jrichards

At its current % it is indeed useless.  You get more thrust from a device and the warp increase is awful.  It really should be on par with a RR+ and Cat's Paw for it to be useful. Seriously effecting speed by less than 5% just seems like a waste....maybe its not working properly?

  Just because I post my observations/experiences doesn't mean I am right.  The devs seem like reasonable folks and they actually have access to look at the % and code of these skills.  Pretty easy for them to close this post as "working as intended" without other players freaking out.    I really wish there were more opinions expressed in the forums but it seems like any time anyone posts something a little controversial we get a couple of these '12 year olds responding' posts.  Get worked up about the economy, politics, religion, environmentalism, or something important......this is just a game ;)

Not really concerned with warp speed, or warp initiation due to a grouped toon not having enough power.  Those are separate issues to this post (but def interesting to discuss).   Warp initiation in live was never averaged (the way that warp speed is).  It was always based on the group lead.  Seriously, I raided and did group runs 100s of times in Live and never did anyone other than the group lead need to have a Laz equipped.  A group lead with a Laz and either supernova or eagle wing was the difference between surving and getting consistently owned against tougher mobs and raids.   I just do not see any benefit to making warp initiation work the same as warp speed other than making it more annoying for players and having a higher chance of being killed.  In game-play terminology I can understand the design decision to see that warp speed is reduced by the slowest member of a group.  However when you group form the 'activate' warp should be linked to the group lead.  If its not ships activating warp at different times, even by a split second, would rip the group apart.  And if the emu devs want to keep it working this way what is the point of group forming? Just not having to auto follow a mob? It would seem that if every member of the group needs a lazarus installed then it would be better to simply have the tank sit in front of the mobs and all the other toons move behind the mob and simply rotate as the mob turns.  Sure this would be the most effective tactic but it really defeats the purpose and benefit of group forming that were present in Live.   If the group cannot take advantage of the group lead's warp initiation then why should they take advantage of the thrust and turn rate of the group lead?  Take thrust, warp initiation, turn rate and give them all the same mechanic that warp speed has.  Then if you want to be able to move quickly, warp quickly, turn quickly, or warp at max speed while in group everyone in the group must have all the appropriate gear equipped. This would be consistent....but damn it sure wouldn't be any fun.

May want to close this post and have it be handled in the Bug Tracker:   https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/tracker/issue-641-terran-traders-group-bonus-is-not-working/

In Live, when in group, only the group lead needed to have a lazarus device equipped.  This allowed the group to get out of bad situations in a timely matter.   In the EMU it appears that all members of the group must have a lazarus device equipped in order for warp initiation to occur more quickly. This functionality also seems to prevent a group lead from using their navigate skill since it doesn't even appear to be factored in.  Anyone else find this makes navigate, in groups, a useless skill?   Just wondering if there was a EMU dev design decision behind this, if it is just a bug, or not yet implemented code. 

I don't recall shield leech being this strong in Live.  I also noticed that sometimes it appears to crit a take a huge amount of shields off a mob while other times it doesn't take as much. Since JE don't have a crit skill shouldn't this happen very rarely or only when a TE has rally up?   Also since the skill is a PSI skill shouldn't some mobs be able to resist it?  I have yet to see it fail on anything. At the moment it seems like JE are more powerful than TS and on par with PS damage wise......not sure if this is intentional though.

Was hoping this was getting resolved since it seemed like it was mentioned in the patch notes but no dice.   Is it possible this is only not working for multi-boxed TT's/groups?

The quartermaster works great....he just needs to be moved to saturn.  I really would not like to see a market generated outside of the game.  Blizzard has done that with both WoW and Diablo 3 and it really just pushed prices up rather than enriching the game economy.  Course some of that was due to gold farming but I am sure that setting up any sort of 'market' or 'shop' would create more issues than it solves.  Keep it simple. ^_^

Please don't change any of the Live classes.  Many of these 6 classes skills need to be balanced and/or enabled (compulsory contemplation I miss thee) but in Live their balance felt fine.  SP difference meant nothing. It was how useful each class was and if it had a job that it could do well in a group. The 3 new classes def need a little work though.   I do like the idea of giving the PP a new skill and I like the name from the original post and some of the idea behind Dismantle.....but I think using the skill, on any item that can be analyzed, should create a blueprint. In Live there were a few missions that gave a blueprint item that when it was equipped and used it gave the player that print (or maybe it was a click-able item in the inventory, I really don't recall for sure). The question I would have is if the skill should be a 1-point skill, at level 135, or if it really needs 7-points.    I personally like the idea of a single point special skill more and I think that the same % chance should be used, for an item to be dismantled for a blueprint, as for it being analyzed. The devs could even add a special PP blueprint computer device to improve the chances by .55%.  I do wonder could this be done at the current analyze station or would it require a new station? Maybe a station that is only available after doing the 135 mission to unlock the skill? This could be a cool way to get new items into the game.   WTS blueprints: L7 Terran Advantage engine (2 mill), L9 archos PL (1 mill), L6 chimaera device (500k).

In Live the only time you had a 50% failure rate, against an equal level mob, was if it had high Psi resists for menace and compulsory contemplation.  These were really the only skills that had much of a fail rate vs equal level mobs.  And debuffing the mob via a psi debuff device pretty much guaranteed a success.   Mobs being able to resist a lot of skills is fine if the mobs are not that dangerous but with the mass aggro having skills that fail this much equals skills that are never used and then CF'd.  I don't think the devs wants that.  So the balance has to be a fail rate that is much lower than 50%.  25% I could understand.......and then increase it as the mob level increases vs the player attacking it/using skills.

TT gets zero bonus is correct. Rest of the group getting zero bonus is incorrect.  WT, are you able to repro my test and you actually see a difference for those trade goods?   Double TT is interesting and I may make a second one......once I actually see the TT group bonus working for any of the toons that group with it.   note: checked again today with gas/refined gas and zero difference in price when selling to vendors and having TT grouped/un-grouped.

I have only looked at trade goods and vendor loot.  I still see zero difference with having TT in group.  I am wondering if maybe it is triggering based on max negotiate or at some level (ATM my TT is only level 89).  This skill should be entirely independent of negotiate for the TT or the players in the group.   EG: If its 5% then the 5% should be applied after the other player's negotiate is applied to the item being sold.   Here is an easy to test example that is easy to repro.   Selling Research crates (from Pluto) at Earth:   TT w/ L4 negotiate un-grouped: Mouse-over sell price = 2,269 credits per item (sale price matches mouse-over) TT w/ L4 negotiate grouped: Mouse-over sell price = 2,269 credits per item (sale price matches mouse-over) * This is correct.  The only bonus a TT should get over other players is their negotiate skill.   TE w /L5 negotiate un-grouped: Mouse-over sell price = 2,307 credits per item (sale price matches mouse-over) TE w /L5 negotiate grouped w/ TT: Mouse-over sell price = 2,307 credits per item (sale price matches mouse-over) * no change   JE un-grouped: Mouse-over sell price = 2,019 credits per item (sale price matches mouse-over) JE grouped w/ TT: Mouse-over sell price = 2,019 credits per item (sale price matches mouse-over)  *no change

In Live they were really only useful in two zones.  for bio-repression it was ardus for gazers and cloud riders and in DT for Scooter.  For Hack it was DT for the high level ships and boss guys.  These were all very high level mobs that required multiple players to effectively kill mobs. The rest of the time it really was not energy efficient for TE's to waste energy using the skill and staying so close to a mob.  Maybe if the EMU devs added a device that reduced the energy cost of these skills and/or increased their range they would be useful while leveling?   I think that the skill 'deactivation' on the mob should be the same install time as it is for players (though atm player install time is way faster than in Live).  If they changed the install time closer to live so that it took 30-45 seconds to install an item (depending on type) and these skills actually worked (they should not be based on mob Psi rating but simply the mobs CL vs the player's skill level).  In live the failure rate on these skills, on equal level mobs, was pretty low (I seem to recall maybe 1 fail in every 6 to 7 attempts but it was nowhere near 50%.   note for devs:  to avoid exploiting the skills Westwood made it so that a mob should not be completely hacked/biorepressed. I think it was no more than 2 items could be uninstalled at a time regardless of how many TE's were using the skill.  This basically resulted in a single TE being the 'debuff guy' similar to a JE.

I know I bugged this a long time ago in ST4 but when I brought it up again in New Player's the other day I was told that I was wrong so i looked at it again:  In Live being grouped with a TT gave an increase to the amount of credits that you could sell items for.  This generated a slight boost in xp (more profit = more xp) but the big bonus was really credits.  However I see zero price difference having my TT grouped with my other toons.  In some cases the amount of credits is actually lower with the TT grouped (haven't figured this out yet but has something to do with TT having a lower negotiate skill than another toon in the group.  Leaving and rejoining the group fixes the credit discrepancy being lower than without being grouped with a TT but does not give any bonus).   Note:  The % of credit increase had nothing to do with the TT's negotiate skill level.  it was simply a base % increase for other players.  With TT's max negotiate it was still better to have the TT sell all loot but their skill was great when that wasn't an option.

I actually think that no class should receive any line of items for simply learning a base skill.  Defeats the purpose of having to find the mobs that drop those items and learn the prints.....or at least work with other players to get those items made.  I would have zero issue if they want to provide a basic line of items, that can be obtained via a vendor, but providing the best line of shields for terrans is unbalanced imo.

I imagine the easiest way to do this would be to change the functionality of an existing global channel....like maybe Enforcers.  Then add the ability via net-7.org to add players on your friends list to this channel.  If both you and your friend's name are both in the channel you will see each others chat messages.  However their could be an issue as to how the channel is created each time its empty.  Since the client would be creating private channels for users that had linked each other what happens if yer in more than one 'friend's group? Or would it always be just a single channel that you could only see the text of your friends list players?     Interesting concept for sure.

In Arx Spartoi Reclaimer Ort sells Manes Refiner devices (L2 - L6 which also have prospect skill).  There is also a L6 Manes Distiller (no clude what the difference between this and the other L6 device other than it does nothing (no effects are listed). In Live these devices were the only way to obtain mane essence.  However in the EMU this device appears useless since anyone can kill and loot manes.  I guess if you need to convert L2=>L6 then this would have some use but since everyone can loot these mobs I am a bit confused why these devices are still around.    note: In Live onlye PS with this device equipped could farm manes for their resource.  Not really sure why since I didn't play a PS much but it would definately be cool if there was some gear, besides agrippa stuff, that actually used refined mane essence.

Ideally there should be three ways that a player can always change their faction:   1) CL = Killing mobs that raise faction:  This requires an adequate number of mobs but does not require high level mobs.  Simply tossing a bunch of low level mobs in a few different spots should fix this.  Killing your own faction is bad and I see no reason that there should be a ton of high level mobs to make it easier.   2) Trade = Jobs that give the faction in question.  There really should be a decent number of jobs to allow traders, that don't want to kill mobs, the ability to raise their faction.  Add them to out of the way stations or stations that are not used that much.   3) Explore = turning in suits.  There really should be a few different places where suits can be turned in on multi-faction stations. The easiest would be to make Joves, Earth, and Mars neutral for all three of their factions.  However the devs may want to add additional stations and/or missions to unlock these secondary suit turn in spots.  I would be impressed if they added a Chavez or RD station where this could be turned in.  Maybe these guys would give less faction because they are pirate double agents.

It wasn't present in Live and the EMU devs can't change the client.    I would recommend asking for a feature to be added to Net-7.org  like the ability to move items from one toon's vault to another toon's vault. Since they already allow you to see everything in your vault it might not be that difficult to add the functionality there.   note: I do not think that trade XP should be awarded for building outside of the game though.

This is so not an issue.  As much as players hate cherry pickers I hate those that think cherry picking is bad for the game. I tend to think its great for the game.  It saves me time. I don't have to fill up my hold with crap I don't want. Those players that are out looking for experience can get more xp per minute by clearing half empty fields and racking up the clear bonus. If you come across a field of ores/hulks that mostly only have a single item/junk in them guess what......they are going to re-spawn (probably in the next 10-15 minutes) so go grab a drink a wait for it.  The 'cherry picker' has actually given you a great chance at a brand new field that you wouldn't have even know was going to re-spawn unless they 'marked it' for you. You should be thanking them. ;)   E&B has always been about choice so why do so many people not want to allow others the choice to play how they want?   note: Please do not change re-spawn timers based on an item being looted from it.  This would create an exploit for miners to forcibly re-spawn ores/hulks simply by pulling out a single item.  This would be baaad.

I could see the / command having the chance to cause some significant problems and be almost as tedious as simply using a program like auto-clicker . I would recommend adding this as something to be handed via Net7.org (like item transfers).  The benefit here is that you could make and move the ammo in one session as long as there was a refresh button/action.   I would submit that creating ammo outside of the game should not give trade xp.  If the Devs really wanted to implement a credit sink they could charge an additional % of the build cost for using the system since this would obviously be a DigiApogee technology. Everyone knows how they must be paid. ;)   note: for Devs make sure to check cargo space or a lot of ammo will go into that 'hidden place' a la 'the dunwich horror' which is just scary.

How come warriors don't have to analyze a level 2 weapon before they can complete the build weapons skill?  Why don't all Jen builders have to learn level 2 build skill before they can complete their build missions?  Why do progen, and Terrans have to learn level 2 build skills before they can complete their build skill missions?     For the love of god can't these damn build skills be setup like Live?  No game gives you a skill mission, to learn the skill, and then require you to up the skill before you can complete the mission.  That's just wasting players time and REQUIRING them to go get their build skills Called Forward....or have serious skill allocation problems later in the game. NOTE: Giving Terrans the entire type x shield line is just an awful reward for having to complete the build shield missions.  I mean if yer gonna give this to TT's can you give the entire line of x-bows to PT's, and the entire line of Ocelot's to the JT's?   And here is the even better kicker.....why not simply allow these missions to be cancelled?  Sure, if I up my skill to level 2 I can then finish the mission and get additional xp.  But if I am not planning on ever leveling this skill, or at least not until I have additional skill points (100 skill points later?), why are these lowbie skill missions stuck in my mission inventory and taking up 3+ of my mission slots?     ARGGGGG!!!!!   And don't tell me I should go visit a PS.  For a basic skill mission it should not require I spend the time and credits to get another player to fix a design problem that should not exist.  If you think this is a quality design decision then why not put the same requirements in for every damn build skill for ever damn class?

The skill caps at 10 for all skills.  This is a good thing.   The 50% warp chance in grav wells being increased by navigate items is totally on the devs.  This buff didn't exist in Live so it's there call.   The 50% warp chance in grav wells is not 50% for the JE.  No clue if anyone ever even tried it on a TS since they have a 100% chance to avoid the grav well skill so doubtful.  In my basic testing the % is so much lower than 50% that i don't even use it anymore.  I simply strap my TS to my JE whenever I go near a grav well.  I seriously doubt any groups are brining a JE along in place of a TS when fighting in grav wells/grav shears.   1 extra note for the Devs on group warp.  In Live the group warp, for everything but speed, was linked to the group leader.  Free warping only drained the group lead's reactor.  Lazarus only needed to be equipped by the group leader (to get in and out of bad situations). When my JE led groups in Ardus the entire group had instant warp (with only lead equipped Laz), max scan. Requiring all members of a group to have a lazarus equipped only makes navigate an even less useful skill. At the moment their is really zero reason to ever have a JE be your group leader......but in Live there were sectors where this made fighting/surviving so much easier.

I really recommend writing up bugs if things in the emu are not working.  The devs tend to fix things that are bugged......where as they never fix an item when its not bugged,   True story.   And I love having to actually get in close to fight mobs on my Jen now.  Jen play style feels a lot closer to Live now ^_^ .

Yeah, I am seeing it fail on occasion. As Rez has stated I most often see the summon short distance.  Like if my JD is at Joves and I summon a toon warping to me.  Often times the summon will occur and then leave the summoned player closer but still a hundred k away from my JD. At first I thought maybe it was lag, or a connection issue, but as my JD's summon range increases and I use the skill more often I am seeing it 'not work properly' pretty regularly.