A hunter's advantage

[Edgecrusher]

We have been talking about making excavating a carreer path. The advantages are pretty obvious: alien technology. Trading also gives you obvious benefits: experience and cash. Hunting will also give those, but the gains aren't even close to what you get from trading in SMR1.5. Most hunters will do it for the thrill of it and being in the kill top ten. But to balance out hunting against trading and excavating, I feel we need something more. So here's the idea:

For each kill, you get 5 trader stat points.

If you're a really good hunter who gets 100 kills in a game, you get 500 stat points. You can argue that these can be put into accuracy, making you get even more kills, but I think that is fair, considering the fact that full-time hunters can get less experience. If necessary, we can reduce the amount of xp you get from killing. The average hunter will get 50 kills in a game, which gives you 250 stat points. To make this a benefit only available for hunters, I suggest we build in a requirement that the kill must have been made in a hunter-type ship, so fleet fights do not count. This is basically the equivalent of making raiding weapons available only to raider-class ships.

[Infinity]

I just did the math on my xp... and I got between 600k and 700k xp from kills this round. Idea is great, but... doesn't seem all that necessary. I would know what to do with those additional 100 points, definitely.

Edit:
Just re-read the numbers...
5 for each kill?! You don't think that's too much? I'd have additional 250... that's too much Edge, waaaay too much, with 650 next round total... would make my ships beasts, what ever I fly, which ever guns I fly. I could make LS resistant to 4k drone shots. Or have insane accuracy. Or I could just dump whole additional 250 in mechanics and shoot till 400 repairs like a mad man.... think thru the numbers.

[Edgecrusher]

Well, the main reason for my proposal was that I wanted an alternative for gaining xp and cash. Excavating gives you alien tech, trading gives you experience, and hunting gives you an increase in stat points. For all I care, you completely take away gaining xp and cash from hunting.

And your comparison is not fair, Kiky, because how many of those kills were in a hunter-type ship? Even Drake, who did most of his hunting in an FU, would not gain many stat points. I think, from the kill top ten only me and my FW kills would get a decent amount of stat points (about 100). So the numbers may seem far too big, but in practive it will not be so bad.

[Infinity]

I'm flying LS only from recently, so out of 54, take out 8 NPCs, that's 46, last 5-7 kills were in LS, all others are DC or LT So... say 35 hunter kills. 35*5 = 175, I'd still have huge, no, HUGE benefit out of those 175 points. That might be another 5% in accuracy (which I don't have atm) or another 6.3% damage reduce from planetary drones, or 12.25% more CRPH (which I also don't have now) etc. All of those would be MORE than helpful.

Taking xp out of kills... no. Reduce, perhaps, but it's not easy to keep up with traders, and high xp traders are hard to kill (as you know). I still had to trade at some point in earlier stages of the round to be able to keep up. After that it's easier, aim for fat kills, more work perhaps, but hey, that's what we do.

[Edgecrusher]

You are contradicting yourself kiky. First you say that the benefit would be too huge, and then you say that you need the xp to keep up with traders.

Your accuracy would be 5% higher, but the traders you hunt would get that same amount from level benefits, so it would hardly be an advantage at all.

Besides, I don't consider the LS to be a hunter (hasn't it been changed by now?) Seriously, how many kills do you have in a DC?

[Baalzamon]

Recieving experience and cash from trading stays for one round and can be lost pretty easily.
Receiving alien techs and guns and weapons from excavating stay for one round, and take a ton of time to get.
Receiving stat points from kills beefs you up for the next round, making you highly overpowered, and making it nearly impossible for anyone to take you on.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm all for finding a way to get increased trader stats into the game, but hell no. Not like this.

Hunters receive:
Easier alignment changes
Easier relations changes
Higher experience
Kill count

Traders receive:
Higher experience
Higher cash
No Kill count
Moderate relation changes

Excavaters receive:
Alien techs
Alien weapons
Alien ships
Low experience gain
No kills
Low relation changes
Easy align changes


I don't think that giving hunters stat points redeemable in the next round is fair or balanced in the slightest. If you think that something else is needed for a reason to hunt, lets brainstorm, but I don't think that stat points are the way to go.

[Freon22]

A voice of reason. Good call!

[Edgecrusher]

I did not mean stat points that are redeemable in the next round, I meant stat points that can be used in the same round in which you get the kills. it gets reset, same as alien knowledge, same as xp.

And as to easy relation change as a hunter's benefit: first, that is hardly a benefit if you're not trading, second, to get that you are dependent on the decision of ruling councils of other races, it's not in your own hands.

[Infinity]

Honestly, if you're aiming for kills, you're going to have pretty screwed up relations, trust me, mine are fun festival, and ofc, they're not that important if you don't intend to trade, tho I'm a bit limited with wep choices.

how many kills do you have in a DC?

About 25-30. I've flown DC for quite a while this round. Did I hear underestimating in that question? If so, I'm sorry I've been cloaked all the time so you couldn't see what I fly

[Baalzamon]

I did not mean stat points that are redeemable in the next round, I meant stat points that can be used in the same round in which you get the kills. it gets reset, same as alien knowledge, same as xp.

Oh, ok. then ignore my mean post