@McNeo Finally someone willing to argue the flaws. Alright, you got a point about inflating price of special equipment.
I have indeed noticed some attempts of getting credits out of the economy by the devs. I don't rate them very successful currently, but still some money sinks are better than no money sinks.
But could we put multiboxing into this category of money sinks? Would it be possible to hide the "multiboxing support" behind a sci-data only equipment paywall? Something like an A.I. module or Remote Control Module? And make it wildly expensive and/or requiring sufficient RP?
I certainly agree with you that attempts to get credits out of the economy haven't been very successful, but to be fair to them I'm not really sure what they could do to solve this beyond a full character wipe plus a total rebalance of the price of absolutely everything in the game, particularly things that are consumable like nanobots and ammo, as well as things you can lose by dying like cargo. I think at the moment, limiting credit inflation is the best they can do.
Honestly, the question is - what do you actually want to do with multiboxing? Trading isn't fun at the best of times, multiboxing wont make it more fun or even more rewarding really, the latter due to credit inflation which will just make everyone elses credits worth less. You sure can't fight on two ships at once, and even the ability to RP would be questionable since people would end up RPing with themselves to provide the necessary RP background for an SRP request. After all, if people are scummy enough to stage an RP event on a private server while pretending it happened on disco to justify certain outcomes, and I know for a fact that this has happened in the past, then giving them just one more avenue to abuse the system doesn't seem like a good idea, even if it is relatively easy to detect.
The real question is probably not whether its possible, but what would the point of multiboxing would actually be? I want to be able to multibox between my banks so I can arrange my guns in a nice order in my trade menu, as well as just a simple quality of life improvement for making sure I can set up my own ships with equipment from my own banks in good time without having to rely on someone else to help me. This would only be necessary in Conn.
I must say I can't see any good outcomes for allowing multiboxing on a wider scale:
1. inflation of player count just increases server load without resulting in meaningful interactions, like fights or RP between characters due to limitations of the player behind them.
2. player count might be low now but if we do reach the player cap, then what? Do we ban it again, or put in a limit of some kind?
3. imagine a different kind of multiboxing, with one person setting up multiple exploration cruisers and mining sci-data from 5 anomalies or more at once.
4. putting multiboxing behind a paywall doesn't really help the people it would probably be most useful to, and even if it was a sci-data item, the real issue with the economy is that you don't spend credits or sci-data on something that eventually expires, it just stays around forever, like a car that never breaks down.
The economic rammifications of allowing multiboxing outside a very limited set of circumstances are both unpredictable and uncontrollable. And once you go black, you can't go back allow it, its not really a reversible decision IE the damage will have been done to the economy already. Not that it's in great shape to begin with but yeah.
You are right it threads a very fine line of potential abuse, but I believe people would find utility in it RP-wise, not only making money.
Binski already mentioned using it in conjunction with docking modules, and I have an idea brewing about smuggling gameplay overhaul where this would also come in handy.
You could for example use your cap with great scanning range "as radar" to detect smugglers and then quickly switch to your docked interceptor light fighter or join a friend in a strike launched from a carrier.
But I agree the anomaly mining abuse might be a problem. Still, if you make it an equipment module you can actually restrict usage of this module to carriers and fighters.
It would definitely make carrier gameplay "different" to other caps, in lieu of the failed drone plugin.
There are definitely RP opportunities precluded by the ban on multiboxing, like what you've suggested there. If I'm understanding correctly, you have an idea to do around about the same thing like what Orillion did in SP, driving his Osiris around with a strike force inside it for use in operations deep in enemy territory, but even in that case the rules that exist preclude most factions, probably including the Order, from actually doing this (at least in house territory). Almost every rule made, from ID rules to server rules precludes some valid RP opportunities, but they all came about quite organically as a result of people taking the freedoms they had too far. Technerf rules so people don't just fly whatever ship with whatever guns they want because they can, ID restrictions to stop people based in the Edge Worlds rolling up to New York and camping it with 20 dreadnoughts, weapon class restrictions on caps because people used to mount tizzie turrets on them because they were legit a lot better than cap guns at the time.
The rule against multiboxing definitely does preclude some opportunities for cool RP, or place restrictions on people that make things unfun in certain situations (like said cap pilot not being able to join on one of his fighters while his cap sits out of harms way), but would removing the rule really do more harm than good?
(07-05-2020, 04:29 AM)Ivan Norovich Wrote: My only argument against it is how easy it would be to abuse by the traders to avoid piracy altogether, think about it.
Instead of another hauler, they could be multiboxing a scout ship, they would send it ahead of the transport, and if they spot you waiting at the lane, they would let you have your way with the scout ship while they're moving the transport away from your scanner range. What then?
In the same way a pirate could have several alts sitting around waiting for traders to pass by in different locations.
It would also be more credit/time efficient to multibox 2 traders instead of 1 trader 1 scout imo. More multiboxed traders = more targets for pirates.
There are also some nice applications for docking modules, offering people the chance to switch ships, and bring along a choice of repair ship, fighter, or bomber. Carriers would need to get more docking modules than they have now, which I hope they will get.
I wouldnt keep it illegal for tracked tags either. It's not like activity requirements are that difficult to meet, or like we really want factions to become unofficial atm. Making tracked tag multiboxing illegal would just move player's activity from official to indy chars, which wouldnt really be a good thing.
(07-05-2020, 01:31 AM)E X O D I T E Wrote: especially considering I can multiply my demand by the amount of multiboxed ships, to make pirating for money a little more viable than it is now.
The profit % is greater for the multi boxing trader.
Just let pirates demand more.
No, I personally don't think we should allow multi boxing. It won't be 5 transports. It'll be an entire damned line of the things maybe 15 long taken to the extreme. The economy would be crippled and they've already screwed up enough balance with money sinks in pvp for me to support crippling the economy further than it already is.
This is akin to minecraft duping with shulkers. Instead you just got transports.
Who cares about ore when you've got 50k cargo space which is just getting more and more. It all depends how many instances you can run. People will make their work around's to what ever exceptions you come up with. This suggestion is completely flawed and to try and argue for it is both preposterous and ignorant. People already try to multibox and this hardest line approach doesn't even stop all of them. Giving cheaters an inch leads to them destroying what is left of the game. I'm surprised this was even suggested seriously.
To TL:DR your original post it's:
"Our economy is already broken, why don't we just get rid of it/finish destroying it."
And that'd make the server a sandbox rp server instead of a semi serious rp server which it at least was and tries to be.
You mean it isn't already effectively a sandbox RP server to the chosen few?
<insert devtonia meme here>
EDIT: To the people saying "the price of POB equipment will skyrocket", I expect the opposite to occur because the time involved for its manufacture will bottom out... for about a week or so, and then nobody will ever manufacture anything ever again because it's so unprofitable, causing the amount of pob equipment on the server to remain static. There may be a slight increase in prices because nobody's going to take the time to manufacture them, but the mechanical value of them will remain the same.
If anything, it will just end up being players/factions doing in-house manufacturing for very specific things.
(07-05-2020, 09:46 PM)E X O D I T E Wrote: a sandbox RP server to the chosen few
Keep it that way.
They're the ones who have wasted their lives away trading.(good for them btw nothing against that.) Not everyone has. A good many just sit there with what they enjoy and mess about. But they previously put in the effort.
Atm it's about giving enjoyable ways to make money and increase activity without crashing the economy with the aim to let people buy multiple ships in different factions, with value more than a singular snub I might add, and finding that balance between grind and reward. There's enough content. It's just about moulding that content rather than nuking what's left of the game.
As I said.
To TL:DR your original post it's:
"Our economy is already broken, why don't we just finish destroying it."
Which again. Would take away one of the biggest parts of the game and give people absolutely no reason to play anything they might as well sandbox pvp in conn at that stage.
The RP aspect would die out so quick.
This really would just be a catalyst to kill a game we all still enjoy.
End game keeps changing as long as we keep moving the goalposts slowly. For those who want activity that is. Again. Some settle with what they enjoy and that's fine but objectively isn't good for the rest of the game but compromises must be made for the benefit of the game and fun for everyone. This is a case of less is more.
(07-05-2020, 09:46 PM)E X O D I T E Wrote: If anything, it will just end up being players/factions doing in-house manufacturing for very specific things.
No.
They'll grind out a few thousand billion aka 1 trillion and or more and never need to grind ever again for these things. People power grind when things are easily available until they never have to again. As long as it's even slightly difficult or effort/soul consuming then it's put aside and only done when needed and or to a lesser extent.
What we want is the lesser extent so it actually runs out some time so they trade again.