ryleyra

Actually, for stations with two vendors, one of them is for Net-7. The Net-7 vendors buy and sell news updates, and nothing else. Good catch, there.

Have you ever heard the expression "It takes money to make money"? The TT is the very personification of that saying. First of all, make sure that you are running trade goods correctly. You want to buy from the trade vendor, obviously, but you want to sell to the trade vendor on the destination station too. Do not sell to the weapons or equipment vendor, you won't get the same price. What you want to do is load up your cargo hold with as many O2 canisters as you can buy, and take them to Loki Station. Then sell them, and buy Manufacturing Robots or whatever is available to sell back at Earth Station. Keep running back and forth until you have enough money to entirely fill your hold with the Manufacturing Robots. Note this amount of money, because no matter what else you do, you never want to let your available credits drop below this level. Any time you need cash, you can at least run back to Earth and completely fill your hold with trade goods. Once you've built up a lot of money, you should be able to buy goods for Somerled Station. I think the Vac Sealant on Loki is what you want to start running. First you will need to find the gate to Somerled, though. It should be on the opposite side of the High Earth sector from the gate to Earth, down where the nav path makes a circle. Explore down that way first before you plan to start making runs. No, the TT can't mine, and combat is hard at first. But once you get your Recharge Shields skills and unlock Missiles, you should do okay. Honestly, I have found that in this emulator, just the trade XP I get from loot keeps me from having to do trade runs, as long as I trade everything I loot to another player before I vendor it. But you may still want to do trade runs any time you want to make a lot of money fast. Just remember, you have to have a lot of money to start with, or you can't buy the goods that make a big profit. So do the trade run BEFORE you're broke.

First off, the usual, make sure all four checkboxes on the Net-7 launcher are checked, and make sure it and the main application file are set to run as Administrator. It sounds like, if it is only happening at Zweihander, that there might be some sort of glitch with your account. Maybe a GM can give more answers. Are you getting stuck going from Luna to Zweihander, or Freya to Witberg? Maybe you can "come in the back way", so to speak.

A warrior/tradesman/explorer trio is always a good choice no matter the race. So for a TE and TT you could round your team out with a JE or PS. It depends on why you went with the Terran for your first two choices. If you're worried about combat, the PS nearly the same combat capabilities as the TE, and your TT can keep it supplied with ammo until he hits the level where he can build his own. (PS can build ammo now) The JE is not really crippled as a combatant, however, you just have to take it slow and have patience. All the reasons Flip gave for the JE are good ones, plus, they have no need for ammo and can go just about anywhere. The other advantage to adding an explorer to the mix is that you will be able to prospect. Mining is a relaxing and rewarding experience, and you'll never be about to try it out with another trader or warrior. If you want to stick with the Terran race and take the time to jump through the hoops to unlock the class, a TS is a lot of fun. In a nutshell, it's the fastest class in the game (just beating out the TT) it shares the Terran ability to kite at long range without taking any damage, and it gets the ability to build ammo sooner than the PS. Unfortunately, it is neither as heavily armed as the PS, nor as sneaky and stealthy as the JE. The TS does a lot of running away. OTOH, the TS has Hull Patch, so it can fix damage in the field, while the other explorers can't. It'll never be as heavily armed as a Enforcer, or as well shielded as a Trader, but if you think of the Scout as a light patrol craft I think that sums it up. It's probably the worst at mining (can't cloak or powerdown, low reserves of reactor power for the mining laser - get a Jenquai reactor) but it is the best at what it is best at, which is getting from point A to point B. (And the Afterburn skill just plain looks cool)

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but the above pictures show something I also noticed. When you make changes to your ship at the terminal, your ship always appears as the first hull, even if you have upgraded your hull. You can see this above; the bottom image shows two wings on the TT's wing structure, but the top image shows only one. I don't know if this is intentional, since I can't remember if it worked that way on live. Similar to the above post, I've also noticed that when I select the flat black color, the color is not selected when I go to edit it, and the color appears medium grey on the terminal, although it seems fine in the game. If I select glossy black, the cursor always in the center of the color selector, as if it is cyan. (But it isn't)

Ulyydian did say that every price would be changed. The price of ore determines the price of the components they are used to make. The price of components determines the price of the systems they are used to make. The manufacturing cost of components and systems is determined by the base price of those systems. So those changes to ores were going to "bubble up" to every item in the game.   The price of ammo seems to be reasonably close to what is listed in the Prima Guide. On the other hand, those manufacturing costs look more like retail costs. Maybe the formula for conversion from retail cost to manufacturing is not correct. Also, Tengu ammo isn't listed in the Prima Guide, and is made of non-standard resources, and so that may be inflating the cost. Someone who knows a lot more than me about how the prices are calculated will have to answer those questions for you.

As a solo player, I can't attest to the Sentinel's use on a team. But I have always felt that along with the Terran Enforcer, the Sentinel was the most versatile and self-sufficient class in the game. I played the game Live for two years before I tried out my first Progen, primarily because I disliked the character designs. But once I gave them a try, the Progen Sentinel quickly rose to become one of my favorite classes. Like you, I find the ship itself to be beautiful, its "solar sails" make it look like some of the old concept art I have seen from the heyday of the space program, and to me, it looks like the penultimate "miner". In the intro to the game, it is the Progen Sentinels that we see mining asteroids, and to me, they are the stereotypical "prospector", the old forty-niner living out in the wild and working his claim. Unlike the Explorer, who is more concerned with seeking the stars and exploring the unknown.   The only drawback to the Sentinel as a solo player is its inability to make its own ammunition, and even in that, with a partnership with a Trader (and honestly, who here in the emulator doesn't have a Trader on their own account they can pair with a Sentinel?) making ammo and providing the ore for it is easy. I've never had to settle for vendor bought since I started playing here. It would be even better if trade between other players could be as easy as that trade between your own, but hey, beggars can't be choosers here. :D   Your treatise may mean much in encouraging folks to play the class, and to invite them to their teams, but for me, I'm sold just on the concept alone. Not that each of the classes don't have their attractions, but there is nothing wrong with the Sentinel.

Really? I tried that out, and couldn't figure out how to specify credits, although I had no trouble trading items. That vendor in Venus sounds like something that a dev mentioned might work the last time this came up. I'll have to check it out. Maybe there have been more changes to this game since I was here last than I thought.   I'd appreciate any info on what I may have missed, on the interface. :)   I do agree, though, that this game does not need a player-driven economy. The vendor economy, which includes trade, should be robust enough to support the player economy. That's why I'm glad the pricing was straightened out. A healthy pricing structure helps all of us.

I had been wondering if the ore prices had ever been corrected. It's unknown if the component and system prices have been adjusted as well, but from my research on live I believe that they were directly related. That is, there was a direct correlation between the vendor price of items in the game and the vendor price of the resources used to build them.   And there IS a way to buy ores in E&B. It has been in the game since the beginning, and it still is in the emulator. A Trader can buy components, tear them down for their component ores, and use those ores to build. So the player market and the vendor market are interconnected, if not joined at the hip.   Common ores, like Iron and Steel, are no more valuable to the market than they can be bought for in component form from the vendor. The player market is subject to supply and demand ONLY for those ores that are rare and thus cannot be recovered from components. (Or can only be recovered from rare components, which are themselves high in player market value)   EVE has a number of things that E&B doesn't have, including an auction house and player trade system. E&B's vendor system is needed to provide the bare necessities that the player market is unable to provide.

That sounds like something that fits with the concept, although I don't remember ever running into one myself. That's really what the pirates were, though. They would gravity well you and ask you for an amount of money, and if you didn't pay, they attacked. I guess the players found it more acceptable to be stopped and fined by police instead of pirates. ;)   What specifically was the contraband?

This might be doable as an NPC/jobs use for ores. As part of the economy, I think anything that makes the trade of ores harder, instead of easier, is going to make them less valuable, not more. If you make the supply too scarce, the consumers simply move on to something that has a more abundant supply.   There are ores that aren't used in crafting, though, like Tazeron or Mordanite, which are unique to certain missions or quests. This could be expanded into something "radioactive" which would decay or even potentially explode if exposed to forces such as combat or Wormholes.   Alternately, give miners the ability to create "isotopes" from raw ore in a process similar to refining. Should transport of these materials fail, they revert back to the refined version of the ore. So they aren't lost, they just aren't useful to the NPC any more.   On live, there were pirates who would intercept traders running goods. This was met with massive resistance on the part of the players, but I've always through if CERTAIN goods exposed you to risk of pirate attack, like contraband or something, then you would know that was a possibility and stay close to the keyboard instead of going AFK. This could be a similar thing, certain ores or "isotopes" could attract pirates that want to steal your cargo. As long as you don't deal in those items, you avoid that possibility.

I'll also note that the four least played classes are all the hybrids between Explorer and Trader and something else. The three Warrior classes are all sufficiently well represented, and the Terran Trader and Jenquai Explorer represent the "best" at their respective roles. So maybe the issue is not that the others do not bring enough to combat, maybe it's just that there's not enough interest in the other aspects of the game to allow for that much diversity.   That being said, I DO appreciate the devs unlocking the additional three classes, like Mouse said. I don't care if they're popular, I like 'em. :D

I'm not sure where things got confused. Yeah, the PT has 16 skills. I believe the replacement skill should be something unique, NOT Build Devices.   It's the JT that has 17 skills, and thus has no more room for additional skills unless you add a L135, drop something, or adapt an existing skill to give it additional capabilities. The PT doesn't have problems finding a role on a team, though, the JT does. This thread should be about any of the least played classes, that includes TE and PE as well as JT and PT. (Although JT seems to clearly be the lowest from Shaddex's numbers)

Wow. Your ideas here are bound to be unpopular, plus, you are obviously calling for a nerf to Jenquai and a boost to Terrans. That's bound to start an argument.   I'll start with your second post, simply because I don't know where to start with the first. Jenquai weapons typically need a very long rate of fire because of the mechanics of Combat Cloak. You want to uncloak, fire off a volley of weapons, and then Cloak while your beams are recharging. Too short a fire rate, and re-cloaking during combat will reduce your DPS. But perhaps that is the point. I will say that at low levels there are a nice selection of fast fire rate beams, and I love using them. Beams actually vary greatly between high fire rate and massive alpha strike capability.   IMHO, it's projectile weapons, and thus the Progen, who should have the greatest rate of fire. The role of the Progen is sustainable DPS. Missiles, of course, should have the longest range.   Your description of shields and engines pretty much fits the way the game currently is, except that Jenquai shields are below average in all respects. Remember that Jenquai can also use Terran shields. The JW is able to stack Psi Shield on top of his standard shield, if he could get access to Progen shields, even at level 8, he'd be considerably tougher than he already is.   I don't think visibility is currently working, but I like to see it working, as that's one of the things I really liked on live. I'm not sure where you are getting that Progen engines should boost reactor rates. Progen get some pretty good reactors, for not being able to get to Jenquai reactors. And I notice you don't even MENTION reactors. Jenquai reactors tend to have high capacity but really low recharge rate, which works great for beams. Progen reactors, like Terran shields, have a much lower capacity, but recharge faster. (And now that they can be player built, they can even compete with Pirate models)

Besides, let's be honest, just how much benefit does the TT bring to the team with Befriend? :D The Trader is mainly on the team for Shield Charging, and because you would need a PT/JT and TE to bring both Shield Recharge and Hull Patch otherwise. That makes only one skill the TT has exclusive access to, with another two which make for good synergy.

I suspect Compulsory Contemplation was added to give JEs more of a role in combat, while the PE got Call Forward (first) more as a mechanism to implement skill respec than to give them another skill. That it was given to the PE because they were consistently the least played class was probably a major factor, but only in who got the skill, not it's creation in the first place. L135 skills should probably be chosen to help balance out popularity between the classes, and in that respect, probably the JT should get the next one. :D   I'll also note that as you said, since equipment counts towards the skill total, Progen as a whole get fewer skills than the other races because they get one more for their third weapon choice. While that may seem to leave them at a disadvantage, there are definite advantages to being the trader with the greatest outright combat ability. Jenquai also have high racial skill cost, due to Cloak, Fold Space, and Scan, and traders have to spend a lot of skill slots on their build skills. That doesn't leave them much room for differentiation.   Maybe the JT shouldn't have a secondary weapon AT ALL. We've been discussing replacing projectiles with missiles because really, the Jenquai are the only race that could have such a choice, but really, it occurs to me that the Jenquai are the only race that could choose NOT to have a secondary weapon, as well. Everyone else must start with beams. I'm sure most people, myself included, would not want to sacrifice the ability to use chemical ammo or gain additional range, but in exchange for a REALLY, REALLY powerful team oriented skill that makes the JT far more valuable to a group, would we really turn it down?

Well, one thing I like about Reactor Optimization is it's synergy with Recharge Shields. Recharge Shields is limited by the reactor power you have available. Reactor Optimization gives you more reactor power, thus, it gives you more Recharge Shields.   Actually, the Progen Privateer has the same synergy with Shield Inversion. Shield Inversion is limited by the shield power you have available. Recharge Shields gives you more shield power, thus it gives you more Shield Inversion. Or Shield Inversion more often, which amounts to the same thing.   L135 skills are kind of an interesting case, because the classes that have it have 18 skills. Or they did on live, if they don't here, something was removed. So in all honesty, ALL classes but the Sentinel and Explorer should get L135 skills, presumably each unique and useful in its own way. (I'm not sure you can say Call Forward is useful to a combat group, although it certainly makes the Sentinel a more valuable class overall)   If the JT wants to get its special power as its 135, that sounds good. It's going to have to be far more valuable than Reactor Optimization for me to want it to open up sooner, though.

Personally, I feel that if Drones are ever added to the game, they should double up on the Devices skill, just as Ammo does with Weapons. That will solve the issue of "who gets the Build Drones" skill. (Also, Drones could go in the Devices slot) The PT should probably get a unique skill.   I would like to see the Seeker get some sort of psionic shield that protects the hull, to both make up for lack of Hull Patch and to give a unique skill that is a conceptual fit. How that could be done without replacing or adding to the JT's full roster of skills is an old discussion. I'm sure something clever can be done. :)   I do find it amusing that the least played classes, by a clear enough margin, are the hidden classes and the poor old Sentinel from live. In its own way, the consistency is encouraging. ;)

I will say that while the original E&B design of only allowing the Explorer classes to mine was a bit of a problematic choice (as it eliminated what was probably intended to be the primary means of earning Explore XP and relegated it to a secondary status for balance reasons) I also think it was a mistake to allow all classes to build. What the Warrior classes needed to build was AMMUNITION, not weapons, and other than the issue of finding space for another skill slot, it probably should have been a separate skill. Of course, since Terrans as a race excel at Trade, giving their Warriors an additional build skill did make sense. Giving Explorers and only Explorers the ability to build Reactors appears to have been a happy side effect of the race concept.   As I mentioned in the other thread, I believe the dominance of the economy by Traders was not a fault of the Trader design, but of the economy design. If I had felt like opening that can of worms, that would have been my #3. :)   I'm not sure I like the idea of excluding certain races from certain classes. Typically in an MMORPG a race may be excluded from a few classes, but never more than half of them. If you're saying that all three races should have all classes, that's fine, but if only Terrans can be Traders and only Progen can be Warriors that limits your choices a great deal. (And also cripples the ability to put together a balanced team of one race)

#1) As Terrell said, more ways to earn Explore XP. And honestly, I don't think the current idea of finite Exploration experience works very well. Yes, you CAN do tours, and you CAN do Explore jobs, but should you NEED to do those things? Would you appreciate only being able to earn Combat XP if you were grouped with other players, killing something that player has never killed before, or doing Combat jobs?   I would like to see the exploration part of this game be fleshed out to the same degree as combat. I don't know exactly what to suggest for that, but that's only because I have too many ideas. The essential nature of exploration is to avoid a group of guardians while you perform a task located in a specific area. Visiting nav points works that way, and so does mining. It's basically a non-combat way of dealing with a group of MOBs, or the loot that those MOBs drop.   #2) I don't hear as much call for this, but I think it goes hand in hand with more ways to earn Explore XP. And that's more ways to earn Trade XP. I think most people either hate Trade Runs, or are fine with them as they are, and expect to get most of their Trade XP from loot. That's not the potential I saw in a game where 1/3 of the classes were traders. What I would LIKE to see is a fully dynamic trade system, where you go to a given starbase, you investigate what goods are available, you decide on a location to transport those goods to, choose those goods which are in highest demand at that station, and then you take them there and sell them at a profit. Something like Elite.   Of course, that's not likely to be popular with the majority of shoot-em-up players, and probably not suited to either the game environment (due to the layout of gates) or efficient use of its servers, but I'd still like to see something better than what we've got. It has always seemed to me like we've got 1/3 of a game here; there was a potential for the other 2/3, but it never appeared. And now that we have three more classes in that 2/3, we probably should try and flesh them out a bit.   #3) Eh, I'm not going to suggest a #3. #s 1 and 2 will probably be major undertakings all by themselves. :D

I think the biggest problem with a "level 8.5" weapons is keeping it from overpowering the other choices at level 8. Particularly since the race which is supposed to be the best with the weapon doesn't have access to it. Then again, there is a lot of damage range in a given level, Lvl 9 PLs run from 150-170 DPS, while at Lvl 8 its 80-120. A very rare Lvl 8 weapon that does 120-130 DPS wouldn't be too imbalancing, especially since Terrans and Jenquai wouldn't be able to make use of it until late in their level 8 range anyway. (And by then the Progen would have access to the equivalent beams or missiles)   Alternatively, the weapon could have some kind of restriction, like you have to be a certain level or have a level 9 weapon slotted to use it. Making the weapon unique would work, too. You could probably run the damage up to 140-150.   As for ingame backstory, it might say that the other two races teamed up to come up with something that can match the "best". Nishido and Tada-O, for instance, team up to create a projectile launcher which is a combination of the Shuriken and Zet. (there could be two variants with the original secondary effects, or replace them with a suggestion above) Since these two manufacturers don't have PLs at level 9 (as no one of their race can use them) this is their version of a Lvl 9 PL.   The least likely alliance here would be between Progen and Jenquai for the MLs, but since it's companies trying to outdo each other, it could happen. Or maybe Nishido steals some Sparta technology, and the Progens then steal it back and reverse engineer it. :)   IIRC, this was a suggestion made on live, too.

I've never weighed in on this topic because by the time I noticed it, usually the thread was so long and the debate so convoluted that I really had nothing to contribute. I really have nothing against PvP as long as it is not Open PvP, and most suggestions have been Elective (as the topic starter says) and I have no problem with that. I will likely avoid PvP, but that's me.    I think it's important to understand the history, though. There are quite a few people who are new to E&B who don't know about the "Arena" on live, and there are probably just as many who were in live, but either never experienced the Arena, or may remember it colored by the passage of time. IMHO, the majority of E&B players never actually played the "Arena" the way the devs intended it. There most certainly are individual exceptions, but most people, I think, think the "Arena" was an arena, and PvP took place in it.    To my recollection, and in my understanding of it, the E&B Arena was actually a sort of "PvPvE". The problem is that the classes in E&B aren't balanced for combat, and they CAN'T be balanced for combat. Combat was only part of the game, and you have trade and mining, too. Just taking mining as the issue, only three of the nine classes (2 of 3 on live) are capable of mining, so if they got Combat XP at the same rate as a Progen Warrior and could mine on top of that, they'd quickly outlevel the others. So when it comes to one on one, PvP combat, there's a heirarchy, with the warriors on top, the Progen as a whole performing a little better, and then finally the other traders and explorers.    The devs of E&B developed an Arena that they hoped would engage all three classes. In short, there were "orbs" that needed to be carried to a goal. Miners could mine these orbs from "Caches" that floated around the arena, or they could be gathered from generators that spit them out at a constant rate. Obviously, traders with their bigger holds could be elected to carry the orbs to the goal, while the warriors would keep the other side from scoring.    Now, maybe this implementation was just too abstract. If the miners had been assigned to mine resources to build a base or reinforce it, then maybe that would have been seen as more "fun". Or maybe the classes could have been redesigned in PvP to have a more balanced loadout. The point is, the devs never bothered to balance PvP because it was supposed to be balanced the way they implemented it. They just never expected the players to ignore their rules and just PvP according to their own rules.    Honestly, I'm looking at the gate to 61 Cygni in Altair. and thinking there has to be some ideas about PvP floating around that. But think the lesson going forward is that if we are going to implement PvP, it's going to have to take those limitations into account. It can't be as easy as just setting a flag or opening up a zone and telling everybody, "go at it". There's going to have to be some serious thought and testing put into it, unless we want to end up with another underutilized Arena.  

Oh, and I am NOT suggesting limiting this to Jenquai. That was just to explain my train of thought.

Hm... back on live, I can't remember if this was someone else's idea or I adapted it from another thought, but I remember that the backstory behind the Jenquai Seeker was supposed to be that they were looking for Jenquai artifacts that had been looted during the Gate War. I suggested that maybe this could be something like the Gene Maps for Progen. There could be a turn in point for Jenquai Artifacts that had been found, and the player turning them in would get a little Explore XP. Except that since the Jenquai as a race are intended to be explorers, ALL Jenquai could turn in artifacts, whether they were Seekers, Explorers, or Defenders. This would be an alternate way to augment nav points and Job Explore XP.   Carrying on with this idea, "sets" of this kind could also be turned in for Explore XP. Just a suggestion, but it could be combined with a faction or mission reward, down the line.

I've always felt the solution to cherry picking was, along with the cherry picked 'roid despawning after a while, make it targetable by weapons. Thus, you have the choice of clearing it out manually, or just blasting it and starting over. You'd lose the XP, but wouldn't need to space anything you didn't have room for in the hold. There would have to be a timer in place or the like to prevent griefing, but in short you would just be able to choose the moment a cherry picked asteroid despawns.