Lot

Looking at a character sheet, it ought to be like in-game and like this: Combat [Cyan] Exploration [Blue] Trade [Purple] But right now it shows: Combat [Cyan] Trade [Blue] Exploration [Purple] Which is right?

[quote name='Shaddex' timestamp='1323021714' post='49194'] Ive updated it so you have the option if On or Off in the footer. [/quote] Awesome thanks. [quote name='Shaddex' timestamp='1323021865' post='49195'] Messaging system works 100% . You need to turn it ON in the accounts settings [/quote] Is that messaging on the forums? Guildies telling me it's not anything to do with tells in-game.

Does the private messaging option do anything yet?

[quote name='Bacchus' timestamp='1323017323' post='49184'] Yea the snoweffect on the portal is a bit of a resourcehog on firefox.. 50% cpu usage constantly. Can't you limit it to only the top portion of the page? Bacchus [/quote] Dual core? I have a feeling that the script will use 100% (or 50% on a dual-core) because the script is perpetually active when the tab is on display because it is continually calculating the position of each snow flake particle. Reducing the area may help. Why not just draw some static non-moving snow flakes on the header gives the same effect.

[quote name='Shaddex' timestamp='1323012858' post='49179'] Bah humbug ! [/quote] Firefox goes 100% CPU when the snow script is active and makes the browser become less responsive. I don't mind non-moving Christmas glitz but sorry the snow effect is too much. Please take the problem seriously.

That snow storm effect is cute for the first few seconds then it becomes aggravating to see.

That's not a bunny, lol.

I think the game is gradually catching up with all the stuff that dropped from the various fests. Covet not your neighbor for playing the game when you weren't around for eventually you'll get all the goodies too. Especially devices are for example are much more available now compared with 12-18 months ago, ditto weapons and cores. ST4 has so far been pretty productive for Net 7 in that they've got a lot of stuff done and will carry on doing so. A wipe may actually be counterproductive right now and break the momentum regarding testing and getting things fixed. And inevitably there would have to be another wipe afterwards which would also break momentum again. I'd like to believe the next wipe will be the BIG ONE prior to the game actually becoming properly persistent.

[quote name='Amethyst' timestamp='1321370355' post='48534'] ...but try doing the math for L60 mobs which explorers and traders struggle to touch, and then add in a bit of trade and credits from the loot. We can see the warriors farming the 58s and 60s in BBW and Antares. A bit more fun than flying like a blue-arsed fly between Pluto an Earth? [/quote] Well congratulations you've picked up something twice with one-line throw away comments that are not the subject at all. I will wait to see if the existence and availability of the alleged device is confirmed. Tien's silence speaks volumes. Until then, adios.

[quote name='Amethyst' timestamp='1321301160' post='48501'] You mean like these turbo things only warriors use which give them an 'unfair combat advantage' and leave us 'combat-challenged' traders at a disadvantage? [/quote] Does a CL50 warrior killing a CL50 mob getting 1000 combat XP instead with turbo get 1500XP, 1700XP or 2450XP --- because the latter is what's gonna happen with Tien's new device combined with negotiate. The two middle numbers are ball park for what negotiate increases trade XP on trade items at L5 and L7. The final number is L7 + Tien's new device. Traders won't even need to concern themselves with combat or getting the turbo that is available to them. They can just run trade-runs from 0-150 quicker than any warrior can combat their way 0-150.

[quote name='Tienbau' timestamp='1320995550' post='48382'] It's for traders of all races, you'll find out soon enough. [/quote] I surely hope that this new device (it's L4 available from the QM in Venus in the future) doesn't do what I think it does. Thanks to the negotiate skill traders and terrans already have a large advantage doing trade runs. They get better trade XP per item on a trade run, better profits and can carry more trade items per run due to their larger holds. The new device appears to give 50% more on top of the trade XP and profits they already get. Those poor trade-challenged characters without negotiate skill and large cargo holds will become relatively worse off and trade runs, for them, should probably come with a large sign that pops-up telling them "do not bother". There is nothing available for non-traders to get better XP or bounties from combat or explore despite being specialists in those areas. In the depths of my imagination I had hoped for a device for characters without negotiate to enable them to get more trade XP and a little more profit from trade runs -- "Trade Almanac" or some other pithy title. Making the passive profit skill benefit non-traders in gang with a TT may make the situation better.

In the emulator personally the least played character has so far been the PW. I have only recently started playing a PW getting to nearly OL50 -- I have all the others to OL150 already except a seeker with is OL142. Eighteen months ago with all the chaos surrounding Progen hull upgrades I gave up anything to do with Progens after the painful journey of getting a PP to OL150. I think there is still a deterrent to playing Progens even today as there is possible frustration if you don't do Agrippa at the right overall level range. [b]Barring content to characters because they are too high level is perhaps not right.[/b] My least played warrior: PW (but that will change). My least played explorer: PS. My least played trader: JS. PS needs the ability to warp in gravity fields so it can be a proper explorer. JS needs I don't know what to make it any good. Reactor optimization is a gimmick skill and that whirling swirl puts me off using it. I think eventually when my JS reaches OL150 it'll get parked and taken out for reactor building and it'll become my least played character. Sad but that's how it'll be.

[quote name='Tienbau' timestamp='1320791383' post='48239'] the macros can read the job levels?? I didn't realise they were that advanced. So they take a screen shot and read that? [/quote] There were two ways to read text from the screen or window. The macro mapped an area of pixels and could compare it to a chunk of pixels saved from before, or could try to figure out the text word by word using the same pixel matching technique and return a string of characters to the macro. A basic routine would just deal with numbers 0-9 like "5791". Two of the popular tools back in the day when E&B was live were Xylobot and AC Tool. Xylobot had better features but cost money to use ($20US) but the developer didn't care about E&B and wouldn't add proper support. AC Tool was free and the developers liked E&B and added support but otherwise AC Tool only had a fraction of the scripting power of Xylobot.

[quote name='Tienbau' timestamp='1320733844' post='48198'] Also with job terms I noticed the way the original game dealt with botters was just to list all the lower level jobs as well. This way, a macro will be able to grab jobs and will still work fine, but they won't be taking all the high level jobs, just one or two. I think most people running macros wouldn't have a problem with this because it would mean players who play live would get the best jobs and not hate them, but they would still be getting good XP over time. [/quote] Those macros could read the screen looking for values for example on the VT - Net7 runs the 5791 valued jobs and select and take just those jobs -- all faster than the human eye and hand could have moved. I think EA tried to prevent the star base hack from working but don't know if they had any success (the hack allowed a single reset to place a character in a position in the current zone facing a direction both chosen before the reset). It's pretty tough to stop macros the best you can do is make it possible for non-users to not have to compete with them.

Jobs all getting instantly snatched from the VT terminal?! The emulator ... emulates live! In live you almost had to own at the least your own macro to take jobs at VT to beat the competition otherwise you'd never get any jobs at all. I guess the only "fair" way settle this competition is to offer jobs per user instead of a pool of jobs for all users to grab from. It won't stop the macros but it'd be a step forward.

Despite the one second reload limitation PWs are still pretty good. TEs can manage fights pretty well & JDs do the best DPS but need effort to adapt to their tricky play style. PPs are pretty good solo as well but you need to figure out the best way to get the highest deflects which will need activated buffs from unobtainium devices unless you can scrounge them from someone e.g Puks, Wyverns, Zaltys Prides (it's also a nuisance reapplying the buffs every few minutes). But you can make do without them. Why not try them all.

[quote name='Kyp' timestamp='1319225682' post='47552'] There is some work being done but its not on the same host or public so it shouldn't be affecting that in the slightest. [/quote] Whoever is doing work on it has been a bit naughty then because they've published it. As others said above the layout has become mussed up both in IE and Firefox.

May be put a timer on them, make them go away if nobody kills them. Right now I suppose nobody bothers killing them because their loot tables suck.

Ritchie was at least as influential on modern computing as Steve Jobs. The C programming language is used or has influenced the code used in almost every computing device that we use today from computers to mobile phones. I started my career working on C and Unix back in the distant past and owe a great deal to Ritchie and his colleagues for the simple genius of both these works. RIP Dennis Ritchie.

[quote name='Aledo2' timestamp='1318539404' post='47287'] Do you guys have room for a former member? My main was a PW named Lis, I only knew a few Static members well, the last time I played was when we took down the controller ( pretty sure that was the name ) the second time and helped Corrupter get his skull shield. Shortly after that I had to stop playing due to my school work load increase so I never got a chance to play again before the shut down. [/quote] Hey Lis it's nice to see you again and I do remember you from live. Ask in general chat in-game for someone from Static and someone will send you an invite. Looking forward to seeing you in guild chat!

Nice work Mimir, I'd choose the first one too.

[quote name='lordfalcon' timestamp='1317315730' post='46837'] Just make a Jenpie and all will be good. [/quote] [b]⸮[/b]

I am pretty happy with how things are in the emulator and cannot make sense of this and the other thread that you started on the subject of changing stuff. I still cringe each time you mention the term "best in slot" because it sadly reminds me of people who play Wow and the Wow clones (looking at Rift especially) that have raid gear progression. Players in Earth & Beyond often only care about equipment that is easily available which allows them to level up. This especially holds true in the lower levels because levels fly by quickly. The equipment that they've used becomes discarded. Now, you mentioned some projectiles. Progen projectiles tend to be more powerful than Terran and Jenquai projectiles. Although there are exceptions this is the normal rule. There are similar rules for beams and missiles. And loot only projectiles will be more powerful still. These factors appear to be omitted from your normalization. Missile velocity seems fine to me right now since they seem to be doing their job adequately. Traditionally, missiles have always had a longer range than either projectiles or beams (although with beams there is an exception). Missiles can be fired from beyond the damage range of the target mob. It takes a little bit longer for the damage from missiles to initially connect to the mob compared with projectiles but that is the penalty for being able to apply that damage from range and relative safety. The time lapse for shield recharge reasonably takes in to account reload times of weapons used by a mob to shoot a player. Reducing the timer from 10s to 5s may mean that player shields may be able to regenerate during combat which would lead to (and I don't like using this word) "imbalance".

Dakynos we weren't asking to raise loot prices -- we were asking for them to be restored to what they were. Either last content update or one before that it became apparent that someone on the staff was tampering around with what vendors paid for loot. Will (Kjero) posted about loot being worth more if dismantled into components and the components sold to the vendor. That was an illustration of the work that has already begun by staff attempting to starve the economy of credits. There are formulas from live that were in place in the emulator that defined the ratio between item value and what a vendor paid. The ratios were the same as live until they were changed in a recent content update. And values are the same as live. We're heading into an "economy" where players earn less credits compared with live. Loot tables have been changed and most of the time mobs spit out low level junk loot. Builders building for free is probably a misconception. Most times they actually get paid a tip that covers manufacture cost. Buyers also provide the components usually so builders are actually making profits. Within a guild is the only time that neither "buyer" or "seller" exchange any credits as a good will gesture and tradition. If we define what players can earn per hour from mobs or from mining then we have to think live had it pretty much right and everyone in live was pretty much happy. I remember auctions for looted items where the items sold for 100's of millions of credits. The point being that players build up funds anyway against whatever controls are in place. Some players got rich instantly in live e.g. the first to loot and print a Cygnus 9 made 100s of millions. An economy is so much more than controlling credits in and credits out like a balance sheet.

It's probably impractical to add random spawning fields. It wouldn't truly be random anyway -- more like a list of possible locations in the "void" areas in each sector at which fields could be allowed to spawn. There are secret fields that wait be discovered -- I just wish they each had a navigation marker to make returning to them easier (or may a bookmarking addition?). Removing static fields would be bad -- having to search for fields would eventually become a boring chore (remember it's meant to be a game and games are meant to be fun). There is still the fun of finding a hidden field that you can choose to keep secret or share the location with friends. Having both fixed location and hidden fields provides something for everyone. Yes, sentinels are the race being left behind in terms of mobility. TS has null factor field to let them travel in to gravity wells and shears with impunity. JE has navigation 7 that in theory allows them to travel through gravity wells (technically yet to be proven to work or even made to work properly). Sentinels have nothing and yet they're supposed to explorers too! I would suggest something like [b]Gravitic Propulsion[/b] which gives benefits similar to the other explorers and allows sentinels to travel anywhere. Can't argue about ore density -- the decimation that was done to fields was a travesty and badly done.