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[FooF]

Interesting new mechanics at play here.

I personally don't raid until late game because I don't feel I can "afford" the reputation hit/hostility with the faction I'm raiding. The net gain rarely offsets the net loss unless what I'm losing is negligible because my own colonies can do it better. Casual raiding just has never seemed worth it because I can make money through other avenues that actually gain rep with factions.

If story points were still involved, the "surprise" raid wouldn't make it more effective: it would make it more covert (i.e. little/no reputation hit at all). If there were less of a meta-game consequence to raiding, I'd do it more. Maybe it's just me but unless I'm getting something permanent like blueprints or nanoforges, the risk isn't worth the reward. (Then again, I'm not much of a warmonger in my playthroughs).

As far as veterancy is concerned, I'm glad to see some iteration of it back. Crew having it back in the day was cool from a progression standpoint but marines having it makes sense. If the "progression" of crew could somehow still be represented, I'd prefer it, but if it can't be worked in, I haven't missed the old bonuses that much.

[Arcagnello]

Ok, I'm loving these upcoming developments to the raiding system but I do feel like the system itself is taking place in a very, err, static envirorment.

What I mean by that is that during the whole game, only your colonies grow, only you establish actual colonies (counting Luddic path and Pirate bases out since they do not produce and/or demand commodities as far as I'm aware, altough I think you can sell them specific stuff for a lot of money?) and most importantly for me I think, once colonies are gone the faction will not make efforts to reclaim it and/or try getting a new domain.

Current raids can usually just be spammed after a tactical bombardment to obtain the exact same results plus blueprints/resources and without the negative effects of a saturation bombardment, this also makes me feel like once you can raid something, you're basically beating a dead horse that is your target faction already.

I believe an update of this magnitude would require additional game changes to truly fuction as well as it was designed once into the game:

1) Increase the time marines need to recover from a raid. Being capable of raiding the same planet again after just one day (more or less) breaks the system no matter how marines are overhauled. Either give them a fatigued state witch revovers after a week or two (and is reduced the more experienced marines get of course) or just slap a placeholdery hardcap to raiding, maybe once every two weeks?

2)Allow the faction with a planet on the brink of decivilization to send a "stabilizing expedition" to said planet to save it. It would provide much needed longevity to a planet that's been raided to the ground and that would grant the player an admittedly massive market advantage if said planet was a major producer of I don't know, fuel, heavy machinery, supplies?

3)Allow faction planets to actually grow, therefore also increasing their market shares overtime. This would have the player need to become a dedicated raider once he/she has achieved resource monopoly and the AI is going to try and get a bigger slice of the cake. This would also give you guys the opportunity to expand the current survey data mechanic as there currently is no motive behind a faction giving survey missions. Imagine actually having to think before giving pirates survey data of a class V planet not too far from the core systems...

4)The former two suggestions have a problem tough, how do we define and limit the extent of what a faction can do? I'd actually give them a monthly income, just like the player.  It would either grow or decrease based on how many factions are at war with them, how many military fleets it's rebuilding for various reasons, how many expeditions are being funded and also what are the faction modifiers.

5)These modifiers are simple, some factions are more prone on aggressive expension but will always leave many of their settlements to themselfes if they're endangered (looking at you pirates). Some other factions could not only be against any faction expanding outside the core systems in terms of reputation, but they would automatically send expeditions to said colonies as soon as they pop up provided they have the funds for an expedition (Luddic church). You can imagine similar AI behaviours for the other factions aswell, I will not produce any more half-baked ideas since I think the reply is long enough already. Again, I love how many mechanics in this game are costantly being overhauled for the better, keep it up lads!

[Plantissue]

What browser are you using? I just tried it in Chrome and Firefox and it seems to work for me.

https://imgur.com/LIBn86k

Firefox. Not much of a problem but if you look at the scrollbar, on the right I have to scroll down a lot of blank empty space after the blog post, if I click on the picture for some reason. Since no one else has the problem, it could be anything casuing it.

[bobucles]

Increase the time marines need to recover from a raid.

I dunno how well that system would work. Players would try all sorts of silly things like dumping marines into space and scooping them back up for a reset, or having two sets of marines to hot swap at home. Tricks like that.

What might work better is making raids cost a ground combat resource. If raiding cost supplies you'd basically be spending supplies to get supplies, which is a little goofy. But if you're spending weapons, it becomes a trade from weapons to profits. Paying the cost of weapons can also help put a damper on raid spam. You might be able to raid non stop and never really lose any marines, but at some point the raid will cost more weapons than profits. There's no value in continuing to raid when you're losing money. This is especially true for heavy armaments, since those are very expensive. If a high value raid like blueprints or nanoforges required heavy armaments, the exchange becomes less of a free loot grab.

[sinistrem]

To be honest my main problem with raiding early game is marine upkeep. Compared to fuel/crew/supply upkeep of frigate/destroyer fleet (early game), the amount of credits you need to pay any marine force large enough to to get through colony defenses without taking heavy losses is pretty big.

It means that i have to constantly raid to cover their expenses in addition to crew, supply and fuel upkeeps i'm already keeping up with. Compare it to stuff like trading or exploration that has no additional upkeeps making them more profitable, or even fighting that generously covers any damage you take in combat with after battle salvage. A lot of times when i find good raiding target i don't have my marines, since i dropped them "untill i have a good target", but due to time sensitive nature of those opportunities they will be gone by the time i'm back with them.

Maybe make upkeep dependant on how often did you raid over last month, or lower passive upkeep and introduce per raid "premium pay"?

[intrinsic_parity]

I personally don't raid until late game because I don't feel I can "afford" the reputation hit/hostility with the faction I'm raiding. The net gain rarely offsets the net loss unless what I'm losing is negligible because my own colonies can do it better. Casual raiding just has never seemed worth it because I can make money through other avenues that actually gain rep with factions.

This is a good point. I think the reputation mechanics are an issue for raids right now, reputation is often more work to restore than money. If raiding for resources/money is going to be viable, I think the reputation aspect needs to be addressed. Are there any plans to take another look at the reputation system?

[bobucles]

To be honest my main problem with raiding early game is marine upkeep. Compared to fuel/crew/supply upkeep of frigate/destroyer fleet (early game), the amount of credits you need to pay any marine force large enough to to get through colony defenses without taking heavy losses is pretty big.

This seems pretty false. Crew costs 10c/month, marines 20c. The up front cost for cheap marines is roughly 6-8 months pay, and when you're done you can slam dunk them at Ludd for a fat paycheck or ice them in storage.  You should never be paying long term paychecks for marines. $20k/month for 1000 marines certainly isn't trivial in the early game, but it's way easier to have higher expenses on just 1 out of crew, supplies or fuel. You already have to be teetering on the edge before that final cost of marines breaks the bank.

[sinistrem]

This seems pretty false. Crew costs 10c/month, marines 20c. The up front cost for cheap marines is roughly 6-8 months pay, and when you're done you can slam dunk them at Ludd for a fat paycheck or ice them in storage.  You should never be paying long term paychecks for marines. $20k/month for 1000 marines certainly isn't trivial in the early game, but it's way easier to have higher expenses on just 1 out of crew, supplies or fuel. You already have to be teetering on the edge before that final cost of marines breaks the bank.

It's true if you want to just hit couple of colonies, but i though this thread specifically was talking about raiding playstyle, as said earlier in the thread when you focus on marines and raiding instead of buying better ships, like cruisers, founding colonies, etc. So you would have marines on you most of the time, not as as side dish from time to time.

[Plantissue]

I don't see raiding as something that is possible in the early game. Currently, if you want to make money you wouldn't be raiding. You would instead be taking on actual missions. Though I suppose raiding missions perhaps to disrupt a spaceport or industry would be interesting.

[sinistrem]

I don't see raiding as something that is possible in the early game. Currently, if you want to make money you wouldn't be raiding. You would instead be taking on actual missions. Though I suppose raiding missions perhaps to disrupt a spaceport or industry would be interesting.

Well both smuggling and trading are good early game for both money and experience. You can see raiding to be grouped with them, except instead of "buy stuff -> sell stuff" it is "raid stuff -> sell stuff". The problem is it is much easier to buy stuff than to take it by raiding.
When you buy, you simply make one transaction, getting exact amount of specific stuff with no strings attached. Now you can raid for a specific commodity, but the amount is still not entirely predictable.

On top of that, instead of one time purchase of marines you have to

1) Pay their upkeep. Imagine having to pay % of your cargo worth each month when trading/smuggling, it'll quickly cut into your profits.

2) Suffer heftly rep penalties each time you raid, while you need to trade very heavily on black market to even get minor rep penalties, and you can even trade profits for rep gains by trading on open market.

3) Have to pay for each raid to replenish casualties. This can be compared to taxes: increasing price of procuring stuff on open market, which can be avoided by using black market. You can't avoid casualties early game, unless you raid planets with nonexistant ground defences, which almost never have anything of value anyway.

It's like smuggling (no transponder, avoiding fleets) and on top of that, now all patrols in the systems will beeline towards you after you raid. Imagine having all system aggro on you when smuggling.
Unless above issues are adressed, raiding focused early game for profit is just a more dangerous and complex smuggling, and should pay much more given higher risks and more steps.

[Daynen]

Now see...THIS is what I'm talking about.  THIS is game design.  THIS is what happens when your first priority is to make a better game instead of appeasing ignorant shareholders.  AAA gaming take note: THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE.

[bobucles]

Though I suppose raiding missions perhaps to disrupt a spaceport or industry would be interesting.

Sounds like a great option. Raiding a planet's industry will create a shortage, and shortages create more procurement missions. The job makes its own jobs, it prints money!

[Mordodrukow]

So, how much marines will i need to take control over the colony?

[ASSIMKO]

It's great, but I want more time to reach the bounty, but the mission time is 40 days. How to change the duration time of a bounty ??

[Sundog]

Plus it gives procurement contracts something more meaningful to tie in with.

And, by extension, commodities in general! Procurement contracts encourage raiding, which requires knowledge of market characteristics to determine the best target (a delightfully multi-faceted decision). It will make both commodity and market variety more interesting by making knowledge about imports and exports far more exploitable. Very cool 

It's enough of a pain code-wise that I think that'd be asking for bugs. Regardless, though, XP boosting boosting the effect of high CR takes care of that anyway.

Absolutely. I do think intrinsic_parity's suggestion is more elegant than my own, but I figured it couldn't hurt to offer an alternative.

... well, marines get this to precisely to increase their significance, and it's a more controlled environment as far as losses taken etc.

Yeah, I think the lack of controlled environment is one of the best arguments against ranked crew, but I wouldn't expect there to be to many complications. After all, crew have had ranks in the past without causing any gameplay problems (at least not that I could discern at the time).

Like, for marines it literally more than doubles their effectiveness, and I might even turn that up a bit more! For crew, it'd necessarily only be a couple of percent here and there.

Well sure, it's a bit of a breadth vs depth thing, right? Marines ranks can have a major effect because they're one of the few variables in one aspect of the game, but crew would have a comparatively minor effect on the aspect of the game that ties in with everything else. It wouldn't take much of an effect for crew ranks to have more overall impact than marine ranks.

I don't think that's mechanically feasible, since you routinely need to do this. You'd just end up having to get your marines killed off when you wanted to get rid of them (and likewise for crew), which is scarcely any better Besides, in-fiction, people aren't being sold or "stored" - it's contracts being bought/bought back (or sold), etc.

Right, properly changing how the player interacts with people-commodities would require an overhaul, which would be crazy for various reasons since the current solution is perfectly adequate and even ideal in some respects. I guess the point I was trying to get at, is that the inventory management GUI doesn't properly support dynamic items, so maybe dynamic things shouldn't be items. Or items shouldn't be dynamic. But, like you said, it depends on how things play out. I do think there's a good chance the inability to un-dilute marines could turn out to be a non-issue.