Why devs didn't do anything for stopping the Seos/Robigo/Sothis exploit?

[Lobstris]

You are missing the point, when was the last time you went out to buy biowaste? The colonies want to get rid of it, and noone will take it for buy price nor will they take it to make small profits of 50Cr a ton for the distance. So they have to offer the large sums.

Lol. You've got thousands and thousands and thousands of square kilometers of pristine planet surfaces, access to practically unlimited energy, and shipping the stuff off-world is the most viable solution, rather than just digging a big pit somewhere and dropping the stuff in?

OK In certain environments that need to be kept pristine, paying someone to haul excrement off-world may be viable. And agricultural worlds might need fertiliser. And some people may want to recover sulphates and nitrates from waste. Or use it as a fuel source but...

 

[Lobstris]

If they can do it and you can do, then there's nothing to complain about.

If Frontier priced the Anaconda at 100cr, but left the other ships the same, or set the price of Imperial Slaves in one system at 150,000cr/tonne and 100cr/tonne in an adjacent one, the fact that we could both 'exploit' those in game doesn't make them any less 'wrong' in terms of their being divorced from the game's overall context, having no rational justification, and potential for having undesirable, unbalancing effects.

Oh, and I like the avatar. Currently wearing that on a T-shirt...

 

[DarthRavadge]

If there is one topic that has been beaten into the dirt this is it...
I can't fathom the complaint.
"This person made a bunch of money quickly. They should be forced into at least 6 months of 12hr play sessions like I did because I don't enjoy this activity that makes the highest profits. Now my game session is ruined because this person has more ships with more upgrades." [wacko]

 

[Red Anders]

... And from my experience, mission stacking is limited. You will get a message saying 'you have taken too many missions, please complete some missions before accepting any more' and the mission board locks you out.

I've never actually hit the limit but the concept of it is ridiculous. You have 488 tons of cargo space, you've filled 300 tons of it, there are people at the station you're at who are desperate for deliveries to be made to a system you're already heading to but you're not allowed to take their cargo because <insert nonsensical explanation with no basis in logic>.

 

[jacozilla]

I've never actually hit the limit but the concept of it is ridiculous. You have 488 tons of cargo space, you've filled 300 tons of it, there are people at the station you're at who are desperate for deliveries to be made to a system you're already heading to but you're not allowed to take their cargo because <insert nonsensical explanation with no basis in logic>.

It's because FD fixed long range missions the wrong way - by only looking at fraction of issue vs the overall picture.

TL-DR: they increased significantly the mission cargo tonnage, made mission cargo unique so players couldn't take mission -> jettison cargo -> stack endless missions and then re-buy cargo at delivery end, AND later implemented mission number cap

they did these piecemeal, not all at once, and was an over reaction. Some of these are redundant to each other and just harm regular play. With increased mission cargo size and unique status so you can't accept mission, dump cargo, and rebuy at delivery end, there is zero need for cap on number of missions because cargo size self limits the number anyway.

Mode switching is not the issue, has been clarified by FD as not an exploit, so beating that dead horse is just that. BUT - it is legit to talk about past exploits which were real, and why that led to current fixed-in-wrong way system.

1. When Robigo runs first started, there was no cap to how many missions you could take AND mission cargo was much lighter AND mission cargo was not unique to mission -->

This combination WAS the problem. I still wouldn't call it exploit because fair or unfair, smart or stupid, FD themselves initially implemented the functionality this way. Taking exactly what the devs give you and use that functionality is bizarre to call an exploit. But I do acknowledge that the ways players optimized back then was not what FD intended, hence the very quick fix by making mission cargo unique and hence no more endless stacking after dumping cargo (~2-3 weeks before fix)

After the ~3 weeks or so of Robigo runs with some, not all, but some players who stacked huge numbers of missions via dumping mission cargo and then just re-buying it at delivery end, this not-intended functionality was fixed quickly by FD. That should have been it (as well as the lowering of the odds of getting some of the higher paying smuggling runs).

There was no need after this fix to add a mission cap because with unique mission cargo, there was no means to stack large numbers of missions because cargo size was the limiting factor, and to make it even more balanced, FD later increased the mission cargo size significantly. Fair enough. But then they added a totally redundant number of missions cap.

When cargo size AND unique mission cargo status prevents taking more missions than whatever your max cargo size allows - which seems exactly what the point of builds with more/less cargo size is supposed to do - what is the point of a separate cap on missions number? This only brings about the bizarre situation we have today where you take your 15 missions - some courier data, some low cargo mass, and some higher - have plenty of cargo room left over, but can't take more missions because of the missions cap which was only implemented as a knee jerk last post reaction to Robigo runs which were already fixed by the first couple methods.

Bottom line - anyone calling Sothis/CEOS/Robigo aka long range mission runs an 'exploit' is either highly confused or pretending we are still back to first couple weeks when Robigo runs first started. Back then, they may have a point. Today, with triple locks and redundant missions cap, there is no exploit and a needless cap on missions simply affects non-long range mission taking when it should not.

 

[Dbrn47]

I've never actually hit the limit but the concept of it is ridiculous. You have 488 tons of cargo space, you've filled 300 tons of it, there are people at the station you're at who are desperate for deliveries to be made to a system you're already heading to but you're not allowed to take their cargo because <insert nonsensical explanation with no basis in logic>.

Missions are limited to 20 now.

 

[dynamicbob]

the quickest way to nerf those lcations is to build more stations and outposts ie a developing of the outlying colonies a bit like jaques.

 

[CMDR Aengus]

Yes, prices should increase with distance. Should the cost of shipping be routinely vastly more than the cost of buying the goods themselves on a more local market though? Personally, I don't think so. Last time I moved house it cost me £750 to move '000s of pounds of goods a few hundred miles. Shipping a couple of crates of goods from UK to Nigeria was £800, again much less than the crates' contents. At work I routinely have equipment worth '000s couriered around for '0s.

OK - I'll admit that there aren't many interdictions on the M1 in the UK, but... And, if we're going to talk logistics, road hauliers major cost (aside from staff) is fuel, which is again plentiful and of negligible value in the E: D universe.

Depends on your local market. Everything where I live has anything between 10% and 50% mark up and in some cases more, and that's with a decent infrastructure and road network. Im effectively out on the edge of the bubble.

A dishwasher here, can cost twice as much as a dishwasher in the city.

£750 here is about $1500. I couldn't move house across town for that. Removal costs here would be minimum of $2500.

 

[CMDR Aengus]

Hobnobs...

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the quickest way to nerf those lcations is to build more stations and outposts ie a developing of the outlying colonies a bit like jaques.

Aren't you reading these posts?

Mission caps.

They don't need any more restrictions.

Any player prepared to haul long distance, face numerous interdictions, and put the time and effort into it, needs a balanced payout.

Mode switching adds nothing, but maybe speeds up the process. You're still limited to how many missions you can take.

It's fixed already. Let's move on.

 

[Duedy]

Lol. You've got thousands and thousands and thousands of square kilometers of pristine planet surfaces, access to practically unlimited energy, and shipping the stuff off-world is the most viable solution, rather than just digging a big pit somewhere and dropping the stuff in?

OK In certain environments that need to be kept pristine, paying someone to haul excrement off-world may be viable. And agricultural worlds might need fertiliser. And some people may want to recover sulphates and nitrates from waste. Or use it as a fuel source but...

But....They want to keep the 1000's of KMs all pristine, how many real towns, cities etc say "biowaste facility great, but not in my neighbourhood. New landfill site great, but not in my neighbourhood. New Nuclear powerplant great, but not in my neighbourhood."

 

[JynxTheMerc]

Not gonna lie it's gotten pretty old reading these "ermagerd sothis/robigo/ceos exploits!" Type posts.

It's pretty simple y'all, it's still work.
It still takes quite some time to rank up those factions, then get a few missions to haul stuff back.
Then you've got interdictions, fuel, players, and a bunch of other potential risks.

The logic?
Hmm...how can we make it worthwhile for this pilot to haul fertilizer hundreds of lightyears?
Well...let's make it a few million, versus 50k.

And like that there's incentive.

 

[Dbrn47]

Not gonna lie it's gotten pretty old reading these "ermagerd sothis/robigo/ceos exploits!" Type posts.

It's pretty simple y'all, it's still work.
It still takes quite some time to rank up those factions, then get a few missions to haul stuff back.
Then you've got interdictions, fuel, players, and a bunch of other potential risks.

The logic?
Hmm...how can we make it worthwhile for this pilot to haul fertilizer hundreds of lightyears?
Well...let's make it a few million, versus 50k.

And like that there's incentive.

Yea. They're meant to be risky, they just really aren't. If they were to just make them more dangerous or make scans more aggressive for bigger ships, they wouldn't be so bad. I think the pay outs are fine, smuggling should pay very well, especially long range, but the risk just isn't there... You can load up a type-9 and get mega space bucks.