A Developer Tries to Reach the Core - Episodes 8 and 9

[george moromisato]

No new episode this week (I'm on vacation) but I've got episodes 8 and 9 uploaded:

Episode 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9mhLdFcI5c
Episode 9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLDxpsPhoOY

[NMS]

From the previous thread:

I'm watching the next episode on Twitch. I can't scream out loud because people are sleeping nearby, so I came here to say, "GAAAAAAAH!" at George giving up tens of thousands of credits by selling nearly everything to the wrong stations, including taking a loss on illegals (and ignoring the medical stations).

On Episode 8 24:47, consider yourself yelled at for selling the reaper missiles.

Quite a few capital ship types in the ungoverned territories aren't radiation immune and radiation kills don't have to go through internal structure. For instance the thing at 31:05. That Curator frigate at 11:58 in episode 9 is another place where those reapers would have come in handy.

Also, what are you doing identifying curator artifacts?

90% are fake. Fakes sell for basically nothing. Genuine artifacts sell for 10x as much as unidentified artifacts. If you identify them on average you lose as much to fakes as you gain from genuine artifacts. And analyzers are rare and limited use and sell for a lot. You're just throwing money away.

[NMS]

Also:
- He also sold all his Brutes, which were his most powerful missiles at the time (ignoring the radiation of the Reapers).
- George: "Hey, I lost money on that trade!" Me: "Has he finally realized that the prices stations pay matter?" He sells a +50% level 5 shield to a Commonwealth station (or corporate metropolis). Me: "I guess not."
- George, if you're waiting for my permission to dump all that damaged armor you're carrying around, you have it. There aren't so many places to sell it in the Ungoverned Territories, and it's not worth much at this point.
- You really should go back and get those fusion triggers in the Sapiens station and either take them to a Tinker or sell them to a corporate enclave.
- The TeV-9 can be sold to Black Market stations (and should be, because they pay 90%).
- Also, military weapons and armor can be bought from the Commonwealth fortress and sold at a profit there now that you're max rank. The fortress is also a good place to upgrade your reactor, as you can resell them at a profit to Commonwealth stations.
- The nearby place to sell illegals is the St. K's Arcology.

[PM]

- George, if you're waiting for my permission to dump all that damaged armor you're carrying around, you have it. There aren't so many places to sell it in the Ungoverned Territories, and it's not worth much at this point.

Maybe George is saving broken armor to dump into a fabricator, and he can exploit that better than anyone since he wrote the code.

- Also, military weapons and armor can be bought from the Commonwealth fortress and sold at a profit there now that you're max rank. The fortress is also a good place to upgrade your reactor, as you can resell them at a profit to Commonwealth stations.

I sell anything military to Black Market for the greatest profit margin. If I can enhance it (usually by Ingenuity), I do that first then sell.

[NMS]

Maybe George is saving broken armor to dump into a fabricator, and he can exploit that better than anyone since he wrote the code.

Way too early for that.

I sell anything military to Black Market for the greatest profit margin.

Commonwealth stations pay the same price (90%) for anything that isn't weapons, ammo, shields, or armor. Thor's Wondrous Devices also pays 90% for any equipment or consumables.

[PM]

It is never too early to hoard armor for the fabricator. I often save every last armor segment I find for eventual fabricator shenanigans in Stars of the Pilgrim. (In Eternity Port, fabricator has a good chance of not spawning at all, not to mention no Elysium makes jumpdrive almost useless, and I sell things I normally save for the fabricator.)

Black Markets pay 95% market price for all military items you sell.
Nevermind, double-checked and it is 90%.

[Song]

George is basically a well-informed newbie. So while he does know how the game works......like any dev of a large game, he's not expected to know everything about the game. Hence why we're constantly finding new tricks and suggesting balance changes and the like (some of them are even good ideas). Grinding out fabricator stuff is also really boring, and hoarding armor segments makes it harder to loot other stuff. That being said, if he does cover the fabricator briefly it'd be cool for anyone watching who doesn't understand the mechanic.


Alternatively, he'd get eaten and we'd have a great time in chat.



Regardless, hopefully he'll be too busy working on my challenge to actually use the QAC (cough).

[PM]

Yes, the fabricator is obnoxious and possibly "boring", but the payoff is well worth the trouble.

Before 1.1, when fabricator could level anything up to level 10, it was so good that my strategy for every game was get jumpdrive, find fabricator, spawn level 10 loot, then backtrack and slaughter everyone in virtual godmode for the remaining 60-70% of the game. Now, it can level items up to 8, but it is still very powerful despite the weakening since 1.1 (because some very useful endgame items are level 8 or less).

[Song]

Yes, the fabricator is obnoxious and possibly "boring", but the payoff is well worth the trouble.

Before 1.1, when fabricator could level anything up to level 10, it was so good that my strategy for every game was get jumpdrive, find fabricator, spawn level 10 loot, then backtrack and slaughter everyone in virtual godmode for the remaining 60-70% of the game. Now, it can level items up to 8, but it is still very powerful despite the weakening since 1.1 (because some very useful endgame items are level 8 or less).

Oh, yes. Definitely. While I don't like the implementation of it, it's undeniably a very powerful mechanic. Although as you say, it's no longer outright broken in the way that it once was.

[JohnBWatson]

Watched ep. 8. A few things:

1. Love how you went into some things about the factions, it makes the videos a lot more interesting and provides a bit of a hook for potential new players, too.

2. The howitzer is an artillery piece. If you're using it at short range, enemy shots will take out your own, and you'll take hits you wouldn't have taken otherwise.

3. For anything other than in - combat repairs, there are much more efficient ways of getting armor back up to a repairable level than the kits. Early game, patches are cheaper, and late game, spiders are reusable as long as they're taken off afterwards. They're also worth enough money to sell immediately.

4. Your equipment is good enough to kill salvagers without taking damage. It's a good idea to take advantage of that.

5. Slave camps can be liberated most effectively by sniping the central base from a distance, then rushing in and claiming the slaves. You'll kill 1 or 2, but the rest are certain to be safe and no ammo is wasted.

6. Volkov's a tough guy. He can handle absorbing some fire for you as long as you don't abandon him completely.

[PM]

Repair kits are great for repairing any armor you cannot repair otherwise due to too high repair level or too much damage. Of course, they are good to sell for quick cash, and you can always farm more from Ranx gunships.

[JohnBWatson]

Watched part 9:

1. You can shoot the transports at the BM stations. They'll flee and then you can kill them with no consequences for some decent loot. Probably should be consequences for doing that, but there aren't any at the moment.

2. If you turn your shield off when it's not being used, you can save a ton of credits. Use the credits to buy better armor, need the shield less, and the cycle of savings continues.

3. Anyone else wonder why we have to tell the people buying from us that our analysed artifacts are fake? We can hock food supplies the military gave us, blow up cities as long as someone else gets the blame, and outright rob stations with the eject hack, but a dishonest trade is a step too far?

4. At 43:20 you mention a bug. Relevant ministry tag is here: http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=7009

[Song]

3. Anyone else wonder why we have to tell the people buying from us that our analysed artifacts are fake? We can hock food supplies the military gave us, blow up cities as long as someone else gets the blame, and outright rob stations with the eject hack, but a dishonest trade is a step too far?

We have STANDARDs, my good sir! STANDARDS!

Lying to traders indeed.......






(Yes, we've been wondering that [and snarking in IRC days about it] since the mechanic was introduced)

[Ferdinand]

It would be much more efficient to really use your wingman by giving them commands. They will not engage by themselves unless you tell them to. It would have made your escort missions much easier. Break and Attack command is perfect for these escort missions. You'd still have Volkov if you had given the Break and Attack command. he will try to avoid dropping his shields and disengage to have it recharged.

If you have a big target, or station then just target it and use the Attack command to have your wingman concentrate fire on it.

You are wasting expensive missiles (lucifers) on ships that can easily be taken out with your smartcannon that you have totally forgotten about. Using that in the escort missions instead of the howitzer will give you benefit of actually hitting enemies! And if you accidentally hit the freighter or a wingman you will not do so much damage (I believe you hit Jenna very often causing her shield to drop and needing to dock to repair). It will also free up some space in your cargohold. just use it until you're out of smartcannon ammo and then replace the almost obsolete smartcannon for something better suited for the Ungoverned Territories.

You are now very unlikely to be able to sell damaged armor or weapons without backtracking, so either dump them in space or backtrack to a system where you can still sell them and don't loot damaged items. You can of course install and repair damaged armor before selling it, but that won't be very profitable (if at all).