I think word got around and people did carry “spare” slaves for the next site which is why the Gnosis was so popular, having a large cargohold and being newbie friendly.
However, the problem was that there was a limit on the number of slaves that could be placed in the hauler (400) so any extra you might be carrying were redundant. Initially I dropped them off at a station for future use/sale but after a while I’d just hack the containers to trigger the spawns but leave the slaves in them once I’d collected 400…
To get around this you could allow 400 OR MORE slaves to be placed into the hauler so that it still warps when there are at least 400 slaves in the cargo but a player can go over this limit when placing the final stack.
You could also have the spawns trigger when the slaves are removed from the containers rather than when they’re hacked but this doesn’t stop players from jetting them out later.
Alternatively, have the haulers (and the beacon) return periodically if there are still slaves to be freed. If players wanted to run the site in privacy they’d need keep filling the hauler each time it arrived, which makes all the slaves “useful” for as long as the site is “active”.
I mean, you designed this event to be RSI inducing to start with, with the insane amount of hacking, and then you added as a cherry on top that you had to either do a whole lot of hauling or jettison/abandon hundreds and hundreds of people in those sites.
There’s only so much you can expect from people at this point.
What happens is that a chime sounds (I think) and you suddenly lose lock on ALL ships immediately and simultaneously. People mention the BS because it has the juicy loot but it affects ALL ships present. Once this happens you can’t relock any of the ships, so even fitting a warp disruptor/scrambler won’t help. The frigates usually warp off soon, as do the cruisers but for some reason it takes much longer (sometime upto a minute) for the battleship to warp.
I’ve seen similar behaviour in belt rats before so it could be connected to that?
What DeMichael said. The objective of the whole event/site is to free slaves, not free a tiny fraction of them and space the rest. At the very least keep respawning haulers until all the cans are done.
In the beginning I used the slaves for points, but you get only points for filling the hauler every 15min, so I dropped the surplus. I knew you can make the beacon disappear with filling the hauler, but competition was not an issue but a benefit to site completion for me (with the Macharial I was able to secure the loot 95% of the time anyway).
Later when farming for accelerators only, I ignored the slaves completely.
It requires space for 400 freed slaves, or 400m3. Add an MTU to it for another 100m3 and room for a bit of loot and ammo and you need a ship with 550m3 minimum, which is exactly the size of a Stratios. Only most other cruisers don’t have that kind of cargo space and nobody in their right mind wants to fit cargo expanders.
I like the mini-game and only because I had gotten good with it and because I could blitz through it in less than 10 seconds in most cases did I continue with the event. The loot drop was a bit too rare on those +12 accelerators. I didn’t find enough to actually sell one and make ISKs from it. So the value on those seemed to me more like a fantasy price, but it wasn’t something that one could actually make ISKs with. The ISKs came from selling the lower ones and maybe the SKINs once the price settle.
What I would have liked besides a better drop rate for the +12 accelerators is a larger site. While some of us could hack these sites very fast, because we had the skills, did others choose to troll us by sitting in battleships, not hacking anything and not moving at all, and only snipe what others had hacked. And so while hacking isn’t for everyone, did the small size allow others to easily take a dump on others.
I ended up going suspect by stealing what felt like it should have been my reward and shooting other players’ MTU, when I rather would have stayed green and find reward in committing legal activities. Going suspect should remain a choice for the lazy, who only want to steal the loot or harass others, but it shouldn’t be something one has to do when one is fast and skilled. At least that’s how I felt about it.
I also experienced it at about the same frequency so created a bug report as I didn’t consider it intended behaviour. It was incredibly frustrating to spend 15-30 mins hacking containers only for the slavers to finally spawn but then warp off shortly afterwards. For me this was definitely my biggest gripe with this event as the other problems were mostly balancing issues but it was such a rare occurrence that it wasn’t worth mentioning until now. I think it’s only noticeably a problem if you’re farming the sites.
But this is not a bug, you have to complete the site in 15min plus a random grace period of about 5min, this is the time limit. If you fail you deserve no reward.
What do you mean by “complete the site”? If you mean fill the hauler, that has nothing to do with this. If you mean hack ALL the containers, then 15-20 mins is an unreasonably short time limit.
Also, your argument doesn’t even make sense in the context of this event because the idea is to free the slaves. Killing the slavers is secondary and their warping out doesn’t seem to have anything to do with how many slaves are freed.
If they instead warped out because all the slaves were freed/dead then it would make sense E.g. The containers could only have 15-20 mins of air so if you don’t hack them fast enough then the slaves suffocate and you “fail”.
The issue here is that the spawns were unlockable and warped away AFTER spawning.
If you exceed the time limit then they shouldn’t spawn but if they’ve already appeared why would they suddenly leave? Also, they shouldn’t be unlockable. If you fit tackle you should be able to hold them in place, otherwise they’re abusing the game mechanics.
Lastly, if this behaviour is intentional (and not a bug) then you should let the player know this, perhaps by having the slaver ships send a final explanatory, mocking message before they warp.
E.g. “You’re out of time, the slaves are all dead. How does it feel to be a killer?”
Can you share some statistics? How well did we do: (this would also make a good Scope News follow-up after the event):
How many new Freed Slaves are “safe” in capsuleer inventories since the event started.
How many were not rescued from containment facilities that were hacked open, just to see if the slavers would respond.
How many were abandoned to their fates in space, in jettisoned cargo containers, waiting for a “rescue ship” that never came…
There’s a huge category of “not safe” that is beyond CCP Dragon’s purview: Freed Slaves in the hands of capsuleer Amarr sympathizers, wanting to return them to “legal slavery.”
How wonderful for you, I guess. Regardless, hacking ALL the containers is not linked to the spawns because they warp off even if there are slaves left to be freed. Why would they do that? If they’re spawning to stop you freeing them then why warp off when there is still “merchandise” at stake?
Did you? That message is sent by the republic hauler not the slaver ships (which haven’t even appeared at that point). Also, the hauler warps immediately when full yet the slavers keep spawning regardless, so which is it?
I’m not role playing and don’t care about lore. I’m just playing by the obvious rules hinted at by the sites’ behavior. When the hauler warps off, also the slavers currently present in the site warp off. If not filled the hauler will warp off after 15-20min. I hack a can, there is chance I get a slaver spawn.
Nevertheless, this event is motivated by and designed around in-game lore.
There is nothing obvious about it.
Which is all fine but still doesn’t explain why the slavers warp off even if they spawned AFTER the hauler had already left. As I already pointed out, if their presence is supposed to be in response to the hauler then the sites aren’t working as intended and if it isn’t then applying the time limit to them doesn’t make sense.
Also, judging from CCP Dragon’s response above I don’t think this was the intended behaviour but rather an unintended side effect of having a timer for the hauler.
The hauler warping off early doesn’t stop the timer. Where is the problem? For practical purposes this is of no relevance, if you are first in the site and not earning a timer from another pilot. Sorry, but if you can’t hack all green core cans in 15min, you should get better.
It appears you need to hack all the containers AND kill all the spawns (before they warp away) 15-20mins after entering the site. I doubt this was the intention.
The only “hint” that you need to do this is a message from the hauler which states that it can only wait so long but which then warps off immediately when full anyway.
Also, you consider 15mins to be plenty of time. I don’t. Both opinions are valid feedback.
compare volume of slaves with cargo hold the ships have usually used to fly the sites and you will get an answer…
(and hey you might not “real” active playing designers… dont forgett the players need amunition and depots and mtu and want the reaal deal stuff lootet so the cargo isnt empty^^)
i also feelt little bit bad about free the slaves for profit and fun. let them die silent in a can without proper lifesupportsystem disappering from space after 2h… but hey i am a caldari and a capsuleer but YOU designed it this way^^
