XP for Surveillance vs. Blockade

[slawyer]

Since the v3.9.19 update changed the way XP is awarded for Surveillance and Blockade, I have noticed that I get a lot more XP/turn for Surveillance than for Blockade. I keep close track of my XP production in a spreadsheet, and note that my average XP/turn for blockading at solar wars is consistently less than 1 XP/turn, while my average XP/turn for surveillance at spy wars is consistently more than 1 XP/turn.

The only exception was when there was a confluence of solar wars on a faction (2 other factions declared solar war against them) and I was blockading the common target; then I got an average 1.06XP/turn, but that is still significantly less than any comparable period doing surveillance in a spy war, and less by far than multiple spy wars. I averaged more than 3XP/turn over one brief period with 3 spy wars against one faction (rare indeed! Haven't seen a triple solar war yet).

That seems very strange to me, since "Blockade" is aggressive, openly engaging ships directly in a hostile manor for money, like a Military Officer, while "Surveillance" is more passive, silently sneaking around and spying to make Records to sell, like a Spy. Why should the Spy get more XP for his pansy Surveillance than the Military Officer does for his valiant and glorious Blockades?

I'm talking specifically about the XP awarded for "success" when using the Blockade or Surveillance action under the appropriate war conditions (solar/spy) and seeing the toast with "Assists the war with ..." and then losing/gaining RP with the factions. I notice that when my Blockade results in a hostile encounter and I take out that ship, I do get extra XP for that, but my character has very high Stealth so that is rare.

It seems out of whack to me. I can blockade for 52 weeks straight and only get maybe 25 or 30 XP, or I can spend that year spying in a spy war and consistently get more than 52 XP (sometimes much more, if there is a confluence of spy wars on a faction). It seems like there is an additional test, some roll the game is making for me to earn the XP, and I keep consistently failing that roll to earn the XP from blockade but making that roll to earn the XP from surveillance. And the roll is completely separate from the success/fail roll for the action itself -- I can still get like $5000 or $8000 from the blockade action, assist in the war, and 0XP for it! What's up with that? What stats/skills help with these rolls for XP? Is my high Stealth making it easier for my character to earn XP from Surveillance? It sure seems that way.

Another thing I notice is my probability of encounters does not seem much different for blockade vs. surveillance -- shouldn't it be a lot more likely I would attract the attention of the authorities by blockading than by surveillance? I know my guy is stealthy and all, but he's stopping your shipping and demanding money from everybody, not slinking around making records and hiding behind his Omni-Stealth Array!

I really really really really really miss being able to blockade and get > 1XP/turn doing it (I fondly remember being able to, with 3.9.15 and earlier). Blockade is where all the action is -- excitement, fame, glory, battle, big RP swings, not to mention the money is a lot better, and I don't get stuck with pesky records I have to go sell to get my money for the action. Selling 80-130 records 8 or 9 at a time (so it happens in 1 game turn) gets really tedious.

I totally don't mind having to hunt down solar wars to get XP from blockading, and not being able to get XP blockading at independent worlds anymore. But the recent changes have made it uneconomical (XP-wise) to do blockading at all over surveillance!

And cranking down the influence of Stealth on reducing encounters that happen from the Blockade action makes sense to me too. That would help with XP from blockading too, if I get to blow up more ships doing it (and make it more fun too).

[celu]

From what I understand on the new XP spread, Bockading XP dice roll is increased with higher Intimidation.
And as for surveillance, I think it's Stealth. If you have high stealth like you mentioned, then that would explain more XP from surveilance.

edit

Aug 23, 2011 14:40:29 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Aug 23, 2011 14:05:08 GMT -5 Fenikso said:

Wait. I probably do not still understand it. So when you Blockade or Surveillance, you are tested against your Tactics skill to find if you are successful. In a similar way you are tested during combat against your combat skills. If you succeeded in it (or win the fight), you are granted XP check(s) against the same skill(s) to find out if your character have learned anything from it. Right?

No, XP Checks are not made against any Skill, they are just a check to see how many XP points have been sent to the player.

Spy/Blockade use Tactics but that is not the primary driver for the success value. Intimidation and Crew/Agile for Blockade, and Stealth and Crew/Speed for Spy.

I don't know what Cory meant with Crew/Agile and Crew/Speed. I'm assuming it's the ship's capability since blockading is close encounter maneuver vs. other ships and surveillance is a long distance operation.

[Cory Trese]

The latest release makes some additional adjustments to the Blockade and Surveillance XP and Reputation award systems. They even out the risk/reward ratio for Blockade and Spy Operations.

[slawyer]

Well, the ship I've been using is the Phantom, a souped-up Hyper Freighter with Cargo Hold, Leviathan System, Mercenaries, Titan Components, and Omni-Stealth Array. It's a Fast-Medium ship with 64 crew, and my Intimidate is 115 -- is that not high enough? With Pilot of 240, I can take sail damage all the way down to 2 sails left, and still not use any fuel blockading at faction systems, even after the recent fuel curve adjustments for ships like mine. It is very late game though (2378.24), and Impossible level, and I'm not clear about the effects of those on the rolls. I seem to get good success at the actual blockading, just not at the getting XP for it.

What confuses me is that disconnect between "success" blockading now, and the XP awarded for it. I can have "success" at the blockade action, get the toasts telling me so ("you got $5K and helped in the war") yet get no XP, and that never happens with surveillance (for me at least, YMMV).

I don't think there should be any additional check or roll to earn XP beyond the one for the action itself -- either you succeeded in the action or not! Why can I earn lots of money at blockade, get lots of RP for it too, any yet get no XP?

I should note that the XP I get for surveillance does also look like it is disconnected from the action itself. I have noticed sometimes I get records but no XP, but overall I get significantly more XP from surveillance than from blockade. It does seem like I am just making the roll for XP from surveillance more than I am for XP from blockade.

But the intent of my high Stealth was not to become a Super Awesome Spy; it was to become a Super Bad-Ass Military Officer That Can't Be Hit In Combat, and I'm finding that unless I follow my "calling" to become the spy and do surveillance all the time, I can't level up as quickly, and that just makes no sense to me.

--edit--

Cory, you got in right before my post -- I am using 3.9.23 since this morning, and I have not seen any difference between that and 3.9.19, at least so far. I will continue testing.

Can you clarify about this disconnect I am seeing? Is there an additional roll to me made for XP, separate from success/failure of the blockade/surveillance? What stats/skills does it use? And why is this added? As I said before, it is a change from, 3.9.15 and earlier, and I would like to understand the reason for it, because it doesn't make sense to me (for the reasons posted above).

[Cory Trese]

I'm sorry that it isn't working for you. I'll keep responding to feedback, answering e-mails and forum posts and testing as many games as I can.

Because the game uses Dice, 100% predictability will be impossible to achieve. I will keep working to improve the game!

[Fenikso]

This sound like a work for ... Test Pilot!
Just a quick, very flawed test...

Importing the guy from free few times and setting him to:

Pilot 20, Tactics 25, Intimidate 20, Warrior 10. Taking 30 Weapons.

For 20 turns of Blockading (not counting when I am attacked but counting failure):
16200$, 14 XP from Blockading, 10 XP from Combat
14650$, 8 XP from Blockading, 10 XP from Combat
16250$, 30 XP from Blockading, 15 XP from Combat, Double SW

Pilot 20, Tactics 25, Stealth 20, Warrior 10. Taking 30 Electronics.

For 20 turns of Surveillance(not counting when I am attacked but counting failure):
19 Records, 15 XP from Surveillance, 10 XP from Combat
20 Records, 18 XP from Surveillance, 5 XP from Combat
30 Records, 32 XP from Surveillance, 2 XP from Combat, Double SB

From what I see both Blockading and Surveillance probably yield similar XP if we add the experience from the action itself and XP from provoked combat. During Surveillance you get more XP, but you get attacked less often.

Thoughts?


slawyer - What is your Intimidation skill compared to the Stealth skill?
.

[slawyer]

Cory, I understand the game uses dice rolls and so it's not predictable -- that's why I am looking at results over many hundreds of turns, as well as individual results. It's the averages over the many hundreds of turns that changed with the recent updates that caught my eye, so I started looking at the individual results for variations to see where the aggregate numbers are coming from.

I have tested it some more (> 2K turns now) and I think it is working as intended. I think I just got some bad results from a combination of bad luck rolling, and didn't notice I lost a death warrant at one point, so stopped earning any XP from that faction until I noticed it and bought another. My results last night were much better (>1.9XP/turn spying in double-spy-battle). I looked more carefully at the blockade XP results too, and notice that sometimes I do get more than 1 XP for blockade when there is more than one solar war (not very often but sometimes).

I would like to understand better about which skills/stats are used for the XP check. My results for blockade still suck compared to surveillance, but it's probably because of my skills, and I'm trying to do it with the same ship and that's not appropriate. I'll try using a bigger crew ship and I bet I get more XP that way, and increasing Intimidate probably would help too.

@fensiko: Stealth >> Intimidate (by more than a factor of 4). My Intimidate is not so low though, because my level is very high. Currently I am working on improving Pilot so I can do bounty hunter contracts again -- enemies got much better than me while I was leveling up Charisma/Wisdom/Intimidate/Tactics, and I have lots of trouble catching them. But this character keeps Stealth = Warrior = 110% level, so his pattern is currently:

if( level mod 10 = 3 or level mod 10 = 4 )
+1 Quickness/Strength/Stealth/Warrior (core stats)
else
+1 Quickness/Strength/Stealth/Warrior, +2 Pilot

For example, at level 103 and 104 I only increase the "core stats" but at levels 105-112 I increase pilot too. Then at 113 and 114 "core stats", etc. That way my Stealth/Warrior go up by one more than my character level, and I'm only ever "in between levels" when increasing those "core stats" (so I always level up exactly one level, except when doing the core stats at .666 level * 3 times = 2 levels).

This pattern leaves very few points left over for leveling other skills.

He's currently at level 429:

Charisma 115
Wisdom 115
Quickness 472
Strength 472
Explorer 6
Pilot 254
Negotiate 10
Tactics 115
Stealth 472
Warrior 472
Intimidate 115

I think part of my XP problem is the big lack of "XP provoked from combat" -- my Stealth appears to be greatly reducing those encounters. Maybe I should get a new ships with some upgrades like Dreadnaught Architecture, Battleship Architecture, etc. that make encounters more likely, and use those for blockading.

BTW, this character almost died last night. He ran into a level 1498 Krangg Alien with much better pilot than me (could not flee). I got REALLY REALLY LUCKY and blew out his engines when he boarded me -- probably would have been a hull breech if he'd fired on me instead at that level, even with my Stealth. I was very fortunate the battle only lasted 4 turns. And this was only 3 weeks after a Narvidian Hive attacked me! That one was only level 110 though, so it was not a challenge.

[Fenikso]

Do not tell me that you do NOT have a victory screenshot of the level 1498 Alien ship!

BTW: The nickname is "Fenikso", not "Fensiko". Fenikso stands for Phoenix in Esperanto.

[slawyer]

Well, of course! I was convinced he was about to die, so I started up ShootMe and turned on toasts for the combat too.


I've been capturing lots and lots of snapshots of Severian from birth back in June (like thousands, >.5GB worth now).

And sorry for getting your nickname wrong!

[absimiliard]

2 units of cargo and 12 "able-bodied" crew . . . ..

5-1 the cargo was water-fuel, and the crew already half corrupted by alien technology and bioware.

I'm w. my pirate captain Silla Cadar on this topic, anyone who takes cargo from an alien or presses their crew gets exactly what they deserve when some chest-bursty thing bursts out of the new crew-member's chest, drinks up the water-fuel (contaminated with alien nano-tech) and boosted by the nano-tech proceeds to slaughter, and then eat, the entire ship's human complement.

Or maybe we're paranoid.

(But Silla's veteran officer has seen it happen, twice so far.....)

-abs

[celu]

Here's a kicker on the surveillance side of things:

2 Spy war Thulun vs Rychart, Javat vs Rychart
Reps:
Thulun: around -100
Javat: around -180
Rychart: around +160

I tried to get back to positive to see if I can.
Cargo hold 75/76
Spied Baza Prime (Rychart)
After a few weeks of spying... (toast says record created)
Reps:
Thulun: around -60
Javat: around -130
Rychart: around +130

No records created
No fuel consumption
cargo hold remained @ 75/76
No XP gained
Can someone explain this one?

Before, records would go over the cargo hold capacity. I think that was "fixed".
Also, now you get positive reps for surveillance during spy war and actually you get more positive rep while getting less negative reps every successful surveillance.

[absimiliard]

I'll try to tackle it, because I've seen a similar result and I have a theory . . . .

(please note: this is just a crazy theory, I could EASILY be wrong)

I think that when you generate records on a near-full hold the program checks available space and if there's not enough it doesn't generate the record.

When in a spy war, more so if you've the Spy Officer as well, you may generate more than one record during a single surveillance operation. I theorize that in this scenario the program generates you no records at all. So if you have two cargo spaces left, 78/80, and a surveillance operation would generate three records you will in fact get none. (and your hold will remain at 78/80)

However you've still done the surveillance, and so get the rep bonuses (and penalties) associated with it.

This is just a crazy theory, but it's consistent with your experience, and with mine.

Of course, having theorized such craziness, Cory's bound to hop in and go "Nope, it's this other little widget here, I'll fix it," or "Well, you're close, but you forgot this, this, and that additional factors."

(I have no theory to explain the no-fuel-use part, unless perhaps the loop that checks "records above what can be held in the hold" then diverts the program from executing the "use fuel up" sub-routine. In which case this is definitely a bug Cory will want to know about.)

-abs

[slawyer]

I think it's a bug.

It seems to think your cargo hold is 1 less than it actually is, and never fills it completely with records when you do surveillance. I see it all the time in Spy Battles.

It also doesn't add records if the number of records generated won't fit it your hold. That part might be as intended. It makes sense, recordings that span more than 1 record are useless if you "run out of tape" recording them and can't fit the total number of records generated. But it should at least get the size of your hold right when it calculates it.

You don't need to actually generate records to get RP or XP for it. There does have to be a Spy Battle to get +RP for it, or to earn POSSIBLE XP from it, and a double Spy Battle earns 2X RP and 2X POSSIBLE XP. But the XP part is POSSIBLE XP, not like the RP (which seems to happen like clockwork as a direct result of the records generation, whether it actually happens or not).

It works that way getting XP for Blockade in a Solar War too, which was the original point of this thread (mostly complaining about that).

I think you aren't getting XP because your Stealth is too low. There seems to be a skill-based check of some sort to get awarded XP, even after you succeed in the action and get records/RP.

Apparently high Stealth helps greatly with getting XP from Surveillance in Spy Battles, because my character gets tons. He's got really high Stealth and pretty decent Tactics, so he pretty much always makes the roll to get XP -- from Surveillance.

He sucks much more at Blockade in Solar War. I'm not sure what helps at that, though someone suggested more crew & Intimidate, so I switched to a different ship with 115 crew, and started increasing Intimidate. It hasn't helped much. I still only get XP about half the time for Blockade.

It is really late in the game though (just passed turn 130000 -- 2557.0 -- 2500 years in!) so my rolls are particularly hard, and apparently he's "behind the curve" when it comes to getting XP from blockade on Impossible.

I wish Cory would reconsider about these checks for earning XP. It just doesn't make any sense to me, that you can succeed in an action but not get XP for it.

I would also welcome an explanation that changes my mind about it. Maybe Cory has some grand argument about why this helps with game balance, or makes sense somehow?

Near as I can figure, my stats are too low or my ship sucks too bad, so I'm only stopping "easy" ships Blockading, but my Stealth being high and my having rank 18 with all factions gives me inside access to high-level communications that greatly increase the value of my spying.

But I sure wish Cory would clarify how these XP checks work exactly, and WHY THEY WERE ADDED. Like I said in my OP, they were not there in 3.9.15 or earlier -- then it was succeed = XP, and there didn't need to be a Spy Battle or Solar War, and it worked at Independent systems too. Why the changes?

[noesis]

slawyer, I may not be able to answer all your questions, but I believe Cory added these XP checks to help balance the game as there were a bunch of posts a month or so ago about being able to blockade independent worlds and get heaps of XP by doing so. He commented on some of those posts and I assume realised it was not what he desired for the game that he and his brother had designed & also commented the same, saying a change was coming for this exploit - hence the changes since 3.9.15, as it wasn't working the way it was envisioned. I tend to agree with the Trese Bro's in that it is a bit wrong in that, why should blockading independent worlds do anything for you other than earn money, since you also don't gain or lose rep by doing so ? by patrolling open space do you get XP without an encounter ? - No, and the same should be true for blockading/surveillance of an Independent world, nobody cares about. If you are given a contract to do it - that's a different story but to just blockade/or surveillance some random independent world should not give you extra XP, unless it creates an encounter with a ship which would give normal encounter XP.

I guess the same can be said for Factions who are not in a spy war or solar war with someone - they are essentially minding their own business and similar to Independents for the time being. I do however think Trade wars should also help blockade XP though - it's traders after all that are likely to give you cash to escape a blockade without incident.

Anyway that's my take on why the checks were added. Maybe the checks need revision, I don't know as I rarely blockade, unless under contract to do so.

[slawyer]

Hi noesis,

Thanks for the reply. I don't have a problem with the removal of XP awards for blockade at independent worlds (though I did like it a lot). I don't really agree with it -- you still get hostile encounters doing it, so it isn't any safer, just doesn't affect RP -- but I understand why the change was made, and I can deal with that. Now that I can't do that anymore, I am actually having a lot more fun targeting the factions and building up my RP to monolithic levels.

But I think it did not unbalance the game, because I still can't make those checks for blockade XP in solar war more than about half the time, even at level 439, Intimidate 119, big ship with hull 38, armor 18, 31 engines, 45 sails, 115 crew, and 181 weapons @ game turn 132000.

I like your idea of making trade wards affect the XP awarded for blockades. That makes sense to me. The only affect I have noticed of trade war is when your home faction is involved in the war -- it seems to increase the likelihood of hostile encounters against the enemy faction when you blockade.

@cory: Please explain to my feeble brain why these extra checks make sense! How does it help to balance the game? How does it makes sense in "game flavor" -- was I on the right track in my last post?

It especially hurts the player who has got very far into the game and/or is playing on very difficult levels (like me), when all rolls are very hard to make. At level 439, skills cost 65XP and attributes cost 93XP, so going up 1 level costs me around 500XP. It takes around 1000 turns to get that much XP now, when it used to be around 550, so my stats/skills/level growth is much slower now, and the game turn advances much faster than my character level now as a result.

I know you don't really expect players to make it that far and haven't designed the game with that case in mind, but it seems as if this change has made it impossible to become very good at both Blockade and Surveillance in the late game (as they require different skills to be very high, or different ships to be successful, or something different that I have not figured out yet), and maybe that was the point? Or maybe there is a way to spend XP such that the character is good at both? Or maybe I'm just way to far into the game to "catch up" to the difficulty curve for blockade XP?

I'd really just like to know why there is a check for earning XP separate from the action? Sorry to keep harping away at this; please reply and explain and I promise I'll go away and not post about it again.

Or remove the extra XP checks altogether and make blockade and surveillance XP work like 3.9.15 (except only for solar war/spy battle, that part can stay, it seems popular and I like it too), and I'll sing the happy-happy-joy-joy song!