Concept to make Tour the Galaxy worth running

icegavel · May 2014

Tour the Galaxy has always been one of those dailies that nobody does, ever since it became a daily. Well, most of the time. SOME people do it. But it's not really worth beating - the only reward worth half a TRIBBLE is the Well Traveled Trait, reducing Transwarp cooldowns. It gives a pittance of Colonial and Trade CXP and some EC. But, I have a few ideas on how to make it... a bit more desirable.

1: Change Colonial CXP to Exploration.
This doesn't really affect much, but the Colonial CXP really doesn't make sense. You ARE, after all, traveling through populated areas. Technically, they are also charted, but you could be said to be doing an "annual survey" of some sort, make sure random anomalies aren't appearing (just as a story thing).

2: Give an Accolade for beating it in a certain time.
This one's more for fun than for practicality. Effectively, the mission would have an Optional. The mission ITSELF has a 15-minute time limit. The Optional would be a 12-minute time limit. The accolade?
"Kestrel Runner."
Because you would be making the Kestrel Run in less than 12 minutes. (WINK WINK SUBTLE HINT)
This is literally just for fun. It would make the mission amusing to do.

3: Have Jay Yim pay for your gas if you win.
That's the IRL way of putting it. This would be the reason people want to COMPLETE the mission: Jay Yim, if you complete the entire run, rewards you for your efforts with 500 Refined Dilithium. Not ore. He's giving your ship the fuel it used to make the run, essentially. It would be a small stipend, but the fact that it doesn't need to be refined would make this mission attractive to a lot of players. It may even build community interaction, with people giving (or asking for) the Diplomacy/Marauding Driver Coil buffs to ensure they beat the mission.

For me, Tour the Galaxy is precisely what this game needs: Content that is not combat-centric, that encourages community activity and new play styles. The fact that no one does it is sad, but no one does it because, in its current state, it's not worth doing.

Feedback is appreciated.

vocmcp · May 2014

Really like the ideas put forward!

This might get the tour it's players back. Haven't run it one single time since they slapped us in the face with that stealth nerf.

shadowwraith77 · May 2014

There really isn't anything wrong with it as is, 15mins for 450k EC's is just fine.

blevok · May 2014

sure it brings in some EC, but it's not competitive, therefore it's not very fun, and it's just something to add to the daily grind.
when it was competitive it was fun. there was interaction between players giving and receiving DI, and it was so cool to beam out of ESD and see 30+ ships all warping out at the same time.
it was also a reason to have non-combat centered builds. the loadout system would have been great back then.

short of making it repeatable again, i think just adding a report of mission completion time at the end would make it competitive again. a weekly leaderboard accessible through Yim would be cool too.

ricosakara · May 2014

I would say NO to the 12-minute optional Kestrel Run because even with both the Quantum Slipstream AND the 2-LY jump warp core from the Dyson Hybrids, I barely make the 14-15 min run. So no on optional, and YES on the rest.

May I suggest another optional?
If the run is done at a certain time of the day, say, between Midnight and 1am, you get 50% extra the EC amount? or Extra 1000 Refined Dilithium?

cbrjwrr · May 2014

Restoring it to pre-nerf state would be better.

rahmkota19 · May 2014

Agreed with what you said there. I sometimes still run the thing in my Excelsior, MACO engines, slipstream and transwarps, but the stealth nerf really hurt it for me. I only do it if I think that earning 400k in about 8 minutes is worth the time (usually not, due to reputation and fleet mark PvE playing).

But these vast improvements are all great.

hawkhawkins · May 2014

I dont think i'd like it to go back to a scheduled event. I like being able to run it whenever I want to... I still run it once a day on two separate characters... Still totally worth it to me.

I do miss how the fact that it launched at a specific time made it easy to find DI/RP...

Now getting DI/RP takes as much time as the time you save to find it, but I'd rather have the freedom to run it when I like more.

I'd like some modifications that let me hit higher warp speeds without slipstream and subspace folding... warp 29 is nice but I'm not fond of the graphical effects of slipstreaming and folding...

I'm a raw warp speed junkie and would rather make an entire run at warp 29 without slipsteam and subspace folding that 'takes a little longer' than to use gimmicky ship travel....

hawkhawkins · May 2014

Your post and your signature are at odds with each other...

But yes... At the end of the day I dont so much want tour the galaxy to be meaningful again as much as I want

The fact that I spent good zen on a vesta,
an amazing amount of effort getting borg engines
an amazing amount of time getting ambassador rank so that I could be part of the di.rp community
more (now) completely fruitless time getting dirp that takes so long i should have just made the run without it.
More time and effort to get antimatter containment in the rare instance that it works out well...
And of course invested skillpoints on driver coil in the first place that I could have spent on more pew pew boom boom, but instead chose the dizzying heights of irresponsible non combat warp speeds... FOR FUN.

So what I want... Actually...

Please try to do any little thing that makes the fact that I worked so hard to hit warp 63 ***worth while*** again. It was not a small investment in any measure of the word.

Because I'm not beholden to the max dps pew pew reputation/pvp part of the game... It seems like only the things I like doing are the things that get taken away. Just sayin...

seriousdave · May 2014

I think one of the problems is the reward you get. Outside of the exchange EC is pretty much wothless. Yeah sure you buy some hypos and rep projects need some but there is nothing else to spend that stuff on so why even bother flying around for stuff that you don't even use/need?

mightybobcnc · May 2014

It was a lot more fun when it had a scheduled time. Lots of players chatting it up, camaraderie, sharing of DIRP, builds, and tour routes, watching the hordes of other players race each other along the same route, etc.. Now it's just nerfed to TRIBBLE and not even worth doing. You get more EC in 5 minutes of mob farming, and because it isn't scheduled anymore all of the above socialization factors are gone as well.

realwildblu · May 2014

repetitiveepic wrote: »

The people who do tour the galaxy or farm loot to vendor are the cause of ec inflation in this game.

Stop increasing the money supply!

What inflation? Unless you have completed a quantitative analysis, inflation is only a figment of your imagination. I run "Tour" to generate EC for fleet and reputation projects. I wouldn't be surprised if 99.96% of the folks running "Tour" do the same thing.

Besides, there is very little on the exchange worth purchasing ... I know, AS A FACT, that 90% of those who purchase stuff on the exchange are arbitrageurs (see, I made that up to counter any inflation argument).

edgecrysger · May 2014

shadowwraith77 wrote: »

There really isn't anything wrong with it as is, 15mins for 450k EC's is just fine.

The thing is, it is an event where you need the fastes tranwarp engines (borg) to do it in time. That for a start. And 450k ec is if you do it before that time. Most people cant do it. Because they are not going to change the engine just to do the event, for example. And honestly i have more funny ways to gather 400k ec, and even more in less than 15 minutes.

I am one of those who never do this event, i find it a waste of time, honestly. And i dont like to switch my engines only to do this event.

ralphgraphite · May 2014

edgecrysger wrote: »

The thing is, it is an event where you need the fastes tranwarp engines (borg) to do it in time. That for a start. And 450k ec is if you do it before that time. Most people cant do it. Because they are not going to change the engine just to do the event, for example. And honestly i have more funny ways to gather 400k ec, and even more in less than 15 minutes.

I am one of those who never do this event, i find it a waste of time, honestly. And i dont like to switch my engines only to do this event.

There are other engines that can complete this in time. I have Fleet engines, very few points in driver coil, and can complete it easily if I start in the right place.

THAT said, I preferred when we had an hour to complete it - at that length of time, I could run the tour in a leisurely fashion - stopping in on various systems to run other dailies and borg red alerts as I went. The old time limit made it more a "bonus" of EC on top of my other gaming activities.

Also, reducing to 15 minutes essentially stripped the utility of the Excelsior's transwarp drive for the tour.

daan2006 · May 2014

did it ones before the nerf bat never went back and still dont do any type of weekend events didnt do them before it become weekend thing in all they event thing no my cup of tea

centaurianalpha · May 2014

I run the Tour nearly everyday that I'm on, preferring it to transwarp. My 'toons are relatively poor, giving most of their resources to their Fleet taskmasters, so none even has a ship/engines allowing the entire tour to be completed in the 15 minute duration. Still, it is an important source of EC for my account; any embellishments would be happily received on my end!

jaguarskx · May 2014

I sometimes do the Tour mission. Getting 25k / 50k EC per sector block for a max level toon is nice, but I do it 'cuz it is simply different from other things that I normal do and to get the Trade and Exploration CXP. I definitely will not do it on a daily basis though since it's not interesting enough to do so.

Late time I did it was for a recently created Rom toon which is level 27 right now. Again, I mostly did it for the CXP. Doing it for the sole purpose EC is a waste since it only pay 2.5k / 5.0k EC per sector block; 1/10th of what a max level toon gets. Also, flying at only warp 7.5 can be a little slowww....

shadowwraith77 · May 2014

edgecrysger wrote: »

The thing is, it is an event where you need the fastes tranwarp engines (borg) to do it in time. That for a start. And 450k ec is if you do it before that time. Most people cant do it. Because they are not going to change the engine just to do the event, for example. And honestly i have more funny ways to gather 400k ec, and even more in less than 15 minutes.

I am one of those who never do this event, i find it a waste of time, honestly. And i dont like to switch my engines only to do this event.

Well considering it is normally only supposed to reward 350k, they tacked on the extra 100k due to additions.

Still 350-450k per toon, per day isn't bad for 15mins per toon.

It will still leave you with plenty of time, to go farm another EC hotspot like the Foundry.

tayalily · May 2014

As yet I haven't managed to visit every sector, but I get over 400k ec, which is very nice and why I do it. Perhaps if people visit a certain number of sectors, they could get dil or fleet marks? People tend to like both of those.

doffingcomrade · May 2014

shadowwraith77 wrote: »

Well considering it is normally only supposed to reward 350k, they tacked on the extra 100k due to additions.

Even without shenanigans, a naive player running a complete circuit could reasonably expect to do 3-4 laps in the time alotted in the old Tour.

hawkhawkins · May 2014

Add one driver coil point to your captain every so many times you complete the tour. Captains that fly alot should be able to get more out of their engines. That might mitigate how worthless it is to take the time to get dirp anymore.

Concept to make Tour the Galaxy worth running

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