176

(44 replies, posted in General discussion)

Changes are coming !

http://blog.perpetuum-online.com/posts/ … er-part-1/

but with the 'triangle' you should recognise that while the money is good the relations increase is a real drag!

the relations, or 'standings' mechanic in PO is quite different from Eve.  You cant just grind courier missions to increase your 'total faction standing' at some point you reach a cap at which point you need to do those combat missions and industry ones too !

So my suggestion is... until said summer expansion is out, to mix it up!  dont burn out on courier missions.. trying getting your relations with all corps in one faction up.

177

(75 replies, posted in General discussion)

Thing with fuel is that it would probably be manufactured  by corps who then use it, so apart from the manufacturing cost I dont think it would provide a meaningful sink and more of an additional logistical irritation that does not provide good game play.

I liked the way CCP integrated a rental cost for 0.0 soverenty, now that is a money sink and a reasonable one, it also meant that alliances needed pve money making corps to help fund their war effort.

I believe such a thing was suggested for PO in a dev blog, but as I recal the first outpost was free...  which just might mean the mass creation of alt-corps for anyone who might have the notion to dominate several outposts.

What PO really needs is just more players and more reasons to establish on Beta islands to encourage more pvp.

sweet!  nice work.

179

(17 replies, posted in General discussion)

Font size.. I could agree with, but compared to Eve the 'chat' font is awesome.  But im all up for extra customisation.

Petition system... I can agree with that to some extend too.  But it is a refreshing change to open a dialogue with an actual GM and talk to them, I imagine that as player base goes up it will become less and less practical and a proper petition system will be needed.

When ive sent petitions in eve, 100% of the time the reply is about something unrelated.. so you have to petition back and say... uh.. what?  Im talking about a mission, not being kill in pvp :S   ,  so the back and forth that a petition system creates is maddening.

Although, after saying that, i've known GM's on PO to respond in the same way in a text chat conversation.  Must be some kinda .... skill(?) that GM's learn from wherever GM's are grown from in GM land lol

The Devs however are notably more alert and while I wouldnt suggest contacting them constantly (dont want to delay their work) they are more capable regarding more sensitive issues which is refreshing.

well its something thats already done anyway.. so I dont think that is an issue, so this isnt an 'easy button'

in fact, the parking of an arke.. yea, you could use an arke, but you'd still need to buy/make the module and still need to assign some skill points... so its not easier.. it actually costs something as opposed to a disposale 'nothing' alt.

And the more desirable alerters would probably need to be fit onto bots which require even more skill points...  so no, I carefully made sure that the idea doesnt make it easier, but makes something thats already easy.. into something that has a cost for that ease.

So it gets rid of the annoying humming sound and provides content and an sink for the devs since its an mmo.  and content for vanity shop.  and provides an actual use for alts on an account.

Again, in my description i point out that it wouldnt be just a simple cheap item, it would cost a fair packet so you couldnt just spam everyones alt with them.

Could maybe even just make a specialised bot.. but then that wouldnt give people the opportunity to be creative with fits when roaming.

Remember, scouts arnt needed just for base island defense.

181

(17 replies, posted in General discussion)

boosting NPC buy order prices only inflates the economy.

If everyone has more money, then money becomes less valuble and so "things" increase in price.

As it stands money is already too easy to obtain due to certain missions D:

So, due to PO being heavily dependent on scouts and feeling sympathy for agents who’s duties include hours on end of audio abuse causing BES (Bleeding ear syndrome) from the sounds that a teleporter produces I set about thinking of a way to make their critically important jobs more comfortable, effective and accountable.


I present :


Module: Alerter

Description:
‘Alerters’ provide a wakeup call to scouts who may rest their weary ears

Item slot : Similar to a geo-scanner, this is a head-slot item which loads up with ‘alerter’ charges

Effective range:
Its effective range is set so that the operator can be at a distance from the teleporter that is still close to it, but not so close that BES ears are an issue. (a skill could determine a longer range for specialised operators )

Fitting & AP consumption:
- basic variants can fit to a regular service bot with minimum skills. 
- Advanced variants will require appropriate skills or higher tierd robots.
- T4 variants will require skills and higher tier bots due to more advanced high quality audio equipment requiring CPU reactor and AP consumption.

Production costs: The duty's of scouts and guards are critical and not to be taken for granted, as such only the highest quality materials are used in crafting these devices.  Since this equipment is highly tuned and active for very long periods of time its manufactured with the utmost care and attention to prevent failier, only given to fully qualified and experienced production managers.

Effect: When A non-squad member, non-corp member of neutral standing or lower exits a nearby teleporter the alerter activates a charge which produces an alarm sound.  This alarm is unique and of an appropriate volume to provide an adequate alert whilst simultaneously shielding the operator from heart-attack.

Advanced variations :

- T2 Variant:
The T2 Variant can be loaded with a more advanced charge type which can determine between a neutral standing agent and a negative standing agent , sounding a different alarm for each.

- T3 Variant
The T3 Variant can be loaded with a more advanced charge type which can determine between a neutral standing agent, a ‘bad’ standing agent and a ‘hostile’ standing agent, sounding an appropriate alarm for each.

- T4 Variant:
The T4 Variant is essentially the same as the T3 variant, however ancient Niani civilisations were masters of communications-electronics and developed the alerter to alert the operator and also send a text message alert to one other agent.

History:
It is believed that the T4 variant was originally developed after military commanders expressed deep concerns that guards may end up in such a heavy slumber (AFK) that they miss an alert!  However, the concern was not expressed so that a commander or other-person can act as a fall back guard, no, the Ancient Niani were more concerned that in the event of an incident log’s can be checked for evidence of incompetence were appropriate disciplinary actions can be taken.

There was also some evidence that the T4 alerter was kept secret to begin with, commanders would stage events to test personnel who have been on duty for extended periods of time.


Vanity options:
To celebrate victories and seasonal events the modern population masterfully manipulated charges to sound a variety of tunes and even launch fireworks! cool

Incidentally,

I've been running the level 2 combat missions out of radholme this weekend on my mission runner alt (which has very little combat skills)

There are 3 missions, each against a different colour bot and each with slightly different objectives and each it quite different terrains.

I did all 3 of them many many times over to try and figure out which was faster,  Since I'm blue I expected the green mission to be easier, but it wasnt!  14 packages required instead of 10 and with heavy energy drain / nuet got me sweating a bit.

I really enjoyed these missions and will happily grind them more.

184

(36 replies, posted in General discussion)

Jaik3 wrote:

i want whatever you're smoking.

Looking at your eyes I think whatever your smoking is good enough!


Shaedys wrote:

Blah, the Laird is much better.

I agree, its a very mis-understood bot, it will however see a rise to power and glory where Argano's all over the land will be forced to acknowledge its mysterious hidden powers cool

Monster wrote:

Being locked out of using teleports after A) using said teleport and B) being engaged in pvp, both discourage small scale pvp.

What your talking about isnt "small scale pvp"  its solo play, and I'm afraid I just cant agree with rambo-style.  its an MMO.  Solo players never have the stamina to play for very long so I wouldn't want them to change a mechanic based on 'grasshopper' players.

Monster wrote:

For instance, when I zone into Nova, I know I can hold my own and *** some people up but it is essentially a death sentence because I have no outlet for escape.

Its not a death sentence, your just gona lose a bot.. money is easy to obtain, corps can easily produce replacement gear quite cheaply with a reasonably organized industry.   So theres no need to cry over the loss of a single bot.

Not only that, people have come onto Nova, killed *** and got off alive... if you cant handle the heat go to other islands where I'm sure it would be considerably cooler.

186

(4 replies, posted in General discussion)

now we just need multiple radar rings pls

I tried to focus on Firearms to begin with and they just arnt worth it, I ended up re-specing the skills out.

They do great DPS, but their weight makes them too slow for pvp, ok for Pve farming though.

Guess there needs to be some kind of balancing before they can be considerd viable enough to spend EP into the skills

I like reading about new player experiences,  negative or positive...   MOAR PLS! cool cool

189

(51 replies, posted in General discussion)

Isnt this thread a little too philosophical?  yarr

Its not like Eve where you can just do combat missions and eventually max your faction standings I'm afraid.

You can only get so far by doing one type of mission.  so eventually its quicker and easier to do other mission types.

Some arnt so good for actual money rewards, granted, but missions are more of a raising relations mechanic at the moment, as it is for making money.

Grinding mobs and using a can for loot (and recycling the loot) is probably more efficient if your only concern is money.

But this is moot really, pve changes are coming and really, any good corp can provide you with stuff you need making money.. kinda irrelevant.

GLiMPSE wrote:

What he's saying is that the process... perpetuum.exe can't use more then 2 gb's of memory... this holds true with every 32-bit application.

from what it sounds like, they are working on trying to figure a way to reduce the 'bloat' in memory which will make these errors less common.

so it doesn't matter if you have 128gb of memory... the limit is the 32 bit architecture of the application.

So I call your bullshit and raise you a failure to comprehend.

Yes but its not going to use 2gig's in 30 seconds flat while docked at an outpost doing nothing!

So I call your failure to comprehend and raise you evidence to the contrary wink

192

(51 replies, posted in General discussion)

no one-person can be trusted that much.  Eventually a human emotion gets in the way, revenge, angery, jealousy, apathy..

All it takes is some ill spoken words and a completely trust worthy person can become hatefull and vengeful.

a regulated body of individuals who are accountable are the only way to attain some measure of trust.  Even then though, still prone to corruption.

DEV BoyC wrote:

Most of the crashes are due to the client running out of memory (the amount of memory in your system doesn't actually matter, a 32 bit executable can only utilize 2 gbytes of it) - We're working on the issue and my top priority at the moment is to find ways to counteract the problem.

See, this is what concerns me.

you say its memory running out, but people have 8 gigs +, I have 16 gigs on my home PC and there is no signs of memory running out at all.

My machine at work has 2gig, runs photoshop, outlook, office all manner of software which use lots of memory and I also have 3 printers printing large image files... and it never crashes!

so I call bullshit on the memory running out.

Im going to drive a readyboost drive and disabling the page file on my machine at home, but really, ive send enough dmp file reports now that dev's should have a better idea.

as I said, there is no magic bullet.

What "helps" one doesn't help another... and even then, it only "helps" it doesn't resolve.  crashing when leaving a station is just as common as crashing when teleporting and crashing when just idle.

My suspicion is down to the way it writes cache because in the very rare case where someone gets an actual error message it goes on about failing to write to disk.

Anyway.  Its not a technical issue isolated to just me, its everyone.

If you are blessed to not have the problem, great.  but my concern (and so should yours be) is for the majority of people who's enjoyment of PO are sinking lower and lower as they resign themselves to not playing due to these persistent and annoying crashes.

Devs show they can resolve a problem when its a clear and present, but this issue will slowly grate away even the most positive and enthusiastic players.

This is really starting to become a big issue now,  almost as big of a problem as the player cap / lag problems of late.

Every game crashes sometimes.. thats fine.   But when your on a roam and every single time a teleporter is used 30% of your team are reporting "crashed again" its getting a bit ridiculous.

Some people are crashing just sat idle in stations, sometimes its crashing on the move and sometimes a crash causes a player to be stuck logged in.

It wouldn't be so bad if the re-log was smooth but sometimes it stays stuck on log in for ages.

Everyone seems to have their own exotic cocktail of reasons and ways to reduce it or make it more stable, everything from drivers to browers types to the ISP they use, but there must be some underlying problem, there is no magic bullet.

I always send the crash report when its available and many other people do too, so here's hoping the problems get resolved with the same urgency as it starting to depress me more and more.

There is no denying that PO is not very new player friendly, your right learning can be a steep hill to climb.


The only real way to understand the game quickly is to have other players show you.

But its no RPG, its not polished like Wow or DAOC, the development team are small and dont have multi million dollar studio's so its a game in its very early stages.

Its not going to be a game for everyone, and thats the honest truth.

Cyril can be done using an arke which dont count towards kills.

This can be moved to the guide section now smile

Thanks for all the comments,  no I didnt make a pvp guide mentioned at the end I think I'd rather leave that to someone more qualified and experienced.

though I dont mind laying it out and doing the graphics if someone wants to type something up.

there isnt a way, but I've never really had the problem your having.  I just use the radar, zoom in and zoom out, find your target location and trace it backward to your current location.

I wouldnt start a journey in my car if I didnt first plan the route, so why would you in PO ?

Anyway knowing the map and learning your way around it is part of the fun, knowing the territory well in pvp is a huge key to victory.

200

(15 replies, posted in General discussion)

tin foil hat time!