I think 4nytime makes some very good points, lowering the amount per hour of rare ores and greatly reducing the amount of gold per hour, lowering the maximum one can receive (and essentially capping the gold AM at a lower level) makes sense to me. One day seems too short for a return on investment on a gold AM and after a day or two, new players have a huge amount of the rare ores, relative to their level and use of those ores. Also, since so many people prioritize the gold AM, new players are mostly priced out of the market because of inflation. Finally, since Blue Crystal is one of the only essentials you can’t get from the AM, I think the price is often unreasonably high, again pricing out newer players, especially considering the distances between orbits on the server.
I totally disagree with Bigfeet; in a science fiction setting like this I think it’s absurd not to have some sort of automated mining system. We have warp drives but can’t build a drone that digs up ore for me? To me, the AM feels like the perfect kind of ‘teching up.’ First, we have a drill where we have to manually pick up ore, then a cool plasma drill that sucks up ore as we dig it out and finally we slowly invest in an automated mining system. It shouldn’t completely replace manual mining, at least not at first, but I’m imagining EVE online type corporations buying and selling small fleets and again, it just seems silly to me not to allow these players to ‘tech up’ out of standing in front of meteorites all the time.
All that said, with more uses for credits, like buying ships (holy shazbot I love that this server has that) we will have less inflation. So as more people buy and sell ships and you guys add more things to spend credits on, we might see that the gold AM needs to be toned down a bit but not too much. I’d love to see a situation where we have some players creating dozens of ships and other players buying them up rapidly for large scale PvP engagements, adding another layer of organic depth to one of my favorite things about this server, the faction system.
Different people have different visions of what this game should be, but I think this server has picked a great direction to go in, focusing on player interaction. Not that lone wolves shouldn’t be able to exist but personally, I want to be able to upgrade out of doing basic survival activities all the time. Just like the grow plots allow us to set up a replenishing source of food and other supplies, the AM, the ship market and hopefully other features will allow us to experience growing from escape pod to self-sustained fleet.
Quick note; sorry, I misread the word “prize” as price, so I voted for the opposite of what I wanted; increased per hour gain instead of decreased. If it’s possible for a moderator to change that or remove my vote so I can re-vote, I’d really appreciate it. Otherwise, just, you know, ignore that vote for higher prize.
P.S. I think Rexxxus makes an excellent point we shouldn’t forget. Since there’s a 10% fee to put something on the market, the only way to start trading (without a gold AM) is to either pick up credit cards, find an elusive source of gold or fill someone’s request on the market. This can be prohibitive to new players entering the market at all.
P.P.S. I just had a random thought; what about an upkeep cost for the AM? Like, x credits per hour per upgrade, so players would be using the gold AM to offset the upkeep of the others. It also logically makes sense to me and could help the AM feel more like a developed game mechanic.
