Starbase Construction Doffs - Insane Prices and Proposed Solution

carmenara

Due to the recent supply issues for doffs I propose that we be allowed to substitute higher quality Doffs to supply projects with.

I.e., currently we need 30 Sensors Officers for Military OpAsset Provisioning.

Instead of having to recruit or purchase all white Doffs, please allow us to use Uncommon or better Duty Officers in their place in exchange for faster progress, i.e., White = +1, Green = +2, Blue = +3 and Purple = +5 or equivalent.

This allows us not only to make use of the HUGE stocks of superior Doffs on the market but eliminate the rather silly situation that supposedly "common" personnel may cost upwards of a Million EC.

It can be justified by saying that instead of hiring 30 junior warrant officers for a certain project, you hire 10 senior warrants for the job, to use a RL-derived rank reference.

thoroon

From a economical PoV it wouldn't make sense.
If you have a job for 30 trainees, you need 30 trainees.
You don't get 30 Senior Executives costing you much more than those 30 trainees.

But I understand your point.

mikewendell

Plus Pointy Haired Bosses can't do squat.

Ever see one of those basketball players do a photo op at some bread line? They don;t have a clue as to what they're doing.

But yes I would like to see this too as just buying white doffs is becoming harder and harder as fewer of them show up on the exchange.

Only thing that's saved it so far is seems like many players don;t realize that a security doff is one of 3 or 4 different categories. very few security officers left but loads in the other categories.

markhawkman

Grind SFA recruitment....

sollvax

Simple and logical solution

Make Doffs available in unlimited numbers at a fixed price

White ones naturally

I Suggest you could buy ANY white doff for say 25 Zen
or maybe an EC cost of about 25,000

in unlimited numbers
and we just STOP them being traded on the exchange at all

rankin0bass

They were talking about being able to grind DOFFs down, with 1 DOFF being exchanged for 3 DOFFs of a lower quality.

bluegeek

rankin0bass wrote: »

They were talking about being able to grind DOFFs down, with 1 DOFF being exchanged for 3 DOFFs of a lower quality.

I hope they hook this up soon. I also want to see them hook up the option to convert excess CXP into Fleet Marks very soon.

But this may not solve the problem all that well, if the doffs you get back are random. If you need 3 security doffs for a project, getting back three medical doffs won't help. Plus, you need the additional roster slots to absorb the extras.

gpgtx

thoroon wrote: »

From a economical PoV it wouldn't make sense.
If you have a job for 30 trainees, you need 30 trainees.
You don't get 30 Senior Executives costing you much more than those 30 trainees.

But I understand your point.

we are but takes 2 days to complete then has a 24hr cool down after the completion of the assignment and after that there is no guarantee what you get form it i have gotten all green the last time i did the tac recruitment no help at all

markhawkman

gpgtx wrote: »

we are but takes 2 days to complete then has a 24hr cool down after the completion of the assignment and after that there is no guarantee what you get form it i have gotten all green the last time i did the tac recruitment no help at all

Better luck next time. Keep trying.

switchngc

markhawkman wrote: »

Grind SFA recruitment....

I've got 6 characters doing just that and still having issues. I have tons of common Civilian doffs that can't seem to be used for anything as well (I love getting civilians in the GQ Officer exchanges too (since you can't put civilians in, but you can sure get them out))

mikewendell

switchngc wrote: »

I have tons of common Civilian doffs that can't seem to be used for anything as well (I love getting civilians in the GQ Officer exchanges too (since you can't put civilians in, but you can sure get them out))

Got three chefs in the last one that I opened. When I dismissed all three, I was thinking of an Iron Chef episode that winds up with them throw their knives at each other.

edit: I was also buying those packs off of the exchange during the build up. Didn;t get squat out of most of them. Just finally gave up and sold them to pay for the doffs I needed.

skurf

thoroon wrote: »

From a economical PoV it wouldn't make sense.
If you have a job for 30 trainees, you need 30 trainees.
You don't get 30 Senior Executives costing you much more than those 30 trainees.

But I understand your point.

If the 30 trainees are charging 4 times as much to do the same job that 30 Senior Executives would do, then it wouldn't make much economical sense to hire the trainees.

romuzarii

carmenara wrote: »

Due to the recent supply issues for doffs I propose that we be allowed to substitute higher quality Doffs to supply projects with.

I.e., currently we need 30 Sensors Officers for Military OpAsset Provisioning.

Instead of having to recruit or purchase all white Doffs, please allow us to use Uncommon or better Duty Officers in their place in exchange for faster progress, i.e., White = +1, Green = +2, Blue = +3 and Purple = +5 or equivalent.

This allows us not only to make use of the HUGE stocks of superior Doffs on the market but eliminate the rather silly situation that supposedly "common" personnel may cost upwards of a Million EC.

It can be justified by saying that instead of hiring 30 junior warrant officers for a certain project, you hire 10 senior warrants for the job, to use a RL-derived rank reference.

So instead of paying 1 million for a white, we'll be paying 5 million for a purple. Sounds appealing. You're never going to get away with doing starbase progress for cheap if you are rushing it. Not unless they set up a system where we buy specific doffs we need for a cheap price. Don't count it.

The solution is simple: Don't buy white doffs for a million EC. Buy them when they are cheaper. I see the prices go up and down like a roller coaster. One hour they are 800k. The next they could be 500k and a day later they are back down to 200k or even less. Patience is a virtue. If you want to rush through it, there's a price to be paid. UNLESS you think ahead of time and buy up those whites when they are at their lowest value for who knows when they'll be needed. But 50-100k sounds alot better than 1 million.

That's a pretty simple and sure fire way to not pay a million EC for a white. If you can't buy them in advance or wait it out, well, I hope you make a steady supply of EC on the side from somewhere. I don't see a reason to try to "fix" things when a person can wait a day or even hours and save hundreds of thousands of EC as human nature takes it's place in the game and people undercut each other to death.

carmenara

I don't see the point of the above rebuttal.

I personally finance starbase operations.

I also run exchange ops to temporarily lower the sale price of certain officer types, and inform various groups of players about buy and sell opportunities over a range of less obvious duty officer types.

I have a group of people specialized in exchange trading. I don't have problems rushing or not rushing starbase projects when exchange prices are controllable to some degree and there's a 'seasonal acquisition' team to secure resources in advance. All the above points you have stated have already been implemented by virtually all Tier II fleet operators at this juncture. So what is your point?

What I am pointing out is the illogical situation where we have Uncommon or superior officers going for as low as 100k EC. If that currently static resource can be leveraged we would see a much more balanced personnel usage and allow more junior (and less virtually "wealthy" in EC) to participate in officer requisitions.

All in all, if this were an actual construction project I wouldn't be hiring just rank and file but also technical specialists and foremen to help boost operational effectiveness.

A forum exists to share ideas and provide mutual support. Sharing ideas is exactly the purpose of this thread. "Better luck next time" is not regarded as constructive contribution as well, as we all share the same in-game experiences to some degree.

There are plenty of other venues to bash people to bolster one's virtual ego.

borticuscryptic

Inputs for starbase projects cannot be made as "or" statements. This is a purposeful limitation, not something we intend to overcome over the short term.

You put in Item A -and- Item B -and- Item C.
Alternatively, Slot A accepts Item A -and- Item B.

Not -or- in any circumstance.

We could allow for projects to accept any quality Doffs as a single input slot (example 2 above), but that would mean that you'd get the exact same amount of Fleet Credit, and project advancement, by putting in a Purple as you would a White. We chose to limit the quality to ensure a stronger sense of fair play.

We're introducing Exchange assignments soon that will allow players with surplus Doffs of higher-than-white quality to back convert them into lower quality Doffs on a 1:3 ratio. It's not meant to be efficient, just a possible avenue to make use of underperforming high quality doffs.

clearbeard

Don't forget we haven't seen any of the higher tier requirements yet. You'll be sad when the Tier II military project requires 30 of those green sensor officers you wanted to spend as whites.

That said, with all the balance done on getting 1 fleet credit/100 EC worth of contribution it's kind of silly to only get 150 credits for contributing a 1,000,000 EC doff. Whoever thought white doffs were only worth 15,000 EC needs to take a refresher course in basic economics. Something is seriously amiss.

Actually, a vendor for white doffs for dilithium is a great idea. We already have (almost?) every profession available from Lt. Ferro at green, blue, and purple. So why NOT at white, for 100-200 dilithium each? Heck, make it 150 dilithium and the price lines up perfectly with the 1 fleet credit/1 dilithium ratio. Problem solved.

markhawkman

yeah, a vendor for whites would be nice. A doff un-compactor would be almost as good.

switchngc

borticuscryptic wrote: »

We're introducing Exchange assignments soon that will allow players with surplus Doffs of higher-than-white quality to back convert them into lower quality Doffs on a 1:3 ratio.

Is this the same "soon" that applies to us being able to convert CXP to Fleet Marks?

zerobang

all i will say to this is NO!

if at all there needs to be more variety of DOffs that can be slotted in DIFFERENT assignments.

the existing ones are fine as they are.

if your leaders are making the mistake of slotting the same assignment again and again they will soon notice when the fleet member run out of a certain item to slot because progress will be stalling -> bad management.

if there are no alternatives to what they can start, then that is a problem and you should ask for more flavors of projects (for example, why is it always BOff XP + Dilithium? why never GPL?)

diogene0

Choose assignments which require dilithium, don't be greedy. The doffs required with dilithium are way easier to get.

And the fact is I enjoy making huge amountsof energy credits with the stupidity of fleet leaders willing to spare some dilithium.

carmenara

zerobang wrote: »

all i will say to this is NO!

if at all there needs to be more variety of DOffs that can be slotted in DIFFERENT assignments.

the existing ones are fine as they are.

if your leaders are making the mistake of slotting the same assignment again and again they will soon notice when the fleet member run out of a certain item to slot because progress will be stalling -> bad management.

if there are no alternatives to what they can start, then that is a problem and you should ask for more flavors of projects (for example, why is it always BOff XP + Dilithium? why never GPL?)

Agreed, these are very good points! Definitely avoid those "requires 30 doffs of each type" missions unless

i) Exchange recon suggests a buyer's market for the required officers
ii) Fleet has enough standby reserves to blitz the 30 x 2 requirement in one burst
iii) Senior officers have enough resources to blitz the Exchange and do whatever necessary to procure said resources in a short time

All this need for mgt. and preplanning actually does improve Fleet gameplay a lot, at least in my experience so far with building starbases. That and after a while the limitations of the system can be identified and worked around.

Also greatly appreciate the confirmation we are able to down-trade Uncommons or better into Whites. Hopefully that will ease the supply lines a little if only because of simple logic: - commons are supposed to be cheap and easily available, but, they are not!

Ironically for newer alts or players this is the perfect time to stock up on Blues or even Purples because a number of high quality officer types have become significantly de-valued.

bloctoad

Or you can just keep buying my Doffs.

rankin0bass

So, the patch notes today mentioned a duty officer downgrade mission, but nothing about where the NPC is at to start the mission.

And the commendation for fleet marks NPC is also still MIA.

captallendale

rankin0bass wrote: »

So, the patch notes today mentioned a duty officer downgrade mission, but nothing about where the NPC is at to start the mission.

And the commendation for fleet marks NPC is also still MIA.

I can not get a straight answer about this either. The best guess I have found is that these missions will be given by the personnel officer on the starbase, but he does not open up till lvl 3, which would be ignorant, because we need him to GET to lvl 3.

fraghul2000

Agreed, these are very good points! Definitely avoid those "requires 30 doffs of each type" missions unless

Actually those are pretty dumb points. Certain assignments are necessary, because they are the only scource of certain types of provisions. Assignments aren't as interchangable as they are at tier 0.

mgmirkin426

I kind of agree that we should be able to use higher level DOFFs to satisfy the requirements. Maybe even at a higher rate. As some say, a purple level could be ~= 4 white level or 2 green level. Or something like that. Or, in a worst case scenario just 1:1. That is, just make the requirement "10 white level or better DOFFs," "3 green level or better DOFFs," etc. But we'd need a much better selection screen similar to the DOFF selection screen on missions, with actual filters, and the ability to use check boxes or something... So people don't complain about "accidentally committing all my purple DOFFs," or such things.

Personally, I'd just completely re-do how the starbase completion missions work... Bringing them more into line with a "fleet" version of existing DOFF missions... "Sacrificing" problem solved...

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=330751

Just my 2c.
~MG

kagurazaka77

I'd just be happy if the dang Starbase would let me offload my no longer needed, permabound FerraDOFFs.

markhawkman

send them to cultural exchanges.

sollvax

we need a way to "buy" doffs in any speciality in any colour at a fixed price without ANY limits on numbers or price variations

Either for dilithium (at fixed prices) for zen (at fixed prices) or EC (at fixed prices)

so for example i would go to the Doff office (suggested name)
and buy 16 white quality security officers , 2 green bartenders and 4 purple entertainers

these doffs would then be used to fill my station building needs

darkstarkirian

sollvax wrote: »

we need a way to "buy" doffs in any speciality in any colour at a fixed price without ANY limits on numbers or price variations

Either for dilithium (at fixed prices) for zen (at fixed prices) or EC (at fixed prices)

so for example i would go to the Doff office (suggested name)
and buy 16 white quality security officers , 2 green bartenders and 4 purple entertainers

these doffs would then be used to fill my station building needs

Most of what you asked for is already provided for at the Academy leutentants, were you can purchase doffs for Dilithium (12k for VR, 6k Rare, 1k UnC) as long as you have unlocked them for purchase from doff Commendation.
BUT
They are Bound, and you can't use them... Even thou they are monetized with Dilithium, you can't use them on Starbases...
What is also missing is Common Quality, at 500 dilithium.

So I would suggest/request from Cryptic, is to give the Dilithium purchased Doffs a new trait. A little white Dilithium symbol called "Valueable" and the "Valueable" traited Doffs can be used for Starbases even thou they are bound. Include Common qualities of every profession and cryptic can both satified customers and make more money from the Doffs.

markhawkman

Actually.... "bound" status is irrelevent to starbase projects. Ferra's Doffs have a special code tag that identifies them. You can't see it though.