1 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(18 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Perpetuum has pay-up-front components which would make a similar system behave somewhat differently. In the new eve model you could go from omega to alpha if you don't keep up the subscription or plexing. In perpetuum once you are in you are in, there is no going out. What we have similar here is that ICE runs out on time. What migth be tempting to do is put more of the features of a "full member" with that subscription so it could lapse.

For example while sit transit gloria mundis I have at this time a gamma base up. I don't think that any kind of "restricted" account would really have MPC in their palette. But I would like that in any such transition what I can do (as a user that bought the game once) does not diminish. I want to still enter my terminal, set its access relations, have colixium mining and the various MPC versions of industry. I don't want to "lose" my gamma just because I did not start to ICE for it.

That is with perp it would be a one time transition from Subroutine to Agent or from Tourist Agent to Native Agent. The ep boosts from ICE would stay separate. So it would be a pay-up-front analogue of free-but-restricted access. Or maybe there could be room for micro-micro transactions, selling ICE to users that are not full agents?

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

2 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(18 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

I think there is a lack of retention-constructive interactions between established players and newbies. Players know that in order to be felt signficant there needs to be people around but a lot of game actions is about driving people away (from your immidiate vicinity). Other people are a security threat, drive up prices what you are buying and drive low prices on what you are selling. Even if they are your ally they pose stress in their cabality to cross you and keeping the social bonds firm needs work input that doesn't immidetly pay off as any kind of fun.

A lot of times it has been suggested that top players need things to strive for to keep the economy structure good. I have become increasingly sceptical about it as it is a form of trickle down economics. Even when I on purpose overpay for items that I have it doesn't seem to create that much stirring in the market.

I would say a fix could be something in the game mechanics that cares about active players. Say something good happens to people on proportion of total ep earned (on that island). I was first thinking about lowering bot construction costs but it could simply be free tokens. Then I thought against it because if someone is on the fecne about being an active player and then the player count lowers it could trigger and avalance of passiviers. BUt it owuld have these two good properties 1) players could/would feel accomplishment when new players play 2) Action that mess epople for the community but benefit the individual would be more explictly so instead of being percieved as "free lunches" for the individual.

A lot of the apeal like these is about long term social play. A month could not really give a glimpse for that. But instead of being an inefficient sampling it could be thought of an unbypassable value protection. Start paying or your fresh alliance is going to crumble.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

3 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(15 replies, posted in General discussion)

The minimum decoding levels are the strongest factors which make the level matter. But with the decoder lab you can turn 512 lvl 1 decoders into a single lvl 10 via the power of NIC. The branching ratio on there is only 1:2 between levels.

Even if you don't personally have access to such a facility it makes it possible to sell low level coders to increase the supply on high level coders.

Go to forum: General discussion

4 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(21 replies, posted in General discussion)

With splash damage there is a risk that player will find a way to make other agents die even if directly locking and shooting at a agent is forbidden.

The difference between beta and alpha is fine if you just stick with trying to do beta. The difference is a bit steep but any "fix" is just going to try fight peoples scrubness.

Go to forum: General discussion

5 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(15 replies, posted in General discussion)

Decoders are not super sensitive to their level. Multiple low level ones are almost as good as few high level ones.

Go to forum: General discussion

6 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(21 replies, posted in General discussion)

Don't need more Alphas, we need people to play on betas. If the core of the suggestion is that there needs to be a halfway between a alpha and a beta then that I could get behind. But I would even then just upgrade the alpha 2s to these "pretend betas". I do think the devs have expressed intentinoas to move to this direction.

I don't get what is the point about lack of terminals. If there is no PvP it not like their hiding place nature really matters. And if there are going to be field terminals most of their functionality would be provided anyway.

We do not need any added real estate and certainly not extended PvPless space.

Go to forum: General discussion

7 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(15 replies, posted in General discussion)

Price of decoders is largely market dictated. In order to never get a bad loot one would have to calibrate the contents with the market situation (which would be wrong on multiple ways).

Beta is an option and its even supposed to be because alpha doesn't dominate even with the downside of the occasional wtfpwned of beta. If players would rather whine for the developers to buff alpha loot than to venture to beta, we got a serious case of scrub on our hands.

Its fine that you first fix what naturally appers where and then let the market dictate what solo wolfs get compensated for the drops. Its not that you first fix what solo artifacters should be making and change the natural occorances to meet those expectations.

Go to forum: General discussion

8 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(7 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Collateral has been invented. It takes care of can destruction mostly. You need to price ti so taht you are ambivalent about getting the good to the destiantion vs the collateral paying out. The existence of collateral does make people accept them at a lesser rate thought.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

9 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(38 replies, posted in General discussion)

The flip-side of Dunning-Kruger is that those that have clue enough will have illusory inferiority as they are unsure but other people are being so arrogant (-> must know their s better). Those who cross the "[ ] told" box on others are most liekly to have it unchecked for them.

Go to forum: General discussion

10 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(9 replies, posted in General discussion)

Resource amounts don't need to grow with amount of players althougth it could be a nice property. If someone decides to aggressively harvest a plant then there is scarcity for others but its  valid market mode and it makes the plant that does get harvest actually valuable.

Go to forum: General discussion

11 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(8 replies, posted in Balancing)

80u of sequer would then not be signifcantly more. Sequer could also use boosts but I don't think icarus is particularly underpowered.

Go to forum: Balancing

12 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(8 replies, posted in Balancing)

thing actaully goes fast. It coudl be interesting as ti migth have a serious chance of outrunning stuff even when spotted.

Its also interesting that it can't really natively run both a ligthframe and a speed nexus.

Go to forum: Balancing

13 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(15 replies, posted in General discussion)

but I have the hidden immunity idol...

Now with the fixed auras actual third parties can come and actually benefit from them. But just be careful not to end up feeding the furnace to please the northern gods.

Go to forum: General discussion

14 Topic by Rolafen Azec

(7 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

THere is now  new indy bot that isa fast and has a small cargo hold. This makes paperwork related to it happen more often. However paradoxically this is the most painful reason not to use it.

1) Make it easy to split an amount to be transferred into many small transport assignments.
This is partially the case as "unstack" lets you know fast how many trips you will be assigning. However getting these stack into boxes is not helped by any feature.

2) Make it easier to make many similar transport asisgnments
For example a feature where it would fill out the fields with last used values would be a big improvemebnt as now you need to type out every field every time.

3) Make it possible to post multiple transport assignments with a single command.
For example it woudl be nice if I could box select a bunch of (identical) resource stacks (such as those produced by unstack) and if the selection contained any transport boxes make the resources stacks go into boxes (so from 10x 18u of triandulus and 10 transport boxes go to transport box with 18u triandulus inside it x 10). If I have multiple filled transport boxes make it possible to enter them as transport missions with identical conditions with filling those conditions once. Now if I want to send 10x 18u of triandulus I need to fill out the collateral 10 times. Well dah for that amount of triandulus it has stayed the exact same.

4) move transport assigments somewhere more visible
It woudl eb nice if transport assignments could be obviously available in the source terminal. Also so if the the termianl is a target termianl for any transport assignments. Now its almost hidden behind missions so one needs to first to decide to check out the availability. For example if the terminal screen had a single number or evena flag that such misison are avialble and clicking said falg woudl take you directly tot he offering it woudl be way more easier to get agents to do these things.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

15 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(21 replies, posted in Balancing)

I do agree that I think the dominant effect here is the S-shapedness of the poitns to effectiveness instead of it being linear in effectiveness. To me it means that you need 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5 when points can be gained from multiple sources. That is pick any two from Extension, relation or gamma.

Go to forum: Balancing

16 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(21 replies, posted in Balancing)

with the current rate of EP gain who wants their EP back?

Go to forum: Balancing

17 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(47 replies, posted in Balancing)

the assingment pay level is calibrated by demand so there isn't really any level they could be "non-pathetic". What I have found more interesting on where are the walls between rewards. Having 1 level higher plus automatic PvP x2 gives you a non-pathetic option.

Go to forum: Balancing

18 Topic by Rolafen Azec

(2 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

The squad function is currently used in a funky way where a whole alliance is put into a single permanent squad. There is a problem associated with doing missions as passive members contribute towards mission challenge level generation.

Make a timelimit for squads so that in a group of double the size an agent can spend only half the time (ie drain one unit of resource per participating agent). Then make extensions that raise how much an agent regenerates this resource.

With this having the same number of people in two separate squads would be able to uphold twice longer than if they all were in one squad. There could also be a feature where it would automatically keep you in a squad with max number of indefinetely holdable friendlies. This way you would not need to constantly shuffle people in and out of the squad and people that happen to be by chance missioning at the same place might start more involved cooperation.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

19 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(11 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

tl dr being have "refining:titanium","refining:plasteosine",etc instead of just "refinining". Or have "refining:nuimqol commodities". and have "intensive refining" be an extension that does a thing. Althought this topic being kind of if you can't bother the read why woudl I assume what you write has thought behind it?

I don't really get on what is the point of the suggestion of having smelting and refining be different processes. So that afk miners don't mine but smelt instead?

I don't think there is any significant trade on commodities as of now, nor really any theorethial reason why there should be. This would just split what the current price for ores is between ores and commodities with predicted price movement from ores into commodities.

Or if this suggestion is bad then it could be argued that all the "liquitz exploitation" and "mining: titanium" extensions should all just be collapsed into one "mining" extension. How is mining different to refining that it gets to be treated in a different way?

If suddenly all the vet corps can't refine like they used to be and they can't tap on the free ep to get them like the newbies can, this makes them rely on their existing stock. I don't see that it would be so surely a veteran powering change. And stock being finite will eventually run out while refining skills are useful in the future.

Other are also arguing that afk mining ep grab needs nerfing. I have a problem of excess ep without mining myself. And I find myself not choosing extensions that I want to use but taking extensions that are the least useless to me. That is has become a process of filling out the gaps rather than striving for something desired. I am arguing that now that EP gets used more its weaknesses start to glare more as parts other than the low branches of the ep tree are actually used.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

20 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(4 replies, posted in Bugs)

The relations which are kinda important are associated with the meagcorp, not with the "minicorp" of the default npc corporation. You can equally still gain megacorp rating while in a private corporation. The standings are separate from corp memberships. The main feature you will be missing from going freelancer is the corp which could connect to regional agents.

Go to forum: Bugs

21 Topic by Rolafen Azec

(11 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Extensions Recycling and Refining are pretty all compassing extensions covering a very wide range of civilian activities. They are also comparatively low complexity. For example factory skills get multiple extensions just for speed etc.

An idea to improve on the situation: have each commodity or commodity group have a separate extension affecting its refining rate. So you woudl have things like "Refining: Titanium", "Refining: Plasteosine" or "Refining: Nuimqul commodity". This would make it more meaningful how the ore lines go in slightly different places when compared to commodity lines. This would make it interesting on whether you keep your options open to mine and refine whatever is the cheapest at the time or do you "division of labour" it and stick to spesific one be a market leader/competent in it and buy the others.

The situation could be similar than it is now in ore collection where going blanketing all types to lvl 10 would be kinda intensive ep use but it is quite easy to pciak couple to go to a high level.

However with the current on/off system you either refine or you don't. Getting refining for one commodity is as expensive as getting it for all or them.

The is also one reason why the existence of the whole refining step has been called into question from time to time. Before people decide what modules they woudl like to have in ore form instead of in commodity form. I think the main reason is that refinign is instant and infinite capacity. that is I can have gigaUs of liquits and HDT and turn them ALL, INSTANTLY into cryoperine. Now the factory process doesn't suffer from this as its a temporally extended process. I can kinda guess on reasons why that system is not copied verbatim to refining. That is a new player would be disappointed they they have to wait yet another wait before they can get a payoff and that the process is too abstract in going from "thingy called X" into "thingy called Y" taht it can seem like not an essential action.

I would say that make the refining process differetn fromt he factory process int he same way that perpetuum ep system is different from eves skillpoint system. That is an agent or a agent-terminal pair generates over time "refinement" that can be in an instant be used to turn ores into commodities. But the difference to how it now works is that when working with large amount one could run out of "refinement", if you would mine and refine in the go ore as you collect it in argano or sequer loads it would be equally "instant". But if you would do it in scarab loads you would have to break it into multiple pieces or make it in a temporally extended process.

Now you could then add extensions for: how big of a pool of "refinement" you can accumulate before it slows/stops accumulating. The rate of regeneration for "refinement". And possibly even how much a (spesific) commodity eats this "refinement" resource. This would be comparable to the numerous "factory: time efficiency" extensions.

With these it could be an interesting problem on whether you refine quickly and inefficiently or refine into stock in order to not get hit by refinement need bottlenecks. It would also decouple the prices of ores from the commodities more strongly while making them influence one another. It would allow for there to be more niches fillable quicker by relative noobs and less a simple "I have more step aside" single scalar thing.

It does add complexity and it calls for (partial) redesign of somewaht core economic mechanics. But I do think this do not have a high chance ot make unforeseen negative effects nor would they be that tricky to implement.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

22 Topic by Rolafen Azec

(1 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

EP is given out like candy.  To my understanding the EP changes had the main goal of making it possible to "catch up" from a behind EP standpoint to vet plahyers that are ahead in EP. While pouring EP like water makes everybody equivalently abundant in it I am worried that its now somewhat within reach to actually fill your EP bucket.

I am concerned that at some point EP faucets might need to be moderated. But then I figured that more EP sinks would make the "EP bucket bigger". So I figured I start suggesting extensions where ever they make most sense and some places where they don't.

Economic extensions were already quite cheap and now in comparison they are almost trivial. The category "Finances" could use some elaboration. Now markets like everybody being able to participate. That means it not taht good to be very exclusionary with these.

However I have found one gripe which I think can be addressed with a new extension. All most all of Nian trade needs you to be physically present at the trading location at some point or another. However once an order has been placed it is possible to change its pricepoint remotely. There is only a 10 minute delay on redoing this. This delay is a good minimuym amount on that entering a price means some people can feasibly accept it and as a kind of safe guard in changing the price in between a customer attracted to a low price and consenting to accept the order price (alledgedly there is activity in eve where zeroes get added clandestinely and swiftly).

However there is atleast some goods where there is competition to beat the others demand price by only a couple of cents. In these kinds of contests whoever checks and updates their demand order the most often has the upper hand.

So to make this activity have more sense I could see some additional restrictions:
-make a spatial requirement to be somewhere near the terminal where the order is located (maybe scale with extension level?)
-make a temporal requirement to have to wait significant delay over and above on what is technically required. That is one system could be to have an extension that enables one to change a price point once per day or even once per week to at lvl 10 be back to 10 minutes like it works now.
-associate some kind of fee with this activity that is reducible with extensions (adding 0.01 NIC to a price is somewhat stupid)
-Make a limit on how many item categories price you can fluctuate per day/refresh interval similar to the limit on available orders. For example if you have orders for a spesific product on all central alpha terminals that would eat up 8 such slots if you want to constantly keep your price as being the top offer everywhere. If you want two products that would eat 16 slots but with the same slot count you could have 4 products in half of them etc.

Also an empowerement: Why demand orders accept changes in pricepoint but not in amount to buy? Make it possible to change.

I don't know whether the actual sales on the market are public information or not. The identities of the buyer and seller are not and there is aggregate data on trade volumes and pricepoints. However there could be something to having an ability to monitor a product and a get a listing or ping every time that product is traded. This could give a picture on how much other orders are "shadowing" your order by being the preferable ones (but they end because of running out of nic or you updating your price). How many products one could monitor in such a way and in how any terminals could have extensions associated with them.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

23 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(12 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

Having a bunch of miners mining the patch and be in visual proximity of each other the woudl all be using the same charge and therefore would still be monocolored if it was tied to the ammo type.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

24 Reply by Rolafen Azec

(12 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

I don't think there is any reason to believe that the benefit per dev time used would be high for this.

Go to forum: Feature discussion and requests

25 Topic by Rolafen Azec

(9 replies, posted in Bugs)

There is a miing tower on Chadylor that is well supplied with energy. A starter corporation agent tried to benefit from its colixium mining aura. This did not succeed despite the access relation limit on the tower being on the lowest setting "hostile". I think the tower is malfunctioning.

It might be an untested edgecase as it might be a bit unusual to have a agent out in gamma without belonging to a player corporation.

Go to forum: Bugs