| Pages: [1] 2 3 4 :: one page |
| Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 2 post(s) |
|
CCP Navigator
C C P
   |
Posted - 2009.08.11 22:55:00 -
[1]
Continuing our PVE experience we will use this thread to discuss Mini Professions.
Mini Professions such as hacking, archaeology or combat booster production have been introduced to run hand in hand with other aspects of PvE like COSMOS sites and Exploration. In fact, these mini professions play a part in other aspects of game play like Invention making them quite an important role within New Eden.
Are any of you Capsuleers dedicated hackers or archaeologists who scour space looking for those elusive but often rewarding sites in the search of avluable items? Do you enjoy this part of the game? How could we improve Mini Professions to encourage more players to take part and make it more fun?
Navigator
Senior Community Representative
CCP Hf, EVE Online
|
|
Laruant Wiggins
Gallente
|
Posted - 2009.08.11 23:14:00 -
[2]
I haven't tried any yet but am looking forward to them. I am only a little over 30 days ingame and want to try everything Eve has to offer, as long as I'm not losing isk doing something I'm happy.
So far the only thing I don't care for is mining, too boring, other than rats maybe the asteroids could have a chance of blowing up or something.
|
Brechan Skene
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 00:23:00 -
[3]
 Originally by: CCP Navigator
Mini Professions such as hacking, archaeology or combat booster production have been introduced to run hand in hand with other aspects of PvE like COSMOS sites and Exploration. In fact, these mini professions play a part in other aspects of game play like Invention making them quite an important role within New Eden.
Are any of you Capsuleers dedicated hackers or archaeologists who scour space looking for those elusive but often rewarding sites in the search of valuable items? Do you enjoy this part of the game? How could we improve Mini Professions to encourage more players to take part and make it more fun?
I have got both the above mentioned skills at lvl 4. I have found that the sites have been mainly of an interest value, insert not rewarding or containing any valuable items.At the moment I am practicing my probing skills and sites in high sec and low sec provide adequate areas to practice.
I have even gone into low sec for some laughs and found that the sites in high sec actual had better rewards?
I have found that the only mini-profession/ profession that is of any real value is salvaging. However, if you are not prepared to joining the Ninja Salvaging band wagon the rewards are not great. This is not a whine about mission salvaging. Mission ninjas is a valid and legal tactic.
However maybe implement the skills in various missions?
Improve the low sec sites and give a reason for us to go their, you already started that with the upcoming rig patch.
Expand and improve the cosmos mission arcs. Maybe add an exploration agent, but that could be too greedy, see lvl 4 high sec missions.
Brechan Skene
|
Celia Therone
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 00:34:00 -
[4]
Edited by: Celia Therone on 12/08/2009 00:38:55
I'm a bit confused, I don't see how this topic is really different from the last one, where the mini-professions were talked about at varying amounts of length. The problems with the exploration interface directly impinge on the mini-profession experience.
Combat Booster Production
As a general feature of 'carebear' gameplay boosters just don't seem to work. Not trying to rag on anyone, but if you check the markets in Jita (even for the legal boosters) or anywhere else the demand is close to non-existant.
Needs:
Tutorial on booster mechanics.
Boosters provided as rewards for at least tutorial missions so people can experience them in action and appreciate the benefits that they bring.
A review of booster effectiveness. Especially cost-effectiveness. If an hour's worth of booster costs me 1 million isk then I want it to increase my isk earning power by more than 1 million isk. In most cases currently it just doesn't outside of big fleet fights (which aren't carebear territory.) If you don't want to increase the bonusses of boosters then consider extending their duration to make them more economical.
Economic review of booster mechanics. How much do you want people to earn harvesting gas? At the moment if you mine (forgive me for not having exact figures, I'm not at my game machine) gas in low sec you are frequently earning less than mining veldspar/kernite/scordite/plagioclase in a belt in high sec. So, let's see... You've learnt gas harvesting (30 million+ isk), spent a week or more training it up, outfitted a gas mining ship (30 million+ isk), trained up scanning (and cloaking), hunted through low sec for gas clouds, risked your gas harvesting ship through gate camps and pirate roams.... And you get the same as someone semi-afking a hulk in high sec?
Codebreaking
The pre-requisites for codebreaking are too harsh. Science V and Electronic Upgrades V? That's very newbie unfriendly. It's very odd to have the regular tutorial give you a codebreaking mission with a civilian codebreaker and then realize that you'll have to skill down this marginally useful tree in order to try it out for real.
Radar site loot in high/low (I don't know 0.0) needs re-thinking. A lot of the drops are permanent items (like the racial encryption books) which means that with the new scanning mechanic a lot more sites are being run and the market is being flooded with more books than it can absorb. Hence the price is crashing.
Also, as T3 prices come down I think it's reasonable to expect that T3 ships will start to displace T2 ships. At that point the demand for invention components will drop and that will reduce the already falling value of radar site drops even more.
I suppose that you could look at this as self-correcting, but I rather fear that it self-corrects to not really being worth doing.
There is no scaling of radar site difficulty in high sec. I can do every site in a T1 cruiser (or less). So the sites seem targetted towards noobs, but the codebreaker requirements aren't. Hi sec players have access to high level missions but high sec hackers have to go to low sec to get more difficulty/rewards.
Archeology
Again the pre-reqs are too harsh... Science V and Survey V for analyzers?
The high sec magnetometric sites need a complete review. The rewards are so poor that often it's not worth scanning them down let alone running them. You probably get more salvaging a level 1 mission than mag site. Analyzing, in particular, is too weak given that most magnetometric cans now require a salvager rather than an analyzer.
Like codebreaking sites, high sec magnetometrics don't scale in difficulty/reward.
|
Celia Therone
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 00:53:00 -
[5]
Edited by: Celia Therone on 12/08/2009 00:53:51
Perhaps the expedition mechanic could be extended to radar/magnetometric sites? That would sort of make sense (after all you are using skills like archeology and hacking that would seem ideally suited to uncovering hidden secrets) and would allow for escalating difficulty of sites/rewards and more storyline/adventure.
I think you really need an economic review of these mini professions too. Especially magnetometric, but I think increasingly radar as well. To me it makes very little sense that I am sacrificing slots to necessary modules, investing time training profession and related skills, spending time scanning down and running sites and earning less than someone who simply asks an agent for a missions and gets loot, mission isk, salvage, bounties, lp reward, fast completion bonus, corp reputation and progress towards storyline rep/faction reward. (This is very obvious in high sec, in low sec much less so.)
It might be worth introducing Overseer Effects style rewards to radar/magnetometric sites and nerfing the drop rates of invention items with persistent use to avoid market saturation.
|
Xessej
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 01:29:00 -
[6]
Booster production: I think part of the problem with lack of demand is that it requires training a skill, that is of almost no other value, to take the drug. Combine that with the relatively weak effects of the legal boosters and the unreasonably bad penalties of the good boosters and it combines to create a situation where no one bothers. The synth boosters should have no skill requirement and the other boosters need the side effects scaled down even if the frequency of side effect has to be increased to balance.
COSMOS site rewards are in general not worth the effort and that makes going out and doing unrepeatable content unapealing. Also the sites have been reported broken frequently enough that people just avoid them. Make the rewards slightly better than t2/meta 4 items and make the missions repeatable, after a year maybe?
|
Tippia
Raddick Explorations
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 01:30:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Brechan Skene
I have found that the only mini-profession/ profession that is of any real value is salvaging. However, if you are not prepared to joining the Ninja Salvaging band wagon the rewards are not great. This is not a whine about mission salvaging. Mission ninjas is a valid and legal tactic.
That said, it really should be possible to scan down wrecks directly, rather than having to go the roundabout way and look for ships that could be assumed to have wrecks around them.
———
“If you're not willing to fight for what you have in ≡v≡…
you don't deserve it, and you will lose it.”
— Karath Piki |
Xessej
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 01:36:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Tippia
Originally by: Brechan Skene
I have found that the only mini-profession/ profession that is of any real value is salvaging. However, if you are not prepared to joining the Ninja Salvaging band wagon the rewards are not great. This is not a whine about mission salvaging. Mission ninjas is a valid and legal tactic.
That said, it really should be possible to scan down wrecks directly, rather than having to go the roundabout way and look for ships that could be assumed to have wrecks around them.
This would be a huge boon to salvaging. Plenty of mission runners don't salvage and their abandoned wrecks would provide a less 'unfriendly' source of salvage than ninja salvaging.
|
Celia Therone
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 01:55:00 -
[9]
Edited by: Celia Therone on 12/08/2009 01:55:41
Originally by: Xessej
Originally by: Tippia
That said, it really should be possible to scan down wrecks directly, rather than having to go the roundabout way and look for ships that could be assumed to have wrecks around them.
This would be a huge boon to salvaging. Plenty of mission runners don't salvage and their abandoned wrecks would provide a less 'unfriendly' source of salvage than ninja salvaging.
I agree. However I'm slightly worried that it would end up being yet another nerf to low sec mission running:
Pirate enters low sec system, uses directional scanner to determine rough location of player.
Pirate drops probes to scan.
Target player camping his directional, sees probes and runs to hide in station/safe spot with cloak.
Pirate scans out wrecks and bookmarks.
Pirate leaves system and waits a few minutes.
Target player returns to mission.
Pirate re-enters system and warps directly to bookmark.
Target player goes wtf!?
|
Acrel
Amarr
Crystalline INC
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 02:20:00 -
[10]
Edited by: Acrel on 12/08/2009 02:21:37
Kind of hurt that exploration is considered a mini profession...
But like others have said:
Exploration based ships are in dire need. The idea that the only 2 ships that have exploration bonuses are a t1 frig and a t2 frig.. Which makes it so you have to explore as a group(or alt) or fly back to a station and switch ships.. With current rewards or lack there of when it comes to most high sec and low sec exploration sites. Its not worth wild to do as a group and kind of defeats the purpose of being a explorer if when you find something you immediately fly back to station.
High sec and low sec exploration sites need some tuning. Most magnometric, ladar, and grav sites are down right pointless to run unless you are in nullsec or have the ability to create boosters. High/Low sec mag sites are the worst, most of the cans are empty and the best loot i have ever seen from a low sec mag site was acouple t2 salvage which wasn't really worth the risk/time.
More exploration sites do need to be added imo with the new scanning system brought in by Apoc(not even gonna try) it gives us the ability to find a massive amount of sites very quickly compared to the old system, which other then WHs and some highsec ladar sites I haven't really seen any new sites added.
Lastly I do think that if you do plan on bringing sleeper AI into K-Space then using exploration sites would be the best bet. It would allow to tweak the rewards aswell as make exploration actually fun again.
|
Spud Mackenzie
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 02:27:00 -
[11]
What about the first wreck in each room of a mission spawning a Mag site beacon. Then instead of "professional salvagers" having to use Combat probes to look for mission runners, they can use Core Probes to look for Mag sites.
The chances are, they'd run into a random Mag site, a current mission, or a forgotten battlefield from someone's prior mission.
Also... what about having wrecks left neutral, and having player tagged loot in a separate Jet Can. That way only mission runners/combatants can tractor the loot, but any salvager can tractor the wreck. If it's supposed to be public property for anyone to salvage, what's the deal with limiting tractors to the victor?
|
Taunting Yu
Gallente
The NightClub
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 02:35:00 -
[12]
Originally by: Acrel
Edited by: Acrel on 12/08/2009 02:21:37
Kind of hurt that exploration is considered a mini profession...
But like others have said:
Exploration based ships are in dire need. The idea that the only 2 ships that have exploration bonuses are a t1 frig and a t2 frig.. Which makes it so you have to explore as a group(or alt) or fly back to a station and switch ships.. With current rewards or lack there of when it comes to most high sec and low sec exploration sites. Its not worth wild to do as a group and kind of defeats the purpose of being a explorer if when you find something you immediately fly back to station.
High sec and low sec exploration sites need some tuning. Most magnometric, ladar, and grav sites are down right pointless to run unless you are in nullsec or have the ability to create boosters. High/Low sec mag sites are the worst, most of the cans are empty and the best loot i have ever seen from a low sec mag site was acouple t2 salvage which wasn't really worth the risk/time.
More exploration sites do need to be added imo with the new scanning system brought in by Apoc(not even gonna try) it gives us the ability to find a massive amount of sites very quickly compared to the old system, which other then WHs and some highsec ladar sites I haven't really seen any new sites added.
Lastly I do think that if you do plan on bringing sleeper AI into K-Space then using exploration sites would be the best bet. It would allow to tweak the rewards aswell as make exploration actually fun again.
For what it's worth, we now have an exploration cruiser with the Strategic cruisers and the Emergent Locus Analyzer subsystem (10% scan strength bonus per level, 99% probe launcher CPU need role bonus).
----------
As it is, I'm fairly happy with radar and mag sites now, but they could use some help. The mag sites (especially in high sec) could use some more reworking. The amount of salvage is pitiful and I could grab that much from just a cosmic anomaly in a .5 or .6 system or level 1 mission. (I run them just because they usually take less than 5 minutes to clear out and the slim chance of some t2 salvage. I'm there and found it, might as well consume it.) Get rid of the market seeded skillbooks, too, from the loot tables of both of these sites. It would have been fine pre-Apocrypha with the number of explorers there were. Now, some of them that previously sold for 10M are only selling for one million. Oh, and those rig books are so cheap to begin with I usually don't even bother with selling them. I pass them along to new players or just trash them. (37k isk seeded value if I recall)
|
Deva Blackfire
D00M.
Triumvirate.
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 03:56:00 -
[13]
Oh boosh this will be fun :)
Salvaging - well its mini profession of its own already i guess we can ignore it
Hacking - used for: COSMOS regions, invention stuff (datacores/decryptors), sleeper stuff
Problems: COSMOS was farmable (1 guy sitting at a can not moving away by 1 inch). Invention stuff came from COSMOS thus it killed whole cosmos items production. Some fixes? Change COSMOS items requiremenets (separate COSMOS and invention), add MORE decryptors in radar sites (will also make invention a bit cheaper in the result), add more datacores in sites (like sleeper amount, 100+ per site not 10). Results? Will be at least worth to run those sites for decryptors, and even if you dont sell it you will bve able to make some inventions on your own. At the moment amount of datacores you get from hacking sites is so low that you cant even build stuff yourself (well more than 2-3 BPCs... which is sad).
Archeology - used for COSMOS, sleepers and salvage/rigs. COSMOS is ok (could boost amount of loot dropped but thats it). Salvage/rigs part... hmmm... Amount of t1 salvage is quite nice (200-300 from 0.0 site) BUT: amount of t2 salvage is low. DO NOT ADD ALCHEMY - move t2 salvage to those sites instead. Change drop amounts to like 20-30 per site and you are set. Also... its not exactly archeoogy. Id move those sites into "salvaging" part and use archeology as a basis of... for exaple t3/rare modules etc. Something different/special. Still lots of things you could do with this.
Combat booster production - never done it because it way too limited to some regions. Make clouds spawn in all regions just with lesser frequency and it might help a bit.
Sleepers - well seems this stuff is decent/works quite well and incorporates above.
Other than that id love to see another huge gameplay thingy like sleepers. Aliens/space amoebas/whatever - you get the idea. Something new.
|
Bazuka
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 04:34:00 -
[14]
Strategic cruisers DO have subs with exploration types of bonuses and they make perfect explorer ships.
So people should stop asking for exploration speced cruisers heh.
We already have them.
___________
CareMyBear! |
Deva Blackfire
D00M.
Triumvirate.
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 04:39:00 -
[15]
Originally by: Bazuka
Strategic cruisers DO have subs with exploration types of bonuses and they make perfect explorer ships.
So people should stop asking for exploration speced cruisers heh.
We already have them.
For solo exploring ya need:
- possibly expanded launcher
- max damage you can get
- slot for cloak
- slots for salvager and analyzer/codebreaker
Unfortunately the ones i checked (legion and tengu) cant fit properly with rules above. Tho there is one exploration-mobile: ishtar.
|
Xessej
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 04:46:00 -
[16]
Originally by: Bazuka
Strategic cruisers DO have subs with exploration types of bonuses and they make perfect explorer ships.
So people should stop asking for exploration speced cruisers heh.
We already have them.
T3 cruisers, including 1 of each sub, are at 800 million per right now. That's far too expensive a ship to chance in lowsec.
Exploration needs a basic T1 ship that can be fully insured and that can have a reasonable shot at clearing lowsec radar sites.
|
Saint VII
Minmatar
Tribal Liberation Force
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 04:49:00 -
[17]
My feedback is pretty simple - I find the idea sounds very cool but that none of it is really accessible to me as a new player. Or, if it is accessible, I don't know how. I guess I'm making yet another statement in support of the "exploration tutorial" that you guys are planning to add in 1.5. It is needed. I hope players like me will have the opportunity to go back and check it out. :)
No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting. |
Gerard Deneth
Caldari
Pavlov Labs GmBH
Confederation of Independent Corporations
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 05:00:00 -
[18]
Originally by: Deva Blackfire
For solo exploring ya need:
- possibly expanded launcher
- max damage you can get
- slot for cloak
- slots for salvager and analyzer/codebreaker
Unfortunately the ones i checked (legion and tengu) cant fit properly with rules above. Tho there is one exploration-mobile: ishtar.
You'll be very sad to know that you CAN do that in a Tengu. It can handle anything up to and including C3 wormholes (though don't expect it to kill all the spawns, you will be able to loot everything there). It can also quite nicely handle every high and losec site I've done without breaking a sweat.
----------------------------
The Game's always changing under your feet; don't start moaning when you get a toe caught in the gears. |
Tamahra
Gallente
Danke fuer den Fisch
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 07:29:00 -
[19]
i have yet to find a magneto site in high-sec, low-sec or w-space that is worth my time in terms of valuable stuff...
magneto in w-space are the worst, they are a total waste of time atm.
|
Myyona
Minmatar
Ataraxia Pharmacies
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 12:51:00 -
[20]
There seems to be a general lack of specialization opportunities in some of these so called mini professions (perhaps therefore the term "mini"). The act of using a codebreaker on analyzer is trivial but I do not expect you plan to make some kind of mini game for their usage though I would support that any day.
Gas harvesting and booster production has been greatly improved since the last patch with the added amount of Ladar gas and hacking sites. Maybe it is only me who find it great as already before the patch were doing booster production so this was a booster directly aimed at me. I rarely have competition to these sites still though which is maybe why I find booster material acquisition perfectly fine as it is.
What is not optimal is the price I have to charge for the synth booster products. Granted, I do not do booster production to make isk but because I find it a challenging effort to do solo and because nobody else seems to do it making my activities in EVE unique. I would like to suggest that the general mechanics stays the same put the BPCs are adjusted to produce 2 units per run instead of 1. Not for me to make double the isk on the same amount of recourses but so I can charge half the price on the final products.
There is a certain limit to how low I can set the booster unit price and it is not dictated by demand but simply by the amount of effort and capital I have invested to make them. Currently this minimal price is far too high for the actual benefit of the product. Being able to lower this minimal price to half would match the benefits of synth boosters much more and perhaps make an actual market for the stuff. An equally good alternative could be to increase the benefits of synth boosters of course.
---
Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do nothing |
Taunting Yu
Gallente
The NightClub
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 14:11:00 -
[21]
Originally by: Tamahra
i have yet to find a magneto site in high-sec, low-sec or w-space that is worth my time in terms of valuable stuff...
magneto in w-space are the worst, they are a total waste of time atm.
You're right. W-space Mag sites are totally worthless. Nobody should ever run them. Evah!
<listens to earpiece>
Wait, what? <listens a bit more> Nobody would ever get any relics for reverse engineering? How would that be bad? <more listening> And? Nobody wants those damn t3 cruisers, anyway! They're all junk!
|
g0ggalor
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 14:28:00 -
[22]
Edited by: g0ggalor on 12/08/2009 14:30:22
Originally by: Acrel
Exploration based ships are in dire need. The idea that the only 2 ships that have exploration bonuses are a t1 frig and a t2 frig.. Which makes it so you have to explore as a group(or alt) or fly back to a station and switch ships.. With current rewards or lack there of when it comes to most high sec and low sec exploration sites. Its not worth wild to do as a group and kind of defeats the purpose of being a explorer if when you find something you immediately fly back to station.
This really sums it up for me. I would love to see a SoE class ship of just about every size, each with a probe bonus. There could also be some mods you could fit to your ship to boost probing, hacking, analyzing and what not.
A boost to the rewards drop would be nice too, as right now people don't seem to get good items very often. I'm not saying you need to make exploration as profitable as L4s, but at the very least it shouldn't be a waste of time.
|
Deva Blackfire
D00M.
Triumvirate.
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 15:03:00 -
[23]
Oh yea now i know whats missing.
Salvaging is mini profession - because you have full-fledged salaging ships (like dessy/BC with 8 salvagers or some tractor beams)
Gas cloud harvesting is profession - because its often worth to use full rack of gas harvesters to run the process.
Its hard to say that hacking/archeo is mini profession itself - because any ships (be it pvp or pve) with 1 module does the job almost as well as ship with multiple modules. The amount of hacking/archeo jobs needed per sites is so minimal that you dont actually need more modules to make it faster or to refit ship to be "proper archeo/hacking" ship. Its just an addition. Also due to randomness of hacking/archeo sites (compared to salvaging in all missions) you cant just run around in ship with full rack of codebreakers/analyzers and go only for those sites - it takes way too long to find em.
Obvious problem: lack of multipectal probes. To find if site is magnet/radar or whatever it takes almost as long as to find the site (usually 1-2 scan cycles less). But this means that you usually wasted most of your time trying to check what the site is all about. Typical scan (lets say 6 cycles) needs 4 cycles to pinpoint, 1 cycle to know the type (when sig strength goes high enough) and last cycle to know site type and location. Sometimes need 1 more scan for harder sites. Drop the signature type recognition to scan number 2-3 and you save half the time for people who actually want to play "mini professions".
|
Salizar Amolkshue
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 15:24:00 -
[24]
Originally by: CCP Navigator
... such as hacking, archaeology or combat booster production ...
...Do you enjoy this part of the game? How could we improve Mini Professions to encourage more players to take part and make it more fun?
Booster production is a mini-profession? Really? Huh, who knew? And somebody actually makes them? Who uses them? I think the boosters are a great idea in theory, but why go harvest the raw materials, then maufuacture a drug that virtually nobody is buying. As has already been mentioned, until boosters become more useful to carebears the profession of building them will remain dead. Carebears are not going to use them unless the booster effects are noticeable, not subtle. But if you make them powerful enough to be noticeable, they become unbalancing. If the booster doesn't give me a noticeable edge in combat (the room clears noticeably faster for instance) I won't continue spending the isk on it. Oh yeah, and reduce the size of the harvested gas for crying out loud. Surely an advanced, space faring race can figure out how to weld a pressure container that will compress the gas into a liquid... you know, like a propane tank?
Salvaging is pretty much done to death. My personal view is that salvaging should be considered theft if you are still in the room; what we have now is pretty much the same thing as having someone drive up and salvaging your car off the side of the road while you're still sitting in it waiting for the tow truck that you called to show up. Give me exclusive access for 30 minutes or something, or at least give me exclusive access until I warp out of the room. But that has been debated to death, so let's not argue about it shall we?
Hacking and Archeology? As I said in the exploration thread, I'd be happy with a single module that would do all of them. Heck, add more skills so that the module can do more varied things. How about some sort of mechanic skill that gives you a chance to repair a module out of a ship. You can either salvage it or hit it with the repair beam. Either one removes the wreck. Gives me a choice, do I want to get salvage material or take a chance on a good module? I'm sure there are other ideas that could be implemented. More skills, less modules. Make my ability to exploit sites based on my choice of skill training, not on what modules I happen to have fitted at the time.
As it sits, both hacking and archeology have the same pre-reqs, so once you get one there is no reason not to spend a couple of days time to get the other. Does anyone really have only one of them trained? But it is annoying to have to continually go back to the station to refit that one single module just so you can exploit the site you found.
I am all for making both of them more engaging. Hacking should get you information, not physical things. (ie: the location of the treasure, not the treasure itself). Archeology is all about following clues to the past. Targetting a can and using an analyzer on it for a couple of cycles to get goodies isn't really what I had in mind. At least the goodies provided in the w-space is more what you would find actually digging though an old settlement. (And where are the Indiana-Jones style traps when trying to appropriate ancient relics from their final resting place?  )
|
Jarvis Hellstrom
Gallente
The Flying Tigers
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 15:31:00 -
[25]
Originally by: Tippia
That said, it really should be possible to scan down wrecks directly, rather than having to go the roundabout way and look for ships that could be assumed to have wrecks around them.
I expect that this belongs in another topic entirely but this is one of the few spots that Tippia and I agree on.
1) Wrecks should be scannable and not that hard to scan either. They're certainly not utilizing any of the Electromagnetic Masking that would get built into regular hulls and they are very irregular in shape, which, if you know anything about how radar and similar sensors work, vastly increases signature return. In addition they are flickering with venting energy (based on the graphics) which is also the kind of thing scanners easily pick up against the very empty background of space.
(2) Anyone should be able to tractor them at any time.
(3) (And this is where Tippia and I will disagree) in order to balance off the above changes for the first half of the wreck's 'life' (one of the two hours they last) they should be property of the mission runner and aggro the same as the loot they contain. It seems fair to make the loot free for all at the same time as the salvage becomes free for all, creating a true salvage style mini-profession.
And yes, the ninjas will scream, but what it creates will be a lot more like salvage and a lot less 'griefy'.
May God stand between you and harm in all the Empty places you must walk
(Old Egyptian Blessing) |
Jarvis Hellstrom
Gallente
The Flying Tigers
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 15:39:00 -
[26]
Originally by: CCP Navigator
Mini Professions such as hacking, archaeology or combat booster production have been introduced to run hand in hand with other aspects of PvE like COSMOS sites and Exploration. In fact, these mini professions play a part in other aspects of game play like Invention making them quite an important role within New Eden.
I've always thought that the concept of hacking, exploration and archaeology are incredibly cool.
However, after playing for going on two years now I do none of these things. They are vastly underutilized.
The key, as others have mentioned is that they have high skill requirements and low returns which makes them very marginal.
I would suggest:
1) Lower skill requirements to get into these professions.
2) Create a wider range of things for them to do and insert some of these into regular missions on occasion to give folks a reason to get started into them. Start this with L1s but make it do-able for a new player to learn the basics to do it reasonably quickly so that they can finish the missions. Keep raising skill requirements as the mission level goes up and start introducing missions dedicated to these kinds of pursuits (maybe specialized agents?)
3) Create a (very few) ships that are specialized for these kinds of activities. Exploration and archaeological ships could be Sisters of EVE productions while hacking and the like might be a Gurista or Angel vessel. Drug production ships would obviously be Serpentis and possibly Blood Raider.
Basically increase the embed of these, lower the bar to get into them and make them work doing. The concepts are very very cool and it's a shame that they are languishing right now. You can bet I'd get into these if they had better penetration and a lower bar.
May God stand between you and harm in all the Empty places you must walk
(Old Egyptian Blessing) |
Myyona
Minmatar
Ataraxia Pharmacies
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 16:52:00 -
[27]
Originally by: Salizar Amolkshue
Booster production is a mini-profession? Really? Huh, who knew? And somebody actually makes them? Who uses them? I think the boosters are a great idea in theory, but why go harvest the raw materials, then maufuacture a drug that virtually nobody is buying. As has already been mentioned, until boosters become more useful to carebears the profession of building them will remain dead...
Am I some kind of necromancer then or what?
Funny fact is, that while I have large piles of boosters laying around I actually never use them my self.
---
Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do nothing |
Thenoran
Caldari
Pelican.
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 17:11:00 -
[28]
A truly dedicated Exploration ship would be a welcome addition.
Something the area of 8 highslots, 7-5 mids depending on race and 6-4 lows depending on race.
Raw damage shouldn't be its cup of tea, being able to run Radar, Magnetometric, (and with a refit) Ladar sites would be.
Battlecruiser size and cost, it remains Tech I as it would drive its use to 0 if it was T2 with all its associated skills and cost.
Caldari version
Name: Roc
With the Roc, the Caldari were the first to embark in the Voyager class of ships; vessels designed to explore the vastness of space and exploit all the riches it may hold.
Designed more towards versatility than raw firepower, the Roc can find itself right at home in a myriad of exploration sites.
A large cargohold and mobility not seen before on a Battlecruiser sized vessel ensure the Roc will see all four corners of the galaxy in no time at all.
Voyager Skill Bonus:
7.5% bonus to the strength of scan probes per level
5% reduction to gas harvester cycle time and cargo capacity per level
Special Ability:
200% bonus to range of salvager, hacker and analyzer modules
200% bonus to range and velocity of tractor beams
Role Bonus:
50% reduction to cycle time of salvager, hacker and analyzer modules
Attributes
High slots: 8
Mid slots: 7
Low slots: 4
Launcher slots: 4
Turret slots: 5
CPU: 650tf
Powergrid: 850mw
Speed: 190m/s
Drone Bay: 50m3
Bandwidth: 50 mbit
Cargohold: 825m3
Shield Capacity: 5971
Recharge Time: 1400 sec
Armor: 4012
Hull: 3674
Capacitor capacity: 3000
Recharge time: 600sec
Targeting range: 100km
Sensor Strength: 19
Sensor Calibration: 420mm
Mass: 12600000 kg
Volume: 140000m3 (18000m3 packaged)
Warp Speed: 4.5 AU/s
Inertia modifier: 0.7
Enough mids for both tank and exploration gear, good cargo hold and overall mobility.
5 turret slots for gas harvesters.
Another nice addition would be a module that needs Hacking and Analyzing at IV (V for the T2 version) but can then do both, switching from one to the other via a script.
------------------------
Low-sec is like sailing along the coast of Somalia...
|
Guillieme Lohran
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 17:12:00 -
[29]
I would have to second the calls for ships that can specialize in some of the mini-professions. Perhaps a salvager in a specialized salvage ship has a better chance of salvaging plus a chance to salvage items not available to normal ships or setups. Perhaps even random wrecks, after all there is supposedly a world beyond the activities of the capsuleers. Maybe a convoy was jumped by pirates, who knows.
Like others have said, the idea of some of the mini professions are really neat but the cost/reward ratio kind of nerfs them.
|
Deva Blackfire
D00M.
Triumvirate.
|
Posted - 2009.08.12 17:29:00 -
[30]
Edited by: Deva Blackfire on 12/08/2009 17:32:10
Edited by: Deva Blackfire on 12/08/2009 17:30:31
Just small idea:
rigging modules (as an expansion for archeology). Boosting module by 5-10-20% (similiar to sword of whatever +1). Get t1/t2 module + make some mumbo-jumbo on its BPO (t1 for example) + some magic stuff found only n archeo sites + some pixie dust + some salvage (even make salvage --> half-processed module (+t1 mod) --> rigged mod) or something.
Tho i see a problem already: module database is HUGE so it would take ages to change everything (or for example make faction mods stronger so those new "pixy mods" fit in between for example t2 and faction... or maybe tey should be better than faction?). Just an idea for making archeology an actual "profession".
Then hacking should be boosted in similiar way. Maybe even more decryptor types (material efficiency for gods sake!) or some damaged-modules that can be used as meta-item in invention (and working as higher meta-level item). For example "malfunctioning guristas ballistic control system" - only usable as meta module for invention of BCUs at meta level equal to guristas BCU (5? cant remember now) or even t2 meta level. So better than current meta mods. Ofc drop rates would have to be balanced too so they dont cost like 100mil per unit (read: they would have to drop quite often, at least 2x more than current decryptor/datacore drops).
Above are just some ideas flying around my skull. Might be interesting, might be total crap, dont care ;p
EDIT:
@ thenoran - sounds more like generic Sisters of Eve or SOTC ship rather than racial. Similiar to ORE ships.
|
| |
|
| Pages: [1] 2 3 4 :: one page |
| First page | Previous page | Next page | Last page |