Hey
Thanks both for the input, as usual I will skip to the important bits. If i don't comment a particular point, its likely because i agree and don't have a lot to add.
On getting money. Depends if you automate or not. With automated ships, traders (which tend to get the best deal available in a given solar system) are king. With 1 trader, after half an hour or so you'll get enough to buy 10 more which in turn are enough to fund your first stations, start an empire, build a fleet, whatever. Miners offer a slower income but also a more secure one (you don't risk loosing goods you actually bought to pirates).
As a player-ship, mining, yes, is easier as you don't have the tools to find the best deals available (yet).
Regarding trading in general. Well, last beta (3) was supposed to take care of it's exploitable nature, and partially did. But I was dragged into other important changes, so the trading update is still ongoing. As a matter of fact, trade stations won't allow to buy and sell the same item (you can either buy or sell, not both), apart for some special loot and ship equipments from now on. And pricing will be based on production facilities available around the trade station. It's mostly done but still need further testing.
Bounty hunting is way more dangerous and for less profit. Trying to get a specific bounty is a crapshoot; half the time, you show up in the sector that ship is supposedly in and it's not there. If it's there, it's very risky to collect the bounty since when you shoot at it, the ship's faction puts a bounty on you which causes all the warships in the faction to start attacking you. [...]
Ships don't wait for you and live their own life. The indicated location is where it was when the mission was added, actual position (of the currently selected mission) is marked on the gal map by a red reticule on the sector. And in the current (in-house, yet to be released) version, double clicking the mission centers the map on said sector. That said, yes, they can hang out in legit sectors where they don't have a bounty (which are faction specific) and yes the security forces will protect them there. As I said, they do move, so you may want to wait for a better opportunity.
About the bounty values. Yes it is too low, it was implemented before I had any idea of your average raider's lifespan. Truth to be told, pirate captains aside, they don't live long enough for their bounty to raise to decent levels. It may improve once I review the fleeing mechanisms, though. In any case, I basically agree about pricing. I will increase values for each illegal action and factor the ship they're flying into the equations.
[...]Factories vs Trade station[...]
Factories use default prices (set in game's data) when someone comes at their door with something to sell, yes. However, their dock traders should buy at whatever (lowest) price is available in the area. Note, that factions won't "pay themselves" when moving goods between their own docks, so we're only talking about inter-species trading here, otherwise, granted a faction has enough low tier factories to produce their high tier ones, it's 100% benefits for them aside from initial building costs.
Now, trade stations. Yeah they are a bit weird, especially as the trade system isn't 100% completed as explained before.
Goods that aren't used to produce higher trading wares, alongside surplus of other resources (if any) will be moved toward the trade stations (here again for free if we stay in the same faction). Buying and selling prices are only determined based on stocks at the moment (as said, it's gonna change, but it's fairly irrelevant here anyway). Goods, in the long run will be exchanged between trade stations, so traders can make a buck, with the added effect of moving goods toward zones where they are needed.
Additionally, to avoid the system getting clogged by too much production of high end goods, stations will (slowly and only once a given stock threshold is crossed) "sell" some of their stock periodically to the colonies. This is why they don't fill up completely in the late game.
That said, I don't know for sure if trade stations always make money. There's probably some conditions where a TS built in a location where its faction won't produce a lot of high end goods and that will be exploited as a resource dump by 3rd parties. That said, the AI tend to build them only in fairly big sectors where they can get a constant stream of free goods to sell. I wanted to do some tests, but as it's not yet finished, I postponed that for beta 4.
And, yes, btw, what's make the surest way to make money is usually selling from factory to trade station. That said, once the trade model is finished, trade station on trade station trading will likely be more profitable.
It seems to me that small ships like fighters and frigates are just about worthless, in this game. Fighters seem way to easy to hit, and die from a couple of hits of my battleship's flak cannon spam. It seems to me that buying them is just throwing your money away, they're so weak. Maybe I'm missing something?
"Fighters are dirt cheap and more fragile than in many similar games. A couple hits from even low grade weapons will destroy them. Carriers can even replenish their hangar bays freely (as do military bases over time) at repair stations. They are agile, but lasers and area of effect weapons can make very short work of many of them in a couple seconds. Basically fighters are ammunition grade. " (
wiki)
Even if some are much better than others (asterian and spqr especially alongside the ISA fighter you start with in the default scenario), in UG fighters are basically ammo. Usually, a carrier's worth of fighters (30 or so) can take on a battleship, or at least clear its shield and part if its hull (granted said battleship isn't a human one equipped with nuclear warheads). As escort ships, they do the simple job of giving enough time for their leader to jump away to safety whenever endangered. In large encounters they act as a distraction / shield while bigger ships close in.
Initially they were called drones, but it kinda forced everyone to fly in at least a frigate and it ended up being even more confusing. And I don't really see a downside in allowing the player to use/fly them directly.
Frigates are mostly okay, some models may need a slight armor/shield boost though. And no, they're not intended to sustain battleship firepower (nothing is atm apart from military bases). Once energy consumption is being balanced (1.0), It'll likely make more sense as larger ships won't be able to maintain full firepower all the time while smaller ones likely will.
Cheers,
SK.
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Topic: unending galaxy (Read 36400 times)