Is the measure of this game the size of the fleet or the enjoyment one has.
Let us set aside for now the number of commodities that were required for past starbase and embassy projects.
What I would like to know is this;
Is it possible to program this game so that whatever size fleet you are in it requires X amount of man hours per person.
Is this not reasonable?
I measure this game by the amount of fun I have, not whether mine is bigger than yours.
A very noble thought...
But hardly applicable since one of the key aspects of playing a game is being better (bigger) than another player.
The fact that real-world money can also be involved in playing this particular game, is another reason being noble takes a backseat most of the time.
I'm not saying that is a good thing... but it's an undeniable fact.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
darkjeff has shown mathematically earlier in this thread the optimum number of people needed in a fleet is 30, not 500. Therefore a large (more inefficient) fleet is 30+ active members, everything at or below that is "a small fleet"
Actually, I didn't calculate the actual optimal size, I just came to a general conclusion. My analysis was done using sample numbers, so we can see how the current system actually works.
I assumed an average player income (of resources over time), with everyone earning roughly the same amount. Given that "resources" cover everything from Dilithium to Fleet Marks to Warp Coils, individual incomes would vary wildly. Given that average, we can compare that with the cost of projects determine the optimal amount of members for Fleet progression.
Anything above this optimal amount does not increase the speed of completion, and members of any size Fleet of optimal and larger size still need to do equivalent amounts of "work" for equal access to rewards due to Fleet Credits. Lastly, on average the members of a Fleet larger than the optimal size will receive rewards later than those members in a Fleet of optimal size, due to the need for provisions.
The farther below the optimal size a Fleet is, the slower the progression. Optimal size is determined by project costs, and project costs rise dramatically every tier, effectively forming a soft cap on maximum tier holdings for Fleets of a particular size. Note that optimal Fleet size scales linearly with project resources. Given a set average player income, if project requirements double then so does the optimal Fleet size.
Note also that the Dilithium refinement cap plays a part in this. All three of the T4 provision projects require 174k Dilithium, which means a minimum of 22 members fully contributing their maximum daily refined Dilithium.
For some this is true. There are also those out there who simply don't care what other players have or don't have.
Kind of a non-point since this discussion is mainly about acquiring bigger and better things in the game for oneself, not who has what.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Even a rough analysis is an analysis, that even given vague numbers is a more scientific approach than simply saying large fleets have it easier which isn't precisely true as they still have some limiting factors id est time. Everything else can either be bought with in game or real life money even by only one person should they have the resources to do so.
Obviously the costs will increase with tier, this is again rather obviously by design so as to see fleets gradually increase in size.
The point I was trying to make was that, in effect, fleet holdings have already been scaled so as to allow smaller fleets to make some progression without making progression beyond the soft cap impossible.
This would also seem to be by design and something which is seemingly overlooked and or ignored in this thread.
The long and short of it is that Cryptic designed it to be hard for small fleets to force you to expand your active player base and by extension the longevity of the game (and their profit margins) They have basically said to sub optimal fleets that they should be grateful for this and that they won't change it.
The point about fleet mark boosts is somewhat moot as they can as I recall be purchased from fleet vendors for fleet credit and or be found in lock boxes, in addition to this Cryptic have once again placed a large injection of marks into the system in order to offset the removal from the foundry exploit missions.
Again, how do you measure your enjoyment?
The greatest enjoyment I have is when I team with Admiral _____________ to do storyline missions and STFS whether they are Borg or Romulan.
My question is this is it possible to program this game so that it requires X amount of man-hours to accomplish a project and therefore negate the problem of fleet size?
divadretep: As I have stated previously, all fleet projects are limited by the cooldown time which takes them to complete. This ranges from 20 hours to 2 weeks in some cases.
This is the bottleneck which by design affects all fleets and limits their progression regardless of membership size. To answer your question in simple terms: yes it is this way by design.
I have found that by becoming a fleet leader and having to manage all these issues and the politics involved my enjoyment has decreased exponentially which for the moment has reached a plateau. Fortunately for me, most of those who objected to my leadership have since left, which has made it a trifle easier and I have good friends on whom I can rely to run my fleet in my absence.
NB: Please note that there may be gender differences in your audience, when you address them. It is considered a modicum of respect.
This was posted in the monster thread, I thought I'd move it here since people are actually discussing the issue...
So here's a first pass at a reasonably non-exploitable fleet scaling system.
Fleets are grouped into the following five sizes:
Very Small (1-25)
Small (26-50)
Medium (51-100)
Large (101-200)
Vary Large (201-500)
The number of members in a fleet is determined by the number of characters in the fleet over a seven-day period. (I.e., any time a character leaves a fleet, that character slot is 'reserved' and not freed up for seven days. This keeps churn down, but allows the same character to come back within the seven day period without counting twice.)
The fleet leader can change the size of the fleet at any time. Downgrading to a smaller fleet size is free (as long as the number of fleet members is below the max of the new size). Upgrading to a larger fleet size causes the loss of one tier. You lose any improvements that requires the tier you lost. You downgrade to the bottom of the lower tier. Example: Your Medium fleet has a tier IV starbase, with tier IV shipyard, tier II industrial fabricator and tier IV communications array, with 10000 Starbase XP, 140000 Military XP, 50000 Engineering XP and 110000 Science XP. After you upgrade your fleet to Large, you would have a tier III starbase, with tier III shipyard, tier II industrial fabricator, and tier III communications array, with 8000 Starbase XP, 50000 Military XP, 25000 Engineering XP and 50000 Science XP. If you decide to upgrade right there to Very Large, you'd go down to a tier II starbase with tier II shipyard, tier I industrial fabricator, and tier II communicatinos array, with 5000 Starbase XP, 25000 Military XP, 10000 Engineering XP and 25000 Science XP.
At the time of conversion, all fleets are automatically Very Large, and it's up to the leaders to downgrade as desired.
Now this is where the scaling comes in. Smaller fleets pay less resources for their projects, but they take longer, and in the case of projects that create provisions, they create fewer provisions for the fleet. Here are the scaling factors.
Very Small: 20% resource cost, 200% time requirement, 20% provisions
Small: 40% resource cost, 150% time requirement, 40% provisions
Medium: 60% resource cost, 125% time requirement, 60% provisions
Large: 80% resource cost, 110% time requirement, 80% provisions
Very Large: 100% resource cost, 100% time requirement, 100% provisions
These scaling factors have two effects: 1) they make it affordable for a small fleet to work on fleet projects while ensuring that a large fleet that has the resources will always be faster and 2) the limitation on provisioning makes it impractical to build up a very small fleet starbase and use it to serve the needs of a large fleet by rotating members through.
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Some of the objections/feedback from the other thread:
Unfortunately, there would be a workaround on this one. Larger fleet Commanders would simply cut loose their non productive or less productive members in favor of cheaper projects. If given the opportunity; I fear a good portion would bite at the chance. If you have a 100 man fleet,but only 20 contribute the majority, it would be in their best interest to let the others go,and allow the highly productive members to work a little less to get way more.
This isn't really a workaround. If a fleet would rather be a smaller organization where everyone contributes than a large organization where only a few do, that's a valid choice. This doesn't so much point out a flaw with the plan as it points out that fleet leaders will have to make a choice whether keeping non-contributing fleet members is worthwhile.
- When (if) implemented, fleet leader makes a one time size call with no penalties. Afterwards follows the system as outlined, otherwise penalizes fleets that were always small.
- Resource costs on a per person basis should favour larger fleets (more hands, less work), so your percentages may need to be adjusted.
Point one should be addressed by setting the initial size at Very Large (same system/costs as today) and allowing free downgrades in size.
Point two - agreed, these are very rough numbers which would need some fine tuning (but not a lot, I think.)
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
I wouldn't mind joining a larger fleet base or whatever and contribute but i don't want to subject rules and regulations. I just benefit equality by my contributions, but i think if you could have perhaps a community star-base or something else that would benefit smaller fleets or groups or those that don't wish to be apart of it would make the most sense.
So, why not have a new starbase or outpost built that is built by people that are in small fleets, but have access to everything the fleets starbase would. This way it would be assessable to everything and have a little slice of the pie per se. Even perhaps allow individuals or smaller fleets to abandon such fleets and close them and open up DS9 for those to have a slice of the station and be able to have a fleet bank with so many slots available to that person. I don't know, just a thought.
Commander Shran - You tell Archer, that is three the pink skin owes me!
This topic is dropping fast I presume because of the FM's being more freely available again but the problems still remain so I will try once more.
Thanks for the explanation Darkjeff you summed the current system up well. I still don't see how my suggested system is not better then the current but it's easy just to say that so I will try to explain why I think that.
(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.
I was with you until the xp that you mentioned. The whole point about scaling is to make people pay the same resources for the same rewards, to give everyone a level playing field. The xp gained doesn't need to be higher because every fleet has the same xp requirements for the next tier, to try and explain with some sort of numbers just on one resource......
If the price of the next project is 1k dil for each person and gives 1k xp in total then....
Fleet of 1 needs 1k dil and it's on a 20h timer for that 1k xp
Fleet of 500 should scale to need 500k and it's on a 20h timer for that 1k xp
The fact that both fleets need the same xp to advance to the next tier makes the xp gained per project moot really, if both fleets hit their timers each day both fleets will level up a tier at the same time.
With this method everyone pays the same average amount per person. The xp gained should not come into it as both groups groups mentioned will still need to complete the same number of required projects to gain enough xp to advance. Everyone would also gain similar amounts of fleet credits too as the amounts of resources needed are on a per person amount which is the same regardless of whether the fleet is big or small. While you will always get some people that chip in more it would only be someone's own fault if they were not putting in enough over the long time frame that SBs take to develop to pay for what they wanted.
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.
What you are talking about is a secondary problem caused by the current system as if it wasn't already messed up enough. You actually picked up on it partly yourself but you were just explaining how the system is working and not giving any ideas as you said.
Lack of provisions and fleet credits are a symptom of the system not being scaled, as you said ?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.? Therein lies the problem because large fleets are not getting bottlenecked in the same way and can complete many projects without having to wait for days or weeks for things like dil. Amounts are not scaled so while the devs based the system on the average size fleet which was 25 back then a fleet of 500 now can use 20 times less resources per person to get a mission going then a fleet of 25 and 500 times less resources each then an individual. If they were all paying the same per person as a smaller fleet then as I pointed out already they would have similar fleet credits.
Provisioning then becomes the only real obstacle and if the amount of resources going in is scaled to make this work then the rewards should be scaled too. If that was the case then Cryptic just needs to set a price for one single provision and then either sell them in 1's, 5's, 10's etc, or let us put the amount that we want in an amount box and the game itself calcs the mission costs based on that price per provision. Not looked so no idea on the timers but they could be set to 1 minute if provision timers are too long, provisions are just a cost split at the end of the day instead of charging you more for for your wanted item.
The only problem to a fair system like I have suggested is stopping exploitation of it. The suggestion that I gave to counter that is to scale costs using the fleet size and that can be tracked with the solution that I gave in my original post but to save finding it again....
Record a fleet's size over a period of time by using slots in a grid or array. You could use 100 or 500 or whatever number seems the best amount to track. The data you are using could be for example the last 500 days or hours and each new day or hour would see that new data going into the last slot while everything shuffles one place back and the first slot value is dumped to make up for what used to be slot 2's value.
Can't really see a simpler way of describing this, tracking fleets like this you should get a good accurate reading unless the fleet had a major clear out recently that has not filtered far enough through yet. The same will obviously work the other way too with a big influx not showing straight away but you should be able to reduce those type of affects by not taking quite as many data points to analyse. You could even use one of the other suggestions people have made to help mass influx and exodus problems by capping new arrivals per day or whatever.
It's questionable how badly larger fleets are affected by provisioning when they are apparently happy enough to give people limited access to buy things from their fleet for a price. On the flip side it should be quite obvious that a small fleet will hit a wall when they have to find millions of dil for projects and they can only by design refine 8k a day, with my system both these problems should go away though or at least be the same for everyone.
People would not even need to move to a big fleet to get gear and if they did it would be because they actually wanted to instead of needed to. There would also be no need to spam people to join fleets or dump people once objectives have been achieved as the prices of projects are scaled.
The big problem I see with scaled progression is that it is unnecessarily complex. They have to account for fleet size, fleet growth, and loss of members. And it has to be easily implementable by Cryptic, easily maintainable by Cryptic, and non-exploitable. And, I will admit, it's simply not fair to larger fleets to effectively penalize them for being too big.
I understand that we're being penalized for being too small, and I wish Cryptic had balanced things a bit differently. But here we are and now we need to convince Cryptic that there is a way to help small fleets without creating exploits, without harming their bottom line, and without being unfair to large fleets.
I've already talked about my "Minor Holdings" idea and will not repeat it. It suffers from the fatal flaw of needing a lot of development resources to implement, at least initially.
Some simple suggestions have been offered up that might be enough to give small fleets a boost.
1. Ways to Obtain What You Don't Have
One of the problems that ALL fleets have is that you can get stuck on completing a project for lack of a resource you can't reasonably get. That could be anything from Fleet Marks to Dilithium to DOFFs. They've definitely done some needful work to make this easier, but Cryptic could still do a little more.
2. Ways to Cancel or Suspend Projects You Can't Complete
Again, this is something that applies to ALL fleets. Projects are "blocking" in the sense that, once started, you can't stop and work on another project in its' place. This, in turn, brings fleet progression to a screeching halt.
I don't like the idea of cancelling a project because you either lose everything you spent on it or there has to be some complicated scheme for "refunding" that makes the Devs' lives difficult enough that it's unlikely to happen.
It would make a lot more sense if all of the project queues we had included the ability to change the active project in each queue and suspend an active project you're having trouble completing. Even the ability to switch between two queued projects would have a major impact.
This would not necessarily be simple to implement, but it would be a huge QoL improvement for every fleet.
3. More Variations on Projects and Requirements Mix
By increasing the number of projects and the mix of requirements needed to complete, it would allow ALL fleets to more efficiently use the resources they are able to obtain and stockpile. This would allow fleets to base their projects on the materials they have available as a result of playing the content they want to play, rather than forcing them to grind missions they don't want for the materials they don't have.
It could have the bonus of making ALL playable content valuable for fleets. To give an example, maybe an alternative project might use fewer fleet marks at the cost of an increase in Dilithium, Commodities, or Data Samples.
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It could have the bonus of making ALL playable content valuable for fleets. To give an example, maybe an alternative project might use fewer fleet marks at the cost of an increase in Dilithium, Commodities, or Data Samples.
BLAM - right there. That's all they could do make it a lot better, imo.
I have to agree that there should be more variation in projects.
I was really surprised that we didn't have projects with different cost/time ratios and alternate inputs.
Some simple suggestions have been offered up that might be enough to give small fleets a boost.
1. Ways to Obtain What You Don't Have
2. Ways to Cancel or Suspend Projects You Can't Complete
3. More Variations on Projects and Requirements Mix.
I'm not sure that #2 is as much of an issue if 1 and 3 are implemented. In our current state it certainly is a big deal, but with flexibility I think it becomes less of a problem. Still I'd be glad to have it.
On #3, I still haven't seen anything better than my suggestion to keep the "fleet credit" value of the project equal but allow any mix of the requirements instead of fixed amounts of them. They don't need to add any more projects but we are suddenly able to work around any bottleneck.
Yes it helps big fleets as much as small ones. But so what, I call that a win-win.
#1 I think the only issue with this one was the god awful Christmas project that because of the nature of it could have been left to stagnate on a number of fleets. Other than that, I think most of the things bases require are straight forward to acquire, even if they are pricey.
#2 Is a large issue for my fleet's KDF counterpart. Often projects are started without a realistic timeframe of completion. Further, it might make it a bit easier for the small fleets to get the special projects done as well, as they would be able to start a project and suspend it until they got some dilithium together for it.
#3 Would be good, but I think they need to look at the possible rewards for these as well. I mean "Basic Provisioning" is clearly a sink meant for end level base provisioning, but it's available from moment one. I don't think we need so many options to over-complicate it.
To be fair to cryptic, they did "dumb" down the requirements a lot (anyone remember Dosi Rotgut and what it sold for on the exchange?) although now all the projects seem to have the same requirements which is a bit boring and easier to stockpile for.
The big problem I see with scaled progression is that it is unnecessarily complex. They have to account for fleet size, fleet growth, and loss of members. And it has to be easily implementable by Cryptic, easily maintainable by Cryptic, and non-exploitable. And, I will admit, it's simply not fair to larger fleets to effectively penalize them for being too big.
I understand that we're being penalized for being too small, and I wish Cryptic had balanced things a bit differently. But here we are and now we need to convince Cryptic that there is a way to help small fleets without creating exploits, without harming their bottom line, and without being unfair to large fleets.
I've already talked about my "Minor Holdings" idea and will not repeat it. It suffers from the fatal flaw of needing a lot of development resources to implement, at least initially.
Some simple suggestions have been offered up that might be enough to give small fleets a boost.
1. Ways to Obtain What You Don't Have
One of the problems that ALL fleets have is that you can get stuck on completing a project for lack of a resource you can't reasonably get. That could be anything from Fleet Marks to Dilithium to DOFFs. They've definitely done some needful work to make this easier, but Cryptic could still do a little more.
2. Ways to Cancel or Suspend Projects You Can't Complete
Again, this is something that applies to ALL fleets. Projects are "blocking" in the sense that, once started, you can't stop and work on another project in its' place. This, in turn, brings fleet progression to a screeching halt.
I don't like the idea of cancelling a project because you either lose everything you spent on it or there has to be some complicated scheme for "refunding" that makes the Devs' lives difficult enough that it's unlikely to happen.
It would make a lot more sense if all of the project queues we had included the ability to change the active project in each queue and suspend an active project you're having trouble completing. Even the ability to switch between two queued projects would have a major impact.
This would not necessarily be simple to implement, but it would be a huge QoL improvement for every fleet.
3. More Variations on Projects and Requirements Mix
By increasing the number of projects and the mix of requirements needed to complete, it would allow ALL fleets to more efficiently use the resources they are able to obtain and stockpile. This would allow fleets to base their projects on the materials they have available as a result of playing the content they want to play, rather than forcing them to grind missions they don't want for the materials they don't have.
It could have the bonus of making ALL playable content valuable for fleets. To give an example, maybe an alternative project might use fewer fleet marks at the cost of an increase in Dilithium, Commodities, or Data Samples.
I don't see the need to account for growth or loss of members quite so much. If there is a set cost per person that is used for the scaling then that person would just remove or add extra to project costs once their movement trickles through into the fleet size stat.
People would not need to move fleets unless they wanted to which to me should be the case anyway, instead of moving just to get quicker access to some toys.
I said previously though that players could get bonuses, discounts or other things for fleet loyalty too. That idea might actually be worthy in any system though including the current one. The rewards could be random and be daily or weekly for example and if it's just something like a 1% ground team buff for the day it doesn't even costs Cryptic but is positive PR wise regardless.
I don't see how all fleets paying the same per person hurts anyone. Fleets of over 25 as of now would pay more per person then they do at the moment but in my suggestion all would be equal as it should be in a game that wants your cash.
Also as was touched on in the last reply, the current system creates the added problem of fleet credit shortfalls and provisioning for big fleets. Those problems go away with my suggestion though as larger fleets would gain more fleet credits from their project costs coming into line with everyone else's.
The benefit to Cryptic has to be positive as all is seen to be equal for starters and if nothing else small fleets will spend more as they push for something that they have given up on now because they know it's too far out of reach as it is at the moment.
No good at formulas but it should look something like this if you get my gist.....
Project material cost per person (CPP) * Average fleet size (AFS) = Project cost
The AFS would be gathered by recording the fleet size each hour or day for a period, so for example we could record the fleet size each day for 25 days. You could actually just call that collected data the total fleet size (TFS) so to get the AFS you would just need....
TFS / 25 (25 days of data) = AFS
Doing it like that should reduce possible abuse to the scaling costs, as large amounts of people leaving or joining would take time to trickle through the data and affect the AFS.
Your idea about shuffling projects around sounds really good and should probably be in there now. It should work in my suggestion too I suppose but the project costs would need to readjust using the current AFS when the project was moved back into the main slot. You could just use the current two slot queue system but only allow one mission to countown at a time when completed.
Why should the efforts of someone be worth 500 times less than someone else, just because they have more people working alongside them?
It's not worth less, it's worth the same.
You mentioned xp and timers, I pointed out that those things affect everyone the same and it comes down to the resources needed to meet the project costs.
If for example a mission currently costs 1k dill on a 20h timer then....
1 person = 1k dill = 20h
500 people = 1k dill (1/500th of the cost per person) = 20h
Now the xp needed to get to the next starbase tier is the same whether large or small fleets so it's all about filling those projects up as fast as they become available. That's where big fleets benefit as they currently have to (per person) put in way less for the same xp.
If you used my suggestion then everyone would be paying the same base costs for the project that is multiplied by the average fleet size. That would mean that everyone whether in a big or small fleet has the potential to pay the same costs for the same missions with the same xp rewards going towards the same tier costs needed to reach the next level, the actual fleet xp gained towards the next tier is irrelevent really and doesn't need to be scaled at all.
Those problems go away with my suggestion though as larger fleets would gain more fleet credits from their project costs coming into line with everyone else's.
Cost based on membership does not work, and is inherently unfair to large fleets which you are effectively punishing for being successful at recruiting.
It's also far to late to make such a drastic change to the system. There's fleets out there right now that have completed T5 of their SB, so the window to make a drastic change in the cost of SB's has closed.
You can't expect to see the cost of a SB go up by 3 to 5 times, for a Fleet, just because they're 3 to 5 times larger then what ever is considered the baseline size.
You also can't really expect to see the cost cut by that much just because you are in a 5 person fleet. The very idea that a 5 person fleet should get a 500% discount on the cost of the SB compared to a 250 person fleet is way out of line.
You appear to have split the existing system into two and are discussing just one section.
The "problem" of insufficient fleet credits and provisions actually counterbalances the "problem" of members of large fleets contributing less. Using a single component of the system as the basis for any change is flawed. The actual "problem" is the inability to actually get the projects launched in a reasonable amount of time, which is what you then address - except you start off with the wrong premise.
If projects can all be launched on cooldown, the time/work necessary on an individual basis to gain access to higher tier facilities is going to be roughly the same, and the system is "fair". The work/reward system as it exists would already be entirely "fair", if it wasn't for the costs of projects being apparently unattainable. Which appears to be an intentional soft cap on what tier of holdings a particular size Fleet can attain.
At the same time, they say a smaller Fleet should be able to attain higher tier holdings but take longer - and on a psychological level it would be far better to simply offer longer projects with smaller costs.
For example, if it currently takes 60 hours to gather enough resources for a project that lasts 20 hours, then it takes 80 hours to acquire that chunk of XP. The same result can be attained with a project that lasts 80 hours but is three times easier to fill. The total duration required to reach the next tier would be the same, but the amount of work required becomes significantly reduced and considerably more palatable.
Might just be me, but I'm thinking we will see more variation of projects as time goes on.
Except I'm not quite that optimistic.
Unless Cryptic is convinced that they need to make more kinds of projects available under each kind of Holding, they're not likely going to revisit it. Like any developer, it's more cool and cost-effective to do something new than to go back and muck around with something that's already "working as intended".
As much as I'd like to see projects with reduced fleet mark costs in return for increases in something else, I see Cryptic tending to stick with what they have now and reserve any new project mixes for theoretical future holdings. You'll notice that at any given tier, the fleet mark costs for the different projects doesn't change. I suspect that's by design. The system isn't designed around a fleet of people who play the Exchange or Roleplay or do Foundry missions together. It's not intended that anyone can 'solo' a starbase without extreme effort. They want you to do x number of certain group missions in order to complete a given project and they don't seem to be interested in changing that number a lot.
That said, the current project mix is not friendly to small fleets that would prefer to stockpile materials over time instead of sinking large amounts of EC's. Project variations would let fleets more easily use what they have instead of grinding or buying what they don't have. I think it's a good idea and I hope Cryptic seriously considers having someone go back and build more projects into the Starbase system.
By itself, though, I don't think it's quite enough. The ability to shuffle the queues and keep projects from stalling out and blocking completion of other projects is really needed and would help a lot.
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Interesting thought. Wouldn't everyone, including large fleets, just take the cheaper projects and wait the extra time? Why bother with spending so much in resources when you can do it for less, just wait a day or two more.
It's a major difference though.
Assume my random numbers are correct (20hr project vs 80hr project). If it takes 10 projects to attain the next tier, that's a difference between 200hrs and 800hrs, 25 days!
Now, a small fleet (in my example) will take 800 hours regardless of how the project is structured - either the project is taking 80 hours each and they're waiting, or they're taking 60 hours between projects to launch them. For them, the difference is doing 75% less work. The time it takes is the same.
A large fleet however, if they can meet the requirements for the 20hr projects, would be able to attain the next tier almost a month earlier. I don't think the large fleets will be concerned with "saving" resources if the time difference is that long.
Unless Cryptic is convinced that they need to make more kinds of projects available under each kind of Holding, they're not likely going to revisit it. Like any developer, it's more cool and cost-effective to do something new than to go back and muck around with something that's already "working as intended".
I don't know how much work it takes to add more projects. It's probably nothing more than an additional database entry, really - they were able to tweak project completion times and costs without much problems before.
For them, the difference is doing 75% less work. The time it takes is the same.
This is basically the same idea as my slider idea, only I'd say easier to implement. All it would require is more projects put into the system rather then a new mechanic.
This is basically the same idea as my slider idea, only I'd say easier to implement. All it would require is more projects put into the system rather then a new mechanic.
Yes, I was basically just using your suggestion as an example of something that would work, in my post critiquing pakledgenius' (and other) unbalanced suggestions that all revolve around handing small fleets an advantage.
Comments
Is the measure of this game the size of the fleet or the enjoyment one has.
Let us set aside for now the number of commodities that were required for past starbase and embassy projects.
What I would like to know is this;
Is it possible to program this game so that whatever size fleet you are in it requires X amount of man hours per person.
Is this not reasonable?
I measure this game by the amount of fun I have, not whether mine is bigger than yours.
A very noble thought...
But hardly applicable since one of the key aspects of playing a game is being better (bigger) than another player.
The fact that real-world money can also be involved in playing this particular game, is another reason being noble takes a backseat most of the time.
I'm not saying that is a good thing... but it's an undeniable fact.
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I assumed an average player income (of resources over time), with everyone earning roughly the same amount. Given that "resources" cover everything from Dilithium to Fleet Marks to Warp Coils, individual incomes would vary wildly. Given that average, we can compare that with the cost of projects determine the optimal amount of members for Fleet progression.
Anything above this optimal amount does not increase the speed of completion, and members of any size Fleet of optimal and larger size still need to do equivalent amounts of "work" for equal access to rewards due to Fleet Credits. Lastly, on average the members of a Fleet larger than the optimal size will receive rewards later than those members in a Fleet of optimal size, due to the need for provisions.
The farther below the optimal size a Fleet is, the slower the progression. Optimal size is determined by project costs, and project costs rise dramatically every tier, effectively forming a soft cap on maximum tier holdings for Fleets of a particular size. Note that optimal Fleet size scales linearly with project resources. Given a set average player income, if project requirements double then so does the optimal Fleet size.
Note also that the Dilithium refinement cap plays a part in this. All three of the T4 provision projects require 174k Dilithium, which means a minimum of 22 members fully contributing their maximum daily refined Dilithium.
Kind of a non-point since this discussion is mainly about acquiring bigger and better things in the game for oneself, not who has what.
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Obviously the costs will increase with tier, this is again rather obviously by design so as to see fleets gradually increase in size.
The point I was trying to make was that, in effect, fleet holdings have already been scaled so as to allow smaller fleets to make some progression without making progression beyond the soft cap impossible.
This would also seem to be by design and something which is seemingly overlooked and or ignored in this thread.
The long and short of it is that Cryptic designed it to be hard for small fleets to force you to expand your active player base and by extension the longevity of the game (and their profit margins) They have basically said to sub optimal fleets that they should be grateful for this and that they won't change it.
The point about fleet mark boosts is somewhat moot as they can as I recall be purchased from fleet vendors for fleet credit and or be found in lock boxes, in addition to this Cryptic have once again placed a large injection of marks into the system in order to offset the removal from the foundry exploit missions.
Again, how do you measure your enjoyment?
The greatest enjoyment I have is when I team with Admiral _____________ to do storyline missions and STFS whether they are Borg or Romulan.
My question is this is it possible to program this game so that it requires X amount of man-hours to accomplish a project and therefore negate the problem of fleet size?
Fellow gamers, I believe the answer is yes.
This is the bottleneck which by design affects all fleets and limits their progression regardless of membership size. To answer your question in simple terms: yes it is this way by design.
I have found that by becoming a fleet leader and having to manage all these issues and the politics involved my enjoyment has decreased exponentially which for the moment has reached a plateau. Fortunately for me, most of those who objected to my leadership have since left, which has made it a trifle easier and I have good friends on whom I can rely to run my fleet in my absence.
NB: Please note that there may be gender differences in your audience, when you address them. It is considered a modicum of respect.
So here's a first pass at a reasonably non-exploitable fleet scaling system.
Fleets are grouped into the following five sizes:
Very Small (1-25)
Small (26-50)
Medium (51-100)
Large (101-200)
Vary Large (201-500)
The number of members in a fleet is determined by the number of characters in the fleet over a seven-day period. (I.e., any time a character leaves a fleet, that character slot is 'reserved' and not freed up for seven days. This keeps churn down, but allows the same character to come back within the seven day period without counting twice.)
The fleet leader can change the size of the fleet at any time. Downgrading to a smaller fleet size is free (as long as the number of fleet members is below the max of the new size). Upgrading to a larger fleet size causes the loss of one tier. You lose any improvements that requires the tier you lost. You downgrade to the bottom of the lower tier. Example: Your Medium fleet has a tier IV starbase, with tier IV shipyard, tier II industrial fabricator and tier IV communications array, with 10000 Starbase XP, 140000 Military XP, 50000 Engineering XP and 110000 Science XP. After you upgrade your fleet to Large, you would have a tier III starbase, with tier III shipyard, tier II industrial fabricator, and tier III communications array, with 8000 Starbase XP, 50000 Military XP, 25000 Engineering XP and 50000 Science XP. If you decide to upgrade right there to Very Large, you'd go down to a tier II starbase with tier II shipyard, tier I industrial fabricator, and tier II communicatinos array, with 5000 Starbase XP, 25000 Military XP, 10000 Engineering XP and 25000 Science XP.
At the time of conversion, all fleets are automatically Very Large, and it's up to the leaders to downgrade as desired.
Now this is where the scaling comes in. Smaller fleets pay less resources for their projects, but they take longer, and in the case of projects that create provisions, they create fewer provisions for the fleet. Here are the scaling factors.
Very Small: 20% resource cost, 200% time requirement, 20% provisions
Small: 40% resource cost, 150% time requirement, 40% provisions
Medium: 60% resource cost, 125% time requirement, 60% provisions
Large: 80% resource cost, 110% time requirement, 80% provisions
Very Large: 100% resource cost, 100% time requirement, 100% provisions
These scaling factors have two effects: 1) they make it affordable for a small fleet to work on fleet projects while ensuring that a large fleet that has the resources will always be faster and 2) the limitation on provisioning makes it impractical to build up a very small fleet starbase and use it to serve the needs of a large fleet by rotating members through.
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Some of the objections/feedback from the other thread:
This is totally up to the player. Any player that feels that the chance of losing progress is unacceptable need only keep their fleet at Very Large.
This isn't really a workaround. If a fleet would rather be a smaller organization where everyone contributes than a large organization where only a few do, that's a valid choice. This doesn't so much point out a flaw with the plan as it points out that fleet leaders will have to make a choice whether keeping non-contributing fleet members is worthwhile.
Point one should be addressed by setting the initial size at Very Large (same system/costs as today) and allowing free downgrades in size.
Point two - agreed, these are very rough numbers which would need some fine tuning (but not a lot, I think.)
So, why not have a new starbase or outpost built that is built by people that are in small fleets, but have access to everything the fleets starbase would. This way it would be assessable to everything and have a little slice of the pie per se. Even perhaps allow individuals or smaller fleets to abandon such fleets and close them and open up DS9 for those to have a slice of the station and be able to have a fleet bank with so many slots available to that person. I don't know, just a thought.
Thanks for the explanation Darkjeff you summed the current system up well. I still don't see how my suggested system is not better then the current but it's easy just to say that so I will try to explain why I think that.
I was with you until the xp that you mentioned. The whole point about scaling is to make people pay the same resources for the same rewards, to give everyone a level playing field. The xp gained doesn't need to be higher because every fleet has the same xp requirements for the next tier, to try and explain with some sort of numbers just on one resource......
If the price of the next project is 1k dil for each person and gives 1k xp in total then....
Fleet of 1 needs 1k dil and it's on a 20h timer for that 1k xp
Fleet of 500 should scale to need 500k and it's on a 20h timer for that 1k xp
The fact that both fleets need the same xp to advance to the next tier makes the xp gained per project moot really, if both fleets hit their timers each day both fleets will level up a tier at the same time.
With this method everyone pays the same average amount per person. The xp gained should not come into it as both groups groups mentioned will still need to complete the same number of required projects to gain enough xp to advance. Everyone would also gain similar amounts of fleet credits too as the amounts of resources needed are on a per person amount which is the same regardless of whether the fleet is big or small. While you will always get some people that chip in more it would only be someone's own fault if they were not putting in enough over the long time frame that SBs take to develop to pay for what they wanted.
What you are talking about is a secondary problem caused by the current system as if it wasn't already messed up enough. You actually picked up on it partly yourself but you were just explaining how the system is working and not giving any ideas as you said.
Lack of provisions and fleet credits are a symptom of the system not being scaled, as you said ?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.? Therein lies the problem because large fleets are not getting bottlenecked in the same way and can complete many projects without having to wait for days or weeks for things like dil. Amounts are not scaled so while the devs based the system on the average size fleet which was 25 back then a fleet of 500 now can use 20 times less resources per person to get a mission going then a fleet of 25 and 500 times less resources each then an individual. If they were all paying the same per person as a smaller fleet then as I pointed out already they would have similar fleet credits.
Provisioning then becomes the only real obstacle and if the amount of resources going in is scaled to make this work then the rewards should be scaled too. If that was the case then Cryptic just needs to set a price for one single provision and then either sell them in 1's, 5's, 10's etc, or let us put the amount that we want in an amount box and the game itself calcs the mission costs based on that price per provision. Not looked so no idea on the timers but they could be set to 1 minute if provision timers are too long, provisions are just a cost split at the end of the day instead of charging you more for for your wanted item.
The only problem to a fair system like I have suggested is stopping exploitation of it. The suggestion that I gave to counter that is to scale costs using the fleet size and that can be tracked with the solution that I gave in my original post but to save finding it again....
Record a fleet's size over a period of time by using slots in a grid or array. You could use 100 or 500 or whatever number seems the best amount to track. The data you are using could be for example the last 500 days or hours and each new day or hour would see that new data going into the last slot while everything shuffles one place back and the first slot value is dumped to make up for what used to be slot 2's value.
Can't really see a simpler way of describing this, tracking fleets like this you should get a good accurate reading unless the fleet had a major clear out recently that has not filtered far enough through yet. The same will obviously work the other way too with a big influx not showing straight away but you should be able to reduce those type of affects by not taking quite as many data points to analyse. You could even use one of the other suggestions people have made to help mass influx and exodus problems by capping new arrivals per day or whatever.
It's questionable how badly larger fleets are affected by provisioning when they are apparently happy enough to give people limited access to buy things from their fleet for a price. On the flip side it should be quite obvious that a small fleet will hit a wall when they have to find millions of dil for projects and they can only by design refine 8k a day, with my system both these problems should go away though or at least be the same for everyone.
People would not even need to move to a big fleet to get gear and if they did it would be because they actually wanted to instead of needed to. There would also be no need to spam people to join fleets or dump people once objectives have been achieved as the prices of projects are scaled.
I understand that we're being penalized for being too small, and I wish Cryptic had balanced things a bit differently. But here we are and now we need to convince Cryptic that there is a way to help small fleets without creating exploits, without harming their bottom line, and without being unfair to large fleets.
I've already talked about my "Minor Holdings" idea and will not repeat it. It suffers from the fatal flaw of needing a lot of development resources to implement, at least initially.
Some simple suggestions have been offered up that might be enough to give small fleets a boost.
1. Ways to Obtain What You Don't Have
One of the problems that ALL fleets have is that you can get stuck on completing a project for lack of a resource you can't reasonably get. That could be anything from Fleet Marks to Dilithium to DOFFs. They've definitely done some needful work to make this easier, but Cryptic could still do a little more.
2. Ways to Cancel or Suspend Projects You Can't Complete
Again, this is something that applies to ALL fleets. Projects are "blocking" in the sense that, once started, you can't stop and work on another project in its' place. This, in turn, brings fleet progression to a screeching halt.
I don't like the idea of cancelling a project because you either lose everything you spent on it or there has to be some complicated scheme for "refunding" that makes the Devs' lives difficult enough that it's unlikely to happen.
It would make a lot more sense if all of the project queues we had included the ability to change the active project in each queue and suspend an active project you're having trouble completing. Even the ability to switch between two queued projects would have a major impact.
This would not necessarily be simple to implement, but it would be a huge QoL improvement for every fleet.
3. More Variations on Projects and Requirements Mix
By increasing the number of projects and the mix of requirements needed to complete, it would allow ALL fleets to more efficiently use the resources they are able to obtain and stockpile. This would allow fleets to base their projects on the materials they have available as a result of playing the content they want to play, rather than forcing them to grind missions they don't want for the materials they don't have.
It could have the bonus of making ALL playable content valuable for fleets. To give an example, maybe an alternative project might use fewer fleet marks at the cost of an increase in Dilithium, Commodities, or Data Samples.
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BLAM - right there. That's all they could do make it a lot better, imo.
I was really surprised that we didn't have projects with different cost/time ratios and alternate inputs.
I'm not sure that #2 is as much of an issue if 1 and 3 are implemented. In our current state it certainly is a big deal, but with flexibility I think it becomes less of a problem. Still I'd be glad to have it.
On #3, I still haven't seen anything better than my suggestion to keep the "fleet credit" value of the project equal but allow any mix of the requirements instead of fixed amounts of them. They don't need to add any more projects but we are suddenly able to work around any bottleneck.
Yes it helps big fleets as much as small ones. But so what, I call that a win-win.
#2 Is a large issue for my fleet's KDF counterpart. Often projects are started without a realistic timeframe of completion. Further, it might make it a bit easier for the small fleets to get the special projects done as well, as they would be able to start a project and suspend it until they got some dilithium together for it.
#3 Would be good, but I think they need to look at the possible rewards for these as well. I mean "Basic Provisioning" is clearly a sink meant for end level base provisioning, but it's available from moment one. I don't think we need so many options to over-complicate it.
To be fair to cryptic, they did "dumb" down the requirements a lot (anyone remember Dosi Rotgut and what it sold for on the exchange?) although now all the projects seem to have the same requirements which is a bit boring and easier to stockpile for.
I don't see the need to account for growth or loss of members quite so much. If there is a set cost per person that is used for the scaling then that person would just remove or add extra to project costs once their movement trickles through into the fleet size stat.
People would not need to move fleets unless they wanted to which to me should be the case anyway, instead of moving just to get quicker access to some toys.
I said previously though that players could get bonuses, discounts or other things for fleet loyalty too. That idea might actually be worthy in any system though including the current one. The rewards could be random and be daily or weekly for example and if it's just something like a 1% ground team buff for the day it doesn't even costs Cryptic but is positive PR wise regardless.
I don't see how all fleets paying the same per person hurts anyone. Fleets of over 25 as of now would pay more per person then they do at the moment but in my suggestion all would be equal as it should be in a game that wants your cash.
Also as was touched on in the last reply, the current system creates the added problem of fleet credit shortfalls and provisioning for big fleets. Those problems go away with my suggestion though as larger fleets would gain more fleet credits from their project costs coming into line with everyone else's.
The benefit to Cryptic has to be positive as all is seen to be equal for starters and if nothing else small fleets will spend more as they push for something that they have given up on now because they know it's too far out of reach as it is at the moment.
No good at formulas but it should look something like this if you get my gist.....
Project material cost per person (CPP) * Average fleet size (AFS) = Project cost
The AFS would be gathered by recording the fleet size each hour or day for a period, so for example we could record the fleet size each day for 25 days. You could actually just call that collected data the total fleet size (TFS) so to get the AFS you would just need....
TFS / 25 (25 days of data) = AFS
Doing it like that should reduce possible abuse to the scaling costs, as large amounts of people leaving or joining would take time to trickle through the data and affect the AFS.
Your idea about shuffling projects around sounds really good and should probably be in there now. It should work in my suggestion too I suppose but the project costs would need to readjust using the current AFS when the project was moved back into the main slot. You could just use the current two slot queue system but only allow one mission to countown at a time when completed.
It's not worth less, it's worth the same.
You mentioned xp and timers, I pointed out that those things affect everyone the same and it comes down to the resources needed to meet the project costs.
If for example a mission currently costs 1k dill on a 20h timer then....
1 person = 1k dill = 20h
500 people = 1k dill (1/500th of the cost per person) = 20h
Now the xp needed to get to the next starbase tier is the same whether large or small fleets so it's all about filling those projects up as fast as they become available. That's where big fleets benefit as they currently have to (per person) put in way less for the same xp.
If you used my suggestion then everyone would be paying the same base costs for the project that is multiplied by the average fleet size. That would mean that everyone whether in a big or small fleet has the potential to pay the same costs for the same missions with the same xp rewards going towards the same tier costs needed to reach the next level, the actual fleet xp gained towards the next tier is irrelevent really and doesn't need to be scaled at all.
Cost based on membership does not work, and is inherently unfair to large fleets which you are effectively punishing for being successful at recruiting.
You can't expect to see the cost of a SB go up by 3 to 5 times, for a Fleet, just because they're 3 to 5 times larger then what ever is considered the baseline size.
You also can't really expect to see the cost cut by that much just because you are in a 5 person fleet. The very idea that a 5 person fleet should get a 500% discount on the cost of the SB compared to a 250 person fleet is way out of line.
You appear to have split the existing system into two and are discussing just one section.
The "problem" of insufficient fleet credits and provisions actually counterbalances the "problem" of members of large fleets contributing less. Using a single component of the system as the basis for any change is flawed. The actual "problem" is the inability to actually get the projects launched in a reasonable amount of time, which is what you then address - except you start off with the wrong premise.
If projects can all be launched on cooldown, the time/work necessary on an individual basis to gain access to higher tier facilities is going to be roughly the same, and the system is "fair". The work/reward system as it exists would already be entirely "fair", if it wasn't for the costs of projects being apparently unattainable. Which appears to be an intentional soft cap on what tier of holdings a particular size Fleet can attain.
At the same time, they say a smaller Fleet should be able to attain higher tier holdings but take longer - and on a psychological level it would be far better to simply offer longer projects with smaller costs.
For example, if it currently takes 60 hours to gather enough resources for a project that lasts 20 hours, then it takes 80 hours to acquire that chunk of XP. The same result can be attained with a project that lasts 80 hours but is three times easier to fill. The total duration required to reach the next tier would be the same, but the amount of work required becomes significantly reduced and considerably more palatable.
Except I'm not quite that optimistic.
Unless Cryptic is convinced that they need to make more kinds of projects available under each kind of Holding, they're not likely going to revisit it. Like any developer, it's more cool and cost-effective to do something new than to go back and muck around with something that's already "working as intended".
As much as I'd like to see projects with reduced fleet mark costs in return for increases in something else, I see Cryptic tending to stick with what they have now and reserve any new project mixes for theoretical future holdings. You'll notice that at any given tier, the fleet mark costs for the different projects doesn't change. I suspect that's by design. The system isn't designed around a fleet of people who play the Exchange or Roleplay or do Foundry missions together. It's not intended that anyone can 'solo' a starbase without extreme effort. They want you to do x number of certain group missions in order to complete a given project and they don't seem to be interested in changing that number a lot.
That said, the current project mix is not friendly to small fleets that would prefer to stockpile materials over time instead of sinking large amounts of EC's. Project variations would let fleets more easily use what they have instead of grinding or buying what they don't have. I think it's a good idea and I hope Cryptic seriously considers having someone go back and build more projects into the Starbase system.
By itself, though, I don't think it's quite enough. The ability to shuffle the queues and keep projects from stalling out and blocking completion of other projects is really needed and would help a lot.
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It's a major difference though.
Assume my random numbers are correct (20hr project vs 80hr project). If it takes 10 projects to attain the next tier, that's a difference between 200hrs and 800hrs, 25 days!
Now, a small fleet (in my example) will take 800 hours regardless of how the project is structured - either the project is taking 80 hours each and they're waiting, or they're taking 60 hours between projects to launch them. For them, the difference is doing 75% less work. The time it takes is the same.
A large fleet however, if they can meet the requirements for the 20hr projects, would be able to attain the next tier almost a month earlier. I don't think the large fleets will be concerned with "saving" resources if the time difference is that long.
I don't know how much work it takes to add more projects. It's probably nothing more than an additional database entry, really - they were able to tweak project completion times and costs without much problems before.
This is basically the same idea as my slider idea, only I'd say easier to implement. All it would require is more projects put into the system rather then a new mechanic.
Yes, I was basically just using your suggestion as an example of something that would work, in my post critiquing pakledgenius' (and other) unbalanced suggestions that all revolve around handing small fleets an advantage.