Rebalance Suggestion: Nodock for Indie police IDs, Lawful Sellpoint Smuggling buff.

[sindroms]

Discovery has always been about implementing a positive feedback loop into our everyday game mechanics in order to predict player activity and the resulting distribution of players per ID.
I think that one of the most screwed up situations right now is the activity for lawfuls. Every single time we have a server event involving illegitimate cargo, we see a huge rise in lawful activity, because it gives players not only a chance to earn credits, but also a reason to blow the dust off of their lawful ships in order to intercept these players.
The changes made to the economy have been a discussion for quite a while, sure, but there are rather obvious implementations that could be done without the need for new content.

With @Teerin on his way out, I feel as though it is time to bring up this subject again as community members tend to associate changes to dev staff as a promise for new changes.

*My proposal is to include two things - First is to enable the Nodock Command for independent police IDs. One of the main results of previous discussions is that an indie ID is too easily gotten for such a game mechanic. Any player can restart a police ID and have access. The fix is very simple though - we can, if needed, add four completely new IDs that cost 150-500 million credits and are a carbon copy of the regular Police IDs in terms of lines. These would be the IDs to get the nodock feature and the steep price would be not only a good enough entry barrier, but also an expensive item that is much less likely to be abused, lest the player wishes to lose it.

*Once this is done, now you have an excuse to actually implement buffs to smuggling commodities, of which we have a very good amount of as is. Though with one specific limitation - the buffed CPS needs to involve only the sellpoints on Capital Planets, instead of the much less risky unlawful bases. Due to the way how POBs have shafted mining by removing the need for group activity, there is no reason why ore should retain its high cps rating and it would be better if that standard went to smuggling commodities instead - as mentioned before, only to the capital planet sellpoints.

Where there are smugglers, there are lawfuls. Where there are lawfuls - there are unlawful raids.

And yes, I hear you very well. I can already hear you ask

"Wait, wouldn't everyone just smuggle then? Why would smuggling become the standard best choice?"

But for those people - is there any legitimate reason as to why Mining is the current one?

But..what about official police IDs?

They retain the function and do not carry a premium that this public ID would have. I am sorry if I sound blunt here, but if tlagsnet and nodock commands cannot make a police faction appealing, it is obvious that nobody wants to carbon copy their navy ships just for those two functions. Perhaps it is time to merge the police and navy IDs into one at this point.




Streamlining Discovery is something that we should consider given our current levels of activity. The mod is still bloated with inefficient systems dating from 2010, where they were much less felt due to the large online activity we had back then. In today's environment however, testing such features should be taken as something we just need to do in order to figure out where the mod should progress from here.

Systems we currently have in place should be refined and worked on as Discovery changes, instead allowing them to rest on their laurels. This includes bounty hunting, this includes Mining, this includes the distribution of applied ingame roles to different IDs. Overlap was allowed back when there were players to fill that overlap. These days, however, it is putting a perfectly good function behind a unappealing ID. A function such as Tlagsnet and Nodock should not in any case at any time have been added to serve the ID. Rather they should be a tool for the player.

Changing the approach for these IDs would allow us to finally make the most profitable moneymaking system to also be the most ''unlawful'' one, as it should be. If players still haven't realized this, the only reason the CPS values for Ore are so high, was because it was a value that was assigned before POBs and in order to motivate players to test the new feature. And every time this is brought up in the past, it feels as though that the (now non-existent) mining devs were so utterly horrified that their work would decrease in player appeal, that any attempt to return the mining income to standard was met with huge opposition and, frankly, nonsensical reasoning against it. But it has been more than 8 years since that change and we still seem to be unaware that all game mechanics can potentially be used to provide roleplaycentric interaction for players across as many IDs as possible.




Let me be clear, I have the utmost respect for our devs and the work they have put in until now, but the current mechanics are stagnant. Shake things up, do not be afraid to make mistakes and revert them if needed. If we have already seen with the Aux Slot that even snub balance, a topic so damn taboo as things go here on Disco, can be tried, tested and then reverted - then there is no reason other areas of the mod cannot be looked into either.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[sindroms]

I am going to be frank, I am expecting a lot of players affiliated to certain groups to try and provide arguments in order for their IDs to retain some sort of monopoly on certain ingame activities. To which I am going to remind that the mod exists not to appease your preference for your IDs, but rather provide a sandbox with tools in both ships and IDs any player can use and that actually works together in junction with all other toys.
Disco has shifted a lot to the notion that things cannot be changed once added, because people do not like having their toys taken away. But I ask you this - if there is no motivation to log because an existing mechanic is not making full use of existing game features, what is the point of such toys except for bragging rights?

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Sombs]

Hi Frank! I'm supporting this idea. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing all the smugglers dock at Hattan just to rename themselves if they get caught so the forum stuff doesn't cause any consequences.

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[Corile]

As LPI 1iC, I support this suggestion.

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[Thyrzul]

I disagree with nerfing ore profit margins parallel to buffing contraband profits because of PoBs removing the need for teamplay. PoBs pretty much require teamplay to sustain the option for "solo mining", it didn't remove teamplay, just refocused it elsewhere.

I disagree with officials not getting the same nodock and tlagsnet perks the premium indy ID would get. Your reasoning implies gaining officialdom isn't as hard or even harder as grinding 500mills, which I think it is. Unless I misunderstood your point on this (I'm not sure), in such case consider this void.
Void it is then.

Other than that the idea looks solid, interesting and worthy of a trial.

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[sindroms]

PoB requirements are about to be readjusted, so they are not a teamplay anymore. Officials retain both perks, but for ''free'', unlike the premium indie ID.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Thyrzul]

I was not aware of the upcoming PoB requirement changes. Is that information public, and if so, where can I access it?

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[JorgeRyan]

I like these ideas. Could be onto something here.

[Banned player t202085]

1. Enable the No-dock Command for independent police IDs I personally think this is a really dangerous idea as it opens up a pretty powerful command to players who are less likely to understand the consequences of using it. However, your idea of pricing it up should deter most inexperienced players and think that it would be a good idea to trial this.

2. POBs have shafted mining by removing the need for group activity, I hadn't even considered this as a problem before, though if I think back far enough I can remember the absolute hordes of people protecting and mining the old niobium field(I think in tau 44?). Perhaps there should be another conversation about how to tackle this as an owner of a mine PoB myself I even think that this should be nerfed or buffed for actual player activity. Could we not make ore perishable, (but really really slowly) would that cause it to decay when stored on a PoB?

3. Merge the police and navy IDs. I know that Police factions are struggling across the board but I don't think we are quite at this point yet. That said, at this point, I have no useful suggestions on how to make them more appealing. I'll think on that for now.

4.Streamlining Discovery is something that we should consider. Agreed, I have a bit of an extreme view of over cutting the systems down to like 30% of what we have now. (I know this excessive af) considering we still have the activity for around 60-80% systems that we have but the idea is to over cut back and then re-add via exploration. As Skorak has proven with the derelict stations, they can not be detected via companion and I think the model used can be anything (even planets maybe?) as well as their jump holes. each area of space could have at least 1-2 hidden jump holes with discoverable stuff inside, focusing more on planets and the odd mine to justify inrp building jump gates etc. previously removed assets (systems and planets) could be reused to still provide a fresh feel without needing to develop to much. I haven't really fleshed this idea out but I think the basics are there.

5.Let me be clear, I have the utmost respect for our devs. Ditto.

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[Domino.Harvy]

Great idea about give nodock command to indie police ID! But, it can be dangerous weapon in wrong hands.
I think this function should be available thought InRp request on forum in LPI section. Idk how it should be on practice, but I think you understand me.