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I received a report from a Player, late yesterday evening, that there was a situation being exploited that allowed a single user to farm upwards of 3500 Synthetic SilkSteel within a few hours, and that this was being done in a completely-AFK, fully-automated fashion, using the new "ActivateTurrets" system.
I validated that there is a dramatic spike in the overall accumulation of SSS over the last couple of days, although I don't have more insight than that.
We're in the middle of a lot of work (even late in the evening), and we lost something like three work-days out of last week, for the Latos economy bug.
Any time we're hit with an exploit scenario, that's pretty stressful, because it involves a lot of intensive hours of log analysis to figure out "what happened" and "who did it" and how to roll that back. The "gameplay fixes" are usually relatively minor, compared to all the work that goes into making sure we understand what happened. The longer the problem has been present in the game, the more lengthy and arduous the process of "forensics". I wrote about in that same newspost, last week.
In an effort to mitigate the situation for the moment, and try to be as minimally invasive as I could, I had the following emergency-changes implemented:
- Fighter-sized NPCs destroyed by player-capships no longer drop any items.
- Fighter-sized NPCs destroyed by player-capships no longer increment any kill-stat counters.
- Capship NPCs are unaffected by this (such as Unaligned Pirate Capships, etc). They will still "drop".
At the time when this was implemented, I checked to see if we could implement a more "nuanced" solution.. like modulate the drop-rate or other things, but they all would have been much more time-consuming, and I needed something that could be implemented quickly. We had existing work to finish, we needed this to be in-place immediately (to prevent any possible exploit from escalating further, and giving us even more complex logs to analyze).
This change went into effect very-late last night, and was hot-fixed into the server without a restart (which was part of my requirement, as an instant-modification).
I could have simply rolled-back the "ActivateTurrets" control, and perhaps I should have. But, instead I aimed to do something that I thought would be better, allowing people to continue PvP interactions with turret-combat, and still go after "big" targets like Unaligned Pirate Capships.
I honestly thought people would prefer this solution to my removing the whole "ActivateTurrets" feature.
Like anyone who has to make rapid decisions, based on limited available information, I don't know if the solution is going to be ideal. It's the best we could do at the time. No one ever claimed it was "permanent".
Usually this kind of thing gets formally Announced, either on here or the News page. This all went down pretty late, and I deferred it until today. But, there was a Bugs thread that was opened, where I responded briefly.
The responses on the Bugs thread were inappropriate to the context of that forum or thread, but I'll touch on a few things, based on responses from there:
1) Full AFK automation of large-scale farming is not something we currently support.
If you're confused about that, hopefully re-reading the above sentence will clarify this for you. This is a game, not a place where programmed client-bots compete to see who can accumulate the most stuff.
If using a capship requires answering a server-CAPTCHA every 5 minutes, and that's where we end up (I certainly hope not), then so be it. We do not support AFK, client-automated "gameplay".
2) Because a client has a capability does not mean that all use-cases are allowed.
Client automation is to allow a player who is actively playing the game to do more complex and interesting things, everything from Chainfire to Plugins.
Client automation is not to allow people to sit AFK and generate massive rewards, that they then sell for billions. Especially on accelerated timelines. Any confusion about #2 can be redirected to #1.
I get certain arguments a lot, from players who receive administrative action. Usually it's something along the lines of (analogy):
- "Firearms exist, therefore bank robbery must be legal" (the "you most have foreseen this" argument) or
- "Other people have successfully robbed banks, therefore I should be able to as well" (the "but other people have done this" argument).
Neither of these cases are supported.
Just because you can automate a client to sit in Dau L10 and constantly spam advertisements for your porn website, that doesn't mean we'll support that either.
3) The current emergency hot-fix situation was intended to be temporary, but I don't really know yet.
I won't know until we do a lot more digging into the logs. We may have to come up with a more nuanced implementation of what we already have, or some alternative solution.
It certainly wasn't intended as a permanent solution. Like I said on Bugs:
"We needed to halt this activity, while we investigate further."
Some people have decided this clearly means this was a permanent solution. That isn't what I wrote.
4) Design foresight of probable use-cases is not the same as absolute certainty.
I do foresee a lot of cases for most gameplay, but I also know there's variability, and that people will find optimized solutions to problems. This is the difference between MMORPGs and many other types of games. Collaborative communities like this tend towards accelerated solutions much more quickly. So, I have to react and figure out what to do.
If I had to foresee and test every possible use-case, in order to release updates, then I might as well just turn off the game and go home. BECAUSE THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE. Like I wrote last week in the Newspost about Latos: We really cannot do this development without a certain amount of "big picture" altruism from the players, because [otherwise] the related development and testing requirements would be infeasibly high.
I cannot test everything, or foresee whether the AI is going to behave quite how I expect, or not. The game is too large and complex, and we're too limited in resources. As a result, there is a player responsibility to report problems. Not exploit them.
People used to "get" this, and did for years and years, but now I mostly hear rationalizations about how we "should know" this or that or the other thing. And, to be clear, we are not entirely unaware; in fact, we know enough to know that we won't know "exactly" how things are going to play out, and as a result we try to be reactive. But that doesn't mean we don't need help. This is an indie game.
5) Capital Ship Construction is an Endgame Activity, largely intended to take MONTHS.
This is weird, it's like certain people are taking crazy-pills and have forgotten a fundamental point.
It probably isn't our intended goal that you be able to solo-AFK generate a Goliath-constructing quantity of SSS within a few hours. I mean.. seriously?
Now, I'm obviously super limited in my dev resources, my monitoring resources, and so on. In case it isn't super clear, it's a big challenge, well over full-time, to both keep the game working and also try and "advance" development.
So, given that, I'm sure there have been farming scenarios we're unaware of, or we haven't patched or fixed, especially because people have, in many cases, simply ceased to report exploits to us.
But, the existence of exploits in the past, or exploits in the future, does not diminish the unassailable reality of Point #5, written above.
I validated that there is a dramatic spike in the overall accumulation of SSS over the last couple of days, although I don't have more insight than that.
We're in the middle of a lot of work (even late in the evening), and we lost something like three work-days out of last week, for the Latos economy bug.
Any time we're hit with an exploit scenario, that's pretty stressful, because it involves a lot of intensive hours of log analysis to figure out "what happened" and "who did it" and how to roll that back. The "gameplay fixes" are usually relatively minor, compared to all the work that goes into making sure we understand what happened. The longer the problem has been present in the game, the more lengthy and arduous the process of "forensics". I wrote about in that same newspost, last week.
In an effort to mitigate the situation for the moment, and try to be as minimally invasive as I could, I had the following emergency-changes implemented:
- Fighter-sized NPCs destroyed by player-capships no longer drop any items.
- Fighter-sized NPCs destroyed by player-capships no longer increment any kill-stat counters.
- Capship NPCs are unaffected by this (such as Unaligned Pirate Capships, etc). They will still "drop".
At the time when this was implemented, I checked to see if we could implement a more "nuanced" solution.. like modulate the drop-rate or other things, but they all would have been much more time-consuming, and I needed something that could be implemented quickly. We had existing work to finish, we needed this to be in-place immediately (to prevent any possible exploit from escalating further, and giving us even more complex logs to analyze).
This change went into effect very-late last night, and was hot-fixed into the server without a restart (which was part of my requirement, as an instant-modification).
I could have simply rolled-back the "ActivateTurrets" control, and perhaps I should have. But, instead I aimed to do something that I thought would be better, allowing people to continue PvP interactions with turret-combat, and still go after "big" targets like Unaligned Pirate Capships.
I honestly thought people would prefer this solution to my removing the whole "ActivateTurrets" feature.
Like anyone who has to make rapid decisions, based on limited available information, I don't know if the solution is going to be ideal. It's the best we could do at the time. No one ever claimed it was "permanent".
Usually this kind of thing gets formally Announced, either on here or the News page. This all went down pretty late, and I deferred it until today. But, there was a Bugs thread that was opened, where I responded briefly.
The responses on the Bugs thread were inappropriate to the context of that forum or thread, but I'll touch on a few things, based on responses from there:
1) Full AFK automation of large-scale farming is not something we currently support.
If you're confused about that, hopefully re-reading the above sentence will clarify this for you. This is a game, not a place where programmed client-bots compete to see who can accumulate the most stuff.
If using a capship requires answering a server-CAPTCHA every 5 minutes, and that's where we end up (I certainly hope not), then so be it. We do not support AFK, client-automated "gameplay".
2) Because a client has a capability does not mean that all use-cases are allowed.
Client automation is to allow a player who is actively playing the game to do more complex and interesting things, everything from Chainfire to Plugins.
Client automation is not to allow people to sit AFK and generate massive rewards, that they then sell for billions. Especially on accelerated timelines. Any confusion about #2 can be redirected to #1.
I get certain arguments a lot, from players who receive administrative action. Usually it's something along the lines of (analogy):
- "Firearms exist, therefore bank robbery must be legal" (the "you most have foreseen this" argument) or
- "Other people have successfully robbed banks, therefore I should be able to as well" (the "but other people have done this" argument).
Neither of these cases are supported.
Just because you can automate a client to sit in Dau L10 and constantly spam advertisements for your porn website, that doesn't mean we'll support that either.
3) The current emergency hot-fix situation was intended to be temporary, but I don't really know yet.
I won't know until we do a lot more digging into the logs. We may have to come up with a more nuanced implementation of what we already have, or some alternative solution.
It certainly wasn't intended as a permanent solution. Like I said on Bugs:
"We needed to halt this activity, while we investigate further."
Some people have decided this clearly means this was a permanent solution. That isn't what I wrote.
4) Design foresight of probable use-cases is not the same as absolute certainty.
I do foresee a lot of cases for most gameplay, but I also know there's variability, and that people will find optimized solutions to problems. This is the difference between MMORPGs and many other types of games. Collaborative communities like this tend towards accelerated solutions much more quickly. So, I have to react and figure out what to do.
If I had to foresee and test every possible use-case, in order to release updates, then I might as well just turn off the game and go home. BECAUSE THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE. Like I wrote last week in the Newspost about Latos: We really cannot do this development without a certain amount of "big picture" altruism from the players, because [otherwise] the related development and testing requirements would be infeasibly high.
I cannot test everything, or foresee whether the AI is going to behave quite how I expect, or not. The game is too large and complex, and we're too limited in resources. As a result, there is a player responsibility to report problems. Not exploit them.
People used to "get" this, and did for years and years, but now I mostly hear rationalizations about how we "should know" this or that or the other thing. And, to be clear, we are not entirely unaware; in fact, we know enough to know that we won't know "exactly" how things are going to play out, and as a result we try to be reactive. But that doesn't mean we don't need help. This is an indie game.
5) Capital Ship Construction is an Endgame Activity, largely intended to take MONTHS.
This is weird, it's like certain people are taking crazy-pills and have forgotten a fundamental point.
It probably isn't our intended goal that you be able to solo-AFK generate a Goliath-constructing quantity of SSS within a few hours. I mean.. seriously?
Now, I'm obviously super limited in my dev resources, my monitoring resources, and so on. In case it isn't super clear, it's a big challenge, well over full-time, to both keep the game working and also try and "advance" development.
So, given that, I'm sure there have been farming scenarios we're unaware of, or we haven't patched or fixed, especially because people have, in many cases, simply ceased to report exploits to us.
But, the existence of exploits in the past, or exploits in the future, does not diminish the unassailable reality of Point #5, written above.
To be honest I felt turrets will be exploited to extreme levels, so a good change, but can be polished in my opinion.
What if this applied only to the subcapital fighter ships killed using the ActivateTurrets command, and not by manual turret control how we did before it?
Like when the player actually entered the turret manually and destroyed the NPC would count as a direct kill, so loot should still drop and count the kill, but not if the player indirectly killed it using automated turrets.
Also even if the player activates the turrets the turret the player is in shouldn't fire /or the target drop any loot after its destroyed.
This would be a good compromise, but still would make capship farming possible, how we did before the automated turrets.
Any thoughts on this?
What if this applied only to the subcapital fighter ships killed using the ActivateTurrets command, and not by manual turret control how we did before it?
Like when the player actually entered the turret manually and destroyed the NPC would count as a direct kill, so loot should still drop and count the kill, but not if the player indirectly killed it using automated turrets.
Also even if the player activates the turrets the turret the player is in shouldn't fire /or the target drop any loot after its destroyed.
This would be a good compromise, but still would make capship farming possible, how we did before the automated turrets.
Any thoughts on this?
I received a report from a Player, late yesterday evening, that there was a situation being exploited that allowed a single user to farm upwards of 3500 Synthetic SilkSteel within a few hours, and that this was being done in a completely-AFK, fully-automated fashion, using the new "ActivateTurrets" system.
im guessing that was in ref: to myself
Quote from discord - "So how much time it took u to farm 3.5k sss ?"
account Blighty had very little Synthetic SilkSteel as i used most of it
account Blighty2 had around 99 Synthetic SilkSteel
account Mrs Blighty no change / no idea
currently
Blighty - 10046 Synthetic SilkSteel
Blighty2 - 10535 Synthetic SilkSteel
Mrs Blighty - 204 Synthetic SilkSteel
none of my other accounts / alts have any i hold my hands up and to save time you can delete the Synthetic SilkSteel from those two accounts and i will not say a word on the matter.
Edit i also got some carbonic and ferric both Blighty & Blighty2
im guessing that was in ref: to myself
Quote from discord - "So how much time it took u to farm 3.5k sss ?"
account Blighty had very little Synthetic SilkSteel as i used most of it
account Blighty2 had around 99 Synthetic SilkSteel
account Mrs Blighty no change / no idea
currently
Blighty - 10046 Synthetic SilkSteel
Blighty2 - 10535 Synthetic SilkSteel
Mrs Blighty - 204 Synthetic SilkSteel
none of my other accounts / alts have any i hold my hands up and to save time you can delete the Synthetic SilkSteel from those two accounts and i will not say a word on the matter.
Edit i also got some carbonic and ferric both Blighty & Blighty2
Blighty: Thanks for the information, I appreciate you being open about it. We still have to do the log analysis anyway, to ascertain if you're the only one, or what the full extent of the problem has been.
HunPredator: Could you go into a little more specific detail about the "manual" methodology of farming, using turrets, that you're proposing as an alternative? I'm aware of a few different things that people have done, and I'd like to know if we're talking about the same thing.
HunPredator: Could you go into a little more specific detail about the "manual" methodology of farming, using turrets, that you're proposing as an alternative? I'm aware of a few different things that people have done, and I'd like to know if we're talking about the same thing.
By fully automated do you mean that they would leave their account on shooting things and later would come pick up the sss or that even while afk pickung up the sss was automated? I'm sure both these ways are not what you intended for the game, but I'm just curious as to which was happening.
We haven't finished the log analysis yet. All I have is the report that player(s) were AFK and absent and could come back and have accumulated large quantities of "stuff". I don't know what the parameters and limitations were on that, yet.
All I have is a big spike in a graph.
All I have is a big spike in a graph.
how i did it
sent dent with 4 caprails into a botting area in dau and used a bind for +activateturrets & one for RadarNextNearestEnemy placed a coin on each key bind and placed my glasses case on top of both coins keeping both pressed down
the caprails would fire for 25mins without stopping and would take 10 seconds to reset
on a second laptop i would use a goli to scoop the sss i could get around 500 per hr which is slower than i can do it using normal method shoot turrets manual or a small fighter but i ditnt have to sit there even tho i did sit there
sent dent with 4 caprails into a botting area in dau and used a bind for +activateturrets & one for RadarNextNearestEnemy placed a coin on each key bind and placed my glasses case on top of both coins keeping both pressed down
the caprails would fire for 25mins without stopping and would take 10 seconds to reset
on a second laptop i would use a goli to scoop the sss i could get around 500 per hr which is slower than i can do it using normal method shoot turrets manual or a small fighter but i ditnt have to sit there even tho i did sit there
Yeah, I see this as a problem every MMO has. With every update people are going to try to find the most efficient way to solve arduous grinding problems. Whether it's to help themselves,make it less of a grind for everyone else, or both. I don't blame you or them .I think it just comes with the territory of this genre of games. It sucks that this had to be done as it hurts anyone with a capital ship, but I understand it was needed. Hope you guys come up with a good solution.
> Could you go into a little more specific detail about the "manual" methodology of farming, using turrets, that you're proposing as an alternative?
Sit in the middle of the sector and caprail Arklans as they approach. Watch the cargolist, and when there's a full load of SSS sitting around, scoop and go. Not much different to using a megaposi-equipped tungtaur, except you don't have to leave to drop off the loot as often.
I vote for getting rid of ActivateTurrets. I've read the threads about it, and about not being able to send commants to a capship from a turret any more, and I don't believe that the benefits of ActivateTurrets are worth the exploitability grief. You'll be playing whack-a-'sploit with it forever.
Just rip it out.
Sit in the middle of the sector and caprail Arklans as they approach. Watch the cargolist, and when there's a full load of SSS sitting around, scoop and go. Not much different to using a megaposi-equipped tungtaur, except you don't have to leave to drop off the loot as often.
I vote for getting rid of ActivateTurrets. I've read the threads about it, and about not being able to send commants to a capship from a turret any more, and I don't believe that the benefits of ActivateTurrets are worth the exploitability grief. You'll be playing whack-a-'sploit with it forever.
Just rip it out.
I've ranted, and screamed over how turret bots before this "activate turrets" command was implemented for everyone, when people were using bots to man their turrets.
Your response, when I first brought this up:
As for multiple accounts.. time was that the only way you could really use a capship was with multiple accounts. Conflict Diamond did that with the very first Trident ever built. So, no, we don't explicitly prevent that. Nor did we prevent concurrent account trading back before capships existed. It's a pretty uncommon case, and probably not something to get upset about"
These levels of extreme SSS farming have been getting done for YEARS via bots, players own multiple trident and multiple goliaths because of this. This should have been prevented then! There are basic controls in VO that allow you to farm thousands of SSS a few hours, with just some changes of binding and controls and using a PLUGIN called elite turret or whatever to auto shoot all turrets within what? Two seconds? You fill a trident or a Goliath up in maybe 5-10mins with SSS easily! Ill even go so far as to make a very long and detailed report of every possible way to farm SSS for tommorow and send it to you when I get a free moment too. But this should have honestly been dealt with BEFORE it was a issue. (rant end)
Your response, when I first brought this up:
As for multiple accounts.. time was that the only way you could really use a capship was with multiple accounts. Conflict Diamond did that with the very first Trident ever built. So, no, we don't explicitly prevent that. Nor did we prevent concurrent account trading back before capships existed. It's a pretty uncommon case, and probably not something to get upset about"
These levels of extreme SSS farming have been getting done for YEARS via bots, players own multiple trident and multiple goliaths because of this. This should have been prevented then! There are basic controls in VO that allow you to farm thousands of SSS a few hours, with just some changes of binding and controls and using a PLUGIN called elite turret or whatever to auto shoot all turrets within what? Two seconds? You fill a trident or a Goliath up in maybe 5-10mins with SSS easily! Ill even go so far as to make a very long and detailed report of every possible way to farm SSS for tommorow and send it to you when I get a free moment too. But this should have honestly been dealt with BEFORE it was a issue. (rant end)
Womble, I hate to break it to you, but you were able to sit in the middle of a sector and caprail arklans as they approach even before ActivateTurrets.
Being able to fire your capship turrets from the cockpit is probably one of the top QoL updates that VO has ever released. This is because the player base just isn't large enough to make player gunners in turret spots worth it as they could do a better job flying a ship or there are just not enough players who would want to fill the position. It has been this way even since the behemoth and atlas' had gunner spots.
This has been something that community at large has wanted for a long time womble. I respect your opinion, but I'm guessing you haven't built a capship. (which is okay) haven't piloted one (which is okay too), but I think it leaves you lacking a valid standpoint when your main argument against it was something you could already do.
Being able to fire your capship turrets from the cockpit is probably one of the top QoL updates that VO has ever released. This is because the player base just isn't large enough to make player gunners in turret spots worth it as they could do a better job flying a ship or there are just not enough players who would want to fill the position. It has been this way even since the behemoth and atlas' had gunner spots.
This has been something that community at large has wanted for a long time womble. I respect your opinion, but I'm guessing you haven't built a capship. (which is okay) haven't piloted one (which is okay too), but I think it leaves you lacking a valid standpoint when your main argument against it was something you could already do.
Possibly unrelated to the matter at hand but when I asked in the discord people were acting like it was so I will ask here to be safe and not incurs any grumpiness:
What about automating pvp? Is that allowed at all? I’ve seen in an older game than this where people will multibox-running multiple of the client so as to have numerous bots at the same time to attack the target of a player and/or defend a player from attack. This stagnated pvp in that game.
As far as something more clearly relating to the topic:
So while I’m nowhere near capable of building a cap ship myself could you just make it so that outside of certain enemies you need a cap ship for(I guess leviathans are one of them?) you make it so that the drop rates are hugely nerfed to something like 15% of the normal rate on enemies when killed using a capital ship.
I apologize if I’ve wasted anyone’s time.
What about automating pvp? Is that allowed at all? I’ve seen in an older game than this where people will multibox-running multiple of the client so as to have numerous bots at the same time to attack the target of a player and/or defend a player from attack. This stagnated pvp in that game.
As far as something more clearly relating to the topic:
So while I’m nowhere near capable of building a cap ship myself could you just make it so that outside of certain enemies you need a cap ship for(I guess leviathans are one of them?) you make it so that the drop rates are hugely nerfed to something like 15% of the normal rate on enemies when killed using a capital ship.
I apologize if I’ve wasted anyone’s time.
Quoting AC-Archangel: What about automating pvp? Is that allowed at all? I’ve seen in an older game than this where people will multibox-running multiple of the client so as to have numerous bots at the same time to attack the target of a player and/or defend a player from attack. This stagnated pvp in that game.
Uhhhh... uhuh. Have you tried out PvP in this game? If someone made a bot capable of PvP, i'd just be downright impressed. Minding the fact that you can't handle precision input in-game through automation of the lua engine, anyways. So, that 'bot' would have to be external, where the devs can't actually control everything. And, well, i'd actually love to see a stream of some AI trying to 'learn' how to play VO 😂
I mean, yeah, you COULD just have a bunch of player bots, equip them with missiles, and *roughly* manage them by individually steering them across sectors, and then have them all fire at a single pilot...
...but by then you're using missiles, which your opponent can almost certainly outrun, so you're more just making yourself more visible as a wierdo and getting even LESS accomplished than if you just tried doing PvP legitimately.
Uhhhh... uhuh. Have you tried out PvP in this game? If someone made a bot capable of PvP, i'd just be downright impressed. Minding the fact that you can't handle precision input in-game through automation of the lua engine, anyways. So, that 'bot' would have to be external, where the devs can't actually control everything. And, well, i'd actually love to see a stream of some AI trying to 'learn' how to play VO 😂
I mean, yeah, you COULD just have a bunch of player bots, equip them with missiles, and *roughly* manage them by individually steering them across sectors, and then have them all fire at a single pilot...
...but by then you're using missiles, which your opponent can almost certainly outrun, so you're more just making yourself more visible as a wierdo and getting even LESS accomplished than if you just tried doing PvP legitimately.
I suggest taking active turrets away, give us back the ability to get bot drops from cap ships.
yes, lets give this ability back exclusiely to the few people that run four turret bots and a plugin to coordinate them.
yes, lets give this ability back exclusiely to the few people that run four turret bots and a plugin to coordinate them.
I farmed up a couple thousand the other night (about 400 an hour)[. But I was not afk. If i had gone afk, i would have lost my cap ship to very dangerous grey space bots. But if you want, i'll push all the sss out of my hold and let it time out in space. in that case, please remove the automated turrets, because I can still do this manually. Grinding is grinding.
Capships make difference in cargo space. Unlike fighters, you can hold 100-ish in a goli, what is quite nice. I always did farm arklans with caprails and the queen gat on my goli, and still was enjoyable and rather quick, getting 100-200 ish sss in just an hour or two.
So
Or remove automated turrets completely from capships, because I dont see point removing from behemoths, or make so after typing +ActivateTurrets in loot drops are disabled for fighters, and only getting loot after -ActivateTurrets is typed in, basically toggling drops on and off, if this is possible.
Also idk this change affects moths, but if no, then good. Because automated turrets are good on moths. Or leave it only on behemoths, but not capships.
So
Or remove automated turrets completely from capships, because I dont see point removing from behemoths, or make so after typing +ActivateTurrets in loot drops are disabled for fighters, and only getting loot after -ActivateTurrets is typed in, basically toggling drops on and off, if this is possible.
Also idk this change affects moths, but if no, then good. Because automated turrets are good on moths. Or leave it only on behemoths, but not capships.
I've ranted, and screamed over how turret bots before this "activate turrets" command was implemented for everyone, when people were using bots to man their turrets.
Please stop posting about this. If you don't understand the fundamental difference between the issues by now, there isn't much else I can say.
But if you want, i'll push all the sss out of my hold and let it time out in space. in that case, please remove the automated turrets, because I can still do this manually. Grinding is grinding.
There's no need. If we want to retract SSS from anyone, we'll do that ourselves.
I farmed up a couple thousand the other night (about 400 an hour)[. But I was not afk. If i had gone afk, i would have lost my cap ship to very dangerous grey space bots.
Understand, I wasn't unfamiliar with farming, or naive about the possibility that ActivateTurrets could make that easier in some cases. But I expected it wouldn't change things that much, from the existing status quo, due to both risk (that you mention) and other mechanics around picking up drops and so on.
It's the "full AFK automation" that caught my attention in this case, and was a grave concern for me.
Thus far, that concern has not been borne out in reality. But, we'll continue to examine this issue.
Please stop posting about this. If you don't understand the fundamental difference between the issues by now, there isn't much else I can say.
But if you want, i'll push all the sss out of my hold and let it time out in space. in that case, please remove the automated turrets, because I can still do this manually. Grinding is grinding.
There's no need. If we want to retract SSS from anyone, we'll do that ourselves.
I farmed up a couple thousand the other night (about 400 an hour)[. But I was not afk. If i had gone afk, i would have lost my cap ship to very dangerous grey space bots.
Understand, I wasn't unfamiliar with farming, or naive about the possibility that ActivateTurrets could make that easier in some cases. But I expected it wouldn't change things that much, from the existing status quo, due to both risk (that you mention) and other mechanics around picking up drops and so on.
It's the "full AFK automation" that caught my attention in this case, and was a grave concern for me.
Thus far, that concern has not been borne out in reality. But, we'll continue to examine this issue.
Ok, understood. Thanks for the explanations. Have a good night.
Thank you very much Inc for autoturrets. In my opinion the autoturret feature is a great one. We had some epic capship battles this week, not like the old days yet but it's a start.
As Greenwal said in his way, it helps level the playing field between people with a computer adequate for playing VO with one client, and people with a pile of hardware or high end hardware on which five clients can be run (pilot and 4 gunners).
I also tried SSS farming in a goliath. I put a cap rail in the back and drove through an Arklan sector popping them and scooping, unloading and repeating. I've farmed a lot of SSS over the years and this was a little less 'grind-y' than usual, so I was happy. I hope this ability returns in some way.
I'm sorry you have to deal with the issues. Thank you for the explanation, I was confused before I read it.
As Greenwal said in his way, it helps level the playing field between people with a computer adequate for playing VO with one client, and people with a pile of hardware or high end hardware on which five clients can be run (pilot and 4 gunners).
I also tried SSS farming in a goliath. I put a cap rail in the back and drove through an Arklan sector popping them and scooping, unloading and repeating. I've farmed a lot of SSS over the years and this was a little less 'grind-y' than usual, so I was happy. I hope this ability returns in some way.
I'm sorry you have to deal with the issues. Thank you for the explanation, I was confused before I read it.
As Greenwal said in his way, it helps level the playing field between people with a computer adequate for playing VO with one client, and people with a pile of hardware or high end hardware on which five clients can be run (pilot and 4 gunners).
Yeah, leveling that playing-field has been a goal of mine for a long time. As relatively simple as the "ActivateTurrets" implementation might seem to be on the surface, we actually re-implemented a great deal of basic capship functionality on the way to getting there. It was a long time coming, but anyway.. I digress..
I'm not getting rid of ActivateTurrets. But, like always, I have to play the balance-game, and guard against economies of scale.
I also tried SSS farming in a goliath. I put a cap rail in the back and drove through an Arklan sector popping them and scooping, unloading and repeating. I've farmed a lot of SSS over the years and this was a little less 'grind-y' than usual, so I was happy. I hope this ability returns in some way.
I really don't like "grind". I can say there is an improved design around all of this, and a different "drop" system that's been in-testing (in production) for almost a year.
My goals will change people's farming habits, but mostly in making them move around a bit more, while potentially creating some new contention over geography (which I think is interesting).
Anyway, talking about all of that is a bit premature, I need to see the final log analysis.
I'm not sure exactly what will happen tomorrow (Fri), we'll see based on relative development goals and time constraints, and however long it takes to complete the log analysis.
Yeah, leveling that playing-field has been a goal of mine for a long time. As relatively simple as the "ActivateTurrets" implementation might seem to be on the surface, we actually re-implemented a great deal of basic capship functionality on the way to getting there. It was a long time coming, but anyway.. I digress..
I'm not getting rid of ActivateTurrets. But, like always, I have to play the balance-game, and guard against economies of scale.
I also tried SSS farming in a goliath. I put a cap rail in the back and drove through an Arklan sector popping them and scooping, unloading and repeating. I've farmed a lot of SSS over the years and this was a little less 'grind-y' than usual, so I was happy. I hope this ability returns in some way.
I really don't like "grind". I can say there is an improved design around all of this, and a different "drop" system that's been in-testing (in production) for almost a year.
My goals will change people's farming habits, but mostly in making them move around a bit more, while potentially creating some new contention over geography (which I think is interesting).
Anyway, talking about all of that is a bit premature, I need to see the final log analysis.
I'm not sure exactly what will happen tomorrow (Fri), we'll see based on relative development goals and time constraints, and however long it takes to complete the log analysis.