I think that is an important point. Speaking as someone not sure whether to spend lessons on aethercraft or not, it has occurred to me that something about it has to be 'better' than normal bashing, or it is just a waste of credits. If the xp reward was made equal (as some people have suggested) then surely I would be better off buying resilience or magic instead of aethercraft, or even spending on a rune?

I don't consider not dying to be a major thing. I recently got 99 elsewhere in IRE, and I didn't die once between 90-99. Maybe that is less likely here, I don't know. To spend the credits on a non-com skillset, go through the hassle of gathering a group and running a ship - the reward does have to be better. Perhaps Moiraine's suggestions for some non-XP related rewards is a good one?

Slowly I hope, so those who overspawned can suffer from their mistakes in siphoning.

This is a great idea though. Scores of aetherbeasts are sure to lag the server majorly given enough time.

Here's an idea.

Being locked into a module drains endurance/willpower at a constant rate. Maybe firing the turret or healing a module drains some endurance/willpower from having to mentally communicate with the algontherine.

or

Being locked into a module makes you hungry/sleepy, even if you're circle 80+. This requires food and sleep on a regular basis while hunting, requiring periods of cooldown.

Oops, caught!



True, but it also can't be SO good that what you end up with is a situation where those who can afford to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy an aethership literally skyrocket up in levels simply because they are richer than the rest of us.

It's kinda like that annoying 16 year old character just out of novicehood who is quad-trans and owns a cubix. The difference is, with that, they don't have the levels to back it up, whereas with this, you can literally buy your way to Demi.

All it really needs is the same hour-or-so that Astral summoned beasts have. That's enough time to muck up the oversiphoners and to make the area dangerous for a bit, without being a perma-insta-death-to-any-passers-by.

I mean, otherwise, we could siphon a lot of creatures and position them around Faethorn, EthGlom, and EthSeren. No more aetherships ever getting to us again!

Who WAS that fool that siphoned that Faethorn megaswarm? I was up there last night, went down for like, half an hour to take care of drama.... and came back up to see that obscenity.

I disagree because
1) To bash on astral, I had to invest a significant number of lessons and time to get to a level where I can survive. With the amount of money I spent on lessons I could have just as well transed aethercraft and bought a (dingy low-end) aethercraft and I didn't have to spend hundreds of hours to get to level 70+.
2) You need to be significantly more engaged. Linked mobs left by others, large groups of monsters, bad luck (a mob wanders in, you run out of potions, neuroticism acts up at unfortunate time, you get stuck on a sphere, run into likes of Narsrim or Vathael, or make a mistake), a laggy or disconnected connection will probably get you killed. The risk seems to be higher. Also as a matter of principal I am against botting.
3) You consume gold and power to prepare defenses. If you die you have to do it again. Gathering power from Glomdoring is a pain....
4) You have to worry about cooldown from astral insanity. You can't just siphon new mobs and hunt endlessly.

I had a near-perfect 2 hour hunt this morning. Because there were only about 30 players online I was able hit the Astral, Merians, the Earth/Water planes without rest and bashed until my willpower was 0. As a level 78 mugwump with the harmony and knowledge blessing I gained 13.48%. Now I'm obviously not the world's best basher but in hindsight that is quite horrific compared to aetherhunting. If I died (as I often do), had to wait for an area to reset, or the stars didn't align just right then I would have gained even less. The average would probably be something around 10%.

Aetherhunting is much more lucrative and makes hunting seem like a waste of time. In the same two hours I probably could have gained two or three circles siphoning and all I would have needed to do is type 'siphon vortex' and hit 'enter' a few times every 30 seconds or so. As I understand it the experience from siphoning isn't even as good as the other roles!

Post nerf it took 27 minutes to earn 6.83% as a siphoner. So 50 minutes of aetherhunt is roughly equivalent to 1 hour and 45 minutes of idealized hunting. (in the sense that I hunted continously without ever having to wait for a reset)

Had I had manned a turret or been pilot then my experience would have doubled! So (for me) 30 minutes of aetherhunting yields roughly the same experience as 3.5 hours of hunting with much less hassle and investment. I'm of the opinion that it should be at least 80% on top of the 20% reduction since Roark's announcement. It might seem extreme but aetherhunting is really that overpowered and I'm almost positive that people will continue to aetherhunt because it'd STILL be worth their time. I'm a little surprised that happened at all and the admin have let the abuse continue for so long! /end rant

2009/08/24 15:58:03 GMT: I went again with a different crew and this time I earned 26.12% in exactly 3 hours siphoning again. We only had two people manning turrets, the crew was inexperienced, we weren't going all out and there was a great deal of idling and shuffling about so I would say this was on the low end of the spectrum.

No offense, but your hunting as a mugwump is going to suck anyway. No strength, low health, no balance bonus.

Esano, Vathael and Crew to blame for the megaswarm

Commanders need an XP buff, or at least need better XP than anybody else on a crew... they're the only ones that -have- to pay attention.

My $0.02.

When I'm hunting I rely entirely on nightkiss (that's why I had the knowledge blessing) so I enjoy the mugwump equilibrium bonus. I also have surge so I don't have problems tanking unless it's a large group or some superbuff linked mob that I didn't create myself.

But having gone hunting with Lyco and Xenthos I'm obviously doing something horribly wrong because they kill a lot faster.

Ah, I should also add that the increase in Karibidean's spawning has actually increased our EXP gain...

Completely and totally demonstrably 100% false.

Commander is not required to pay any more attention than anyone else, for these hunts. (For non-hunting purposes you're right)

How... would you go about AFKing your way as a commander?

EDIT: Because I can't see how you could do it and not run a very high risk of dying. Although, I may just be on too big a ship.

Most of the heavy aetherhunters have piloting automated now, on some very big ships too.

EDIT: Interesting, the main Vortex we were using has vanished, wonder if they can be used up?

How... could you not? It's really simple... and as long as you can outpace the things I don't think ship size matters.

But I'm not letting any of my crew AFK on this.

Vortexes do seem to disappear when drained completely, yes. (New ones also seem to appear now and again.)

Anyone else encountered the massive increase in Karibideans?

FYI, karibideans seem to spawn more often from vortexes that are low on power. Sure you're not just seeing this?

Ah ha, sounds about right, we were getting tons just before the vortex died. Thanks for that info will be useful.