(12-09-2018, 06:38 PM)Thunderer Wrote: I think that cap missions should require more than one player. This way trading might get back into vogue.
I stopped trading because it began to require more than one person and so I couldn't make a profit i thought was worth it when considering the time needed to do certain routes alone regardless of pobs.
As well as how like... no one even done the routes I done and it wasn't worth the time buying 5k'ers for every faction. All the convoys were silly rp whores who, believe it or not, didn't actually make it easy to get in on the convoys for any cash they were gaining.
I started doing cap missions in bretonia and the omicrons.
Then they for a while were made so a single battleship would got rofl stomped trying to complete a 3-6 million mission and so with that final nail in the coffin I quit giving a **** and began to only log in once a month for activity or to see what was going on in conn.
But that's just my experience dancing around sirius with various serenities and 5k'ers then trying to turn over some profit with my battleships.
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I agree with the OP and Meph.
Any discussion similar to this one will always come down to the long-overdue jumphole rework which is necessary to streamline player flow and standardize routes. They will (have to) do it eventually, but the more it’s delayed the more the playerbase suffers.
(12-09-2018, 07:10 PM)Mephistoles Wrote: My opinion is that all ores should be balanced for the same cr/sec, with a cycling buff that has one ore a bit more profitable than the others for a short time. Maybe one week on, one week off, with each ore getting its turn at being slightly buffed. I would imagine this would be a good player concentrator.
I think this has already been tried a few years ago. Every week or so a mineable commodity was buffed. Don't know why that idea was dropped. Anyway +1
Some of the changes made to mining were not that good after all. Like they eliminated a bunch of mineable areas and some ores like nobium, in the hopes that reducing the amount of options would curb players into taking the same path. Since then though mining now seems limited to only a few active areas. Mining in Tau-23 is beyond dead, and that was the most active mining area in the game for years. Once that was dead, half of Sirius seemed to die too. I'm sure Gallia taking over the area did wonders for it was well, since the majorty of time most players, even IMG, were not that friendly to Gallia.
I feel like a lot has been lost by not having as many options. This has to do with piracy as much as mining and trade to me. When you could mine out in Leeds, or in both places in Tau-23, it seemd like you would still find the odd guy out there trying to be discreet about it. People had their preferred routes, preferred mining areas, preferred piratable areas...and cutting tons of both just made a lot of people say screw it, and turn to cap missions, or simply buying and selling cargos from base to base, never even straying from the trade lanes.
So, people wanted to mine where they wanted to, and what they wanted to, and didnt like being herded like sheep. They just let it die. When I started piracy I was always mostly pirating miners. Then that dried up and you actually find more along the lanes now. Last problem is politics...which sometimes lead to good routes or bad ones. Like when Kusari and Rheinland were at peace, the route through Honshu and Sigma-13 was one of the last really active routes for non liberty/bretonian ships...now dead due to war.
So I found it better with more mining areas. Yes, make the drops all (mostly) the same so you wont just assume miners will always be at the best spot, because they wont take obvious bait. Bring back scrap mining to Leeds, New London, Cambridge, hell ANYWHERE there is an actual field. That would increase your chances of coming across someone out there in all that unused space we used to use. I had no problem watching those systems for suspected miners too, you never knew what you might come across. To me focusing routes and resources to bread baskets doesnt work. Increase our options, dont limit them.
Even have some bases experiencing water and oxygen shortages all the time so you could even mine water and oxygen for a decent profit to certain locations.. and you might find people out in obsure areas of systems now normally dead. I even toyed with the idea of most water and oxygen in Sirius being much higher in value, so only few corporate bases would just sell them cheap, and o you might actually want to go mine your water and oxygen for your base. For those saying 'I couldnt be bothered with all that!'....contract it out!
The solution is simple, 2 tiers of mining fields, 1 with a 'pro' drop rate that is super high (well commercialized field) and another for all other mining fields with a decent drop rate for non corprorate, discreet types looking to take a chance at finding a reliable source elsewhere. Making the searching of these places and playing around them worth while again.
Some will argue not to open up the options like 'oh but all the searching, you'll never find anyone!' but when people know there are more options, more abilities, more content, they find more reason to log on, with hopes of more chances to succeed in their own way. Add like 10-15 new mining zones (to old mining areas we used to know), with decent drop rates for any commodity, and you'll see people out looking for opportunity again.
With many mining zones, it wouldnt even be the end of the world to see people setting up POB's near a field, since there will always be others, and those trying to build mining ops might have something to do between mining, and dealing with local criminals (or competing miners). This stuff wasnt bad when we had people to play it out, but to increase population in a game like this, we need to compete a bit. The best way to do that is increase content. Why focus routes and change jump networks when we could add more things to spice up existing routes. And I dont just mean with commodity rushes, but by adding some new concepts to the game, new content entirely.
I do like the idea of all ores having the same profit/sec, with one "ore rush" commodity cycled out every week. This keeps things lively in different sectors of the game, so that different factions each week get their chance at an Activity Rush.
I also like the idea of two different drop rates for some ores, with the higher drop rate field certainly focused on attracting more people, thus encouraging interactions. Still, with player counts being what they are, I'm not sure if more fields spread out over the entire galaxy is the solution here.
To add my own thoughts here, I like mining fields that have multiple different ore types clustered together. Omega-7 (at least in the past; I'm not sure how it is now) is a prime example of this, having had all Silver, Copper and Cobalt in one area, with each ore type having different end destinations. Fields like this are neat for a few reasons - A: The player can choose which ore to mine, based on where they'd like to travel, and B: It further condenses interactions since multiple fields are next to each other. More fields in one location = More players there, which are all miners, security, pirates, mercenaries/hunters, or any combination thereof.
Honestly, it would be neat if the Omegas, Taus, Sigmas, Omicrons, and some border worlds all had multi-ore cluster fields. This would allow each portion of the game the same variety!
Lastly, I just had an interesting thought. What if we had one or two fields in the game where there are two ore types in the same field? One ore would be considered a "junk" ore, while the other ore is highly valuable but with a lower drop rate. This forces the miner/transport to sift through the junk to get to the good stuff, which is more reminiscent of real-life mining - Ores usually aren't 100% pure; they're mixed with unwanted, unprofitable stone, dirt, clay, etc. This means more time spent in the field, which creates a bigger window of opportunity for random RP.
Im gonna chime in as I think I am the only person currently running nothing but a transporter in game and RP. I flew in Disco for several months before ever speaking in the forums. I read tons of RP threads in that time to catch up on as much of the game as I could. So I will drop what I have seen from a newbie perspective in Discovery.
Lets start with the obvious reason the average person doesnt do mining/trading, or transporting: until you get aove a 2k cargo hold, the pay sucks dick. The risk from even mob pirates is crazy in some areas for starting players. Then you have to fly it half way across the game to make any reasonable money, again risking instagib from most pirates. God forbid you run into an actual player pirate or just someone red tagged. You hurry and dump your load praying they dont decide to gib you anyway for being unfriendly to their faction. 8 seconds to type a multi word response is *****, and usually its a demand followed immediately with gunfire so replying is pointless anyway.
And as for strictly shipping runs(buy it and fly it), the pay is way better for newbies, but again you have to take shipments to places that will gib you in 2-3 shots in most ships under 2k hold capacity. The best, safest, and highest paying routes are in vanilla gamespace . And most new people come here when they see how much new stuff has been added. So when you find out the best places for your play style are still in vanilla space, it loses the appeal very quickly.
Then there is the RP side. No respect. If you're not running a suped up battleship of some kind, nobody cares. So what if you moved the majority of the material for someone's new base expansion. The guys you hired for protection get all the credit(and pay), but the transporter is the one who is out the cost of the shipment if the trip is a failure. Even if you flew solo every trip with nothing but the skin of your ship(literally) and a cargo hold overstuffed during peak activity through hot systems with no gates, nobody cares.
So they stop. Or they at least switch to a fighter class and give up most cargo running unless necessary for an RP.
Im sticking it out as a transporter. But I doubt many others will. Im just stubborn and like the extreme challenge it now presents as a pilot.
1 last thing to help with more players in the RP forum. Someone has to take the time and consolidate the timeline. Too much has happened and is spread across way too many threads for the average person to get a good idea of wtf is going on. This is probably the most tedious and daunting task, but the confusion most people probably feel when trying to get up to date on the RP of the game is overwhelming. 1 major recap thread section for evey group, new and old. Leave out the minor RP details. And yes I know this technically exists, but it is wwaaaaaaaaayyyyyy out of date, and often just references events in other threads via link(which reference full RPs and other events in them). We dont want rabbit holes when we first join in to get a feel for the game. We need Cliff Notes not Encyclopedia Britania.