Well...to be fair, that damage is only enough to kill newbies. It would actually kill non-newbies if you could "chain" them (which you already can if you have more than one coordinated combateer.)

Also i hope you included changing your manse name as that can be done to keep other ships from hitting you if you constantly change the name.

Hah! Well, I say keep it like that. It shouldn't be about the swarm of people outside the construct that determines the progress, it should be about the cool Lusternia only gadgets. Let everyone jump inside the construct when they see the fireball descending towards them.

On another aetherspace note:
there should be a diamonut to stop you from getting sucked into a vortex attachable to a collector - sorta like a brooch of tempests. 200-300 creds.

Also with the new update to xp means that i can carry 6 people mooching xp (going up to 10 when its finished) - its good because it means that the number of people is limited by the quality of the ship (number of spare modules)

How about having npc ships you can board and lock onto - sorta like moving bubble.

Also despawning of aetherbeasts? Otherwise I can see problems developing and gigaswarms being created by vortexes.

There is a skill, Raguel, in Commander that stops the ship being sucked in and thrown about. Of course, it's not very effective for small ships which require huge amounts of moving and dodging to kill aetherbeasties - but for bigger ships like Avaerin, Deepnight, they can sit and tank it while blasting away.

This brings up another question I had. What size of ship is NPC combat in aetherspace balanced around? Why is it that you need to be at the Deepnight level to sit in a room and tank?

I understand the trade off between a large ship that is very slow but can tank and a small ship that is fast enough to never get hit. The problem is the small ship really can never get hit by any of the high end beasts. This requires constant effort on the part of the pilot. One lag spike and your entire crew instantly dies.

This also means the empath is almost pointless as they will be unable to heal the damage caused by getting hit. They basically have nothing to do for the entire run if you have a good pilot. If you have a bad pilot they might be able to save the ship from one hit, but multiple hits is going to destroy the ship no matter what they do.

So you have a setup where 1 player is constantly working, 1 player does literally nothing, and 3 players set a target every few min. This is a wide degree of variance in play experience and I think it contributes to the lack of interest in aetherspace. You only need a skilled pilot, everyone else can just be a script.

Not everyone can be a pilot so something needs to be done to make the gunner and empath positions more interesting. My ideas are bellow, they would require a substantial coding effort so if anyone has more simplistic suggestions please post them.

I think the empath position would only become interesting if the damage caused by the NPCs was greatly reduced and some system of afflictions was added in. Right now in NPC combat the empath is literally a health potion. They can choose to sip or apply but that is it. They do this in an environment where two hits can kill them. I do not think healing needs to have the full on complexity of a PvP fight but it should be more than what it currently is. They should be required to juggle multiple types of cure balances, responding to various special attacks.

For gunners I think if they were given attacks that required them to all synchronize at different times to generate "combo" type attacks would be interesting. Even better is if these combos only opened up after specific events happened. So say one person gets a crit, then for the next X seconds a combo window would open. Or perhaps an attack could do different things than just hit or miss. So if an attack grazed the creature spinning it around one combo would open, and a different combo would open with a direct hit on its center of mass. The idea would be to require more attention from the gunners as to what exactly was happening and then have them respond to it. Yes this could still be done with a more complex script, but it would be far more interesting than the current mind numbing simplicity.

I don't see how any ships can just sit and tank...when aetherbeasts hit a ship, every module gets a bit of damage. Over time, they will all receive loads of damage and will all begin to malfunction. Aetherbeasts should do less damage to modules.

Yeah, pretty much. Just because you have a bigger hull doesn't mean your turrets and grid aren't going to start malfunctioning pretty rapidly if you just keep getting beat on without having the opportunity to fully heal up your modules. Grid balance is a bit too slow to keep up with that.

I'd go a step further and say get rid of aetherbeasts doing module damage at all. It makes things more boring for the empath I suppose but really, as Enthralled pointed out, things are pretty boring for them anyway since the goal is to *never* get hit for the vast majority of aetherships.

In response to Catarin, as part of a previous set of aethercraft changes we'd made it so that aether monsters have several different attacks - not all do module damage.

I do like the idea about enemy NPC ships, although that will require a lot of time (so don't expect anything like that anytime soon). Are there any other ideas for cool new aetherways features?

Now that the aethercraft changes have been out for a few days, how does everyone feel about the aetherways?

Well...we went out, killed a dragon in 35 to 40 seconds, got the same experience as killing a parasite solo in 15 seconds. Went home heh. But I've been convinced by persuasive arguments that boosting the xp further isn't the way to go. That aetherspace should be about really really good gold and okay xp. Or something like that. It's not my argument to make

sounds like an argument from demigods who want more credits

First off, the changes already made: I actually make better XP out in aetherspace, because as a wimpy little nothing on my own, two to three hits and I'm dead by a monster. In aetherspace, the same time it would take for a same-strength'd monster to kill me I can kill, with a group of gunners, a monster and get the exp from it I would have got should I have succeeded killing the non-aetherspace one on my own.

In short: Great changes, in my opinion, and I didn't even master Aethercraft.

Other aetherways stuff...

Aetherstorms. I don't know. It sounds *really* cool to me. Or maybe like... I don't know. Maybe some sort of body (like a star?) within aetherspace, when it dies or is born, releases loads of energy that can easily damage a ship and completely blow up a little one, but it leaves behind dust that decays quickly if not put into a ship's hold?

And the birth-death things could hurt up to two rooms away from it, maybe. Close you are, the more damage.

You know, if it was a star being born, it'd be like...

---

You gasp in awe at the beauty and wonder of aetherspace, watching as a shining light appears within its vastness.


As the light expands, waves of energy crackle through the aether.


You have recovered balance on all limbs.


The light continues to grow and expand, slowly, easily outsizing any ship or dock. It glows more and more brightly, becoming difficult to gaze at.


As the light expands, waves of energy crackle through the aether.


You have recovered balance on all limbs.


The growth of the light starts to slow, and when it finally seems it's as if to reach its limit, it suddenly collapses inward in a burning blaze, releasing a maelstrom of energy.
You go hurling off into aetherspace to the west.


---

Or something like that. I don't know. Something theatrical to sit and watch, something to gain from, something to fight over.

I will bite, and please note that I do not have (currently! a demi-god character, and I spent real money for my credits.

Aetherspace gives you the following PvE caracteristics:

1. Unlimited source of mobs

You can spawn them rather quickly by just flying around, and if for some reason you need more you can collect energy in a similar mechanic as astral linking.

2. Only one person has to be awake

After some very trivial scripting for the gunners and empath the only person who really has to do anything is the pilot. To some extent this is true when following someone for normal PvE but there is literally no way to get separated, no way to get directly attacked, no buffs to worry about, no cures to run out of, etc

3. Levels matter a lot less

Player level plays no part in aetherspace combat, while it does affect how much exp is gained the impact is orders of magnitude less than normal PvE

4. No maintenance cost

The only "cost" to aetherspace PvE is a power drain, no gold or comms need to be used. This is of course offset greatly by the initial cost of the ship, but if your Org already has one built you personally never see this cost.

5. No PvP threat

The size of aetherspace means that no one will ever find you. If they do find you it is large enough to run and find somewhere else to hunt. You do not have to worry about getting jumped...ever. Your entire crew could be hated by the entire basin, and you could still safely level to 100. You have access to non-nexus power, and you do not even use any guild skills to level.

6. No direct time limiter

There is nothing like astral/muud insanity to slow you down. In theory if you had a group of out of work/summer break/rich players to be your crew you could hunt non-stop for hours and hours at a time. If you were draining astral or clearing muud with the same number of players you would be forced to take breaks every 1-2 hours.

So keeping all of the above in mind let us change the exp/hour of aetherspace hunting to be equal to say killing in muud. This would mean that you are able to kill a parasite equivalent every say 15 seconds with perhaps an average of 10 seconds of downtime. Ignoring all other points, just 6, 4, and 1 mean that you would maintain this exp/hour well past the single hour or two you could do in muud.

Just look at how fast Thoros is able to level people with his group hunting on Astral? It would be better than that. If you think some people are getting demi-god quickly now I think you would be really surprised if aetherspace increased its xp to be the same as astal/muud.

So, assuming you follow that logic (feel free to disagree though!) there remains the issue of what type of incentive do you create to cause people to have a reason to spend time in aetherspace as opposed to doing whatever else they could be doing. The other main driving factor for advancement besides exp (and roleplaying hehe) is gold.

If you changed things in aetherspace so the exp was just so so (perhaps even a bit lower than now) but the gold output was better than any other in game source a few things would happen. First demand for aetherspace would increase, this would in turn eventually increase demand for new ships which would act as a partial gold sink for the gold earned. You could also make some natural choke points (like Faculty) in the gold path. Places everyone would have to visit to sell or turn in quests or whatever. This would cause all of these ships to have a reason to be in the same place (beyond weakenings) which would then naturally cause PvP which is currently very lacking in aetherspace.

Not sure if that is the type of argument that Catarin was talking about or not

You had some great changes like always Morgy. The non division of experience makes things much better than before. Not something people would do over normal bashing, but it's enough to please a smaller crowd of people.

I still think a way to list all gnome trading ships would be nice, perhaps a general location other than waiting until you get remotely near it. Would be a great upgrade for merchant's ledger artifacts. Could list the current trade rates of gnome ships when you LEDGER .

I don't have anything to say on dust an gold because to be honest, we didn't bother trading it in cause it's such a tedious task to compare prices everywhere, then after you find the best, you keep flying and flying and flying. The ledger idea would be greatly helpful. I mean afterall, we have to pay credits for the ledger in the first place. I'd be okay with a general listing at the facility too.

Do keep in mind that the gold has to be split usually at least 5 ways if not more.

The experience I think could still use a boost. You took care of the part of super bashing lower levels by limiting it, but it's still low and takes time as Catarin showed you. If you want to cater this to the majority population, the experience needs to go up . Right now, this will appeal consistently to a minority of the population.

Haven't gotten to try the new skills, but after hearing what they do, I've got some high hopes for future aether battles.

@Entralled

I'm assuming the admin want this to become really popular. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one of the new skills was a sort of ship scrying ability. If this does get more popular the whole one person awake and PvP threat factors will disappear in the long run or so I'm hoping. I'm noticing that this seems to be the midbie experience way to go. But on the higher end even just 80's and up, it's sub par and a lot more effort because you also have to gather a crew.

For levelling newbies en mass it works a dream, but yes if you're 80+ then its bearly even worth going out for experience. I'm 82 and i take my ship out for the younguns since clearing the adoraths gives me more experience than a 6 hour bashing run.

the gold rewards need to be increased drastically. Consider that you're out there for hours at a time to make dust (usually about 100 tons in an hour, and even that's limiting due to the fact that aetherholds only carry 50 tons per). That one hour of dust equates to roughly 100k, give or take a little, and that's split between 5 people. No good, and really poor compared to just gold farming via quests that any newbie could do.

Just my opinion, but! I really don't think any newbie could farm 100k in quests an hour. In fact, I find it rather difficult to believe 5 people working separately can farm up 100k in an hour. Sure, a single person might easily make 20k (I know, I've done it many times) so maybe on a per-person basis you're not making very much - however, given it is a limitless resource (aetherbeasts) and a very, very minor (minuscule, maybe even?) cost (power - note siphoning from vortexes), it seems to me that 100k isn't bad. In fact, in a matter of hours (let's say five), that's 500k, which is the cost of a new clan, or any number of guild/city/order upgrades that I can think of off-hand - while it's not all of them, it's a fair bit. It's the cost of two algontherine eggs or four turrets or three empath grids w/ change or 20 aetherholds or 6 energy collectors (with change). It's five shield orbs. Heck, turn it into credits (average price atm is 5128 per, so I'm rounding down for an even number) - It's 100 credits. That's half the cost of one of four aethership arties.

Above is based off the figure you gave (100k/hr), and the cost of the equipment at the aetherplex shops.

Honestly, the potential for aethership gold seems rather high to me - but it's a high cost to participate at maximum speed, so I suppose it balances out. I'd think, though, it wouldn't be too long before the cost of the ship was recouped and then is becoming a pure income - ie, with a stable crew, you'll quickly be making large amounts of gold for a large investment.

EDIT:

I just did a bit of math for my own curiosity - 5,725,000 gold to make an aethership, for the orb + 30 rooms + 3 turrets + 1 empath grid + 4 holds - this assumes you're relying solely on movement to spawn aethermobs and are using personal power to power the ship - at 100k an hour, and I suspect you might be able to manage more off dragons or kethuru tendrils (I'm not too familiar with aethermobs, ie are they the same level, which is stronger/produces more dust, etc), it'd only take 57.25 hours to recouperate the cost of the aethership. Aside from gambling, if I could put in 5 hours a day for two weeks on gold gathering and produce 5,725,000 gold, I'd be one happy camper!

Second Edit:

Note that, once the initial investment of buying a ship's been made, aside from power, there's no upkeep cost. Bashing (unless you're one of the rare few who bought the limitless vials) will still require health and mana potions (ego potions too, if you're a tele- mage, bard, or influencer).

The main downside to aethertrading - and it's a freaking huge downside - is you don't just get the dust and then get to turn it in and bam, you have 100,000. To get that 100k you are plotting out the best trade route you can which involves finding all the different trade ships, plotting your route, then going back and doing the actual trading. And it's not limitless at all. The trade ships sell out reasonably quickly. So maybe that first ship that does a trade run is going to make a ton of gold. The next ship that month is going to make less, the next ship less, etc.

So in reality that 100k costs an hour to get the actual dust, and at minimum another hour to trade the dust. In theory it seems pretty nice. In practice it's a pain in the butt.

And there is no such thing as a stable crew heh. 5 people who are available for several hours each day? Eh. I don't know. We have tried it multiple times and the longest we've lasted with doing it consistently was probably two weeks. It's interesting and it has fun appeal but when other activities in the game are more profitable, you're going to end up doing those.

Which is why I suggested having the trade ship prices and stock available some place. It reduces a big part of the tedium involved in aether trading.

I might have misinterpreted this part: In fact, I find it rather difficult to believe 5 people working separately can farm up 100k in an hour.
(not sure if you mean the combined of 5 separate making 100k or each making 100k on their own)

Regardless, both meanings have flaws in that logic. 5 people separately making 100k is easy as you already said that you yourself have made 20k/hour without much trouble. This means it's the same as 5 people on a ship making 100k/hour because you divide it by 5 and the take is 20k/hour.

I'm not saying it's absolutely horrible. But it's generally not worth it. In most cases, it's -extra- effort for the same gold rewards, but -less- experience rewards. With this in mind, something needs to change out of those 3 variables.

1) Making it easier via gnome trading ship price listings at the Facility or adding it to a merchant's ledger's ability.
2) More experience to make it at least on par with other common options
3) More gold

one, or two, or even all three of thoses needs to change to build up more incentive and make it more popular.