Impossible(?) mission for the LARPer

[󠀡󠀡]

I have a mission from axemaster93 to fix his PC. The one I built him previously used the $370 eight core Ryzen CPU, so that's the PC I'm fixing.

The parts budget for the mission is $350. If I replace the CPU with the same one I go over budget.

If I buy a slower CPU that's within budget, the Diagnose and Fix item stays red.

I turned in the mission over budget and he still gave me 5 stars. Weird.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Sadly this is one of the problems with this game. You pretty much "built yourself in to a corner" because you chose a higher spec CPU for him previously and now you can't afford to upgrade it. This is a possible thing in the game that could happen. It's not really a bug but it's kind of on you the human player for ending up in this situation. Had you built them a weaker system that was the bare minimum to complete their requirements the first time then you would be able to upgrade it now within budget and everything would be fine.

Your only option is to load an earlier manual save from when you still had their previous / first machine uncompleted and change it's configuration or just go over budget as is and eat the star rating where you are in the game.

In the future to avoid this situation I would suggest you get in the habit of always only building the bare minimum that meets requirements for customers in this game.

[Metallos]

Originally posted by quaixor:

I turned in the mission over budget and he still gave me 5 stars. Weird.

On story repair missions the budget limit is ignored in many cases due to that problem you have.
The budget limit is set by the devs for the required hardware component of the earlier story job, normally it has to be flexible with the hardware which is actually in the PC. So they did that "workaround".

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Metallos:

Originally posted by quaixor:

I turned in the mission over budget and he still gave me 5 stars. Weird.

On story repair missions the budget limit is ignored in many cases due to that problem you have.
The budget limit is set by the devs for the required hardware component of the earlier story job, normally it has to be flexible with the hardware which is actually in the PC. So they did that "workaround".

Why do they lie to me then? Why don't they remove the budget altogether instead of having a fake number that has no bearing on customer satisfaction. Maybe I'm an overachiever, but I'm trying to get to a 5 star rating and it's been very frustrating as some jobs have given me 4 stars even though I met all of the requirements.

[Metallos]

Removing the budget would need to rework the quest system. So it's better to keep that and just to ignore that in case of following repair jobs in the quest chain.

And if you don't get 5 stars then the fault is on your side because you missed a part of the job requirements (some are hidden in the text, you have to read carefully).

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Metallos:

Removing the budget would need to rework the quest system. So it's better to keep that and just to ignore that in case of following repair jobs in the quest chain.

And if you don't get 5 stars then the fault is on your side because you missed a part of the job requirements (some are hidden in the text, you have to read carefully).

As far as I could tell I met all of the hidden requirements. I gave them matching video cards like they asked. Used new parts (which was confirmed upon job completion). I even scanned for viruses because they said their computer ran slow. I have no idea what else it could have been, so I might make the same "mistake" again. That's the frustrating part. There isn't enough feedback.

[BonPadre]

Originally posted by quaixor:

Originally posted by Metallos:

On story repair missions the budget limit is ignored in many cases due to that problem you have.
The budget limit is set by the devs for the required hardware component of the earlier story job, normally it has to be flexible with the hardware which is actually in the PC. So they did that "workaround".

Why do they lie to me then? Why don't they remove the budget altogether instead of having a fake number that has no bearing on customer satisfaction.

First, please note that if you go over budget on RNG jobs (as opposed to story missions) then you'll get insta 1 star rating (there is a small tolerance to go over budget, but it's better and safer to simply stay within budget instead of tempting the devil)

Then, that workaround by devs is annoying as hell, and I'm also not a fan of it and not pleased by it.

The thing is, it's part of a bit of the history of the game.
In the past (mostly in early access) we had a single budget number, and whatever you installed as parts, as long as it completed the job, you got paied the full amount. So let's say, you had a job with a budget of $1500 and you could complete it with $800, then you earned a flat $700 on that job.
If you had a job that required to reach let's say 4200pts on benchmark, and you were able to achieve it simply by OC the PC as it came from customer, then again, you earned the full budget of the job, even if you did not install a single part in it.

So in the past, we all built as minimalistic as possible, to make the most $ out of each job.
That has changed the moment devs introduced your earnings only as the labout part (that is not part of the budget) and the budget for parts separated.

At start, it was somewhat OK as budgets were in that time a LOT tighter than today, so mostly story jobs were kept accomplished with somewhat minimalistic budgets...
And then the most "stupid" game balancing ever, devs upped the budgets, and not by a small increment, but by something almost x1.7...
And then the most obvious happened, peeps started to "overbuild" on story jobs, were PC came back to them (as opposed as RNG jobs where you see the PC only once) and many many new players complained that it was unfair that they could not upgrade or repair within budget...

And the workaround in story job came into play.
That's a lazy fix, I'm 100% with you on that. I'm not pleased as well, and yet I don't care, because if you still build as minimalistic as possible like in the old days, then you never go over budget.
It was the easyest way for devs to fix their mess...

Hope it helps lowering your frustration and understand why it was done like that

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by BonPadre:

Originally posted by quaixor:

Why do they lie to me then? Why don't they remove the budget altogether instead of having a fake number that has no bearing on customer satisfaction.

First, please note that if you go over budget on RNG jobs (as opposed to story missions) then you'll get insta 1 star rating (there is a small tolerance to go over budget, but it's better and safer to simply stay within budget instead of tempting the devil)

Then, that workaround by devs is annoying as hell, and I'm also not a fan of it and not pleased by it.

The thing is, it's part of a bit of the history of the game.
In the past (mostly in early access) we had a single budget number, and whatever you installed as parts, as long as it completed the job, you got paied the full amount. So let's say, you had a job with a budget of $1500 and you could complete it with $800, then you earned a flat $700 on that job.
If you had a job that required to reach let's say 4200pts on benchmark, and you were able to achieve it simply by OC the PC as it came from customer, then again, you earned the full budget of the job, even if you did not install a single part in it.

So in the past, we all built as minimalistic as possible, to make the most $ out of each job.
That has changed the moment devs introduced your earnings only as the labout part (that is not part of the budget) and the budget for parts separated.

At start, it was somewhat OK as budgets were in that time a LOT tighter than today, so mostly story jobs were kept accomplished with somewhat minimalistic budgets...
And then the most "stupid" game balancing ever, devs upped the budgets, and not by a small increment, but by something almost x1.7...
And then the most obvious happened, peeps started to "overbuild" on story jobs, were PC came back to them (as opposed as RNG jobs where you see the PC only once) and many many new players complained that it was unfair that they could not upgrade or repair within budget...

And the workaround in story job came into play.
That's a lazy fix, I'm 100% with you on that. I'm not pleased as well, and yet I don't care, because if you still build as minimalistic as possible like in the old days, then you never go over budget.
It was the easyest way for devs to fix their mess...

Hope it helps lowering your frustration and understand why it was done like that

Hey, thanks for explaining. I've been playing this game on and off since EA as well and each time I pick it up there are substantial changes to the gameplay. I think I'm getting the hang of it, though getting stuck because of game mechanics and having to look google to see if anyone else is experiencing the same problem is immersion-breaking.
Looking at my Bongle reviews it says I have almost five stars based on the last 25 reviews, though it only shows the last 20 (???), and the one I missed was my fault where I forgot to run a virus check.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by quaixor:

Originally posted by Metallos:

Removing the budget would need to rework the quest system. So it's better to keep that and just to ignore that in case of following repair jobs in the quest chain.

And if you don't get 5 stars then the fault is on your side because you missed a part of the job requirements (some are hidden in the text, you have to read carefully).

As far as I could tell I met all of the hidden requirements. I gave them matching video cards like they asked. Used new parts (which was confirmed upon job completion). I even scanned for viruses because they said their computer ran slow. I have no idea what else it could have been, so I might make the same "mistake" again. That's the frustrating part. There isn't enough feedback.

I believe I know what that hidden requirement was. Some of the missions have a deadline as a hidden requirement.

[0x124BSOD]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

Sadly this is one of the problems with this game. You pretty much "built yourself in to a corner" because you chose a higher spec CPU for him previously and now you can't afford to upgrade it.

This happened to me. I built a z270 system in a story mission then it came again to replace the mobo. Unfortunately the only choice possible without being "inferior" or over-budget is a used EVGA z270 classified K. I ended up in waiting for over a month in-game to finally find such a replacement from PC Bay. While fortunately, this mission has no deadline.

Originally posted by quaixor:

The parts budget for the mission is $350. If I replace the CPU with the same one I go over budget

It is also possible to go with used parts in story jobs. AFAIK no these repair jobs cares about used parts.

Similar story lines often begin with a system build but with very low budget (e.g. $750). I previously though they meant to use used parts to cost down, and ended up in a situation like you. I later found the correct way is to use full collection of low-end components, which are pretty calculated to be doable.

Originally posted by Metallos:

On story repair missions the budget limit is ignored in many cases due to that problem you have.

Interesting. Looks like it's a new feature of the mission. At least at my time (~1.4-1.5) I cannot turn in a mission with over-budget issue.

[hypertion]

just encountered this myself, was annoying but i got a exact replacement for the guys god PC and he paid the increased price. IRL you would contact the owner, asking if they are willing to accept the on budget option or break the budget with a exact replacement.. im glad that for the most part in this game you do no have to interact directly with customers but it would be a nice and realistic option for PCBS2.