Pilots skill

[pittlebelge]

I like the idea if having special abilities linked to the skill of a crew. But whatever system is put in place, it needs to be explained clearly to the player in the actual game. The thing that bug me the most with the present system is how little information is accessible outside of these forums.

Effects of stars ? The game says it's good to have more, but never how good. I don't even have an in-game explanation of the orders that are unlocked by higher stars captain. For example, as a noob, it's hard to guess the exact behavior that a "Distribute wares" order will entail.

How to get the stars ? That is even more cryptic, I had to see a post here (I don't remember who posted it, sorry) to understand that certain actions would simply never level my captains up to three stars.

I know that it's par for the course, I had to go through hours of youtube tutorial to get started in X3, but I think it's fair to expect improvement.

I love this game, it tries things that no others even dare, but we are still at the 600 grit polish.

[Raevyan]

Well... NO this is not the way, because you need ...

Yes, a station requires relatively huge initial investment: blueprints, resources, ships, cash. For that you get "good ROI".

Well to be fair, that initial investment does not need to be a 500m station. You can get started simply by building a 3M6S dock and storage. That does not even cost a million credits. You do not need to assign a ship to stations at all and they would still run fine (you really only need them if you have bigger stations or for wharfs because of consumption/production rates). In fact you can also get away with quite big stations without having to assign ships. If the stations need mineable resources, it’s probably best to assign some miners.

So the initial investment to get a station up and running, fully automated, is barely above of a ships cost with some equipment. You do not need To buy any blueprints (the game gives you some) to get a station running. With the trade station example, all you need is docks, storage and some thinking about the wares you add and the prices (which you would also do if you set up an auto trader). The game also gives you a 10M freebee ready to collect within about 15min.

Also there is only little difference between an auto trader and such a trade stations. Yes the trade station takes the extra building time (which is automated) and a little bit more credits to assign at least a ship. It has the same range limitations like the auto trader and it has a static position and cannot move to another location. Besides that, fully automated and does exactly what an auto trader would do without any skill requirements. The manager will also level up in no time to get the full 5 gates range.

[dtpsprt]

Well to be fair, that initial investment does not need to be a 500m station. You can get started simply by building a 3M6S dock and storage. That does not even cost a million credits. You do not need to assign a ship to stations at all and they would still run fine (you really only need them if you have bigger stations or for wharfs because of consumption/production rates). In fact you can also get away with quite big stations without having to assign ships. If the stations need mineable resources, it’s probably best to assign some miners.

I'm not talking about 500 mil. The 3M6S Dock you say has a blueprint of 600+K (you start with 5K and 1M5S right? Or maybe 10K if you get the incest monkey/Val Seldon start), then some 1 mil to build it with only a 25K container storage. The only production you get "for free" is Energy which sells dirt cheap, and it has a "price tag" of some 400K to build it (too much Claytronics needed).

So the initial investment to get a station up and running, fully automated, is barely above of a ships cost with some equipment. You do not need To buy any blueprints (the game gives you some) to get a station running. With the trade station example, all you need is docks, storage and some thinking about the wares you add and the prices (which you would also do if you set up an auto trader). The game also gives you a 10M freebee ready to collect within about 15min.

Again, as above, what blueprints? What kind of station are you going to build with these? OK, you can put 4-5 small container storages to reach 100K storage space to what use? You still need to buy an M Transport to put stuff inside, you still need money to buy resources to build it, money to buy the stuff you'll be selling, even money to buy the plot!!! When are you going to get all these back?

Next, enlighten the noobie here (just 3000 hours in game) WHERE is that 10 M freebie that he hasn't found out yet? And I don't want to hear about crystal mining, that even the crystal mining fanatics are complaining that it has been nerfed OK? Unless you can capture an SCA Behemoth all by yourself repair it and sell it to the shipyard!!!

Also there is only little difference between an auto trader and such a trade stations. Yes the trade station takes the extra building time (which is automated) and a little bit more credits to assign at least a ship. It has the same range limitations like the auto trader and it has a static position and cannot move to another location. Besides that, fully automated and does exactly what an auto trader would do without any skill requirements. The manager will also level up in no time to get the full 5 gates range.

As opposed to just the ship: No time wasting to gather build materials and for the Builder to build, then gather goods and then go and sell right? Putting the initial millions (at best 2) aside we are talking real life hours of gameplay.

Please DO NOT mislead people, or troll...

[EGO_Aut]

Maybe you can use your HQ, take some cheap S fighter with small cargo and buy/sell energy cells to skill pilots

[jlehtone]

I ... I was thinking of "a factory". Not a "trade depot". Yes, minimal depot is far easier to build than a factory. However, a depot with no ships sounds quite limited, both in margin and throughput.

Next, enlighten the noobie here (just 3000 hours in game) WHERE is that 10 M freebie that he hasn't found out yet?

Please DO NOT mislead people, or troll...

It did not look like trolling. It is rather natural to assume that every "noobie" reads through the Spoilers Forum first "to get going", particularly when every place points out the shape of the learning curve of these games.

There is of course a minority that like "the hard way", avoid spoilers more than covid-19, and ignore all freebies.

[GCU Grey Area]

As opposed to just the ship: No time wasting to gather build materials and for the Builder to build, then gather goods and then go and sell right? Putting the initial millions (at best 2) aside we are talking real life hours of gameplay.

Not millions & not all that many hours either. Just loaded up one of the earliest saves I've got for my current game. Within less than 3 hours of the start had got the PHQ & was already building docks & storage. Building costs were less than 500k, even with prices set to max (apparently I was in a hurry). At the time this was to hold stuff for the Boron's research projects, but would function perfectly well as a trade station. Indeed that's precisely what I did with the place when all the research was concluded.

[dtpsprt]

I ... I was thinking of "a factory". Not a "trade depot". Yes, minimal depot is far easier to build than a factory. However, a depot with no ships sounds quite limited, both in margin and throughput.

Next, enlighten the noobie here (just 3000 hours in game) WHERE is that 10 M freebie that he hasn't found out yet?

Please DO NOT mislead people, or troll...

It did not look like trolling. It is rather natural to assume that every "noobie" reads through the Spoilers Forum first "to get going", particularly when every place points out the shape of the learning curve of these games.

There is of course a minority that like "the hard way", avoid spoilers more than covid-19, and ignore all freebies.

Take a "walk"on Steam Forum, there you will find the noobies... they don't know anything about the Egosoft Forum, don't bother to look here cause they know (or think, no difference) it's full of "Egosoft admirers" (not my words) and they will not get an unbiased advise and guidance, just like any other official forum. They even post the bugs they find there...

P.S. Still waiting for my 10 M freebie... lol...

[dtpsprt]

As opposed to just the ship: No time wasting to gather build materials and for the Builder to build, then gather goods and then go and sell right? Putting the initial millions (at best 2) aside we are talking real life hours of gameplay.

Not millions & not all that many hours either. Just loaded up one of the earliest saves I've got for my current game. Within less than 3 hours of the start had got the PHQ & was already building docks & storage. Building costs were less than 500k, even with prices set to max (apparently I was in a hurry). At the time this was to hold stuff for the Boron's research projects, but would function perfectly well as a trade station. Indeed that's precisely what I did with the place when all the research was concluded.

Yes... the PHQ can be a "fast srart" in a way, after you have finished enough research (at least the 25K Container Storage holds the first two steps of Teleportation and the "minor" researches, so you can start hacking blueprints)... but if you noticed I was "responding" to a post advising a 3M5S dock to begin, which is not in the "standard" packet of blueprints and if you do not have finished Dock research in the PHQ costs 600 to almost 700K as blueprint alone, of course, building it is more expensive than the 1M6S too...

Still the noobie needs to fund this research going blindfolded ahead... The "crucial" point in your answer is Just loaded up one of the earliest saves I've got for my current game. I'm talking about the "little guy" who just started the game and does not have infinite time, due to work etc... Not yours or mine 3000 hours in...

BTW it would be really interesting if there could be a contest for the fastest "build up" to the point that it's all just money and time (where I usually leave my games loosing most of the interest in them). Or specific ones... like Finish Fires of Defeat without shooting one ZYA ship...

P.S. Still waiting a hint for the 10 M freebie (not mining crystals)...

[Raevyan]

I'm talking about the "little guy" who just started the game and does not have infinite time, due to work etc... Not yours or mine 3000 hours in...

P.S. Still waiting a hint for the 10 M freebie (not mining crystals)...

As you've already pointed out yourself, there are people (like me), that have a full time job and don't have time to respond all day. So you gotta keep practicing being more patient. That being said, you asked question and i will answer:

Well to be fair, that initial investment does not need to be a 500m station. You can get started simply by building a 3M6S dock and storage. That does not even cost a million credits. You do not need to assign a ship to stations at all and they would still run fine (you really only need them if you have bigger stations or for wharfs because of consumption/production rates). In fact you can also get away with quite big stations without having to assign ships. If the stations need mineable resources, it’s probably best to assign some miners.

I'm not talking about 500 mil. The 3M6S Dock you say has a blueprint of 600+K (you start with 5K and 1M5S right? Or maybe 10K if you get the incest monkey/Val Seldon start), then some 1 mil to build it with only a 25K container storage. The only production you get "for free" is Energy which sells dirt cheap, and it has a "price tag" of some 400K to build it (too much Claytronics needed).

Well guess i didn't remembered well regarding the 3M6S dock. Yes you're right, you do not have that blueprint from the beginning. You do have the 1M6S dock which is more than enough. Will it bottleneck? Probably at some point. Bus as you start you don't have many ships anyway.

So the initial investment to get a station up and running, fully automated, is barely above of a ships cost with some equipment. You do not need To buy any blueprints (the game gives you some) to get a station running. With the trade station example, all you need is docks, storage and some thinking about the wares you add and the prices (which you would also do if you set up an auto trader). The game also gives you a 10M freebee ready to collect within about 15min.

Again, as above, what blueprints? What kind of station are you going to build with these? OK, you can put 4-5 small container storages to reach 100K storage space to what use? You still need to buy an M Transport to put stuff inside, you still need money to buy resources to build it, money to buy the stuff you'll be selling, even money to buy the plot!!! When are you going to get all these back?

A 1M6S dock and a small container storage costs ~350k. That's enough to start a trading station by simply adding wares to logical overview. A Demeter Sentinel at minimum loadout costs ~370k. So that is a total of ~ 720k for the station and a trader. For comparison: a medium loadout Demeter Sentinel with no rep costs ~741k. Technically you do not need to assign any ships to that station to make profits (Yes ofc you should add some ships). Either start with a few S ships (~100k each) or a single M ship. You also do not need 100k Storage. The 100k storage will only waste money, because the manager tries to fill the storage and your traders are most likely just buying stuff. Wares in storage is just a waste of money.

As for the plot cost, you do not need to pay for it. If you do the HQ missions you already got a plot that can be used. Otherwise you can build in neutral sectors. Nopileos Fortune is a great one, because it reaches all Shipyards/Wharfs (except ZYA/FRF) within its 5 Gate range. You got 3 in 3 Gates range (PAR, ALI and HOP). By the way, a plot can be as cheap as 64k (that's basically a single mission). You do not need to put it in front of gates and highways...

PS: I do not argue about having money to buy resources to sell, because an auto trader would also need that. So we are looking at ~350k more costs to actually build the station. Let it be 420k if you also buy the plot. A 3* pilot costs how much if you happen to find one? Can't tell because i never found a 3* Star pilot on a station, but they probably cost more than that.

Next, enlighten the noobie here (just 3000 hours in game) WHERE is that 10 M freebie that he hasn't found out yet? And I don't want to hear about crystal mining, that even the crystal mining fanatics are complaining that it has been nerfed OK? Unless you can capture an SCA Behemoth all by yourself repair it and sell it to the shipyard!!!

I don't like crystal mining and only did it once at release. It's boring and i do not care about it, although it would still be a viable option to get early funding. All you have to do is, to do a simple mission to get some credits (you have at least 5k from the start) or alternatively start the HQ plot and get ~120k, fly to a wharf and get a marine. Then you can simply fly to faulty logic and capture that Odysseus Vanguard, fly it back to the next shipyard, strip equipment and sell the hull. That's about 10M. If you do the first few HQ missions you're also rewarded a Gorgon/Cerberus that can be sold for at least 1M? That will cover the station cost and the cost a single M Trader to get going.

If you don't know about this then just do some missions. The deploy satellites and resource probes missions are super easy, you got the probes and satellites for free, and they give you about 30-60K per missions. Remember if you wanna set up traders, you'll also need to get money to buy those somehow.

Also there is only little difference between an auto trader and such a trade stations. Yes the trade station takes the extra building time (which is automated) and a little bit more credits to assign at least a ship. It has the same range limitations like the auto trader and it has a static position and cannot move to another location. Besides that, fully automated and does exactly what an auto trader would do without any skill requirements. The manager will also level up in no time to get the full 5 gates range.

As opposed to just the ship: No time wasting to gather build materials and for the Builder to build, then gather goods and then go and sell right? Putting the initial millions (at best 2) aside we are talking real life hours of gameplay.

Well as i said, building is fully automated. You just transfer build budget and you do not have to do anything. In the meantime, while the station is building, which does not take that long at all, you can do other things. Like exploring sectors and stations to trade with or doing some mission to gather credits to actually by a trader. I just don't sit in front of my monitor and waiting for resources to arrive and have it finish building before doing anything else. And i do think, that other people would also do other things in the meantime. Don't know where you get your 2M budget from, because as stated above i'm even under 1M.

Please DO NOT mislead people, or troll...

Where exactly did i mislead people or troll? My whole point i was trying to explain was: A station as simple as docks and storage, is not that much more expensive than an auto trader. It is available from the first second of a new game start. It does not require a 3* pilot to basically do the same thing, with the downside being that the station is locked in place. Yes a trading station with only very few traders won't make you the richest guy in the shortest amount of time. But an auto trader won't make you rich either.

[dtpsprt]

I'm talking about the "little guy" who just started the game and does not have infinite time, due to work etc... Not yours or mine 3000 hours in...

P.S. Still waiting a hint for the 10 M freebie (not mining crystals)...

Please DO NOT mislead people, or troll...

Where exactly did i mislead people or troll? My whole point i was trying to explain was: A station as simple as docks and storage, is not that much more expensive than an auto trader. It is available from the first second of a new game start. It does not require a 3* pilot to basically do the same thing, with the downside being that the station is locked in place. Yes a trading station with only very few traders won't make you the richest guy in the shortest amount of time. But an auto trader won't make you rich either.

I don't like crystal mining and only did it once at release. It's boring and i do not care about it, although it would still be a viable option to get early funding. All you have to do is, to do a simple mission to get some credits (you have at least 5k from the start) or alternatively start the HQ plot and get ~120k, fly to a wharf and get a marine. Then you can simply fly to faulty logic and capture that Odysseus Vanguard, fly it back to the next shipyard, strip equipment and sell the hull. That's about 10M. If you do the first few HQ missions you're also rewarded a Gorgon/Cerberus that can be sold for at least 1M? That will cover the station cost and the cost a single M Trader to get going.

That's exactly where. When you talk about how easy it is and a 10 M freebie this is what you mean, absolutely "omitting" that there is no way in hell for the starter ship to survive in Faulty Logic, even as early as 20 mins into the game.

And no, it will take a good 1 game hour (at best) to get the HQ to appear (having used the majority of the Boron's money to buy the sacrificial lamb for the mission, or, accidentally - we are still talking newbies here - to "stumble" on the Hatikvah mission to get the free Callisto so he can put the starter ship to death for the PHQ, that's another at least half an hour btw, the first part of the Hatikvah mission).

P.S. The "troll" part was after an or OK? But definitely you have forgotten what it is to be new in the game... Out of personal experience, and with over 5000 hours in each and every of the previous X games, it took me 3 new starts (in case I have broken/rejected something) and, in total, 20 appearances of the Boron before I could find where in that hideous UI was the accept button to continue with the PHQ mission in the first place (used in the elegance and functionality of previous X games that did not block the whole screen to offer a mission, or display the map)

[Raevyan]

That's exactly where. When you talk about how easy it is and a 10 M freebie this is what you mean, absolutely "omitting" that there is no way in hell for the starter ship to survive in Faulty Logic, even as early as 20 mins into the game.

Wel I can easily fly through faulty logic and get the destroyer. Don’t know what exactly is so hard about it? The xenons? The mines? Just use travel drive and there is no threat. You can even avoid the mines if you fly some km above ecliptic. The last time I started a new game and went straight to get the Odysseus, there weren’t even any xenons flying around.

And no, it will take a good 1 game hour (at best) to get the HQ to appear (having used the majority of the Boron's money to buy the sacrificial lamb for the mission, or, accidentally - we are still talking newbies here - to "stumble" on the Hatikvah mission to get the free Callisto so he can put the starter ship to death for the PHQ, that's another at least half an hour btw, the first part of the Hatikvah mission).

Well an hour of playtime isn’t that much and I didn’t say that you get the HQ in 10min (only said that for getting the destroyer that nets you around 10m). I mean you’ll do it at some point anyway. But the free M ship that you can sell is easy money. Imagine, you could do the HQ mission while your station is building.

P.S. The "troll" part was after an or OK? But definitely you have forgotten what it is to be new in the game... Out of personal experience, and with over 5000 hours in each and every of the previous X games, it took me 3 new starts (in case I have broken/rejected something) and, in total, 20 appearances of the Boron before I could find where in that hideous UI was the accept button to continue with the PHQ mission in the first place (used in the elegance and functionality of previous X games that did not block the whole screen to offer a mission, or display the map)

Don’t know why you refer to newbies. The topic is about the rng based leveling system that makes no sense because with a trade station, as I said, you basically get the same functionality at not much higher costs Without hundreds of hours it takes a miner/trader to level to 3 stars overall. The only viable way to level them in a somewhat decent time by actually doing something is exploiting khaak stations and xenon gates. Which again is automated fire and forget. CBJs statement was, they don’t want to reward such automation with fast xp gain. Ok one could say khaak spawn camping has some risk loosing ships but why do manager level so fast compared to a pilot? They intentionally give us limited control over the manager and it’s subordinate, again all automation.

I’d say that the current xp gain (besides the combat scenario that is somewhat decent, but still takes several hours), is just an arbitrary time gate to lock a command that is not even that useful and won’t make you rich anyway. I’m totally fine if some things aren’t available from the beginning because progression is probably the biggest reward for a player. But the rng based system is way overkill. Also in late game I don’t want to do all the micro. What’s the point of making credits if you can’t spend it to skip tedious micromanagement at later stages of the game?

[atavistuk]

I can actually answer the 3 star pilot question. 900,000 credits or in the region of. IF you can find one.

Also, in X4: Autotraders are dead, get over it. Automining Nividium is where the easy money is. Put a Satelite at the trade station and one M miner in Hewas Twin, Hatikva's Choice, Ianamus Zura and Grand Exchange, forget about them. Not sure about ARG and ANT areas and the Paranid don't seem to buy any. Split do, but their trade stations are far away from any Nividium fields, so you'd have to sell to them manually regardless. Then just sit back and let the money pour in. Zero Pilot Skill needed.

And if you're not building stations, ofc your going to be super poor. Stations are where the money is, nothing else is even going to be close. By Design.

[pref]

So i had a little time, ran the game ahead on seta to see how long it would take to get 3 star guys.

Within ~1.5 game days the first 10% of the 30 ships i kept checking got the last 1/3*. No clue exactly when they leveled, i could not check them every min.
They do somewhere between 250-450 runs in that time. It was black marketeers, so low volume, high margin trade if that matters at all.

From this it seems the chance mentioned before (0.0035%) got increased into the realm of possible events, probably more then tenfold, but my numbers are far too low to guess the probability.

[Kosta88]

I actually stopped worrying about pilot skill and money the moment I got my self sustaining wharf.
I am at 16bil, stopped wharf even selling ships to anyone for now. I have no need. I have some 500 ships, 3 raptors and two colossus, 20 destroyers and could make dozens more any second. Without any cost!! Almost all blueprints. Wharf has I think over 500 modules. It did take couple of smaller stations, a small wharf and SETA module to get me there though. Still, no pilot skills required. Once you start popping transporters and mining ships like crazy, is where money starts to pour in and the self sustaining wharf is a piece of cake, just something that takes time to construct and two days on SETA to build a basic version lol.
In any case, once you reach that, it’s over basically. You stop caring. I am in Xenon sectors, K’s and I’s are popping like flies, so do stations. It’s basically just doing cleanup.
Just want to show you might as well forget about pilot skills. Sad, but true.
And it means following: it takes one interesting part of the game away. Because I would never have time or patience to wait for them to up their skills the “normal” way, like flying or fighting.

[M4lInX255]

I can actually answer the 3 star pilot question. 900,000 credits or in the region of. IF you can find one.

Also, in X4: Autotraders are dead, get over it. Automining Nividium is where the easy money is. Put a Satelite at the trade station and one M miner in Hewas Twin, Hatikva's Choice, Ianamus Zura and Grand Exchange, forget about them. Not sure about ARG and ANT areas and the Paranid don't seem to buy any. Split do, but their trade stations are far away from any Nividium fields, so you'd have to sell to them manually regardless. Then just sit back and let the money pour in. Zero Pilot Skill needed.

And if you're not building stations, ofc your going to be super poor. Stations are where the money is, nothing else is even going to be close. By Design.

Nividium mining at first, and then jumping to station building is indeed one of the fastest way to get money. And apart from the initial player input, all of this is completely automatized and independent of pilot skill. This is why I don't understand the argument justifying the artificial limit of 2-3 stars for traders. Yes you can't easily multiply autotraders, but they're not even half as cost-effective as the first player stations. Even before 3.0, I would only have a handful of them to fill some market gaps and that's it. The only argument I can think of against autotraders is that they're faster to "launch" compared to stations and such.

[Raevyan]

I can actually answer the 3 star pilot question. 900,000 credits or in the region of. IF you can find one.

Also, in X4: Autotraders are dead, get over it. Automining Nividium is where the easy money is. Put a Satelite at the trade station and one M miner in Hewas Twin, Hatikva's Choice, Ianamus Zura and Grand Exchange, forget about them. Not sure about ARG and ANT areas and the Paranid don't seem to buy any. Split do, but their trade stations are far away from any Nividium fields, so you'd have to sell to them manually regardless. Then just sit back and let the money pour in. Zero Pilot Skill needed.

And if you're not building stations, ofc your going to be super poor. Stations are where the money is, nothing else is even going to be close. By Design.

Nividium mining at first, and then jumping to station building is indeed one of the fastest way to get money. And apart from the initial player input, all of this is completely automatized and independent of pilot skill. This is why I don't understand the argument justifying the artificial limit of 2-3 stars for traders. Yes you can't easily multiply autotraders, but they're not even half as cost-effective as the first player stations. Even before 3.0, I would only have a handful of them to fill some market gaps and that's it. The only argument I can think of against autotraders is that they're faster to "launch" compared to stations and such.

Well if it’s irrelevant because other means make more money, why even have that barrier in the first place?
Other than that there is also advanced and expert automine. Sometimes there is demand for minerals in a sector that does not have mineable resources. ZYA is a pretty good example because there are only very few sectors where you can mine...

[M4lInX255]

Nividium mining at first, and then jumping to station building is indeed one of the fastest way to get money. And apart from the initial player input, all of this is completely automatized and independent of pilot skill. This is why I don't understand the argument justifying the artificial limit of 2-3 stars for traders. Yes you can't easily multiply autotraders, but they're not even half as cost-effective as the first player stations. Even before 3.0, I would only have a handful of them to fill some market gaps and that's it. The only argument I can think of against autotraders is that they're faster to "launch" compared to stations and such.

Well if it’s irrelevant because other means make more money, why even have that barrier in the first place?

Exactly my point.

Other than that there is also advanced and expert automine. Sometimes there is demand for minerals in a sector that does not have mineable resources. ZYA is a pretty good example because there are only very few sectors where you can mine...

Indeed, you must rely on factions to fulfil the demands, or do everything manually...

[jlehtone]

I had to go back, to seek "horse's mouth":

I'm not directly involved in this, but the crew skill progression curve intentionally gets much steeper just below 3 stars, which is where you unlock automatic trading. That's one of the most, if not the most, advanced trading behaviour, which lets you fire-and-forget your trader to make credits efficiently on its own.


If the crew of your automated ships seems to not level, consider this as a rule of thumb: The more manual work you put in to make the ship's orders more efficient (e.g. telling it to make profitable trade runs with a full cargo hold), and the more dangerous the orders are (e.g. having a ship help destroy a station), the faster the crew will usually level.

This means that by putting in effort now, and keeping a close eye on what these ships do, you'll unlock advanced automated behaviour that lets them operate more efficiently on their own later on.


Simple automation like sector AutoMine is available from the start, and it's a great way to make credits early and supply your stations hassle-free.


Seminars are indeed just a buff until you hit the steep part of the curve. Design-wise, at that point, the player is meant to be encouraged to actively seek out high-risk activities, raise their reputation (to gain access to higher level seminars as mission rewards), play guild missions and send their ships on ventures to gain a self-sufficient captain in return.

• Sector AutoMine, yes, that we probably agree on
• AutoTrader being "one of the most, if not the most, advanced trading behaviour"? I gather that station traders eat AutoTraders for breakfast. Trading Station is an add-on, isn't it? If yes, then the "Big Picture" has changed after the design was made. Wheeled chariots were the pinnacle of warfare, but now we have armored vehicles.
• "Player is meant to be encouraged." Noble idea, but the marketing speech does not sink into everybody. For one, I did miss the memo that tells how reputation affects rewards. It is intuitive, based on previous games -- if one has played them -- but almost unnoticeable*. Then there is the pirate mind-set too: they want to take, rather than to receive.

*I don't know anything about the "mods", so as rewards they are all equally worthless to me. Yes, talking to a Boron is apparently encouraged, but stubborn gits are not so easily affected, are they?

[pref]

I thought i post back with results of my experiment.

I released 30 2+2/3* pilots as station traders. They did drugs so were running on infinite sinks constantly in quick ships like boa and magpie - most only working in a single or 2 sectors tops.
Don't think there is a more effective way to train them by their own trade - i don't find training traders via combat assignments realistic as there isn't enough opposition in my game at least.

So after 1.5-2 days i got 3 of them to 3*.
But after 12 days i only got 2 more up to 3*. So my initial 3 skillups was probably huge luck, and skillup speed is still abysmal.
Meaning the skill mechanics still locks out most of us from using 'advanced' scripts without a station backing them.
If every 2 days one could get 3 more guys to 3* that would probably be fine but this is still way too slow. At least i don't see myself doing those procedural quests indefinitely as my empire grows.

Sure the game can be played without those scripts, but imo the skill gains are way below acceptable level and procedurally generated things are boring for the human mind after a short time - no wonder that method got quickly dropped from games in any area that needs constant player involvement.
I mean it's fine for roids and totally background things like that but i remember skyrim using handcrafted dungeons (meaning not procedural) as a selling point after getting feedback on that aspect from earlier installments ages ago.
I would be much more happy if those missions weren't a prerequisite for any advanced features.

[Raevyan]

I thought i post back with results of my experiment.

I released 30 2+2/3* pilots as station traders. They did drugs so were running on infinite sinks constantly in quick ships like boa and magpie - most only working in a single or 2 sectors tops.
Don't think there is a more effective way to train them by their own trade - i don't find training traders via combat assignments realistic as there isn't enough opposition in my game at least.

So after 1.5-2 days i got 3 of them to 3*.
But after 12 days i only got 2 more up to 3*. So my initial 3 skillups was probably huge luck, and skillup speed is still abysmal.
Meaning the skill mechanics still locks out most of us from using 'advanced' scripts without a station backing them.
If every 2 days one could get 3 more guys to 3* that would probably be fine but this is still way too slow. At least i don't see myself doing those procedural quests indefinitely as my empire grows.

Sure the game can be played without those scripts, but imo the skill gains are way below acceptable level and procedurally generated things are boring for the human mind after a short time - no wonder that method got quickly dropped from games in any area that needs constant player involvement.
I mean it's fine for roids and totally background things like that but i remember skyrim using handcrafted dungeons (meaning not procedural) as a selling point after getting feedback on that aspect from earlier installments ages ago.
I would be much more happy if those missions weren't a prerequisite for any advanced features.

And that’s another example that, even while using those exploits (I consider using infinite demand black marketeers and infinite spawning khaak camping an exploit) , the level rate is abysmal compared to the “reward” (‘advanced scripts’) that you get.

By the time you’ve got your first 3* pilots you probably made more than enough money to render auto traders pretty much useless.