Discovery Gaming Community

I'm pretty new to this game and have only played the singleplayer part so far. Which might account for some of the questions

1: Difficulty

Why is there no indication of have difficult a system is? You can fly around 1 system, one-shooting everything a be bored to tears, go to the nearest gate or hole and get blown to bits, the second you emerge on the other side. Yes, then you know that it's too early to go there, but it's also too late to know it. You're dead.

2: Wrecks

How are Wrecks handled on a dedicated server? Are they a one-time thing or do they respawn?

3: Zoners

Couple of things here: Why do they only have 6 ships available to them and all of them are really expensive?
And why don't they have missions? I know that it's not their nature to attack other factions, but are the mission types hard-coded? No chance of making mining/trading/exploration missions?

4: Trade Goods

They seem somewhat illogical to me. One base sits in a giant wreck, filled with Scrap Metal, but pays 499 credits for it? While another one is several systems away from anything that could grow a tomato, but won't pay a dime for any sort of food, but would gladly take your Luxury Consumer Goods? Where's the logic?

5: Guard factions

What are these, exactly? All the vanilla factions seem to have a 'Guard' counter-part that does NOT gain in rep when you gain with the vanilla faction. But they do have some nice ships.

Hopefully not too many of these have been asked before. I've searched around a bit, but couldn't find any clear answers. Thanks in advance for any and all answers:)

' Wrote:I'm pretty new to this game and have only played the singleplayer part so far. Which might account for some of the questions

1: Difficulty

Why is there no indication of have difficult a system is? You can fly around 1 system, one-shooting everything a be bored to tears, go to the nearest gate or hole and get blown to bits, the second you emerge on the other side. Yes, then you know that it's too early to go there, but it's also too late to know it. You're dead.

Go on stations and look at mission levels, a good indicator to the range you can expect within that system alone, factor that it'll be more difficult each system you go further.

' Wrote:2: Wrecks

How are Wrecks handled on a dedicated server? Are they a one-time thing or do they respawn?

The wrecks refill each time the server reboots which it does for various reasons.

' Wrote:3: Zoners

Couple of things here: Why do they only have 6 ships available to them and all of them are really expensive?
And why don't they have missions? I know that it's not their nature to attack other factions, but are the mission types hard-coded? No chance of making mining/trading/exploration missions?

All missions are PvP based so the Zoners can't be attacking anyone since they have no enemies but it brings to mind the Nomads in Delta but I don't think anything beyond a full military operation against Nomads is viable.

' Wrote:4: Trade Goods

They seem somewhat illogical to me. One base sits in a giant wreck, filled with Scrap Metal, but pays 499 credits for it? While another one is several systems away from anything that could grow a tomato, but won't pay a dime for any sort of food, but would gladly take your Luxury Consumer Goods? Where's the logic?

There is a tight control on economy as it heavily factors in the routes and balances it compare to other routes based on time and profit. This is so one particular route isn't used while all others are ignored (remanescant of the Diamond/Niobium run of old)

' Wrote:5: Guard factions

What are these, exactly? All the vanilla factions seem to have a 'Guard' counter-part that does NOT gain in rep when you gain with the vanilla faction. But they do have some nice ships.

They are owned by Official factions, the rep is seperate, any NPC faction with a Guard System will have a Guard Rep for it. It's much tougher to get friendly with faction guard then it does with normal faction NPCs. Do the bribes and many many missions then you'll be friendly enough to survive the system and even purchase from them. Ask the associated player faction if you don't carry the necessary ID before entering. Also the NPCs in the Guard systems are the strongest by far in-game. If you aren't repped for it you'll be toast.

' Wrote:Hopefully not too many of these have been asked before. I've searched around a bit, but couldn't find any clear answers. Thanks in advance for any and all answers:)

Not at all, nice to see someone asking questions rather then them bungling about. Great to have you, welcome aboard.

Prowler

' Wrote:2: Wrecks

How are Wrecks handled on a dedicated server? Are they a one-time thing or do they respawn?

' Wrote:The wrecks refill each time the server reboots which it does for various reasons.

I am also told you can only loot a wreck once per account. (Correct me if wrong, please.)

Anyway, welcome to Disco!:crazy:

' Wrote:I am also told you can only loot a wreck once per account. (Correct me if wrong, please.)

Anyway, welcome to Disco!:crazy:

Once per character, Alex.

Wrecks, by the way, are mystically refilled after every server restart.

Once per character is somewhat misleading: you can loot a wreck over and over on any single character, until you dock with that character, at which point you cannot loot anymore.

' Wrote:Once per character is somewhat misleading: you can loot a wreck over and over on any single character, until you dock with that character, at which point you cannot loot anymore.

That makes sense. I think. *goes to loot dozens of HAMMERFALL*

' Wrote:Once per character is somewhat misleading: you can loot a wreck over and over on any single character, until you dock with that character, at which point you cannot loot anymore.

I completely missed that detail. Well I guess that saves the wreck campers from having me ready to collect their efforts as a way to get around the one CODE thing. :laugh:

' Wrote:I completely missed that detail. Well I guess that saves the wreck campers from having me ready to collect their efforts as a way to get around the one CODE thing. :laugh:

Thanks for all the fast and to the point answers. Your time is very much appreciated. Maybe I'll try my luck with RP'ing in the weekend.

By the way, how active are Europeans? Since I'm from Europe, the time-difference pretty much excludes me from interacting with the American part of the community, which is suspect is somewhat larger than the European one.

The European players in my group have to be the most active bunch bringing in a bucket load of teasing and nit picking. :laugh:

I'll answer some of the questions again, or at least add to the previous answers.

' Wrote:1: Difficulty

Why is there no indication of have difficult a system is? You can fly around 1 system, one-shooting everything a be bored to tears, go to the nearest gate or hole and get blown to bits, the second you emerge on the other side. Yes, then you know that it's too early to go there, but it's also too late to know it. You're dead.

No systems should be deadly right after taking a Jump Gate ... apart from Galia, but that's the whole area and you have to get there first, so you'll notice. Jump Holes are generally more dangerous, both for lawfuls and unlawfuls. You may meet swarms of high level pirates or BHGs. Jump Holes may also lead to Guard systems mentioned by other people, which are usually deadly unless you work on the reputation. Those are a bit of a problem for unsuspecting players.

Quote:3: Zoners

Couple of things here: Why do they only have 6 ships available to them and all of them are really expensive?
And why don't they have missions? I know that it's not their nature to attack other factions, but are the mission types hard-coded? No chance of making mining/trading/exploration missions?

Don't forget the Zoners can use civilian ships as well. Let me think about ships that go with Zoners (not neccessarily exclusively with Zoners).

Juggernaut (BS)
Aquilon Carrier (BS)
Corvo Cruiser
Fearless (dessie)
Gunboat
Zoner Whale
BW Transport
Dromedary
Eagle
Falcon
Griffin
... and easily a lot of other civilian ships.

I'd actually say that if we look at every ship the Zoners can freely use, we'll find that they have one of the greatest choices of all factions.
I would agree that high the number of capital ships is a problem, but for a different reason;)

Quote:4: Trade Goods

They seem somewhat illogical to me. One base sits in a giant wreck, filled with Scrap Metal, but pays 499 credits for it? While another one is several systems away from anything that could grow a tomato, but won't pay a dime for any sort of food, but would gladly take your Luxury Consumer Goods? Where's the logic?

Actually, Disco economy is designed to make as much sense as possible. Food, Water and Oxygen aren't sold for much anywhere, they aren't really meant for trading. Scrap is also a bit difficult, because of the mining - mining was heavily changed in Discovery and most mineable stuff has separate commodities for that. But anyway, Junker bases inside scrap fields are usually built there for the purpose of processing the scrap. They need someone to collect it...

About those luxury Consumer Goods... Wasn't it a Luxury Liner or something like that? Full of tourists demanding comfort, souvenirs and entertainment? They'd probably pay a lot for Luxury Food too.
Stations are made to buy what they need to function and sell what they produce. Unfortunatelly, for everything to work in balance, there can be only a few good selling and buying spots. If there are a lot of places with high demand for the commodity, the choice is:
1. Leaving out some of the spots - as done with most of those
2. Changing it into a non-essential commodity - like Food, Water, Oxygen

Quote:Guard factions

What are these, exactly? All the vanilla factions seem to have a 'Guard' counter-part that does NOT gain in rep when you gain with the vanilla faction. But they do have some nice ships.

I'll just add a bit here. If you want to raise your reputation with a guard faction, you have to bribe the normal faction equivalent for it (not just some friendly faction), the same goes for missions.

for example...
If you want to raise LPI Guard reputation, you can bribe LPI and/or do LPI missions.
If you want to raise LN Guard rep, you have to do LN missions - there is no LN bribe and an LPI bribe won't help at all.