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[Hapah]

I'd imagine it's more of a "on the whole" thing. Like, if the M15 team had actually acquired some swag and brought it back out, it wouldn't matter who carried the boxes: they got what they came for, and so the team gets paid. If they cleaned out the ship or found something hidden or very valuable they'd probably get a little more. Since they got nothing of value (which was the mission objective), they get nothing in return.

On M14, we definitely screwed it a little bit. The mission was to investigate and disrupt/destroy the cult, and while we did find basement guy and kill a few cultists it definitely could have gone better. Basement team got data, though, and that's gotta be worth something. But I'd think we'll all get something, and not just the basement team.

[yobbo]

Unless the amount being given for "loot" is massively scaled upwards, there's no way it's going to be adequate to pay for expenses across the entire team that was down there. There are twenty players there. At standard pay that would be 100 tokens.

Also the mission as given was that there was a cult and that we should "check it out", which was certainly done. The only given objective was not even failed.

[Parisbre56]

"Good job guys. Now we just need to lose those helis, and we're in the clear. I don't think taking them down peacefully is an option now, so I'm afraid we'll just have to kick them till they leave. Unless any of you have any ideas on how to sneak away? If not,  Flint, you probably have the best tools for bringing the pain with you. I'm sorry for asking you this."

I considered flying towards the opposite direction of the APC to outrun them and lure them away at the same time, but then they might split up and have some of them head for the APC. So I think the only way to do this without the danger of the APC getting hit by an air to ground missile is to fight them.

[Toaster]

Generally, armor damage is patched up on the house.


Also, evidence is mounting that the Doc might actually be *more* powerful than the AM.

[Unholy_Pariah]

And if all people are supposed to focus on is "get the most loot" you'll just end up with a whole squad of Aurons with everyone squabbling over every little shiny thing in stead of actually doing things that contribute to mission success.

Okay that just isnt right.

On this mission everything i have done has furthered the mission objectives, or did you forget how steve gave out artifact boxes for us to collect cult property and ordered the data recovery and egg destruction personally?

[yobbo]

Cramming the dessicated corpse in a box destroyed any remaining chance at negotiation, which could well have obtained the leader as an ally, and obtained all experiments and artifacts for free.

[Unholy_Pariah]

...

You want me to dick around trying to negotiate with an unresponsive corpse when faith has been bodysnatched as opposed to sticking him on ice and reviving him on ship where we could actually talk to him?

Yeah no thanks, diplomacy can wait until diplomacy is possible.

[sambojin]

Even fresh out of the box newbies get 5 tokens. That's enough for guns or amps or close combat. Maybe you got given shotguns because you didn't have squat. But most missions focus on decision making, not firepower or skill rolls. It also tends to be 5 tokens give or take per mission, depending on how well you did (or how badly, sometimes far more or less). With character levelling and weapon/armour mods and tinkering, the world's your oyster. Unless you die. Then it's not.

It's that decision making thing again....

[yobbo]

Hmm. My issue is that the token system doesn't seem to work that way. If you could expect a baseline of 5 tokens for following orders and doing an okay job, with bonuses or deductions based on personal and team performance, that'd be fine. But for example i can't see how the survivors (in particular the newbies) from mission 15 could've made any different decisions to affect the outcome of that mission.

It seems like this system encourages:
* prioritizing personal loot acquisition over all else
* hoarding resources from mission funds/handouts to keep or sell later
* letting your teammates do all the work and take all the risks

for example if there's not going to be a base payout for mission 14, Yttra should have made the following decisions:
a) spend majority of mission hiding in a box
b) hoard everything from the gear drop and keep it / sell it later
c) do not use any consumables, grenades or ammo, as they are worth tokens.

It bothers me that the reward system encourages this behaviour over participating in mission success.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Hmm. My issue is that the token system doesn't seem to work that way. If you could expect a baseline of 5 tokens for following orders and doing an okay job, with bonuses or deductions based on personal and team performance, that'd be fine. But for example i can't see how the survivors (in particular the newbies) from mission 15 could've made any different decisions to affect the outcome of that mission.

It seems like this system encourages:
* prioritizing personal loot acquisition over all else
* hoarding resources from mission funds/handouts to keep or sell later
* letting your teammates do all the work and take all the risks

for example if there's not going to be a base payout for mission 14, Yttra should have made the following decisions:
a) spend majority of mission hiding in a box
b) hoard everything from the gear drop and keep it / sell it later
c) do not use any consumables, grenades or ammo, as they are worth tokens.

It bothers me that the reward system encourages this behaviour over participating in mission success.

Don't forget that the bonus on competence still applies. Doing that would mean you get a greater equal share of loot (everything looted from the mission with the exception of personally killed opponents goes to a common team fund), but you end up with zero on the competence bonus. The more people apply that strategy, the less chance of mission success and any payout at all.

In the case of mission 15, it was one guy's stupid decision, and another one's terrible luck with the dice, that ended the mission with a near-TPK. Everything after Stacy's HEP stunt was the direct result of that first bad decision.

Back in Mission 4, Nekarios could have done a similar thing all by himself. A mission almost undone by a single bad decision coupled with a bad roll. It was just luck that the mission succeeded after that. Sometimes these things just happen.

[Xantalos]

http://xkcd.com/958/

[yobbo]

Still i can't imagine the payout for a newbie being more than 1-2 tokens, competence and loot-share included. In terms of contribution to the mission, those with battle suits and mass amps obviously did far more. 1-2 tokens probably isn't even enough to offset using a few grenades.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The grenades are never yours unless you bought them with your own money. Anything that is bought with the mission fund, returns to the mission fund. Anything obtained on the mission (again, personal kills excepted) is added to the team fund. The team and mission funds are split between the team members as would be fair, and then competence bonuses are added on top. It's an incentive to loot and conserve consumables one hand, and an incentive to do good and be active on the other.

Grenades are two a token, I think, and if they're not yours then each grenade only costs you... half a token, divided by the amount of people in the team. So if you're in a team of four, then each grenade's nominal return cost is 1/8th of a token.

[yobbo]

I'm skeptical that this is all determined fairly as you say. I haven't seen anything like the level of accounting that would be necessary to do that properly.

Besides, if everything goes in and out via these funds, then that's even more incentive just to hang back and hope someone finishes the mission successfully and acquires lots of loot for you.

Also from what i've seen of the previous missions, "dividing fairly" means "giving the vast majority to those who already had a massive gear advantage and thus contributed more to the mission".

[Parisbre56]

I say you just wait until the mission ends and if there is a problem then, then we'll talk about it then.

And I don't think people with battlesuits did that much. I don't remember doing anything important besides scouting that telescope and keeping the helicopters off the APC. And setting fire to part of a city, but I wouldn't count that as a good thing.