The problem with the whole escort thing is that you've got two different economies going on. You have one economy where the server is populated, pirates are present, and escorts would be useful. Then you have the other economy, the after-hours where server population is low, pirates are almost nowhere to be found and, therefore, escorts are unnecessary. If you buff profits enough to pay an escort a living wage during the day, you end up with way too much money going into the traders' pocket at night.
And so, for this to work, we'll have to find some creative solutions to make escorts appealing.
One idea is to work some serverside magic that adjusts prices of all commodities everywhere based on time of day and/or server population. This is a kind of ham-fisted approach, though. Logically, it makes sense, but you can't be sure that the extra profit definitely goes into the escort's wallet.
And so here's another idea.. and I have no idea if this can be done, but here goes:
Create some sort of equipment, that when you buy it, starts out at near-broken durability (and therefore, nearly 0 value). This piece of equipment then repairs over time, while the ship that wears it is within x range of the trader. The more time you spend escorting the trader, the more the item repairs, and the more its value goes up.
You would, of course, need to do something to prevent the item from having that sell price in the same area where you bought it.
And.. this idea doesn't make any inRP sense at all. But then, neither does the whole problem I outlined above.
About the rest of the topic, I'll answer in more general terms. Doing these "quote" discussions is always a little difficult.
For those who do not know me: I play 90-95 % lawful traders most of the time.
> Point 1: Only a few transports out there are highly-armored Battletransports. I guess between 80 and 90 % are money makers, weak, likely unarmored, less than 4 guns, easy for everybody to pirate.
> Point 2: The few high armor Battletransports are harder to pirate. Look at is as a challenge. If you meet me in my CAU8 Btrans, and you are in a bomber, you win. 100 %. If you are in a gunboat: you win. Just don't expect it to be a pre-determined, easy experience and that I have to give up or blow up. I might make it to the next base. I pay for this chance with ~15 million less profit on each run (compard to a 5ker), and a ship that is worth ~ 1 billion.
> Point 3: 3 players should always win against one. You can beat the rock-paper-scissors thinking with numbers. And yes, 3 Battletransports will waste a gunboat if the boat is not cautious enough (shield management, range management), but will likely suffer 1 transport loss. But... 3 bombers win against a cruiser. 3 fighters against a GB. Higher class can be beaten by 3 of the lower classes. Has always been roughly like this.
> Point 4: Why do pirate players focus on the few things they cannot get easily so much, when they can get 80 % of the rest as easy as always? I don't get that. I have never asked for an easy run in the field that I love to play: miners, transports. It has always been an uphill battle. And now, that some of these battles can be won, the crying starts because - I guess - less than 5 % of all interactions between transport and pirates end with a blue message on the pirate side. I have no idea why that is a problem. Flying a transport, you feel helpless very often and you lose most often, even if you make no mistake. Guess some pirate players will have to put up with the new situation that not everything they see is so inferior that even without skill they have an easy time winning. And in my book, interactions are meant like that and are more fun for everybody, if the outcome is open and the process that leads to a decision is tense.
> Point 5: I understand that the odds are set against pirates at the moment. With toned down NPCs, less NPCs, no lane disruptions by NPCs and reduced stationary guns, it will be very much the same as in the last version. Some transports thrust +10 m/s faster than a GB. That's not a great deal (and I am not opposed to upping GB speeds to the same as heavy transports) and became necessary to give transports ANY chance against cruiser pirates. In the last version, there was hardly any complaint about traders being too powerful, so I assume that it's not the trade ship that made it imbalanced but the other circumstances that have changed substantially.
(10-31-2013, 12:01 PM)Murcielago Wrote: So explain to me please what is mining?
Please explain what is trading aswell.
Also I would like to know what is escotring?
Pirating? ect..
Mining = the best way of making money and the best way of creating player interaction hubs and sparking cooperative gameplay. Miners are stationary and attract unlawfuls. They are easy targets, sit in known locations and are 25 k away from their bases. Mining creates high value, high risk, high profit cargo that calls for escorts, thus creating more interaction.
Hauling = the process of transporting ore. It creates the same traffic as trading, but the cargo is worth about 3,5k / unit at the moment. So the loss is ~15 million, if you lose a hauler. Haulers are predictible because there are normally 1 or 2 sellpoints, and they all lie further than 5 jumps and have a bottleneck on that route. Therefore the hauler is better for player-player interaction as it is easy to spot, departure location (mining field) is known, destination is known.
Trading = an interaction that is NPC base - NPC base. It doesn't require any player-player cooperation and therefore is not as conducive to the gameplay. Most of the commodities are dirt-cheap when you buy them, so traders generally rather blow up than talk or even fight. Many of them lose little and care even less.
Escorting does not exist. Escorting = scouting: A ship that can survive (snubs, Gbs or agile transports/freighters) goes in front of the convoy. About 1-2 lanes, or 20-30k when in cruise. The scout reports enemies and the transports evade. The bad guy never even sees the convoy. This is far from ideal... actually, it totally sucks when compared to the fighting escort type. But Disco makes that impossible.
Pirating = players trying to make a trader's runs more interesting by creating some danger. We both know how they do it. They are dependent on traders and on bottleneck systems because Sirius is too big and they will never find anybody if they are not in these few bottlenecks.
(10-31-2013, 01:16 PM)Jack_Henderson Wrote: About the rest of the topic, I'll answer in more general terms. Doing these "quote" discussions is always a little difficult.
For those who do not know me: I play 90-95 % lawful traders most of the time.
> Point 1: Only a few transports out there are highly-armored Battletransports. I guess between 80 and 90 % are money makers, weak, likely unarmored, less than 4 guns, easy for everybody to pirate.
> Point 2: The few high armor Battletransports are harder to pirate. Look at is as a challenge. If you meet me in my CAU8 Btrans, and you are in a bomber, you win. 100 %. If you are in a gunboat: you win. Just don't expect it to be a pre-determined, easy experience and that I have to give up or blow up. I might make it to the next base. I pay for this chance with ~15 million less profit on each run (compard to a 5ker), and a ship that is worth ~ 1 billion.
> Point 3: 3 players should always win against one. You can beat the rock-paper-scissors thinking with numbers. And yes, 3 Battletransports will waste a gunboat if the boat is not cautious enough (shield management, range management), but will likely suffer 1 transport loss. But... 3 bombers win against a cruiser. 3 fighters against a GB. Higher class can be beaten by 3 of the lower classes. Has always been roughly like this.
> Point 4: Why do pirate players focus on the few things they cannot get easily so much, when they can get 80 % of the rest as easy as always? I don't get that. I have never asked for an easy run in the field that I love to play: miners, transports. It has always been an uphill battle. And now, that some of these battles can be won, the crying starts because - I guess - less than 5 % of all interactions between transport and pirates end with a blue message on the pirate side. I have no idea why that is a problem. Flying a transport, you feel helpless very often and you lose most often, even if you make no mistake. Guess some pirate players will have to put up with the new situation that not everything they see is so inferior that even without skill they have an easy time winning. And in my book, interactions are meant like that and are more fun for everybody, if the outcome is open and the process that leads to a decision is tense.
> Point 5: I understand that the odds are set against pirates at the moment. With toned down NPCs, less NPCs, no lane disruptions by NPCs and reduced stationary guns, it will be very much the same as in the last version. Some transports thrust +10 m/s faster than a GB. That's not a great deal (and I am not opposed to upping GB speeds to the same as heavy transports) and became necessary to give transports ANY chance against cruiser pirates. In the last version, there was hardly any complaint about traders being too powerful, so I assume that it's not the trade ship that made it imbalanced but the other circumstances that have changed substantially.
(10-31-2013, 12:01 PM)Murcielago Wrote: So explain to me please what is mining?
Please explain what is trading aswell.
Also I would like to know what is escotring?
Pirating? ect..
Mining = the best way of making money and the best way of creating player interaction hubs and sparking cooperative gameplay. Miners are stationary and attract unlawfuls. They are easy targets, sit in known locations and are 25 k away from their bases. Mining creates high value, high risk, high profit cargo that calls for escorts, thus creating more interaction.
Hauling = the process of transporting ore. It creates the same traffic as trading, but the cargo is worth about 3,5k / unit at the moment. So the loss is ~15 million, if you lose a hauler. Haulers are predictible because there are normally 1 or 2 sellpoints, and they all lie further than 5 jumps and have a bottleneck on that route. Therefore the hauler is better for player-player interaction as it is easy to spot, departure location (mining field) is known, destination is known.
Trading = an interaction that is NPC base - NPC base. It doesn't require any player-player cooperation and therefore is not as conducive to the gameplay. Most of the commodities are dirt-cheap when you buy them, so traders generally rather blow up than talk or even fight. Many of them lose little and care even less.
Escorting does not exist. Escorting = scouting: A ship that can survive (snubs, Gbs or agile transports/freighters) goes in front of the convoy. About 1-2 lanes, or 20-30k when in cruise. The scout reports enemies and the transports evade. The bad guy never even sees the convoy. This is far from ideal... actually, it totally sucks when compared to the fighting escort type. But Disco makes that impossible.
Pirating = players trying to make a trader's runs more interesting by creating some danger. We both know how they do it. They are dependent on traders and on bottleneck systems because Sirius is too big and they will never find anybody if they are not in these few bottlenecks.
[/quote]
Thank you for your kidness to explain few things to me.
I was blinde now I see.
Thank you
I deeply apologize to ALL DEVs and ALL ADMINs for all my sugestions, opinions and my remarks.
This game is good and very well balanced. Let it be like it is. Keep the good work.
I just needed someone to open my eyes.
Thank you again sir Jack H. for doing that.
Regards
Some Noob who likes this game.
ps: now lets go back to game and enjoy it as it is. Good luck
ps ps; don't know if this is wright tread. Sorry if it is not.
wait wait wait wait. We still haven't come to a concrete solution on how to absolve our escort problem .
Picking up on something you said Jack, I find it unfair that transports can just sit with cruiser hulls and keep the pirate at bay with transport turrets. Perhaps we should strip transports of the luxury of turrets?
Though, don't get me wrong, I do think transports should be able to defend themselves. But perhaps we should ask to what extent?
Normal pirate gameplay =\= sitting on the lane at some bottleneck location with cruiser and desrupting lane from time to time. But even that pirating is broken. The whole point of pirating was that you can easily defeat a transport if you catch one. The trader had to avoid being caught by any means necessary. That was attracting people to both sides the pirates and the traders. Even on bad day trader was making positive cash income anyway no matter if he was pirated few times. I, myself, played a lot of roles in this game including pirates, mercs, freelancers, convoy escorts, secret services, police, navy, terrorist, miner, trader etc. And I have an understanding on how the things going on opposing sides. Many players who played pirate in before has left the server or went into Navy since being pirate become too stressful - you're not even have to find a trader and catch him, you also need to defeat him in a battle no matter he's flying transport full of stuff and you'r on a military grade vessel. Then you have to pack your shit very fast and run since there is a god damn fleet of capital ships rushing after you so if you're on a fighter you're not killing transport but have a chance to escape the capspam that comes, if you're on GB or so then you have a chance to take transport down while taking damage yourself and you have much less chance to escape anything.
The cornerstone for good gameplay stays - transports must be really easy to kill.
Don't know about you, Jack, but atm I'm sleeping in my chair, for real, while trading. There is no tense. I know that I'll be able to get away or avoid piracy in many cases even with cau5 which is really cheap. I liked the days when I was in Kishiro and I had to avoid those "annoying hogoshas" everyone is so obsessed with - I saw no problem in them being around. Pirates adds to transport gameplay so you don't sleep in your chair while spamming F4 on lanes. If you can accept the challenge. I know you don't like it, yea.
(10-31-2013, 02:24 PM)Curios Wrote: The cornerstone for good gameplay stays - transports must be really easy to kill.
The man speaks the truth, listen.
There is a reason why the armor upgrade is called a CAP 8, because it belongs on a capital ship. Transports should only be allowed to mount heavy armor upgrades.
Quote:Heavy Armor Upgrade Mk IV
Armor upgrades specially developed for transports and light capital ships are cheaper and offer more protection than the universal upgrades of similar class, but occupy more cargo space. The Mk IV upgrade is more or less the standard issue armor for many heavy transports and gunships built today. Great value for your credits. Multiplies base armor by 3.0; occupies 170 cargo space.
(10-31-2013, 02:24 PM)Curios Wrote: The cornerstone for good gameplay stays - transports must be really easy to kill.
And they are.
80% of them are no match at all (unarmored 5kers, < 4 guns). Everybody can kill these easily.
10 % are small transports and thus dodgy little agile buggers. But they are likely new, so giving them a bit of a chance is nice.
10 % are real opponents. See it as a challenge and don't give up before you have even tried.
The strength of transports has nothing to do with the attractivity of escorting roles.