Non-combat options

Lhundrup

I would like to suggest that gas scooping be an initial skill like autopilot.

My primary reason for coming to Starmourn was the industry aspects (Mining/manufacturing/capitalism). But it feels completely inaccessible to me, the incursions are very frustrating for me and other peaceful players (yes, there are a few of us). It has been my experience that when I actually manage to reach an incursion in time, there is always someone else already there; killing everything (including kill stealing) and in some cases they also attack ME. After experiencing this time and time again and making zero progress in my captaincy skill, I have given up on incursions all together as they are simply too competitive, difficult and stressful for me (someone that only wants to mine and make things). I feel that gas mining should be available at captaincy level 1 like autopilot. Or, maybe we should receive captaincy experience for discovering new sectors/zones/docking at new stations etc... I think the incursions could be fun if I were a combat-oriented player; but I'm an industry-oriented player that is now sitting in my docked ship participating in politics because I feel I cannot progress... 

I feel stuck - I just want to start my mining/manufacturing career.

Aurelius

There's going to need to be all sorts of adjustments and changes, including things like this most likely, but right now we're pretty focused on basic game stability, so this kind of thing is mostly going to wait until we've smashed more bugs.

Lhundrup

I understand - Thank you for answering so quickly.

Kedlin

I'm not sure how relevant this will be for you but I actually went from 1to 2 when I accidentally crashed into a star.

Qitorien

I've been thinking about this thread off and on for a bit. I don't really agree about having gasscoops as an initial skill. I like the idea of it being very accessible because it's super cool and should be a selling point for people to play the game. And if it is a selling point, it shouldn't take forever to get there. However, as it currently is, it doesn't feel like it takes that much effort to get there. It's been less than a week and I'm almost there already and I haven't really been trying. I'm a big believer in requiring some effort and time for worthwhile things. I've basically done one long round-trip journey and two shorter ones and fought a few ships in an incursion and in the quest. 

Alternatively, it might be cool to have gasscoops either an initial skill or very low in the skill tree but restricting the total amount of gas that you can collect at lower levels of captaincy, regardless of your cargo hold size. Or maybe adding in diminishing returns on what you bring back. Orrrrr have captaincy level affect the "quality" of the gas you can collect and therefore lowering your payout on what you bring back.

Minion

Speaking out of ignorance of all of the possibilities available in game but, would it be possible to build some delivery quests that give captaincy xp? 

So they spawn an asteroid or full gas scoop that needs to be delivered to a refinery elsewhere. Your only job is to transport the goods. You don't get the resources after refining but get marks and some xp? I would add an insurance or deposit fee to the quest so people don't just run off with free rock/gas.

Maybe this is already a thing but if not it could be an alternative to incursions for captaincy xp.

EDIT: Could also do smuggling quests eventually that force you to dodge military forces so autopilot can't be used.

Qitorien

I just realized that I think I got most of that for the incursion fighting. I'm not sure if I got anything for flying itself, though you'd think you would..can anyone confirm if flying nets you any captaincy rank?

Selador

I'm fairly certain that flying doesn't net any captaincy rank, or if it does, it does *very* slowly. I always fly manually and I haven't noticed any increase from it. My captaincy hasn't budged again since I blew up the ships for the main quests.

Galen

I came into the game with similar thoughts, although I don't mind combat related pve as much. The thing is though, even if gas scooping was at level 1 captaincy, industry doesn't seem to be something you can get into very easily. From experience, each gas field tends to have between 15-30 units, the largest I've seen having around 60. But refining the gas costs around 1,000 marks per 10, and its not possible to store gas. This seems to indicate that industry is something you start after having already secured a primary source of income elsewhere as the start-up costs are not insignificant. I would guess that links in with tradeskills coming in at Level 20, which is that the 'early' game will be primarily about bashing (questing seems okay, but the time-> marks,exp ratio doesn't seem as efficient). Perhaps things will change once people start buying refineries and setting up different prices, but for the moment I'm doing incursions for both marks and captaincy to build up a steady cashflow while holding industry and trade on the side. 

Qitorien

Yeah, I think a major issue is that the economic system is so dynamic and based so much upon the players but no one is able right now to field certain areas. We were talking about it in character today in SH. Just getting one autofactory set up isn't enough, because you need the other pieces of the puzzle too.

Pollivar

We have some refineries set up at Iota Station if anyone's interested! At least like five now for various comms mostly gas ones

Qitorien

Pollivar said:

We have some refineries set up at Iota Station if anyone's interested! At least like five now for various comms mostly gas ones

And that's awesome. I'm glad yall have bought those, but I just realized today that I can't do a thing with what I refined there because I need 25000 marks to buy my own autofactory...

Pollivar

Not necessarily because we also have CARGO ORDERS set up where you can put your refined stuff into other people's autofactories - and even get paid for it! You can't SHARE them, but it looks like you CAN use them as part of the economy, without owning them yourslef....as long as they actively have an order out to buy materials!

Qitorien

Pollivar said:

Not necessarily because we also have CARGO ORDERS set up where you can put your refined stuff into other people's autofactories - and even get paid for it! You can't SHARE them, but it looks like you CAN use them as part of the economy, without owning them yourslef....as long as they actively have an order out to buy materials!

Good to know, thanks! I'll take a look. I tried all the commands I could think of, particularly on the AUTOFACTORIES command tree, but I'm not even sure if I can see other people's autofactories at the moment. The fail messages are all about how my character does not have an autofactory.

Pollivar

HELP CARGO MARKET

zacc

HELP MARKET would be a little more intuitive.

MARKET ORDER LIST needs to respect pagelength (if it doesn't already). Getting spammed with 2000+ lines is a little problematic.

The list doesn't display who posted the order and for which factory, only the station where the order is listed. I'm sure that's intended.

Is it correct that an autofactory's id can be used with MARKET ORDER ASK <#> <cargo> AT <dest> FOR <reward> as the destination? So far, it seems to be the station.

Unless there's a command missing from MARKET, AUTOFACTORY, and the help files, there appears to be no way to choose an order based on who submitted it and/or which factory it is for... or that an order can be placed for an autofactory. There also appears to be no indication that others can queue production in an autofactory that doesn't belong to them. Rather, the delivered order of cargo is transferred to the requestor's personal cargo stores or so it seems.

Edit: Also noticed that several orders on the market are paying less than 400 marks yet the minimum to place an order is 400 marks. Are those NPC orders?

Scooping gas doesn't appear to have any significant impact on captaincy xp (if any). Collected 40 clouds and didn't see an increase. Incursions seem to be more lucrative for that.

bairloch

I've been wondering about that. @Tecton what are the non-combat ways to boost Captaincy?

Qitorien

Also, I've tried again and again to fulfill this order now that I know that I can. I transferred some Elessium to Elonova and also have some in my ship and I am docked at Elonova and I have taken the order, but it keeps telling me that I am too far away from my destination. I've also tried to DISEMBARK but it says I need to be on my ship.

Squeakums

The MARKET ORDER LIST has thousands of entries for the same products on repeat:

Paristeel, Transteel, Stesium, Nanoplastic, Rglass, Elessium, Array, Qpc, Sensors.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious right now, but if I've made a bunch of refined gas (like Helium11) there's currently nothing to do with it but have it sit in storage. I don't own an autofactory and there appear to be no buyers for what I have. Obviously the economy doesn't exist as everybody is figuring things out, but maybe getting NPC buyers for -all- products for now can help jumpstart things?

Qitorien

Squeakums said:

The MARKET ORDER LIST has thousands of entries for the same products on repeat:

Paristeel, Transteel, Stesium, Nanoplastic, Rglass, Elessium, Array, Qpc, Sensors.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious right now, but if I've made a bunch of refined gas (like Helium11) there's currently nothing to do with it but have it sit in storage. I don't own an autofactory and there appear to be no buyers for what I have. Obviously the economy doesn't exist as everybody is figuring things out, but maybe getting NPC buyers for -all- products for now can help jumpstart things?

I might be missing something if this is accurate...I thought those were orders for what people wanted to buy (I decided it must be NPC orders since there aren’t enough players/economical need for so many yet..). You can OFFER and you can ORDER. I was trying to fulfill orders when I posted just above yours. But it wasn’t working as I thought it was supposed to so it could definitely be that I completely misunderstood that part of the syntax etc...

Squeakums

Orders are what people want to buy. Orders are demand. There is no demand for many products, like Helium11. There is demand for Elessium in many places, so you should be able to fulfill that order. 

We have similar problems. You've taken an order but you can't fulfill it. I am bringing up the issue of no available orders for me to fulfill with the products I have.

Qitorien

That's the thing. I can fill it...

-------------------------------------------< Cargo >----------------------------------------

Material Desc # Owed Location

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

countermeasure Subspace counter-measure 1 deadwood

elessium Elessium 25 deadwood

astromech Semi-autonomous astromech 2 deadwood

probe Mineral probe 20 deadwood

repairkit Ship repairing kit 51 deadwood

elessium Elessium 5 1 Elonova Station

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

edit: I just now realized that MARKET ORDER LIST 28 is pulling up this order, which says Valdorn, but has a very different ID#...


And when I use MARKET ORDER LIST TAKEN, it pulls up as ID# 28 as below:

zacc

NPC's can generate orders. I think they'll tell you the actual location (capitol city of <planet>, for example) once you take one. If it's on a location not readily accessible (like a planet/city/somewhere you can't visit on foot or dock with), if I'm not mistaken, you have to fly your ship (with the cargo in it) right next to it and then do the completion command.

Qitorien

zacc said:

NPC's can generate orders. I think they'll tell you the actual location (capitol city of <planet>, for example) once you take one. If it's on a location not readily accessible (like a planet/city/somewhere you can't visit on foot or dock with), if I'm not mistaken, you have to fly your ship (with the cargo in it) right next to it and then do the completion command.

I'm right there with the cargo. I was docked at Elonova where the order is supposed to be. I tried LAUNCHing and staying right next to it too, per @Millette 's suggestion, but still getting the same line. But considering MARKET ORDER LIST 28 is giving a totally different order, I'm guessing that it's bugged somehow. I'm very open to suggestions. I've been trying several different things for a while now.

zacc

Orders appear to be working:

You transfer 1 Elessium to the destination warehouse, successfully completing the take. 5 marks have
been transferred to your account.
[Marks]: Your mark balance has been adjusted by 5.

That was right next to the station (I launched) and with the 1 elessium in my ship cargo.

The use of some filters with MARKET ORDER LIST is a little buggy right now.

Qitorien

Yeah, I think it might have been that specific order. As seen in the screenshots, it was pulling up the wrong order...just my luck to pick the one to be bugged.