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> Inc first nerfed the capship turret drop rate, and then removed the special nerf on capship turrets and instead placed a limit on the sector itself.
Hmm, my experience (as of about a week ago, when I last needed SSS) is that the capship drop nerf is still in effect; if I kill an Arklan with a caprail, all I end up with is scrap metal. Tear it open with mposi on a tungtaur, and hallelujah! it's raining SSS.
On the subject of "setup time" when changing sectors, even hunting solo it's an annoyance, because you've got to warp to the other sector, fly out from the warp-in point to a suitable distance, then get yourself settled in for the fight. It's not world-ending, but it's annoying.
What's *more* annoying, though, to the point of frustration, is due to the cargo clumping, when you kill a bot and don't see any SSS appear, it can be for one of two reasons: because it got lumped in with some other clump of SSS behind you, or you've silently hit the sector drop limit. To decide which is which, you've got to target each SSS clump between kills and remember if the totals have gone up or not.
Hmm, my experience (as of about a week ago, when I last needed SSS) is that the capship drop nerf is still in effect; if I kill an Arklan with a caprail, all I end up with is scrap metal. Tear it open with mposi on a tungtaur, and hallelujah! it's raining SSS.
On the subject of "setup time" when changing sectors, even hunting solo it's an annoyance, because you've got to warp to the other sector, fly out from the warp-in point to a suitable distance, then get yourself settled in for the fight. It's not world-ending, but it's annoying.
What's *more* annoying, though, to the point of frustration, is due to the cargo clumping, when you kill a bot and don't see any SSS appear, it can be for one of two reasons: because it got lumped in with some other clump of SSS behind you, or you've silently hit the sector drop limit. To decide which is which, you've got to target each SSS clump between kills and remember if the totals have gone up or not.
Ok I guess the capship drop rate is still in place...that's good. Now all that's left is to remove or extend the limit then :)
"Why is changing sectors such a burden?" .. incarnate
Because certain sectors have just the right ratio of bot types and dispersion. Once these particular sectors are farmed out to max, the other sectors won't offer the same advantage. Many who farm know specific sectors that have a type,dispersion,arrangement to their advantage. The difference in kill rate can be pretty significant. A radical example of course, might be comparing certain parts of unknown sector to where an avalon stack can kill some 20 bots, to say a sector in in azek where you have to chase down one bot at a time, to another sector where the bots are aggressive and come to you but are too weak to deshield your capship.
Another possible way to address specifically the problem of AFK farming (with respect to the fine suggestions that have already been posed) might be to have weaker bots avoid capships altogether (requiring a chase and kill) and having only the more powerful ones come aggressively towards capships (the ones that could desheild you). Then you could put the drop rate back closer to what it was since the player would most certainly be unable to farm AFK.
Because certain sectors have just the right ratio of bot types and dispersion. Once these particular sectors are farmed out to max, the other sectors won't offer the same advantage. Many who farm know specific sectors that have a type,dispersion,arrangement to their advantage. The difference in kill rate can be pretty significant. A radical example of course, might be comparing certain parts of unknown sector to where an avalon stack can kill some 20 bots, to say a sector in in azek where you have to chase down one bot at a time, to another sector where the bots are aggressive and come to you but are too weak to deshield your capship.
Another possible way to address specifically the problem of AFK farming (with respect to the fine suggestions that have already been posed) might be to have weaker bots avoid capships altogether (requiring a chase and kill) and having only the more powerful ones come aggressively towards capships (the ones that could desheild you). Then you could put the drop rate back closer to what it was since the player would most certainly be unable to farm AFK.
+1 to haxmeister's idea as well
-1 , Several Players have farmed thousands of SSS after the recent changes. All they had to do was switch sectors & shoot bots with small ships. It sounds like a "You" problem , you don't want to grind/work for materials/resources and want everything to become easy for you.
As far as I see it we aren't asking to make things "easier" for us than they were for earlier SSS farmers. We're asking for a change that brings us on level ground. Earlier SSS farmers had no sector limits, no capship drop rate nerf, etc. Why should new SSS farmers suffer from those? The need for the capship drop rate nerf has been proven by the incident which Incarnate got a report about. But the change that has been made to solve it isn't IMO ideal, and this suggestion thread is to find a better solution.
I don't know Undeniable. I want to use my trident, I spent years building, to farm.
"But the change that has been made to solve it isn't IMO ideal,"
That is your opinion , i know several players who farmed thousands of sss after said change and is okay with that change.
SSS is required in capital ship construction which again should be time taking , back in those days you had to farm a long list of materials & there was only trident available to build. These days you can build goliath & just fly for $1 & can use it for free repair & refill while shooting bots with small ships. All it requires is time , so far all your recent suggestions is about making things super easy to achieve which is already easy to get if you get organized & adapt new tactics.
Also inevitable , you park your capship next to you for easy repair/refill & move hundreds of sss to station when there is enough floating in sector. Capships are still playing good role in farming , all it requires you to do is farm in small ships and change sectors.
That is your opinion , i know several players who farmed thousands of sss after said change and is okay with that change.
SSS is required in capital ship construction which again should be time taking , back in those days you had to farm a long list of materials & there was only trident available to build. These days you can build goliath & just fly for $1 & can use it for free repair & refill while shooting bots with small ships. All it requires is time , so far all your recent suggestions is about making things super easy to achieve which is already easy to get if you get organized & adapt new tactics.
Also inevitable , you park your capship next to you for easy repair/refill & move hundreds of sss to station when there is enough floating in sector. Capships are still playing good role in farming , all it requires you to do is farm in small ships and change sectors.
-1 , Several Players have farmed thousands of SSS after the recent changes. All they had to do was switch sectors & shoot bots with small ships.
This matches what I've seen as well.
This matches what I've seen as well.
I have shot bots with small ships, and drops stopped around 100.
"why is switching sectors such a burden?"
People responded and answered to this, you didn't respond back what they said you went straight with the random statement someone made that "several people are farming thousands"
SEVERAL. Because for others to do so they would need to go farther out to find sectors for it. There use to be a great deal more of people farming but it's less then worth it anymore.
IF your going to nitpick what you look at then I'd rather have this thread locked or deleted, as it would be a waste of time otherwise.
People responded and answered to this, you didn't respond back what they said you went straight with the random statement someone made that "several people are farming thousands"
SEVERAL. Because for others to do so they would need to go farther out to find sectors for it. There use to be a great deal more of people farming but it's less then worth it anymore.
IF your going to nitpick what you look at then I'd rather have this thread locked or deleted, as it would be a waste of time otherwise.
IF your going to nitpick what you look at then I'd rather have this thread locked or deleted, as it would be a waste of time otherwise.
No, it's already a huge waste of time, because it's a rambling thread focusing largely on confusion and supposition, and totally lacking in any data. You could have gone around and played the game across a variety of different sectors / times, and reported back your total drop counts with dates and times and length-of-farming-period, but you didn't. You just posted a bunch of "complainy" opinions with suppositions about limits "stated as facts".
This is not the "self-righteous bitching forum": that causes people to get booted off of Suggestions entirely.
This is the "Politely request that Incarnate use some of his precious time to understand why you want to change the game". The entire Rules Structure is built around the idea of optimizing my time, so that everyone gains the benefits of my productively changing the game, instead of responding to bitchy threads about highly questionable "problems".
The Fundamental Basis of This Thread Is Inaccurate.
In the last 30 days a whopping 20 sectors (total) have hit artificial limit constraints on SSS:
Sector Limited ---------------------- Occurrences
Dau.K11.SyntheticSilksteel ------ 189
Bra.J13.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 73
Bra.J9.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 49
Bra.D7.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 39
Dau.K12.SyntheticSilksteel ----- 33
Bra.F5.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 23
Bra.D10.SyntheticSilksteel ------ 20
Bra.H4.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 14
Dau.K9.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 13
Nyr.H11.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 10
Bra.K5.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 9
Bra.G4.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 8
Dau.L6.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 5
Bra.D8.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 5
Dau.M9.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 3
Dau.J5.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 3
Pel.N9.SyntheticSilksteel --------- 2
Dau.O4.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 2
Bra.I4.SyntheticSilksteel --------- 2
Bra.L5.SyntheticSilksteel --------- 1
The vast majority of these instances of bouncing off the limits were basically "at the same time". I can see this, because I graph the sector limit-instances as additive lines on a time-graph. So, the really big ones are mostly all giant peak-lines that happened at the same time.
In other words, someone went into Dau K11 and slaughtered bots to an intense degree, at a particular point in time, and bounced the sector off the drop-limits many, many times (in a single play-session). This is exactly the kind of behaviour the limitation system was created to prevent.
You know what isn't on this list at all? Unknown System, or HUGE numbers of other sectors where you can "farm" bots very successfully, up to the limit point, which only lasts a few hours and then turns back off again.
If I go back 90 days, you know how much the number of "limited" sectors increases? By six. 26 sectors in three months have bounced off their limits, that's it. And, again, it's largely just the ones listed above.
Even of those few sectors hitting limits, above, because the "limit instances" were particular single moments of extreme usage, the vast majority of the time, even those sectors didn't have limits in place. Limits expire after a few hours.
You know what else DOESN'T EXIST? This:
I have shot bots with small ships, and drops stopped around 100.
Really? Because there isn't a drop limit at 100. Have you considered that maybe it's in your head? It's a freaking randomized drop, sometimes you simply "don't win" for a while.
And that is the problem with "suppositions posted as fact". So, here's a recap:
- Capships cannot be used to farm bots to produce SSS. You have to use Fighters.
- Since the limits were put in place, many people who actively farm SSS have reported that the current system has little or no impact on their farming at all, which is also backed up by my graphs, which display their farming success.
- Some people are not farming SSS as much as they used to, but then, specific farmers may not be playing as much as they used to, for all kinds of random reasons of personal availability, etc.
- Some of you (like IronLord), have "decided" that pursuing bot-drops of SSS are "pointlessly nerfed" and that they "won't bother" anymore, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that SSS supplies are decreased. Wow. Amazing.
- Sectors are not hitting limits, with a few exceptions, some of which might be more related to people recovering standing than farming SSS.
We'll probably, eventually allow capships-turrets to get drops again, someday, but it requires a bunch of AI changes, and it'll still be "effectively" nerfed because the bots are going to get super pissed at you and likely kill your capship. So, maybe just "let go" of the whole "I want to do mass-farming with my capship" thing, that ain't happenin'.
This took a long time to write.
I had to go get the data, and format this, and write a whole response and edit it and so on. I could have easily made an addon, a new drop, or improved some aspect of the game in the time that it took me to write this.
This is why we try to get you to submit something meaningful on this forum (hence the rules). Something supported by data, with concrete evaluations and clearly / coherently written analysis of tradeoffs. Because I can read that quickly and make a decision, and it results in what (I think) you want: changes to the game.
Threads like this one cause the game's development to be slowed down, progress to decrease, and nothing to ever happen.
No, it's already a huge waste of time, because it's a rambling thread focusing largely on confusion and supposition, and totally lacking in any data. You could have gone around and played the game across a variety of different sectors / times, and reported back your total drop counts with dates and times and length-of-farming-period, but you didn't. You just posted a bunch of "complainy" opinions with suppositions about limits "stated as facts".
This is not the "self-righteous bitching forum": that causes people to get booted off of Suggestions entirely.
This is the "Politely request that Incarnate use some of his precious time to understand why you want to change the game". The entire Rules Structure is built around the idea of optimizing my time, so that everyone gains the benefits of my productively changing the game, instead of responding to bitchy threads about highly questionable "problems".
The Fundamental Basis of This Thread Is Inaccurate.
In the last 30 days a whopping 20 sectors (total) have hit artificial limit constraints on SSS:
Sector Limited ---------------------- Occurrences
Dau.K11.SyntheticSilksteel ------ 189
Bra.J13.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 73
Bra.J9.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 49
Bra.D7.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 39
Dau.K12.SyntheticSilksteel ----- 33
Bra.F5.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 23
Bra.D10.SyntheticSilksteel ------ 20
Bra.H4.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 14
Dau.K9.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 13
Nyr.H11.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 10
Bra.K5.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 9
Bra.G4.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 8
Dau.L6.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 5
Bra.D8.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 5
Dau.M9.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 3
Dau.J5.SyntheticSilksteel -------- 3
Pel.N9.SyntheticSilksteel --------- 2
Dau.O4.SyntheticSilksteel ------- 2
Bra.I4.SyntheticSilksteel --------- 2
Bra.L5.SyntheticSilksteel --------- 1
The vast majority of these instances of bouncing off the limits were basically "at the same time". I can see this, because I graph the sector limit-instances as additive lines on a time-graph. So, the really big ones are mostly all giant peak-lines that happened at the same time.
In other words, someone went into Dau K11 and slaughtered bots to an intense degree, at a particular point in time, and bounced the sector off the drop-limits many, many times (in a single play-session). This is exactly the kind of behaviour the limitation system was created to prevent.
You know what isn't on this list at all? Unknown System, or HUGE numbers of other sectors where you can "farm" bots very successfully, up to the limit point, which only lasts a few hours and then turns back off again.
If I go back 90 days, you know how much the number of "limited" sectors increases? By six. 26 sectors in three months have bounced off their limits, that's it. And, again, it's largely just the ones listed above.
Even of those few sectors hitting limits, above, because the "limit instances" were particular single moments of extreme usage, the vast majority of the time, even those sectors didn't have limits in place. Limits expire after a few hours.
You know what else DOESN'T EXIST? This:
I have shot bots with small ships, and drops stopped around 100.
Really? Because there isn't a drop limit at 100. Have you considered that maybe it's in your head? It's a freaking randomized drop, sometimes you simply "don't win" for a while.
And that is the problem with "suppositions posted as fact". So, here's a recap:
- Capships cannot be used to farm bots to produce SSS. You have to use Fighters.
- Since the limits were put in place, many people who actively farm SSS have reported that the current system has little or no impact on their farming at all, which is also backed up by my graphs, which display their farming success.
- Some people are not farming SSS as much as they used to, but then, specific farmers may not be playing as much as they used to, for all kinds of random reasons of personal availability, etc.
- Some of you (like IronLord), have "decided" that pursuing bot-drops of SSS are "pointlessly nerfed" and that they "won't bother" anymore, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that SSS supplies are decreased. Wow. Amazing.
- Sectors are not hitting limits, with a few exceptions, some of which might be more related to people recovering standing than farming SSS.
We'll probably, eventually allow capships-turrets to get drops again, someday, but it requires a bunch of AI changes, and it'll still be "effectively" nerfed because the bots are going to get super pissed at you and likely kill your capship. So, maybe just "let go" of the whole "I want to do mass-farming with my capship" thing, that ain't happenin'.
This took a long time to write.
I had to go get the data, and format this, and write a whole response and edit it and so on. I could have easily made an addon, a new drop, or improved some aspect of the game in the time that it took me to write this.
This is why we try to get you to submit something meaningful on this forum (hence the rules). Something supported by data, with concrete evaluations and clearly / coherently written analysis of tradeoffs. Because I can read that quickly and make a decision, and it results in what (I think) you want: changes to the game.
Threads like this one cause the game's development to be slowed down, progress to decrease, and nothing to ever happen.
*Inserts gif Friday dammmmn...........* Would say told you so.... But I'm worried that it could get me form muted, so I'll say instead, tungmod/tar mega posi and posi, and go kill Arkans, or if you have a behemoth heavy miner Mark 2 plasma devastators, or mega posi setup and then go kill collectors. *Mike drop*
I'd agree with Inc's data. I mean that's ground numbers, not anecdotal. Now even I think that what we have been doing is, as Inc said, "bitching" over isolated experiences rather than data.
I'd agree with Inc's data. I mean that's ground numbers, not anecdotal. Now even I think that what we have been doing is, as Inc said, "bitching" over isolated experiences rather than data.
Populations dealing with randomized rewards often struggle with the notion that correlation is not causation, and sometimes even go down the road into magical thinking (casino players who obsess over one particular slot-machine being "hot", despite all being equally random per gaming-law statutes).
If someone already dislikes the concept of a potential influencing factor (like sector limits), then that's always likely to be blamed.
A year ago, if you shot a bunch of bots and none of them dropped SSS, you'd have said "bummer, bad luck". But now there's an inclination to immediately think "sector limits! grumble! shake fist in Inc's direction!".
Obviously, the data indicates that the limits are not a significant problem at all. For the majority of people (using fighters), the game is actually working the same as it did a year ago. And there's certainly plenty of room for farming of SSS.
The sector-wide limits exist for a very important reason, and are not likely to ever be removed (they might be changed, or tweaked, but not wholly removed). The limits were not put in place to stop the capship-turret problem, they were a a result of learning from the capship-turret problem: basically a way of limiting the extent of the next "capship-turret problem" (which wouldn't be a capship-turret, but whatever new farming exploit was around the corner).
It puts me in a really dicey position to release any "interesting" new content, like major new weapon-types, if I have to worry about spending weeks fixing the results of major farming exploits, doing fine-grained analysis of the economy and rolling back people's inventories.. for every new addon. That will make me really reluctant to "try out" anything major, like any new weapon capable of destroying a lot of ships quickly.
Sector-wide limits give us something to "alarm", they put an automatic brake on how badly a new exploit can spin out of control, and they make it a bit more challenging to do automated farming. No, I was not solely concerned about capships, when it came to farming, I had to put systems in place to better handle broad cases, not simply "the turrets".
There is a lot that can be done with sector-limits (or system limits, or regional limits, or whatever else), in terms of heuristics to react to particular player-counts, behaviours, automatic adjustments that can be made for all kinds of criteria to keep the limits "outside" of what most people encounter, most of the time.
It's a good system to have, and I'm not opposed to tweaking or changing it, if there's a problem. But there has to be a problem, and not just "the idea of a problem". I am really not into evidence-free scapegoats. I've been hearing for 20 years about "the sector was slow", when in reality some big ISP peering-point, 1800 miles away from me, was saturated by a DDoS attack.
Correlation is not causation, and unless we're rigorous with measurement and careful mitigation of human biases, we end up spending all our time chasing our tails in the darkness and developing nothing of value.
Populations dealing with randomized rewards often struggle with the notion that correlation is not causation, and sometimes even go down the road into magical thinking (casino players who obsess over one particular slot-machine being "hot", despite all being equally random per gaming-law statutes).
If someone already dislikes the concept of a potential influencing factor (like sector limits), then that's always likely to be blamed.
A year ago, if you shot a bunch of bots and none of them dropped SSS, you'd have said "bummer, bad luck". But now there's an inclination to immediately think "sector limits! grumble! shake fist in Inc's direction!".
Obviously, the data indicates that the limits are not a significant problem at all. For the majority of people (using fighters), the game is actually working the same as it did a year ago. And there's certainly plenty of room for farming of SSS.
The sector-wide limits exist for a very important reason, and are not likely to ever be removed (they might be changed, or tweaked, but not wholly removed). The limits were not put in place to stop the capship-turret problem, they were a a result of learning from the capship-turret problem: basically a way of limiting the extent of the next "capship-turret problem" (which wouldn't be a capship-turret, but whatever new farming exploit was around the corner).
It puts me in a really dicey position to release any "interesting" new content, like major new weapon-types, if I have to worry about spending weeks fixing the results of major farming exploits, doing fine-grained analysis of the economy and rolling back people's inventories.. for every new addon. That will make me really reluctant to "try out" anything major, like any new weapon capable of destroying a lot of ships quickly.
Sector-wide limits give us something to "alarm", they put an automatic brake on how badly a new exploit can spin out of control, and they make it a bit more challenging to do automated farming. No, I was not solely concerned about capships, when it came to farming, I had to put systems in place to better handle broad cases, not simply "the turrets".
There is a lot that can be done with sector-limits (or system limits, or regional limits, or whatever else), in terms of heuristics to react to particular player-counts, behaviours, automatic adjustments that can be made for all kinds of criteria to keep the limits "outside" of what most people encounter, most of the time.
It's a good system to have, and I'm not opposed to tweaking or changing it, if there's a problem. But there has to be a problem, and not just "the idea of a problem". I am really not into evidence-free scapegoats. I've been hearing for 20 years about "the sector was slow", when in reality some big ISP peering-point, 1800 miles away from me, was saturated by a DDoS attack.
Correlation is not causation, and unless we're rigorous with measurement and careful mitigation of human biases, we end up spending all our time chasing our tails in the darkness and developing nothing of value.
+1