Floss

What would be interesting is a more robust table or even a mini-app that let you calculate the effectiveness of trade routes taking into account the following: 1) Warp speed 2) Cargo size 3) Negotitate level 4) TT group bonus effect (if it ever gets implemented) 5) Trade level (impacts XP) 6) Wormhole factor 1-5 would be easy to calculate, 6 would take a bit more intervention. I've done testing with stop watches to try and figure out the most efficient routes for a few runs, but there are enough variables that no one scenario is true for all parties. You'd have to make some general assumptions about distance to travel etc usign an assumed nav path and not free warping, but it could be handy to have. (not a programmer here) I'm a numbers person, so being able to manipulate the data by testing different routes, changing warp speed to guess what effect an engine upgrade would have, etc, could be interesting. Playing with xp/hour rates, DPS caluclations, etc is just as interesting as killing something

This was roughly the strategy attempted by introducing the MPP. Unfortuantely it still got camped just as hard. The persistent people will get enough help to camp the whole sector if they want something badly enough.

There's no way this could classify as a registered charity. My assumption is that this is more like a bunch of your friends getting together and going splits on a case of beer, just a really epic multiplayer case of beer in this case. If there's no profit from this being made, shouldn't be any requirement to file anything for tax purposes.

To say any guild doesn't have skeletons in the closet would be a stretch Understanding that 2002-2003 was a long time ago and how much people might have changed since then is also important. I think the best way to promote less direct competition is just to make more content. Most MMO's resort to instancing which is detracting from the MM part of MMO. Final Fantasy's system of "I shot it first so it's mine" just changes the dynamic to who has the fastest claim skill (beam users or instant activation skills) and then created macros to detect pixels and trigger a skill. It really didn't stop anything and still lead to hostility. Triggered boss mobs are also a great tool to cut down on camping/killstealing, assuming we don't recreate the MPP which also just got camped. If a guild leader got 1 token per week or something to trigger a mob, that could be an interesting dynamic to help everyone play nice. FF did have a successful system where random items would drop, trade a stack for a token, and then go fight a boss privately. It gives even the smallest groups the opportunity to do end game stuff without having to camp a mob in shifts 24/7. I don't have a huge issue with competition, but I can understand the frustration of small guilds getting blocked out of the end game stuff, something we definitely were doing in the previous incarnation of this game.

The reward is a shield usable at lvl 40, so is it really a bad thing that you finished it at 38?

The conflict arises when the two groups are after the same item, let's say a skull shield. Group A may not wish to share the kill with Group B due to the horrid drop rate on the item. Grouping is great if the people are after different objectives. I've done this repeatedly (i.e. I'm camping for a ML, and a PW is after a PL), and it's fantastic when it works that way, but if someone doesn't want to share and would rather compete, there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make either group a bunch of "KSers" if they chose to have a shoot out instead of an agreement. A little competition can make the game interesting, and drive the need to improve your skills/gear. Bartering if you know you are going to get outgunned can also be useful. Trade the boss spawn time if you have it in exchange for the privelege (not a right) of getting the next kill while the clearly superior players holds back, with the agreement of moving on afterwards. Getting "KSed" as it is usually described is incentive for me to do better in the future and not have it happen again, not a window to chew someone out for having better equipment than me.

Killstealing is a myth in this game, but there is bad etiquette. I won't go to a nav someone is clearly sitting on and shoot at their mobs. I also won't shoot at something someone else is working on just to be a jerk. Chasing someone around and shooting everything they've fired at consitutes harrassment. In the event of rare/boss/end game mobs, whoever brings the biggest guns to the party gets the kill. I don't believe that someone camping something like RD base gives them exclusive rights to the kill, or else people would just park a character on the base, controller, etc, and claim exclusive rights to all 3 of the interesting in-game mobs in the current game, calling anyone else who shoots at it a "Kill Stealer". The Warder was probably the ultimate example of this back in Live where it had about a 0.2 second life span on Andramada. The game mechanics say that >50% of the damage gets the kill. That's not stealing if you do >50%. If you don't get the kill, yes that can be frustrating, but that's the way the game works. Pulling up to something like a 4 mob chavez spawn, where someone is already parked, and trying to outgun them on everything is not against the rules, but clearly a jerk move. I've lost mobs that I've been camping to what could be called kill stealing, but the person clearly had more DPS than me, so that's the end of the story. No point in sending some rage "I'm going to smite your whole guild" message to someone.

I think this is the key point with any aspect of the project. Having someone work on graphics doesn't detract from anything else that's currently being done due to differing skillsets, and the more help the better. There are likely thousands of images that would need to be redone, mobs/ships/avatars being some of the more complex that would take a lot of time to get right.

The reward from this one is amazing and warrants the time to complete it. The only thing I would change is the respawn rate of the mobs near DCO. It's insane. I would rather have all HU quests like this one if the rewards are going to be similar. As a contrast, terrans deliver some news to Chern, go back to earth/somerled, talk with herrera, and then move on. Boring, no reward, no point, just a time sink.

Those graphics are really nice. Would love to see a full overhaul to bring the game up to modern standards. I wonder if it would be possible to impelment a low-res or "Classic" mode patch if people wanted to keep the original look of the game.

Tyran that entire post was awesome. +1

I'm always hesitant to report new bugs, as I don't know what is currently already known and don't want to spam the system =/

A quarterly or semi-annual report should be sufficient for transparancy. Just a general breakdown, i.e. 50% hosting, 30% hardware, 20% security, etc. Having a relevant donation tracker would be nice so that people know if they need to keep donating, or if the project already has a cash surplus for now. I'm sure if an urgent need arose, it wouldn't take much time to bring in a few hundred or even thousand bucks based on donation trends over the last few weeks.

1) Activated skill persistent graphics stacking 2) Buff icons not dispalying after zoning 3) Autofire - having to manually select weapons, re-equip, etc - by far the worst of the bunch 4) TT Group trade bonus does not work - this makes trade runs on any non-negotiate class absolutely brutal. 5) No 5th, 1-4 would be epic.

10 levels isn't a big deal at all. 30+ is, as well as the ammo issue.

I agree. Mapping lvl 3/4/5 stuff is fun, and money matters. Balancing end game more appropriately would be nice, so that people aren't sitting on 600mil of useless creds =/.

Agrees 100% /popcorn

I have a bunch on my TT, look me up if you still need some Mordanite.

/Bump - I think we're around 40 members, still accepting all applicants

K cleaning up my math: Explosive Rocket Type B - 100.00 Lvl 5 guns = 100% more damage, so base damage is 200.00 Base has 1mil hp 1,000,000 / 200 = 5000 rockets Rockets stack up to 130 5000/130 = 38.5 stacks to do 1,000,000 damage. Assuming 100% accuracy and 100% crit rate, 19.25 stacks. Something isn't right unless I'm an idiot. Based on my TW kiting in ST3 (lvl 143), the ability to do damage to a CL66 mob is about a 75% sucess rate I would guesstimate with a CL50 character. Either the base HP has been crippled or damage/accuracy/crit numbers on mobs are seriously messed up. You shouldn't be able to do 1 dmg to a CL 66 with lvl 5 guns, let alone do 1,000,000 with 1 full hull of lvl 5 ammo.

It has everything to do with level of char unless they removed the restriction on being able to damage mobs that are way over your head. Kiting is easy if you respect the tether, the ability to do damage + ammo capacity is the constraint in the kiting equation which is a function of your combat level (which also drives weapon level and stack size). As a guess given 5.6k range assuming a supernova or model z/y shield, say a lvl 4-5ish missile does 100 damage, the base has something like 1,300,000 HP, so assuming you landed every hit for 100 damage, that's 87 stacks of ammo. This isn't possible given cargo size and the fact that not every hit will do damage If you got CL 50 already I want to know how, lol.

Do you have Microsoft.net 3.5 framework? That's caused me grief in the past, but installing it basically fixed every problem I've had.

I did all of this, have done all of the repeatables, etc. There must be some trick to this, because the douche still won't give me shield charge. MAy you need to complete Holly's mission, and then not get it again from her? Having all 3 open at the same time doesn't get you shield charge. I have everything else but befriend and navigate, OL41.

What the heck, how fast did you level to be able to hit it? You'd have to be around CL40+ to land any damage on it, but even with a hull full of ammo you'd probably run dry before killing it (I think I popped it around CL 44 or so in ST3 and it took forever). And yeah, it is 100% "broken", but then so is all end game

The one that ends up in the start menu under EA has worked for me in both Win 7 and XP. I didn't use any fancy "run as admin" tricks or anything.