A gentle reminder....

.... that it's now time to get rid of our antiquated "find an officer to buy from the fleet store" policy.

While the "we're gonna be conservative while we're figuring it out" policy made sense at one point, we're now the only fleet in STO I'm aware of (out of about 10) that has a policy anywhere near this restrictive, as most are either wide open or have a bare minimum amount of fleet credits. Needless to say, none have had any problems, and the provisions continue to build up faster than they`re consumed.

So let's not be the last overly conservative fleet in STO, if it's not too late. It was like a little kick in the teeth every time I heard a fleet recruiter say "and of course we allow anyone in the fleet to buy directly from the stores....". Why not us?

Do some market research and ask around if you want to, but please, do it for the children! *gets on knees and starts begging unseemingly.

My not-so-humble opinion is that you don't fix it if it ain't broke, and I recommend that we stick with our justified and sensible caution.

Remember, this policy is designed to PREVENT abuse or raiding the provisions, and it has done so. We have not had problems. While you are doing your market research, find out how many of the other fleets can say the same thing. We have recently had a raid on our fleet bank by two people who joined, took as much stuff as they could, quit, and then joined new fleets the same day. Propping open the door of the vault at the store that is next-door to the bank that was just burgled seems insanely foolish.

As for the recruitment issue, our numbers are consistently around 500 members and we are continually kicking out inactive members to make room for new ones. Our numbers aren't dwindling. We aren't having problems funding our projects or getting people to our events. So exactly why does it matter what other fleet recruiters say? We don't have a recruitment problem.

As for the point that other fleets "allow anyone in the fleet to buy directly from the stores", I would point out that we also do that. In fact, every fleet does that because buying directly from the store is the only way to buy from the store. We just monitor and control it. But every time I have wanted something from the fleet provisions, I have had no trouble "buying directly from the store". So, if you are talking to a potential member, feel free to truthfully say that we do indeed "allow any member to buy directly from the store". Because we do. We just have to do it in the proper way. No big deal.

"Everyone else is doing it" is almost never a good reason to do something. I urge we stay the course.

Well, if I'm the only one that feels this is a concern, then I will totally shut up. lol. I`m only advocating this approach because I place an overly high value on us demonstrating egalitarianism and trust with our members, even (or especially) at the expense of security. I can totally understand how a reasonable individual could think otherwise, but it pains me to see other fleets being more trusting of their members than we of our own.

So I`ve said my piece, I`ll let anyone else speak up if they feel it`s worth it. If not, case closed.

As an aside, I would make the point that if *everyone* is doing something, it usually is a good idea (e.g., cars, computers, walking upright, sliced bread, the Kardashians, oh wait...). Well, a lot of the time anyway. :-D

Give me liberty or give me death... unless of course provisions are involved, in which case the liberty thing isn't all that important. (joke!)

Cheers,
John/Araa

THIS POST IS A SIDE DISCUSSION WHAT METRICS TO USE TO ASSESS RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION SUCCESS (Spolier: It's not the roster count)

On a totally seperate point, it's probably a valuable discussion to look at your recruitment concerns in a bit more detail.

I just want to warn you that total roster count is a dangerous metric to use to assess the health of your recruitment (and particularly retention) efforts. It's highly likely that you`d be pruning your roster list to accept new members even if your fleet was shrinking.

Why? The simple reason is zombie accounts, people that join a fleet and then just leave the game (or take a break long enough to get pruned), artificially inflating the size of the fleet.

As an example, imagine a VERY unsuccessful fleet, that has a very high turnover, with active people coming in, hating it, and leaving after a period of time. What happens? Everyone active leaves, but the zombie accounts ALL stay, inflating the user base. In this case, as long as arrivals keeps up with the outflow of active members (i.e. a small % of the inflow), the fleet would be effectively dead, with no long-term members, yet they'd be constantly trimming zombie accounts from their roster thinking that they're 'growing'. The bigger the % of zombie accounts you assume, the more exaggerated this effect. One way to try to estimate this for us is to ask yourself, what % of our 500 members currently log on semi-regularly?

So, what's a better metric, IMHO? I track online users of all of my active fleets on a regular basis (/who stonewall, /who nagh, ...). How's stonewall doing? Well, is it news that we may no longer be the largest LGBT fleet in STO? It's close, but I've seen one other fleet (who I only know by name) that seems to maintain a slightly higher count of active users most of the day, beaten by SW only during NA peak periods (which I'm guessing is because they're more internationally based).

Another data point I got (since I've been trying to get a feel for this myself), was a story that Stonewall used to run out of vent licenses occasionally because there were too many people vying to get on at one time. Now I don't know how many license we've had, and maybe someone can verify/deny this story, but I've rarely seen more than 6 active vent/TS users on at one time in my time here.

Anyway, I'm not trying to advocate anything at all in this post, just trying to make sure we all have good data to work from, it can come in useful for all kinds of discussions.

Cheers again,
John/Araa

P.S. If anyone turns this into an opportunity to make zombie jokes, I'm going to scream.

The only thing I'd like to see is an increase on the 1 ship per member cap. That seems a little ridiculous seeing as there are several hundred unused.

I can tell you just coming over from a fleet that really didn't do much with the starbase system at all, everyone had two or more full outfits of fleet equipment on their ships and there was plenty of provisions still. I could see a timer, or a minimum contribution thing myself as this is a much larger and more active bunch of people. Just what I see and have seen.

Hello everyone :)

I've bumped this topic to the fleet leadership for discussion.

hi, followed your link to this thread. i just started playing again after leaving when the game came out. not sure how the store works in this game...assuming it's like stores in real life. how are stores abused? if a store is designed to make a profit then the more business the better. if the benefit is greater for the buyer than the seller, then they really are more like a perk dispenser and it would make sense to have it controlled by the organization..but then there should be some sort of fair reward system set up then? or maybe it's some other model entirely.. though i suppose if we're looking at the 'buy and quit' scenario...one could raise the prices enough so that there's no profit from buying and reselling (though are items sold bound to the character..?) but a price that's high enough to make it competitive with the exchange might make members think..well what's the benefit of being a member. so i guess as long as there is a benefit of being a member vs not, then there is the opportunity to taking advantage of the difference as long as moving back and forth between membership is free. but i'm thinking of the store as an abstract store....not sure what it really is in STO. oh i did see some stores in the fleet base this week..are those what is being talked about?

I dont have a problem with it being locked. I think the wipe out of the fleet bank is a good example of what issues can come up if it is open to all. I can't see why someone could not wait, or even msg a captain they wanted something. Is there a situation where someone would need a fleet item immediately or their game play would be hurt?

Also I don't think it is a bad idea for a review of the player pulling out items from the fleet. If you have someone who has only given a commodity (say 1 shield charge), yet wants in so they can outfit all their ships with MK XII gear, and all their BOFFs with MKXII gear the fleet captain is there to say "whoa nelly, you need to give more to get more". If it is open to buy there is nothing stopping said person, and its not like you can take things back. Yes they can be kicked from the fleet, but the damage is done.

So basically what I want I guess is a locked system, in which a review is done to make sure where giving to the base is balanced with getting from the base.

The fleet provisions are not like the bank, in order to buy something you need to have already contributed to the Fleet. You can't just join, walk in to the provision store and empty it. To empty the fleets provision store you'd have to have a shit ton of fleet credits and dilithium. Now a member who joined who was in a prior fleet could theoretically walk in and clean us out, but what would be the point? If they'd generated that many credits with their original fleet they'd already have access to everything they'd just looted

Edit: Also in reference to that other LGBT guild you wouldn't happen to be referring to the one with the god awful name?

First off if Araa was a female I would prostrate myself at her feet for using the word metric ... LOL .. I am a programmer and in recent years found myself doing alot of metrics work .. so I kinda got a little hot and bothered ..(the love of my life talked dirty to me in geek speak .. still looking to recapture that rofl....)

Okay kidding aside ..

I am just of 2 minds on this .. I understand the NEED to protect the fleet .. and folks need to remember in order to have ships/ships provisions available that means we have to do those tedious fleet tasks which means the fleet needs to be active in doing those .. on the other hand we have alot of 'old contributors' that have been hoardin their earned fleet contriutions points waiting for the starbase to level before they buy things. So while it may seem there are alot up for grabs .. recall they may be waiting for the fleet to level before purchasing.

Now on the other hand, I have seen the looking for a fleet officer for invites or store permissions ... I think however in the past 2 weeks yet again I have seen 3 promotions so I think fleet management is on top of this .. but does it suck if you finally got that last module you needed and now there are no officers online .. its a tricky subject because as it stands right now only someone able to invite to fleet can do the permissions for buying .. and it comes back down to .. can we have a fleet invite rank .. then a separte buying rank to give better coverage to the 'metrics'. This would be supporting the current conditions and parameters to buying but also allow fleet growth in a more pro-active way.

Jus thinking out load I guess, but technically someone could take out more then they put in if they use the fleet bonus right?

hypothetically and in no way accurate numbers:

Say they use 1 credit they used, and then got the added credit so they have 2 banked, but only one deposited to the fleet. They then take out something that costs 2 credits, then the fleet is down a credit because of the extra credit used by the bonus. (then multiply this scenario by a dozen people)

And those credit bonus's could be gotten easily off the exchange for easy EC.

I know I usually have like 20-30k in fleet extra bonus sitting on my counter, just from boxes or game bonus or something.

Again just theorizing if there is a way to take out more then put in.

Actually here are some real numbers:

My fleet lifetime credit is: 1,641,131
My Personal Fleet balance is: 1,669,460 (I have already purchased 7 MK XII ship weapons and a MK XII personal rifle, value what 140K?)
So that means right now If I go to the store and use every one of my credits the fleet would be out about 168K in credited items

And how much did that cost you in dilithium? In items used in fleet projects, in doffs, etc...

Also, once you have emptied the fleet of all it's provisions, then what? What are you going to do with them all? You'd have had to spend an inordinate amount of real life money to have acquired enough ship slots to have emptied us out. I just think the system itself is a pretty big gateway to willy nilly purchase of items.

BTW who made the change about lockboxes in the fleet bank? It was my favorite place to pick them up for free ;)

So imagine that joenAtl was this terribly evil genius that we're all so scared of. Joen has 1.7m fleet credits that Joen wants to use soley to hurt Stonewall (a VERY evil and dedicated genius), a pretty tidy sum. What amount of damage can Joen do?

1. Forget ships, fleet modules cost 5m EC and we have over 200 credits, and Joen only has a few slots. Physically impossible, no fleet ever has a problem with ship provisions. (And as Brett suggested, we should REALLY increase the quota per toon, whatever happens)

2. Ground equipment is tough to buyout as well. Joen will have to waste a TON of dil as well as fleet credits on buying tons of crap (fleet ground gear is pretty useless compared to sets anyway in general), and can STILL only make a reasonable dent in our provisions, say 80/160, and that's using ALL the credits in just this category. Joen would then have to throw out most of the stuff right after buying it (it's bound), as even the BOFFs would be full. Pretty crazy is our Joen. Must hate Stonewall a LOT to throw SO much cash/dil in the garbage for the sole purpose of reducing only one of our provisioning levels.

3. Buffs. Now this is a reasonable target, they're cheap and usable. But I don't think we even have a policy on buffs as it stands, no? In any case, they're easy to replace and I personally am prepared to walk away from these ones, don`t use them at all personally. Haven't heard any concerns about them to date....

The reason I brought this up is because our provisions continue to increase over time (like I said, our trial period is done!), so we don't really need the quotas, AND they`re incredibly hard/expensive to steal, not at all like a bank! Find a fault with the scenarios above and you'll help to convince me of the evil genius scenario.

And from a personal values level, for me it's roughly analogous to the terrorist situation. If our solution involves not trusting any members in the fleet and we constantly run around worrying about being taken advantage of (both of which we're reminded of every time we need to ask permission to buy something), then they've kinda won. But as I said earlier, I may be hyper sensitive to the trust issue. Feels good to get this out there though. :-)

P.S. Remember, a simple, lower risk solution is just make the Requisition level permanent to people that have contributed over xxx fleet credits, which is what pretty much all fleets currently do. This avoids the total fly-by-night scenario that we saw with the bank, as members will have to have shown their commitment. Most fleets only require 10k-30k fleet credits, which is accessible even to VERY casual gamers, but we can raise it if we're more concerned than they are. :-D

Quote by joenAtl

Jus thinking out load I guess, but technically someone could take out more then they put in if they use the fleet bonus right?

It doesn't have to be that complicated. Say you are in a fleet where you have contributed to your own starbase and earned a bunch of fleet credits, but the people in your fleet have bought out all the provisions in the fleet stores. So you quit that fleet, join ours, go to the base and buy up everything you can afford, quit our fleet, and go back to your old fleet with your inventory stuffed full of our provisions.

Quote by Araa

For me it's roughly analogous to the terrorist situation. If our solution involves not trusting any members in the fleet and we constantly run around worrying about being taken advantage of (which we're reminded of every time we need to ask permission to buy something), then they've kinda won. But as I said earlier, I may be hyper sensitive to the trust issue. Feels good to get this out there though. :-)

For me, it is completely analogous to the question of whether you leave your front door unlocked at all times, so that you don't give off the impression that you distrust your neighbors nor infringe on their liberty to walk in if they like. Or do you prudently keep your stuff safe behind a secure door so that your neighbors only have access to your home whenever you choose to open said door and let them in? What about your car? Do you lock it when you park, or just leave the keys in it because people are so good and trustworthy?

Do you leave your front door unlocked when you aren't there? Say yes, and I'll concede the entire argument to you and admit that I am a cynical old misanthrope.

P.S. It doesn't bother me at all that you disagree with me on this point. Feel free to advocate for your point of view as vigorously as you please. You're dead wrong, but I'm not upset about it... this is a videogame we are talking about here, after all. B)

Great attitude man, totally support your right to be vigorously wrong as well. :-)

And yes Todd, this pretty much explains the difference in our way of seeing things. In your view, you (and the officers) are in the fleet house with your keys and valuable possessions, making sure all the dangerous members are locked outside. In my view, we're all living inside the same house. ;-)

So yes, given a choice of members of my family being locked outside of the house or me just letting them in, I'd totally leave the door open. With 500 people living together, someone will be around, and odds are they'll be pretty tough. :-p

P.S. LOVE the word misanthrope. Please be sure to include it again in your apology.

P.P.S. ACTUALLY Todd, in rethinking this, in your example, you hand the keys of your house (that you partly built) to the officers, on the understanding that, if you want your stuff, you can get some of it back. If they're at home. Think I'll stick with all of us living together. A bit hippie, I know.

Oh, and Todd raises the great point that, if it's too easy buy from the fleet store, than the evil genius can just switch fleets, buyout the Innocent Patsy Fleet's store and return to his own without consequence.

However, when you realize that pretty much all fleets are ALREADY open, and that the evil genius has been able to do this with just about any single fleet for quite a while, then you realize you have to start coming up with a scenario where the evil genius has decided not to do this with anyone else, but has stored up all his resources waiting for Stonewall to lower our guard. Any potential store raiding has already happened!

So yes, we now need a VERY dedicated, evil, homophobic, Stonewall-hating genius. Besides Voleron, I don't think that's gonna be very easy to find. Well, Sinner as well perhaps. Actually, now that I think about it....

P.S. I tell ya, whenever the lowering of the gates eventually does happen, it'll be the biggest non-event there ever was. lol.

Quote by Araa

I tell ya, whenever the lowering of the gates eventually does happen, it'll be the biggest non-event there ever was. lol.

I hope you are right. It will suck if you aren't. There are definite downsides to playing it safe, some of which you have rightly highlighted. My opinion remains that the potential harm from letting down our guard outweighs those.

Sure Todd, but can you identify what the harm you're worried about is? I've sketched out the scenario of the evil genius who wants to throw 1.7 fleet credits in the garbage and has been waiting to do this particularly to hurt Stonewall, ignoring all other fleets... and the worst case scenario (we lose our buff provisionings?) doesn't phase me at all, because it's EXPENSIVE to hurt us.

Can you outline what you're worried may happen? Would particularly appreciate figures if possible.