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Rebalancing schematics


Dakanmer

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I get that NQ thought they were doing a good thing by changing how schematics were done, because it got more money out of the system more consistently and time gated industry for anyone without a fortune and a zillion alts, but...well, they do a lot of things that run 180 away from the whole "player driven" etc concept, and reject the most sane solutions and ideas in favor of the dumbest. That's kind of expected at this point (the mass exoduses from the game didn't happen for no reason, and a lot of people are still waiting for serious improvements and NQ to make good on their promises before coming back), so all anyone can hope for is mitigation. So mitigation. Schematics are trash, but it's what we have.

 

  1. Get rid of schematics for pure, product and fuel production, regardless of tier. You DO NOT need all that much complexity in production to melt stuff, which is exactly what pure/product production is, nor do you need much complexity in fuel production, since the machines aren't doing much beyond catalyzing a reaction or distilling a substance. You need more complexity to produce a screw, a pipe, an injector, a power system, or any number of parts, yet there are no schematics for those things. There should be some sanity and consistency to how a system is implemented, even if it's blatantly to slow people down and get money out of the system.
  2. For the schematics that remain, balance their costs so that what they ultimately produce isn't so expensive that people will intentionally avoid all PVP just to protect their huge investment. The costs associated with T2+ voxels alone makes them a luxury for bling, rather than viable armor for PVP. The pure ore schematics cost too much for what they produce (especially at higher tiers); the product schematics cost too much for both the inputs and outputs; and the cost to output ratio of voxels is just sickening. If you want T5 armor plating (like pure titanium), you will end up with a cost of ~148,000,000 quanta for 10m^3 of voxels if you do buy the raw ore on the MP (because we're all supposed to specialize so that the economy functions as NQ wants). Most ships require a LOT more than 10m^3 of voxels, even if we're just looking at armor plating and not all the interior work (which will also probably be really expensive).
    • Now put that into perspective: you're not just taking a voxel shell out into combat, but expensive elements. A ship designed for combat, with the best armor plating, will likely use higher-tiered elements, which themselves can run from hundreds to around 1.2 million quanta (space radar L is no joke, and you only need one of those), bringing the total element cost into the hundreds of millions (cost of schematics to make pure + product + element + the cost of the ores themselves). And that doesn't even look at ammo costs from schematics + ore.
    • How often does NQ think that PVP will happen? On what scale do they want it to happen? Any org that invests that kind of time and money into a combat ship, only to lose a fortune every time their voxels get evaporated, would have to be ludicrously rich...which means that the only viable PVP for PVPers is to either a) get that apex ship and only hunt helpless people, or b) make a bunch of weaker ships that only cost a tiny fortune. PVP battles (not counting pirate activity, because that's not battle) will be predictably rare to the point of being an event, if at all. Because you need a fortune to do it, and throwing all of that money (and time) away for a spectacle is just insane.
  3. The time required to produce schematics is just bonkers, so reduce their production times drastically. If you don't have a large org or a zillion alts, you'll be stuck with a small factory. If you do have those things, you'll be stuck with constantly feeding schematics into each unit, because there's no system to distribute them via a central hub.

 

There have been a ton of good alternatives to the schematic system suggested, even before the schematic system was decided on. NQ, as usual, ignored all of those more reasonable ideas proposed by people who still believed that NQ intended to keep its promises about "player-driven" etc, and instead went with this craptastic system. So these are my balancing suggestions to a system that never should have been implemented in a player-driven game. Especially not since we're talking about digital schematics being essentially uploaded into machines that, for some unknown reason the machine's developers decided would delete its database every time produced something, and then load the next digital schematic to be used and deleted. @NQ, tell us how often you load a function in your coding, and then delete it from your computer after every time it gets called, forcing you to re-write it and re-load it into the computer. Seriously, that's how stupid this system is. You would fire anyone who came up with that method for coding, and you would be right to do it. Using time gating and draining resources as an excuse to implement it, when you would fire someone for exactly those reasons, says that you don't respect the community just as loudly as ignoring the many alternatives that were more reasonable (like requiring regular industry maintenance because of machine degradation from use, or player-created schematics that don't get deleted but require talents to "research," or any number of others).

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Not that I disagree with your basic premise one little bit, but I think the armour part of your argument is somewhat diluted by the existence of shields. Now, I'll be clear up front that (having been part of the mass exodus upon the advent of schematics in their original even-more-misbegotten form) I've no experience with shields at all, but the little reading I've done about them suggests that they've pretty much obsoleted physical armour. I'd be pleased* to be disabused of this notion by some PvP master strategist :) So "elite" PvP mavens are not likely to be wasting expensive high tier voxels in ships that are in harms way.

 

Your point remains cogent about the inhibitory effect of monstrously expensive high Tier Elements though, even if I'm right that armour expense isn't too much of a consideration these days.

 

* sort of; I think NQ's treatment of the physical properties of voxels sucks as badly as schematics, so armour would remain laughable even if it turns out to be "vital" to a PvP ship...

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I'm not bothered if they keep the schematics in the game as long as they make it so we don't have to keep manually buying them and waiting around for them.

 

For a new player like myself it is off putting, the amount of times i've been looking to make something and spent time waiting for components to finish only to realise an hour or so later I haven't got the schematic for it so have to wait another hour, it is not right to me having to do that.

 

If you take it out of the game great, if not please just have something to automatically buy schematics for an item, it is really putting me off factory processing which is necessary for building your base. I'm still not really sure I want to continue my subscription, I may just wait and see if things change in this area before I come back, I'm undecided. 

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I think what's he's saying is that, the cost of production is so ludicrously high, that, unless you are a wealthy org, there's no way to make any kind of profit. And with the cost of production being that high, the end product is largely unaffordable by anyone, but the wealthy orgs (who most likely don't need to buy things because they can produce everything themselves). This leaves you with 2 options. Join a wealthy org, or live with severely reduced quality of gameplay.
I stopped travelling between PVP areas for exactly this reason. The losses were too great, while the ease of ambush attack became ridiculously favored to the person doing the initial attack. It was no longer profitable to risk it. NQ's have broken the laws of physics to ensure that PVP is unavoidable.

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On 10/12/2022 at 8:37 PM, DannyUK said:

I'm not bothered if they keep the schematics in the game as long as they make it so we don't have to keep manually buying them and waiting around for them.

 

For a new player like myself it is off putting, the amount of times i've been looking to make something and spent time waiting for components to finish only to realise an hour or so later I haven't got the schematic for it so have to wait another hour, it is not right to me having to do that.

 

If you take it out of the game great, if not please just have something to automatically buy schematics for an item, it is really putting me off factory processing which is necessary for building your base. I'm still not really sure I want to continue my subscription, I may just wait and see if things change in this area before I come back, I'm undecided. 

Oh @DannyUK. The surprises are much deeper.
A prime example is fuel tanks. Atmospheric tanks T1 scheme. And space tanks, consisting of T1 components, for some reason have a T2 scheme (naturally with a different cost and a different time).
And now the cherry on the cake. There are such things as Zone detectors. They range in size from XS to L. But they are all made with the same T3 recipe and on the same machine. With the same amount of time. Only here is the detector L. It has a schematic T3 L. Again, with a corresponding cost and time commitment.
As a result, we get an absurdity that the cost of components for a detector is a hundred times less than the cost of a schematic for it. Why is this? What is the deeper meaning besides the lack of testing and banal common sense? To make it clear, the circuit for the L detector will cost as much as the circuit is valid for a military advanced space engine.

P.S. I stopped playing on the beta because of the schemes.
If you want to get money out of the production workers, just make a tax on the machines.
And if the production "loads" the server for you - increase the number of batches of especially small elements with an increase in the production time of the batch.

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IF schematics go, rewards for missions need to go down, significantly. A pretty penny of that missioning income is being spent on schematics, if costs for schematics go, massive inflation is going to happen. Something like 1/10th of current mission rewards. For most starting single players, anything beyond T2 is almost impossible. Prices for T3+ ore on market either inflate or stay the same, but the quanta income goes down significantly...

 

Is the current Schematics 'system' an absolute pain? Absolutely, you need to micromanage even more! Especially for the T1 Product You can go through 500+ schematics per day per machine... But if you pull on just the Schematics 'system' you'll be pulling on other systems as well, missions, challenges, land taxes, buying/selling/trading, etc.

 

NQ is gating 'content' and 'achievements' like crazy! You finally have a bit of quanta, nope! You have to spend it on taxes and Schematics... Back to the quanta grind for you! 😉 If you're playing a single account solo, you'll ALWAYs be at a disadvantage, that is the whole premise of the game. That you can actually single account solo is the reason why I'm even here in the first place. That I'll never compete with large orgs, is not an issue. I don't play EVE to compete with GOONSWARM... Having multiple accounts did make my live in DU easier and allowed me to keep up with what I wanted out of the game. Sure that is 4x the subsription, but back then the subscriptions were cheap! But I heard in the first week there was an org already deploying a Space Core L, which requires so much planning and coordination in that first week, that I can't help but be impressed!

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37 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

IF schematics go, rewards for missions need to go down, significantly.

Oh, absolutely. The quanta faucet needs to get turned right down. But that's fine, too, since one of the purposes of schematics is as a "Quanta sink".

 

37 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

if you pull on just the Schematics 'system' you'll be pulling on other systems as well, missions, challenges, land taxes, buying/selling/trading, etc

Again, couldn't agree more. NQ really need (they should have done this ab initio, but it looks more like a string of kneejerk reactions and poorly-considered transitions between game test modes have led us to the current pass) to put some thought and work into how the economics system is going to run. In the end, Quanta exist solely as a means of allowing us players to exchange goods without having to figure out whether a T3 Space Engine L is worth 0.3, 0.4, 3, or 4 or 4.5 or 50 T4 Shield S Elements. The fact of NPC interactions involving Quanta is purely there as a pump-primer, but some of those aspects have gotten out-of-hand, so a sink is necessary.

 

But that's not going to happen, or if it does, I have little confidence NQ will produce anything more than a half-assed, fouled-up mess any more. And, to be honest, I'd rather they actually developed something new rather than rehashing Industry again. If they did, it might be some indication that the team could, if given the schedule space, come up with a decent economy.

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21 minutes ago, Kezzle said:

Oh, absolutely. The quanta faucet needs to get turned right down. But that's fine, too, since one of the purposes of schematics is as a "Quanta sink".

 

Believe me, there are many other mechanisms for "sinking" money. And if you want, you can include ores there. For example, the release of improvements for engines. Increasing power, efficiency, etc. (by analogy with sharpening weapons) naturally with a chance of failure. And much more valuable unique goods would appear in the game. Which, in the process of improvement, would eat extra quanta, ores, etc.
Would like to...

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We're a small org of 7 people, of which 5 are playing activly. 

Anyway, since release I've been building up the Org-Industry, and oh my.... It IS a full time job, make no mistake on that!

 

Specialy as I'm new to the game, having no clue how to set things up properly, with best connections and so on (you know, production-LINE) - I've had to 'rebuild' the industry multiple times, 3-4 times at least, each time getting headaches of different issues - but every time wit those connection limit of 8, or 10.. idk.. too few for sure! (EDIT: and no, those transfer units dont help (enough))

 

Err.. back to topic.... schematics...

  • Its insane, I feel like a "disk jockey" (DJ)....  The schematics are "eaten" faster than we're able to 'craft' them, with 2-3 people doing so... (200 schematics per machine overnight (6-8hrs), but used 8-12 hrs 'crafting time')
  • The only way to get some money for the Org (or buy a ship to gather ores) is when we stop producing anything - thus not using any schematics, which we would need to get the industry going.
  • Yes, as an Org, we want/need our own industry.
  • There are not multiple approaches to an industry, there is just one, and its very limited and complex.
  • I'm constantly broke, and have to use the Org money to buy schematics while 2-4 people are farming ores on a daily basis (selling 50% and keeping 50% for production) - which now is "becoming" difficult since the "scittles" no longer respawn, which I think is a VERY HUGHE mistake for the game (by NQ) in the long run. Players that might join in 1-2 years will find NO ores on the surface, anywhere (outside of Haven).. not at this rate/pace. I get it, NQ wants that we use the economy, but those few missions wont be enough to get those new players started.
  • I also understand that NQ wants the schematics as a money and time sink, but heck, production time is already SLOW - and the micro-managment required is a PITA! At the very least, please let us assign a 'schematic-box' (similar to a PB, aka not using a regular input slot) so we could distribute the schematics 'evenly' and would only need to check a handfull of boxes, rather than EVERY SINGLE MACHINE, of which there are dozens hundreds.... I'm thinking of something like, link to active linked container of a player - permamently, until changed.

Ok, those are my 2 quantas....

Edited by Sephrajin
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5 hours ago, The_Lone_Janitor said:

Add the time to make the schematic to the time to make the item, then make the machine charge the schematic fee as a tax.

Then put the schematics back in the hell whence they came.

 

That would at least replace schematic as a money sink. But it wouldn't be the intended bottleneck for production because you have only 5 schematics slots but you can have virtual infinite industries. In order to keep the original purpose of the new schematics system you would need to implement a maximum number of industries running in parallel per account. I don't think that the community would be amused about that.

 

The problem could be solved with proper implementation of energy management. But there we would again have the inconsistency between NQ and "proper implementation".

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16 hours ago, Maxim Kammerer said:

The problem could be solved with proper implementation of energy management. But there we would again have the inconsistency between NQ and "proper implementation".

Word.

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