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Tax and Mining: Urgent Suggestions


Hirnsausen

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Through the Facebook groups about DU, I am aware of players that cancel their subscription now because of the unexpected hardship of the new tax and mining system. It affects me, too, in a bad way, so bad that I calculate I will be fully bankrupt in 4 to 5 weeks and not be able anymore to act ingame. If I am affected, then many many many others are, too. I am open-minded, alwas saying that DU sets new industrial standards for player-made ship and base designs. I gave time to try the new changes. But now I have to activate the Alarm Bell.

Here are my suggestions, and these are very URGENT suggestions to Novaquark just to stop the rising bankruptcies of a vast amount of players:
- increase the amount of fully calibrated mininung units a player can have at the same time by 16 to 32 from whatever it is now.
- re-calibration only needed over time when the match was below 100%, but at 100% it stays calibrated as "disturbing forces are eleminated"
- the weekly teerritory tax needs to be lower, maybe half of what it is now

Besides, to limit territory occupation "en masse" by some big organizations, there are other,probably better ways to counter that.

Dear gamers, please show that you agree by posting positive answers to this thread. NQ need to see a wide and general agreement t become aware of the problems and make swift adjustments.

Edited by Hirnsausen
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What are you going to do with all the ore?

 

Unskilled 50% of MUs on a tile pay the taxes, everything beyond that is pure profit.

 

I ran a 10 tile mining area on a single account and did not go bankrupt. I did only 1 T2 and 1 T1 ore with that whole field, primary collecing on 2 60% and 2 40% territorires, T2 from all. (I packaged everything as I have enough of those ores and it was getting boring to do all the calibrating :P).

 

I think it is a good way, that the MUs (or calibrations) are limited. This way we stop just mining and do other things. --- Just would be nice if DU hat more other things to do.

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I am getting maily ore,but ore is low in earning, only 22 Q at the moment. I have 8 tiles, of which 5 are coal, and 2 are petalite. After 4 weeks, what I have in petalite is just 1 0.8 million in Quantas,  The coal each week gives me 6 to 7 million Quanta. Each week, I have 1 million Q less available. My skills are almost all at L 5 (new mining skiils), one skill on L 4.

 

 

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I am not some master harvester in DU by any stretch, but in my experience outer-planets is a bit more of a bulk-thing. You cant just short-order ship the non-t1 ore to the nearest market on the same planet for bot-sales, and people are less likely to buy it for a decent price if they have to also ship it to where they need it afterwards, so you need to be able to keep paying without profit until you have enough to make it realistically worth shipping in bulk to Alioth, at which point you sell it all to get a lot of money to tide things over until your next bulk-shipping.

 

As for somehow losing money on all of 5 t1 and 2 t3, my guess is that all of his tiles are in one cluster on an outer planet (an actual planet, not a moon, my guess is Feli), so he doesn't have any decent t1 tiles, and he is probably keeping all of his MU constantly topped off so he doesn't have the calibration points to spare to pick up the slack of his low-end coal tiles with better tiles somewhere else.

 

I'd advise he pull out of his current coal-tiles and go find a good 3-set of 500s on a moon, toss 4 MU on his Sanctuary tile for the free t1 there, only calibrate any given MU no more than once every 4 days (as you still automatically bump it back to 100% calibration on day 4 even in a surrogate without trying), and let the petalite slowly build as it will until it is worth bulk-shipping while the rest of his tiles cover the costs of everything.

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I think as it stands, MU's profit is a bit high. both in part to the state of the economy (everything is still hyper inflated from maga-node days), and the fact that you can smartly yield 50%+ of a MU's harvest by juggling 25 MU's per character with only lvl 3 stats for charge regen rate in talent costs.

in order to properly test out these things to see the realistic effect of the changes, a wipe will have to be performed, or some sort of element asset sink, has to be made. currently, there are too many element assets in the game, and constantly being made, while not being removed. with the exception of stockpiling spare ships. all these assets will just sit around on the market, or collect dust in someone hanger. meaning that as people constantly produce these things. the bubble that is the elemental assets will just force prices lower and lower (the effect of high supply, and low demand. ) too the point people will stop buying ore, then stop manufacturing things to sell. basically. the game's economy will die. this is not going to happen today, but unless something is done. this WILL happen.

eve online handles this by 'deleting' the ships hull, and about 50% of all modules/cargo on a ships death. this drives the demand for replacement modules and ships, while still giving a chance for reselling the other 50% of the modules from the kill/loss. the losing player is compensated for their risk with insurance premiums they pay into before taking the risk and losing their ship. so they get back a moderate amount of money to assist in replacing their lost stuff.

applying this to this game, it would fix the hyper inflation in a short time, if players lost elements regularly, either by crashs, pvp, or what have you (different discussion for a later time on this). it will cause the demand for elements to go back up. which in turn will drive the economy in a better direction. which will better determine ore prices/profits.

TL/DR;

we cant base mining profit vs tax's in the currant state of the game. we need new changes to course correct the bubble of the hyper inflated economy.

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55 minutes ago, Charlotte said:

...

In order to properly test out these things to see the realistic effect of the changes, a wipe will have to be performed, or some sort of element asset sink, has to be made. currently, there are too many element assets in the game, and constantly being made, while not being removed. with the exception of stockpiling spare ships. all these assets will just sit around on the market, or collect dust in someone hanger. meaning that as people constantly produce these things. the bubble that is the elemental assets will just force prices lower and lower (the effect of high supply, and low demand. ) too the point people will stop buying ore, then stop manufacturing things to sell. basically. the game's economy will die. this is not going to happen today, but unless something is done. this WILL happen.

eve online handles this by 'deleting' the ships hull, and about 50% of all modules/cargo on a ships death. this drives the demand for replacement modules and ships, while still giving a chance for reselling the other 50% of the modules from the kill/loss. the losing player is compensated for their risk with insurance premiums they pay into before taking the risk and losing their ship. so they get back a moderate amount of money to assist in replacing their lost stuff.
...

 

I understand the reasoning behind the "wipe" mentality, but going Thanos on the universe will drive off more players than the short-term rebalance will keep, we'd be killing the game in exchange for a short look at how things would have developed early on had the rules been like they are now back when beta went live.

 

If I recall correctly, the tax thing was more to both deal with people grabbing dozens or occasionally even hundreds of tiles they were never actually going to use and just sitting on them for whatever reason, and to add an unfortunately much needed money-sink to the game. They solved the first part, the second is a fair bit more fiddly to handle.

 

As for element loss, if I recall correctly anything that loses a life is no longer able to be sold on the market, and you cant bp a ship if any of the elements have lost a life. This makes it possible to get a ship mobile after combat and technically allows its operation to continue in full afterward, but pushes part replacement for builders and combat-players. Personally, now that CCS is a thing, I'd allow infinite lives for parts other than cores now with the stipulation that if the element was destroyed in combat, it permanently functions at half-power and is capped at half hp after being repaired, and cant be sold on market or bp'd (you can still replace it to get fun function again). As for crashing, it doesn't apply life loss because new players would lose everything way too quickly while still getting the hang of flight, and old players would get really ticked at how they need to replace a bunch of stuff every time someone left something parked somewhere that caused them to crash out of the game while they were trying to come in for a landing.

 

Finally. as hull-loss is concerned, ships taken in pvp tend to have their hulls scrapped (if they aren't used as trophies), while those damaged but kept get repaired. Damage or loss of hull in crashes causes more issue than would element loss, as while it is still repairable, the act of doing so is not as strait forward as it is for elements. 

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I am against a wipe, but it is a beta. so i expect it can be on the table.

i made a post already about what i think should change about tax's and tiles, so i wont say it again. ill just edit this message with the link to the post.

i talked about element loss in another post, regarding insurance and pvp. ill also link the post in a edit.

PvP changes and insurance post: 

Tax and Mining post:

 

Edited by Charlotte
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My dear co-gamers, it seems NQ has heard us! They will have a detailed look at the effects on players he current tax and mining system has. For the duration of two weeks, the tile taxation will be stopped.

About me: All my coal tiles are on Alioth. I agree, I will give up on 4 of those tiles that are not HQ, and try to focus on the remaining two tiles with their coal mining, and on my outer-planet T3, T4 ore mining.

I always sold the coal on alioth Market 6 ("You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."), where the price I got was around 22 Q per unit. Each week, I got almost 2 L-sized containers full, mostly coal, a bit of the other 3 T1 ores. I am a critically endangered species, near bankruptcy. Saw myself already going to follow the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, instead of flying with my own ships then grounded due to lack of fuel.

Like many others of us gamers who faced Demeter hardship, I am now looking with hope into a future that may be promising again.

I just do not understand, how other players could sustain their finances with T1 mining on Alioth. My honest respect to them. And my envy.

Edited by Hirnsausen
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Goodness, it looks like people actually ran the Alioth Market VI 25q-coal bot dry X) 

 

Try sorting things by price instead of just running to m6, the bots have better prices at seemingly every other market in the universe. 

 

I was under the impression HQ tiles weren't supposed to be minable if taxes weren't paid, but ensuring HQ tiles behaving (aside from "isn't lost if unpaid") hasn't been the highest priority. 

 

Of course, it is worth noting that mining isn't supposed to be a huge money-maker, it is a source of basic-income. If you can't be on much, then you spend a few min each night calibrating your miners, and when you get to your off-time you haul it all to market, pay the next week's taxes, and have the surplus to spend on things like fuel or parts doing the stuff you want to do that you would have otherwise had to spend part of your time mining to pay for. If you are on more, and you want more money, then you do other stuff on top of mining.

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I think NQ should redo the ore distribution. Increase the amount of ore output and limit the calibrations charges but make the calibration charges a consumable item and remove the mini game. Tax due dates should be biweekly or monthly instead of 7 days and the overall tax due should be lowered to 500k or based on 1: if mining units are in use or 2: based on what ore is available on the tile. MU along with other elements should have wear and tear. We cant have a working economy if elements don’t get destroyed there needs to be a combination of risk/reward.

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1 hour ago, Anauine said:

I think NQ should redo the ore distribution. Increase the amount of ore output and limit the calibrations charges but make the calibration charges a consumable item and remove the mini game. Tax due dates should be biweekly or monthly instead of 7 days and the overall tax due should be lowered to 500k or based on 1: if mining units are in use or 2: based on what ore is available on the tile. MU along with other elements should have wear and tear. We cant have a working economy if elements don’t get destroyed there needs to be a combination of risk/reward.

 

MU are meant to be afk-income for people that can't do much during the week but still need something to pay for their fuel use on their weekends. Making the people with IRL commitments that take priority most days worry that their MU is going to hit a methane pocket and explode while they are offline probably wont be great for the moral of said casuals.

 

I'd also say output isn't too low, as it is mostly just there to give people a starting point, not to build an empire around or fuel a major factory with only a few tiles. Also, prices are already low at market because everyone is selling, some of the market-bots you can sell ore to have even started to run dry. People may not get a lot of it individually, but ore is extremely plentiful right now.

 

As for taxes, they may be a bit high, but dropping them to a quarter or an eighth of what they are now would probably be a bit much, again for the same reason MU output is fine, and basing them off of anything players deploy on a tile is just asking for a return to the old issue NQ had of people claiming dozens or hundreds of tiles they weren't really doing anything with. I can however very much get behind both longer increments between taxes, and tossing that silly mini-game out the window in favor of just having a skill set how many MU you can have going at a time (much like how architect skills skills work for cores). 

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  • 2 weeks later...

If the taxes will be re-adjusted to 50% of what they are now, the situation becomes manageable for most players. Based on the complains and emergencies I heard from other payers (I am affected, too), 50% would be okay. We should not look to the few players who somehow can manage the new system, but to the majority of players. And there are others way to limit tile occupancy, but I am not going further into detail about that inside this thread.

I also suggested changes to the MUs.

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