I have recently been doing some GPI work and find it incredibly slow. Although this isn't neccassarily a bad thing at the basic level I think it would be nice to have some method of speeding it up a little.
I trained some of my officers in the GPI skill in the hope that it would speed up the process but was dissappointed to find it just increased their scan accuracy.
Even though training the officer increases your GPI scan accuracy by 25% I find that this skill is in a different league to the other skills. Most of the other civi skills give the officer a definate advantage over an untrained officer as you might expect, but it doesn't seem so here, (I can't comment on Naval skills).
My small ship is kitted out for GPI work, so before any 'officer training' my GPI scan gives results +/- 2.5
To train an officer in the GPI skill is going to cost you a MINIMUM of $1000 and 1 experience point.
After training my officer I get..... +/-2.33 accuracy.
As far as I am concerned this is worthless to me, it seems to have cost me an awful lot to gain very little, and this is if you are training an completely untrained officer, (so you are training to level 1). Of course if you are training at a higher level it costs more in both stellars and experience points.
With a GPI scan I am generally not interested whether the yield at a sector is 100 or 102, just whether it is 12 or 112. Being more accurate does nothing for me as I only want to know whether the yield is of an amount that makes placing an outpost worthwhile or not.
I am interested if anyone else has trained in this skill and if they find it to be any use?
I would like to suggest that the GPI skill be changed from an 'accuracy' improvement, to a 'speed' improvement, but not if this is going to cause anyone problems who finds it useful the way it is.
By changing it to a speed improvement I think it would also help the new player, or someone who does not have many ships.
Most people say that the solution to faster GPI-ing is to throw more ships at it, but I think it would be nice if the Officer could affect the speed of an indivdual ship GPI-ing.
I'd like to know anyone elses thoughts on this, and also those of David / Mica as to whether this would be a possibility?
Thanks all
Phil
IC: Sees With Knowledge - MOH
I haven't trained anybody in it though, so can't offer anything more helpful than this.
| QUOTE (Howellers @ Mar 22 2006, 11:49 PM) |
| What if it dropped the cost of a GPI order by a % instead? |
The 'cost' of a GPI order?
There is no cost other than tu's as far as I know, and a drop in the tu's would be the same as the increase in speed I am suggesting
So I think I am thanking you for agreeing....
I can't see any negative effect this would have on the game as a whole - but it would certainly help specialise the explorer officers better.
Nik
| QUOTE (Clay @ Mar 23 2006, 03:45 AM) |
| I also agree. Dropping the TU cost by, say 10% per level of experience would make a very useful difference. Capped at a max of 5 levels would mean that a truely expert officer can do the same job in half the time. |
I think it's capped at level 4 at the moment anyway, aren't all skills capped at level 4?
| QUOTE (ptb @ Mar 23 2006, 08:09 AM) |
| I think it's capped at level 4 at the moment anyway, aren't all skills capped at level 4? |
I don't have any experience with officer training yet, but an idea would be to remove capping allowing us to create super-officers. The cost would have to be very high though.
Another idea for naval officers could be training in strategy. The officers with highest level in strategy in a squadron gives small bonus to all ship in the squadron. I guess such a skill would have to have a high cost as well.
Just thoughts...
But for squadrons, the officer with the highest level in the skill could command up to:
Level 1 - 2 Ship
Level 2 - 4 Ships
Level 3 - 7 Ships etc etc (Not, figures just put in as an example)
And then maybe something similar for Naval
Oh, and as for the GPI skill, yes I think a decrease in tu's would be better - unless we are missing the point of the current skill somehow
| QUOTE (Sleeps With Dragons @ Mar 23 2006, 02:20 PM) |
| Just a thought for Naval Officers (and possible civilian for squadrons), they could possibly be trained in 'Fleet Co-ordination' and/or 'Squadron Co-ordination' - the higher the levels, the more ships you can have in a fleet or squadron. May help with the large fleet issue that has been mentioned before (I cant comment on this as I haven't experienced any large fleet side of the game) But for squadrons, the officer with the highest level in the skill could command up to: Level 1 - 2 Ship Level 2 - 4 Ships Level 3 - 7 Ships etc etc (Not, figures just put in as an example) And then maybe something similar for Naval Oh, and as for the GPI skill, yes I think a decrease in tu's would be better - unless we are missing the point of the current skill somehow |
I hate that idea.
Squadrons are in the game to make management of ship movement easier. Just imagine that you lose all your high ranking officers in a huge battle.
You are already in panic after a good beating.
You then have to organise orders individually for ship because your officers does not have the required training. Lots of things could go wrong doing orders for each individual position and all the fleeing ships will be spread all over the peripheries trying to reach dry docks and get repairs.
Brian, DTR
| QUOTE (brian kreiser @ Mar 23 2006, 01:29 PM) | ||
I hate that idea. Squadrons are in the game to make management of ship movement easier. Just imagine that you lose all your high ranking officers in a huge battle. You are already in panic after a good beating. You then have to organise orders individually for ship because your officers does not have the required training. Lots of things could go wrong doing orders for each individual position and all the fleeing ships will be spread all over the peripheries trying to reach dry docks and get repairs. Brian, DTR |
I can see where you are coming from Brian, but isnt the scenario you have quoted more realistic as to what would happen after a battle? Ships without officers, especially high ranking ones coordinating the fleet, would be running in all directions and not necesarily moving away in an organised fashion.
Bear in mind this is only my perception on this, and I don't have any experience in in-game combat let alone large fleet movements, so I may be barking up the wrong tree totally.
| QUOTE (Sleeps With Dragons @ Mar 23 2006, 07:52 PM) |
| I can see where you are coming from Brian, but isnt the scenario you have quoted more realistic as to what would happen after a battle? Ships without officers, especially high ranking ones coordinating the fleet, would be running in all directions and not necesarily moving away in an organised fashion. Bear in mind this is only my perception on this, and I don't have any experience in in-game combat let alone large fleet movements, so I may be barking up the wrong tree totally. |
All you would do, is move from squadron orders to a "tool" (for one example, using excel with a relatively simple visual basic macro) to generate a batch of identical individual ship orders - meaning that the better in-game performance would come from those with (or with access to) RL computing skills of some degree. Squadrons are available for use by anybody with the standard order editor, we shouldn't make post-battle success depend on anything different
Dan
Dan
| QUOTE (Sees With Knowledge @ Mar 23 2006, 01:05 AM) | ||
The 'cost' of a GPI order? There is no cost other than tu's as far as I know, and a drop in the tu's would be the same as the increase in speed I am suggesting So I think I am thanking you for agreeing.... |
Mmm bugger.. I try my best never to agree with anyone
)Having a very good officer who could do GPI's in 50% of the time would be very useful and a good addition to almost any aff I reckon.
Pete
| QUOTE (Howellers @ Mar 24 2006, 06:29 PM) |
| Having a very good officer who could do GPI's in 50% of the time would be very useful and a good addition to almost any aff I reckon. Pete |
I too think so.
Phoenix Hawk
5% per level would be my choice (10% just sounds too high and doesn't match the other officer skills).
BUT...
I don't think we should have this skill in place of the %age increase version we have at the mo... This option should be in addition to the existing skill...
The Expert GPI/Exploration Officer would then have the potential for :
GPI (speed) level 4 = 20% reduction in TUs.
GPI (accuracy) level 4 = 20% increase in GPI scanning factors.
Exploration level 4 = flagged to GM.
This would take massive amounts of experience points... but would be worth it!
Doug
I am interested in your comments on the existing GPI skill though Doug. Do you find this is useful as it stands then?
I would be interested to see an example of an officer / ship where training in this skill has made a meaningful difference if you have one?
Thanks
Phil
I don't have any examples of when this would have been useful...
I don't have any officers with GPI as a skill (I go for Exploration... or Navigation).
However,
If we are going to add a new skill into the game (the GPI speed one)... we don't have to remove one.
Someone, somewhere may find it useful or desirable to have this...
So... lets leave it in... and add the GPI speed one as well... and anymore we can think of!
Variety is the spice of life...
Doug
At least it seems that way to me, but I try to avoid doing GPIs wherever possible.
)I would be interested to hear any GM comments on this too if either David or Mica are around?