Suggestion: Expansion of Harvester abilities + POD's (+ sales)

[Akkamaddi]

Let's talk Harvesters.

With a high survey skill, they are awesome. They are the primary source of Dark Matter materials, and realistically the sole source. (The others being Buddy stashes, and limited recovery from Salvaging the Engine Room of Standard/AI ships.)

While Dark Matter resources are occasionally in demand on the GBM as some high level schematics require large amounts, and they sell of a phat pile of shiny sinful credits at an Exotics Mega Mall, eventually their value declines. Once a captain has a stockpile, they primary become Mall merchandise.

And so...

I propose that the AI-UN materials and NB materials be added to the potential list of resources available to harvesters.

I know their rarity should be maintained, and I think they should be rare. Dark Matter can start to appear with a Survey skill of 350. I would say the AI-UN materials should start around 400 or 450, and the NB materials around 450 or 500. Further, they should be rare when available, so they are something a high level player would only see about 5% as often as Dark Matter resources. A player maintaining five Nebula Harvesters would see an AI resource appear perhaps once a month.

I don't know if it can be done, but I think an additional hindrance would be to have Dyz Fuel consumption double if an AI resource is discovered. Even a threefold increase in Dyz Fuel consumption would be understandable.

To the concern of people doing Harvester resetting, let them. Harvester resetting wastes a lot of fuel, and takes hours. As someone who's Harvesters absolutely luuuuuvz them some Zirconium, trust me, hours. With the ORSA reboot, Dyz is nowhere near as plentiful. A captain who runs factories must either spend on GBM contracts for factory input stock, or divide the 14 extractor hard limit between fuel, factory input, Expanse resources, regional resources, and the occasional pile of Advanced Refined Ores required for crafting. If a captain resets Harvesters to find AI resources, and they are rare, that could still take a weekend of game play, and burn a lot of precious Dyz. Increasing the Dyz cost of harvesting would make conserving Dyz even more important.

A second suggestion ties into this:

The Ereshkigal PODs (Ereshkigal PM, Ereshkigal VP, Ereshkigal CS)

Named after the Mesopotamian goddess of the underworld, these ship PODs are a miracle of the boffins of Truly Wonderful, being on the cutting edge of infra-scarlet meta frequency scanning tech and ultra-azure 4D imaging synergistic holography to leverage quantum. (Author's note: the Engineering Team Lead at Truly Wonderful would like to point out that the Marketing Department wrote that after getting a package from Colorado, the engineers have no idea what the hell it means either, and would like to make a very annoyed reminder that the Truly Wonderful official policy is "Sharing is Caring".)

The Ereshkigal POD is a chain fit POD, so a captain could potentially equip one of all three simultaneously. The PM POD is player Made, the VP POD is from the VIP store, and the CS POD is from the CES Shop.

The PM POD requires Captain level 40 and a Survey skill of 300. The VP and CS POD’s require Captain level 30 and a Survey skill of 250.

It's function only takes effect when a captain's Harvester is scanning for resources in a nebula. Similar to the Valkyrie Interface, it allows the captain's Harvester to tap into the ship's AI database to do a much deeper heuristics analysis of radiation signals from the nebula, as well as allowing better path-tracking for safe incursion deeper into the nebula. This allows a higher chance of recovering better resources.

When an Ereshkigal POD(s) is active, at the point a Harvester makes the attempt to locate a resource, there is a chance of 10% per POD equipped (up to 30% max) that the normal result resolution is preempted by a result on the “good” table. On this table, the search result is a percentile roll on an abridged list with no normal resources. Each AI-UN resource has a 2% chance of appearing, each NB resource has a 1% chance of appearing, and the remaining 81% is split between the Dark Matter resources. If the POD does not cause a roll on the “good” table, a normal resource discovery resolution is resolved.

If the Captain has no Harvesters surveying for resources, the Ereshkigal POD’s can be removed. They only take effect when Harvesters attempt a resolution to a resource survey.

The long-term effect is that Captains have a small increase of consistently pulling valuable resources with their Harvesters, but the effect is not overwhelming enough that Biogenic Ore and Zirconium not be seen. It will still require Harvester resetting, but would let Captains who invest in crafting or financial support to get a desired result more quickly.

The function of the Ereshkigal POD can also be separated from the AI resources. If adding AI Resources to Harvester results is questionable, the POD’s can be added to make fishing for Dark Matter easier. If any new Nebula resources are added in the future, the Ereshkigal preempt table can be updated with the new resources.

Lastly, the three POD’s would let players who cannot financially support the game still have a POD to equip when Nebula fishing, while encouraging both Patreon support and CES shop support. Those who can support the game would be encouraged to do so, while not leaving others out.

[Coops]

hmmmmm - laughed a lot at the description

Would like to hear player feed back on this idea. Unsure if players would be up for that small of a % chance, I'd need to review the current list of resources available to check how that would work... I 'like' the idea don't get me wrong but....

Feed back players....

Coops

[Akkamaddi]

It's just an idea. I expect any suggestion to be pulled apart and changed, and there is the limitation that I have no idea how the "under the hood" mechanics work. I think expanding the Nebula Resource to include the AI resources released a few years ago would make Harvesters far more valuable for long-term use, and I think a POD to make finding the good stuff easier would make Nebula fishing lest wasteful. Any details are malleable.