Ferians and zooanthropes

[Atarlost]

If you "fix" the rin economy by making the teratons buy more you haven't done any good. The Teratons will still steal your stuff and not let you trade if you don't already have a high end reactor.

You go from one entry point, two if you already have a Koshiba or Hyperion to only ever having one entry point that you can only use if you have a Koshiba or Hyperion.

You can, if they're not robbing you, get enough rins doing nothing but selling what they already buy. Ranx DNs always drop an intact Kiloton. Chasms are farmable. Tundras are farmable and ammo cannot be damaged. Once you're kitted out for it Deimoses and Phoboses are farmable and have multiple chances to drop Teraton loot.

Even if the teratons are made to no longer mug you you've still halved the number of stations you can get rins from. I take it you've never had one of those frustrating games where the first several rin stations that show up are Taikons? With your change you can remove ringers from the list of stations that can make those Taikons useful and add them to the list of useless stations until a Teraton hive is found.

[Amilir]

(or (and (ls (objGetCombatPower gPlayerShip) 15) (leq (random 1 100) 25))
(and (ls (objGetCombatPower gPlayerShip) 25) (leq (random 1 100) 5)))

The exact line from the xml. In the worst case scenario, teratons only rob you 1/4 of the time. You can trade with them just fine with an unupgraded hornet if you exercise some caution and accept the risk. IF that formula is reactorpower/10 (though I would bet on shield+weapon+reactor+armor level), a 150MW, non-military reactor, will drop that chance to 1/20. A sn250 would make you safe. In other words, get your facts straight before you debate!

In any case, ferians are NOT the only way to get credits from ringers. Ringer valuable items, mining ore yourself, buying it from stations, outlaw miners.... To say that this would totally eliminate an entry point is silly. Ferian loot could still be sold for hundreds of thousands of credits, so there's still a reason to kill 'em. Also, ferians are still the only source of their plasma cannons, which is the main reason I commit slaughter anyway.

Actually, aside from maybe a few rins to install an ICS killer, the rin economy is unnecessary to get through the game anyway. In fact, that would be a fitting punishment in itself. Let ringers refuse to sell and install weapons. I would have suggested such, but frankly, it would be much more crippling. If you don't go for the lamplighter, you'd be forced to use a level 9- weapon for the fight. That is very difficult without enhancements. Back to my first point, why does the player need thousands of easy rin? I don't really see a good answer.

[Aury]

Also, people will just find new and creative ways to get around the ringer ban:
ie, using asteroid ejecta to kill ferian stations, using enemy ships to do so, etc.


And I'll still be mercilessly blowing up teraton stations because they'd still be jerks who completely rip you off.

[PM]

For the player, combat power varies by reactor power:

10MW = 4
up to 25MW = 7
up to 50MW = 10
up to 100MW = 14
up to 250MW = 22
up to 500MW = 32
up to 1GW = 46
1.2GW = 74

If you enhance a 250MW reactor (to 300MW), your combat power will rise from 22 to 32.

For enemies, it varies by their score.

[Amilir]

Wolfy> Fair point. Encouraging further exploitation of the game engine isn't really the way to go.

PM> That makes zero sense. I guess I was wrong then.

[PM]

Why do players need rin? Answer: because the Ringers are the only ones who can install most level X devices and Iocrym plate. If I did not need such dock services, I would avoid the Ringers entirely.

Ferians are my second most annoying faction because all those crawling bugs are an eyesore, get in the way of mining, and slow the game down if there are too many. (Most annoying faction goes to Salvagers.) Fixing these problems as a player requires their extermination. I do not want the Ringers to become angry because I eliminate their pet scrappy faction.

(To Amilir) I do not know the CombatPower formula. I found those numbers while writing a Dragonball Z style power scanner mod. After I saw the results, I scrapped it.

[Drako Slyith]

You can't kill someone and expect no consequences just because they are ugly and get in the way. I believe that was attempted around 1940. It didn't end well.
The point of making the ringers get angry if to make the game more realistic. A way to avoid the increase of difficulty is to add a station able to install level X items that accepts credits.

[Atarlost]

Ore is ore. Unless the Ferians have fully sapient minders who can call for help there's no way for the ringers to even know the player has been hive busting.

[Drako Slyith]

Until their ore supply drops, and the player arrives with the exact quantity of missing ore
Or the fix could be similar to the commonwealth's "Pirate" charge, you only get arrested if they see you.

[Resident-Pyromaniac]

Curse the darned ferian warriors! I hate those buggers. :(