Suggestions on how to improve the mod

[Solarius Scorch]

So here's my take on all of this talk
(...)
Just my 2 cents.

Posts that consist solely of "you are right man" are spammy and I don't make them.
This one's an exception though. Because you are right, man.

[ivandogovich]

Posts that consist solely of "you are right man" are spammy and I don't make them.
This one's an exception though. Because you are right, man.

I'll spam here too to add my concurrence!

[clownagent]

But a sell counter could be useful in itself. Some items would have them. With sell counter, you could add new researches, enemy missions or maybe simply some sort of one-time prizes or penalties after some set threshold is met... wouldn't that be cool... (and if someone wants, this could be further used as a base for price manipulation in other mods).

A sell counter would be also nice for hiring unique special units. Let's say you may hire only one supermutant with special stats/powers and if it dies it is gone forever.

[Dioxine]

Yeah, right now the only way to add an unique item would be through a single-run special mission. But you can't get soldiers like this... Or engineers, or scientists... wink, wink
A flag to the effect of "buy only once" would be helpful with this, yeah. Could also be used to have 'buy and research this item' functionality, where the only way (or alternate way) to get tech is through buying.

[legionof1]

Oooooh buying tech items that's a neat idea.

[Arthanor]

I think it could be interesting for some "once a month/every X month" items which allow a research breakthrough, so you can get out of a research choke-point if the RNG is just not spawning the right factions. Something like "Academy Tech hacking", "Trader Tech hacking", etc. which contains all valuable (dependency wise) research topic and, once researched, gets you one of them (might not be the one you want, but should always be something useful). Just have to make it expensive enough and long enough to research that the proper way is better if you can find the target. It could even work as a repeatable research project like Solarius was talking about.

Similarly, getting a max # of brainerz a month would slow down the quick race to 15 brainerz and put a cap on maximum research possible. Same for runts (cap on max production = cap on max booze) and gals (oh the dreadful month where you squad wipe and already bought all your replacements!).

Or make the cap softer by increasing price instead of setting a max number. Something like 1st item a month is cheaper (you got the nearest available one), subsequent ones are increasingly expensive (you have to look further/compete more with others who are also looking). Same for selling stuff. The more you sell, the less it's worth, with a reset every once in a while. Or even further, a currentPrice = defaultPrice * (1-X) + yesterdayPrice * X + #(boughtToday - soldToday)*priceChange, where X < 1. So price changes as you buy/sell and slowly sinks back over time to the default. But that's a lot more variables to track in a save...

[legionof1]

I would say something on the order of once every 6 months to a year would be a good interval. Or maybe a few smallish "defector" type missions. Some guy would rather get a quick payout from a pirate gang then slave the rest of his life in middle management. Would be something like an envoy size ship with a high proportion of marsec BGs or equivalent and the "defector" who is unarmed and comes from the list of "interrogation targets". Or maybe its a prisoner transport ship

[Solarius Scorch]

I would say something on the order of once every 6 months to a year would be a good interval. Or maybe a few smallish "defector" type missions. Some guy would rather get a quick payout from a pirate gang then slave the rest of his life in middle management. Would be something like an envoy size ship with a high proportion of marsec BGs or equivalent and the "defector" who is unarmed and comes from the list of "interrogation targets". Or maybe its a prisoner transport ship

Sir, I must say your ideas are straight from the 80's bad sci-fi movies! My favourite!

[sambojin]

"Oh, so you're selling out your people and the technology they have for a bit of cash?"

"Yes. I also heard you've got a woman with 3 boobs......"


One-off "faction" items and missions might be cool. Even if it's a standard mission where you have to kill/capture everyone (with that faction item being assured in loot), it would represent someone setting up their own side, but you still doing the dirty work.

The item is more-or-less like a gun almanac, just more specific, with a bit of work to do to get the second (and useful) part of it.

There's lots of stuff that could be done with this idea.

[Yglorba]

I don't see a huge difference. Everything on the Bonny isn't on the Blackmarket screen, thus you're not using it if it's sellable.

Belatedly:

This is unfortunately not true.  When the screen comes up after a mission due to lack of space, for some reason everything on the Bonny is shown as available to be sold.  Not only that, items your gals are actually equipped with will be included.  (I found this out the hard way when I accidentally sold the Cattle Prods I was using.)

I assume this is because when a ship is out, it's no longer considered valid storage space, and somehow everything in it is dumped into your base?  Or maybe it's a quirk of the fire-sale-due-to-space screen.  In any case the effect is the same; when you're low on space, it's very easy to accidentally sell items you are actually using.

[Dioxine]

If it didn't work like that you could easily hang/cheat the game by 'hiding' everything in a ship.

I would say something on the order of once every 6 months to a year would be a good interval. Or maybe a few smallish "defector" type missions. Some guy would rather get a quick payout from a pirate gang then slave the rest of his life in middle management. Would be something like an envoy size ship with a high proportion of marsec BGs or equivalent and the "defector" who is unarmed and comes from the list of "interrogation targets". Or maybe its a prisoner transport ship

:/ A mission to this effect is already in-game for a quite some time

Spoiler:

(although the 'defector' is fully armed, he travels only with a small escort). Problem: he never lands and has a very fast ship.

[legionof1]

if we are speaking about a certain 6000 top speed craft and mission yes it does exist in a technical state but that interception profile is....... Nigh impossible, given scan cycles are 30 mins. Ships at such speed can go across a hyperwave area without detection. And unless it drops to less then half speed interception is impossible until near end fighter tech. even then needs to drop speed a reasonable fraction to allow an intercept. And hope the intercept doesn't vaporize it cause its damn frail compared to your normal target profile. Lesson learned me . A balance factor that is just as hard as the normal route(or harder YMMV) is not a balance factor. It is only another path.

I'm quite happy the path exists don't get me wrong. Doesn't sufficiently alleviate the issue of rng blockage though. A full run of this mod is a significant time investment on the player's part. How long is meridian's LP in published time and off camera? If what we the players acceptis a long haul game makes itself longer through without player input it feels pretty bad. My current run had a 2-2.5 game year period of me merely not losing, with no really tempting bait on the hook to keep my interest. Just cutter/sentry/escort/etc run  I stuck it out on stubbornness, out of game knowledge, and what the mod had shown me so far. I'm the type of player that hammers at a problem till it gives. The type that keeps trying things that everyone else says give up on. The kind that games like Dark Souls are the target audience for. IS this the kind of player you want to be the majority of your community?

Dioxine, you even said to restart to me at one point. You at the time agreed that i had been given the shaft and changed that particular piece of the mod. Different precise circumstances, same general problem. Consider carefully what your design goal is.

Either way this mod is a spectacular piece of work and has my adoration and support.

EDIT: WELL FUCK ME AND CALL ME SHIRLEY. new version posted while im writing this wall o text speech. Ignore me and im gona shut up now. Still great work.

[Eddie]

While we are talking about economy, could we make hellerium loot a bit more scarce? I mean we have a mileage info for all craft, but I never thought about it much because I have so much hellerium that I actually need to sell it. It can be bought and it can be "manufactured", so less hellerium loot won't end the game.

When I think about what items I need to conserve, craft missiles is one example. I think hellerium should be there too so that mileage is actually something I will think about.

[legionof1]

Mid game you are right eddie Missiles trump Hellirum. However when you start using it for fuel, craft ammo, Armor, grenades, weapon ammo, and some weapons the need adds up. Add in that late game some the needful craft have shit mileage and you need multiple flying against an increasing rate of targets. The mod has a natural curve in usage of material. The early game is a scramble to get something/anything better then what you have. Mid game is the econ stage you can make efficient stuff yourself and save up to invest in real production and all the other things. Late game you go back to spending economy just with different priorities and a huge budget.     

[Dioxine]

Exactly. Also. Each Hellerium burnt = $12k net loss (sale price). Think about it. As for the mileage - I don't see why it should be uber-punishing.
Also story-wise, Earth is overflowing with Hellerium. Not only the planet got massive influxes of the mineral from the Star Gods (to make earthlings hellerium-dependant), but also the stellar neighbourhood is devoid of life and rich in Hellerium deposits. The Hellerium gold rush is starting. The times are comparatively good, only that makes any revolution even possible.