Scaling Fleet Starbase Requirements

warbird001 · February 2013

I run a small Fleet called "Ragtag Fugitive Fleet", we are a small group of people about twenty strong and we like our Fleet small and personal. I do not like to mass recruit people or recruit randomers because I like to get to know everyone in my Fleet. However we are in the unfortunate position of being forced to do this because of the simply impossible Fleet Starbase Requirements.

So my question is this? Is Cryptic trying to make this game only for larger Fleets that run more like a business then a social corner? Can't Fleet Requirements directly scale from the size of your Fleet Roster, like items do ingame to make it easier for smaller fleets to still allow that level of achievement?

starkaos · February 2013

Fleet Starbases are long term projects that should take over a year for most fleets. If you want to get all the cool stuff earlier, then you can temporarily leave your fleet to grab the good stuff for a price.

rocknrobot1 · February 2013

If it would scale with roster size, then everyone would do his 1-man-fleet and get to tier 5 quickly. Boring.

Yes, it takes a lot of time but that's exactly the good thing. So there's always something left to do.

haravikk · February 2013

I do think there should be some way to scale it; one thread a little while ago talked about allowing smaller fleets to become "divisions" of larger ones, allowing small fleets to group together to operate out of a single shared starbase and embassy. There is a lot of potential complexity with the idea, but it's by far my favourite solution.

Scaling project requirements is simpler but I think it would need to scale on a curve, so that a starbase for a small fleet is still a lot of work, but with an active contribution per player it'd be do-able within a reasonable time. However, with more fleet members the requirements go up, but not proportionately, allowing larger fleets to individually do less while still maintaining a good upgrade pace.

Say for example the minimum requirements for a project were 25% of what they are now, but if you have 50 or more members those requirements are closer to 50%, 200 members are closer to 70%, 300 closer to 85% and 500 is the full 100% or something, just as a rough idea.

oneandonlyrecce · February 2013

The problem with "scaling" is that people would keep their Alts out of the fleet, to keep the numbers down, while funnelling all their dilith, white doffs, etc into their main character. While you can't transfer Fleet Marks between characters, you only have to wait until your toon has a decent amount of marks before popping in and out.

savnoka · February 2013

The only way to make scaling workable is to limit fleet size.

For example, if you set a hard limit to your fleet size, you get a scaling reduction in costs for projects. However, to recruit members beyond that fleet size, you have to expend resources equal to the reduction from the next rank.

Fleet size 5 to 10 would get a 75% reduction. You could not have more than 10 people in your fleet. 11 to 20 would get 60% , etc.

If you had a 5 to 10 fleet and wanted to add more members, you would have to pay resources (lets make it fleet marks + dil) equal to the reduction. So, you'd have to pay something on the order of 3000 fleet marks and 100,000 dilith to move from a 5-10 to an 11-20.

In order to stop people from merely rapidly cycling people in and out , every member who replaced an original member nerfs your discount. If you start with 5 and add 5, those 5 are no problem. But if you then remove 3, and add 3 new people, your discount slips 3% per new replacement.

cptvanor · February 2013

savnoka wrote: »

The only way to make scaling workable is to limit fleet size.

Seems like more work then the problem is worth. I mean the idea would in fact deal with the major issues of scaling the cost and prevent people from making a 1 person fleet so they could get to Tier 5 then invite everyone. So kudos for coming up with the first workable idea I've seen.

Yes a 5 person fleet is going to have troubles making it past tier 3, and will take some time just to get to tier 2. But guess what, that's how it's supposed to work.

The Fleet System is geared towards larger fleets so they have something to do that will take quite some time to accomplish. Doing things that let small 5-10 person fleets get to Tier 5 as fast as a 50-75 person fleet is simply not fair. Why should the fleet that put the effort into getting that large be effectively penalized for doing so?

If the OP has 20 some people in the fleet, then that's about where the target number was set for, and as such shouldn't be needing to mass invite random people just to advance.

I do however get rather sick and tired of condescending statements like this...

Is Cryptic trying to make this game only for larger Fleets that run more like a business then a social corner

sasheria · February 2013

I like the idea of "sub-fleet" bases. Basically a smaller fleet can sign up and join a larger fleet to gain access to TECHNOLOGY BUT the small fleet have to still create provision to BUY any of the stuff. (all provision earn by the smaller fleet stay in the smaller fleet.

Now there should be a link. This will be the small fleet starbase. They will have to spend resources to upgrade and 5% of that resources will go to the parent fleet (the main fleet that is level 5) these resources will be "auto spend" for provisions for the parent fleet.

this will encourage Larger fleet to "join" with smaller fleet.

Now there should be an option to "break away"
Lets say the main fleet is level 5 everything.
A new small fleet wants to be a "sister" fleet. They can start building their starbase level 1. This will be CHEAPER than than a FULL starbase level 1 (lets say 25% less or 50% less) BUT if they EVER break away, the small fleet will need to invest the missing portion to bring it up to "code"

The smaller base will have to upgrade from level 1 to 5 (just the starbase) and they will have access to the larger fleet upgrades.

Example.
Main Fleet upgrade their hanger to level 5. Sister fleet will need to upgrade their "link hanger" to level 5 to access the tech. (at 25% to 50% less cost) BUT if they EVER break away (or can upgrade while linked to the main fleet) the smaller fleet will have to invest the remaining balance to the upgrade (and thus they will have their OWN level 5 hanger. This upgrade must be done in the same order as if they are on their own.

So if the smaller fleet upgrade hanger level 1 to 5 at 50% less, they will have to upgrade hanger 1 to 5 AGAIN paying the other 50%.

Now...... the social aspect. The HARD part is preventing large fleet holding "hostage" of smaller fleet.
There should be a voting system

sister fleet submit application to join Main Fleet. Leader of the main fleet will have to approve.
sister fleet can LEAVE at anytime, but there will be a cool down joining another fleet. If a sister fleet LEAVES the main fleet, then all non-fully upgrade tech will be "disable" until the remaining upgrade are invested in those resources (ie. don't have access to hanger 5 unless the sister fleet already have access to hanger 5 all pre-req will apply to ALL upgrade per normal basis)
Main fleet can "kick" a sister fleet, but will require a vote from their fleet (say 75%) this will prevent grief kick.

Incentive:
Main fleet will get 5% of all resources invested in smaller fleet upgrade. (round down to the nearest whole number). This "auto resource" will go into a pool that main fleet can't directly access. There will be a new option for main fleet. The main fleet can choose to use these pool for their upgrades and provisions if they chose to do so (or have a new tab for "auto provision")

Now, while the small fleet has access to the upgrade of the parent fleet, they CAN start investing in "side projects" to upgrade their OWN full blown bases (which will cost normal with "technological help" from the parent fleet, but faster production like 10-15% reduction in time.)

This is just a rough idea.

justleroy · February 2013

I like the idea of fleet association. Let fleets combine resources to build a starbase each fleet would have access to.

chikahiro · February 2013

I personally don't like the idea of scaling because the number of people in a fleet doesn't directly relate to the number of people actually contributing. As such, this was my idea (from another thread):
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=7835951#post7835951

I've been suggesting that Cryptic should make smaller projects that small fleets can do faster, but in the general scope of things will take the same amount of time. With the time/resources it takes to finish 1 normal size project (and get the same rewards), you'd have to do 3-5 of the smaller ones. Granted, larger projects should be the better reward for the time/resources spent since you're commiting so much, but that's just me.

Reasoning? Momentum and morale. Even if its the same amount of work in the end, it would be more encouraging for smaller fleets to go through multiple projects in this fashion than to stare at the massive requirements for the current projects. That would encourage more people in the fleets to contribute since its not so daunting. Meanwhile, fleets that are large, efficient, or have a high level of participation would still be better off picking the large projects, since they'd have the better bang for the buck, so to speak.

For example? Support Local Systems II (500 engineering XP) requires
20 hours

600 Fleet Marks

36,000 Dilithium

12 Engineering or Operations Duty Officers

40,000 Expertise

3,000 [Provisions]

500 [Water Purification Systems]

So, a mini-version could be Supply Refugee Convoy (100 engineering XP)
5 hours

150 Fleet Marks

9,000 Dilithium

4 Engineering or Operations Duty Officers

10,000 Expertise

750 [Provisions]

125 [Water Purification Systems]

You'd have to do this 5 times to get the same XP reward as the bigger Support Local Systems project, and you'll have to spend:
5 more hours in completion time (25 vs 20)

150 more Fleet Marks (750 vs 600)

9,000 more Dilithium (45k vs 36k)

8 more Duty Officers (20 vs 12)

750 more Provisions (3,750 vs 3,000)

125 more Water Purification systems (625 vs 500)

After all, what *really* matters is the various types of XP earned. A fleet that has given up working on projects, regardless of size, earns no XP at all. If Cryptic wants dilithium to go into starbases, then making some more bite-size projects would help out. If they want more Dilithium bought with Zen? It would help out with that, too. If they want more fleets engaged in the system, this could do it since I think people will be encouraged by having more forward movement.

That's just my opinion, mind you.

sean2448 · February 2013

warbird001 wrote: »

I run a small Fleet called "Ragtag Fugitive Fleet", we are a small group of people about twenty strong and we like our Fleet small and personal. I do not like to mass recruit people or recruit randomers because I like to get to know everyone in my Fleet. However we are in the unfortunate position of being forced to do this because of the simply impossible Fleet Starbase Requirements.

So my question is this? Is Cryptic trying to make this game only for larger Fleets that run more like a business then a social corner? Can't Fleet Requirements directly scale from the size of your Fleet Roster, like items do ingame to make it easier for smaller fleets to still allow that level of achievement?

no they just put in large numbers.
but I am in a large fleet called 77th elite squad we are just about tier 4 doing the upgrade if you would like to merge with us email me in game @sean2448
we are pvp and pve heavey fleet

we have tier 4 shipyard done ground store and space also done

markhawkman · February 2013

A scaling system would have a severe issue with exploiting. How? just set it up so that only 20-ish of your actual total number of members is ever in the fleet at a time. You get the benefit of a lower cost but..... your actual number of members might be over 50...

Yeah... doesn't really help small fleets does it? Big fleets could game the system to get there faster than you. I say this as a member of a VERY small fleet....

hydrodura · February 2013

Starbase are for large fleet i think small fleet should merge.

my fleet is 400 members and we will have tier 5 starbase complete in 5 days. it hard work but you need a nice size fleet

patarmarkan · February 2013

I really like my small and familiar fleet as it is, but we have severe problems to get our projects done.
We are working on T3 shipyard upgrade atm and it will take about 2 or 3 months to complete just this one project.
In some way it should be possible to complete these projects for small fleets as well!
The current system will force us to quit our development after the completition of the upgrade. Its way to expensive to continue and the days it was fun are over.
I do not want to wait YEARS to be able to complete the whole fleet system.
We started the development when the new fleet system appeared. Most of our members already gave up playing at all, because it became more and more of a job to farm the TRIBBLE we need for the fleet. Thats the wrong way and should be thought over by the devs.

Scaling Fleet Starbase Requirements

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