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Topic: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Read thru a number of the other posts, and I haven't really found anything that does any more than add a bit here and there to some of the points in my head.

--My experience, not entirely relevant to the idea--
First,  a bit about me. I have one combat pilot, and four miners, which can all run rivelers, or lithus. I have spent a fair few hours mining, as well as many hours running survey scans on alpha, and beta islands (Norhoop, and Hokkogaros). I have mined extensively in other games, as well as partaking in industrial parts of those games as well, and hold a decent understanding of real life economics. I do not profess to know everything, but with this experience, just know that my opionions are not of a new miner having spent 30 minutes, before being frustrated.
-----------------------------

--A diagnosis of the situation--
Fact: It is possible to make an equivelant amount of isk, running hauler missions back and forth on alpha islands, in a sequer, when we take into account the amount of time spent finding a decent epriton field, mining it out, bringing it to a place to sell, and the occasional loss collecting the epriton.

Fact: On alpha and beta islands, many very large stretches of the islands are completely devoid of minerals and liquids, with them only appearing in VERY sparse very small patches in these barren sections. Some outposts have alot of different minerals near them, some have practically none.

Fact: There are large areas that are completely unused, for lack of worthwhile resources, or targets to be hunted, serving little other purpose, than artifact scanning.

How does this affect the game?

Players will be drawn to what is profitable, and accessable. Considering it is far less skill intensive to do hauling missions, and contains a VERY low level of risk, many players are drawn to hauling missions, which add nic to the gain, but provide no other benefit to the economy, or game itself. As they do not leave alpha islands, they do not provide targets to pvpers. As they do not deplete ammunition, or lose bots, they do not feed from the market. As they do not produce new materials, components, or finished products, they do not add to the market, or economy. Hauling missions are the real world equivelant of mints printing additional money.


----The cures!----
Did this serve a place in the game? Yes, it did, at first, to have industrialists help put initial money into the game, so that people could start to afford stuff, get their first termis', sequers, etc. However, now, hauler missions are a singular benefit activity. Whislt bringing nic into the game, which is good, they also make people bored very quickly, those that ARENT botting doing it (Which you cannot argue that people do not do, as I have heard people admitting to doing so). As such, I would argue that hauler missions do more harm, then good, to perpetuum. People do them instead of combat missions, or mining, get bored, then find a fun game. Eliminate them. People will get by just fine with survey missions, mining missions, and the other variety of combat-like missions.

Enough about hauler missions. Wether or not you remove them, should mining not be more profitable than them?
Yes! Dont be crazy, of course it should. a more skill intensive, time intensive, attention requiring, higher risk activity should pay out way more than hauler missions, on a scale increasing as each of those factors are higher as a point of comparison. Thus, it is reasonable to say that mining titan or HDT on an alpha island should only be slightly more profitable than alpha island hauling missions, but something like stermonit or epriton mining (both rare and valuable minerals) SHOULD be vastly more profitable. There are three main approaches to this. The first approach, the one that has been taken, is to reduce the supply and accessability of minerals, so that less people will collect them, and that they are harder to collect. Thus, less are on the market, and in theory, demand with reduced supply should dictate higher prices. In theory, I suppose this could make sense, if you didn't really think it through. In actuality, this is horrible. It does not increase the value of minerals, but rather, starves the market of them. This leads to a chain reaction, that kills the entire game.

This is the current cycle we are on.

1) Mineral fields are relocated, to be farther from outposts, and less bountiful. (This is what I found based on EXTENSIVE scanning done before, and after the last mineral field -shifting)
2) Less people can find minerals, and have a harder time aquiring them. Those that continue to mine, bring in less, wheras other miners switch to now-more-profitable activities, like hauling and combat missions
3) Less minerals reach the market, meaning the list of buy orders becomes longer, and the list of sell orders becomes shorter and shorter. Less people are able to aquire the materials they need for their building projects.
4) Less production occurs, less supply shows up on the market, less variation of what is available, and less competition, meaning higher prices, when people take the risk to post new things up. Products like medium weaponry and ammo are unreliable for purchase, and thus, people dont even bother training for them.
5) The market becomes even emptier, and more expensive. People cannot find the stuff they need, and are forced to comprimise.
6) The game continues into a spiraling degenerative cycle.


The second approach, that could be taken, to make mining more profitable, is to do the opposite of what has been done, that being, to increase the availability of minerals. Bring back minerals near outposts that are devoid of them, put them back in decent quantities, that we are able to find, but also, that are worth mining. Why do 0.4% and 0.8% imentium patches even exist 3000m from outposts on alpha islands? Now I'm not suggesting that we flood alpha islands with minerals, and take away the point of going to beta, but rather, im suggesting that we propogate higher quantities of low end minerals near alpha outposts, but only certain types near certain outposts, whereas on beta islands, higher quantities of higher end minerals would be seeded. Keep only a couple select types near each outpost, say, HDT and Titan near one, Liquizit and Stermonit near another, Imentium and Epriton near another. Why? This forces people to trade, or move around. It makes it so that an alliance cannot serve all it's needs from one small places, nor can industrialists. As for improving the quantities, how could this possibly make it more profitable? Well, as I illustrated before, removing minerals, leads into a degenerative cycle of decay, so the inverse logically will be growth. Providing more materials will mean more builders are aquiring the resources they need, at cheaper prices with the competition. We will see a healthier market, more people having money from their sales to buy fancy toys to play with, and with all these extra miners moving around picking up the increased mineral deposits, there will be more for the pvpers to do. Its a circle, like nature. You don't make it stronger by taking the basic elements away, you make it stronger by reinforcing them.

The third option, is the most potentially radical. Keep in mind, it would likely be neccessary to increase the amount of minerals present in the game, as outlined in option 2, for this to work. I propose, that there are item buy orders up on the market, by NPC corporations. Perhaps availability would be affected by standing, but payout would NOT. An example of a buy order would be say, 20 kains, at ICS Beta outpost. Buy orders would vary, and while the same ones would reoccur from time to time (not on a fixed schedule neccessarily), the same buy orders would not always be available. Industrialists would be encouraged to diversify their portfolio. Buy orders would be similar to contracts, in that the value assosciated would be calculated off of mineral trading averages, designed to keep minerals up at reasonable prices, but not drive them up so high as to cause it to be un-profitable to sell to other players. Player purchases should ideally drive the market, and for the most part, dictate prices of materials and the process, however, this would supplement demand in the market, which is currently quite pitiful. Producers would also occasionally be stuck with product they would like to sell, as an order was filled before they could sell to it, so their would be much more variety on the market. As a sub-enterprise, you would find people putting up buy orders for various goods, to transport them from various hubs, to where the buy orders pop up, as such, you are creating a GOOD type of hauler missions. A player driven one, that rewards them for ingenuity, and removes some of the risk from producers. While some might argue that we should add npc buy orders to the base minerals to the game, instead, I feel that cuts producers and other industrialists out of the equation, instead of helping to stimulate our economy, not to mention there are already tons of buy orders.


At the end of the day, there are simply not enough minerals being mined, because it is not worth your time to do so.

I have one other solution, that may help with this. Why not have a change in the terrain, that reflects minerals are present in relative close proximity?Currently, the fastest way to explore for minerals is to drive around with universal scan charges and drop one every 80m or so. Yes, you can still miss smaller fields, but it is much faster and more efficient than going over a large area 7 or 8 times with different area scanner charges. Im not asking for giant protrusions showing a specific material, but at least slightly bulbous discolourations in the soil or rock, maybe liquid puddles, or something visual of the sort, so that we would know minerals are nearby, and dont have to blindly map out ever square block of an island just to finally find some minerals in a small quantity after 2 hours and 400 universal charges.

Thanks for reading. Hope you agree. If you do or don't please reply. Always looking for new ideas.

Good thing there isnt a character limit...

Hacksaw

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

LE;DR (Long Enough, Did Read)

Great post, I think it shows a great community when people take the time to elaborate their points of view and feed back into the games development.

On the post, I wholeheartedly agree!!! I have posted similar thoughts in the past, making the foundation of all other processes (materials) harder to obtain and generally more boring to obtain has done the complete opposite of what was needed. It achieved the DEV goal of removing a massive problem which contributed to the insurance issue but the end effect has annihilated the Market.

The main issues are the ones you hit on perfectly, when mins are hard to obtain, supply dries up and those mechanics in the game which previously were not as profitable become so. as I have said before, killing the bottom of the pyramid does nothing bunt make the pyramid smaller and therefore effects everything above it. If you want a thriving Market you need to adopt the things which have been said above and before, increase demand for minerals by adding higher level sinks.

-- Making minerals more available makes lower tier bots less onerous to replace , therefore people are more willing to fight as loss is less painful.

-- Higher level sinks like larger bots, POS, constructions whatever which take large amounts of minerals encourages trade and competition

-- At the moment everything can be obtained by everyone on beta, make certain mineral types more prevalent on some islands, with the new islands coming in, split the minerals across two betas so no one beta has lots of each type. This encourages, if not mandates trade.

Right now, it's just too painful to mine. When I go to alpha, I see far more long time alts running transpot than I do seeing anyone mining. This is bad for the economy, bad for player interaction and therefore bad for game.

The bottom of the pyramid needs to grow, this will only happen if there is appropriate demand above and the willingness (and playability) to actually supply in at the bottom.

"like Kalsius, a shameless carebear and jitalover" - Syndic
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3 Reply by Natasya (edited by Natasya 2011-03-19 12:40:31)

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

+1

... and it should be high priority. The patch today does nothing for it. ... Well a patch on saturday.

SOE did make patches on Saturdays, Sundays, too. But they learned about that 8 years ago ...

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Great post. I wholeheartedly agree. Economy needs to grow at the bottom to be self-sustainable

5 Reply by Ral (edited by Ral 2011-03-20 18:40:12)

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Hmm.

As a full-time miner (with one account plus a hauler alt), I somewhat disagree.  I do believe that hauling missions are too good, and should be nerfed or removed.  However, this game has CONSIDERABLE NIC sinks, that other games don't have as many of.  Miners pay a significant amount in miner charges to NPC corps, that is NIC leaving the game.  Repairs, factory costs for all production, etc, lead to a LOT of NIC leaving the game.  That has to be replaced somewhere, and we don't have NPC bounties.  Yes there are kernel buy orders but kernels are needed by players so aren't a strict source of new NIC the way bounties or mission rewards are.  Missions are essentially the only large source of new NIC in the game.

Now, I agree that as risk and involvement increase, so should reward.  Hauling missions should pay the very least of all the types and should be mostly pointless unless you are already going to that station for another reason, and have some room left.

Combat missions, likewise, should pay 10x what they do now.  Mining missions should pay more, and should allow the possibility of mining the required minerals at a location of the player's choosing.

Where I disagree with you is that we need more minerals in more locations.  Again, as a full-time miner, I have no problem at all mining as much of anything I want any time.  Even the Imentium fields 3000m from main stations are ALWAYS there for me, even when other miners are using them at the same time.  I believe the regeneration algorithms are very generous, but I have not measured it in any meaningful way.

tl;dr
From the perspective of a full-time miner, I think mineral location/scarcity is fine as it is now, hauling missions should be significantly nerfed but not removed, other missions should be significantly buffed, and missions have a very necessary place in the game to prevent hyper-deflation of NIC.

OR

...missions should be removed altogether and a complex contract system should allow players to create missions for other players.  And something like NPC bounties are added to bring new NIC into the game.

Ral's Mining Guide http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/post/25891

6 Reply by Arronicus (edited by Arronicus 2011-03-20 20:18:45)

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

As we seem to be in complete agreement on some parts, like hauler missions paying more than they should, or other missions underpaying, not much point discussing that, but I feel it prudent to bring up some of the areas where we dont see quite eye to eye.

Instead of quoting the entire post, im going to snip out just a few key little sections to reply to.


Ral wrote:

Hmm.

Point 1

  However, this game has CONSIDERABLE NIC sinks, that other games don't have as many of.  That has to be replaced somewhere, and we don't have NPC bounties.

Point 2

Mining missions should pay more, and should allow the possibility of mining the required minerals at a location of the player's choosing.

Point 3

Where I disagree with you is that we need more minerals in more locations.

Point 4

I believe the regeneration algorithms are very generous, but I have not measured it in any meaningful way.

Point 5

...missions should be removed altogether and a complex contract system should allow players to create missions for other players.


Point 1:

I can certainly agree on that front, when I started mining, I felt like I was constantly out of money, due almost exclusively to the sheer amount of Nic I was putting into mining charges. Consider though my proposed Npc buy order system. While encouraging industrialists to build bigger and different stuff (the easy stuff would always be getting sold right away), this would pump nic into the market at a nearly garaunteed rate, as long as it was worth the time/effort to be selling to these buy orders. Do you have an opinion on where this could take over the role and then some that hauler missions play?

Point 2:

This is one that I hope the devs have already been looking into. But then, I think alot of mining missions need a complete overhaul as is.

Point 3:

You disagree that we need more minerals in more locations, but you did not disagree with the point that some places have everything you need, and some places have nothing.  Ignoring for a moment the fact that they have reduced availability of minerals in the game and we HAVE seen the market growing smaller as a result, (Though yes, some of this is the result of alot of people who left the game, but we cant forget, alot of them left because of the reduction of availability and access to minerals) Do you not think it would be a good idea to push some of the existant minerals from surplus areas, to barren areas? Encourage trade, force people to leave their one little area, etc.

Point 4:

In regards to the mineral regeneration algoriths, with 1 miner, they are generous. with 2, the fields will run out in a few nights if mined for a few hours a day, on many beta mineral fields. With 4 (miners should be mining together in the first place, for safety) rivelers and decent skills (which really should be the point of comparison, as it only takes a few months to reach this point) most fields dry up in very short order, from a few hours, to a few nights on the massive ones, and regenerate at a rate nowhere near worth your time of keeping more than 1 bot behind. Ive seen some of the OLD alpha ones regenerate nicely, with a few arganos on them, but with a bunch of rivelers around, most stuff dries up fast. Compared to the fact that missions never 'run out', should you have to go find a new mining area every few nights? Now, I didn't create this post to try to get the devs to revise mineral regeneration, I just think, in terms of them wanting player population to be much higher than it is, if we got 10x the people in the game as there is now, the mineral fields are all going to be dry, constantly.

Point 5:

You will have to elaborate on this, as I dont think I have ever seen a game implement a player created mission system for actual rewards that worked. In a different thread though. I am curious.

-Hacksaw


(Post edited for clarity)

7 Reply by Ral (edited by Ral 2011-03-20 21:22:29)

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Arronicus wrote:

As we seem to be in complete agreement on some parts, like hauler missions paying more than they should, or other missions underpaying, not much point discussing that, but I feel it prudent to bring up some of the areas where we dont see quite eye to eye.

Instead of quoting the entire post, im going to snip out just a few key little sections to reply to.


Ral wrote:

Hmm.

Point 1

  However, this game has CONSIDERABLE NIC sinks, that other games don't have as many of.  That has to be replaced somewhere, and we don't have NPC bounties.

Point 2

Mining missions should pay more, and should allow the possibility of mining the required minerals at a location of the player's choosing.

Point 3

Where I disagree with you is that we need more minerals in more locations.

Point 4

I believe the regeneration algorithms are very generous, but I have not measured it in any meaningful way.

Point 5

...missions should be removed altogether and a complex contract system should allow players to create missions for other players.


Point 1:

I can certainly agree on that front, when I started mining, I felt like I was constantly out of money, due almost exclusively to the sheer amount of Nic I was putting into mining charges. Consider though my proposed Npc buy order system. While encouraging industrialists to build bigger and different stuff (the easy stuff would always be getting sold right away), this would pump nic into the market at a nearly garaunteed rate, as long as it was worth the time/effort to be selling to these buy orders. Do you have an opinion on where this could take over the role and then some that hauler missions play?

Point 2:

This is one that I hope the devs have already been looking into. But then, I think alot of mining missions need a complete overhaul as is.

Point 3:

You disagree that we need more minerals in more locations, but you did not disagree with the point that some places have everything you need, and some places have nothing.  Ignoring for a moment the fact that they have reduced availability of minerals in the game and we HAVE seen the market growing smaller as a result, (Though yes, some of this is the result of alot of people who left the game, but we cant forget, alot of them left because of the reduction of availability and access to minerals) Do you not think it would be a good idea to push some of the existant minerals from surplus areas, to barren areas? Encourage trade, force people to leave their one little area, etc.

Point 4:

In regards to the mineral regeneration algoriths, with 1 miner, they are generous. with 2, the fields will run out in a few nights if mined for a few hours a day, on many beta mineral fields. With 4 (miners should be mining together in the first place, for safety) rivelers and decent skills (which really should be the point of comparison, as it only takes a few months to reach this point) most fields dry up in very short order, from a few hours, to a few nights on the massive ones, and regenerate at a rate nowhere near worth your time of keeping more than 1 bot behind. Ive seen some of the OLD alpha ones regenerate nicely, with a few arganos on them, but with a bunch of rivelers around, most stuff dries up fast. Compared to the fact that missions never 'run out', should you have to go find a new mining area every few nights? Now, I didn't create this post to try to get the devs to revise mineral regeneration, I just think, in terms of them wanting player population to be much higher than it is, if we got 10x the people in the game as there is now, the mineral fields are all going to be dry, constantly.

Point 5:

You will have to elaborate on this, as I dont think I have ever seen a game implement a player created mission system for actual rewards that worked. In a different thread though. I am curious.

-Hacksaw


(Post edited for clarity)

Point 1: The NPC buy order system is technically sound.  I just don't like it because its artificial, and everything attractive about this game to me is that it is a player-created sandbox.  Other than the "pilot light" items, like miner charges and ammo, everything should be player bought and sold.  And even those items, I'd like to see people undercutting the NPCs more.

Yes players manufacturing items to sell to NPCs is better than hauling missions, but I would support it in a temporary fashion only, to get the game moving.

Point 3: I do agree with you that there shouldn't be valuable minerals very close to stations.  There should be common minerals close to stations though.  My reasoning for this is that I think the game should be completely accessible for every play style with only one account.  Miners would need to be able to get to base and back within 10 minutes.  However, placing rarer minerals farther away encourage teamwork (or alts, but basically the same thing), because with a hauling character everyone can mine more valuable material.

The other point I argued was that there are enough minerals in the game, but we get into that in...

Point 4: "With one miner, they are generous."  I am one miner, so that is my frame of reference, though I see no problem with a group having to continue moving to find more and more ore.  However, it should never get to a point where there is "nothing" to mine.  I can't speak to whether we are at that point or not, as I am one 3 week old character with a Termis.

I personally favor a system where once fields are mined, they regenerate in a random new location, like artifacts, but not specific to the agent playing.  As it is now I have no use for Area charges since I have bookmarked where I can find everything, and that seems unrealistic, as well as de-emphasizing the scanning skills' importance.

I'm sure that as more players play the game, more minerals will be added proportionally, if not dynamically, then in occasional patches.

Point 5: I talked a little about it here (http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/post/22263/#p22263).  I just see hauling and mining missions better served by a contract system, and bounty contracts being huge for combat players, not to mention pvp in general (corps hiring mercenaries, etc).

Ral's Mining Guide http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/post/25891
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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Arronicus wrote:

*snip*
most fields dry up in very short order, from a few hours, to a few nights on the massive ones, and regenerate at a rate nowhere near worth your time of keeping more than 1 bot behind.
*snip*

I havn't mined on beta since the resource reduction, but I did before, and we could easily harvest millions of units per session with a group of (4). I think the volume your talking about is similar, the only difference is we could never empty the field.

My question than is, although you may be mining out the X-ore in that field, are there no other minerals to mine? Sure, the corp may need Sterminite, but if there is a field of Titanium to mine, then the miners can continue to operate on that, then move to HDT, ect until the Sterm regenerates.

And that is assuming there is just 1 field of Sterm on the entire island, which is probably not the case. But you do have to share the fields with the other alliance members, which means there are maybe too many corporations on the beta island?

This sounds like exactly what the change was meant to do. Make resources less available, encourage trading... does your corp EVER trade? even within the alliance? I know we didn't.

Another point is beta miners do not mine for market NIC, or they shouldn't be.

TL;DR - Don't mix beta mining and Alpha mining, they are totally different dynamics. Alpha mining is not supposed to support groups of Rivelers endlessly raping the landscape, it is meant for small corps and solo players.

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Arga wrote:

Another point is beta miners do not mine for market NIC, or they shouldn't be.

TL;DR - Don't mix beta mining and Alpha mining, they are totally different dynamics. Alpha mining is not supposed to support groups of Rivelers endlessly raping the landscape, it is meant for small corps and solo players.


Some of my mining, unfortunately, HAS to be for market nic. Gotta pay for charges, mods that corp doesnt build, fancy equipment that hasnt been built by myself or corp yet. There really are alot of things i have to aquire nic for, and considering how slow alot of stuff sells, gotta make money somehow, and im not doing hauler missions heh. Would be hippocritical.

As for the fields I was drying up, they were liquid fields (mostly) on beta, but i wrecked a stermonit field in short order as well.

As for trade, thats what I -Want-, I want corps to have to trade minerals, or go different places for what they need. That being said, I think they need to make it so certain areas dont have nearly everything whereas others are left with practically nothing. To that point, I dont think any area around an outpost should have nothing to mine at all, but thats for another discussion, I guess. Put the minerals in decent quantities, but only 2-3 types nearish each outpost...

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Epitron should be the only ore being transported to alpha, alpha was never meant to supply beta production. This was one of the reasons alpha was nerfed, because beta corps could mine risk free 24/7 and most even set up alpha side production because the difference between level 2 and 3 factory didn't make up for the time needed to haul ore back to beta.

During the insurance thing, ore was being bought off alpha because they couldn't physically mine it fast enough to produce the level of bots they needed. But that was a false demand that burst.

But, I also don't see many miners out on alpha mining, and I do a lot of rolling around looking for artifacts. The ore is there, it is just harder to find and in smaller amounts, which translates to less NIC/hour.

Making mining produce more NIC/hour still depends on the market's willingness to buy the ore. And with no reason to produce, there just isn't the demand, as well as what I pointed out earlier, in that there is also no NIC for players to spend on produced items.

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Short answer Yes market is broke and No taking missions out will not fix it, that will kill the solo player and make it worse.

For starters the only people who care about relations are indy folks... lets change that.

Incorprate a Reputation market... IE each NPC corpration supplys you with different things once your Rep is high enough... But it needs a limit or value somehow. Like if a NPC corp sells or trades T4 equipment make its price equal to the markets or place a limit. Example One time mission from a corp would be bring a T1 sensor amp and some fragments to an out post reward is a T2 sensor amp. This would repeat for T2 -> T3 at a higher rep then again from T3-4 at max rep. Or have a one time Mission to Get a T2 Mech only at max rep.
Mining missions sould receive rep and the NPC corp giving the missions should offer mining equip/ charges at discounts at higher lvls.

1.Make the Payout for mining bigger and supply the mining charges at the start of the missions give multiple locations or make it a 2 part mission scan then mine.
2.Make scanning missions a 2-3 part mission ie. scan 4 locations and make the payout the mining charges for what was scanned, some nic and a decent rep gain for only one corp
3.Make bounty hunting missions longer 10-20 bot kills or make it spawn a special bot when you reach the area IE. bounty on a observer reach the bounty area and use a special mod to spawn the bounty bot. Reward Good nic, choice of ammo and decent rep gain
4.Make Recon missions "chassis scan" lower payment and possibly a premission to bounty hunting maybe a choice of ammo as reward.
5.Make Transport missions leave the idea alone, but reduce the payment drasticly but improve the rep gain.

High Nic low Rep -> High Rep low Nic rewards
Bounty / Recon / Mining / Scaning / Transport

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

The simple response, the fewer NPC buy and sell orders the better. While I like the idea of making reputation mean something to other than indy players, cutting the potential market for produced goods isn't good.

Granted, at this time Tiered items are not as abundant as i would like to see them on the market, and that's probably OK for this time frame. After T5+ is introduced we should see more T4 and down going to market (and more solo indy players getting research up to T4 as time progresses)

Currently, the rward for high faction for non-indy is access to better missions. But generally, if a player or corp doesn't interact with the NPC corps, standing has no meaning.

There should be some corporate standings with the NPC's. Its easy to see where ICS wouldn't really care about 1 player, or a 10 or 20 man corp, but something like a 200 or 300 player corp has to attract their attention in some way.

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

hmm, your always mentioning T5...

aside of T4 Prototypes you won't see any higher.
Next step in developement is implementing more variations of Equipment, not only higher tier ones which make you evem more powerfull then the guy with less money/time ingame.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear
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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Interesting...

I guess I just assumed that something like a T5 item would be introduced, with the T4 stats and add another effect that would normally require a slot. Like a T5 sensor amp locking range/time plus range fall off by 1%; T6 2% ect with fitting penalties like extra CPU (over that of a T4).

If all they do is add slots for larger bots, the best fits will alwys just be 'more' of the same. Bots with bigger CPU's and reactor but just 1 more slot (maybe, or the same number of slots) limtis the tech gap.

Going extreme, the super heavy mech has 10 weapons slots (for instance) and enough CPU/Reactor to run them. (10) T4 weapons would have an overwhelming advantage over (10) T1 weapons. But if the next size bot had the same large CPU/Reactor, which was needed just to equipe (5) T5 weapons with 1% extra damage over T4, then that would be less of an advantage.

Maybe I've missed something projecting this out. I know that other game just has two tiers and the ships just keep getting bigger, and I suppose that works for them.  I don't know.???

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Arga wrote:

The simple response, the fewer NPC buy and sell orders the better. While I like the idea of making reputation mean something to other than indy players, cutting the potential market for produced goods isn't good.

Currently, the rward for high faction for non-indy is access to better missions. But generally, if a player or corp doesn't interact with the NPC corps, standing has no meaning.

There should be some corporate standings with the NPC's. Its easy to see where ICS wouldn't really care about 1 player, or a 10 or 20 man corp, but something like a 200 or 300 player corp has to attract their attention in some way.

Ok I was not saying we give free stuff as rep rewards make it a mission like I said and a one time mission that takes time from 0.5 rep to 5.0 to get one T4 piece of equipment isn't cutting the market. Also make it like Dogtags in some other sci-fi game where you need to bring certain items to prove your worthiness to said corp.

And again with this big corp picture you still want to cut the solo or small corp outta the picture? I played multiple MMOs and being an American who has chosen to live in Germany means I'm not on any ones hot time I'm to late/early for almost every one even the UK gets rolling later than me. I am a solo gamer I trust no one cause they never trust the guy who's never on when they are. I see where your going with that statement but corp rep wont really help the situation or solve the problem which is mining vs ("moneyprinting") hauling.

Also don't think end game or 10 Patches from now this is a current problem with a current answer. Nerf the hauling missions payout and boost the mining missions payout and give free mining charges at the start of the mining mission. Simple fix for the problem at hand and the rest of this dreaming were doing can be implemented later.

No anger intended. smile

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Consider how this will impact the game, if mineral fields are expanded. The availability of minerals, notably Epriton is the ONLY limiting production factor for corporations like mine. With heavier fields, the Beta corporation production would skyrocket. We are already at the point where losing a squad of heavy mechs is "meaningless" in production terms, simply because there is so much ore coming in, that the lines are constantly churning out hundreds of mech/heavy mechs/bots on a weekly basis, nevermind just the mod production.

Consider how communist corporations (where everyone is working together for the good of the corp) will reign even more if more minerals are available. Capitalist corps would lose all outposts simply because communist corps could throw out wave after wave of mechs and heavy mechs, and grind them into oblivion.

That will be the new development in intrusion warfare... Waves after waves, rather then the intrusion being decided in one decisive battle, winner gets all.

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17 Reply by Campana (edited by Campana 2011-04-18 16:39:49)

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

I agree that hauling missions, particularly on alpha, are too easy. The amount of effort, attention and risk involved are minimal. They should be set up in such a way as to be attractive when combined with other missions rather than being their own day job.

I also agree that having some minerals not available or much less available on some beta islands would make the game a whole lot more interesting.

Some of the problems discussed are due to alliances being largely self supporting economic and industrial entities - this makes the market turnover very slow. The rest of the population isn't big enough (yet!) meaning solo industrialists can't make a lot of money.

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

we need a full overhaul of the mineral/component distribution in modules/robots.

after that they can redistribute materials among the islands without omnipotence of any island.
after that a market for stuff can build up.

and after that - imagine a T4 missile launcher coult not be built anywhere but in a rank III factory on a former pelistal outpost....

than, talk about nerfing any alpha dweller income.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear
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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Syndic wrote:

Consider how this will impact the game, if mineral fields are expanded. The availability of minerals, notably Epriton is the ONLY limiting production factor for corporations like mine. With heavier fields, the Beta corporation production would skyrocket. We are already at the point where losing a squad of heavy mechs is "meaningless" in production terms, simply because there is so much ore coming in, that the lines are constantly churning out hundreds of mech/heavy mechs/bots on a weekly basis, nevermind just the mod production.

Consider how communist corporations (where everyone is working together for the good of the corp) will reign even more if more minerals are available. Capitalist corps would lose all outposts simply because communist corps could throw out wave after wave of mechs and heavy mechs, and grind them into oblivion.

That will be the new development in intrusion warfare... Waves after waves, rather then the intrusion being decided in one decisive battle, winner gets all.


Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,  we have all heard it before.  Reality is that Capitalists can outproduce communists any day of the week if they have the resources.  Burn out from slave labor is far faster then burn out driving a shiny caddy, working 12 hrs a day.  With a working market more pressure from Alpha on Beta can happen. 

Nerfs, lose players.  When we say eliminate transport missions, we say we don't like you peeps so we will take your candy.  This is also reality, just like nerfing ores lost miners, as many posts have confirmed.  If the speed extension is X out we will lose more. Which is also posted in these forums. The arguments for all is valid, but prejudice shows when it is said to nerf, instead of balancing with a new idea.

I am liking the game, and the corp i am in sees new peeps.  I don't see anything worth grinding 12 hrs a day for yet.  But that might change. No wait i am not grinding...Shooting AI is not grinding for me. It is not a big deal if i don't make allot of cash doing that. But i wont be shooting them on Beta until i can afford to lose the bot, bots. And things are expensive. Or none existent, this shows that the market is behind. If you want me on Beta for lunch, the risk needs to be less. At least through the assaults.  I am not going to have 300 range for months, but t2 fittings should at least be common for rookies.

O wait, i put in my agenda, my bad...

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

In this game, the all for one corp structure is currently the winning model. Personally the only thing I don't like about the model is if you leave the corp, you as a member have nothing to show for your time since everything you did or got was corp property. But it is a strong model and provides lots of incentive for not leaving the corp.

everyone seems to forget that the decline in carebear agent activity started well before the change to mining. Much of which had nothing to do with game mechanics at all. My sample size is small, but I would postulate that many of the first waves of indy players to leave were US players that didn't fit into the socialist corp model, and the corps that didn't use that model were not competitive.

The mining change took out another chunk of capitalist players going solo after leaving sinking and socialist corps; again that's a generalization and not a reason why any one particular player left. This makes sense because as Smokeyii pointed out in the other thread, previous to that change, mining was like printing NIC. The broken market did the rest of the damage on capitalist players.

There are still profit driven players, but they are few, and not to be confused with agents earning NIC to PVP, but pure capitalists playing purely to see how much NIC they could amass.

--- As I said, this is conjecture and speculation based on a limited number of conversations; your milage may vary.

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

RGR. Arga:


I came from a working capitalist model.  I now am learning more about the corp structure.

When i say working model, it means all trades, miner, hauler, fighter, looter, crafter, make the same cash per hr of play time. Based on the casual model of play of 2 hrs a day.  Time to make enough cash for one fighter to recover from a death is shorter then the 2hr equal cash earned.  These ratios can all be adjusted to match risk/reward/loss/anti zerg/.  Not by changing the cash per hr ratios, but through inflation. One of the problems of this system as it is with the current system is supply.  If a player cant equip his ride, he logs or grinds, until someone puts the wanted item, items, on the market, or his corp decides to make some just for him..

When a intensive grind game is made, burnout is the main reason peeps stop playing.  Exploiting a game mech to justify why they quit is common.  Because leaders need the same amount of production with fewer players.  Which makes your post unbiased and a wake up call.

Thanks for the insight...zoom,,,i have to go grind to pay for a light EW bot...

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

zigZag wrote:

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,  we have all heard it before.  Reality is that Capitalists can outproduce communists any day of the week if they have the resources.  Burn out from slave labor is far faster then burn out driving a shiny caddy, working 12 hrs a day.  With a working market more pressure from Alpha on Beta can happen.

Youre a new player so its easy to make that mistake because you dont know what youre talking about.

Yes... Its nice to drive a caddy. But its nicer to blow up 10 caddies a day, receive your 11th one fully fitted, reinsure it and have another go. The real life yankeedoodle analogy doesn't fit in a game that rewards players for playing together towards 1 common goal.

Given infinite resources, a communist corporation will ALWAYS outproduce a capitalist one. Why? You can mine your resources, so you invest EP into that. Now you have to refine those resources, so either you invest EP into that or pay another to refine for you. Now you have to produce, so either you invest EP into that or pay someone to produce for you.

What do you get at the end of the day? Waste of resources, time and money. Communist production is streamlined, so ore goes into 1 folder, goes through 1 refiner account, is distributed to X producers who are producing designated items, and are maxxed out on relations/materials.

In short, youre outclassed in every department by a well-oiled system. Yup, you can zerg-produce with 50 people producing 1 item... but good luck mining those materials.

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Re: Mining, Hauling Missions, why things are broken, and how to fix them.

Your right, the system favors one play style.

But,,,,,,,If half of the ores had to be stored in a Outpost, because of storage limitations.  That anyone could drive in and haul off....that might be worth grinding for. Or silos in the country that could be raided. 

I wont play without making a profit. I make a profit now, with everything i do, and that is not going to change. I supplied free epic loot to my fighters in another game, and also made all the combat gear for them. It was not a 4 to 1 ratio, but more like 1 to 6.  So spew all you like about a system in a game, and i accept the one in this one. But 1/6 seems a little more efficient then 4/1.

I liked reading this thread and i apologize to those that were having a constructive discussion.