Goodhumorboy

I have seen 30% XP boosts during the Christmas festivities. I am not sure if this is going to continue in the future. Show up for the Christmas stuff for the Polar Express even if the XP boost is not present.

I agree with Thuvia. Maybe give it the same buffs as the DEA but available to all classes? I have to say that the reinforcer device awesome!

I recently worked for many hours to get the ores together to obtain 5 passes for the Mars Mission. I was planning on buying the Archos Threading Machine because I had seen it as an option when I bought the Bile Threading Machine. I pointed out to a dev that the part used to feed the machine was not sold at a vendor and that about 10 people on the serve (including my main TT) have the ability to make the part used to feed the machine. I also told them that the ammo was non-trade. The part can also be used by many of my warriors to make the ammo at a terminal and I can fire them in my Archos cannons. I can not however trade them to my PS to use. That machine was my only hope of getting the ammo on my PS. The Archos Threading Machine is no longer available from the Mars Project. A GM informed me that the ammo was now considered obsolete. While I agree that there were a few things to fix with the machine and the ammo, it was not broken to the point that it needed to be removed from the game. The people that wanted to use it would just have to catch one of the part builders online to feed the machine. With the /craft command, it would be very easy to crank out a stack in a few minutes. I was working towards getting this machine all day on Thursday 11/2 because I don't have the pattern for the ammo on my PS. Finding enough of the ores to make a stack of refined alloys is not easy and takes a lot of time. I was hoping to get the archos threading machine and then crank out the ammo in space for my PS to use. With the threading device, the pattern for the ammo would not matter. I now have 5 passes on my PS that I had obtained with the purpose of buying the Archos Threading device. Please bring the ammo back. It was not easy to work with, but it was still usable and worked. It is not obsolete.

Congrats on your daughter's graduation. Good luck with getting better. Keep an eye out for abnormal pains etc. My wife's uncle got kidney cancer and it spread to his bones. He ignored the pain way too long and he had to have bone removed.

The guy making the complaint has an racist avatar picture of an Asian with "ROR" on it. That is just pure awesome hypocracy!

I agree with this.  Leave the current agreement alone.  I initially pushed for an Epic spot and was not happy about passing the tests and still being denied a spot.  Despite my original feelings about it, I am glad things turned out the way they did.  I am happy with how well the public raids have worked for the last 2 years.

Your so full of shit that I bet your eyes are now brown.  Epic put in for the rotation and passed your tests using only Epic people.  I listened to the recording when GOM recorded them.  We also stated during the recorded discussions that we wanted to include the public in the rotation during our week.  This was meant to open up the raids to the other public.  You guys took that to mean that Epic was incapable of raiding alone.  This is so far from the truth.  Epic has more people than Static and when we get organized for a raid, we don't have to multibox a raid.    -Epic did your raid tests with no outside help and you ignored us -Epic came back and stated a desire to include the other small raids with a similar response.    Here are some of my observations:   It took you 45 minutes from the Precursor Alpha wave to killing the Troller last night when watched.  The public would have started and completed the raid in about 20 minutes.    A few months ago I watched Static abandon a RD base raid when I took a group out there for some ammo testing.  Static abandoned the raid after they killed the mob that drops the CLP.  Once Static left, I decided to try and finish it.   The server crashed shortly afterward and I was unable to finish it.  During that time a single well organized combat group was killing the waves.  This went on for a bit and then the server crashed.  Had the server stayed online, we would have finished it.   Many times when I go to check on the triggers for the more difficult raids and they are up for days at a time.   Does Static even have the ability to take these raids down on their own without multiboxing?

Getoffme pulled out of the discussions for a reason.  That reason was that you guys were not letting us in and were stalling.  We knew taking raids down with ongoing discussions would not be looked at kindly.  Shortly thereafter we took some GOBB raids down that happened to belong to VGE and the discussion was reopened shortly afterward.   This is a minor detail though.  The real issue here is that you say you would let people in after they proved themselves but you are really not telling the truth.  Epic took the GOBB to prove that we could field a raid and Static demanded that we take down the RD base.  We took the rd base and you still refused to let us in.  You would have never let another group in the raid rotation until your hand was forced by the threat posed by the public. 

This is a pure load of crap.  Epic jumped through those hoops long ago and we were still denied a rotation spot.  It was not until the "public" started taking the raids that the public spot was put in place.

Who said anything about it being spawned in the same field every restart?  All the AAs I ever found were taken from different locations all over the server.  I have not found an AA in the same ore field at restart in the same location.   You guys are making an argument based on opinions and falsehoods.  When you come up with some accurate facts about AA, come back with a different argument as to why you think it is an exploit to run around the server looking for AA devices on restarts.

Complete nonsense.  I have only found AA devices after a restart and they have all been spread all around the server.  You have to run out to the rock fields, scan the rocks and then move on.  I completely disagree that people finding the AA devices after a restart is an exploit.  As far as I am concerned, the AA devices spawn at restart.  Once they are mined they sometimes respawn in sectors that I have no access to.  If they are in a sector that I can't get into and don't spawn again on the server because one already exists, you would only expect to find them after a restart when ALL rocks are cleared.   This is not an exploit.  This is an example to unintended consequences.  If we really wanted to "fix" this issue, make the unidentified AA spawns a lot more common but restrict the "good" exchanges from Ravenrock when they are turned in.  You can add in "crap" AA devices that are returned more often from Raven rather than getting the nice toys that we are all after.

I will try and make some triggers this weekend and do as many GR as possible to get some hard numbers.  Until I actually put the work into collecting data, I really don't know what the spread is between cobalt and flaming.   I still feel a bit dirty pushing for a cobalt fix considering how much I detest the ammo flavor.  I only use it at the GR and FB because it is the best for those raids.  It does however seem to be the flavor of choice for many people.    For what it is worth, I am very happy with the mission to turn ribs into teeth and I am glad you guys made it.

Did you use this as an argument against making the rib to tooth mission?    The rib to tooth mission was an addition to the game that solved a real problem and one of the best recent additions to the game IMHO.  I have made plenty of "trades" with people trading some of my cobalt for their flaming and then turning around and selling the flaming to a vendor because I can't use it fast enough.  Unfortunately I am no longer able to make that trade and help others out because my cobalt supply is so low.   I ran several gate raids in the last few weeks and was not able to make a single stack of cobalt bile in one raid session.  I ended up with about 2 stacks of cobalt from 3 Gate Raids.  I did however loot a ton of flaming bile.

I just thought of this while I was contemplating the problems of the world as I sat on my smelly throne and I came up with this.  Maybe instead of a mission to convert flaming bile into cobalt bile, we can mix it up with a small mission, refine terminal work and farming.   Have a NPC toon (some crazy scientist from Texas) offer a mission to all ammo builders that gives a new pattern for a bile ammo called "Distilled Flaming Fangs".  This "distilled flaming bile" would be described as an unorthodox method of making the explosive nature of flaming bile slower and more controlled using the genetic know how of the Sabine and the bat shit craziness of an Aggie.  The mission however requires that you obtain some "distilled flaming bile" and tengu teeth.  Explosive after all is just a fast chemical reaction and maybe slowing it down a bit to get the burn would just require an agent that slows the reaction rate.  The mission reward would be the ammo pattern for "distilled flaming fangs" which does plasma damage and goes into the Bile PL.  To keep things fiar, you could also include a pattern called "distilled flaming ribs" which goes into the Bile ML.   The way to get the distilled flaming bile would be to use an explore class going to the refine terminal and making it through several steps.  You have the flaming bile and refine it with dung from DT to make "flaming poo slurry -yummy".  You then feed this noxious material to a worm egg from Arduinne at the refine terminal and then collect the resulting excrement called "flaming worm poo" from the poor worms suffering from explosive diarrhea.  Next you distill this vile "flaming worm poo" with a beaker, test tube, a random lvl 5 ore and Chavez Herbal remedy to make the "Distilled Flaming Bile" which is the part required to make the "distilled flaming fangs" and a turn in to the NPC mention above.  The "distilled flaming bile" would have the same icon as the flaming, amber or cobalt except be brown with yellow specks in it.   Using the refine terminal in this way as well as a new mission would make us work for the cobalt rather than modify the existing mission for swapping ribs for teeth.

You saw it here folks.  The Canadian and crazy Texan working on getting along.

We can disagree on this and be civil.  I apologize for pissing you off and I think it is a cultural difference.  Don't take it personally.    My preference is impact and explosive so no, I am not pushing for this because I like plasma.  My disdain for plasma is no secret and is common knowledge for people that play with me.   Perhaps the drop rate can be lowered on flaming and have the cobalt raised to address this?

How does "fair" even factor into this?  I could argue that there is a lack in fairness that ribs can be turned into teeth but it would not change my opinion or support for this trade.  Teeth are used up a lot quicker and there is a need for this trade.  The concept of fair is not even relevant to this discussion.  Can you accept that being fair and being even or pragmatic are not the same thing?  Right now flaming bile is piling up and cobalt is in short supply.  I don't have enough data to make a definite statement of fact but it seems to me that cobalt bile is a bit more difficult to obtain than the other flavors at the raids.  Also keep in mind that I don't like plasma.  I am an impact user and my build history will back that up.  Plasma one of my least favorite flavors of ammo.  I do however see that fellow guild mates like it and don't have an adequate supply.   I can accept that it is too hard to code but reading your fairness reason is just plain nonsense and appears to be nothing but a straw man argument on your part.   As far as the coding goes, how is it possible to code a trade of ribs to teeth but it is not possible to code flaming bile to cobalt bile?

This new mission from the Bio-Harvester is an addition that I appreciate almost as much as the grav link fix of the PS.  The ribs last forever and having the ability to turn them into teeth is awesome.    With that being said, would it be possible to add in the ability to turn Flaming Bile into Cobalt bile?  The Flaming Bile is only used for the explosive bile missile launcher.  For those that don't have a terran, the ammo stacks last forever.  The cobalt is used for both the ML and PL.  The PL however burns the ammo a lot faster than the ML.  I have many stacks of flaming that I can't use fast enough yet the cobalt bile is used quickly.

I disagree with this statement.  If there was a skill that gave good equipment damage control to keep the quality loss of the gear down, I would tend to agree with you.  I think the scout could use a skill that added some HDC because they don't have cloak, or equipment damage control to make the consequences of getting torn apart by mobs less, or damage avoidance (afterburn?).  Any of these three options would balance the TS out.   The scout is a great support class for the warriors and my favorite explore class but there is still some work to be done on it to balance it out.   The PP can also use some love.  I think that a skill that raises the critical targeting would help the PP a lot.  The Rogue Progen have rally.  Adding firing tactics to the PP skill set would give the desired result.  The other skill to possibly look at would be shield enhancements or maybe activated HDC.  The TT has the shield enhancement so I tend to lean towards an activated HDC skill.  I do not see the PP too often at the raids because they do pull massive aggro when healing.  They are almost as powerful as a warrior so beefing up their ability to take damage may be the best option.   Here is some food for thought.  The number of level 150+ dings required to maximize the skills of the different classes are not all the same.  The PP, JS and TS all require the fewest over-dings to maximize their abilities.  The PP is the lowest at 100.  The JS is at 103 and the TS is at 113.  The next lowest is the TE at 121.  The difference in skill points between the TS and the TE would be about a level 5 skill.  The difference in skill points between a PP or JS and a TE would be about one level 7 skill or two level 5 skills.  Now compare the point numbers between the other explore classes and see where the TS lines up.  They are missing a lot compared to the PS or JE.    Here is the full list for the number of over-dings required to maximize all skills:   TS 113 TT 126 TE121 PW 143 (tied for highest) PP 100 PS 142 JD 143  (tied for highest) JS 103 JE 139

Agreed.  I pushed for similar help to the TS a long time ago but there are not enough programming resources to address it yet.  The TS is a very good support toon but you had better have all PM gear or be able to stomach the quality loss on your loot only gear because they get torn apart in the raids.  They are the only class with lvl 8 shields and no cloak.

I wager 50 quatloos that you are right.  Credits are meaningless to me.  I use them to buy vendor crap to rip and have never run out.  When I build for someone I simply say tip only.  The tip is really just an exercise in courtesy because I don't need them.   If a credit sink were to be designed so that the economy would start to work again, here is how I would do it.  Have ultra rare and valuable items made once a week ( AA toys, turbo toys, etc..) and auction them off.  The highest bidder wins and when the credits are traded to the GM for the item, they disappear.  Suddenly those highly sought after items gathering dust in the vaults would be sold off to raise the credits to compete in the auction.

Yes.  The damage numbers are always the sum of the base plus -1* the bracket.  This number was consistent with the ammo type.  i.e. 1100 (+100) is a base of 1000.  900 (-100) is a base of 1000.  Even the critical hits yielded the same % amount for the ammo flavor.   I used the lvl 9 Flechette as a base to test the ammo types.  The percentage should be the same across the different guns and thus these tests will give a non-dimensional number for us to work with in deciding what ammo to use at the raids.   I ran the RD base again just before noon with Impact and the lag was better than when I run with chemical.  The impact ammo is not as good as chem for DPS but I also did not have to shut my clients down and restart them as often.

    I think the PP does have something lacking.  I was thinking that a skill that buffed up the groups HDC would be nice.  Have it be an skill that raises HDC by 100% at lvl 7 and take 10% from that for each level lower.    The TS could use an additional support role buff as well.  I have pushed the idea in other posts for a TS skill where the TS could "paint" a target for the other group members and maybe lower the HDC of a mob & raise its sig.  Another different idea would be a skill that would raise the damage output of the group with an enhanced damage buff skill.  Call the skill "Forward Controller" or "Scouting".  Perhaps at lvl 5 it would add 40% damage and take off 5% from that with each lower level.

I have run some tests over the last few weeks at the raids to study the effectiveness of selected ammo flavors.  I used a standard setup of 6 200% lvl 9 Flechette Projectile Launchers while debuffing for the maximum amount possible depending on what I had loaded in the guns.  I tested Explosive, Chemical and Impact.  These results were interesting.  I used the lvl 9 Flechette as a control to keep as many variables out of the data collection.   In the data below I am just presenting the % of the damage that actually hits the mob.  The total damage that the gun imparts on the mob is a simple addition of the first number plus -1 times the number in the parentheses.  I.E. if you see 542( -443) this means that you gun is doing 985 damage to the mob but 443 of it is being deflected.  In this case you would be landing 55% of the damage from your gun on the mob.  If you see 1195 (+210) you are doing 985 damage but the mob is weak to the ammo so you get an additional 210 damage on top of the 985.  In this case you would be doing 121% damage to the mob.   I used explores for the debuffing.  The PS performed the Chem debuffing with a lvl 9 Basilisk.  The TS was used for Explosive and Impact debuffing using a lvl 8 Salamander and a lvl 9 Gorgon.  I also used the Chilli Popper and max gravity link for impact/explosive debuffing stack.  The lvl 8 Salamander was used because there is a 72 cap on debuffing and the lvl 9 would give no additional damage if there was also a grav link.  I also am not posting the additional damage that chem does on the hull vs shield.  There is a jump in damage when you get to the hull of a mechanical while using chem.   I am also not testing GOBB.   I think we all know what the best ammo is for GOBB.  The Progens are really only there to deal with the adds at the end while the Terrans own the Oni-like spawns from hell.   One word of caution.  Do not use any grav link except for lvl 7 with impact.  The other levels will wipe out other impact debuffs like the Gorgon.  This can be very frustrating and IMHO hurts the viability of a PS at the raids.  I really want this bug fixed soon.   Controller Raid   Fabricator 9 Explosive: 43% Chemical: 57% Impact:  71%     Precursor Alpha Explosive: 43% Chemical: 66% Impact:  71%   Obsolete Model V Explosive: 56% Chemical: 57% Impact:  71%   Controller Explosive: 66% Chemical: 66% Impact:  72%     DT Raid   Results were too sporadic to obtain any good test results.  The deflects of the mobs are variable and I was unable to pin down any good data.   I will say that the Public likes using Impact, Energy and Explosive.  The TS is able to debuff very well at this raid and we are able to take these raids down pretty quickly     RD Base   Words can't describe how much this raid can suck when the lag spikes.  Chemical is the best for % damage but causes serious lag issues.  If you like doing lots of damage, relogging in multiple times during the raid, and just a sadomasochistic for enormous amounts of lag, use chemical.  I had minor lag issues when using explosive or impact ammo.  Chemical is just not worth the trouble with the lag issues.   The raid tonight was very nice.  We used impact ammo.  I used a PW to use lvl 7 Grav link on the mobs while paying attention to how far the non-raid mobs were from my location.  The lag was only bad on one wave and it seems to spike during heavy healing and chem use.  Impact ammo is also enough to keep the Command Center from using its skills as long as the grav link is maintained with two groups firing on it.  I will be encouraging Progens to only bring impact ammo to the RD Base from now on.  The raid tonight was actually enjoyable compared to the aggravation of a lagged out chemical raid that we have all come to expect.  If the lvl 5 grav link skill is fixed, the PS could be a good toon to have at the raid even if they don't debuff chemical with a lvl 9 Basilisk.   SDX Explosive: 40% Chemical: 155% Impact:  81%     LVL 53 Explosive: 90% Chemical: 107% Impact:  91%     LVL 66 Explosive: 50% Chemical: 44% Impact:  81%     Hangar Bay Explosive: 115% Chemical: 111% Impact:  131%   LVL 64 Explosive: 95% Chemical: no data I was probably lagged out and screaming obscenities at my monitor Impact:  41%   Ing Zhi Wong Explosive: 51% Chemical: 111% Impact:  71%   Shield Unit Explosive: 50% Chemical: 61% Impact:  76%   Carrier Chi Lung Explosive: 31% Chemical: 136% Impact:  106%   Command Center Explosive: 61% Chemical: 111% Impact:  81%   Ya Zi Long Explosive: 40% Chemical: 136% Impact:  73%     I will add this editorial note about Impact.  It may not be as effective as chem at the raids but it is by far the preferable ammo flavor for me.  If you have a few good Terran Scouts with a Chilli Popper and a lvl 9 Gorgon, they can enhance the progens a lot on impact.  It is also fun to play the TS in the raids for debuffing, hull patch, Jump Starts and hacking.  They are the jack of all trades and master of only impact debuffing.  My TS did 23% of the damage to the Command Center tonight without firing a single missile just with hacking the shields.  It is also important to have the traders bring manticores for the Jenqui.  The TT should also bring profilers to allow the debuffs and skills to stick to the raid mobs easier and more frequently.  The TS can hack but not as well as the TE.  The TE is the most important class at the DT raids for crowd control.  If they keep the ships hacked and the bios repressed, the healers can get a bit of a break.

  You must have never raided with me.  I play ALL toons depending on what is needed.  I have developed niches in the public raids for being a support toon that enables the main group to leverage their DPS higher.  I also dont think shield spamming is a good idea.  I think that a raid should go down with minimal healing if the people play their toons correctly.   i.e. I play the TS a lot in DT to support the Progen and Terrans in using impact/explosive.  I also thought up the SOP for the public GOBB raids of having 1 strong Terran group and a Progen group for the adds at the end.   I also use many different ammo types and support it with a good debuffs.  I know of only a few people that have experimented and been willing to try new methods of doing things.  I am actually making a spread sheet of what each damage type can do with the proper debuffs.   I am not against chem ammo.  I am just tired of the lag that it causes at the raids.  I also think that there is an imbalance in the game play in regards to raids because there is no real advantage in bringing an explore class to a raid except for jumpstarting.  Allowing the explore classes to push the debuffs past the 72 cap would benefit the warriors ( smarter fighting), it benefits the people that like flying explore toons, and it benefits all because it would allow us to get away from the chem that currently dominates the raids and reduce the lag.