Pirate Raid salvage craziness

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Bullwyf
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Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by Bullwyf »

Ok, so I found a pirate raid hulk that had been sitting for a month and a half. 162k tons of beefy beef waiting to be salvaged. I figured, why in the world would this prime piece of salvage material sit for so long? Well, I have a lot of numbers and figures and such, and you can be the judge, but I think I see why they sit for so long. i Can't get my original XLSX to attach, so I'll try a pic(god bless snagit).

Pirate raidy raid.png
Pirate raidy raid.png (38.34 KiB) Viewed 7284 times
Ok, so, here is the deal. It was 162k tons approximately. I attacked that with a joyous love which was rapidly diminished. So, let's get my specifics.

Player Level 100
Energy lvl 1023 although only 480 needed, used a Salvage Cutter Rev 6(Type B)
-----That is a 60 pull per 2 fuel. What that amounts to is a 53, 57, or 61 draw on each pull from the salvager and at my level I got approximately 85% success for each attempt.
-----I am a wreck trainee with 337,327 xp in wreck salvage. Not sure if this has any pull at all honestly
-----Nothing much more, I just figured I needed a 3rd point
-----Oh, i thought of something else, my figures will be slightly lower than realities because at a 50-60 draw each attempt I ran over a LOT. Like, I can't not make myself stop with only 40 spaces left in my cargo hold even though I know I'm about to get 60 more. Its rough. Not to mention that I ran over a lot because I didn't pay enough attention but lets leave that be

Now, here is the issue. yes, I got 136k resources, and that seems to be awesome. The fact is though they are all low lvl things, and if I hadn't lost a lot of resources over a few breaks from the game, I'd not care about these low lvl things. The Joe value, which is probably low of all things considered is 8.6 million credits.

Now, what I am wondering is if it would be worth it to increase the loot parameter to make it more advantageous for us inhabitants of the universe to go crazy and get to salvaging? I think anything should be high enough value that it wouldn't last more than a few days really. This one was out in the boonies of Furnace so it makes it more problematic to have it salvaged to begin with. I really can see no reason for a hunk of no risk salvage to sit for over a month other than it just doesn't make sense to salvage it. Maybe if the loot possiblities increased with age or started out better? I'm just throwing out stuff here. Does anyone else think it would make sense to increase the rewards for these derelicts?
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Coops
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by Coops »

Perhaps the answer to why you'd feel frustrated at level 100, is actually that this 'operation / activity' was originally designed for players 27-77 hence the weapon levels. We never intended that that level 100+ players (with better things to do probably) would spend hours salvaging Hulks.

That's not to say you CANT just that the loot is mid ranged and not designed to reward based on your level etc. Its a tight loot group designed for level 30-70 players.

Sure we can look at editing it but just pointing out that ask we add each element to CE over the years they are not all aimed at the same level ranges.

Not having a go, just point out some base elements to the conversation before it gets feedback. (from a Dev POV).

Coops
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Bullwyf
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by Bullwyf »

That's totally fair Coops. I just see these hulks sitting for over a month and was curious as to why. I understand now lol!
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MarcSp
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by MarcSp »

Another aspect of this, is all those resources are ORSA extractables. And very common. So they are not high value items.
Thus it rarely makes sense to spend biofuel on salvaging when a extractor will get you what you need.
You get a better return spending that fuel on combat.

How about expanding the loot table - say adding planet-specific orsa resources, or combat loot resources,
or even just random drops (nebula resources, alien loot, AI loot). Adding some premium drops would entice more
players (especially 70+ level) to help clear these out.
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Darakhoranon
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by Darakhoranon »

I agree, adding a few HIGH VALUE/EXTREMELY RARE resources to the loot table would make salvaging raids much more interesting. I am not talking about any kind of high probability, but just a reasonable chance to get some Cure-All, Alien stuff or whatever from this. If you MAY find e.g. 50 units of Rhodenon if you are lucky but will mostly (90-95%?) find the "normal" stuff, it would still make this most attractive to players at certain levels while not really being worth your while if you are a high level pilot. The only thing this would change would be making raid salvaging more attractive to the people it is supposed to be for anyway.
And it is very easy to explain why there might be random high value things floating around - we ARE talking about "pirates" here. Who knows what they may have stolen? ;-)
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Coops
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by Coops »

I can certainly put it on my list and review the list, after all the list will not have changed since it was created and I bet these were created in CE a long time ago.

Coops
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Hunbaba
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by Hunbaba »

Some random observations thrown out here after reading:

Looking at GBM, I wonder what those extremely rare resources are. I am trying to draw a parallel with times when there were far less credits lying around and resources could in rare occasions reach even 100k cpu. Only conclusion i can come up with is that everything is dirt cheap and there have not been extremely rare resources in the game for quite a while.

I am also wondering about validity of this test. A lot of things can be improved. Slavaging ship wrecks can be improved by increasing scan skill. This way expanse 2-10 damage salvage gun can fetch 6-28 resources per attempt. Looking at RAID salvage cutter description, scan skill also boosts its performance (a higher hit chance). Any tests were done regarding this or it was just based on whatever current setup/skills yielded?

There are some nice resources in the mix. Anvil Valacyte, Steel, Isotopes, Quasar ore, Copper ore, Element 251. I wouldnt mind buying those.

Problem can be solved another way. Decrease captain level required for salvage cutters so even lower level captains can be very competetive salvaging it, increase yield or make scan skill influence it a bit in addition to hit percentage. Make RAIDS regional. For example there will always be one (or remains of one) in Inner Sphere, one in Outer Sphere, one in each: Anvil, Forge and VP. The rest (5) in Furnace. So younger captains have a decent chance of being close to one. If thats not the case already.

Adding high valued / "extremely rare" resources to a short loot table is making those resources rather common overnight. I am not in favor of this.

Higher level captains should be encouraged to engage in high level activities. Engaging in lower level activities, then trying to sway opinion in favor of getting it beffed up to suit their needs/profitability is wrong way to go. If there is lack of high level activities in the game, than that is imho the real issue.
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MarcSp
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by MarcSp »

I'm glad you think everything is dirt cheap. I've got 7 GBMs up that need filling, all at above-average prices too.
That's cause I had to relist three of them today, as they expired unfilled. So here's a chance to make a profit.

I do agree, the rare resources are much more frequent nowadays. I DON'T miss the days of 30,000 cpu offers.
Between Coop Tokens, apparent increased drop frequency, Project Discovery, the NPC sales update,
stuff is gotten *somewhat* easier to acquire, and credits are pouring in. That's all to the good, and I suspect Coops
is trying to get more setts up to Level 7 ahead of the Starbase release.

As for raid salvage resource, while those are good resources (AV, steel, isotopes, quasar, el251) I'll note that as of right now,
there is exactly one GBM for those things - at GBM minimum price . Those are common resources, and they won't
command any prices higher than that. Increasing scan skill, higher hit chances, lower captain levels, more raids sitting
around, none of that resolves the fundamental problem which is: its not worth salvaging them.

However, expanding the loot table gives everyone, including low level capts, access to some of those high value rare
resources. This is a nice boon to low level captains and sends credits toward them, rather than toward the
high level captains who are the only ones who can provide those resources now.
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Hunbaba
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by Hunbaba »

It is no boon for low level players to get more valuable resources in the mix. It is purely for high level captains. What will happen is that a couple of medium / high level players will band together, go on a RAID killing spree, salvaging each as soon as it is destroyed, then move on to the next. It will last for as long as those new added resources keep their shine, then we are back to where we started.

Your GBM resources are not common ones. I laugh at most prices you put them at. Why? I can get them, but it will require decent effort on my part. On the other hand, i can load up cargo and for very little effort earn 10x what i would should i try to fill your GBMs instead. Hence my remark everything is dirt cheap. Or rather, credits are way too easy to earn, which is the same, just using different words.

Lower level players on the other hand dont have large cargo holds. For them engaging in combat with aim of selling loot is more profitable. But not if people keep inventing new, easier, profitable for them ways of getting resources.
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MarcSp
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Re: Pirate Raid salvage craziness

Post by MarcSp »

Hunbaba, your argument doesn't make sense to me. This sounds like the old "exclusive loot for certain professions" debate once again.

You say:
It is no boon for low level players to get more valuable resources in the mix. It is purely for high level captains.
but then you conclude with:
For them engaging in combat with aim of selling loot is more profitable.

About half of the stuff coming into my GBMs comes from low level captains, basically selling off stuff they have no use for at thier level.
I suspect a lot of them would LIKE an alternate means to get those resources, outside of combat. This lets the miners/haulers/explorers
get in on the action.

And if some captains go on a raid killing spree, well, so what? Let them. If they sell those resources, great, more stuff in the
economy to help players get stuff crafted. If they keep it for themselves, thats ok too, as now they are not competing with my
GBMs. Raid-sprees aren't happening now (outside of Coop Challenges) but so what if it starts? If captains like doing that, why not?

My attitude is: anything that opens more inputs into the game economy is good. I dislike any attempts to limit certain
resources to certain careers. Monopolies are known to be a bad thing in most economies.

And I agree with your dirt cheap remark. Go to the stats portal and check out the number of multi-BILLIONAIRES.
There are way too many credits floating around at the high levels, and some of that needs to be pushed down
to the low level captains who could use that money. Amazing how CE mirrors the global economy and has the same issues.
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