Why is the community population declining?

[AeternusDoleo]

Also some of the centers hubs got killed. Omicrons got killed because they are too big and there is simply nothing to do there, with nomad numbers being as they always will be by being invite only.

We're considering to make the Nommies an open ID. Problem is, with their role in the game as "kill all humans", an ID that lets you go anywhere and attack anything at will is going to cause some people to abuse it. 's still in discussion on how to resolve it - probably something along the lines of "Nomad capital ships may not leave the Omicrons" or something similar.

CR got killed in the Taus because... well, because Dab, Zelot, and Dusty.

Eh, SoulReaper and Panzer with their "screw Gallia, we'll fight the juggernaut" mentality kinda had a big hand in that as well. The refusal of the CR to sue for peace with Gallia came from the CR itself, not from Gallia. The Gauls basically did what they planned to according to Igiss storyline: Remove or pacify the Sirian factions that exist in the Taus, before moving on Bretonia.

Faction leaders stopped doing the stuff they should because many were only doing it to give tech permissions to their buddies, and now that got killed. They are still clinging to the power thats left without doing their faction duries nontheless, which is keeping new people from taling the positions and being active in them.

Yea, this was noticed. Hence the whole tech thingy was changed - factions can set it per ID now, but NOT per faction tag. While not perfect, this should prevent the kind of behaviour you describe. As for preventing people from taking positions - you can always form your own faction under the same ID, then challenge for dominance.

And as for my making the game better... I've spent WELL over 400 hours on the mod, and counting, fixing bugs, making new toys for people ready for the game and all that. That my efforts aren't always appreciated it something I've learned to accept. Frankly, any dev in it for the long haul will eventually dev just because he/she enjoys to create stuff rather then cater to the playerbase's changing desires. You'd go mad just by keeping up. Example:
- 4.85: Dublin. People complain there's so many newbs in the system, pirates attacking with oneliners, miners cloaking out. Called for potential solutions, people suggested to make more, similar profit mining runs. Cannon asked me to reduce the Dublin run profit as well to motivate people to seek other mining adventures.
- 4.86: Molly players complain there's noone left in Dublin. BMM complains they have no cashcow run anymore (which was a flatout lie, the highest profit-for-time run in the game is Beryllium from Cambridge to Dortmund). Pirates complain the miners are gone. Also bullcrap, they just moved to Omega 7 and Tau 23 for the most part.
- 4.87: Reduce the amount of mining fields again to concentrate resources/activity and end up with the same problems as in 4.85? Is the payoff of concentrated activity bigger then the drawback of "inexperienced" players in that mix?

---

Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.

[Madvillain]

And as for my making the game better... I've spent WELL over 400 hours on the mod, and counting, fixing bugs, making new toys for people ready for the game and all that. That my efforts aren't always appreciated it something I've learned to accept. Frankly, any dev in it for the long haul will eventually dev just because he/she enjoys to create stuff rather then cater to the playerbase's changing desires.

I am not saying it's true , but many people considered some devs were mostly catering themselves , giving their little posse nice toys and advantages.
It's sad that this image sprung up , I've only experienced first hand what a crapload of work goes into making a single shipmodel.....
If you really wan't players to stick around, and continue to make name for this mod , a dev team should cater to their desires though.
Look at how Sony dev's do the Planetside 2 stuff.
That formula is very succesful.
Ofcourse there is one big difference , the Discovery devs don't get payed.

As I've always said we players have no right to demand stuff, not until we start paying the dev team a monthly salary.
Still , this leads to the frustrating brick wall that most players face sooner or later.

---

Baila Morena | Toilet Trouble | Elder Presidente[TBH] | The Titan Combat Manual | Confession

[Manticore]

Look at Manticore's post above - it is representative for a point of view that I am met with a lot: That the deterioration of the server and the community is due to new players being nubs, totally dismissing the fact that we were all nubs at one point and only got better because some took the time and effort to teach us. So instead of pointing fingers and blaming caps, new players, indies and so on, start by taking a long look in the mirror and ask yourself what YOU do wrong.

Okay, I'm sorry but this is complete and utter baloney. You clearly know absolutely nothing about me, so please don't put words in my mouth.

Let me rephrase my criticisms for you. I am frustrated because the average player is now one of two things:

1. Lacking in intelligence and/or doesn't speak English.
2. Lacking in maturity and/or completely focused on the PvP aspect of the game.

Nowhere did I say I was upset with "new players" or "nubs" or anything like that. Yes, many new players these days fall into one of those categories, but so do a number of long-time players and returning veterans. There's a clear distinction between one's inherent characteristics and one's experience level with something, after all.

As for me personally, I came to this server with a large amount of previous RP experience, Freelancer experience, and an intimate understanding of the English language. Yes, I needed help understanding some of the nuances of Discovery in particular when I was new, but I was not even remotely in the same category as the people I am talking about.

Is anybody here perfect? Of course not. But what I'm saying is that the current environment is not conducive to a player like me finding sufficient enjoyment to want to invest significant time or effort here.

---

@ryoken: I agree that, in the current environment, more sanction activity and more rules would be better - in my eyes, at least. We can't control a person's level of maturity, but we can at least be a bit more stringent with punishing immature behavior. It's treating the effect rather than the cause, which isn't ideal, but I don't see a lot of other options.

---

[Challenger]

And as for my making the game better... I've spent WELL over 400 hours on the mod, and counting, fixing bugs, making new toys for people ready for the game and all that. That my efforts aren't always appreciated it something I've learned to accept. Frankly, any dev in it for the long haul will eventually dev just because he/she enjoys to create stuff rather then cater to the playerbase's changing desires. You'd go mad just by keeping up. Example:
- 4.85: Dublin. People complain there's so many newbs in the system, pirates attacking with oneliners, miners cloaking out. Called for potential solutions, people suggested to make more, similar profit mining runs. Cannon asked me to reduce the Dublin run profit as well to motivate people to seek other mining adventures.
- 4.86: Molly players complain there's noone left in Dublin. BMM complains they have no cashcow run anymore (which was a flatout lie, the highest profit-for-time run in the game is Beryllium from Cambridge to Dortmund). Pirates complain the miners are gone. Also bullcrap, they just moved to Omega 7 and Tau 23 for the most part.
- 4.87: Reduce the amount of mining fields again to concentrate resources/activity and end up with the same problems as in 4.85? Is the payoff of concentrated activity bigger then the drawback of "inexperienced" players in that mix?

I'm not sure that question has a right answer. We've spent the last three years doing an experiment, in some sense. More systems have been introduced, and all of them have had their trade routes balanced to make them equally viable. This has been achieved - but did we get what we want out of it? 160 people on the server, and I only see two when I fly from one side of Kusari to the other.

I wouldn't dream of second-guessing the dedication and hard work our admins and development team have put in to this. And I'd even go so far as to say that the problems we had in 4.84 are fixed. (Minus purple goddess nerf.) I'm certain that if we had 225 players online, my criticisms would be baseless. But the fact of the matter is that we tried to fix the problem by spreading people out, and succeeded. Now we can look back and ask ourselves: Is this really what we wanted to do?

[Echelon]

its not really declining that drastically I would say... but it has

---

[Crackpunch]

It's funny to see an admin trolling.
Kinda symbolic for the state disco is in.

Naw he's just making an offtopic joke. Unless there was someone who was trying to bring borg, but failing, then that could be taken as a shot at them. Or maybe there's someone who really hates borg and would never want it in disco and so Lolo is getting on their nerves instead.

I'm gonna go with the first sentence.

---

[Curios]

People are too obessed with "must win in rp" sh1t. If you want people to behave better then now, and under now I mean that exciting attempt by people to fack over another people while trying not to be facked over themselves style of RP everywhere, then you must stop to promote such behavior at the first place.

Some say that players must have impact on the story. Bul1sh1t. They must not have a single bit of that. Just go and play the damn game, nothing bad will happen if you'll die few times. There is a respawn button for purpose.

But instead players are given more and more reasons to be assho1es towards each others. First the impact on the story. But no one thinks what to do with the low to none populated factions like the Bundies or the Gaians or whatever else, who will push their story? No one. Then the bases. Now people are even more obsessed with mustwinning plague because of this. And not only this, bases are also ruins the gameplay an epic time while people don't understand how much harm they are doing to themselves by spamming those around to cockblock themselves from the other world. What is going on is simply tard however no one seems to care. So there we go.

And about the spread of people around - I have to agree. Even with 225 players on it's still not enough to populate all the systems. Now I can fly throgh half of sirius and meet no one at all. Or maybe 1-2 FL ided Firelfy with name such as star022 for example who silently pass here and there. Dublin fun was cool, however it was, once again, ruined by the players themselves. First they asked to remove the fun from their systems then they even built a base to screw away the last bits of those who'd be willing to come and play with them. And who should we blame here? I guess administration and dev teams are both got too soft to allow players to bend the gameplay around as they please mindlessly which don't fix nothing but makes more problems instead.

Any idea the community so gratefully spit out must be considered, however the impact of those is usually super bad, unintentionally. So before rushing to bend under the player whinage those ideas must be carefully brainstormed and tested for it's impact on gameplay and wealth of RP and balance. Why? Because this will never stop and there will never be enough of something for someone.

---

[Ingenious]

Any idea the community so gratefully spit out must be considered, however the impact of those is usually super bad, unintentionally. So before rushing to bend under the player whinage those ideas must be carefully brainstormed and tested for it's impact on gameplay and wealth of RP and balance. Why? Because this will never stop and there will never be enough of something for someone.

I do think player whinage can sometimes be productive when it is not materialistic and focused on benefiting the whiner. On another note, I think the one thing the admin team could do better is take a stronger stance against powergaming, e.g. with certain bases and official faction policies. They reserve that right, after all.

[Swallow]

It is decreasing because we tend to think it is, and our overall attitude results in what we have.

---

FL MOD(EL)MAKING: TOOLS, RESOURCES, TUTORIALS AND MY SHIPS (OLD)

I am on discord: Roal-Yr#5994, I don't log on forum more than a few times a year.

I am not making ships for FL anymore, I am making my own space game instead:
https://github.com/roalyr/GDTLancer
https://roal-yr.itch.io/gdtlancer
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HQB...cdH45LZgjj

[Savi]

I didn't had read whole this thread and I don't know if this idea was ever posted, but how bout you dev guys release minor updates every 1 month or less and stop preparing the big bang called 4.86, 4.87, 4.88. Updating let's say, only the front line: like Stokes is taken over by GRN and the next month after a nice event BAF takes it back, add new models from time to time, change the stats for random ships to give them a feeling of OP then bring them back to normal... guess u got my point

---

Last raid of Discovery 4.86

Bowex S-Convoy

LSC vs Geb