I was only offering suggestions/solutions to try and make the game better. If they are not workable then so be it. However, lets look at the mining being hampered.
It is sad that the miner is blamed for the mining being nerfed because he chooses to go solo. But why did he go solo? Is it because mining in groups does not work? Yes. Let me explain.
I spoke with one person in game who just got jakked of all his niobium in Omega 7 because he did not have an escort. His problem. When I asked him how long it took him to mine it he said it took him an hour. Wow! One hour to fill a mining ship with niobium ore! That is right because I tried mining niobium and I stopped after 13 minutes because I only had 800 ore. Lets do the math. 800x3 is 2400 with 350 left to go. That is 45 minutes to fill that mining vessel. 2750 x 10654 = 29m and change. Now you still have to make the 15 minute trip to New Berlin that now equals an hour.
It would take an additional 30 minutes to fill an Atlas transport or Shire transport. That is over an hour by 15 minutes just filling the transport! So, you pay the transport, miner, and two escorts for protection, the 1 hr 15 min of mining, and the 15 minutes for the trip to make 44m divided 4 ways means 11 million per person. Not to mention you still have to make the trek back. In an hour and 45 minutes those for people only made 11 million if distributed evenly!
You cannot go by the numbers you had when you had the DHC faction when the drop rates and ore prices have fallen drastically since then. You are comparing apples to oranges. It does not pay to mine in a group. Yes, in a group if other single minded miners are there, but not if you are all working together. It is business 101, you do not hire people if the business is not able to support more workers. I would love to work with others mining. I did it when the mining started. It was alot of fun. The way mining is now, it does not support more than one transport per miner and one escort if you can find one. You cannot support more than that. it is econcomically not feasible.
I am not trying to cause problems or make the mining worse by my opinion. I am perfectly happy to mine by myself if this is the way mining is going to be, but unless the drop rates are increased I just do not see how I would ever mine in a group and you guys will just have to keep blaming me and others like me for running at the first sign of trouble.
Mining in groups worked well in Pennsylvania. The Tremont event was fantastic.
I also worked with independent DSE miner, Erio Aughust. He ran a mining operation and he was very good at it. At the time there was about 4 miners and many transport involved, few escorts too. We all were making money. Then it got nuked and DSE dissapeared.
When I have been mining Niobium I have made about 30m per hour - not fantastic. But look at it this way, why should someone who has just come onto the game be able to get up as fast as someone who has played for ages and ages? Sure there is a bit of inequity between people who engaged under the old economy (I'm not one of them I'm sorry to say!) but the dedication required is part of what makes that battleship so enjoyable to have. Hard work and toil!
I forgot who said this but it went something along the lines of this:
Wealth is like the gravy in life. It is that little bit extra that gives the great taste to a meal. But hard work and toil is like the bread. Without it the gravy is nowhere near as enjoyable. You need the bread with a little gravy on the side for a truly enjoyable meal.
Well, I DO RP, I heard often that people liked it. I had been invited to 5 different Factions, yet though never joined them.
I am an Independent, I like it that way and I would not even have the time to do it different. Furthermore I like my Big Ship. I play it exactly within the restrictions of the ID.
I don't want it to be nerved because of a boon flood.
Now, Some spoke of SRP's. .... They can't mean that honest. Have you ever filled out an SRP? The admins don't bother how much RP you do on the server. The only thing that counts are forum posts and flooding the forums is not the sign by which you can discover a good player. Writing a characterbackground in the forums is it neither.
The sign by which you discover a good player is his/her roleplay on the server and therefore a characterbaground in the forums is obsolete, it just has to be there in the players mind.
Now, I do not have much time, but though I could achieve my big ship by hard work and cooperation.
Therefore I state:
Leave the Balancing as it is right now.
I don't bother trying to make money anymore. I'd rather spend a few hours actually RPing my Angel then to spend hours trading just to get a decent ship for anything else.
' Wrote:We don't have to expect it. All we need is the necromancy skills to resurrect the old threads complaining about too many battleships flying around due to the obscene diamond-niobium profits that everyone demanded should go away immediately. Those threads resulted in the increase in capital ship prices from 4.84 to 4.85 in order to make future capital ships less numerous. The demands were nearly unanimous for higher capital ship prices. I remember those threads. Am I the only one?
Yes, because raising the battleship prices really stopped people from purchasing them en-mass. That did a whole lot of good, didn't it? I still see the same amount that there were in 4.84, not nearly as much as 4.83 and back, though. Also, we raised BS prices because there were too many, we nerfed the diamond-niobium run that was insane (and a lot of people still have billions stored from), then we proceeded to nerf the piss out of everything else.
The person who said that "not having enough time to trade is stupid" or what not? You obviously don't have a family (I'm possibly getting married soon), a full time job, or anything else to do while trading. I play other games as well and I'm not on Discovery 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nor 365 days a year. I have friends, family, a job, and a lot of other stuff to deal with than to sit in front of a screen for eight hours once off work to make a little less than 200 mil per night. I just don't have the time for that. So, whoever said that the excuse for not enough time is stupid? Get a life. Flame me for saying that, I don't care.
Xoria, again, sorry for saying what I had before, I was frustrated and I allowed that to come out. You spent a lot of time on the trading system and I see that now. I never meant to trash your work in any way with my words. But you have to kind of see it from our point of view too about the economy right now. I'm sure you have a job as well, like many of us here do, and don't have a lot of time to play games. What you do with the economy is done in your spare time. But, people like me and a couple of others work in excess of 12 hours a day (I generally work 16+ hours a day doing my job). When we get home, all we want to do is RP for a little while, maybe an hour, and then get some sleep. Not stay up for that hour trading to only make 20 million credits.
The ignorance of some of the community members simply astounds me right now. These people who come into this thread saying some of the things they have been saying not only pisses me off, it makes me want to reach through the monitor and punch them square in the face. If you don't have anything constructive to add to this discussion then kindly stay the hell out. Don't come in here preaching to me that even after working my ass off I can still function properly on the server when the trading/mining/missions is/are the way it is.
' Wrote:Yes. But I can barely stand trading for more than 30 minutes now. Why? Not because I'm lazy or impatient, because I've done the route so many times, it has become a chore to do it.
' Wrote:The subject of this thread is approximately 1/3rd of why I currently RP as a forum troll and not a very egotistical and proud liner captain who should have much more money than he actually does. Trading (of any kind) deserves to be profitable and enjoyable, not a hopeless grind designed to keep players away from Battleships and feed the pirates.
Love,
Epps
EDIT: Oh, bloody hell, Caw, is that your excuse? We can't make money just to have it? I gave up on maintaining any ships except my supposed moneymaker and still couldn't make a profit, not to mention the only RP I ever got out of it usually ended in me being destroyed by some arse in a bomber or a Ptrans because, in the end, the pirates want their money (don't you dare deny it), and that nice blue message. My profit margins sucked flying the best possible runs I could, and I wasn't even buying anything! Not to mention I couldn't fly 5K without being pirated unless I wanted to avoid tradelanes and take half a bloody hour on a run that grossed seven million credits. Don't you DARE tell us that we only trade because we want Battleships.
' Wrote:I actually -really- like this thread and agree with the sentiments of the original poster, and not because I'm friends with him.
Some of you might know that I used to have a Slave Liner, that I roleplayed with quite considerably much, some of you may also know that this very same ship was one of my favorite characters, as well as my primary source of income, and believe it or not, it takes a crapload of money to maintain just six characters, all in fighters/bombers.
I didn't mind the Slaves/Cardi route, I usually had fun with it and I usually made a decent profit with it, then -somebody- ****ed with it, messed it all up and made it less profitable. Is it still profitable? sure. Do I still want to spend 20/30 minutes flying through pirate or house territory, getting raped sideways for what it's worth now? No, no I don't.
This is not the only route that was previously worth large amounts of money that is now not worth as much be it money wise or time wise.
I've had Miners, I've had Slavers/Smugglers, I've even had lawful traders and my current trader is quasi-lawful.
It got to the point where I had to start selling ships (And not to other people, but going in game, flying to a station and selling ships) because I was so strapped and desperate for cash to maintain the few characters I have, because of the economic crap, in this game.
The economy, both lawful and unlawful, needs to be revised and fixed, for goodness sake, give people some incentive to -want- to fly these routes.
The powers that be want people in game to explore, they want people to not stick to one area, to see every area, the best way to do this is trading, you want us to trade to make money to fund our own ventures...
Then you take away the profit of certain routes, and what? people wonder why when people start complaining about the Disco economy?
Just make routes profitable again.
Oh I know there's routes out there that are profitable if you bounce all over the place i.e
Take this good here, then take that good there, then go here and there and to this place and that place and at the end of an hour you'll have a bajillion credits!
-why- do we have to do that, just to make a decent amount of money?
There's just absolutely no incentive to make people want to do that, other than making alot of money.
Also: On a side note, I think the largest amount of credits I've ever had at one time in my entire time here, was around 600mil, and most of it was given to me by somebody who left Disco and gave me their stuff...
Another addition: I don't normally complain about the way that things in game are managed by the powers that be but...this is one thing I think definantley needs a major fix.
' Wrote:Ships, factions, paying off people, improving my RP, expanding my RP.
Since when do poor people get the best RP?
' Wrote:No problem at all.
But to number crunch; It costs 500million to get an official faction status, correct? It also costs 500 million (EDIT: Or was that 1 billion?) if you want a system for your faction.
If I wanted get these two factions official, I'd be looking at 1 billion. If I by chance was allowed a system for both of them, 2 billion.
At maybe enough patience to do the same route every day for about 50-75mil a day, let's say 60 average, I'd be looking at 33 and 1/3 day of trading at 60 mil every day.
I can barely do four days before going on to roleplay on real characters for a few weeks.
' Wrote:Gotta agree with Mag here, I have a job and a family, I can't spend hours and hours to trade, get hit by 5 Pirates with "10Mill R Dai" (Don't tell me they don't, because if you do I will show you a liar) and end up with nothing. Trading is bad, mining is worse. Yes, I understand the economy was nerfed to keep Tweedle-LOL and Tweedle-LOLER from getting cap ships. Doesn't seem to have stopped them. In fact, I would say it encouraged them to become pirates...And end up with caps anyways.
WTF?
This is a space-trading game. You trade, avoid pirates (and lawfuls), you mine a little, you pirate a little. You switch characters, switch runs, start NEW characters, try different ways of doing things.
In RL i run three businesses and maintain a long-distance relationship, where some weekends im 1500km away from FL. I also have friends who expect me to drink the beers that they buy me.
In an average trading run, i make approx 40m an hour. and never see any other trader nor pirate. the only time i get any rp action is when i do a silly run and drop off some cardi on manhatten for the funsies.
I have restarted from scratch so many freaking times, its not funny. i have earned single-handedly the 500m for the official status, and purchased 3x eagles and 3x preagles, plus armour, plus codies for all 20+ of the WT... all gone in a playerwipe by now probably. I have lost ships with over 100 codies on them, and have pulled myself up by the bootstraps and have carried on regardless.
STOP DOING POINT-TO-POINT trading runs. they will kill your brain and make you want to quit FL. you are nothing but a target for pirates and other unscrupulous characters. you know the phrase 'same "stuff", different day'? well, that's what is happening here. IF everyone does the same route, the prices at the other end SHOULD drop.
This is my second disco-day, and i do not want to go back to 4.84, and the horrible noob run scenario, where if you wanted rp you had to go to sig 13 or ny. This is a really really good mod, and the economy is just right. anyone wants to learn some of my routes to earn 40m an hour in a ptrans.... skype me: Difficult Customer
Always Ptrans, always smuggling. Always. It seems that makein' yer bucks is always increasingly OORP these days. And, Unlike you coin, we simply, and I will put this in bold, Underlined, Size Seven font:
WE JUST DONT HAVE THE TIME
Furthermore, Not anyone has your kind of motivation either. The second Disco begins to impinge on RL, I dump it. Simple as pie.
els: i hear you, and i feel your pain. i've not played fl in over a week, and it dont look like im gonna get on much in next week either. but having half hour spare here and there, you can make a short run to the next base, and log out... there is always five mins in the day to grind out a little bit of cash.
and while im flying, i write moar arr pee story... i've now got 6 chapters to upload. the premise 'write what you know' holds good, so i go and fly those ships i write about, and see those places, and meet those npc's and write down their names. it fills the gap in the game.
however, are you asking for trading to be retro-fitted? shouldn't the efforts of someone who likes trading, and can fit it in around rl, be rewarded a little bit more than someone who can only trade one hour a month?
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