A Stonewall Guide to Fleet Starbases

Quote by Altimus

Does anyone know what the fleet variants of ships will be like yet? As in how they will differ?

Quote by Altimus

At the moment it seems like its hard to contribute. I'm hoping it will be easer later on...

Quote by alimac30

Hey Nick,

Do you mind if I reproduce this guide in the Stonewall Times?

Ali

Quote by Alan

Excellent question...and one that needs to be addressed BEFORE the time comes.

Quote by Toddoverton

Quote by Alan

Excellent question...and one that needs to be addressed BEFORE the time comes.

I expect that is what the leaderboard is for. It provides a metric for assigning priority, lets each player know where they stand, and gives each player a clear path to improve their position if it is important to them to do so.

While I enjoy the new Fleet Advancement System as well as the Starbases, there are a few things that present a problem as is.

Fleetcredits are almost impossible to earn in large, active Fleets and its not that people don't have the time or the dedication to donate resources to projects.

The problem is that a few players completely dominate the donation process. Every time there is a new upgrade/project, the requirements are immediately filled out by a few top-tier people in a fleet (they apparently don't sleep).

We have 3 people that have +300k FC in our fleet, 12 have above 100k, 40 have 20-50k and it quickly goes downward from there (470 fleet members total, most of them active). I'm sure others would love to donate more resources to the projects to earn some FC but they are immediately filled out when they get posted.
In short, ~10% of our fleet is earning ~90% of the FC.
This of course is not their fault, the system allows for it after all.

This will in the future create an immense imbalance where a few Fleeties will hoard massive amounts of FC and others, while theoretically being able to donate and add to the progression, will be left with nothing or close to nothing.

I could donate around 6k Dillithium every day, but i cant because the second the new upgrade project went up, all 60k D was filled up, like in a second.
Even the special projects ever 30mins are filled up in no time.

Fleet Marks get filled up horrifyingly quickly too.

Right now I have ~15k FC and I would have more resources to donate, gladly if I got the chance. I earned my 15k during the past week, at this rate, I will be able to afford the first fleet-ship in oh about...20 weeks, while the top 3 already could buy ships right now.

This system seems like it doesn't reward the dedication of the player to the fleet or the game but rather his dedication to not sleep and click a button faster than others.

Mind you I'm not complaining about grind, grind i can deal with.

The problem is that we don't have any other way to generate FC than the Starbase projects, and additionally the system serves a "first come first serve" mentality.

Proposed Solutions:

1. A total FC cap that can be earned per character per project, based on the amount of fleet-members. This would prevent 10 people to fund the whole Starbase on their own and earning massive amounts of FC starving other members.

2. Introduce non-project dailies to earn FC "on the side" for those that don't make it to donate to the Starbase projects. (not everyone can be online when a new project goes up, it quickly becomes an exercise in futility)

2.1 A way would be to reward a small amount of FC directly from Starbase Defense missions, i.e. reduce the amount of Fleet Marks rewarded by maybe 1/5th and add that value as FC. Right now, Fleet Marks are quickly becoming dead weight on my account, i got like 50 of them and waiting for an opportunity to add them to the projects.

2.2 Convert the Starbase daily mission from the officer of the watch to FC directly.

2.3 Give a way to directly turn in FM for FC to an NPC.


Right now the system is a curse for anyone in a large well-organized fleet.
I'm pretty sure its not a problem for smaller fleets because the split would be smaller, but for fleets like mine? Over half the people can't earn any FC.

In the end this is a simple currency conversion issue.

Unlike the Dilithium refining-cap this one is shared by the whole fleet, that creates the problem of imbalance inside the fleet.

If this isn't going to get fixed, we have already discussed to game the system by splitting the fleet into smaller 5-man parts to earn FC equally, and then coming back to the main Fleet to take advantage of the upgraded higher-tier Starbase facilities.

Its bothersome but it will work, I just don't see why it has to be necessary to "cheat" on this if we could fix the current system and make it more equal and less opportunistic.

Thanks for reading.

Quote by INVAD3R J

I'm a bit confused on how we go about buying fleet ships. So even if we have the fleet credits and bought the required ship modules and have the tactical tier completed for the base we still can't buy them until we get an additional fleet starbase mission to complete?

Quote by AdamTM

Looking at the leaderboard there is a certain danger that we have a runaway-FC problem and its systemic from my analysis.

...

We can't have a situation where ~80% of the fleet is locked out from the progression.
The system is designed in such a way that it doesn't scale well for large fleets like ours and the game doesn't give us the tools to manage the progression sensibly.

If PW/C isn't able or willing to fix these problems (soonish) we will need some internal rules for project-contributions as well as Provisioning. Lest people down the ladder become increasingly frustrated and just stop contributing to the fleet in any way.

It will be a bitch for the admins to keep track of all this but thats the only way to do it right now.

This is not just us, there are other fleets with similar problems

Quote by INVAD3R J

I'm a bit confused on how we go about buying fleet ships. So even if we have the fleet credits and bought the required ship modules and have the tactical tier completed for the base we still can't buy them until we get an additional fleet starbase mission to complete?

Quote by Toddoverton

Quote by AdamTM

Looking at the leaderboard there is a certain danger that we have a runaway-FC problem and its systemic from my analysis.

...

We can't have a situation where ~80% of the fleet is locked out from the progression.
The system is designed in such a way that it doesn't scale well for large fleets like ours and the game doesn't give us the tools to manage the progression sensibly.

If PW/C isn't able or willing to fix these problems (soonish) we will need some internal rules for project-contributions as well as Provisioning. Lest people down the ladder become increasingly frustrated and just stop contributing to the fleet in any way.

It will be a bitch for the admins to keep track of all this but thats the only way to do it right now.

This is not just us, there are other fleets with similar problems

I personally don't see this as being a big problem in the medium- to long-term.

First, since FC can only be spent on a few things, people are really only incentivized to get as much FC as they need for the things they want to purchase. At a certain point, it will become self-limiting, since most people won't want to put in more than they will get out, and because people will not want to be known as "the project hog" who is shutting everyone else out. You can solve this problem by simply asking people to stop contributing if they have a positive FC balance that they aren't immediately using so that others can catch up.

Quote by Toddoverton

Second, the game developers are working from the assumption that we are not comnplete strangers to one another who never communicate or work collaboratively. They instead assume that we do. Which is true. That is as it should be. I think we should abandon any idea that the game developers will add tools or tricks to the game that will solve the problem you describe. We are on our own on this one.

Quote by Toddoverton

Third, I think that the fleet ships and other fleet provisions are not intended to be nor should be available to just anyone and everyone. Why should those who work most diligently and contribute the most get the most out of it, including some rewards that just aren't available to those who don't? Those who put real money into the game have things that the rest of us don't. Those who grind dilithium like maniacs have things that the rest of us don't. Why should this be different?

Quote by Toddoverton

The only alternaive, which you are going to hate, is to have a fleet rule (as some fleets do) that establishes minimum (and maximum) daily contributions for all fleet members. That way, everyone contributes their quota and no more, everyone stays about equal in terms of FCs, and the fleet projects still move forward. That is not my preferred solution. I am willing to live with a certain inequality of outcomes which is the natural and unavoidable result of leaving people free to contribute as much or as little as they like, and allow social pressures to smooth out the rough edges. You will find that it is that or a quota system.

Quote by Toddoverton

I would also point out that the limitations we are talking about here will slow down the progress of starbase construction and upgrading. Everyone seems really happy with how fast we have progressed, exactly because the projects fill up so fast and the timer starts ticking. That will suffer if we have a system where the last 2000 dilithium on a project is reserved for only me to fill but I don't log on for two days because I had the flu. Are we willing to wait on people to make their reserved contributions, when the cost of waiting is to lengthen the time it takes to get to Tier V? I think that would be an... unpopular... result of the kind of solution that was described in the post you quoted.

Quote by AdamTM

Nothing is stopping newcomers to bleed us dry. There are already threads about this where people join fleets just to grab their stuff from Provisions.

Quote by AdamTM

The point is, the people that are grinding FMs like maniacs -dont- get any reward (most of the time), because the cap is shared. The grinding and work doesnt have any influence on the fact that I cant convert my currency (i grinded and worked for).

Quote by AdamTM

However i agree that Provisions shouldn't be for everyone and I am fully in support to have a system that decides who gets what, when.

Quote by AdamTM

Or are you suggesting that "first come first serve" is a good mechanic? Because i find it highly unfair, also it leaves us open to people that join just to grab our provisions.

Quote by AdamTM

Like you said, we -do- communicate with eachother, so if someone has the flu and can't contribute, then we decide that this time, member X -can- donate 2X if he has the resources that the missing member would have donated. Nobody is going to suffer from this, nobody has to wait, there is no progression block.

Quote by AdamTM

What I'm asking for is -tools- to administrate the members, contributions etc. How those tools look like, I don't care. If the devs decide that for example a cooldown mechanic on donation is a good way, im ok with that, if we set up an internal system to handle this, im ok with that too. Right now the resource-sink is not working properly.

Quote by Toddoverton

No, I don't advocate any kind of first-come-first-served and I absolutely think we should protect the stores from pillaging. What I do favor is a system where priority is given to those who have contributed to the fleet and its projects.