Ideas? Desires? Bug aggregations.

[alurra [Fmr. ADV]]

Hey fellow pilots!

 

I was in game earlier and asking other players, what they'd like to see happen in game? More content? New ideas? Bug fixes? 

 

This is the thread I said I'd create so we can toss ideas around and see if we can generate a bit of noise and make it happen. 

 

I would love to get all of your ideas and thoughts here so we can give the team a place to look and see what we're talking about.

 

Lets come together here and help the staff help us. I'd very much like it if we can keep it friendly and light, no fighting and no name calling.

 

Be considerate and remember there is someone else on the other side of that keyboard. 

 

 

[Doctor]

This list was originally written in late January, so I've included updates to the current state.

 

Ideas:

1.  Improve the Account Vault page.
   1. The "proper" fix would be to re-write the entire website, all pages. Instead of sending CSS, Javascript, and HTML in the response to queries, send back JSON and have javascript build the page. Like, ya know, how every other website does it.
      1. Put a memcached and PHP object cache in front of the wiki/website, since both use PHP.
      2. Migrate to linux and use Apache/Nginx for hosting instead of IIS. This makes memcached and the PHP object cache *way* simpler.
   2. A more short term solution, which I am still working on (usually when I get frustrated in game or there's downtime) is a set of filters for the Account Vault page. I can do this in tampermonkey, but embedding it in the page natively would be better. FUTURE UPDATE: This is implemented in Tampermonkey, see https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F13456-a-better-account-vault-experience%2F=
      1. Allow for filtering via item level (1-9). I have done this via checkboxes. If the box is checked, the item is lit, else it looks grayed out.
      2. Allow for filtering PM/Non-PM items (it is possible to add a search for builder too, but idk who would want that). Just filter on whether the manufacturer tab is blank or not.
      3. Replace the horrific drag-and-drop method with click-to-select. The current functionality of that opening a page for the item can be moved to ctrl-click or some other key. Provide a note to users on the page that the functionality moved, but isn't gone. Click once to select, click again (either on the item in the inv, or on the transfer slot up top) to remove.
      4. (unknown if possible in tampermonkey) Change the tooltip display from 0 to something longer (200ms? 500? I'd need to test). This stops it from getting in the way and being annoying.
      5. Allow for filtering based on quality
      6. Allow for filtering based on structure
      7. Allow for filtering based on stack size (>#). In an ideal world, this would be a 'show full stacks' button, but without hard-coding stack sizes, there isn't enough info on the page to know if a stack is 'full' or not.
      8. Probably more filters I haven't seen the need for yet.
   3. This is a more advanced feature, but an 'auto-ore-move' button. I might just make this for myself in Python, but a way to move a vault of mixed level ores to the associated vault characters automatically. FUTURE UPDATE: I have written this as a Python script, but apparently never posted it anywhere. I'm still finding bugs in it, but PM me if you want it.
   4. This would require a server-side change: Make the items moved by account_vault automatically stack, and create new stacks only when a full stack is achieved.
2. Improve the wiki
   1. This falls into a similar category as #1, but add a PHP Object cache and memcache to the wiki, if not already present (and based on performance, I'm 99% sure they aren't present). This may require moving both to linux.
   2. Ensure some users (winlander and codemonkey?) have access to perform database-level backups. Or better yet, automate DB backups and make a website that lists the most recent 7, for example. Leave it up to the users to actually download a copy, but ensure that if something ever takes out the wiki, we have a copy of the data.
3. Backups.
   1. I read about the multi-month outage after the 'hack'. There is no excuse for people not having full copies of the source code, forum DB, wiki DB, game DB, etc. And a backup on the same machine is no good. A backup on your system is worth its weight in gold. Pretty sure someone having one of those is the only reason we still have an EMU at all.
4. Migrate the game to linux. It still runs inside of Visual Studio inside a windows machine you all RDP into. For the love of God just move it to Linux. Very little of the server (outside of the network functions) touches OS-specific stuff. The DB link *should* be via a connector that is OS agnostic. And you do store the runtime configs in the DB...right? Because, ya know, that lets you spin up multiple copies.
5. This is a personal project idea, not something for the EMU devs, but create a new version of enbmaps.de which has overlays for ore fields, mob spawns, updated gravity well/shears locations. I haven't figured out how I want the UI for adding data to work, but I badly want this tool to exist. Just so I can map out ore fields and mob spawns. Have drop tables for mobs tied to the mob spawns too. FUTURE UPDATE: This exists, see https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/13482-replacement-map-tool/
6. Remove the gravity well in Muspelheim and Freya that are along the main travel navs. It was "Added to stop botters". But I have already created a tool, in AHK, that completely bypasses them: https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/12050-ahk-and-multiboxing/&do=findComment&comment=106155 so the argument that they are at all useful is just nonsense. Botters can easily avoid them and they only inconvenience humans. Just remove them.

This section is entirely about in-game changes I'd like to see.

1. Get rid of the stupid 1-3 second no-impulse delay after mining.
2. There is a bug with Shield Inversion, where I can target a group member and kill them with it. I'm not exactly sure how to reproduce it, but I've killed my various PW alts with my PP at least 5 times. If it was *actually* going to be fixed, then I'd bother to reproduce the error.
3. The Recharge Reactor - BOOST! on Cygnus (and other) reactors is wrong. It's a 30-60% bonus. It should be more like 350-600%. I had a talk with Kyp about this nearly 10 years ago. He said no, for some without a good reason other than "I think this is overpowered". I've been bitter about this for 10 years. The Shield Recharge - BOOST! effects have more correct % values, those didn't get nerfed like the reactor ones did.
4. (Long term, hard) Work on why gate crashes occur, why mission journals show up empty sometimes,
   1. FUTURE UPDATE: Gate crashes are almost always due to not having Prototype Reorder checked. The second highest cause is memory leaks in the client that make it unstable after 2-4 hours. This is not (likely) a bug the devs can fix.
5. Adjust the DPS output of Vindis. They hit far harder than they should.
   1. 2 vindis (1 CL41 and 1 CL46)  hit as hard as a CL51. That isn't right. Especially compared to CL46 mobs in VG/other zones.
6. Trade XP rework:
   1. Fundamental problem:
      1. Until TL 25 or so, getting trade XP from mob loot is most efficient, especially if you already have a PW with lvl 7 Shield Nova.
      2. Past TL 25, it splits:
         1. For characters with negotiate, trade routes are optimal. Especially with a Polar Express.
            1. Negotiate is huge, offering literally 3x the XP/hr @ lvl 7 vs not having it.
         2. For characters without negotiate, OL75 trade jobs are optimal.
            1. This only works if you're leveling 1 character, maybe 2 max, at a time, and nobody else is using the terminal.
      3. Both of these are incredibly boring and monotonous. Fixes below fall into two categories: let high level players level alts quickly and/or let newer players have more engaging experiences.
   2. Proposed fixes (choose one/any/subset):
      1. Make combat loot drops scale with group size. So a group of 6 gets 6x as much loot (by value) as a solo player. This way combat groups can level their trade as fast as playing solo.
      2. Make trade routes dynamic. Modify buy/sell values of items daily/weekly, and release (automated) news articles indicating which items are currently in the most need. I could literally write a script with a VERY simple LLM to do this. Turn it into a "Major Order" system like Helldivers 2 has. Make it feel like there's some purpose to carrying materials around, and have needs shift are demands are met.
      3. Incorporate roid ores into the trade runs. The Mars Construction Project is a version of this, but if I have stacks of Duplium, those should be in demand on Nostrand Vor Planet, since they are used by Agrippa. I should get more XP and credits from turning the ores in than I could by refining and selling them + an allotment for the travel time involved. Or, if not yielding bonus XP for travel time, I should be able to do the turn-ins on non-mining characters, as a way to level alts with mining.
      4. Add extremely high value trade goods (say, 100 million credits each) which do not sell for much profit (maybe 2000-4000 cr per item) but do offer far more trade XP. (on the scale that 30 slots should be TL 49->50). If a character has 3 billion credits, let them move ultra high value trade goods to level their TL quickly.
      5. Add "unstable" trade goods as a repeatable quest from an NPC. Requires a deposit of, say, 300 million credits (~10m per item @ 30 slots). It fills your cargo with trade goods and you are required to dock at every station along the way to 'stabilize' the goods. Jumping from Freya -> Jotunheim -> Odin Rex, without docking at Arx Ymir, for example, would result in the cargo detonating, you losing your deposit, and requiring a JS/tow. This *should* make it immune to most gate crashes/bugs, server crashes, etc. It's VERY rare that I end up in another sector when a crash occurs.
         1. In terms of implementation, this would just be a repeatable, multi-step, quest. Not that different from a Job Terminal job.
         2. You could also make 'lines' of quests like this, starting at a 100k deposit, and working up to 300m credits. The source and dest would always be random, and the profit/XP would be a factor of trip length (short trips, less profit/XP, longer trips, more). They can all fall onto a flat line of XP/hr. That's fine. But if you only have 20 minutes, then do a 15m run, vs if you have hours, do a longer one and get multiple levels out of it.
7. Change asteroid spawn rules.
   1. Pop rocks now increase the quantity and quality of ores in the field. Meaning, more top level ores, more of the ores in the roids. Say a 25-50% bonus to the field for popping all the rocks on the next respawn of the field. Or maybe make it per-roid, so places like Antares, which have mostly pop-rocks, spawn fields with 10-20 ores per roid if you pop all the rocks, whereas more normal fields with 0-2 pop rocks only get a 0-10% bonus. Let the bonus decay over 1-2 hours. So if a field respawns and isn't mined out again within, say, 2 hours, the bonus is lost for the next respawn.
   2. A level 5 asteroid must now contain AT LEAST 1 level 5 ore. No more Tech 9 roids spawning with only a lvl 8 ore inside.
      1. I have limited data (only around 1200 roids between levels 5 and 9) but it seems like there's a 35-42% chance of getting LOWER tier ore in a roid than the roids level. Meaning, a lvl 5 roid has an ~38% chance to drop level 4 ore. This is NOT a weighted average (I can do that, but it takes longer, and I want more data before finding that out). I fundamentally hate when games lie to me. It's not a level 5 roid if it contains mostly lvl 4 ore. Level 5 ore in level 5 rocks please.
      2. Minimum request: At least 1 ore per roid that is the level of the roid.
         1. Currently my data shows 368 roids that contain ONLY ores below the roid level out of a total of 2816 roids, or roughly 13%, being a stright up lie.
      3. Mid-ground compromise: At least 80% of the ores, by count, in a roid be the level of the roid itself. Meaning if a level 5 roid contains 12 ores total, 10 of them, minimum, MUST be level 5, the others can be level 4.
      4. Optimal: Level 5 roids contain only level 5 ores.
   3. Tighten up fields. No more than 2-level spread for all but a few, special, fields. There simply isn't enough cargo space to haul a 3 tech level spread in a mixed field. Even a 2-level spread is enough that no single class can handle it without a mule. For pure fields this isn't as big of a problem, but yeah, this is a HUGE impact to fun.
      1. Currently, Lagarto and Ceres have SO MANY different types of ores that even 5 TTs + my JE cannot mine them without docking to unload or cherry picking ore types. Why is mining as hard as a raid boss, requiring multiple groups to solve? The rewards suck, compared to raiding. If I have to have a full group, i should get raid-level rewards.
8. Increase vault size.
   1. Right now, people have many mules. It takes 197 slots just to hold one stack of every ore in the game. Add in refining and that number goes to over 400 (some items refine into multiple items). A character vault only has 96 slots. Add in the transfer rules and you'd need at least a 500 slot vault *just for ore*. Just for raw ore, you're looking at needing 5 characters. If you add in refined ore as well, even if you only keep the 'useful at high level' ones, that's at least 2 vault characters.
   2. I don't have numbers for components, but it's insane as well.
   3. One way to solve this might be adding an NPC at the stations who lets you 'sell' items to them (for 0cr) and then let you 'buy' the items you sold back(for 1cr? 2cr? minimal fee at most). I don't know if this is possible within the game client, or if that requires each NPC to have the same list of items for all characters, but on the backend, you could just keep a table per-player of items in that vault.
9. The Job Terminal
   1. Most of the job terminal suck is the client's fault, but if there was a way to make it better, I would. I include it here just to admit I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.
10. Warp improvements:
    1. There's a lot of rubber banding and delay in warp, with high speeds (6000+) at close ranges (< 20km). This mostly affects miners, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a big problem to fix once a look at the code happened.
11. Tractor Beam Improvements
    1. Sometimes the beam terminates on your ship cleanly, and sometimes it bounces there for a second. I remember Teinbau breaking this and it staying broken. I wanted to fix it but wasn't allowed. Just make the tractor beam always terminate the second it gets to your ship. Better to calculate the time for tractoring too short (by 100ms) than too long, IMO. I know it gets hard while moving; I'm talking exclusively for stationary tractoring.
12. Separate out the buffs "Improve Shield Inversion" (which should always grant skill levels to SI) and "Improve Shield Inversion Efficiency" (which is what almost all SI buffs are right now, the ones that 'add X seconds to shield inversion'.). The two buffs stack, so they should have different names. The latter buff does not exist in game at this time, but from what I remember, adding new buffs is easy.
13. Change Repair Equipment to be an actual energy drain skill, like it is supposed to be, instead of an on-activate skill. There is 0 reason for it work the way it does. It didn't in live (after a few patches) and it shouldn't now. The tooltip says it will run until everything is fixed or your reactor power is gone; so that's what it should do.
14. Shield Nova and Shield Sap are supposed to be able to run at the same time: https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F10097-shield-nova-a-blocking-skill%2F=

[8426]

Here are some ideas off the top of my head.

 

1. Item balance. Fact: approximately 95% of items at most levels are useless filler without even a niche purpose. The large amount of items give an illusion of choice but in reality there is not much choice because a few items are just much better than others. This can be fixed with an item balance. What is wrong with the items? For example, infiniticorp reverse engineered the friggin gates but their L9 vendor shields don't go above 70k cap! Or, why do progen MLs have buffs for projectile launchers? And why are numerous L9 devices borked by the debuff gained at L9 which essentially makes the L8 version the hotter one? Or, why is badger's claw the obviously superior mining device? I can basically keep going ad infinitum with items that don't make real sense. The point is that the items which are currently weaker could be buffed by giving them something like more buffs or to pump up the power of existing buffs. So strong existing items won't be nerfed, it is weak ones that are buffed. Lastly, from a lore perspective it is conceivable to replace existing weaker item drops with Mark II variants, as it is sensible that manufacturers release improved versions of items over time.

3. Mob balance. Many mobs are unbalanced in that they either do too much or too little damage for their level or they have too low/high hull/shield points for their level. Obviously, some mobs should get leeway with this, like ten-gu.

4. Mob AI. Where are the mobs that warp at you and give you a slappin? Tengu at a raid stand still like sitting ducks. This is shameful. They originally went berserk. Ive explained this in another thread not too long ago.

5. Better info on item tooltips. Some items don't mention basic info like the energy cost of usage or the range of effect. The cooldown is also missing on basically every item which is activatable.  Also, the way in which items stack with their own type should also be visible in the tooltip. For example: certain Increase Shield Capacity buffs are stackable while others apparently are not (Zenshai energy motivator doesnt seem to stack with soulfire, but basically any two L9 of this buff type does stack).

6. Roid field guardian balance. This is currently all over the place. I saw L8 belters guard a L8 field, but ive also seen like L53s guard a L4-5 field. The density and respawn times of some roid field guardians also make their corresponding fields way too difficult to mine while a nearby field of greater mining potential may have little or no guardians (Carpenter Lagrange in the north compared to the nav to the east of it).

 

And, if possible:

 

6. Randomise debuffs on items. Random debuff on manufactured items could make the L5-6 and L9 items more interesting. Basically, the usual debuff is swapped for a random one when an item is manufactured/drops from a mob. But, to accomodate this the way debuffs work would need to be rebalanced. The same debuff would probably need to be stackable, otherwise players will just stack one buff like increase mass. Also, the actual buffs themselves would need to be balanced because something like cripple reactor is intolerable at 10%. New debuff types could also be added to make it yet more interesting. This would help to make many L9 items usable and it would spice up manufacturing.

 

7. Consider giving more/new skills to the Seeker and Sentinel. Every other profession has niches but these 2, to me, are a bit lacking in having a unique flavour. You could argue these two are the master of nothing.

 

Seeker: Plays like a watered down version of a TT. The reactor opt gives just 25% extra regen which is pretty meagre. His build skills are kinda nice but mogged by TT except for build reactors. He only has Scan, and this is just L5. No navigate (hello TT, TS and JE who are all explorer/trade oriented). Consider fixing by making reactor opt be cast on all party members, like rally does. Consider giving this profession navigate and/or L7 scan as a band aid fix. It seems to me that this profession may have had the build drones ability which we can see in the build terminal. Id put this build skill on my santa wishlist for this profession. The drones are reusable and put in device slots and they spawn friendly mobs with shields/hull/energy bars and a set duration to help you in combat/mining/exploring (think of a drone that is a sentry or sweeps a sector and sends sensor data to the player). There would probably need to be a limit to how many drones can be spawned per player and players shouldnt be able to reinstall the item to circumvent the cooldown upon the drone being destroyed.

 

Sentinel: I understand that the sentinel has been marketed as being the most flexible of all but not being great at anything. However, with the new professions released I think that the sentinel is completely mogged by the Scout because of navigate, nullfactor, acces to jenquai items, and bigger hold. In combat the sentinel has mediocre dps. Consider giving the sentinel HDC L5, a fifth weapon slot, or navigate L5.

Edited May 31 by 8426

[Doctor]

4 hours ago, 8426 said:

Here are some ideas off the top of my head.

 

3. Mob balance. Many mobs are unbalanced in that they either do too much or too little damage for their level or they have too low/high hull/shield points for their level. Obviously, some mobs should get leeway with this, like ten-gu.

4. Mob AI. Where are the mobs that warp at you and give you a slappin? Tengu at a raid stand still like sitting ducks. This is shameful. They originally went berserk. Ive explained this in another thread not too long ago.

5. Better info on item tooltips. Some items don't mention basic info like the energy cost of usage or the range of effect. The cooldown is also missing on basically every item which is activatable.  Also, the way in which items stack with their own type should also be visible in the tooltip. For example: certain Increase Shield Capacity buffs are stackable while others apparently are not (Zenshai energy motivator doesnt seem to stack with soulfire, but basically any two L9 of this buff type does stack).

6. Roid field guardian balance. This is currently all over the place. I saw L8 belters guard a L8 field, but ive also seen like L53s guard a L4-5 field. The density and respawn times of some roid field guardians also make their corresponding fields way too difficult to mine while a nearby field of greater mining potential may have little or no guardians (Carpenter Lagrange in the north compared to the nav to the east of it).

 

Agree on all of these. Note for 5: The only way, in the game client, to do this is to put it in the description as some items (like the Hellbore) cannot list 2 different ranges due to game client limitations. That said, it's a simple Python script to query all items in the DB with activated effects, and shove the energy cost/range into the description. You'd spend more time writing the script than running it to fix things.

 

4 hours ago, 8426 said:

6. Randomise debuffs on items. Random debuff on manufactured items could make the L5-6 and L9 items more interesting. Basically, the usual debuff is swapped for a random one when an item is manufactured/drops from a mob. But, to accomodate this the way debuffs work would need to be rebalanced. The same debuff would probably need to be stackable, otherwise players will just stack one buff like increase mass. Also, the actual buffs themselves would need to be balanced because something like cripple reactor is intolerable at 10%. New debuff types could also be added to make it yet more interesting. This would help to make many L9 items usable and it would spice up manufacturing.

 

This is totally possible, it just leads to a HUGE number of items. You'd have to hard-code all the possible variants in the DB, then hard-code the lists of what items can become what from a recipe. Like, it's possible, but it's non-trivial. It also makes disassembly a bit of a PITA, because then you have to look up the item ID to get a parent ID, then give the parent ID as the thing you blueprinted instead of the item ID of the item itself...again, possible, yes, a LOT of work, absolutely. In terms of feature complexity, it's a bit like remodeling your kitchen, then finding out you need to fix both the foundation and the framing. Like...super non-trivial.

 

4 hours ago, 8426 said:

Sentinel: I understand that the sentinel has been marketed as being the most flexible of all but not being great at anything. However, with the new professions released I think that the sentinel is completely mogged by the Scout because of navigate, nullfactor, acces to jenquai items, and bigger hold. In combat the sentinel has mediocre dps. Consider giving the sentinel HDC L5, a fifth weapon slot, or navigate L5.

Field Guardian mobs are immune to menace, so the PS's main trick isn't even useful and the game doesn't tell you the mobs are immune. The Gene Stealers in Arduinne (the sector, not the planet) are a prime example. As are the ones behind Zweihander. Repulsor field is great DPS, and great for gluing mobs to a target, but the lack of Navigate 5 means they are a HUGE PITA to have in a mining fleet. Their cargo hold is the same size as a JE, but a JE gets group cloak, wormhole, and a vastly superior scan range. And warps faster...like, the PS is outclassed to such an absurd degree.

 

A 5th gun slot isn't enough compared to combat cloak, because the JE can just cloak and let their shields recharge. And Combat Cloak lets them only take a single cycle of damage from mobs.

 

As you say 'ok at everything, good at nothing'. I WISH I could bring a PS with me mining just for repulsor field. Menace is next to useless, sadly, because it gets resisted too often or mobs you want to use it on are straight up immune to it. Navigate 5 is the absolute minimum to get a PS into my mining fleet.

 

If you want something totally broken that would make people play PS, make it so a PS has a device they can obtain that makes pop rocks never explode. Suddenly PS becomes essential for mining lvl 9 ores (because most lvl 9 ore comes from pop rocks). The tradeoff being you'd have to take it off (so maybe build it into a skill that can't be disabled?) if you wanted loot from the pop rock mobs (mostly rare components).

 

Or give them a specialized ore hold to make up for their slowness. Like a PS only ore-specific version of the Polar Express, that adds 30 extra cargo slots that can only be filled with ore (RIP hulk miners).

Edited May 31 by Doctor
Hit submit too soon.

[tsodi]

Remember the Heal the Shear mission from live. A good number of reward items are in the database.

How about 'Finish Antares' mission to tuck them into.

Similar in structure - need gather materials, build items, deliver.

[Glitch]

On 5/30/2024 at 1:49 PM, Doctor said:

1. Remove the gravity well in Muspelheim and Freya that are along the main travel navs. It was "Added to stop botters". But I have already created a tool, in AHK, that completely bypasses them: https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/12050-ahk-and-multiboxing/&do=findComment&comment=106155 so the argument that they are at all useful is just nonsense. Botters can easily avoid them and they only inconvenience humans. Just remove them.

 

All sound great to me but hard agree on this one specifically. Freya is not friendly as recent low level returner. I don't think I needed a guide to navigate this zone back in '04.

[Doctor]

1 hour ago, Glitch said:

 

All sound great to me but hard agree on this one specifically. Freya is not friendly as recent low level returner. I don't think I needed a guide to navigate this zone back in '04.

I mis-typed. The script I linked is for semi-automating trade runs between FN and NV. So it bounces off Muspi 6 or the net7 beacon (depending on which way you're going). But it simplifies the run to something like pushing F3 a bunch of times (once per sector) and pushing F1/F2 to buy/sell your inventory. My personal version collapsed F1/2/3 down to a single button, you just push F1 and it figures out what it should be doing automatically. This also works in multiboxing and lets you juggle 4-5 characters (the FN->NV run has a bunch of short sectors, so there isn't a good way to juggle 6 chars without a bunch of downtime).

 

But yeah, if you generally bounce off the Jotunheim gate, and then warp to whatever the planet/moon near the Niff gate is, you can avoid both gwells in Freya.

Edited June 1 by Doctor

[8426]

Regarding the PS and it getting a niche in ore fields... What if pop roids explode and sometimes only a L9 shield can survive the blast? Currently, a pop roid can rather severely damage a L8 shield if it's a critical hit, so it's not a real issue right now. Another possibility to give the PS a niche is to give it an ability that cleanses negative effects. This would help in raids as well as mining. You could make pop roids give more debuffs, or certain debuffs more frequently. Warp interdict is a particularly nasty one as it means low mining ability for several minutes as you have to thrust from roid to roid. With either or both of these effects the PS could be more interesting as a miner.

 

However, without navigate in the long run it will still get mogged by JE and TS I think...

[Woodstock HGM [HGM]]

Just a friendly reminder that UNATTENDED macro running is not allowed 

 

[Overtkill]

 

 

My L8 shields do just fine, I hit poppers all the time. All you need to do is equip for it. Setup your equip and self activate deflections for explosive. (Tolerance/Turtle Shell) Then get ready for the critter that might blast free.

 

 

 

[8426]

8 hours ago, Overtkill said:

 

 

My L8 shields do just fine, I hit poppers all the time. All you need to do is equip for it. Setup your equip and self activate deflections for explosive. (Tolerance/Turtle Shell) Then get ready for the critter that might blast free.

 

 

This just happened. Here is 60k shields with 30 explosive deflect after a pop roid and taking one hit from a L51 popper mob. This is what I mean with rather severely damaging your shield...

[Overtkill]

6 hours ago, 8426 said:

This just happened. Here is 60k shields with 30 explosive deflect after a pop roid and taking one hit from a L51 popper mob. This is what I mean with rather severely damaging your shield...

 

Again, your buffs are not setup proper to go after poppers. Your deflect should be at +59 resist explosive with a Tolerance and active buff from a Turtle Shell. I like to setup around 2.3k from the target popper, and let'er rip. I tested my setup again in 61 Cygni hitting L8 and L9 poppers just now on about a dozen poppers total. I was hit for about 1/3rd off my shields at the worst, and that was after dealing with a popper mob that spawned as a result.

 

[8426]

 

On 6/2/2024 at 5:35 PM, Overtkill said:

 

Again, your buffs are not setup proper to go after poppers. Your deflect should be at +59 resist explosive with a Tolerance and active buff from a Turtle Shell. I like to setup around 2.3k from the target popper, and let'er rip. I tested my setup again in 61 Cygni hitting L8 and L9 poppers just now on about a dozen poppers total. I was hit for about 1/3rd off my shields at the worst, and that was after dealing with a popper mob that spawned as a result.

 

There is also crit to contend with and the explosive debuff which is also given by pop roids.

 

Edit: Did further research and the explosive debuff from a pop roid caused the deflect to go from +30 to -54 for a whopping -84 deflect.

 

More suggestions, one which Doctor may not like with all the work he has put into mapping fields but:

 

+consider making a good number of the current roid fields spawn at more random locations throughout the sector. Mining feels like fishing in a barrel once you have mapped the vast majority of the fields. Even the roids themselves seem to spawn in practically the same places. Random fields  would make the sectors more interesting as mining would be more about exploring. To reward the greater time and effort needed to find these fields, they could contain more ores and always contain a hulk or two with a random device or something (no digiapogee please).

 

+consider adding some moving roids that slowly orbit planets/moons. They can be singular roids/hulks or fields. I don't know how hard it is to make an object orbit another object at a set distance and make it look believable. If it looks crap then don't bother.

Edited June 3 by 8426
Did further research into explosive deflect

[Overtkill]

Yep, I concur there. -84 defect from a popper is a bit egregious. Like a lot of things in this game.

[8426]

+consider adding device to buff rally. inb4 shark fin: that is a secondary buff which gives a lower amount. Even Wormhole has a device which buffs it - although the usefulness of this item is pretty debatable.

 

+improve tooltips of some skills to mention durations, cooldown, and damage. Shield leech, shield sap, reactor optimization, environmental shield are a few examples. Nullfactor field is another offender because it is difficult to tell from the tooltip how exactly the energy gain occurs. I know tooltips are the least favourite task of a dev but right now these skills work pretty cryptically.

 

+Consider more mining devices/buffs. One that increases prospect range. One that lets you move while prospecting. One that lets you warp in closer to an object. But maybe consider making the items a bit of a devil's dilemma to use by attaching debuffs or even making the buffs appear on engine/shield/reactor/weapons.

 

+*BUG*???? According to the tooltip the dark matter cannon ought to fire once every 0.9s. Based on observations it fires at seemingly exactly the same rate as an archos cannon which has a 1.4s cooldown. But, it consumes two rounds most of the time, and the increased damage is visible on the damage counter. However, some of the time it fires just one round. The first shot has a single round. The following 7 shots seemingly have two rounds and then it repeats. By my calculations the dark matter cannon does around 17-21% more damage than advertised. My calculations could be wrong though. Is this bugged and should this be fixed?

 

+an option for megan to be muted, but also the intro and other sounds when starting up. Reason: megan is uncontrollably loud

Edited June 6 by 8426
added more desires

[Overtkill]

9 hours ago, 8426 said:

+an option for megan to be muted, but also the intro and other sounds when starting up. Reason: megan is uncontrollably loud

 

Run EnBConfig.exe as an administrator, Sound Tab, Uncheck Dialog.

[Woodstock HGM [HGM]]

3 hours ago, Overtkill said:

Run EnBConfig.exe as an administrator, Sound Tab, Uncheck Dialog.

Also Disables all nav discovered  announcements,  Gating and docking announcements, and all NPC audio (speech)  is also disabled(muted). I verified this in game.  this is ok if you want to play "Quiet Mode" but personally I like the speech and in game audio notifications,  Meagan can be tuned down by turning the computer volume down also.

[8426]

2 hours ago, Woodstock HGM said:

Also Disables all nav discovered  announcements,  Gating and docking announcements, and all NPC audio (speech)  is also disabled(muted). I verified this in game.  this is ok if you want to play "Quiet Mode" but personally I like the speech and in game audio notifications,  Meagan can be tuned down by turning the computer volume down also.

It's probably a "me" problem but the way i play is with all sound off except the ingame notifications to know that a field has been cleared without looking at your xp bar.

 

+*New Bug?* My Martyr's Heart takes about 2-3 seconds after it is off cooldown to be usable.

[Codemonkeyx]

Here ya go @8426; you can deposit the credits into my interstellar account:

 

https://github.com/ciphersimian/enb-megan-is-to-be-seen-and-not-heard

[Yeti [GM]]

Please note that should you modify the default install of the Demo.exe and Net-7 client and we establish that this is the case (I/We will start asking at the start of a ticket/conversation "Have you modified or installed 3rd party software that would change the install?") If the answer is "Yes" then unfortunately we will not be able to offer much help/aid from that point on.

 

Just keep this in mind when asking for help or submittting a ticket, on this occasion changing the sound.ini should not effect tha game other than the sound settings.

[Redbeard[IS]]

All this technical mumbo jumbo is good and well if you're a really serious player that demands the utmost precision on getting every point you can. I get that.

 

But what about the casual gamer that just likes to play the game? I was fortunate to play through most of the original Beta and played all through Live. What an exciting ride those times were. I still enjoy creating a new toon and playing through the starting areas just for a bit of fun. The higher level stuff can be fun as well.

 

If I were to ask for anything it would be more content. Maybe a new mission every month or two. Perhaps missions specific to race or profession that would have multiple steps that take you across the galaxy to complete and return to the mission giver. The reward could be a multiple choice setup that allows the player to choose something that he or she can use or really needs. Nothing to fancy, just something useful.

 

I'd also like to say thanks to the Dev's for bringing this game back to life and to the GM's for their continuing help in navigating the many facets of the game. Thanks to all of you. You are the real hero's of this community.

 

[Tweetz]

This thread got seriously off-topic, please get back to the original OP request.

 

- Consistency across how the game is handled with GMs (a 5 minute conversation between yourselves about what random junk is posted in New Player channel, as opposed to it being discussed in out of context) and be strict enough to implement that.  Different GMs handle this very differently.

 

- The beam mission-line to be implemented from dT - I will find the name of it later and amend, or possibly a fellow pilot will follow up and point me in the right direction. This would include the Pit Mechanic's Toolbox.  Maybe the mission-line was The Day O' Reckoning?  If not, can we get something to improve engine build skill, other than the SDK8?

 

- A Q&A session with the Devs to be possibly attended by Kyp/Red.  I can understand the hesitancy on this one, but it'd be sure nice to see if we're alive and kicking, and if not, fair enough; but it'd be nice to be on the same page.  This post by Alurra is the first sign that we have a roadmap moving forward in some time.

 

- The server restart scripts to be ran weekly again.  I don't like the current methodology of 'lets wait and see how long we can keep going!' ... it's a bold strategy, Cotton...

 

*amended*

- Please schedule backups.  If there is a monetary value attached to this, message me and we'll see if we can work something out.

 

- When maintenance is going to occur, don't just drop it on us - if you can let us know in a forum post like you used to, a day or so in advance if possible.

 

- Possibly look to a certain individual to take up the role as Staff Advocate again.  The missing link between the playerbase and Staff is still there.

 

- A list of known bugs and their respective status of being worked on, on a web page.  I'm told there maybe one on Wiki, but then I'm also told Kyp doesn't advocate the use of Wiki, so honestly, unsure if any of that hearsay is true, but a definitive thread would be lovely:-

• the Martyr's Heart effect cannot be applied whilst the PS device aa Gahtu Daimyo An Ne is currently active.
• FreeSpacer faction can be destroyed but not earned back (though I think this maybe being worked on).
• the proper back door mission for Agrippa weapons is broken and doesn't remove the level restriction as it should (since levelled another PW to remedy this personally, but still).
• the mission Blinding the Eye sometimes presents the device Joyful Blinding as an item for analysis, and sometimes does not. Research may indicate that this is dependent on whether the pilot kills mobs or presents ore (2 ways to complete the mission) to the mission-giver.  Confirmation of this being a bug or working as intended - if you present ore you get the item for analysis or its automatically put in your terminal list, if you kill the mobs you get nothing.
• the command /lastminer does not work on hulks - be great if you guys could address this.

 

- Is the webdev (is it Kenu?) still operational?  If so, would it be possible to have him address Doctor's post on the potential vault improvement?  If it's not something we can expect, fine.  But just have that said and done.

 

- The XP nerf to GO field clears was mean.   

 

- Touchy one.  I feel that the addition of mobs around farmed areas is a lazy attempt to fix a problem, similarly the gravity wells.  I 100% see a need to drill down on the issue of macro-users, but feel that the implementation of the solutions applied is because the GMs haven't addressed the individuals botting.  Why not simply lock them in place and wait for a response?  Sure, a GM needs to be on to be on to address this, but ideally a GM will be on most the time anyway. With Yeti coming back, hopefully there will be less unsupervised hours.  Anyhow, my point is, you're effecting innocent players negatively to address a problem that could be addressed in other ways.  You guys are smart people, and should be able to brainstorm alternatives, no?  Also, what's with the new (relatively) cl51 manes at the BBW gate in XT?

 

- The ability for a Dev, other than Kyp, to be able to reboot the server.  This would minimize the downtime (it's great that this is so infrequent atm, great job getting us to this point, but we did have some rough spells back there). 

 

- The JS is a very niche healer, because of it only having a level 8 shield.  I see how cloaking mitigates damage and drops aggro, Ice is showing me the way.  However, there is no way as a healer managing incoming damage you have time to pop optimize reactor on each individual in your group, consistently.  I believe for this reason, there should be another level of the skill which allows the use of this ability to be applied to the group.  Make it use more energy or something, but I genuinely feel this change would be warranted.

 

- The PW go a faux rally skill with the Warrior's Resolve device.  Can the TE get a faux shield sap device?

 

To address points raised by other pilots out there with my personal opinion:-

- The PS is actually a massively powerful class if you use it right.  Just have to understand how to gear it. Some information has been posted in this thread, but please take it to another and I'll post more information there.

- The JE is fine at clearing poprocks, just slower (shield recharge).  Understand the distance to the mining target (radius) also effects the amount of damage taken, as does the amount of explosive buff you have.  The JE has access to self-activated effects which should always be applied.

- The current respawn of fields is fine for the playerbase we have.  if we were looking at 100+ individuals, I could see why this may warrant a look.  There should always be some kind of shortage against demand to generate a healthy trade system.  When was the last time people posted in Market for a particular ore (apart from 'Buki)?

Edited June 8 by Tweetz

[karu [WDL]]

On 6/8/2024 at 2:40 PM, Tweetz said:

If so, would it be possible to have him address Doctor's post on the potential vault improvement?

 

I will add some improvements to inventory pages, but I have not yet figured best way to do so.

[Doctor]

On 6/6/2024 at 10:52 PM, 8426 said:

+*New Bug?* My Martyr's Heart takes about 2-3 seconds after it is off cooldown to be usable.

That's all activated items. Reactors, engines, devices, all of it. The cooldown says 1 second left, then takes another 2-3 seconds to be available. The countdown sent to the client doesn't match what the server is using.

 

On 6/6/2024 at 8:18 AM, 8426 said:

+*BUG*???? According to the tooltip the dark matter cannon ought to fire once every 0.9s. Based on observations it fires at seemingly exactly the same rate as an archos cannon which has a 1.4s cooldown. But, it consumes two rounds most of the time, and the increased damage is visible on the damage counter. However, some of the time it fires just one round. The first shot has a single round. The following 7 shots seemingly have two rounds and then it repeats. By my calculations the dark matter cannon does around 17-21% more damage than advertised. My calculations could be wrong though. Is this bugged and should this be fixed?

This is actually a feature, not a bug. Rather than spam the network with traffic for guns firing faster than once per second, the game fires 2 rounds at certain intervals to make up for the damage. It's been implemented various ways over the years, but fundamentally that's what's going on. You can see it with Flechette Omega's pretty easily, they'll shoot once per second, but fire 2-3 rounds when they due because turbo + 0.8 sec firing speed.

 

On 6/8/2024 at 6:40 AM, Tweetz said:

- Is the webdev (is it Kenu?) still operational?  If so, would it be possible to have him address Doctor's post on the potential vault improvement?  If it's not something we can expect, fine.  But just have that said and done.

 

 

- Touchy one.  I feel that the addition of mobs around farmed areas is a lazy attempt to fix a problem, similarly the gravity wells.  I 100% see a need to drill down on the issue of macro-users, but feel that the implementation of the solutions applied is because the GMs haven't addressed the individuals botting.  Why not simply lock them in place and wait for a response?  Sure, a GM needs to be on to be on to address this, but ideally a GM will be on most the time anyway. With Yeti coming back, hopefully there will be less unsupervised hours.  Anyhow, my point is, you're effecting innocent players negatively to address a problem that could be addressed in other ways.  You guys are smart people, and should be able to brainstorm alternatives, no?  Also, what's with the new (relatively) cl51 manes at the BBW gate in XT?

 

- The ability for a Dev, other than Kyp, to be able to reboot the server.  This would minimize the downtime (it's great that this is so infrequent atm, great job getting us to this point, but we did have some rough spells back there).

Just to check, but I got the account vault filters working. You can download Tampermonkey, install the userscript, refresh the page, and they'll be there. I understand if you'd rather wait for them to be baked into the page though. For that, they just need to save the tampermonkey script as a .js file, then send along a <script> element in the response from account_vault.php.

 

On botting

Beating macro users is going to be an ever-moving target. The best way to 'fix' macro users is to make gameplay that doesn't make people *want* to macro it. Macros are used when gameplay is repetitive, boring, tedious, time consuming, etc. Given that the client can't be modified, there's only so far that you can go to make gameplay engaging. Making something 'rare', like level 9 ore, just makes it worth macroing to obtain. "Why would I sit and play when I can mine this field every 30 minutes on the dot and get all I need, while I go do something actually fun, like riding my bike?" Anytime you create a grind that is based on activity over time, you create a system where a macro will *always* be the best solution. Why? Because humans sleep, macros don't.

 

Moreover, anything a human can do, a bot is going to be pretty good at doing too. Especially with modern AI. Walking around inside a station is the hardest thing to bot at the moment. Moving around through specific areas in space is pretty hard too (flying from nav to nav is easy, but imagine you made a quest where you had to stay within a 5km wide 'channel' through a space-minefield? That would be pretty challenging to bot, at least without resorting to some advanced machine vision.).

 

Banning the botters who run 24x7 is pretty easy. "Has this person been actively playing for 20 hours straight? yes? probably a bot. Even if they're a human, they need to be coerced to take a nap." Now, if they do that one day a week and that's it, maybe a bot, or maybe someone who compresses all their fun into the window they have. But most botters are going to run for a few hours, then go away.

 

I...kinda genuinely don't see why botters are a big deal. If someone wants to keep a roid field mined out..ok? Sure. It's not like they are going to go into /market and get someone to sell them stacks of whatever ore they're after. It's annoying to me as I go around trying to mine out whole sectors to get reliable data for their contents, but in the grand scheme, I don't see it as a huge problem. It's not like anyone is RMTing credits for cash. This community is so tiny that, outside of someone running like 6+ bots and beating the server up with excessive load, I don't really get the argument for why they are bad. If someone decides trade routes are a drag, and wants to get TL 50 via botting rather than playing, I'm not really going to shit on that person. At all.

 

I've yet to see or hear about anyone botting raids. And no amount of credits makes you better at raiding.

 

In short:

Overall, ask "What is the net harm that the botter does?"

 

Banning botters who put undue load on the server? yes.

Banning botters who camp 'the best' places? Yes -- if you want to bot, camp somewhere sub-optimal that nobody cares about. Leave the 'best' for humans. A bot that warps away the second a human comes to farm feathers? Seems fair.

Banning botters who farm experience? Why? If they find the gameplay sucks, then why force them through it? We aren't little kids. We don't need to overcome adversity. We just wanna have fun.

Banning botters who farm drops? On the fence. If someone kept Modi's Child dead, but ran a bot where you could /whisper them, trade them something, and get the core, that'd be pretty dope, actually. Flipside, when you actually see the rare spawn and get to kill it, it does feel special. So, eh, I don't want all bots all the time everywhere. I also don't hate the concept the same way I hate, say, sadists.

Banning botters who camp job terminals? Yes.

Banning botters who run a few hours a day, in specific tasks, for specific goals? Assuming they wrote their own bot...no. Their game was writing and testing the bot. Their reward is skipping the gameplay they hated so much that they wrote a bot to not play it.

 

And, before anyone gets frisky, NONE of my tools are fully automated. I don't need them to be. My longest running script takes about 5 minutes, and it's a dismantle script that runs on, IIRC, 27-37 items at a time, and it takes around 5 minutes to do all those dismantles. I can go make tea while it runs, but once it finishes, it stops. It can't move my character to another terminal.

 

"So how do we fix botting?"

People largely seem to bot resource collection. Without the ability to change the client, I don't really see a way to fix that. Drops, ore, faction, etc...these are all things that take a lot of grinding to acquire. The only mechanic is 'push button, wait, get reward'. Until that can be changed...there isn't really a way to make people not want to bot. There's no counter-skill to Menace, or Hacking, or anything like that. You either have the DPS to interrupt or not.

 

It all comes down to a simple principle "Bots are as good as humans, and are given the tasks humans don't enjoy, so make tasks humans enjoy". That's...really the only fix.

 

On reboot authority

Agree. I've been asking for the ability to do this for close to a year; as have others. There's no shortage of people willing to help, just a shortage of acceptance of said help.

Edited June 11 by Doctor
Rectum! Damn near killed em!

[alurra [Fmr. ADV]]

Hey guys!

 

I'm so glad people are finding this thread and adding their ideas.

 

I would ask that we try to refrain from interjecting our 'how to fix this' issues into the mix though, if you don't mind?

 

I think it really clutters up the thread making it hard to parse the usable information. If the team wants ideas on how it can be fixed, or what not, let them ask for it maybe? 

 

Keep the ideas and what not coming though. We've seen the GM's respond here and now Karu as well. That means they are watching and reading our ideas. Lets give them some great things to work from. 

 

For me, personally. I would love to see some more missions from NPC's. They could be storyline related, or maybe even just some side stories to develop the NPC's out some more? Not really sure I can pinpoint any exact NPC right now because my brain is not booted fully this morning, but something along those lines would suit someone such as myself. I love speaking to NPCs and doing missions. 

 

How about the rest of you guys? Any sectors or NPC's or storylines that really get your curiosity up? Anyone have a favourite NPC that they'd like to know more about?