I'd actually like to see vortices have less power, like only 500 or 250. Then we could at least control the number of all these vortices that seem to be bloody EVERYWHERE.

Having just seen mention of the ranged attack idea... please don't implement that unless it hurts FAR less than normal attacks or Empaths get a significant upgrade. Otherwise aetherspace will become unusable again - you'll also completely destroy the ability of one room ships to function in aetherspace with ranged attacks - I like my one room aethership and would be annoyed if I could no longer use it.

Make aetherspace harder to stay alive in, exp is alright for the amount of people/time/money you have to invest, but the difficulty for it isn't on par.

Would ranged attacks be workable if they didn't do hull damage and just damaged modules?

In a single room aethership with no empath grid?

I highly doubt it.

Um the EXP is obscene, I say this taking advantage of it right now, it needs to be nerfed more. Feel free to wait until I get Demi though.

Today I did 0% 98 through to 11% Titan. The 11% Titan should have taken 18 hours straight bashing to get, it took me 90mins?

To put it into context. 3 Gargantuans nets me 0.09% - clearing all of the Grey Moors and Kryden Valik gets me exacly the same amount. One takes a few minutes, one takes 20-30 minutes, I shall leave you to figure out which is which.

Note: Harder, not impossible. That is, don't let these ranged attacks damage the empath grid / command chair (but they can damage any other module, including turrets. Not every time). Also, make it so that mobs have a chance to either move -or- attack (this will help split them up and make it harder to 'kite' them). Make the attacks weaker than normal attacks. Make the attacks have a chance to miss based on size of ship (so that 1-room ships are feasible). Etc.

actually it doesn't take 18 hours to bash 10% as a titan, wherever you got that misconception from, since I was one that pretty much solo bashed to demi.

Sounds like the email was right, at least. Judging by the number of imploding ships/quick demigods/being left behind in the experience.

18 was a number I randomly plucked from my head, I'm probably not going to have to bash through Titan so I have nothing much to base it off except the 0.10% from Kryden Valik and the Moors which took me about 25 mins.

I like this idea.

ANNOUNCE NEWS #1372
Date: 8/25/2009 at 21:51
From: Estarra, the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Aetherspace Madness!

If you've been reading the forums, you know there's some concern over
how easy it is to hunt in aetherspace--ironically, it used to be
considered not worth it at all! We've already reduced the experience you
get, and we've now made it harder to find vortexes. Also, aetherbeasts
may be a bit harder now than before. There's some more changes coming so
keep an eye out!

Penned by My hand on the 21st of Roarkian, in the year 243 CE.

Aw cmon! I havent even tried it yet, and they go and nerf it

I believe most of these changes have been made silently over the past two days or so, unless new changes just came into effect an hour ago?

If they're the changes like increasing how much Karibidean's hurt, how much experience is gained and what not, without any further changes today, then Aetherspace hunting is still ridiculously easy.

I predicted Demigod by Tuesday earlier in the week, that hasn't happened due to some of the nerfs, but unless something has changed I'm definitely going to get Demigod by tomorrow.

EDIT: There appears to have been another nerf to experience (or I may have had a run of weak Gargantuans) which is welcome, making it more dangerous or putting in a mechanic similar to insanity* would go someway to making it less insane.

*perhaps mental tiredness from using modules which makes you fail more and more often the longer you use them, maybe only start to degrade a players effectiveness after an hour of solid hunting?

EDIT2: Looks like a 30% nerf on what it was after the 20% nerf. Still bloody good.

I'm still concerned that each player nomatter what level gains the same "percentage" per kill.

Is that the case or not?

Never was, but it's not a flat amount of experience either. It is curved slightly based on level. The curve appeared to be too high for people in the 90s, but it was already pretty low for lower levels after the most recent nerf (I could level people about the same speed in Kepheran hives in their 60s and 70s), and essence gain was about the same as a good astral bash.

If it was nerfed again for Demis, then I'm not as sure if it's worth dealing with it really. Haven't been back up today (when Chade reported yet another experience nerf), but the essence rate for Demi seemed fine as it was last night.

That's not exactly the case as I understand. While the amount is modified by level it'll still take somebody in the 90's awhile to level while lowbies are going to be jumping up levels.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anyone say they got from level 70 - 99 really easy, but I saw lots of people say that they got from 90-99 really easy. (I'd I've seen enough people say they got "just a couple levels" in the 70 range.) (and ofcourse people were going from noob to 70 really fast, but that not a lot of total xp. You could do that on Astral with certain classes if you went omnitrans)

So it just seemed like to me from here, that people in the 90s were getting ALOT more xp than people in the 70s.

Because they are. Percentage-wise it's a bit less, but since 70-90 is a MUCH larger range than 97-99... and the percentage difference is not that large...

Keep in mind that getting 1% at level 99 is far, far more experience than 10% at level 50.

As I said, you can bump up lower levels faster with a good kephera bash using aegis.

If I remember correctly, all of the experience from level 1 - 80 is the same as from level 90-91 (and the numbers just get larger)
So, in raw xp number, 70-90 is not Much larger than 97-99... 97-99 is MUCH larger than 70-90.

But I'll go find the xp table to double check.