ryleyra

[quote name='Mimir' timestamp='1316460956' post='46337'] [size="3"][font="Calibri"]I’m a bit confused, I don’t remember being able to get 20 of any one particular ore in 20 minutes in live. Unless you are referring to the starter areas, and there were entire fields of only one ore type. Copper and iron ore come to mind. [/font][/size] [/quote] Well, my point was that if that amount is readily available, then you don't need it in the pop rocks. If you DO need it, well, the ore from those pop rocks wasn't available on live. If the problem is a shortage of ores, then the DEVS NEED TO FIX THAT, not provide pop rocks that are easier to mine. If the quantity you need is NOT available, in ANY sector, then what is the purpose of exploring?

I'm honestly not seeing it, the new Market seems a lot more forgiving (as in not charging at this time) but competition isn't really something I saw on live. In fact, I always found the Arena to be an absolute laugh riot. The devs went to all the trouble to set up a complex, balanced game that all classes had their part in participating in, and everyone went into it to just shoot up their opponent with their guns. Which is a contest that the PW would ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS win. Maybe this JD might be able to make a good showing with the proper strategy, but this was never a game designed around one on one PvP -- or PvP at all, for that matter. The bigger "competition" I saw on live was the lack of cooperation between builders and miners to produce equipment, and that hasn't changed. It's still easier for one person to produce that than to synchronize actions in the Market. The JS and PP have introduced more competition for the TT, but I don't see it as much as more competition as just different faces. The "pure" builders may gravitate to TT while the ones who want to have a more combat role may go for PP, but it will probably still be dominated by the highest level players.

[quote name='Kyp' timestamp='1316208767' post='46182'] See Mimir's reply, summarizes nicely. [/quote] If a particular ore is prevalent in a field, and you can mine 20 units in a couple of minutes, I don't see a problem with having to mine several asteroids to collect it all. The high numbers in pop rocks on live weren't intended to be mined, because they couldn't be. Pop rocks exploded 100% of the time. You never got those ores. If you can't get those 20 units in a couple of minutes, then I feel that's a different discussion.

One thing you seem to be ignoring is that each race can use other races' equipment. Progen cannot use Jenquai and vice versa, but outside of that restriction Progen can use Terran engines, Terrans can use Jenquai reactors, and Jenquai can use either Terran or Red Dragon shields. (Which typically are second strongest to Progen) The L8 restriction to Jenquai shields ensures that Jenquai cannot use level 9 TERRAN shields. Which can be almost as powerful as Progen shields. In addition, each of the races' systems are designed around the weaker systems getting a secondary buff. Jenquai shields, while they are the weakest, can add a deflect, making that shield powerful against a particular weapon type. Progen beams, while they are the weakest beam types, have a very long recharge time, giving them high burst damage, and they usually add a buff such as to a Sentinel's Prospect skill. While you will usually choose the system that is the most powerful overall, you have a choice to select another races' system if you find it enhances your playstyle. The Jenquai Defender has Psi Shield because its race has weaker shields. The Jenquai have Cloak because their speciality is with the shortest ranged weaponry. The Terrans have the longest ranged weaponry because their Engines are the most powerful, making kiting more viable. And missiles use the least amount of energy. If your goal is to rebalance the races so they all get level 9 in all systems, then their skills will need to be rebalanced too. Jenquai kiting with Cloak (with level 9 engines and missiles) would just be too overpowered. As for shields regenerating during combat, that's the point of having a large capacity shield, not large regen. Again, Defenders have a huge advantage there, because as long as Psi Shield stays up, the shields don't TAKE damage. It's more the reactor that runs out. Combat for a warrior, or any class that kills quickly, is designed around finishing off the foe before either your shield or reactor runs out. If you could continue to kill at that rate indefinately, you would quickly leave the classes that CAN'T kill quickly behind. The main thing is, someone will still figure out what the "best" system is for any given set of stats. As long as you give the player the choice, that choice will 90% of the time be for the "best". Your idea doesn't change anything unless you actually RESTRICT the Jenquai to using Jenquai equipment and nothing else.

[quote name='Mattsacre' timestamp='1315644957' post='45963'] What I was meaning about the TS: negotiate effects not only vendor prices, but TERMINAL prices, a TS with negotiate should be able to refine cheaper than the other 2 class explorers.[/quote] I know. I just meant that there was no TS on live, therefore there was no class on live that could Prospect AND have Negotiate. Therefore, none of my research includes any consideration of Negotiate. Because it didn't apply at the time I collected it. Negotiate factors into the emulated game, but I've just said that the emulated costs don't match the live costs. So it's a whole new ball game. I suppose you could make the argument that the devs raised the sell price of all refined ores to balance the TS against the profit margin of the other two explorers, but quite frankly I don't give them that much credit, and I'm fairly sure you don't either.

I don't know what the value of loot was on live, since I don't have any record of that. But components, weapons and systems, when bought from the vendors, is a money sink. If all of those systems are more expensive than on live, then it is harder for players to buy those items than it was on live. This will either require players to go to the Market channel more for crafted weapons (which will also cost more to manufacture than on live, since the component costs are higher) or to use only looted items. (Either looted themselves or bought from the Market, which would compete with the builders trying to buy looted items for prints) If the costs are all (or mostly) higher than live, then the loot which is sold for credits into the system should also sell for more. There isn't anything wrong with this, but the system should remain in balance. For instance, the cost of a component was usually very close to the cost of the ores which made it up. I am not sure this is still the case. The cost of weapons on live might have been less than the cost of equipment. I seem to note that starting at about level 3, manufacturing costs for equipment became higher than weapons. However, weapons used different types of components than equipment, and weapon components could have been priced lower. Ammo components were definately priced lower than equipment components, and this is still true. They are also made from raw ores instead of refined, so the manufacturing costs are lower as well.

[quote name='Dragoncove' timestamp='1315340035' post='45789'] On live the value seems to be more like refined is 60 times the value of raw, although I need to confirm that that's a constant, and that it doesn't decrease with higher level. It shouldn't take long, though, I just need to make up a new chart with the prices. And since there is no faction it should be even easier this time. [/quote] Okay, I have gathered this data, and I can verify that unlike on live, there is NO pattern to the price of either raw or refined ores. I can certainly see that, especially at low levels, it can be somewhat random whether you can get a profit from refining the ores or not. Let's look at a few examples: (These are at Prospect 3) Liquid Methane: as Methane, sells for 2, refines for 96, sells for 144. Refined sells for 72 times raw. 5 units raw will net you 10 credits, one refined will net 144-96 = 48 credits. So about 38 credits profit there. Moonstone: sells for 4 raw, refines for 26, sells for 39. That's only 9.75 times raw. 5 units = 20 credits, refined = 39-26 = 13. So a loss of 7 credits Obsidian, a fairly high priced level III: sells for 5, refines for 562, sells for 842. Refined is 168.4 times raw. 5 units = 25, refined = 842-562 = 280 Cobalt: sells for 10, refines for 536, sells for 804. Still a profit compared to raw, but the refined price is only 53.6 times raw, less than the Methane. There's definately no constant here, and it's not comparable to live. There are a few ores, like Moonstone above, that seem to come close to live, but that only makes them that much different. In general, though, it does look like the refined value of an ore is much higher than its raw value. And components appear to be priced consistently higher as well. So there is definately more cost involved in ripping ores than on live, I would say.

[quote name='Terrell' timestamp='1315239008' post='45724']The Sentinel can also fight effectively solo or in groups. and is the best explorer at combat, it's weakness is that it uses ammo but cannot build it's own. [/quote] Agreed on this. This is probably the one thing that makes the Sentinel more of a team oriented class, and makes it work best in an alliance with a TT (or one of the other builders) to supply it with ore. If you're going for 95% solo, the Warrior or Privateer might be a better choice. What makes the Progen so much fun to play, though, is that even the weakest of them is pretty much the equivalent of the OTHER race's warriors. You'll never have to worry about combat...

I thought I would confirm that most of the Trade Routes that I have recorded on live are present here, and give the same profits. There are a few minor differences, and of course, a whole lot of new routes have been added. Not just the Progen and "circular" routes, but there seem to be more routes overall. In some cases, I even noticed items that originally came from one place have moved to another. I am still testing other prices, I will probably check ore prices next. EDIT: As I corrected in my first post, ore prices aren't the same as live at all. They appear to be similar at the lower levels due to rounding errors, but once you get up to level 3 and 4 they obviously don't match at all any more. In fact, there are ores at level 3 that are cheaper than level 2, and vice versa. So I'm not sure the values were even taken from a site that had collected ore prices.

[quote name='Mattsacre' timestamp='1315117036' post='45639'] About the refined ore vs refining costs dragon, there were ores and gases that you took a net loss and others that there was a net gain from refining and selling during live. There were some you even broke right even. If I remember right sand refines to silicon and was a wash on profit vs refined..i.e. if you refined 5 units to 1 then sold the 1 refined to vendor you got the same profit as 5 raw + terminal cost.[/quote] It's possible that at higher levels, the refining cost dropped enough for it to make a substantial difference. Also, Prospect level had a dramatic effect; your costs went down, and the prices of high level ores were much higher, and so you were making thousands of credits in profit. The percentages of the original value of the ores, which were in the tens of thousands weren't that much, but as with the effect Negotiate has on Trade, the higher the profit, the larger your percent increase on that profit is. But I am very aware of what the raw and refined prices were of ores on live. The refined ores were always worth 6 times what the raw ore was. So you only made a profit if the terminal cost of refining was less than the value of one ore. (It takes 5 ores to refine, and you get back the price of 6 ores) The one thing I don't have records of, unfortunately, is the refine cost. I always assumed it was proportional to the value of the ore, but again, it decreased as your Prospect level went up. So at higher prospect levels you were more likely to have a refine cost that was less than the value of one ore. On live the value seems to be more like refined is 60 times the value of raw, although I need to confirm that that's a constant, and that it doesn't decrease with higher level. It shouldn't take long, though, I just need to make up a new chart with the prices. And since there is no faction it should be even easier this time. Also, the low level raw ores seem to be rounded off to the nearest credit, which will effect the ratio. This shouldn't be true once I get to the higher level ores, though. [quote]Also consider live there were no TS, so negotiate to mitigate costs at refine terminal,, however you could hand over ores to TT and get optimal vendor return for refined, when doing this almost all ores broke even or above raw+terminal cost.[/quote] This is indeed true. And honestly, it would really be less trouble to give ores to a TT to have him build something. Keep in mind, though, that with maximum faction you could still get 1.3 times the base cost. Which should be somewhere around comparable to Negotiate 5 or so. (of course, that also effected the sale price of the raw ores, so all you were really doing is recouping more of the refine cost) Faction really effected things a lot, and made prices more random. You could make a net loss on one station, and a profit on another. Which was yet another factor to throw into the mix. [quote]With TS in the mix its going to add a whole new wrinkle in the terminal costs vs refine or not to refine decision. Also the 2x or 3x trade xp dip thing...thats supost to be "temporary" that non-exploit exploit shouldn't be in once resurrection occurs. [/quote] Not sure what you mean by that. I suppose you can buy ammo comps, rip them for their ores, refine them for the Trade and Explore XP (matching them to your level) and sell them back to the vendor for more XP, but that was possible on live AFAIK and I know of no way to close that "hole". Not unless comp ores are somehow flagged to not award XP for refining them. (And for all I know it was that way on live) I honestly never considered that possibility as it would obviously be a net loss. Meaning that eventually you would have to run out of money and thus would have to earn your XP some other way.

The "risk" in mining a Pop Rock is the time that you then have to wait for your shield to recharge. Let's be honest here, no one would go into combat if 10% of the time, a MOB had one chance to fire a beam that would instantly kill you. Even if that one MOB was clearly identifiable as such. "Risk vs Reward" does not justify one shot kills. Even in combat, when you are outclassed you are given a chance to run for it. Now, if a Pop Rock released a MOB, or exploded AGAIN after a short delay, giving you time to activate your warp and make an attempt to get clear, then yes, I'd say that's acceptable risk for a greater reward. But just randomly killing the player because you feel like it is not "risk", that's lousy game design. And likely to get your game relegated to the bargain bin. If the problem is with low level miners mining high level ores, then the solution should be, I think, to target the low level miners mining higher level ores. Low level warriors cannot defeat higher level MOBs, because their weapons simply aren't strong enough to defeat them, at least not without taking enough time that only a tanking class could consider it. My suggestion would be if you are lower level than the ore you are trying to prospect, you have a chance to "lose" some of it. That way the penalty applies whether you avoid the Pop Rocks or not. If the miners LIKE having only one ore of any given L9 type in any asteroid, then never mind that. Remove the "schmuck bait" from the Pop Rocks and be done with it. The chance to successfully mine one without having to worry about the consequences would be the incentive to raise your level.

[quote name='Amethyst' timestamp='1315000947' post='45596'] If they could also spawn mobs it would also generate a bit of excitement too![/quote] They spawned MOBs back in live, but that was removed because too many players were one shot killed by them. Even Sentinels had troubles with them, simply because there was no warning and the MOB spawned right on top of them. While it was mainly low level players trying to mine above their levels that complained, there were problems even with even level miners. That being said, I believe that the ability to spawn MOBs could be restored, if a timer could be placed on the MOB to delay it becoming aggroed for a second or two. That would give the miner a chance to recognize the threat and respond to it, instead of just suddenly being killed by a MOB in his face.

[quote name='Mimir' timestamp='1314895052' post='45502'] What stands out for me is in early ST3 when one of the devs thought it would be funny to unleash a few lvl 66 in the starting areas. After many were slaughtered mercilessly, equipment damaged beyond use, and many got a feeling of just how fast you could be killed in this game.[/quote] This points out a problem with player deaths in MMOs, and that is that you cannot let player death effect a player so severely that continued play becomes impossible. For instance, if you just cut a character's stats in half with each death, eventually you would hit a point where it would become impossible to recover. E&B actually started with a good system, which is that death doesn't actually make you LOSE ground, but makes ground HARDER to cover until your debt from the death is paid off. But it never gets any harder than that, it just extends the amount of time you have to work to pay off the debt, and you can always pay it off by logging out anyhow. [quote]I’m pretty sure even when the game goes live there will be this type of generosity from the”haves” to the “have not’s”. If not from all the current altruistic player base but I would think that Magoo can be counted on for player support.[/quote] There will always be good players that are willing to help. The only issue, really, is finding them online when you are online. It's sort of random who you get at any time, although you can probably say most people follow some sort of schedule.

Well, on live Pop Rocks couldn't be mined at all, so the large stacks were meant to be (if you'll pardon the expression) schmuck bait. Here, I see the Pop Rocks as not as much an unequal reward for low risk as balancing out the low number of ores in higher level asteroids. Personally, I feel that if you balance out the number of ores, so you can pretty much find the same stack sizes at all levels, then the Pop Rocks can have nothing special in terms of stack size. It's just a matter of risking mining them. But since the Pop Rocks are the only thing keeping the low level miners from cherry picking all the best ores from high level fields, it's a delicate balancing act. If the Pop Rocks are intended to be a risk that low level miners face when trying to mine high level ores, maybe they should all pop, or have a chance to just "pop" without exploding. What are the rules for mining Pop Rocks anyway? I don't think it's a set chance when you open the asteroid, it's obviously possible to mine a few ores before it pops. Is it a chance of explosion per Prospect? Per ore extracted? Based on level or Prospect skill? I'm sure this could be found somewhere, but since it's been brought up...

[quote name='Lot' timestamp='1314868509' post='45468'] Anyway, E&B worked fine in the old days without an auction house.[/quote] As I said, don't point to the "success" of E&B as evidence that an MMO works without an auction house. Quite honestly, I fought this battle for two years, and heard exactly the same arguments. There is nothing new here. [quote]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.[/quote] As I said above, the point of this system, particularly if it is as simplistic as Rolo is suggesting, is to supplement the Market Channel, not replace it. Likely the exact same people on the Market Channel will be the ones using the auction house. If you are looking for rare ores or to have a high level item built, you would go to the Market Channel and sell it. Possibly, item building would be done face to face, at any level, just to keep the player interaction, and because there wouldn't be enough space on the auction house for lots of weapons and equipment to be sold that way. This system is primarily for the trade of ores and components. Which rarely takes place in the Market Channel anyway. If any traders ever do trade ores, which normally they don't, they rip them from components, they either have alts to mine them or deal with the same friends or guildmates. When they are forced to resort to the Market Channel it's usually only for the very rarest ores, which means it is less frequent than build requests. [quote]Besides every AH I've ever seen has been flooded with over-priced crap that nobody wants, lol. [/quote] Well, that's kind of the point. While overpricing is a problem, the fact that it hasn't sold can give new players a clue that they should price their sale much lower. It's a way of determining the market value, without having to be an "insider". And "crap nobody wants" depends a lot on how much it is going for. More resources might be used if they could be priced more competitively with alternatives like component ripping and alts. While you wouldn't want to spend a lot of time and effort selling such ores, it would be nice to make more of a profit from them than just vendoring them, which you'd have to do anyway unless you just spaced them. For the most part, though, the tendency of players to just put items up at a ridiculously overpriced value and leave them can be countered by simply limiting the number of items you can put up. A limit of 20 would reduce the number of items left on the market unsold. The players would have to withdraw those items to sell more. And that could be reduced further by putting a timeout on the sale, which again, is very common. After a time, the auction house can remove the item from the listing, but retain it in inventory so the seller can come back and reclaim it. Yes, this could be used by players to store items, but again, with only 20 slots to your name, it wouldn't be much storage. You have more than that in your vault.

[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. Rolo [/quote] Honestly, I think my initial suggestion is just fine, that if you don't want your rare resources to be bought by someone trying to corner the market, don't put them up on the Auction House. Sell them on the Market Channel. Although I do question why anyone would think this couldn't be done via the Market Channel either. A think a Guild could easily corner the market on a resource like Grail Water if they chose to. This system isn't intended to replace the Market Channel, only supplement it. The Market Channel will still perform its primary purpose from live.

There's a thread about the Seeker going on over in the Player Advocate forum, but as I point out there, for any skill you add to the Seeker you'll have to take one away. Except for the Explorer, Sentinel and Privateer all class have 17 skills. (The Explorer and Sentinel have a 18th level 135 power they were given in live, and the Privateer only has 16 skills at the moment - probably that slot is being saved for a new power) The Seeker has the name number of build skills as the Trader, and three Jenquai "racial" skills, which take away from the number of support skills the Seeker has compared to the Trader. So one of those could be exchanged for a new skill. To be precise, the Seeker used to lack Build Reactor but had Psi Shield. I don't believe Build Reactor should be taken away again just to add Psi Shield. But there are arguments for dropping another skill instead. See that thread in the Player Advocate forum. My suggestion would actually to add a new shield more similar to Environment Shield. Since the devs felt that stacking Psi Shield with Recharge Shields was too powerful, don't make this a shield protection skill. Instead, create a totally new skill unique to the Seeker which provides EMP protection, blocking reactor drain debuffs, and provides a percentage resistance to Hull damage. This will serve as a sort of Hull Patch without being Hull Patch, and in fact make Hull Patch more useful since a TT or TS will have more time to use it. If this turns out to be too difficult to implement (it's possible that preventing reactor drain would prevent SKILLS from draining the reactor, which could be excessive although now that I think about it, a 15% reduction in all skill costs to the team would be a good reason to bring a JS along) then the skill could simply add Deflects, (or whatever it is called) like a device. There are no player skills that do that, except Psi Shield with provides Psi Deflect. That would reduce the damage incoming on shields, but in a different way than Psi Shield. The Privateer I think that extra skill is still in the works. Honestly, though, the Privateer doesn't really need to be more resiliant. The skill will probably end up being offensive, or some sort of control power. (The Privateer can Menace, but has no skill to hold aggro, as a Warrior does)

It seems to me that as long as it is known and expected that all money can be wiped at any time, there will be no incentive for anyone to sell anything. Circumstances are almost guaranteed to be different on live. However, it is true that there is very little trade for anything but the most rare items. This isn't like EVE, where ships and resources can be destroyed, but ammo is an expendable resource, and players do need equipment as they go up in levels. Right now that is being offered for free since it isn't worth asking for money that will just be wiped anyway, but on live players will either have to meet the asking price of builders or sink money into the vendors. You might hit the rare builder who is willing to cut a deal for a new player, but then you might not. Note also that I see a lot of requests on the Market for a build of an item where the buyer has another item to rip for a component that isn't available from the vendors. That is a money sink as well.

Honestly, I don't consider hulks to be "mining". Hulks were added so that miners would have a source of items that were usually gained from MOBs, because they have more difficulty in combat than the other classes. To that extent, what they find cannot be "refined", and thus they don't gain Trade XP for that. While it is fine to gain Explore XP, because it is an "exploration" activity, searching for and finding resources without combat, it's also find that the Trade XP would be less. OTOH, the issue sounds like a global one for hulks and MOBs, and thus should be fixed globally. So everyone can make more Trade XP. I do agree that items found in a particular spawn should be of close to the same level, you should not find both level 9 and level 1 goods in the same asteroid/critter. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I am seeing a variation in general from the level of the asteroid. On live I could be fairly certain that a level 4 asteroid contained level 4 ore, but I am seeing them with level 2 and 3 ore a lot more often, and I am seeing them with level 2 and 3 ore and no level 4, which I never saw on live.

Is the problem that the devs are breaking the ammo market by supplying weapons that don't take ammo? Or are the devs responding to complaints from the players that they can't get ammo on the Market because it's too difficult and time consuming, and the ores cannot be found? You said yourself that you couldn't even support your own use of Longbows. At level 6. It seems to me that level 9 would be even worse. Of course, availability isn't a problem an auction house can fix, but it can help get the ore to the players once it is available. And yeah, there were lots of suggestions on live about how to increase the productivity of asteroids at higher level. It doesn't make sense to see L1 and L2 asteroids with stacks of 5 and 10 ores, and L9 asteroids with stacks of only one. And this cuts down on the amount of available XP as well. This isn't a problem the lower level you go, though, because as I said, there is a lot more ore available. But even low level miners won't mine that ore, because it's valueless.

Let me be more precise: The purpose of an auction house is not to sell the rare resources that are in short supply. Although if it is suitably well designed, and the population and supply are high enough, it CAN be used to sell such resources. The primary purpose, though, is the exchange of common resources that are in abundant supply. The auction house facilitates the exchange of such resources, instead of encouraging them to be vendored in exchange for money. While the Market channel can handle such exchange, it chooses not to, because it is more valuable to exchange resources that are rare instead. Thus, when you go onto the Market channel with a supply of common resources, you are told "vendor that, it's junk". And when you come to the Market channel asking for a supply of common resources, you are told "just buy that from the component vendor".

[quote name='Crichton' timestamp='1314828076' post='45434'] My comments were for comparison to how it worked in live. Ore is not plentiful in any regard at the moment. Sure its better than ST3 but its nowhere close to live.[/quote] Well, that certainly isn't going to remain that way. Unless of course this never goes live. But if it ever does, we can assume there will not only be more resources available, but more players to actually mine them. The idea is to put a process into place and test it BEFORE it is needed. I agree that something needs to be done about high level fields. Even on live, the amounts available in high level fields were negligible compared to lower level fields. I believe I commented on that, at any rate, the issue is that low level miners could "lock" an asteroid and be keeping it locked while they took the time to cherry pick it. An alternative might be to increase the number of ores, but cause some "loss" if you try to mine above your Prospect level. Greater supply of resources is always preferred to having only one or two units available at any time. [quote]Implementing an AH has a whole other set of problems due to the fact that there never was one and with so little ore at the moment whats to stop a player from controlling all the ore? [/quote] The issue that there never was an auction house is more one of implementation. The interfaces may not be in place to make an auction house possible. Rolo suggested a possible workaround, but it is an extremely simple interface. It would hardly be as broad and complex as a modern auction house. On the other hand, I don't think the fact that this game had no auction house is evidence that lack of an auction house works. This game lasted two years, when other games released around the same time lasted considerably longer and were considered a much greater success. Yes, you can ascribe a lot of that to EA, and you can ascribe a lot of that to the genre, but how much of that was truly the problem, and how much of that is personal opinion? [quote]Now take Glenn as the standard and apply it to every other sector with ore. Zweinhander is a great example. A good quarter of the sector was covered with ore fields (l5-9).....right now.....nothing. Vendoring ore is fine and its a way for miners to make money but you are right in the fact that a user can either vendor or try to sell to builders but can't really do both due to lack of ore. [/quote] The auction house provides an intermediate step between vendoring a resource, and selling it on the Market channel. Right now, vendoring a resource provides a very small profit to the player. It is actually much higher than it is was on live, if I'm right, refining an ore and vendoring it could net you as much as ten times what you used to get on live. Even so, if you start with that as a minimum, you can get at least that much, to possibly as much as 20 times for ammo ores, up to even more than that for refined ores needed for common components. Any player of the game would much prefer to have that much more money, which can then be used for much needed upgrades, making the player stronger, and his struggle to level less. The truly high priced items, though, going on values based on rarity, could either be sold on the auction house, or the Market. If you're concerned about people buying up your Grail Water and doubling their cost, then just don't put them on the auction house. Advertise in the Market that they are available when someone comes asking why there isn't any up for sale. If the system really is as simple as it sounds like it's going to be, it's not going to be suitable for high level trade anyway. (Also, a fixed price vendor, as in my second suggestion, would most certainly NOT be used for rare high level ores. That vendor "slot" would remain empty, as there wouldn't be enough supply to merit using it) [quote]In live it was great to simply ask in market if you could buy 20, 50, 120 of any l2-l7 ore and actually have a few people respond. Try that now and see what you get. [/quote] I honestly very rarely found any response to that. I'm sure the response is even rarer now. Then again, maybe just you and I were never in the channel at the same time. Or maybe we were the two that always responded.

[quote name='Lot' timestamp='1314713676' post='45372']Can it be that simple ... but as long as the truth that players need credits is ignored then there's no hope.[/quote] The rarity of high level ores has always been a problem, ever since live. A lot of the problem is due to the fact that a low level player is not restricted from "cherry picking" high level fields, outside of his reactor capacity, and the risk of encountering a high level guardian. He prospects more slowly than a high level miner, but he can still beat the high level miner to a stack of high level ore, and take all the time he needs while the asteroid is "locked". So my assumption is that high level ores are found in stacks of one or two, while low level ores are found in stacks of 5 or 10, for this reason. If the availablity of ores at all levels were equal, there would not be a problem. And I'm talking about live. For all I know, attempts are being made to address this issue. I do understand that pop rocks can be mined now, that there is a chance to salvage the ores in them. So this increases the supply for those willing and able to take the greater risk. One suggestion I saw on live was to have the ores you mine multiplied if you are high Prospect level. That is, you mine 1 unit of level 9 ore, you get 4-5 back. I posted a variation, where instead of getting more out of one unit if you are higher Prospect level, you have a chance of loss if you are lower Prospect. It comes down to the same thing, only the devs will need to stock the asteroids with larger stacks of ores at high level in the latter case. Honestly, the transfer of money from high level players to new players is one purpose of an auction house. If new players are just gathering loot that they then vendor to earn money, then they are just creating a new generation of players that will eventually be high level players with lots of money. The idea is for money to be transferred around, not just at the highest levels, but at all levels. But that is another topic.

[quote name='will' timestamp='1314721273' post='45376'] Ammo cannot be dismantled simply because it is manufactured in 'stacks', 1 of each comp will create up to 2000 units of ammo. If the terminal could recognize a full stack of ammo for dismantling, maybe it could be implemented, but it's probably a client limitation. [/quote] I didn't say there wasn't a logical reason for it, just that it's inconsistent. It's actually quite handy, since you need only one unit of ammo for an analysis. However, I could definately see the humor in dismantling one ammo unit, building a stack out of it, dismantling a unit, building another stack, and so on. Infinite ammo! No, obviously that can't work that way.

[quote name='Riz' timestamp='1314674959' post='45366'] See the problem there is not everyone wants to have a miner. [/quote] Also it kind of defeats the purpose of wanting to interact with other players. All you need to do is come up with a way to automatically give yourself more money when your builder gives weapons to your warriors, and you won't need to deal with those pesky other people at all!