Best Of
Re: Shoot tips
The best way of earning money is to increase your overall level, or your Captaincy level through ship based gameplay, if that is your preference.
With higher levels, you are able to take on more challenging PvE combat, which earns you more money. My advice would be to start with your overall level, by hunting using your class abilities. You can type AREAS to see a list of areas suitable for your level and as you kill things within those areas and complete quests there, you'll advance towards the maximum level of 75. It is a little grindy, but that's to be expected in these types of games. It is a marathon, not a sprint, just keep at it and you'll get there!
Once you have a few levels under your belt, you'll have earned a fair amount of money just getting there, which will allow you to purchase the next tier of ship, the Corvette. These have a nice balance of firepower and movement that allows you to really get stuck into the space part of the game and you'll find yourself earning even more money for your time if you excel at it, but it isn't as easy as using your class abilities and killing things on the ground.
Roleplaying is as simple as hanging around with other folk, talking on your faction channel, FT <message> and generally getting involved with any of the events. There is a dance competition this weekend, I believe, and a music/performance festival the weekend after, that the players have arranged. You can read more about these in the public section of the news, NSTAT will list all the categories.
Beyond that, once you've got yourself established and more familiar with the game, you can branch out to crafting, stocking a shop, pretty much anything else the game has. If your light combat request is regarding fighting other players, you can try that at any time, but having more overall levels increases your health and thus, your survivability, so I would recommend getting to at least 50 before attempting this. You will also have more skills to use in your fights.
With higher levels, you are able to take on more challenging PvE combat, which earns you more money. My advice would be to start with your overall level, by hunting using your class abilities. You can type AREAS to see a list of areas suitable for your level and as you kill things within those areas and complete quests there, you'll advance towards the maximum level of 75. It is a little grindy, but that's to be expected in these types of games. It is a marathon, not a sprint, just keep at it and you'll get there!
Once you have a few levels under your belt, you'll have earned a fair amount of money just getting there, which will allow you to purchase the next tier of ship, the Corvette. These have a nice balance of firepower and movement that allows you to really get stuck into the space part of the game and you'll find yourself earning even more money for your time if you excel at it, but it isn't as easy as using your class abilities and killing things on the ground.
Roleplaying is as simple as hanging around with other folk, talking on your faction channel, FT <message> and generally getting involved with any of the events. There is a dance competition this weekend, I believe, and a music/performance festival the weekend after, that the players have arranged. You can read more about these in the public section of the news, NSTAT will list all the categories.
Beyond that, once you've got yourself established and more familiar with the game, you can branch out to crafting, stocking a shop, pretty much anything else the game has. If your light combat request is regarding fighting other players, you can try that at any time, but having more overall levels increases your health and thus, your survivability, so I would recommend getting to at least 50 before attempting this. You will also have more skills to use in your fights.
Shoot tips
Hi! I'm Laura in game! (I changed my name and it didn't update on here.
I've been playing some of the other IRE games and finally caved and checked back into Starmourn after I saw the promo that it had going. I was around for release but I've long since forgotten my character.
I am primarily interested in how to level efficiently, role-playing, commerce, and light combat. Any tips?
I've been playing some of the other IRE games and finally caved and checked back into Starmourn after I saw the promo that it had going. I was around for release but I've long since forgotten my character.
I am primarily interested in how to level efficiently, role-playing, commerce, and light combat. Any tips?
Roilla
1
Announcements post #149: Market Orders Cleared.
From: Starmaker Eukelade
Subject: Market Orders Cleared.
As many of you probably know by now, purchasing market orders at stations was often a hit or miss experience - sometimes you'd get what you paid for, sometimes you wouldn't. The reason this was happening is because occasionally the commodities were not where the game expected them to be, and thus was unable to complete transactions. We believe this has now been fixed.
Unfortunately, the nature of the bug means that our current list of market offers will need to be cleared out before things start working correctly. That means if you've listed a market order, you'll need to relist it. Sorry about the inconvenience, but hopefully this will make life better for everyone going forward.
Thanks to our new volunteer coder Senzei (say hi, everyone) for tracking this down and fixing it for us! Thanks also to Damiel for providing invaluable debug support, and thanks to all of you for telling us about it so many times. If you continue to run into problems, let us know.
Subject: Market Orders Cleared.
As many of you probably know by now, purchasing market orders at stations was often a hit or miss experience - sometimes you'd get what you paid for, sometimes you wouldn't. The reason this was happening is because occasionally the commodities were not where the game expected them to be, and thus was unable to complete transactions. We believe this has now been fixed.
Unfortunately, the nature of the bug means that our current list of market offers will need to be cleared out before things start working correctly. That means if you've listed a market order, you'll need to relist it. Sorry about the inconvenience, but hopefully this will make life better for everyone going forward.
Thanks to our new volunteer coder Senzei (say hi, everyone) for tracking this down and fixing it for us! Thanks also to Damiel for providing invaluable debug support, and thanks to all of you for telling us about it so many times. If you continue to run into problems, let us know.
Re: Where'd everybody go?
For me it is the low population. It got too small to sustain the game experience I enjoy. There is certainly plenty to do, and many systems of the game feel quite polished now.
But the game needs to retain players and offering support by continuing to play through low numbers turned into too much of a chore.
There are many theories around why the population tanked in the last 12 months (when realistically pandemic ought to have increased the potential population). The reason is no doubt a combination of many things. Hopefully regular fixes and tweaks now with the new programmer can lead to the game leaving beta and opening officially.
At this stage that seems like an event that could bring a large influx of people again and from there hopefully enough could be retained so there is a healthy population that is actually capable of supporting meaningful rp-pvp conflict, trade, ship battles, etc.
The game honestly has a lot going for it and I could see myself playing it for years. Needs people though.
Indi
1
Re: Hacking should be more integrated into other systems. Here are some ideas regarding that.
Expanding off of some of Steve's ideas, mine are mainly passive hack effects that I would like to see happen. Mainly to enhance/create that L337 haxxor feel. (Also, it should be paydata, not junk data, imo)
Marks Skimming:
Baby level embezzling, and passive. Random chance to siphon marks off a non-faction humanoid NPC in the room with you. If it fails you get a notification to move on and that NPC is marked in the system as unskimmable to you for the next 24 hours. This prevents people from just walking back and forth between Cray and Poffy on Omni for example and just raking in cash. Does not incur a bounty cause its a minuscule amount of marks. This should probably be a low amount just to drive home that embezzling is "better". If it isn't, it should be when/if this becomes an option.
Blockchain:
Once per RL day, you can perform a channeled action at any allied terminal to generate a redemption token for any of the factions that accept them. Cryptocurrency math, basically.
Death_and_taxes.exe (tenative name, i can't think of anything funnier than this)
When killing a humanoid hostile NPC, you have a chance to perform an autohack and steal some marks.
Marks Skimming:
Baby level embezzling, and passive. Random chance to siphon marks off a non-faction humanoid NPC in the room with you. If it fails you get a notification to move on and that NPC is marked in the system as unskimmable to you for the next 24 hours. This prevents people from just walking back and forth between Cray and Poffy on Omni for example and just raking in cash. Does not incur a bounty cause its a minuscule amount of marks. This should probably be a low amount just to drive home that embezzling is "better". If it isn't, it should be when/if this becomes an option.
Blockchain:
Once per RL day, you can perform a channeled action at any allied terminal to generate a redemption token for any of the factions that accept them. Cryptocurrency math, basically.
Death_and_taxes.exe (tenative name, i can't think of anything funnier than this)
When killing a humanoid hostile NPC, you have a chance to perform an autohack and steal some marks.
Comms Disruption:
When you hack a faction's comms network, instead of just listening in, you can optionally switch it off for everyone currently on it, doesn't give a notification that this happened.
Breach Ship:
This is probably the more controversial idea, but we got embezzling (which only affects NPCs but let me dream a little). With enough skill, and while at the shipyards you can breach someone's ship permissions and enter their ship. If you are caught onboard, you are automatically open to PVP. The owner is notified that their ship has been breached, but not by who. If you are caught doing this before you can enter, you are automatically open to PVP. Basically the scifi equivalent to picking locks, but with a few extras. It's suspicious as hell, and if anyone catches you doing it, you're in for a bad time. Reasons for doing this are left up to the person doing it.
When you hack a faction's comms network, instead of just listening in, you can optionally switch it off for everyone currently on it, doesn't give a notification that this happened.
Breach Ship:
This is probably the more controversial idea, but we got embezzling (which only affects NPCs but let me dream a little). With enough skill, and while at the shipyards you can breach someone's ship permissions and enter their ship. If you are caught onboard, you are automatically open to PVP. The owner is notified that their ship has been breached, but not by who. If you are caught doing this before you can enter, you are automatically open to PVP. Basically the scifi equivalent to picking locks, but with a few extras. It's suspicious as hell, and if anyone catches you doing it, you're in for a bad time. Reasons for doing this are left up to the person doing it.
Ikchor
1
Re: A Request
Azlyn said:As more of a low-hanging fruit than free swapping, I would suggest giving everyone in-game access to every skill AB file - e.g., Furies can AB Scoundrel skills. This would enable newbies to be able to research a class prior to learning, and it would also help a lot with classleads and for anyone wanting to learn more about other classes.
I use the AB X Y AS Z often, but I have to go check the logs to find new players in Song, and then figure out that character's class, and do so until I find the right class.
I'd love being able to just check AB for any class.
Steve
2
Re: A Request
If the arena is all holograms anyways, why not allow people to play as any class as they start a match? This allows people to try things in a way that is a permanent addition to the game and also doesn't effect actual PvP objectives.
A Request
Apologies for the clickbait-y title, I just didn't know what else to put this as and I figured a blunt title was fitting.
I want to start off by saying: yes, hindsight is 20/20 and I wish that I had thought to ask for this before this most recent classlead round. Better late than never though, right?
Since Starmourn is in beta and we have been half-jokingly referred to as beta testers in the past, I have a fairly large request: Please show us the math for damage, and how the math works for all the skills. On top of this, allowing us to freely swap classes and freely change stat allocations for a fixed period of time again so we can help fix other classes that may be lacking in numbers.
I do not presume to know what decisions are being made way (WAY) above my head as a player but if the joke is only half true that we are all beta testers and we are to actively test out, report bugs, and otherwise help unbreak/break parts of this game. That means - to me anyway - it's also half-true.
So some additional transparency would be helpful, I do not mean transparency as in 'What are our devs doing this week?', as that is already documented for us - thank you for that! - instead I mean the kind of transparency you get from knowing the nuts and bolts, x and y values of a profession's skills and how the stats work and work with it.
This started with a bit of the discussion in the Scoundrel channel on Discord revolving around increasing our normal damage output by a certain percentage, and it got me thinking at the time "Increase damage by a percentage, but of what and where in the formula? We don't know the math here, there might be something we're missing or we could inadvertently shoot ourselves in the foot and have it applied in the wrong place."
No pun intended. I didn't bring it up at the time because I was doing something else. Hindsight.
We already know how some of it works because that's been laid out in help files and just as a result of playing for so long some of it is known, such as one point of lifeforce (prior to the 2:1 threshold) translating to an increase of five hitpoints. However, beyond this, some of that information has been lost to us when a significant chunk of our PVP players shuffled off to other games to scratch their PVP itch.
Removing the ambiguity and the obscurity in this would go a long way to ending some old speculation, questions and some general confusion about our skills. Which would lead to a better grasp of what our skills should/could do in combat, and end the constant "This skill FEELS like its coming up short, but I can't confirm it" feeling and maybe give some people the confidence to go "Yeah, I'll fight. I get how my skills work numbers-wise, and I know why I could die."
To reiterate, free class swaps and stat resets for a period of time to see what happened to the other classes firsthand, and please show us the math going on under the hood so we can make better informed classleads in the future. I understand the second part is a fairly large ask as MUDs jealously guard their math for this, but the idea of having us suggest changes to classes while being in the dark about the real numbers behind them is a bit ... counter-intuitive?
Anyone else have anything to say about this?
I want to start off by saying: yes, hindsight is 20/20 and I wish that I had thought to ask for this before this most recent classlead round. Better late than never though, right?
Since Starmourn is in beta and we have been half-jokingly referred to as beta testers in the past, I have a fairly large request: Please show us the math for damage, and how the math works for all the skills. On top of this, allowing us to freely swap classes and freely change stat allocations for a fixed period of time again so we can help fix other classes that may be lacking in numbers.
I do not presume to know what decisions are being made way (WAY) above my head as a player but if the joke is only half true that we are all beta testers and we are to actively test out, report bugs, and otherwise help unbreak/break parts of this game. That means - to me anyway - it's also half-true.
So some additional transparency would be helpful, I do not mean transparency as in 'What are our devs doing this week?', as that is already documented for us - thank you for that! - instead I mean the kind of transparency you get from knowing the nuts and bolts, x and y values of a profession's skills and how the stats work and work with it.
This started with a bit of the discussion in the Scoundrel channel on Discord revolving around increasing our normal damage output by a certain percentage, and it got me thinking at the time "Increase damage by a percentage, but of what and where in the formula? We don't know the math here, there might be something we're missing or we could inadvertently shoot ourselves in the foot and have it applied in the wrong place."
No pun intended. I didn't bring it up at the time because I was doing something else. Hindsight.
We already know how some of it works because that's been laid out in help files and just as a result of playing for so long some of it is known, such as one point of lifeforce (prior to the 2:1 threshold) translating to an increase of five hitpoints. However, beyond this, some of that information has been lost to us when a significant chunk of our PVP players shuffled off to other games to scratch their PVP itch.
Removing the ambiguity and the obscurity in this would go a long way to ending some old speculation, questions and some general confusion about our skills. Which would lead to a better grasp of what our skills should/could do in combat, and end the constant "This skill FEELS like its coming up short, but I can't confirm it" feeling and maybe give some people the confidence to go "Yeah, I'll fight. I get how my skills work numbers-wise, and I know why I could die."
To reiterate, free class swaps and stat resets for a period of time to see what happened to the other classes firsthand, and please show us the math going on under the hood so we can make better informed classleads in the future. I understand the second part is a fairly large ask as MUDs jealously guard their math for this, but the idea of having us suggest changes to classes while being in the dark about the real numbers behind them is a bit ... counter-intuitive?
Anyone else have anything to say about this?
Ikchor
3
Hacking should be more integrated into other systems. Here are some ideas regarding that.
Currently with hacking, the big ultimate goal is to get through a door and the big proximate goal is to get to the processor. That's fine for a mini-game, but it seems like hacking is supposed to be at least as much of a 'thing' as Captaincy in Starmourn. So why not have more tie-ins to the rest of the game?
1. Junk Data. Just like bashing drops junk and incursions drop space junk, why not have hacking give you junk data? This would give FRAY information brokers an extra use, since you could JUNK SELL DATA at one in order to cash in your mailing lists, security logs, sex holo tapes and grandma's secret waffle recipes for money. It would give another variation for quest design - think a version of the creeper shells quest from Ixsei, but with Windishu ICE dropping quest items instead.
2. Hacking CAC Quest. Same idea as the current 5/5 Incursion Enemies or Obtain Samples quest, but with ICE instead. It could either be hack a certain number of terminals or (more interestingly) to delete a certain number of a specific kind of ICE 20 antivirus, 10 firewalls, 10 scanners, etc. (Antivirus ask for should be more because of how SRA work.) Alternatively, a contract reward which gives you a sliver for 50 FRAY Credits.
3. Crafting/PVP integration! Add special terminal in Tranquility Deepness where people can do HACK TERMINAL PIRATE <skill> [<org>] in order to get five random designs for a particular skill (and optionally from a particular org) added to a temporary shop in the same room at the cost of earning a bounty from that org. Want bootleg Song jumpsuits for some sort of plot? Data piracy is your answer!
1. Junk Data. Just like bashing drops junk and incursions drop space junk, why not have hacking give you junk data? This would give FRAY information brokers an extra use, since you could JUNK SELL DATA at one in order to cash in your mailing lists, security logs, sex holo tapes and grandma's secret waffle recipes for money. It would give another variation for quest design - think a version of the creeper shells quest from Ixsei, but with Windishu ICE dropping quest items instead.
2. Hacking CAC Quest. Same idea as the current 5/5 Incursion Enemies or Obtain Samples quest, but with ICE instead. It could either be hack a certain number of terminals or (more interestingly) to delete a certain number of a specific kind of ICE 20 antivirus, 10 firewalls, 10 scanners, etc. (Antivirus ask for should be more because of how SRA work.) Alternatively, a contract reward which gives you a sliver for 50 FRAY Credits.
3. Crafting/PVP integration! Add special terminal in Tranquility Deepness where people can do HACK TERMINAL PIRATE <skill> [<org>] in order to get five random designs for a particular skill (and optionally from a particular org) added to a temporary shop in the same room at the cost of earning a bounty from that org. Want bootleg Song jumpsuits for some sort of plot? Data piracy is your answer!
Grek
3
Re: Hacking should be more integrated into other systems. Here are some ideas regarding that.
Good suggestions. I especially like junk data.
Let's dig a little deeper into the junk data concept. The creeper shells quest is built on the premise that we want to kill creepers. What premise is the junk data reward built on? I don't think the answer should be deleting ICE, generally. Wanting to take down all the ICE we see is not how hacking works; we want to ignore the antiviruses and hit the honeypots, the unprotected firewalls, the glitches, etc. If the junk data comes from deleting ICE, then I think the system is working against itself.
Here's three ideas for how to get junk data:
- Data repositories within grids. Crack them, get data. Could make them into side objectives, and could guard them with ICE.
- Loot pinatas within grids. Targets of opportunity, take them out if you've got ops to spare and want to. Can have a beefy stationary version and a mobile version, if desired. I like the mobile idea better; they'd be like loot goblins, for those of you who have encountered that concept in other games.
- And, gleaning junk data from moving around/exploring rooms within grids. Call it skimming, perhaps. This has the benefit of making a long walk within a grid feel less bad than a fast hack. I'd limit the gain from this by making each room within the grid count only once.
Turning to the idea of quests. I like that idea, too, but separately from the junk data idea. I'm imagining these being either black hat or white hat style hacking, where you go in and clean up a grid. Can you imagine taking a quest where you are given clearance to enter a terminal, clear out 10x malware programs within that terminal's grid, and get paid? I can imagine it. Alternatively, where you're attacking a terminal for someone, clearing out ICE to soften up a target.
As for how much the junk data would be worth, I'd want to scale it up by terminal level and lean towards generous marks value for time spent.
Steve
3