5.3 - Hotfix 1

[Chenzo-]

A couple of things to address regarding the Barrier Pass shortcut:

1. When connections/bases/systems change, economy gets re-calculated automatically. With the way the economy formula for HRCs works, it favors longer distances (the sweet spot is about 20-25 minutes of travel time). This means that in general when travel time increases, profits go up. For this specific example of Copper to Gallia, or any other location that would have used the Barrier Pass last month, profit of hauling went up, not down. Worst case, if the haul is too long, you can log off half way through, continue next time, and still have more CSU overall.

2. Outcasts hauling Cardamine from Malta to Manhattan via the Barrier Pass: The Barrier Pass was not a vanilla connection, as neither Baffin nor Coronado are vanilla systems.

3. Outcasts do not haul Cardamine via the Barrier Pass in canon lore. The main path is via Bretonia to Trafalgar, Mactan, then Liberty.

4. Barrier Pass was not the fastest route to get from Malta to Manhattan in 5.2. That was Bretonia via Leeds -> Magellan. Then Kusari via Kyushu. And only in 3rd place, Barrier Pass.

5. Outcast players did not majorly use the Barrier Pass when smuggling cardamine. Some people did, but as is the case with most routes, the most amount of players opted for the option that nets the highest profit for the shortest amount of time, which is the Bretonian route.

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Why was the Coronado connection changed? Primarily to reduce travel time across the Taus for combat ships and increase player interaction via faster response times. Not to give activity to the Houses. Bretonia does not get a major spike in activity because a smuggler passes through the northern part of Leeds. A Bretonian player would have to be already in Leeds waiting before they had a chance to catch a smuggler. Conversely, smugglers are not forced to spend a big portion of their route travelling through Bretonia and tremble at the sight of lawfuls patrolling the area to catch them. They have to travel half a system before they are out. People who are worse off from this change compared to before are the ones relying on Copper as the POB resource. And I understand you, this is a negative change for a player only caring about the POB side of Copper with bases in specific spots such as Gallia, while not caring about combat ship traversal through the Taus or Copper as an HRC.

If the connection remained stable, it would kill off any potential of Copper as an HRC into Gallia, and instead of POB owners complaining we'd get regular traders complaining that the profits got cut. If we left it as it was in 5.2, people would complain that reaching Coronado from ex. Tau-23 takes too long to respond to or start player interaction. Whichever way you choose, someone will complain and someone will be better off. In this specific example, how much worse is a player who owns a POB in Champagne? In 5.2 the route would have been Coronado -> Baffin -> Tau-29 -> Tau-23 -> Languedoc -> Ile-de-France -> Champagne. Now, the route is Coronado -> Cortez -> Manchester -> Newcastle -> Tau-31 -> Tau-23 -> Languedoc -> Ile-de-France -> Champagne. 6 systems versus 8. Is it longer travel time? Absolutely. Is it that much worse, that the travel time increased 2x, 3x, or more? No. It is a 2 system difference, with a higher % of the route being trade lanes due to the Bretonian path.

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This change only revealed the actual issue, an underlaying one with economy: balancing POB recipes. Some location are superior to others when it comes to overall POB potential and versatility to make equipment. The best examples of this are systems like Omega-3, or Rheinland having an advantage in 5.2 due to the Ablatives being so prevalent in so many recipes. The actual solution to getting the POBs in Gallia be more competitive with the rest is to do a rebalance of POB equipment recipes, something the economy team is already planning to do. They haven't managed to finish it in time for 5.3, but hopefully it will come in the near future.

And as a last note - keep up the feedback, everyone. This has been one of the largest updates in terms of workload in the history of the mod, with thousands of changes. It is only natural that in so many changes, there will be certain changes that certain players dislike. I would be shocked if it wasn't so. I can only hope that players who do feel wronged voice that concern in a respectful and constructive manner. We will never be able to please everyone with the sheer amount of changes, but at least we can make the best out of the situation.

What we cannot do, is be afraid of making new changes, purely on the chance that someone might be worse off somewhere. If we walked on broken glass like that all the time, nothing would ever get done. We had players who loved old Omega-48 and did not want the 47 and 49 split happen. I understand them and I wish there was a way where they wouldn't have felt wronged. Yet we, collectively had multiple discussions and decided that, despite the minority loving Omega-48, more people would enjoy the 47 and 49 split, as well as fixing a giant lore hole of the initial merge in the process. Should we not have done the split just because someone was going to be worse off from the O48 split? You be the judge.

[quote="Chenzo-" pid='2375096' dateline='1756125288']

Here is a solution: Put the JH's that far apart in the baffin/coronado systems that it means the link doesn't have the same eco issue, whilst also not upsetting any players too much.

"powertraders" - Econ travel time/length calculating route for the game?

A 5k ship travels at 350m/s if you're lucky due to the asteroids.

Given how pretty much anything else is "faster" - These being NonTL systems and the jump holes get placed far enough apart- Happy win for everyone, right?

Econ and player happy meet in the middle solving all given problems? Please place the Jump Holes far away enough from one another to not impact the Econ due to the lengthened travel time.

- My apologies for being wrong on the systems not being vanilla;
Explanation:
Must have been a very early disco mod as I only ever remember using this route with countless other players since I started playing- there's lots of TAZ history which ironically to date even within the writeup for the HS> official faction, baring a few key bits of the Disco/Player lore made/shaped and adopted for the outlook of the OC faction years before they existed. - The point is there's good community history. The INRP route to follow with a few factions who wont just kill you because you exist.

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