Instruction Disc Creation

[Lunayu]

I've noticed Empty Instruction Discs sold at terminals.

I was hoping maybe these could be made into actual Instruction Discs by using programs you have already uploaded and transfering them to the Empty Instruction Disc. Without losing the program you've transfered of course.

As a Guild Leader it would be a great benefit to be able to make Nano Programs for my members through my own personal knowledge. It would also promote the idea of making Nano Programs.

[Lunayu]

bump

[Sean-Roach]

As I understand it, the instruction disks are for the yet to be implemented Kamakaze bot.

As for allowing people to copy programs, as much sense as it makes, makes it rather difficult to throttle availability of certain nanos. What if all a person needed to do to get a rather difficult to acquire nano, was have someone copy the one they already had?

[Lunayu]

What's wrong with that? Ok, I see how you might want to keep hard to get nano's... hard to get. However I don't see anything easy about getting a nano in this way.

Those hard to get nano's of a lower QL aren't that hard to get. If anyone's concerned about the high QL ones, well, consider that the person transfering the program onto the Instruction Disc would have to have a lot of points invested into a certain Trade Skill. With maybe 2 exceptions, not many professions will want to spend that many points on a skill they won't use often, if ever.

Also take note that someone could only copy a program to a Disc if they knew it. That would mean only MP programs from MPs, Enforcer programs from Enforcers, etc. I'm not sure whether Agents would be able to copy programs of other Professions that they might know, it could go both ways.

Let me know what you think.

[Sean-Roach]

The reason is one of the ways the game designers manipulate the challenge of the game is by manipulating the prices for gear.

Imagine this scenario. Every person given a "kit", which contains every nano they'll ever need, on startup. No longer do they have to weigh the cost of this useful nano against the cost of that useful gun or that useful bit of armor. No longer do they have to balance getting this nano, now, without waiting to maybe find it in a mission, or from a mission, against maybe buying that yalm they've been saving up for.

If they did this, the price for nano's would fall through the floor. Nobody but a newbie would ever buy a nano from a shop, as they could get it much cheaper from a fellow player, and everybody but a few totally antisocial soloers would have even all the boss-loot-only nanos.

I suspect that's why they dropped the hammer so hard on the people caught duping credits a couple months ago. By duping credits, especially to the degree they were doing so, they caused for some rather severe inflation in the PC market.

Another consideration is the tradeskills that would be needed to dupe a nanoprogram. Granted, the average character probably wouldn't have them, or have any desire to raise them except to dupe a few nanos. However, a few select character types would already tend to focus on those tradeskills for other pursuits, and those, probably traders and engineers for starters, but possibly fixers as well, would suddenly have a much easier time of getting the rare nanocrystals than other people. Every engineer would have all the pet-heals for instance, as well as both the engineer summon nanos. Every trader would have all the grid access nanos. You get the idea.

Before you ask youself why they wouldn't want to allow players to duplicate nanocrystals and other gear so casually, you might want to ask yourself why they don't just reduce the price on all nano's to about 200% of the cost of the tradeskill components, or less. Why woudn't FC just drop the price of some of those QL 100 nano's from several thousand credits to maybe a couple thousand? From the coin collected from completing one mission, (mob loot as well,) to the coin collected from killing one mob.

[Lunayu]

Believe it or not, I totally agree with you.

The way things are now it would not be wise to use the Discs in this manner. However this is a suggestions forum and I really like the idea. Maybe someone can take a look at what we've posted and find some way to make it work with what is in the game and it's format.

Thanks for your interest in my questions and your smart replies. It's good to know some people actually think about what they write.

[Sean-Roach]

Well, one way they could do it would be to put a flag on items.

Sale, loot-only, boss-loot-only, other. Two bits.

For the items flagged sale, they could do it and only "charge" a large fraction of the actual market price of the nano in question. Maybe 80%, so knowing someone gets you a 20% reduction on cost.

For the items flagged loot-only, they could probably do the same thing, since I've noticed that non-sale nanos tend to have higher "values" than sale nanos. Otherwise, they could make it 100-120% of the supposed market price.

For those items flagged boss-loot, they might make the price rather steep, if they allowed replication of those nanos at all.

Other would be reserved for things that they couldn't allow to be replicated as they are quest items or even special items given out to or by the GM's.

Alternately, they could have a double byte flag. The value of the flag IS the replication multiplier. If it is 100, it costs 100% of the cost of the original nano to get the parts to dupe it. If it is 500, it costs 500% of the supposed original nano cost to dupe it. Pulled straight from your credits just like engineer pet nanos. If a couple bits were reserved on the left hand side of this, they could flag some things special. The first one means unduplicatible, the second one alone might mean steal exp instead, (or steal exp as well), both together could mean steal the program from the duplicator, so a person could hand-me-down a nano they no longer needed. With 14 bits for a percentage flag, they could have a maximum cost modifier of 16384%.

Cut that number by a fourth, and you have a third and fourth bit to use as a flag and you could have 8 options.
0000 unduplicatible
0001 coin only
0010 exp only, (subtract from the current exp and from the saved exp, so they can't save, do this, terminate and go again. Understand it might result in losing a level.)
0011 coin and exp
0100 take IP points
0101 take IP and coin
0110 take IP and exp
0111 take IP, coin, and exp. This for the really valued ones, that probably shouldn't be duplicatible.
1000 steal the original nanoprogram from the duplicator but charge nothing else.
1001 steal the original nanoprogram, and charge some coin for the privaledge.
... etc

Of course, dividing that number up there to Only 4096 might not be enough in all cases. They could "assume" another bit at the end. Or maybe two. Multiply the value by 4 so the duplication costs of things are in units of 4% instead of 1%. A Value of 4096, would then mean to multiply the price of the nano in question by 16384%, basically, a bit more than 16 times the original cost of the nano in the first place. A Value of 25 would mean charge exactly what the original nano went for.

This would allow them to still control access to the various nanos while giving some ability to copy nanos, where doing so wouldn't harm gameplay. It'd also give them a great deal of flexibility as to what and how much such an ability should cost.

People would probably be willing to lose some exp to dupe a nano, how many would be willing to lose an IP point, (or 10) as well?

[_________Rayfield...]

omg. how similar this idea is to the research and construction currently integrated and functional part of Neocron: the recycle/research/construction of psi/weapon/armor/implants.

they also have items that are flagged to not be able to research into a BP, thus not be able to manufacture, and can only be found as loot/reward.

*BUMP*

it's fine, and suggested even, to copy and use GOOD ideas from other games, AO is already very original in many of it's parts, and several additions(some recent: eg. dyna-bosses) are copied from integral parts of other games (eg. Diablo, EQ, Neocron), which are good. now plz go and make more original ideas(many of which we've suggested here) and copy some more(many of which we've suggested here), to make AO much more interesting than it already is. (and it is). i'd rather have AO have sme of the cool qualities of the other games and keep playing more AO, than to both play AO and some of those games. i don't even mind paying for more good material as long as AO can keep interests going.

[Keysmith]

damn fine bit of math there, my friend. another possibility would be a vendor, say in jobe? where you can cast a nano onto it and have a crystal made IN the vendor, that you can buy...that way, if they don't want the crystal sold often (grid armor comes to mind) then the nano "doesn't work" in the vendor yet...and the price is set by the machine -- player buys it from the machine and sells it in chat, for example, and if they cancel trade, all they lost was the nanos it took to cast it in the first place....gives total control back to FC and allows us to mix and match 98% of the nanos in the game...would be great for helping along a lower level person playing the same prof... here ya go, your next 5 nanos.

[Lunayu]

bumpity bump bump.

[_____________Losobal]

Hmm. I've reviewed this suggestion and find things I really like about it. Maybe to help balance it out, when you copy a nanoprog into a blank crystal, it raises the QL of the nanoprog just for purposes of learning it. It'd still have the game effect, and same skills requirement to use...but it'd have a higher learning 'fee' than buying it straight from the terminals. In effect, copying it makes a flawed copy.

Make it also modifyable so the learning 'fee' is more for mission only or boss only nano progs.

Dunno how easy it would be to code, or how much of a increase to the db it would require, but it might help prevent or slow down rampant copying of nanoprogs. A player might be forced to consider, "Would it be cheaper/quicker to earn the cash and buy a nanoprog I currently have the stats for, or get a copy from a friend with 50% more requirements to initially learn?"

[Nullifax]

Originally posted by Rayfield...
they also have items that are flagged to not be able to research into a BP, thus not be able to manufacture, and can only be found as loot/reward.

Actually, they changed that in Neocron. Instead of whole items, occasionally, you will find an "Unknown Rare Part." You must bring this to a researcher in order to determine what part it is. Each rare weapon, armor, or PSI module is made of several parts. Once you have an entire set of parts you must bring it to a constructor. Constructing a rare item is the same as constructing any other item except that you do not need a blueprint. As such, the higher the skill of the constructor, the higher the quality of the finished rare item, and the higher chance it will have modification slots. Of course slot enhancers can be used in the creation process as well. There are a few folks on Neptune running around with 8 slot DOOM BEAMERs made by constructors with over 250 skill while working at clan-owned factory. In any case, the point is that the best items in the game all require you to get the help of tradeskill players to get. IMO that's the way it should be in all MMORPGs.

If there is one thing Neocron has working better than any other game, it's the tradeskill system. The only objection I have to it is the timesink involved.

Funcom could definitely learn from Reakktor on that front.