fuulishone

The images get cached, you may need to force a reload of the image to show the new versions. I currently see Jam as PW 150, JaMiner as JE 150, JamVault as PP 90, JamRunner as TT 150, JamTzu as JD 146.

@Kyp I've updated my first post to have a call out section just for you.

TB, while you're looking at jobs, any chance you could review the ones that are available to the L150 job terminal at Prasad Station? Half the time, the combat and trade jobs send you to DT which isn't open to players right now. On the explore ones, there's a number that go to Margesi (Loch Kaele and Ruined Small Moon) which are problematic. Loch Kaele only allows you to warp to 20km of it, then you need to impulse the rest of the way to actually complete the job. Ruined Small Moon doesn't seem to show in the zone at all as a nav, so these are impossible to complete. Thanks much

CL66 Evil Santa (a la Futurama), randomly roams around all sectors (except for newbie starter zones) on a RANDOM respawn timer and location. i.e., non-campable. Don't care what he drops as long as it's fun. Candy canes to give to NPCs for faction, sexy Mrs. Santa dolls, whatever your imagination can come up with. =)

Perhaps differences in Windows 7 Home Premium vs Professional may be the cause of this inconsistency?

Your ability to find open, uncamped spawns may be due to when you logged in. I'm on the east coast, and when I've finally gotten everything I need to do around the house done and can log in and play, it was rather difficult the first week or so finding spawns for faction. I agree there ARE other mobs one can farm other than Chavez, but as Chavez give Bogeril faction, and DT is 'around the corner' it doesn't make much sense to farm anything other than Chavez. Now that some time has passed since the gates were faction closed, I have noticed that the "open-ness" of spawns is more largely due to the fact that a lot of folks have stopped logging in to play their high levels more than anything. I've seen more folks working new toons or just taking a break. What does this absence of high levels mean? I don't know, but something's happening...

Person with the most damage on the mob gets the faction hit/gain. Grouping doesn't do anything, and there's no sharing of faction like there is with xp.

The two hidden Chavez camps in Jotunheim have some in that range. Odin Rex has a spawn of those as well in the NW corner, past the defense drones. And um... There's always Glenn, but that one is quite camped by folks.

It is. But the scaling for higher level mobs isn't really in line with the difficulty increase, so it's something that may need to get re-balanced, or at least examined. Not sure what CL you can handle, but it sounds like you're hunting the ones in Freya that occasionally have a CL30 scout/enforcer (?) with them. If that's your target level range, you could try Jotunheim. Register at Arx Ymir just in case you need to tow and you have your pick of 3 navs of Chavez in the L9-17 range. It's also a short hop from here to Odin Rex where there's L15-18 Chavez.

Quoting Kyp from another thread, and breaking out the response so as to not further clutter up the server status thread. What you say makes sense and is perfectly fine. The key component that's missing though, is any kind of forum post/announcement stating that faction is entering a testing phase and that the gates will be closed for that purpose. Every time something changes in the game that's perceived to be negative, the lack of communication has always added to the frustration value of the community. Whether that's intended or not, I leave that to others to answer, but I simply ask that someone say definitively whether or not the faction re-enabling is in fact intended and if so, what's the focus of the testing for this period of time? Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's assume that you're looking for useful feedback on the faction situation. As has been stated in other threads, the starting point for faction for certain classes seems high. -9k RD for my PP to start is just... painful. Having said that, I did finally get both my JE and PP enough standing to enter BBW/Paramis and dock at QAR. Results below... Short list version for Kyp The Good It wasn't as terrible an affair as it could've been, it took my JE about a week of casual play to get in. My JE started at roughly -7k or so. Casual play here is defined as, sitting at a spawn point, clearing it, watch some TV while waiting for respawn, maybe miss a spawn or two, clear again. I did this for roughly 2-3 hrs a night. All told, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12hrs. I did take advantage of running a few L150 jobs (combat/trade/explore) whenever the RD faction popped up to help things along. I also did Sun Tzu's mission from OMP (where we get to rattle Harvey Krum a bit.) So not a terrible experience.... the first time through. The Meh Now that my JE was in, I started working on my PP. This poor sap started with -9k and it took him a long time. Perhaps it was because, by the time I started on him, everyone else was hard grinding faction as well and there were no Chavez to be found. I could've started on my own faction but they don't offer the same kind of faction benefit as Chavez, so it was not in the cards. I started out doing what my JE did, casual play, sit at a spawn point, etc. The problem was, with such a large starting deficit it took a lot longer to bridge the faction gap and I ended up taking around 10 nights or so, again at 2-3 hrs a night, before I was able to limp into Paramis Station. This one also did the Sun Tzu mission, but not jobs. I do have to say that a lot of this time was also in the middle of the server issues, with the inability to manufacture ammo, characters not saving (that one set me back by around 900 faction alone... grrrrr), mob spawn times being completely messed up and such, so perhaps the pain was more than it should've been under normal conditions. The Bad Alright, so two down... and two more to go *sigh*. While in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal to spend roughly 2 more weeks to get my remaining two toons to faction, it does mean that all told, I will have spent a substantial amount of time doing nothing more than beating up on no xp, crud loot mobs that others could've been leveling on instead. My TE and JS are both around -6500 RD right now so roughly close to where my JE started. Both will do the Sun Tzu mission. Both will farm the best faction producing Chavez available, which are of course, low level and easily farmable. This just further causes spawn camping issues and such as there aren't enough alternatives in the game today to gain RD faction. Bottom Line The major problem right now is that the "best" (and really only) strategy for gaining faction for high level characters is well, beating up very low level mobs. The high level mobs offer very little relative gain in faction to even bother with. The faction scaling doesn't match up to the increase in difficulty and the reduction in overall mobs killed per hour. So again, farming low-level, high quantity spawns works better. The Sun Tzu mission isn't repeatable, and it gives only 500 faction. My memory fails me, but I thought there used to be another RD mission that one could do to gain entrance to BBW, but I couldn't remember, nor find such a mission. The job terminals only give 25 faction, which is pitiful considering the amount of time invested to do a single job as compared to nuking a spawn of 5-10 L25 Chavez. There are no token turn in type of missions. Options are quite limited right now. Improvements - You could improve the faction awarded from higher level Chavez to +15 for the CL50-52, up from their current +11. That would help those that already went through the initial grind to further improve and maintain their relations with the RD. - You could make Jar Vlodim's mission from Paramis Station actually award RD faction (it currently does not, perhaps that's intended). - You could make Sun Tzu's mission repeatable once per faction tier as a sort of reward from the RD faction in recognizing that you're moving towards pirate-hood. For example, the current mission would be the initial one, can be done anytime by anyone. Once you get halfway to gate use for your class then Sun Tzu will recognize your efforts and offer you another mission to help ease the transition to the next phase. By this I mean, if your starting faction is -9k, then once you get to -5.5k, Sun Tzu gives you the second mission. (This is assuming -2k unlocks the gates.) - As stated in other threads, you could provide some kind of item that could be turned in for faction, an RD version of the Jenquai/Progen/Terran half-eaten space suits. Or even just these items and given to some RD representative. I think the restriction here would be, they'd only accept space suits of your own faction. As a Jenq, giving Terran suits would get me a "ho hum, move along" from the NPC, whereas giving Jenq ones would get me some small amount of faction. A good balance might be to give 2-3 faction points per suit, so a stack of 60 would be 120-180 points. More than that would be unbalanced. I think 120-180 points per stack would open up a neat little pocket black market commodity as well for the market channel. - The job terminal jobs should probably scale better on the faction awarded depending on the type. Receiving 25 faction for a L150 explore job seems okay, but seems too little for a L150 combat job. Perhaps a small bump to 30 faction instead? This means someone focused on combat jobs could get a maximum of 180 faction from picking six simultaneous RD factioned combat jobs (which in itself could take an hour before the refresh on the job terminal even produces said jobs). If the mob spawned happened to be Chavez, then bonus. These suggestions could offer more options to folks. Perhaps they end up still being less efficient than low-level mob farming, but at least the gap wouldn't be as big, and folks could take a break from the mob ganking and do something more productive. Overall the idea is to make the process non-monotonous and offer more variety. If you made it this far in my wall of text, I thank you for having the patience to read my post. Edit: Added the short list section up top for Kyp.

Mobs should see you at 0.3 + the mob's innate scan. If they have a scan of 5, then they'd see you at 5.3. From what I can tell, the next factor that plays is whether there's mob ai that determines how and when a mob may decide to attack you even if they can see you.

One of the things that make JE-style mining different is how many mineables spawn near highly aggressive and dangerous mobs. The fewer interesting fields there are, the less useful and unique a JE becomes. And vice versa. It boils down to content. There's currently not enough content in support of the JE style that makes it a more viable miner class than the others. As an explorer class though, the wormhole skill alone helps a great deal. Both in early game and late game, this one skill will allow a JE to level faster than most other classes (I'm referring to job terminals and just overall getting around the universe). Combat-wise, shield leech in the emulator is very good and makes it reasonable to do combat, but due to range issues, falls behind the TS in this area. I picked TS as they also only have level 8 shields and potentially has the same paper hull issues. However their combat style means they can more effectively do combat better than a JE. PS are tank explorers. With L9 shields and a very useful Menace skill line, they offer the most balanced game play as an explorer class. In terms of cargo space, JE's have the toughest time and either have to return to base to dump, dump unwanted ores frequently, or resort to cherry picking. This is also a content issue, more narrowly populated fields can go a long way to helping this condition. And Merlin has already done a lot to fix this, however now it's started going in the other direction again with the advent of hulks mixed into roid fields and non-stackable Unidentified Ancient Artifacts showing up in roids. I don't suggest this be changed, just pointing out one of the "real world" issues with playing a JE. Cargo space is balanced though, as JE's don't need to carry ammo to defend themselves, so no complaints here, just stating facts. Also, both the TS and PS are unable to manufacture their own ammo at present and therefore require the services of a friendly weapon builder. Most will make a bulk build order and then squirrel a portion of their vault to house the rest. The area where JE's may excel as a support class is the sheer amount of devices available as well as a L9 reactor to power them. (Both TS and PS are limited to L8 reactors and thus limit the total number of buffs they can put out before needing to recharge.) Also, once the JE max scan, max navigate and group cloak work properly, that will be another differentiator from the other explorer classes. (I know that TS have the same level navigate, but I'm unsure if it's intended to share/break out of grav well like the JE version is supposed to.)

@Hexergirl I don't think there's complaint or crying, just discussion for those of us stuck at work and not able to play.

Don't dismiss the Windows error box that comes up and the net7proxy window should stick around longer. Doesn't work all the time, so YMMV.

That's a good point, would Chem fit better than Plasma since Progens have non-restrictive Chem debuffers available to them?

@Mattsacre: Hellbore isn't manu, so it's whatever quality you happen to loot it at. Also your representation of what's considered uber isn't exactly right. For Progens, the DT ballistas and late game V'rix stuff were pretty highly desired. The same was true for Terrans. For Jenq's there were no drops for them from DT afaik. As much as people like Hellbore, it's a horrible piece of kit. It's nice now since the full item database isn't in game yet... But once the Sting of the Mordana and Intolerance device are in game, I have to wonder if the Hellbore will continue to be so popular and desired. @Lot: Perhaps the better answer (altho likely to be unpopular) is to reduce the ML's four ammo types to one - explosive. @All: tldr version Limitations to the very best of gear is a healthy thing and forces you to consider what to use and when and keeps things fresh. Everyone having exactly the same end-game kit is boring. Remember, GoBB wasn't in live and likely hasn't had the benefit of a balance pass in terms of his drops. Things may change. long version When discussing the weapons that GoBB drops, why is there no discussion around the fact that the Black Streak comes in only one flavor? One damage type per weapon is a reality that all Jenqs have to deal with, and nothing can change that. Look at some of the weapons that are/were most desired by level 9 beam users: Black Streak - Energy Defender's Pride - Plasma (JD only, is this even in?) Devastating Gaze - Plasma Emerald Devastator - Plasma (JD only, no trade, self-manu similar to Dragon's Fang pl and Rage ml) Eye of the Dark One - Plasma (no trade, no manu) Eye of Destruction - Plasma (can be pm, similar to Bile Cannon/Launcher) Ghost's Edge - Energy (not in game yet, afaik) Glare of Devastation - Plasma (no trade, no manu) Prototype DM Force Emitter - Energy (not in game) Sun Focus 2000 - Energy (not supposed to be in game) So all told we have exactly two damage types available, and we MUST mix the damage types if we are maximizing buffs. Putting on all Plasma only forces you to lose out on the buffs on the Black Streak for example. It's a matter of compromise and deciding what's best for your style of play, and who you're grouping with. If Tengu right now were actually impact resistant, then yeah the Spitter would be less useful than other choices in terms of the ammo restriction. However, you could choose to use a different weapon and compensate the buffs in other ways, either through mixing and matching the other equipment slots, or by picking appropriate group mates to help in that regard. For debuffing... Impact: L5 Taniwha's Pride, or strap a Terran into your group and have them use the Gorgon's line. Chemical: L6 Thordis' Lament, or use a Basilisk up to L9 Plasma: L4 Tatsu's Pride, L8 Pulsing Bullywere Eye (if you're a PW), or bring a Terran w/ Rada line (up to L5) or a Jenq w/ Chimaera (up to L9). A TW/JD in group with Bullywere Eye, or a Terran with Hellbore would work too. This is the group aspect of the game. The Spitter is a wonderful piece of kit, but the min/max for a solo situation seems... Overkill. One final thought... Keep in mind that GoBB was never in live, so his loot probably hasn't been fully balanced.

CL50 and OL150 on the PP?

CDel, Will avatars be sync'ed to the PTR as well? Or just account credentials?

Part of the problem is manual time keeping. You're almost better off using a different approach... But finding a mob that you can sit there and shoot into for an extended period of time is hard. Additionally, using weapons that are already very fast puts you at risk of rounding errors. Perhaps you could get use a much longer base reload time weapon for your tests and time the total time to empty a stack of ammo, or something similar. Lastly, with respect to the basing stuff on animations... You may also run afoul of network lag as the client doesn't go into the animation until it receives positive confirmation from the server. All this points to the need for extended testing to get good quality results. Oh, one other thing. You may need to play with the order of buffs as well as varying buffs. Remember to log out and back in between each testing cycle to make sure there's no rogue buffs lying around. You may need an AotW, CVE or a JE w/ a Cyberadrenaline Rush to buff you and test various interactions of the percentages.

Neither are particularly useful for a Jenq. The Intent of the Resolute is nice and all, but as has been pointed out in a different thread, Jenq don't really kite and so the extra maneuverability isn't all that useful. Our cloak serves us better. On the shunt and recharge shield, it's equip only and not activated and as Jenqs have atrocious shields for the most part and good reactor, we don't need something to hurt our shield regen, nor help our reactor. With respect to the BS9, the turbo on that is crap compared to the turbo on raid weps, and they don't stack as they're both equip buffs. The reduce sig is helpful, but since the engine itself has .5 sig of it's own, it's kind of a wash. Again, kind of a meh engine for a Jenq.

Leftover tricks from Halloween?

Server go poof for anyone? 725pm EST on 11/3

While weapons are core, they don't really factor into the tweaking aspect of the other cores. All races/classes have one weapon class that maxes at L9. And really that's all that's important. In the area of the questionables, pretty much any class can live with L8 devices or engines. It's just a matter of which is more useful/desirable to a class due to the ITEMS that are currently available. I think that if there was some super-uber Jenquai compatible engine at L9 available now, the discussion in this thread would change.

In my current build I *should* end up at OL150 with 18 sp left over. But I've kept Menace and Shield Inversion both at L1 in order to do that. Build-wise I have max reactor/shield, weps to L5 and components to L2. I need 31 to max Menace/Shield Inversion... gonna be a while lol.

Devices are considered a core tech as well, insofar they're a passive tech and one of the tweaks used to "balance" the classes. For the JD and JE, Device/Reactor are the two L9s, Engine/Shield are the L8s. The contention is what the JS should be at.