I have no idea how to post quotes.

Damadreas:
If you're getting good XP with a minimal investment one has to question how well ships that are manned with highly skilled/aptitude members are doing, likely too well if it's so easy to do 'good' for nothing invested essentially. And hence brings about my earlier point, if this is a situation where you can eventually put together 5ish people that are a known good crew, which would get exorbitantly higher rewards due to their crits/skill level these players will eventually start shutting out those less then ideal members because it's simply not the most efficient situation for themselves specifically.


While I see what you're saying here, the only reason I'm getting any decent amount of experience is because our pilot is very skilled at piloting. If you were to go hunting normally with very skilled people, then you would be getting good XP (dare I say the same?) with little to no risk as well. The problem that I see is that the only position that -requires- any amount of skill is the pilot, and if you have a good one you're set for the entire trip. I've gone on some other aetherhunts *cough*Mag*cough* and they were... well, horrible.

Also, another thing to point out is that aetherhunting is a lot more skill-based than normal hunting, which relies heavily on stats.

The main reason Aetherspace is so good for novices is that it offers Astral level experience to Newton level people without the danger involved with taking Newton Level people on an Astral level bashing trip.

In what way? To bash effectively I need to trans Tahtetso, Psychometabolism and Resilience, especially as a Faeling. To aetherbash effective, I need two credits' worth of Aethercraft.

Ha ha!
Also, I meant skillz. Not lesson earned ones.


A good pilot is a good pilot because he knows where to move and how to move, not because he's omnitrans.

Definitely not a skillz-intensive situation, at all.

- I am a level 80 Faeling, putting me at a point where I can always survive at least one hit from a gorgog, sometimes even two or three. This is roughly equivalent to a lot of aetherbeasts' attacks on ships.
- I am required to sit there and take hits as I attack, I am not able to hit them while at a safe distance or while on the move, however much I wish it were so. Ships can do this.
- They can afflict me. Gorgog afflictions are very very simple, just drink a little frost, but most hunted creatures afflict, and quite a few do serious afflictions. Aetherbeasts don't afflict ships, to my knowledge.
- Pilots, I will say, have the most labor-intensive job on an aethership, requiring a fair amount of experience. However, their only job is, essentially, to move. When I hunt I move myself around, heal myself, defend myself.

Pilots may be the head cheese on a ship, but every job on a ship is the retarded cousin of any basher.

My point is that while you do not have the option to avoid attacks in normal hunting, a good pilot does. In almost any situation (disregarding tendrils and black dragons) you can manage an entire aetherhunt getting hit at most a couple times, and getting nowhere near death.
On the other hand, having a bad pilot absolutely destroys any chance you'll have for surviving
This is why I think aetherbashing is so off on experience, because on the one hand you have the normal pilots who can do so much and have a chance of blowing up, and on the other hand you have tactical pilots who have practically no chance of dying and are very efficient. In normal hunting tactics and strategy only take you so far, because you will always be hit.

But yes, all other modules are mindless and don't require any effort whatsoever.

It's late, I don't normally blabber on and on like this!

The crit formula does seem to be a combination of proficiency + aethercraft skill. After the aethercraft changes, my first hunt I started at 50 combateer/gifted aethercraft. Didn't really see any crits at all. Then at 70 combateer/gifted aethercraft, I saw some crits, usually just level one crits. Then at 100 combateer/gifted aethercraft, I saw quite a few more crits, most only crushing or below. Then I trans'd aethercraft all at once, went back out, and say a significant amount of crits, lots of oblits and such - I vote combo.

I'm a mid-low rank, and I started seeing crits at 2%. Started seeing them fairly regularly by five percent.

The experience in aetherspace is definitely above the norm. The gold and god-essence are well below, but that doesn't really balance it out.

The issue with risk is that, yes, the pilot can keep you away from the critters most of the time. If you take this away (or add ranged attacks) keep this in mind: the empath cannot keep up with a sustained attack. Especially if there's module damage involved: it can take me three 'repair modules' to bring a module from light damage to full. And the balance is slow compared to the other modules, and the aethercritter's attacks.

So if you bring in ranged attacks to keep the group on their toes, ensure they're slow. If you alternatively slow down the pilot, you will need to speed up the empath, especially in the module damage area but also in the hull area. Else there's no point as a single critter will eventually build up enough module damage (assuming the empath can heal the hull fast enough normally) that the empath is sputtering and can't cure the hull in time. A sputter on the empath grid knocks you off-eq for a long time.

That's assuming you're looking at making the new risk relative to the current reward, and not the new reward relative to the current risk. Other people have commented on the latter.

Why precisely do you need trans Tahtetso to hunt?

So... I'm sitting here literally watching people shoot up the rankings, and listening to people tell me about the scripts they have even to auto-pilot... and, yeah. Change of heart. I guess we do need some mechanism that prevents people from milking this for hours, coupled with an adjustment to experience. From the POV of a pilot who does the flying manually, I've felt like the effort is worth the reward... but this is definitely not the case for the bulk of the crew. I hope a solution can be found that doesn't involve some horribly debilitating and rp averse effect though, akin to astral insanity.

How silly. I'm sitting here looking at someone who got demigod two? days ago already at 19 million essence. Heh. I suppose it does take this kind of extreme use to draw attention.

Dude, I miss enough as is. I needs the accuracy.

Not effectively but able to do so.

But people will always flock to whatever is the best source of experience. If you put in some kind of limitation or cost to aetherbashing, you run the risk of suddenly making it incredibly unpopular (again). It's a really thin line to walk when you're trying to balance an existing benefit that's too high with a new cost. That's why I think reducing the experience gain to be just a little faster than astral bashing would be the safest thing to try; after all, tweaking the experience formula shouldn't be too difficult, whereas coding in something like aether insanity would be.

But it's also popular right now for an undesirable reason. Right now, it is quite literally an XP faucet, so of course people are flocking to it. It's something that needs to be looked at for the balance of the game as a whole. All nerfs are unpopular, but they must be done. I do agree with you though that since the XP gain seems to be the problem, that's what we should be focusing on adjusting.

That was the sentiment I meant to express Everiine. I wouldn't go so far as to call it an XP faucet (if I remember correctly, there was a time when aetherbashing exp was even worse), but yes, it should be adjusted downwards (slightly)

It should be adjusted downwards more than slightly, its pretty obscene for people in the upper 90's. One small run net me 14% with an inexperienced crew on a ship which doesn't have artifacts. Three trans aethercraft gunners with artifacts would rake XP in at a truely obscene rate.

It should be adjusted downwards more than slightly, its pretty obscene for people in the upper 90's. One small run net me 14% with an inexperienced crew on a ship which doesn't have artifacts. Three trans aethercraft gunners with artifacts would rake XP in at a truely obscene rate. To put it into context, I've sat at 79 in the rankings for 2 weeks without me doing any bashing to keep myself there. Since people figured out how much XP is involved in Aetherspace I've moved down 4 rankings in very very short order.

If Talan's talking about who I think she is, and that person's already accumulated over 19 million essence, then yes, it requires significantly more than a "slight" tone down.