Best Of

Re: Incursions don't provide enough money.

Okay.

Devourers: Only three ever spawn, with varying junk drops. Yes, they suck, but it's also only three mobs. You're only really losing money on these if you take several voidgates to go find them. I can agree that they're annoying and it would be great if they'd get a buff.

Leviathans: On hard, these should get you ~15 - 18k, like all other hard organics.

Easy trinaries: Easy incursions are never a big money maker, and organics always give substantially less than ships. Really though, easy incursions are meant for grinding you up to a corvette. They really shouldn't be used to gauge how lucrative incursions are as a whole.

Everything you've done here were organics. Back in the day, they gave the exact same payout, so there was absolutely no point in being strategic and using different ammo types and running actual risk against ships. Now they give you less captaincy and less marks, and ships give you more captaincy and more marks. To compare, as mentioned before, hard organics net you ~18k. Hard ships get you ~25k-28k.

Incursions generally take 45 minutes to do, start to finish. That's ~15k to ~28k per 45 minutes. Yes, you have to spend money on supplies, but if we assume, for the sake of argument, it takes 30 batteries for one incursion, that's 8,550 at the highest current market price for batteries (285). Repairkit costs are going to be variable, but in general as long as you're not using autorepair (which you should never do because it will actively waste your repairkits), you should be fine. I often go entire incursions without having to repair until I get to a station, and repair while docked at a station uses 0 repairkits. Astromechs are similarly going to be a rare purchase unless you're constantly repairing while being fired upon, which is how you lose them (aside from you know, blowing up and not being able to recover them). All that taken into consideration, you've made a profit on these incursions that are absolutely doable in a stalker, even now that we're out of its glory days.

The final big difference between incursions and bashing is that, unlike bashing, there is no marks cap. You can absolutely outpace your marks gain doing incursions vs bashing, if you know what you're doing. I suppose the only real thing that I can agree with in the OP (aside from that devourers suck) is that, if you don't know what you're doing, incursions can seem like a huge waste of time and money and effort. This is why I wrote an exhaustive guide for Song to try to alleviate this issue for newer pilots. A deeper tutorial somewhere that walks people through the ins and outs probably wouldn't be a bad idea. However, I really don't think the solution is dumping more money into incursion rewards.

Rhindara

Re: Announcements post #79: Rogue refineries and autofactories.

Okay, this is going to be my last results post, unless there are any significant changes made to the system.

Small

batteries autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 30 thermal

magnaril refinery, NPC discovered, hacked - 61 magnaril

vandium refinery, NPC discovered, hacked - 78 vandium

bots autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 11 umm

Medium

qpc autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 31 qpc

bots autofactory, player discovered, hacked - 32 astromechs

bots autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 16 astromechs

alloys autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 34 paristeel

repair autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 122 repairkits

resources autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 58 probes

diamene refinery, NPC discovered, blown - 103 diamene

titanium refinery, NPC discovered, hacked - 149 titanium

processors autofactory, NPC discovered, hacked - 19 arrays

Large
stesium refinery, NPC discovered, hacked - 103 stesium

iriil refinery, NPC discovered, hacked - 227 iriil

The numbers at least appear to be fair across the board. There's a massive bonus for just stumbling upon these vs finding them on STATION PIRATE REFINERIES, which is great. And I haven't seen any huge pirate things at all since the changes, but I can only imagine the rewards for those are similarly fantastic.

The main problem I've noticed with the system is that, like cosmpiercers, it 1) requires a large, tanky ship to engage with the system, 2) it relies on one party to start the conflict, giving them a substantial headstart, which is relevant to: 3) it can take ages to get to the contested zone, even accounting for voidgates. This means that you can reasonably expect that whenever you see 'A pirate refinery/autofactory is under attack!', the raiding party probably has at least one massive ship, so even if you're able to get there in time, you'd need to bring one of your own to compete. Since the game still only has a relative handful of big, battleworthy ships, this is an issue.

There are probably several things you could to do to make these more competitive, but the one that comes to mind first is that, instead of just listing NPC discoveries on STATION PIRATE REFINERIES, they could be announced on the Conflict channel whenever they're first discovered (and possibly periodically, like once an hour or so). From what I've noticed, NPC discoveries update on the hour, but not every hour, and there can be long stretches without anything on the list. Announcing their location on the Conflict channel and giving everyone online a chance to race to them could be a good step towards getting more people interested and blowing each other up.

Another opportunity for opening these up would be allowing for the already existing pirate incursions to have a random chance per incursion to reveal an already spawned pirate refinery/autofactory to everyone via the Conflict channel. I've noticed that pirate incursions are a relatively rare spawn as it is, so this wouldn't be occurring very often at all, but it could add a little more thrill and chances for excitement.

My final suggestion is the most involved, because it would nix the generator/platform system in favor of spawning full incursions in a given pirate zone. I realize this could get messy if they spawn in a zone that already has an incursion in it, so that would have to somehow be accounted for. Ideally, though, these incursions would consist of around maybe 30 minutes of ships of varying strength/numbers spawning, and when they're cleared, only then can you dock at an autofactory/refinery to hack it or blow it up for its resources. This option would create a standard for time required to plunder, allowing multiple parties to participate if they really want to. It would also at least theoretically take the pressure off of battleship owners, since you would no longer need one to participate, and in fact something so clunky might be a detriment when trying to maneuver around both incursion ships and other players.

I'll end by saying that I love the concept of this system and it's absolutely lucrative as-is, it just needs a few more tweaks before it's also fun, engaging, and accessible to more than just a few.

Edit: One more critique - You're currently able to blow up the refinery/autofactories before all platforms are destroyed, which is sort of lame. It means that if you can tank it, you can run in, down the thing, grab the cargo, and skip away without bothering with the platforms at all. It's less cargo, sure, but generally still a great haul for the effort involved. So yeah, there should probably be some kind of shield that goes up around the refinery/autofactory after it gets attacked initially (as long as we're doing the platform arrangement, anyway).

Rhindara

Re: Quality of Life Wishlist

Big thanks to the Admin for going through these, lots of great changes!

- add a standard message to all windups, in addition to the flavor text (like "You sense <mob> winding up to REKURFACE!1!11!! ya dig"), so you aren't punished by encountering new mobs or bad trigger patterns.
- NEWBIEWHO

Azlyn

Re: Community Hype (Tell Me What You Want)

Nykara said:

Sairys said:

Kestrel said:

if I need a brainless grind there are better (graphical) games which will always provide a superior experience, simply by nature.

Yeah, what draws me to MUDs these days is the stuff that graphical games really can't or just wouldn't do, as well as the opportunity to just log on and potentially roleplay with people.

Is likely why low pop is always a concern for me. I've seen just how difficult RP stuff becomes when there aren't enough people to actually engage with.

A low-pop community of dedicated roleplayers can be an incredible experience. My LARP, for example (and I draw the comparison because LARPs and MUDs are VERY similar) is currently low-pop but they are all dedicated roleplayers and every other Saturday we have an incredible game. On the other hand, a lot of people are playing video games to play video games, and aren't strong RPers. Luckily, Starmourn is an environment that can really encourage people to learn and grow about RP in general. (Thanks @Eukelade )

Sure but you note the LARP group is meeting only every other Saturday which is also where LARPs and MUDs are quite separate experiences.
MUDs are always on, one of the places they uniquely shine is that ability to just log on and roleplay whenever you like, you don't need to wait for the weekend or longer to be able to have fun with the rp you're exploring.

It's also not like high and low population communities are mutually exclusive, it's just that higher population means more opportunities for smaller tightly-knit groups to go off an explore more niche rp threads.

Sairys

Re: Community Hype (Tell Me What You Want)

First of all, games like Starmourn provides mechanics such that the pinnacle of PvE becomes PvP. Because all skills right now except insta-kills work on mobs. But I will get back to potential PvE improvements I would like shortly. We have to regain people who wish to do PvE content in their playtimes and have fun.

I can call myself a RP-PvP player though over the years that composition shifted more weightily towards RP from the earlier dominant PvP side. I voted BEAST not merely out of PvP balance concerns but also I do wish for BEAST players to get into the mood of that they are badass operators of those high-tech suits. Like in Fallout games or in mech games when you get into those suits you would want your presence in the battlefield known. You are imposing, guns and missiles whirring everywhere...no one can ignore you. You want to keep someone under your shield while both being able to fight with other weapons? Maybe slam that shield on the ground and turn it into a cover? Keep people in formation that will make your two allies flank enemies and do more damage to your opponents or maybe create a shieldwall formation with fellow BEASTs for ultimate protection? Meanwhile all the gadgets raining bullets and death? You should be able to do so. That is what you want for BEAST. They should command the attention in the field. They are the vanguard of any operation.

Now setting BEAST aside. Some PvE improvements would be and some of them are not easy things to do but possibly can be done over the years:

- Mobs using more varied attack types such as mental, electric etc. to broaden the array of damage types.
- Mobs that can resist certain damage types.
- Increasing PvEs relation with modding skillsets such that they will work better against mobs then players.
- Dynamic quests, some quests with arcs, perhaps mini stories that you can start on random with a distress call or while exploring. Their strong suit should be story, choices and character investment. Mark reward can be secondary or even tertiary in importance there.
- Boss mobs with varying difficulties. Though as I stated in the start of the post, the pinnacle of PvE that can be achieved will be a mob that can fight similar to a player.
- Mobs with different behavioral patterns. Such as mobs that can summon mobs, mobs which will do revenge attacks if they are damaged beyond a threshold, mobs that can target your weakest resistance, mobs that will use damage over time attacks or even assassin mobs that can crit on you bypassing your resistances if certain conditions are met. These are just some vague examples.
- Reducing the charge attack mobs on lower levels can be a positive experience for starters but some might argue sooner people learn to interrupt it is the better.
- Street stories. (as an example of a dynamic quest) Basically you walk through Undercity of Litharge and you see a civilian getting surrounded by some muggers, depending on your certain stats and dialogue choices you get to resolve the situation in several different ways. You stumble upon things just for walking around and not always you get some reward to farm. Just some little surprise. Enhances the mood of your faction and perhaps gets you some on-the-fly PvE content.

Zhulkarn

Re: Community Hype (Tell Me What You Want)

Nykara said:

Cubey said:

This poll feels really manipulative. All options sans the last one imply that I need PvP changes in game and I want them now, while the last one implies I don't care about PvP at all and I'm a filthy PvE-only carebear who needs to explain themselves.
I appreciate the feedback; it was not intended to be manipulative, but I didn't really know of another way to present the options. The goal is not to encourage the devs to make PvP their only goal forever; only make a point of what the community feels like would be best to work on next in the same vein as the poll before that led to the economy changes. The economy got worked on and while it's not perfect, it's certainly had the work done on it, and I hope we can move forward to working on something else. Thank you for stating your opinion!

eta: I also was listing those opinions which I had heard in varying expressions and was attempting to give them all a voice.

When your poll is asking more than one question in one radio button list it's an ineffective poll and the data is basically junk.

Within the options provided you've asked at least four questions.

Did you stop playing because of PVP?
If you stopped playing because of PVP was it because of balance issues or because of lack of reasons to PVP?
Which of the classes is most in need of PVP balancing right now?
Do you want updates anywhere else in the game?

The poll, for example, doesn't allow me to vote for an option that covers that I really stopped playing because the early stage PVE content was just an incredibly draining experience. That's lead to me opting out well before caring about the state of PVP.

Sairys

Re: Community Hype (Tell Me What You Want)

I'm writing this with the caveat that my vote is technically for "PvP is not important for me, however, I would not want to see it thrown under the bus and neglected for those that do care, because there's a fair amount of you that do." But I don't have any suggestions for how to work that because that's not my scene.

That being said, I'm in agreement for "Endgame" PvE, I'm the type of person that kind of needs a goal to work towards, even if slowly, as soon as I hit 75, I'll lose my current goal and probably will disappear. Removing that cap before I hit that will not make me want to grind more, and will in fact probably make me want to less because suddenly the road now has no end.
The reasons I come in is to see things change, to see things evolve over time, this will definitely become more of a thing that happens once the game has gone gold because changing the fundamental underlying dynamics of the universe shouldn't be done until the ribbon is cut and people have a chance to experience things before the changes start. I'd like to see large scale constructions built by the developers, factions or even individual dynasties blossom out over time, taking months or even upwards of a year in realtime and huge lots of resources and labour marks to be fully realised. I enjoyed the fact that new dikamazi changed after a while, with the hook that things can change again in the future if a storyteller feels up to writing the plot, and a player uncovers the hook for it. It's things like that that keep me coming back. Raw amassment of power can only yield so much enjoyment, after all.

Now with that out of the way I might as well say that your PvP is also very important and reasons to fight are also important. And at the moment the only solution on the table is just make more and differently flavoured types of control point. It probably isn't enough. I'd like to see more reasons to fight in the universe than just raw combat, I'd love to see sports come up, both clean and bloody, I'd like to see people betting on sports and fights, You could generate teams and simulate whole rosters for tipping.

Gods that was long, sorry about that. BEAST probably needs a balance pass seeing the folks wanting a change. I cannot give exacts though, I only enjoy classes for their utilities and roleplay value.

Sammy

Re: Community Hype (Tell Me What You Want)

Seconding Slander's comments. I'm getting into PVP in the near future, but I don't anticipate it being a core part of my game experience and would rather see efforts go into fully realizing the PVE experience, both on the ground and in space. I do recognize that PVP needs love, though, and would happily support such an endeavor. Class balance, class functionality, props and cover, excuses to fight in PVP -- those would help the game a good deal.

If I had to vote for one of the PVP options, I would say that BEAST needs attention the most urgently. I don't know first-hand but from staying informed.

edit: emphasis added to reflect that I think more group fighting opportunities would help a lot, per Azlyn's comment

Steve

Re: Community Hype (Tell Me What You Want)

Thanks for starting this thread. I think a general bug/ classlead month is required. Among the things which need to be looked at

1) B.E.A.S.T issues
2) Ship modding
3) Modding in general to enhance functionality
4) Economy related changes (balancing of commodities, specializations

Kirin

Re: Community Hype (Tell Me What You Want)

I'm obviously not a PvP person (Bartle test says E73/S73/A53/K0) so I've got no personal interest on that side of things, though I recognize a healthy PvP scene helps make a healthy game. That being said, I'd log in more if I felt like I had (mechanical) reasons to/things to do but right now I really don't. I don't think we need a higher level cap (at least, not one that gives more stats points or anything like that) but I feel like there's a distinct lack of 'endgame' engagement for PvE. I'll admit I don't have good suggestions for what it should be right now, but I'd really like it if I had something to work towards that isn't PvP or ship-based.

Slander