Question. The time required, is that the time it takes between the supplying of all items needed to complete and the actual completion of the assignment (in order to start another)?
Yes that was the idea.
If once you start a mission it normally takes 2d 18h to finish, setting the slider at the bottom, where you need much fewer resources, instead of 2d 18h, it might take 5d 20h to finish.
The increase in time would be proportional to the reduction in resources. So a 50% reduction in resources would mean a 50% increase in the time it takes for the project to finish.
Just curious, how do you do this while still encouraging fleets to progress in tier?
Well part of the idea would be that you'd have many small projects, that in total cost more then a simple upgrade in tier.
So lets say Tier 4 gives you X items. You could either do the T4 upgrade as now, or do X projects, each one unlocking a single item. If you were to total up the cost of all those projects it would actually be say 10% higher then the cost of the T4 upgrade.
But the lower cost would mean small fleets could work on things in smaller chunks. Perhaps after those X projects are done, another project could be opened up that lets you upgrade the Tier for a vastly reduced price.
The way things are working out, Cryptic might as well have capped small fleets at Tier3 because I'm not sure it's worth it to us to go any further. Anyone else feel that way?
Let me throw this idea out. Not sure how much people would like it but...
What if they did do that, but offer some way to buy select item unlocks as projects? Unlocking the Fleet Ship X could cost considerably less then Tier 5 starbase. But doing so wouldn't give little to no xp, wouldn't advance the base, ect... But would give people the option to buy the stuff they wanted.
And this is exactly why I propose that alternative fleet progression should include Minor Holdings that are more specialized, easier to complete, and DO cap out around Tier 3. The big difference is that I'm not insisting that fleets do one or the other... I'm saying structure it in a way that gives fleets a choice.
Under this scheme, if you want Tier 5 stuff you have to build Tier 5 facilities. But it brings the low-hanging fruit actually within reach of everyone. The current fleet advancement system doesn't do that.
I can't count the number of times I've read someone posting that they have no desire to advance past Tier 3.
If we're functionally capping everyone at Tier 3 anyway by stalling out progress, then what does it matter whether our fleet has the ability to get to a Tier 5 that we may never reach?
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My fleet has been talking about this for some time. Our Starbase is just about to be Tier 3, and it's going to kill us.
The current cost to upgrade a starbase to Tier 3 is:
10,800 Fleet Marks
648,000 Dilithium
240 Non-Civilian Duty Officers
9,000 [Industrial Energy Cells]
5,500 [Self Sealing Stem Bolts]
100 Particle Traces
I'd say we have at any one time around 5 to 7 active members. So lets say for grins we have 5 people always contributing to the base. The current issue is really the Dilithium. You can only farm 8K per day. So doing the math real quick,
648,000 Dilithium / 5 = 129600 dilithium per member / 8000 Dilithium\day = 16.2 days each, solid.
Now that's if each of the 5 members farm their available max dilithium for 16 days straight, and contribute all of it to the starbase, and that's just the dilithium requirement.
Then we need 10800 fleet marks. Assuming the average person can farm 100 fleet marks a day, (Most of us don't play all the time and only get a couple hours a night so 100 is pretty realistic.)
10800 Fleet Marks / 5 = 2160 Fleet Marks per member / 100\day = 21.6 days of solid Fleet Mark farming of 100 marks a day per member.
The doff's can be easy enough, as long as prices on the exchange aren't that bad, and can be purchased with EC or farming them at the Academy.
realistically, asking all of us to contribute everything we have to the base isn't usually going to fly. Especially with the reputation system sucking up so much of the members dilithium already. Personally several of our fleet members have generously contributed a bunch of resources to keep the fleet going, and I myself have drained every bit of energy credits, dilithium, and marks I had into the fleet base itself.
Just looking forward to the T5 starbase upgrade it's going to take us well over 90 solid days of contributing everything we have to the base in order to upgrade it to T5.
Now I can agree, that if we were in a bigger fleet or if we could recruit more this burden would be lessened, but realistically if you go on a recruiting campaign, 1 out of every 10 people you get in the fleet, will actually stay, and many of the ones actively looking for a fleet are usually just out to rob your bank. Not saying everyone is, but it's a pretty high probability.
The worse part about all that is the above is just the Starbase. You throw in the Embassy and things really look grim.
The Divine Protectorate is a pretty tight nitch group of people who have been playing for a long time together, and we don't really like getting into the whole "Large" Fleet mentality. Not to say we wouldn't mind having a few extra people but to be honest we don't have the time to manage a huge 200+ person fleet. We all work, have families, and other things. Playing together as a fleet is how many of us relax and enjoy the game for what it is.
Anyway it would be nice to see the requirements lightened up for some of the smaller fleets, but I can also see how it could be exploited by the larger ones to get the upgrades faster. I'd be interested to see what other ideas people come up with to help address the issue for smaller fleets, but this is certainly an issue for smaller fleets like mine.
The big difference is that I'm not insisting that fleets do one or the other... I'm saying structure it in a way that gives fleets a choice.
The idea I had would offer the same amount of choice, but would need less work on the Dev's part.
A fleet could chose to build T4 Shipyards the same way they do now. Or they could chose to run the 'unlock X' project, to unlock a single item. Then once enough projects were run a new project that lets them upgrade to the next tier. The total cost for doing all those projects would be greater then the standard upgrade project, but each individual would be something a small fleet could reasonably come up with.
This lets small fleets progress without a major overhaul of the SB system. I like your idea, but your idea would require a greater amount of work. Mine would only need a few tweaks to the system and new projects added to the DB.
I posted it some place around page 5 or 6 I think. But here's the gist of it.
Projects would have a slider, with one end being time, the other being resources. Move the slider down, and each project would take longer to do once started, but would require less resources. Move the slider to the other end and it would get done faster, but require more resources.
So if something costs 50 Item X, and 3 days. Slide it towards time and it would take only 15 of item X and 9 days. Slide it towards resources and it would take 125 of item X but be done in 18 hours.
That's a fairly rough idea of what I had in mind. It lets small fleets advance for less resources, but they pay for that in how long it takes to finish a project. Better IMO to wait a week for a project to finish, then to spend 2 weeks trying to gather the resources needed.
still one of the best ideas i think. small fleets still progress slower but there is still motivation to continue when you see that projects get filled.
like someone mentioned before maybe cryptic can just add additional projects instead of the slider because that probably doesn't need much time to implement.
we will just keep the existing projects and add
projects that cost half, reward the same but need 40h to complete
projects that cost 1/4, reward the same but need 80h to complete
projects that cost 2 times normal cost, reward the same but need 10h to complete
for upgrades the same, but maybe 1/2 cost for 4*time to complete (or even more) because there time is not that relevant
edit: provisions should scale with cost, only XP should be the same because small fleets that will select the slower projects should not get that many provisions for lower cost
edit: provisions should scale with cost, only XP should be the same because small fleets that will select the slower projects should not get that many provisions for lower cost
By slowing projects down you're already reducing the amount of provisions a fleet can get in a given time period. You don't need to gut the payout as well.
Scaled projects seems to be a common and popular theme here. I'm not too sure that Cryptic will pursue that path, but there's a convincing argument that the members of a smaller fleet end up contributing a very disproportionate amount of resources and anything that balances the scales a bit more is welcome.
Lest someone misunderstand me, I am NOT arguing that small fleets should be able to match larger fleets in terms of how fast they can build. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect us to take longer.
What's not reasonable is completely stalling progress to the point where we pretty much lose the desire to try, and I have to confess that I'm just about there. I haven't completely given up, but it's no longer a main focus for me until I'm confident we can accumulate the fleet marks needed to complete projects.
The way things are working out, Cryptic might as well have capped small fleets at Tier3 because I'm not sure it's worth it to us to go any further. Anyone else feel that way?
There is merit in many ideas I have seen floated, well from my POV there is but I keep seeing what I highlighted from you being said by people and I wonder why people say that, why do they accept such mediocrity?
This is a genuine question not a troll incase people think that and I have only highlighted your reply section because it was at hand.
Without going into detail it takes me far longer to do things because of sight problems (that previous post took me about 4 hours to write) but I saw that the devs could only come up with 2 ways to do fleets and took the lesser of those two evils and wondered what could have been instead.
I expected to come back today and see lots of exploits pointed out on my idea but there isn't and in fact there is little to no feedback at all, why is that? I presume it's because people expect that bigger fleets should build faster which as a curious person makes me wonder why that is.
In all the Star Trek I have seen I don't remember Picard even having a say on the way the Enterprise was built never mind dipping in his pocket to kit it out or having to build a SB for it to be based from and the same goes for all the Treks.
This is a game and the excuse for not scaling was apparently because they couldn't see a fair way to do it that wasn't exploitable. Now it seems that people have been conditioned to accept this though and any idea that doesn't give big fleets an edge is no good or unlikely to be used.
We are playing a game that basically has us at the front line fighting to keep Star Fleet alive. If this were real life we would be assigned a base, a ship, a crew and any equipment needed to do the job. Here though only the biggest are apparently expected to fight for Star Fleet in or with modern equipment despite everyone being on the front lines which is bizarre to me.
Just to try and come at this from a different direction to get my point across. If I was going to play someone at chess would they be happy to accept that they have to only play with half their pieces because I am in a chess club and they are not?
I have a failing memory and don't always see connections these days so please anyone feel free to point out if I am missing something obvious.
Yes it is, so your lore and RL examples simply don't have any weight in this. The SB system was meant to give large fleets an advantage over small ones, in terms of how quickly they can complete their star base.
Larger fleets require more effort to keep going, and as such they should get some sort of reward for that effort. The SB system was intended to give large fleets something to strive for. If a 5 person fleet can make it to T5 as quickly as a 250 person fleet can, that breaks one of the basic design principles.
Any idea that lets a 5 person fleet advance as quickly as a 50 person fleet will not fly, because the larger fleets are supposed to be able to get there faster then small ones can.
Any idea that lets a 5 person fleet advance as quickly as a 50 person fleet will not fly, because the larger fleets are supposed to be able to get there faster then small ones can.
And the idea that 50 person fleet should be able to have radical gear advantages that a 5 person fleet cannot have simply because said fleet is larger doesn't fly either.
But the instant you de-synch fleet gear acquisition from fleet size, both problems go away.
And the idea that 50 person fleet should be able to have radical gear advantages that a 5 person fleet cannot have simply because said fleet is larger doesn't fly either.
I agree, a larger fleet shouldn't have access to better gear then a smaller one does. I don't think completely desynching gear will happen however. I'm not even sure it's a good idea.
How many people would bother spending time to collectively earn thousands of FM's, 100's of thousands of Dilithium, and all the other stuff needed to hit T5 if doing so doesn't actually do anything for you?
I agree, a larger fleet shouldn't have access to better gear then a smaller one does. I don't think completely desynching gear will happen however. I'm not even sure it's a good idea.
If the Fleet size and starbase progression conundrum is the roadblock to starbase gear equality (which it apparently is at the moment), how do you remove it without de-synching? Any project based solution is going to inevitably fall into one of the "too hard for non-mega fleets" or "trivial for mega-fleets" categories.
How many people would bother spending time to collectively earn thousands of FM's, 100's of thousands of Dilithium, and all the other stuff needed to hit T5 if doing so doesn't actually do anything for you?
Which is why
(1) Cryptic needs to rethink the rewards that come with the starbase system to provide things that players want, but don't need and don't give functional advantages (see previous suggestions, RE cosmetics, titles etc.)
(2) Cryptic needs to radically change the costs for the starbase system so that people who do want to take part in (1) aren't so put off by stupidly insane prices that they don't even bother
(3) Redesign starbases and create content such that groups who have gotten their starbase to higher tiers have tasteful ways of showing their achievements. Whether that is through inclusion in content (Have the Klingon Scout Force raid "Fleet X's" Starbase (just an example)), some sort of in-universe fictional treatment, or some other method, let those who have done the work get their day in the sun.
Any project based solution is going to inevitably fall into one of the "too hard for non-mega fleets" or "trivial for mega-fleets" categories.
No, I've offered two different methods that could allow a small fleet to unlock gear they want, and neither method falls into either of those two categories.
No, I've offered two different methods that could allow a small fleet to unlock gear they want, and neither method falls into either of those two categories.
You've offered up unlocking individual projects, and even more time gating.
The first of which is ultimately going to be so price prohibitive (to prevent a large fleet from doing nothing but gear unlocks) that smaller groups will have no more chance of finishing it than they do currently. The second will allow for progression, but at such an agonizingly slow pace for fleets that are already struggling so as not to really be worth it. Good luck trying to tell people that taking over a year to go from T4 to T5 in one category is a good thing.
The end result in both cases is a large chunk of people locked into an institutionalized statistical disadvantage.
Having many people available for teaming, socializing, helping with crafting or whatever is the reward.
We've been though this already and I'm not going though it again with you.
Re-scaling costs to something more realistic won't change that.
Re-scaling costs is something completely different the scaling costs.
If you're talking about simply reducing the cost across the board, yes that will allow larger fleets to advance faster then small ones. It also means that they'll hit T5 in weeks rather then months, which defeats the whole purpose behind the SB system.
If you're talking about scaling the cost based on the number of people, well this is simply a bad idea and should never happen.
Feel free to keep derailing this tread with your delusions if you want. I'm trying to actually help the small fleets, something that I'll likely see next to no benefit for.
I've offered two ideas that I think are decent and based on comments in this tread so have others. If you want to point out possible flaws in those feel free. If you want to offer ways to make things better then that is also welcome.
Otherwise you're doing nothing but adding noise to this discussion.
My 2 cents on this, forgive me if this idea was already there.. I didn't read the whole thread...
Since changing project costs based on fleet members could be used as an exploit and implementing rules to preveng this could become quite complex, how about this:
Each fleet smaller than say 50 members gets an incentive each day on fleet marks and/or dilithium. This incentives would go into some sort of special fleet bank. Only fleet founders are allowed to spent them on any project, without the reward of fleet credits of course.
That way exploiting it would be hard because a fleet would have to reduce their members over a quite long time to benefit from it.
Just a thought, feel free to think it to the next level
Each fleet smaller than say 50 members gets an incentive each day on fleet marks and/or dilithium.
That's not so bad really. I think 50 members might be too high to get free marks/dilithium. The system was designed with 25 players in mind. Unless by member you mean character.
I think any sort of system that looks at fleet size, has to look at accounts, not characters. Otherwise you will have fleets that won't allow any alts for the sake of the best price break.
That said, such a system could be workable, but it also tends to fly contrary to the idea most MMO's have about giving rewards for not doing anything.
I have a failing memory and don't always see connections these days so please anyone feel free to point out if I am missing something obvious.
(What follows is an analysis of the existing system, with no suggestions.)
Say a project requires 100 units of a resource, require 20 hours, and each project results in 100xp. Each person generates and contributes 10 resources every 20 hours. The 30 person group pooling their resources get 300 resources every 20 hours, enough for three projects every 20 hours. The 300 people pooling their resources get 3000 resources every 20 hours, enough for thirty projects every 20 hours.
Individually, each person has done the same amount of "work" - they each contributed 10 units of resources every 20 hours. Individually, they should each generate 10xp every 20 hours. On a per group basis, the 300 person group should generate 10 times the xp of the 30 person group. This is completely fair on an individual basis. Everybody does the same amount of work, everybody gets exactly the same amount of rewards. Each individual's work is equally valued - no diminishing returns.
We see this principle in other areas. For example, five people attacking the same target kills it 5 times as fast as just one of them attacking the target. Putting that same complaint in this context makes it obvious how unreasonable it is - why should one person expect to kill a target as quickly as five people working together? Each individual's effort has the same ROI. One person does one fifth the damage of five people; five people do five times as much damage as one person.
However, the project system does not follow this principle of equal ROI for individual effort. The system is in fact biased in favor of smaller groups. With my example numbers, it is biased towards groups of 30. The project system is structured in such a way to limit the progress larger groups can make. Ignoring special projects which have a ridiculously low ROI, there can only be 3 projects running every 20 hours. The optimal group size of 30 generates 300 resources every 20 hours, resulting in 300xp every 20 hours - exactly the same as the group of 300.
If we simply stop here, we would support the disingenuous "less people means more work" assertion. However, that completely ignores provisions and Fleet Credits. In order for each individual to have the same amount of provisions and Fleet Credits, exactly the same amount of individual work needs to be done. If each of the 300 people merely do one-tenth the work of those in the group of 30, they would each only have one-tenth of their individual Fleet Credits and provisions.
Since they are limited to 3 projects at once, it actually takes ten times longer for the group of 300 to attain the same individual returns as the group of 30. What this means is that each individual ends up having to do the same amount of work, but those in the optimal group size get access up to ten times earlier! The system is not biased towards groups larger than the optimal size!
On average, each individual get access at the same time. That is the "obvious" that you're missing. Tilting the entire system towards smaller groups would thus be unfairly advantageous for smaller group sizes.
However, when project requirements increase drastically, the "optimal size" also increases dramatically. In my example numbers above, the optimal size is 30. If the projects suddenly require 1000 units of resources, the optimal size becomes 300, and the size-30 group members suddenly need almost double their income (19 per 20 hours instead of 10 per 20 hours).
This increase in optimal size per tier is working as designed. Consider Dstahl's recent answer about the system:
"We considered two options when we created the Fleet Projects. Option A was that fleet size would determine the maximum tier for Fleet Holdings. The larger the Fleet, the higher the Fleet Holding Tiers could achieve. This is how other MMOs have developed Guilds, but we felt that it is artificially limiting to active small fleets. Option B was to allow Fleets of any size to achieve all tiers of Fleet Holdings. The drawback is that because fleet size range so much, we had to find a balance so that large fleets had some challenge, while still allowing small fleets to achieve all tiers, albeit at a much slower pace. So from our perspective we choose the sensible Option B, with the goal of ensuring that our active large Fleets didn?t have a cake-walk. The end result is that smaller Fleets can achieve maximum Starbase sizes, but it is a bit harder."
That underlined portion gives us the mindset the system was designed around. Smaller Fleets weren't supposed to reach higher tiers in the first place - while Option B (the current system) allows for smaller Fleets to reach higher tiers of Fleet Holdings, you're not supposed to, and it takes a ton of extra work. It's kind of like grinding to level 99 in a Final Fantasy before the final story boss, who you can then steamroll. You're allowed to, but you're not supposed to, and it takes a ton of extra work.
Of course, this extra work is in no way just "a bit harder". :rolleyes: Option B is essentially Option A, only it's a soft cap instead of a hard cap. You can do it, but it's not really feasible.
Fleets smaller than the optimal size obviously won't be happy about how the system is balanced. Their complaints about the system favoring larger fleets is basically missing the point entirely. The system favors the optimal size for a particular tier, and functions as a soft cap such that large fleets have higher tier fleet holdings.
Just like Option A is unlikely to be changed due to complaints by smaller guilds, I highly doubt our current system would be changed to accommodate smaller fleets, especially since money is involved. Even if they will never officially admit it, they want you to become a part of a larger social group, because those who do tend to hang around longer and spend more money. They especially don't want people forming tiny fleets for the sake of bank slots (since that would otherwise be purchased with actual money).
Took me so long to write the above I couldn't incorporate your comment into my post. As I said, the "optimal size" increases due to increases in requirements. I'm not sure 25 active players is really the optimal size for attaining Tier 5 holdings. The T5 Starbase project requires 3,600,000 Dilithium, which means 144,000 Dilithium each. 18 days of refining per person is quite a lot.
As I said, the "optimal size" increases due to increases in requirements. I'm not sure 25 active players is really the optimal size for attaining Tier 5 holdings.
That could very well be true, but IIRC they said when the SB system came out that they balanced things around 25 person fleets.
The idea that the current cost being a soft cap is an interesting one, and what ever they intended it effectively does work as a soft cap putting a limit on how far a fleet can reasonably go.
I've had an idea for a while now that I've discussed with other members/directors of my fleet and they've totally supported the idea....
You know that refining cap of Dilitium? that can remain in tact for players with the exception of
*trumpet intro*
Fleet Dilitium Holding:
A section of the fleet holdings in which members of the fleet may add any unrefined Dilitium they have. This Dilitium is instantly refined for the fleet to complete fleet projects ONLY. Dilitium refined in this way may not be removed from the Fleet Dilitium Holding, only added.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
I would imagine that while initially the optimal amount may be ~25 as has been previously stated but that as the fleet began to increase in Tier, it would gradually increase in active membership as well in order to accommodate the resource increases.
The key for the survival of the small fleet would appear to be effective management of projects based on what the membership feel able to provide and perhaps limiting the number of concurrent projects available to them so as to effectively channel available resources if not already being done. Speaking from experience, my fleet was and still is of the mindset that if all projects are not running at the same time then the fleet is making no progress, which is in fact a fallacy.
My fleet had particular trouble with this until recently particularly with the special projects which provide negligible gain in XP for a rather increased cost. Once this was removed other projects began to get filled more rapidly and the fleet expanded in Tier rapidly. These projects seem to be working by design as sinks over the longer cooldown period as opposed to consistently running.
With this in mind, perhaps it would be better to unlock these types of missions only at higher tiers (3,4 or 5) so as to give them their intended purpose as sinks rather than being used as a means for progression in smaller fleets. The same would apply to the basic provisioning assignments, perhaps these should only be available during the upgrade periods and at end tier starbase progression as they provide no experiential gain at all for the fleet and again are designed purely as sinks.
In addition, it might be better to more clearly label or instruct fleet leaders on which projects to choose and for what reasons. At the moment there is a lot of choice which could in my opinion be stymieing progress unnecessarily.
TLDR: Remove the sink missions for the lower tiers to allow them to concentrate on growth and learn to manage the base effectively. They unlock the sinks at higher tiers where they actually become somewhat useful. In addition better explain the mechanics of projects and their benefits, in game.
A section of the fleet holdings in which members of the fleet may add any unrefined Dilitium they have. This Dilitium is instantly refined for the fleet to complete fleet projects ONLY. Dilitium refined in this way may not be removed from the Fleet Dilitium Holding, only added.
I do not see this necessarily as the way forward, while dilithium is expensive it can be bought with real life money and with the exception of upgrades, none of the missions that progress a base actually require it.
The idea I had would offer the same amount of choice, but would need less work on the Dev's part.
A fleet could chose to build T4 Shipyards the same way they do now. Or they could chose to run the 'unlock X' project, to unlock a single item. Then once enough projects were run a new project that lets them upgrade to the next tier. The total cost for doing all those projects would be greater then the standard upgrade project, but each individual would be something a small fleet could reasonably come up with.
This lets small fleets progress without a major overhaul of the SB system. I like your idea, but your idea would require a greater amount of work. Mine would only need a few tweaks to the system and new projects added to the DB.
I don't know about your proposal exactly having less work for the devs'. It would most likely need a formula involving two independent variables in an equation tied to a slider. It's been three years and these guys haven't been able to fix coding that forces ships to de-cloak when a dialogue screen opens.
I do not see this necessarily as the way forward, while dilithium is expensive it can be bought with real life money and with the exception of upgrades, none of the missions that progress a base actually require it.
On the contrary.... Most of the Provisioning Projects DO require Dilitium, especially at higher tiers. They may not "advance" the starbase with only half the XP of their 1k counterparts but they sure do provide the fleet with supplies.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
I was specifically referring to the most efficient method of progressing the base. I felt that was clear from the tone of my post. Provisions and provisioning projects are designed to be sinks and therefore I excluded them, I do concede that they are somewhat useful in assisting the raising of a tier.
Comments
Yes that was the idea.
If once you start a mission it normally takes 2d 18h to finish, setting the slider at the bottom, where you need much fewer resources, instead of 2d 18h, it might take 5d 20h to finish.
The increase in time would be proportional to the reduction in resources. So a 50% reduction in resources would mean a 50% increase in the time it takes for the project to finish.
Well part of the idea would be that you'd have many small projects, that in total cost more then a simple upgrade in tier.
So lets say Tier 4 gives you X items. You could either do the T4 upgrade as now, or do X projects, each one unlocking a single item. If you were to total up the cost of all those projects it would actually be say 10% higher then the cost of the T4 upgrade.
But the lower cost would mean small fleets could work on things in smaller chunks. Perhaps after those X projects are done, another project could be opened up that lets you upgrade the Tier for a vastly reduced price.
And this is exactly why I propose that alternative fleet progression should include Minor Holdings that are more specialized, easier to complete, and DO cap out around Tier 3. The big difference is that I'm not insisting that fleets do one or the other... I'm saying structure it in a way that gives fleets a choice.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8061981&postcount=40
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8161601&postcount=167
Under this scheme, if you want Tier 5 stuff you have to build Tier 5 facilities. But it brings the low-hanging fruit actually within reach of everyone. The current fleet advancement system doesn't do that.
I can't count the number of times I've read someone posting that they have no desire to advance past Tier 3.
If we're functionally capping everyone at Tier 3 anyway by stalling out progress, then what does it matter whether our fleet has the ability to get to a Tier 5 that we may never reach?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The current cost to upgrade a starbase to Tier 3 is:
10,800 Fleet Marks
648,000 Dilithium
240 Non-Civilian Duty Officers
9,000 [Industrial Energy Cells]
5,500 [Self Sealing Stem Bolts]
100 Particle Traces
I'd say we have at any one time around 5 to 7 active members. So lets say for grins we have 5 people always contributing to the base. The current issue is really the Dilithium. You can only farm 8K per day. So doing the math real quick,
648,000 Dilithium / 5 = 129600 dilithium per member / 8000 Dilithium\day = 16.2 days each, solid.
Now that's if each of the 5 members farm their available max dilithium for 16 days straight, and contribute all of it to the starbase, and that's just the dilithium requirement.
Then we need 10800 fleet marks. Assuming the average person can farm 100 fleet marks a day, (Most of us don't play all the time and only get a couple hours a night so 100 is pretty realistic.)
10800 Fleet Marks / 5 = 2160 Fleet Marks per member / 100\day = 21.6 days of solid Fleet Mark farming of 100 marks a day per member.
The doff's can be easy enough, as long as prices on the exchange aren't that bad, and can be purchased with EC or farming them at the Academy.
realistically, asking all of us to contribute everything we have to the base isn't usually going to fly. Especially with the reputation system sucking up so much of the members dilithium already. Personally several of our fleet members have generously contributed a bunch of resources to keep the fleet going, and I myself have drained every bit of energy credits, dilithium, and marks I had into the fleet base itself.
Just looking forward to the T5 starbase upgrade it's going to take us well over 90 solid days of contributing everything we have to the base in order to upgrade it to T5.
Now I can agree, that if we were in a bigger fleet or if we could recruit more this burden would be lessened, but realistically if you go on a recruiting campaign, 1 out of every 10 people you get in the fleet, will actually stay, and many of the ones actively looking for a fleet are usually just out to rob your bank. Not saying everyone is, but it's a pretty high probability.
The worse part about all that is the above is just the Starbase. You throw in the Embassy and things really look grim.
The Divine Protectorate is a pretty tight nitch group of people who have been playing for a long time together, and we don't really like getting into the whole "Large" Fleet mentality. Not to say we wouldn't mind having a few extra people but to be honest we don't have the time to manage a huge 200+ person fleet. We all work, have families, and other things. Playing together as a fleet is how many of us relax and enjoy the game for what it is.
Anyway it would be nice to see the requirements lightened up for some of the smaller fleets, but I can also see how it could be exploited by the larger ones to get the upgrades faster. I'd be interested to see what other ideas people come up with to help address the issue for smaller fleets, but this is certainly an issue for smaller fleets like mine.
The idea I had would offer the same amount of choice, but would need less work on the Dev's part.
A fleet could chose to build T4 Shipyards the same way they do now. Or they could chose to run the 'unlock X' project, to unlock a single item. Then once enough projects were run a new project that lets them upgrade to the next tier. The total cost for doing all those projects would be greater then the standard upgrade project, but each individual would be something a small fleet could reasonably come up with.
This lets small fleets progress without a major overhaul of the SB system. I like your idea, but your idea would require a greater amount of work. Mine would only need a few tweaks to the system and new projects added to the DB.
still one of the best ideas i think. small fleets still progress slower but there is still motivation to continue when you see that projects get filled.
like someone mentioned before maybe cryptic can just add additional projects instead of the slider because that probably doesn't need much time to implement.
we will just keep the existing projects and add
- projects that cost half, reward the same but need 40h to complete
- projects that cost 1/4, reward the same but need 80h to complete
- projects that cost 2 times normal cost, reward the same but need 10h to complete
for upgrades the same, but maybe 1/2 cost for 4*time to complete (or even more) because there time is not that relevantedit: provisions should scale with cost, only XP should be the same because small fleets that will select the slower projects should not get that many provisions for lower cost
By slowing projects down you're already reducing the amount of provisions a fleet can get in a given time period. You don't need to gut the payout as well.
There is merit in many ideas I have seen floated, well from my POV there is but I keep seeing what I highlighted from you being said by people and I wonder why people say that, why do they accept such mediocrity?
This is a genuine question not a troll incase people think that and I have only highlighted your reply section because it was at hand.
Without going into detail it takes me far longer to do things because of sight problems (that previous post took me about 4 hours to write) but I saw that the devs could only come up with 2 ways to do fleets and took the lesser of those two evils and wondered what could have been instead.
I expected to come back today and see lots of exploits pointed out on my idea but there isn't and in fact there is little to no feedback at all, why is that? I presume it's because people expect that bigger fleets should build faster which as a curious person makes me wonder why that is.
In all the Star Trek I have seen I don't remember Picard even having a say on the way the Enterprise was built never mind dipping in his pocket to kit it out or having to build a SB for it to be based from and the same goes for all the Treks.
This is a game and the excuse for not scaling was apparently because they couldn't see a fair way to do it that wasn't exploitable. Now it seems that people have been conditioned to accept this though and any idea that doesn't give big fleets an edge is no good or unlikely to be used.
We are playing a game that basically has us at the front line fighting to keep Star Fleet alive. If this were real life we would be assigned a base, a ship, a crew and any equipment needed to do the job. Here though only the biggest are apparently expected to fight for Star Fleet in or with modern equipment despite everyone being on the front lines which is bizarre to me.
Just to try and come at this from a different direction to get my point across. If I was going to play someone at chess would they be happy to accept that they have to only play with half their pieces because I am in a chess club and they are not?
I have a failing memory and don't always see connections these days so please anyone feel free to point out if I am missing something obvious.
Yes it is, so your lore and RL examples simply don't have any weight in this. The SB system was meant to give large fleets an advantage over small ones, in terms of how quickly they can complete their star base.
Larger fleets require more effort to keep going, and as such they should get some sort of reward for that effort. The SB system was intended to give large fleets something to strive for. If a 5 person fleet can make it to T5 as quickly as a 250 person fleet can, that breaks one of the basic design principles.
Any idea that lets a 5 person fleet advance as quickly as a 50 person fleet will not fly, because the larger fleets are supposed to be able to get there faster then small ones can.
And the idea that 50 person fleet should be able to have radical gear advantages that a 5 person fleet cannot have simply because said fleet is larger doesn't fly either.
But the instant you de-synch fleet gear acquisition from fleet size, both problems go away.
I agree, a larger fleet shouldn't have access to better gear then a smaller one does. I don't think completely desynching gear will happen however. I'm not even sure it's a good idea.
How many people would bother spending time to collectively earn thousands of FM's, 100's of thousands of Dilithium, and all the other stuff needed to hit T5 if doing so doesn't actually do anything for you?
If the Fleet size and starbase progression conundrum is the roadblock to starbase gear equality (which it apparently is at the moment), how do you remove it without de-synching? Any project based solution is going to inevitably fall into one of the "too hard for non-mega fleets" or "trivial for mega-fleets" categories.
Which is why
(1) Cryptic needs to rethink the rewards that come with the starbase system to provide things that players want, but don't need and don't give functional advantages (see previous suggestions, RE cosmetics, titles etc.)
(2) Cryptic needs to radically change the costs for the starbase system so that people who do want to take part in (1) aren't so put off by stupidly insane prices that they don't even bother
(3) Redesign starbases and create content such that groups who have gotten their starbase to higher tiers have tasteful ways of showing their achievements. Whether that is through inclusion in content (Have the Klingon Scout Force raid "Fleet X's" Starbase (just an example)), some sort of in-universe fictional treatment, or some other method, let those who have done the work get their day in the sun.
No, I've offered two different methods that could allow a small fleet to unlock gear they want, and neither method falls into either of those two categories.
You've offered up unlocking individual projects, and even more time gating.
The first of which is ultimately going to be so price prohibitive (to prevent a large fleet from doing nothing but gear unlocks) that smaller groups will have no more chance of finishing it than they do currently. The second will allow for progression, but at such an agonizingly slow pace for fleets that are already struggling so as not to really be worth it. Good luck trying to tell people that taking over a year to go from T4 to T5 in one category is a good thing.
The end result in both cases is a large chunk of people locked into an institutionalized statistical disadvantage.
We've been though this already and I'm not going though it again with you.
Re-scaling costs is something completely different the scaling costs.
If you're talking about simply reducing the cost across the board, yes that will allow larger fleets to advance faster then small ones. It also means that they'll hit T5 in weeks rather then months, which defeats the whole purpose behind the SB system.
If you're talking about scaling the cost based on the number of people, well this is simply a bad idea and should never happen.
Feel free to keep derailing this tread with your delusions if you want. I'm trying to actually help the small fleets, something that I'll likely see next to no benefit for.
I've offered two ideas that I think are decent and based on comments in this tread so have others. If you want to point out possible flaws in those feel free. If you want to offer ways to make things better then that is also welcome.
Otherwise you're doing nothing but adding noise to this discussion.
Since changing project costs based on fleet members could be used as an exploit and implementing rules to preveng this could become quite complex, how about this:
Each fleet smaller than say 50 members gets an incentive each day on fleet marks and/or dilithium. This incentives would go into some sort of special fleet bank. Only fleet founders are allowed to spent them on any project, without the reward of fleet credits of course.
That way exploiting it would be hard because a fleet would have to reduce their members over a quite long time to benefit from it.
Just a thought, feel free to think it to the next level
That's not so bad really. I think 50 members might be too high to get free marks/dilithium. The system was designed with 25 players in mind. Unless by member you mean character.
I think any sort of system that looks at fleet size, has to look at accounts, not characters. Otherwise you will have fleets that won't allow any alts for the sake of the best price break.
That said, such a system could be workable, but it also tends to fly contrary to the idea most MMO's have about giving rewards for not doing anything.
Say a project requires 100 units of a resource, require 20 hours, and each project results in 100xp. Each person generates and contributes 10 resources every 20 hours. The 30 person group pooling their resources get 300 resources every 20 hours, enough for three projects every 20 hours. The 300 people pooling their resources get 3000 resources every 20 hours, enough for thirty projects every 20 hours.
Individually, each person has done the same amount of "work" - they each contributed 10 units of resources every 20 hours. Individually, they should each generate 10xp every 20 hours. On a per group basis, the 300 person group should generate 10 times the xp of the 30 person group. This is completely fair on an individual basis. Everybody does the same amount of work, everybody gets exactly the same amount of rewards. Each individual's work is equally valued - no diminishing returns.
We see this principle in other areas. For example, five people attacking the same target kills it 5 times as fast as just one of them attacking the target. Putting that same complaint in this context makes it obvious how unreasonable it is - why should one person expect to kill a target as quickly as five people working together? Each individual's effort has the same ROI. One person does one fifth the damage of five people; five people do five times as much damage as one person.
However, the project system does not follow this principle of equal ROI for individual effort. The system is in fact biased in favor of smaller groups. With my example numbers, it is biased towards groups of 30. The project system is structured in such a way to limit the progress larger groups can make. Ignoring special projects which have a ridiculously low ROI, there can only be 3 projects running every 20 hours. The optimal group size of 30 generates 300 resources every 20 hours, resulting in 300xp every 20 hours - exactly the same as the group of 300.
If we simply stop here, we would support the disingenuous "less people means more work" assertion. However, that completely ignores provisions and Fleet Credits. In order for each individual to have the same amount of provisions and Fleet Credits, exactly the same amount of individual work needs to be done. If each of the 300 people merely do one-tenth the work of those in the group of 30, they would each only have one-tenth of their individual Fleet Credits and provisions.
Since they are limited to 3 projects at once, it actually takes ten times longer for the group of 300 to attain the same individual returns as the group of 30. What this means is that each individual ends up having to do the same amount of work, but those in the optimal group size get access up to ten times earlier! The system is not biased towards groups larger than the optimal size!
On average, each individual get access at the same time. That is the "obvious" that you're missing. Tilting the entire system towards smaller groups would thus be unfairly advantageous for smaller group sizes.
However, when project requirements increase drastically, the "optimal size" also increases dramatically. In my example numbers above, the optimal size is 30. If the projects suddenly require 1000 units of resources, the optimal size becomes 300, and the size-30 group members suddenly need almost double their income (19 per 20 hours instead of 10 per 20 hours).
This increase in optimal size per tier is working as designed. Consider Dstahl's recent answer about the system:
That underlined portion gives us the mindset the system was designed around. Smaller Fleets weren't supposed to reach higher tiers in the first place - while Option B (the current system) allows for smaller Fleets to reach higher tiers of Fleet Holdings, you're not supposed to, and it takes a ton of extra work. It's kind of like grinding to level 99 in a Final Fantasy before the final story boss, who you can then steamroll. You're allowed to, but you're not supposed to, and it takes a ton of extra work.
Of course, this extra work is in no way just "a bit harder". :rolleyes: Option B is essentially Option A, only it's a soft cap instead of a hard cap. You can do it, but it's not really feasible.
Fleets smaller than the optimal size obviously won't be happy about how the system is balanced. Their complaints about the system favoring larger fleets is basically missing the point entirely. The system favors the optimal size for a particular tier, and functions as a soft cap such that large fleets have higher tier fleet holdings.
Just like Option A is unlikely to be changed due to complaints by smaller guilds, I highly doubt our current system would be changed to accommodate smaller fleets, especially since money is involved. Even if they will never officially admit it, they want you to become a part of a larger social group, because those who do tend to hang around longer and spend more money. They especially don't want people forming tiny fleets for the sake of bank slots (since that would otherwise be purchased with actual money).
Took me so long to write the above I couldn't incorporate your comment into my post. As I said, the "optimal size" increases due to increases in requirements. I'm not sure 25 active players is really the optimal size for attaining Tier 5 holdings. The T5 Starbase project requires 3,600,000 Dilithium, which means 144,000 Dilithium each. 18 days of refining per person is quite a lot.
That could very well be true, but IIRC they said when the SB system came out that they balanced things around 25 person fleets.
The idea that the current cost being a soft cap is an interesting one, and what ever they intended it effectively does work as a soft cap putting a limit on how far a fleet can reasonably go.
You know that refining cap of Dilitium? that can remain in tact for players with the exception of
*trumpet intro*
Fleet Dilitium Holding:
A section of the fleet holdings in which members of the fleet may add any unrefined Dilitium they have. This Dilitium is instantly refined for the fleet to complete fleet projects ONLY. Dilitium refined in this way may not be removed from the Fleet Dilitium Holding, only added.
The key for the survival of the small fleet would appear to be effective management of projects based on what the membership feel able to provide and perhaps limiting the number of concurrent projects available to them so as to effectively channel available resources if not already being done. Speaking from experience, my fleet was and still is of the mindset that if all projects are not running at the same time then the fleet is making no progress, which is in fact a fallacy.
My fleet had particular trouble with this until recently particularly with the special projects which provide negligible gain in XP for a rather increased cost. Once this was removed other projects began to get filled more rapidly and the fleet expanded in Tier rapidly. These projects seem to be working by design as sinks over the longer cooldown period as opposed to consistently running.
With this in mind, perhaps it would be better to unlock these types of missions only at higher tiers (3,4 or 5) so as to give them their intended purpose as sinks rather than being used as a means for progression in smaller fleets. The same would apply to the basic provisioning assignments, perhaps these should only be available during the upgrade periods and at end tier starbase progression as they provide no experiential gain at all for the fleet and again are designed purely as sinks.
In addition, it might be better to more clearly label or instruct fleet leaders on which projects to choose and for what reasons. At the moment there is a lot of choice which could in my opinion be stymieing progress unnecessarily.
TLDR: Remove the sink missions for the lower tiers to allow them to concentrate on growth and learn to manage the base effectively. They unlock the sinks at higher tiers where they actually become somewhat useful. In addition better explain the mechanics of projects and their benefits, in game.
I do not see this necessarily as the way forward, while dilithium is expensive it can be bought with real life money and with the exception of upgrades, none of the missions that progress a base actually require it.
I don't know about your proposal exactly having less work for the devs'. It would most likely need a formula involving two independent variables in an equation tied to a slider. It's been three years and these guys haven't been able to fix coding that forces ships to de-cloak when a dialogue screen opens.
On the contrary.... Most of the Provisioning Projects DO require Dilitium, especially at higher tiers. They may not "advance" the starbase with only half the XP of their 1k counterparts but they sure do provide the fleet with supplies.
http://www.stowiki.org/List_of_starbase_projects