some bearing on the success of the outcome, they need to actually incentivise people to do it. Whether that's by actually making Thargoid materials at all worthwhile to the success of this, or by explicitly saying "The amount of Thargoid materials rather than market commodities we get will determine how successful we are"... because the galnet articles, despite citing things like requiring "huge amounts of Thargoid materials" don't cut it when our only known measure of success is the CG Tiers progress bar. And the best way to move that up is *not* with thargoid materials.

 

[Jmanis]

FD aren't stupid. Mixing market commodities with alien materials isn't an oversight, it's to guarantee that the CGs succeed even if nobody can be bothered to go looking for alien stuff.

A non-issue imo. FD already know how to scale CGs where the goods are scarce. I really, really doubt FD are so scared of the success or failure of their own content that they'd protect against it's failure by essentially making people not do it. If they are, they need to check their confidence as game developers. But I don't believe that's the case at all.

And again, if failure of the CG is an issue, keep it how it is and just amplify the contribution of Thargoid materials... it changes nothing for the people shipping vanilla goods, and actually incentivises people to do the Thargoid content.

Right now the inclusion of these materials in the CG is a pointless, recurrent joke.

 

[Kaocraft]

I agree.

I took a break during 2.2 and didn't return until a couple of months ago and I found all the palaver with barnacles, alien bases, alien artifacts and hyperdictions a bit bewildering.

I understand that Galnet News accepts articles from players (although, ironically, I don't think that's made obvious anywhere either) so I suppose there'd be nothing from preventing any one of us from submitting some kind of synopsis of recent events.
Trouble is, that'd soon get buried underneath more mundane articles.
What's really needed is to divide Galnet News into a few different categories such as, perhaps, political, economic, combat and scientific news and have a section which provides an overview of significant events (updates) since the game was released.
It wouldn't be that hard to write the articles from an in-universe POV and still provide all the relevant information.

Not to bum you out or get all "well, actually" on you but Frontier has shut down community submissions to GalNet as of last week.

 

[CMDR MrChips]

A non-issue imo. FD already know how to scale CGs where the goods are scarce. I really, really doubt FD are so scared of the success or failure of their own content that they'd protect against it's failure by essentially making people not do it. If they are, they need to check their confidence as game developers. But I don't believe that's the case at all.

And again, if failure of the CG is an issue, keep it how it is and just amplify the contribution of Thargoid materials... it changes nothing for the people shipping vanilla goods, and actually incentivises people to do the Thargoid content.

Right now the inclusion of these materials in the CG is a pointless, recurrent joke.

Sure, they've handled rare goods goals before, but there are other factors in play with alien artifacts that raise the level of player engagement required beyond that needed for rare goods. Allocations and round trip times are known quantities with rares, and it isn't all that hard for Johnny Cobra Casual to work out where Kongga Ale comes from once the CG description tells him it exists. Not so much for most of the alien stuff, and that's before you factor in corrosion and the tortuous engineer grind required to get the (tiny) cargo racks that mitigate it. Point release headliners have flopped before.

Whatever the reason, I fully agree with you that inclusion of standard commodities alongside such hard-to-acquire artifacts makes a mockery of the effort put into developing and finding a lot of the thargoid content. As does the fact that there are still run-of-the-mill "some dudes need some stuff to do a thing" goals running in parallel when these weapons are supposed to counter an existential threat to all humanity. This combined with everything beyond tier 1 being a convenience bonus and keeping the scary monsters safely locked inside the signal source closet looks - to my eyes at least - like FD aren't quite ready to step out of their comfort zone when it comes to world-building, or push us players out of ours.

Personally, I'd have run separate goals for the alien artifacts to develop "prototype" weapons available only from the engineers, then run a normal trade goal after some "field testing" to scale up to mass production. That would preserve the value of the effort people put in to find alien artifacts, while still giving committed bubble-dwellers and Horizons holdouts an opportunity to participate. Set a significant success threshold for the prototypes and if it isn't met, no guns. Lower the threshold and try again next week. Meanwhile escalate the invasion regardless, X-Com style. That would create some real tension.

Still, early days yet. I'm still hopeful for meaningful escalation and consequences further down the line.

 

[CMDR-AD]

A report from my Thargoid Tissue contribution to the Third Aegis Appeal CG... without a Anti-Corrosive rack.

My Anaconda was hull tanked, about 3000 points. Shields didn't last 5 seconds, 5A G5 Thermals. But I successfully got the sample back to Wyrd, with 50% hull remaining. Repair bills were $130k, and I sold the sample for $15k.

It is a money losing effort, gathering these Tissue Samples. Not to mentioned my lone 1 ton contribution. But I just had to honor the new content by giving it a try.

And was it ever a thrill. I'm still grinning.

 

[Jmanis]

A report from my Thargoid Tissue contribution to the Third Aegis Appeal CG... without a Anti-Corrosive rack.

My Anaconda was hull tanked, about 3000 points. Shields didn't last 5 seconds, 5A G5 Thermals. But I successfully got the sample back to Wyrd, with 50% hull remaining. Repair bills were $130k, and I sold the sample for $15k.

It is a money losing effort, gathering these Tissue Samples. Not to mentioned my lone 1 ton contribution. But I just had to honor the new content by giving it a try.

And was it ever a thrill. I'm still grinning.

Totally. The new content is really fun, and I'm definitely having fun getting out there and doing it. I *almost* soloed a Thargoid just then, knocked out all it's hearts but started getting powerplant failures which quickly sapped the last of my 20% hull integrity. After this I plan to gather some tissue samples "for fun" and just to say I've done it. I'll make up for cash losses by ferrying some other thargoid mats for Palin afterwards, and will then do a stint of "search and rescue" just for kicks.

But none of this will get handed in to the CG, because doing that is just a pointless affair right now.