Game Guides Archive
Thread: Recursive Sampling... aka Infinate loop sampling.
DarthEric, what is pathetic is the mechanics of the game of which we have to abide by, or as youwould call like to perceive it as playing. If the game wasn't so tedious, you wouldn't have to macro, and I wouldn't call sitting there making muzzles, sampling, and surveying (because resources shifting)PLAYING. I'd call that work. Why the hell do you think macros are anIN GAME FEATURE? I can see an arguement for combat macroing, but forpicking up resources so you CAN PLAY and do what an artisanis SUPPOSED TO DO, I can't see your point.
*yawn* boring.
2 harvesters collect more than 1 sampler. Cost for maintance is small. Blah blah blah.
What'd I just say about this being a no win argument?
Oh, except for this part: Using the tools provided by the game designers in the game is in no way an exploit.
You're free to use them or not use them as you wish. Like it or not, it's currently a part of the game. Sort of like a novice CH having 3 rancors running around stomping the ever loving crap out of everything. Sort of like the entertainer AFK dancing/plaing. etc etc etc.
I am not for or against exploits. Frankly, I just don’t bother with it. Either side thinks they are right and the argument will continue in an infinite loop like the problem itself.
I suggest the devs can easily solve this problem by requiring users to click a button after every 100 successful sampling of resources. The buttonwill not be tied to any key so the user must click on it before the sample can continue. This will effectively eliminate any resource exploits, which will even the playing field for everyone.
ibellator
Scrimpy wrote:
If we want to play the game this way what's wrong with it?
"Zombies" (characters running on macros while their players are AFK for long periods of time) hurt the game. This isn't some new development with SWG. Online RPGs have been around many years in non-graphical forms such as MOOs and MUSHes. Macros, and the zombie problem, have been around just as long, and they've always posed problems.
wouldn't weapon switches be queable if each weapon had a toolbarSlot?
So, are any of you "economy is being ruined" people offended because so many american software develop jobs are shipped overseas?
What freakin' difference does it make if one player uses a macro and another doesn't? If not *the infinite loop macro*, then it would be something else. The economy is going to be affected. At least this is a little closer to reality, in that some people are using their heads to *maximize* their output.
I don't see how you can find fault with someone for finding a better way to do something.
I would have to agree, I don't see the economy being negatively affected short term and I certainly can't see it being affected long term. Look at it this way: If the majority of people dropped using harvesters and sampled themselves, the people who used harvesters would be at the advantage because they could harvest so much more in a shorter span of time. The way it stands now, we who are macroing are at the disadvantage IF we are selling to keep with current profit margins that people with harvesters sell at.
I agree we shouldn't undercut those using harvesters, which is why I sell my resources I earn in this manner at the same profit margin a person with a harvester would sell at. My method is different but I'm not negatively affecting the economy (IMHO).
On a side note, I don't mind my opinion being challenged but I would rather if those who were against it did it in a civilized manner. We don't need to sling mud at people.
On another side note: If I was told by a representative or developer to stop harvesting using macro's I would gladly stop, but as it stands there is no OFFICIAL stance on this issue.
Scrimpy
OOC:
THe thing I like most about the people who use these macros, is that they still charge 10 credits per unit! So, now not only are they getting a huge amount of exp and resources, they are also getting a lot of credits for over chargeing... (and no I would never buy at 10cpu [credits per unit], that is outrageous!)
Khrim Charan
Gorath, Tatooine
Roleplayer.
Just another thought:
It'd be good if we could get an OFFICIAL stance on using macros to sample from the DEVS. I'd really like to know what they think.
Scrimpy
Being a medic I must thank Skimpy and the original poster.
I sweare medic has got the highest in laborious boring maintenence of all the classes combined and that doesn't include the credit costs.
For those not in the know... Medics heal you, we keep you alive, we make dificult combat doable. How do we do that? Do you think we use the healing commands? No WAY!! that not only rapidly sucks the mind pool but it damages the mind for 5 points a pop. OOM medic = dead group. We use stim packs.
Stim packs must be crafted. In a group of 6 I run through an average of 2 stacks of stim pack-b per battle. Because of this it would break the bank to buy them. Buy the resorces? Again, We run through this stuff very rapidly, buying the resorces is a bank breaker. Sample the resorces? We need 4 resorces. Monsterous amounts of biomatter, chemicals, metal, water. Running extractors is a far sight cheaper than buying the resorces that get used for making stim packs and wound meds. none of which we get any re-embursement for. But running the extractors is still breaking my bank on a daily basis but it must be done.
These macros will save me a good 4-6k in having to set up the 3 flora extractors.
Thats just 1 side of the maintenence involved in running a medic. There is still...
- Making the med packs. Slow andcumbersome tedious and a whole lot of no fun. It takes me about 1 hour to whip up 10 stimpack-b or c. Forget about making extras to sell. This is an activity I do not enjoy but it must be done.
- Solo missions. There is no avoiding having to do this unless you are in a supportive guild (PA). I allways get shafted in groups. The leader never turns on auto split and the split from missions wont even pay to run an extractor for 1 hour. Harvesting biomatter or looting a corpse? not in a group inevitable 1 or 2 people ninja loot that stuff. Running these solo missions to pay my upkeep takes hours, lonely, but not such a boring activity. Personally I would rather besupporting groups full of meatheads doing impossable stuff.
On top of that I still need money to travel and upgrade my equipment. Any macros that can help reduce maintenence cost and time is very welcome.
I don't have a problem with macro sampling for the most part but I think that doing while your at work or asleep is bunk. Thanks for hogging up one of those tremendously valuable 3500 sever connections. I'm glad your character is pulling in tons of resources while you flip burgers at McDonalds, meanwhile I can't even log into my favorite server because it's to busy. Yeah buddy....
On the serious side thanks for posting the ui command, now I can generate some nifty macros for clothing and gear changes. Wooftang!
Scrimpy, you seem to have forgotten that SWG is not a single player game, it is an MMOPG. You are right that perhaps no individual would know that you are not in the game, but just because you can get away with it does not mean that it is proper. To keep the game servers from crashing, there are a limited amount of people allowed to login to the game at any given time. This number is never as high as the total number of people who have characters on a server, but is high enough that most people can login most of the time. When people leave their characters logged in when they are not playing the game, it denies other people the ability to play the game. When you decided to sample afk all day, you are stopping other people from logging in and playing the game. You are making a decision to screw over someone else by extended afk macroing. Notice I say extended – I see no problem going to the other room to get some food, or have a smoke or what not when you are going to be coming back to your computer to play. The problem is when people leave their computer for 30 min or and hour or more for afk macroing, and make the conscious decision that their computer running a sampling loop while they are sleeping is more important game play time (server login slot) than those of us who login to play the game. You see nothing at all wrong with this?
“The reason I am using this, as I said earlier, is because it makes the game more accessible. Say I need 1k of fiberplast but I don't want to pay to put up a harvester. I set up my character to harvest fiberplast overnight, just like a harvester would do. Think of the "maintenance" cost being that I can't harvest any other resources at the same time.” -Scrimpy
You say you want 1k of fiberplast, but you don’t want to pay for a harvester. The devs allotted for people like you and gave users the choice for how they would like to pay for their resources – the tradeoff is time or credits. You don’t want to pay credits for a harvester, so you are have to pay in play time by sampling. You made the choice to have gathering resources be cheap, but take a lot of boring gameplay. You did not have to make that choice. Now, to get around the tradeoff the game was designed to have, since you neither want to spend your credits or your gamplay time, you abuse the macro system to extended macro afk. You see nothing at all wrong with this?
“People seem to be getting mad because others came up with the idea and implemented their rendition of it, a basis which hardly seems reasonable to me. How does this negatively affect the ingame economy? I'd like some more answers so I can understand where you people are coming from.” - Scrimpy
As I said above in plain English, your actions do negatively affect the in-game economy but perhaps you want more detail. This virtual economy does not have true scarcity of resources (i.e. resources which can be permanently depleted), rather is tries to change the availability of resources. Thus the only true factors which can be said to determine the cost of resources are the capital which goes into gathering the resources. In this case the developers implemented two aspects to the capital of resource gathering: gameplay time and money, two things which players assign value. Those who have more credits relative to the scarcity of their gameplay time thus find that the capital costs of resource gathering (per unit of resource) are lower if they purchases and maintain some optimum quantity of harvesters. Those who have more gameplay time relative to the quantity of credits they have, thus find that their capital costs are lower (per unit of resource) if the sample resources rather then paying for harvesters. Since both gameplay time and credits have value in game, the price of resources (and the good made from them) must account for the capital costs. Those people who run extended afk sample macros have no capital costs at all. They do not need to pay for equipment capital (harvesters) nor do they need to pay for labor capital (gameplay time spent sampling), thus they have much greater advantage over those who pay capital costs of production. If these extended away samplers sell resources at the same price as others who pay capital costs, they are gaining a greater profit. Worse still, since these extended away samplers have no capital costs to recoup, they can sell their resources for less than those who pay their capital costs, and still make a profit. Eventually this downward pressure on prices from artificially low capital costs leads to those who pay their capital costs being driven from the market, or forced to consistently take heavy losses on their investments. You see nothing at all wrong with this?
To address your first issue regarding the limited number of slots in the game. If the developers only intended for 3500 people to log in at the same time (which is reasonable) then they shouldn't charge a blanket fee per month. Since they do charge a blanket fee per month I am free to stay connected as long as I want. There is NOTHING in the EULA that prohibits me from staying logged into SWG for (x) amount of time. If you feel I am taking up time that you should be able to have with my "afk macroing" then report it to the dev team. The game was designed for anyone to be able to connect whenever they wish (barring system updates etc...) To answer your question: No I don't see anything wrong with me paying my montly fee and using the system as much as I want.
Second: You say that I "abuse the macro" system but you don't define what this "abuse" is. If abuse is considered using the macro system in a way that you hadn't thought of then perhaps you need to rethink why you think I'm abusing the system. Perhaps you feel it's abuse because I'm getting something in a different, possibly better, manner than you are. Explain yourself.
Thirdly: As I said in my previous post I sell the resources I earn in this manner at THE SAME profit margin that the people using harvesters make, therefor I'm not damaging the economy. I don't sell at the same PRICE but I do sell at the same PROFIT MARGIN.
Thanks for writing such an intelligent post, I appreciate the time and effort you put into it 
Scrimpy