1 Topic by Inspiration (edited by Inspiration 2012-02-16 20:25:44)

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Topic: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Current situation

NPC drop damaged items at levels all the way from almost destroyed to nearly full health. And field containers on an NPC farming operation, even a small one,  generally have thousands of items in them. Each unstacked, and when bringing the loot to terminal and storing it there, the same items remain unstacked until repaired or recycled.

This is highly inefficient and claims tons of resources, both on client (CPU/GPU) and server (memory/storage). In fact, many people find the field containers become inoperable at some point due to the sheer number of 1 piece stacks.


A better way

Instead of allowing these items to have a health of anywhere from 1% to 100%, allow only 4 levels (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%). In NPC loot, obviously only the levels  25%, 50% and 75% really apply as they must be damaged.


Reaping the benefits

To exploit the benefits this arrangement brings, two more changes are required!

1) Items of the same damage level must be stackable (saves precious resources at every possible level);
2) Field containers must automatically stack, just like a robots cargo hold and private storage in terminals.

Changing the default stacking behavior of field containers is now feasible as we have the new shift-drag-to-storage interface now. Before this change, it would require manually unstacking in order to transfer items to a hauler robots cargo hold.

  • JOKE
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1 like the idea

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  • ETHOS
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1 Good idea, can only see benefits with this! smile

  • CNEX
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1

Excellent suggestions.

Handling a large amount of loot is causing a slowdown game, every time I do it, it's a nightmare.

  • JOKE
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1

  • Bacon
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1  Great Idea

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  • RPz
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1 very good idea but i didnt understood the last part about stacking behavior. With your idea will it still be possible to unstack lets say miner charges for mining ops and have them still unstacked in field cont?

10 Reply by Inspiration (edited by Inspiration 2012-02-16 22:59:54)

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Cobalt wrote:

+1 very good idea but i didnt understood the last part about stacking behavior. With your idea will it still be possible to unstack lets say miner charges for mining ops and have them still unstacked in field cont?

It will work just the same as with any storage in-game.

* If you want to drag as much as possible to another storage space, use "shift + drag" and the max amount of pieces that fit the target space is filled in for you.

* If you just want to move 500 pieces of a larger stack of 1000 pieces from the field container to your cargo hold, you use "shift + drag",  but instead of the default value, you type in whatever number of pieces you want to transfer. This already works today!

If you want a large stack to be split into multiple smaller ones, completely within the field container, we will require an unstack function. Currently this is implemented for all containers/storage in the game, but not for field containers. I can live without this however as transferring a specific number of pieces is already supported!

  • CIR
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1 a good solid idea

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  • RAD
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Awesome idea. And (hopefully) simple one to implement.

AFAIK the game already stacks items with the same health value, e.g. I saw beacon mobs drop a stack of 2x (some damaged item).

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  • CIR
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

wouldn't this nerf the repair extension, again, since there would now only be 3 basic levels?

25,50,75

Would they round 40% down to 25% or up to 50%, also nothing will ever be better than 75%.

simple is fine, but the repair costs and extensions would need to be rebalnced at the same time.

14 Reply by Inspiration (edited by Inspiration 2012-02-17 02:48:13)

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Arga wrote:

wouldn't this nerf the repair extension, again, since there would now only be 3 basic levels?

25,50,75

Would they round 40% down to 25% or up to 50%, also nothing will ever be better than 75%.

simple is fine, but the repair costs and extensions would need to be rebalanced at the same time.

It depends on the exact formula behind repair costs. If repair cost are non-linear and dis proportionally higher the more damage a module has, you would actually end up with a buff on average. I gave the real mechanic behind this not much thought as it really is only a one time issue in my view.

This is what could be one for existing damaged modules:

25% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 1%  to 25%
50% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 26% to 50%
75% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 51% to 99%

If they announce this change in the DEV blog, anyone not happy with this particular method can selectively repair before the patch is rolled out. Overall it is a one time buff for everything below 75% health and a one time loss for everything above!

As for the recoverable materials from loot drops trough recycling, that is just a matter of re balancing the drop ratio's of each health level in order to come out neutral on average over time. There must be a relative easy formula for this, but without the exact formula or current ratio's I cannot make it here.

The point is that the number of health levels doesn't really matter much either way, everything can be rebalanced trough modifying the drop ratio's of each particular health level. The one time remap of the existing loot I wrote here might be crude, but if that removes tons of database records from existing item tables it already is a win and future growth would be much more manageable.

And I hope the developers look at it in a similar way and appreciate the immediate and long term benefits over that of small obstacles like these. As long as they have a one time conversion plan that is reasonable and announce it, it all comes down to good re balancing of the drop ratios (thus pure exact math really). If that last part is done right, no messing with extensions or anything of that sort is required and all will work just fine!

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+/-1. Linear factor.

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  • BKK
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

if it would be "easy" to implement, it probably would be already ingame. This suggestion is not very new at all.

During the past years of Perp, any stack of items with additional informations (status) caused issues.

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  • RAD
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Arga wrote:

wouldn't this nerf the repair extension, again, since there would now only be 3 basic levels?

25,50,75

Would they round 40% down to 25% or up to 50%, also nothing will ever be better than 75%.

simple is fine, but the repair costs and extensions would need to be rebalnced at the same time.

"Average total damage" should stay the same so that repair cost and repair extension effect are not affected.

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Annihilator wrote:

if it would be "easy" to implement, it probably would be already ingame. This suggestion is not very new at all.

During the past years of Perp, any stack of items with additional informations (status) caused issues.

This^
Nothing would be solved unless as Arga said you nerf the overall damaged mods. Once you do that then It would be solved. Problem is even if it stacked by color wrenchs(white, yellow and red) it still has to track the 45 Red damaged small armor reps individualy as they aren't the exact same % damaged. Don't get me wrong I'm all  for it happening even if it doesn't speed up interactions as it cleans up my field can/hanger. Don't know how many times I've looked for something after farming and got frustrated about the ammount of crap i had to sift threw to find my shiney.

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Khader Khan wrote:

solved. Problem is even if it stacked by color wrenchs(white, yellow and red) it still has to track the 45 Red damaged small armor reps individualy as they aren't the exact same % damaged.

You seem to have missed the essence of the idea as the 45% red damaged, wont exist anymore, anywhere! There will be a one time conversion of existing damaged modules to 25%, 50% and 75% level respectively and from then on only these levels drop.

As for the repair argument, I assume you mean no more 96% health modules. That is easily fixed by allowing 100% health to drop too in very limited quantities. All is then covered by the drop ratios between 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% health levels.

Not that I see this as a problem to begin with myself. I mean a nice drop of 75% health is easily repaired at low cost and way cheaper then produce such a module from a CT. And with a low probability of a 100% health drop even the repair+recycle outcome would be unaffected!

As I wrote before, all is covered by the drop ratios between the various damage levels, and i stick to that!

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Inspiration wrote:
Khader Khan wrote:

solved. Problem is even if it stacked by color wrenchs(white, yellow and red) it still has to track the 45 Red damaged small armor reps individualy as they aren't the exact same % damaged.

You seem to have missed the essence of the idea as the 45% red damaged, wont exist anymore, anywhere!

That would ruin the already nerfed repair skill. I know people who after a farming session will sort threw each and every item and do a cost vs sell spread sheet. Seems OCD to me but this person has a fat wallet in game. They will get done farming repair X ammount for sale X ammount for futher production and Recycle the rest and then do a time vs mat calculation on the that. Seriously makes my head spin. Any way like I said I'm all for stacking as wrench colors. But deleting all the %s is a nerf as I'm sure @ the wrenchs from 49->24 will be 25% 74-->50 = 50% and 99-> 75% would be 75% I've never really seen a 100% healthy mod drop off a mob except a few like observers and Elites. Sorry it just seems like a nerf to me. 


yeah I did see the below quote but really you think that it would happen that way? I doubt that, above would most likely be the course of action they would take.

This is what could be one for existing damaged modules:

25% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 1%  to 25%
50% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 26% to 50%
75% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 51% to 99%

Participate, Congratulate cause everything else will be seen as HATE.
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  • JOKE
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Khader Khan wrote:
Inspiration wrote:
Khader Khan wrote:

solved. Problem is even if it stacked by color wrenchs(white, yellow and red) it still has to track the 45 Red damaged small armor reps individualy as they aren't the exact same % damaged.

You seem to have missed the essence of the idea as the 45% red damaged, wont exist anymore, anywhere!

That would ruin the already nerfed repair skill. I know people who after a farming session will sort threw each and every item and do a cost vs sell spread sheet. Seems OCD to me but this person has a fat wallet in game. They will get done farming repair X ammount for sale X ammount for futher production and Recycle the rest and then do a time vs mat calculation on the that. Seriously makes my head spin. Any way like I said I'm all for stacking as wrench colors. But deleting all the %s is a nerf as I'm sure @ the wrenchs from 49->24 will be 25% 74-->50 = 50% and 99-> 75% would be 75% I've never really seen a 100% healthy mod drop off a mob except a few like observers and Elites. Sorry it just seems like a nerf to me. 


yeah I did see the below quote but really you think that it would happen that way? I doubt that, above would most likely be the course of action they would take.

This is what could be one for existing damaged modules:

25% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 1%  to 25%
50% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 26% to 50%
75% health for damaged modules with an existing health of 51% to 99%

Maybe a nerf will not be that bad there are some t1 items way below manufacturing costs on the market, something that new players can't take advantage and compete and I can see more than 10 item at way below cost which is pointless to manufacture.

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  • REMEDY
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

+1 to OP

good idea

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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

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  • JOKE
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Re: Limit module health levels in NPC loot to 4 + stack by health level

Good idea! Please add Storage stack option to the cans too.