Lot

Talking about LPG for car fuel? It's much cleaner than unleaded or diesel. It does seem the USA is crippled by legislation but aren't there still companies there that can do an LPG conversion that is EPA certified -- what's the problem is it too expensive and thus non-competitive because of legislation? I've noted that some aftermarket ECUs for cars widely sold everywhere else are prohibited from sale in the USA -- legislation again. Unleaded and diesel in the USA costs about a third of what it costs in the UK if my quick reckoning is correct. Most of that cost in the UK is fuel duty that goes to the government. It's similar in the rest of Europe but I don't think it's as bad compared to the UK. People use their cars less in the UK and do fewer journeys. Natural gas supplied to homes in the UK for heating and cooking goes up and up and up in the UK. Same for electricity. Rises are always announced right before winter begins accompanied with some BS excuse for putting up the costs (and then proceed to announce huge profits the following year -- have to wonder WTF is going on and why it's allowed). People are giving up on gas for keeping their homes and burning wood instead in fire places to keep themselves warm during winter.

[quote name='Terrell' timestamp='1314869871' post='45471'] The XP you get for emptying an asteroid or hulk is Explore XP, explorers also need Trade XP, and we get that from selling or refining what we mine. It doesn't make sense that when we're mining things that are apropraite to our level, that we get no Trade XP for selling what we mine. I don't really care what the junk loot wreckage slag and debris is replaced with in higher level hulks, so long as it's apropraite to the level of hulk that I'm mining so when I sell it I can get some Trade XP. [/quote] Same thing has been happening to loot from mob corpses. They're becoming filled with crap that is low enough level to be worth no trade XP. Sometimes you get items that are worth some trade XP though, same with asteroids and hulks. All I'm noting here is some feeling of a sense of entitlement (around hulk fields). Anyway, hulks were always meant to be a bonus if you found one in an ordinary asteroid field -- not the free for all, all you can eat, login right after restart feeding frenzy to get the best meal items -- broken feature they are now (hulk fields).

You still get the whatever XP it is (200?) from emptying the hulk no matter what it contains.

[quote name='rolo' timestamp='1314860865' post='45463'] Possible way round this would be for each item to be sold only once, i.e. when an item gets sold it get tagged with an un-removable tag such that the 'AH' NPC would refuse to market it for the player. This would stop players hijacking all the high priced ore and ensure that people only bought for purpose. I've no idea if this can be implemented in a reasonable fasion or even if it's worthwhile, just a thought from the top of my head. [/quote] That wouldn't work -- player A buys goods from AH goods get tagged -- A sells goods to B through market channel and then B is restricted from selling the goods on the AH. Tagging still didn't prevent A buying all the goods and selling to B over market channel. In a proper economy without any laisser faire restrictions the goods are free to circulate around the economy. Anyway, E&B worked fine in the old days without an auction house. In the old days it was fun to directly deal with other players. If you wanted an auction you got everyone into a private channel and let bidding commence. And there probably aren't enough players right now or in the future to make an AH viable. A small population of players needs more reasons to get in touch with each other, not less. Besides every AH I've ever seen has been flooded with over-priced crap that nobody wants, lol.

[quote name='Evermore' timestamp='1314641535' post='45352'] Hmmm, well, when someone comes up with a solid plan to balance the economy-let us know. If you take in all factors for the economy, it does not only pertain to loot items, or vender items. The more you brainstorm this, the more likely it could lead to a solution. I for one would like to read some of your ideas here, and as I said - it could actually help. [/quote] Well making it harder and harder for players to earn credits doesn't actually help the economy -- you have to acknowledge that truth before the economy can be healed and eventually made in to a success. Poor players find it hard to pay for goods and services. Step one of any plan then would be to restore what vendors used to pay for loot. That's easy. I do not worry about the rich players as they cannot offer free services indefinitely. There are services that have a problem at the moment because the resource they provide is being bypassed. Level 9 components drop from the loot tables too frequently and have become a primary source for refined ores. In live, components dropped as loot were very rare and right now it is pretty easy to farm a 100 components -- easier than mining the ores. Step two of the plan is fix the loot drops for components. Pretty soon after that is done it will become quite apparent that the mining resource for level 9 ores is inadequate. At the moment nobody appears to pay any serious attention to the ore field problem. They will when it becomes the obvious bottleneck to the economy as the supply of melted ores from components dries up. Step three to making the economy work will thus be eventually addressing the ore field problem. Tied up in this must be the removal of the free-for-all hulk fields and re-distributing hulks in to ore fields as they were in live. The fourth stage would be to increase the capital within the economy i.e. open up the remaining sectors -- making more goods available for consumption. Can it be that simple ... but as long as the truth that players need credits is ignored then there's no hope.

[quote name='Redbeard' timestamp='1314236641' post='45189'] I see here that someone says the Cygnus lvl9 isn't dropping. I'm here to tell ya that it must be because my JE, Surette, has it printed and has built several. Can't tell ya where it came from though. That part of my memory is beyond repair. [/quote] The Cygnus 9 is indeed not currently dropping. There was a push to get the Cygnus 9 added back into the loot tables a few months ago which was a success. It was re-added to the loot tables of the Bio Extractors CL50 and a bunch of other items were restored to the loot tables of other mobs at the same time. You may have gotten the Cygnus 9 printed during that time it was restored to the loot tables. Or you may have gotten it more than a year ago before it was removed prior to being re-added again. And now it is AWOL again, at least no mob currently drops the Cygnus 9.

Doesn't drop: Black Dragon Laser San (L7) A non-vendor series of beams - the L5 and L6 variants both currently drop. I think this beam used to drop from a CL50 possibly the Bios in XT and Fenris and I'm fairly sure this was the mob that was dropping it (mob was probably too high CL to drop a L7).

Doesn't drop: Hydra NGC 6 (L6), Hydra NGC 7 (L7), Hydra NGC 8 (L8) These beams were non-vendor and previously only the Hydra NGC 8 (L8) used to drop - from one the variety of Voltoi CL51s in Antares. This beam appears not to be dropping anywhere right now.

[quote name='Elrick' timestamp='1314013275' post='45031'] I find it funny that all of these people who opt to use pseudonyms talk about privacy. Privacy in a game like this is what you make of it. We do not ask for any personal information other than your e-mail address which is only used as verification to stop spam creation of mass accounts. What little we have is never shared, and in fact we do not use it ourselves unless you opt to get forum notifications. In game privacy is much the same - shut off chat if you don't want to be bothered. Privacy is your responsibility here. [/quote] Well, 10/10 for general truth but 0/10 for not responding to the actual issue. I want two things: 1. The Net 7 database to stop showing everyone what I can or cannot build. 2. The system to stop announcing my every login and logout. Until then "privacy is your responsibility here" is not a fact.

Normal service resumed; it was only a partial crash just of the internet facing components (speculation) as everyone playing on the server got ejected for a while and could then login again after a few minutes. Uptime shows server core kept running.

[quote name='Lot' timestamp='1314002460' post='45023'] Server crashed @ 0437 EST approx. [/quote] It's dead, Mimir, dead, Mimir, dead, Mimir, dead. (Trekking across the universe cancelled).

Server crashed @ 0437 EST approx.

Actually, the developers were responsible for creating the ores from components problem. The loot tables were chucking out bucket loads of level IX components from mobs -- these got saved up for dismantling. For example Brimstone Alchemist dropped from everything and became a source of Aesirium, Arhurian Plastic and Tiberium. That is just one example and together they all became a source for refined ores. No buy cost overhead associated with these looted components and players have huge stashes of them. Asteroid fields are kinda adequate for L5-8 ores and for L9s woefully bad. Live had asteroids fields that only contained L9 ores and we really need that back again to create the opportunity for miners to get in on the supply of L9 ores. BBW, Nifelheim and possible other sectors had L9 fields. The trouble is at the moment the L7-9 fields have mostly L7 + L8s and negligible amounts of L9s. There are components actually that need mined ores to make e.g. ammo components. If Ardus and Der Todersengel were opened and the dark matter and dung weapons added (I dare not mention Brimstone weapons), this would up the demand for mined ores. As only mined ores can make the ammo components used in the ammo for those weapons.

I don't think that would automatically create a market for ores as players would close the loop and create their own private supply chain to mine the ores and turn them into components. The same arguments were often brought up in live and rejected because there was a balance between the efficiency of mining and the not so efficient dismantling of components. Also, there are components that use ores that cannot be obtained from dismantling components. If anything the effect would be to make the game less fun if there was no choice allowed. I would dispute that statement anyway that player built components in the emulator are always built from ores dismantled from vendor bought or looted components. I dismantle occasionally but more often than not use my ores stash to make components. There are times when I am especially grateful for the ability to obtain ores from dismantling components this usually involves low level ores that I just can't be bothered going out to mine. I do see now and again players on market offering to buy ores so the market is not completely dead. I think anyone that makes an effort to become a notable supplier of ores will indeed become a supplier and players will buy ores. I am aware of several private supply chains of ores between one player and another player so something is working.

[quote name='Galileo' timestamp='1313535148' post='44817'] Silly question: I missed it somewheres. Is this TS lv 135 HU an "Optional" mission or is it the standard lv 135 HU mission? [/quote] Scouts have no choice about it - they have to get Agrippa technology parts in order to get their HU135. The Progens on the other hand, don't have to take part in Agrippa technology. The parts have become a mandatory requirement for the hull upgrade mission for scouts and it in turn depends on Progens that have taken part in optional content. There are only a few Progens that have done Agrippa, most were shut out from taking part in the content because they were too high level when Agrippa content became active. So yes there are parts available for scouts to get them but probably what should happen is that either the requirement gets removed from the scouts hull upgrade or the restrictions barring older Progens from taking part in the Agrippa content should be removed or they should somehow be allowed to do the Agrippa content.

Personally I don't think the "top builders" list mean all that much now. It's much harder to track down where mappable items drop since drop information from the database became obfuscated. New players consequently find it much tougher to gain recipes than it was before that change so it's unlikely the names at the top will have changed much from before. We'll just see the same old names. And anyway, if the "top builders" are any good they have tracked their own builds and know how many recipes they currently own in each category. If they want to measure and compare e-peens they can send a tell to each other. It is unfortunate that semantically output quality is determined by number of recipes. There are may be a better system that isn't dependent on total number of recipes for determining output quality e.g. how many times that that recipe has been built from, each time the item is produced the overall quality of the output could be improved as lessons are learned. However, total number of recipes is the system we are stuck with for the moment. I would like to see a new type of "top builders" listing - remember guild contributions from live? That was a number that reflected how active the guild member was as a builder - not just building for the guild but also for the market and public. That would of course need the statistic to become tracked in the emulator.

Not dropping: Grand Shango (L7 beam). It used to drop from the Honor (CL50) in Mars but doesn't appear to now.

Prospect was interrupted in live if hit by a mob. May be roids should be locked to prospect skill unaffected by equipment. If you're in combat you can't even hit far higher level mobs due to some magical defense higher level mobs have that cause accuracy to be really terrible causing all your shots to miss. If combat is that retarded then mining should also be that retarded: fair is fair. I guess Tyran it's down to motivation at the end of the day. Other players are more motivated to get to the next level, get new shiny toys, opening up abilities to their fullest, etc. They want to mine more than three L9 ores and don't think that's the pinnacle of mining and probably laughed when you said that. To them, the pinnacle is stripping clean every field between Cooper and Glenn without breaking a sweat and doing it day after day and oddly finding enjoyment doing it.

Tried DeWinter yet?

Answering my own question is becoming a habit! Vaden figured out what to do to make the components dude play ball. If anyone else gets stuck, try trading all the electronic authorizations to another character and talking with the components dude. When he becomes more co-operative, trade them back and you will eventually get the encryptions. What a palava!

Alright, got stuck again trying to progress Stage II devices and shields on a sentinel. My sentinel needed Stage II Encryptions, one each for each build skill (devices and shields). Talked Vaden into helping me, he told me the components dude needed 10x Stage II Electronic Authorizations so we got those prepared. Vaden went to the components dude to get the encryptions for me but the components dude wouldn't play ball. Vaden has +16k Collegia faction and did all the Agrippa stuff previously. Obviously all that Vodka didn't influence the dude much! Does anyone have idea what the problem might be and how to remedy? Thanks.

Another restart, stuck on map screen again after character selection (proxy shows waiting for server response icon).

Logged in, noticed right away it was quite laggy. Over shooting warp end destinations, mobs taking their time to attack me sort of thing. Gating taking exceptionally long. For the time being still logged in and changing sectors but may not last long before I too get stuck at map screen. Edit: Clarification on warp - warp routes along several nav markers not in a straight line, at any of the markers can carry on in a straight line without turning toward the next marker. Taking a few seconds to cancel warp or start warp. Edit: And as if by magic the lag suddenly clears up.

Server offline .... prepare the low orbital login cannons!!

After the restart a few minutes ago, stuck on map after character selection again. The character that I've still got logged in inside a station is seeing only logouts and no logins. Edit: There are actually a few logins (guessing the characters were inside a station?). Edit: No logins for quite some time now, just logouts. I can't login chars on stations.