Settlement Events

[Pablem]

sorry Fang, I get your point, but you're the wrong messenger.
<No intention of being mean-spirited, but the following is a report on what the players see. It's the kind of information that staff wouldn't typically receive. I know staff work hard and help out everyone.>

I've heard too many reports of Staff buying up resources BEFORE schematic lists come out. That sort of taints your message about getting it done in 48 hours since you had access to the schematics for a lot longer than the rest of us. This also happened with expanse settlements (the first two settlements were popped down by staff within a few days)

And in CE terms a month is a race. That's a typical length for one of the competitions....which is what this ended up feeling like.

Maybe better timing can resolve this. Like putting the schematics (or a general idea of the scale of resources needed) out well BEFORE the announcement of what the new feature even does. Currently, we get a new feature release notice and schematics at the same time, with a deadline, and then a mad-scramble with the players who don't log significant playtime every day really getting the short end of the stick. There was a few days warning that it would use LOTS of basic resources...but LOTS could mean 40k or 400k to different people. Would a 2-phase release like this make sense from the dev side?

And building one is a lot different from building 7 like I did for people. Not everyone is a crafter and not everyone is a resource collector, nor are they geared that way for enjoyment. Of the 7 I built I ended up collecting materials for 5 of them with only a little help. By the time I was on the third prices were going crazy because all of the loose resources had already been sold on the GBM. I put every other project on hold, used every source (except raiding the guild stores). This is a hoarding problem, but one caused by the above process. I will put some thought into this and bring my ideas on a new thread.

And finally at the players. There will be times when you need to use alternate collection methods from your preferred. Adapt and Evolve is a survival mechanism. You won't always be able to collect everything yourself via extractors or mining.

[Shinter]

sorry Fang, I get your point, but you're the wrong messenger.
<No intention of being mean-spirited, but the following is a report on what the players see. It's the kind of information that staff wouldn't typically receive. I know staff work hard and help out everyone.>

I've heard too many reports of Staff buying up resources BEFORE schematic lists come out. That sort of taints your message about getting it done in 48 hours since you had access to the schematics for a lot longer than the rest of us. This also happened with expanse settlements (the first two settlements were popped down by staff within a few days)

I feel it necessary to add here that staff actually are required to NOT do this, and I've never actually seen this happen. There are many times where we know things are coming out, sure, but we have to specifically NOT buy up those resources, even once the initial release comes out and leave things for players to sort through first. So this complaint is completely unfounded and not true. The first two expanse settlements were staff because of the simple reason that those two people practically live in the Expanse and have accumulated vast quantities of the required resources, not because they had advanced knowledge of the requirements (Coops often doesn't share the schematics with us, just has us test the actual buildings used).

I was similarly able to make 7 of the CAICs just from resources I had already in storage, and 5 of these went towards players who could skip the resource gathering process, but I had not seen the schematics until everyone else had (in fact, after many others had, because I wasn't able to play until later the day they came out). My 7th build ran out of Copper and Wood, so I had to pay the already increasing prices for those on the GBM, just like everyone else.

In short, staff rarely see schematics before their release, but we are also required to NOT buy up peoples stocks before a release, precisely to avoid this sort of view by the rest of you. If anything, things are often harder for us because of this, because we have to wait to act until we've given players a chance first. If we are able to do something quicker, it is merely because of how we play as players, not because of special staff secrets. I would think by now this would be common knowledge...

[Pablem]

thank you Shinter.

[mropso]

Figured I would jump in with both feet.

As has been identified, none of the resources are difficult to get either by mining, owning a settlement, submoling, recycling, the GBM, Sven or your Guild. Even combat and mining will give many of them.

If you play the game, all these things happen, what else have you been doing with your fuel. What have you been doing with the cooper ore, the wood and the Xanthomite to name but a few. Some of the people complaining have multiple settlements - aren't these producing the basics for you 24 hours a day?

There is an objection to spending SRP and cash because it was intended to go towards level 6. That is annoying, I understand that. But we have all spent money and resources we had earmarked for something to get the settlement AI - but that is what they are for. Look on the bright side those that come after us will need to harvest all these resources just to get to a Level 4 settlement - they wont have the advantage of using a settlement expander.

As for UncleBob's problem with the GBM - sorry to singe you UncleBob but really...

I had a GBM order for Copper ore at three times base price that hardly didn't move at all. Since I found other sources, I could remove it. But really, in this case GBM wasn't the answer.
/UncleBod

There are products on the GBM at 450 multiples of the base price!

If you are not being supplied, you are not offering enough cash - I know, I have had very few offers to fill my GBM for Ozablese Fragments at that is at 11 times base price.

This is big change to the game, Coops and his team have worked hard at it in order to provide a richer gaming experience. We, the players, need to play our part and accept that the universe changes - almost always for the better.

Sometimes we need to put out pet projects aside, jump on the wagon and go for the ride.

This is one of those times - we will have a richer experience as a result.

[Coops]

In short, staff rarely see schematics before their release

I can confirm this - I rarely add the schematics for these builds to the Dev server till the final day. They have very little lead over yourselves when I create these Schematics. They may have input into which store they may come from and input into the end item use etc but rarely do they see the schematics long before you do.

Coops

[Elkhorn]

As an ex-staffie I have to agree with coops, shinter and all. Being on staff doesn't give you a leg up on the players, sometimes just the opposite. I fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. I needed some money fast so I was filling GBM right and left prior to the release of the schematics. I had some, put up GBM orders for some, mined and extracted some and bought some from the different shops.
Question. If this were "real world" how much advanced notice to be prepared would you get? Coops even delayed the start-up to allow players more time. Yes, a free market will drive prices up. I needed 10K wood and was tired of people out bidding me so I put up an order for 10K wood at 500 cpu. Expensive, you bet, but the order was filled above the 8 players that were offering from 100 to 180 cpu.
By the way, I also purchased one ship at 300 million (that one almost broke me) and one at 250 million. Currently I have 65 million in the bank and 15 million in my settlement. You can't have your cake and eat it too, unless you are like Bebee and have a trillion credits, LOL.

[MarcSp]

Me, I'm just grateful we finally had a decent sized build that didn't require megatons of alien/expanse crud.

[Pablem]

Elkhorn,
That's fine if the intent is to reward hoarding.

If it wasn't, then we should discuss what the intent was. Coops is quick to call out how much of a resource is in the hands of players whenever we start having supply problems. I usually take that as a call to the owner to sell, not the buyers to offer usury rates. Even capitalism has laws against price gouging during a State of Emergency.

I can't offer good suggestions if the problem I see is different from the one that the devs see. And if the devs don't see a problem, we should know that too. I'll try to shut up now.

[Blythe]

Ha ha ha. If you don't like the cost of the CAIC building, you're really not going to like the SRP cost of researching these 3 items (Emergency Services, Settlement Security, and Trade & Research). If you don't have an SRP Booster account upgrade, you're in for a long ride. Actually, even if you DO have one, you're in for a long ride.

Research level 1: SRP cost: 10,000 each (of 3 items)
Research level 2: SRP cost: 25,000 each (of 3 items)
Research level 3: SRP cost: 40,000 each (of 3 items)
Research level 4: SRP cost: 55,000 each (of 3 items)
.....
and there are 37 levels each (of 3).

By my extrapolated calculations, that should result in an SRP cost to complete research at 31,080,000 SRP. You might want to check my math on that but I think I'm right.

Sounds like a Snickers candy bar advert: "Not going anywhere for a while?"

So much for my advancement to a Level 6 settlement. I was only 1 step away too. Oh well....

[Stanton Fisk]

I've had my first event without a C.A.I.C. and it's not so bad (maybe because Coops hasn't dialed it up to 10 yet).

-My staff's Morale has dropped 3%. But it goes up every time the pirates attack.
-I had a Fire on Deck C, causing structural damage. I'm not sure what this means. Maybe settlement hit point loss but I'm not sure because I received a pirate attack today too.
-I lost 885 RSPs because of a central mainframe computer security breach. But I make RSPs everyday.
-And one of my staff stole 39772 Credits. But I make credits everyday.

It remains to be seen if the events get worse.

What kind of events is everyone else having, both with and without the C.A.I.C.?