Another solution to ganker problem

Gankers are easy to counter. But too many CMDRs fly ships with no protection, fight the interdiction so they get the extended FSD cooldown, and then fly away in a straight line or try to low-wake while being mass-locked. You can watch these things unfold on ganker livestreams all the time. Always the same mistakes.

That's why I believe FDev put those ganker-like Thargoids into the game for a reason. Ultra-difficult interdictions, so you learn to submit. Insane mass lock factors, so you learn to high-wake to safety. Engineered weapons ripping any paper ship apart, so you learn the importance of proper shields and hull for surviving those 20 seconds.

This is basically FDev teaching you gank evasion within the live game setting. Embrace it! Visit those systems and try to get out alive. If you find it too difficult, boost your shield or hull and try again. See how much you need to get away in one piece. Once you have figured this out, gankers won't impress you any more.

Of course you can refuse and come here to complain instead. But you should have realized by now that FDev has no intention to make the game easier and less challenging. With Thargoids being part of the BGS, your own home system can turn into a permanent xeno war zone, and solo mode or the blocking function won't hide you from it.
 
Example thread here (not Thargoid related) of a Cmdr that fights the interdiction & loses:
 
Gankers are easy to counter.
You keep repeating this statement... that does not make it any less wrong then the countless times before.

But too many CMDRs fly ships with no protection,
Who is to decide what number of Cmdrs (that fly ships with no protection) are too many or too less? For what to many/less? What is it your concern how other Cmdrs wish to outfit their ship?

You can watch these things unfold on ganker livestreams all the time. Always the same mistakes.
And when will you finally start to do something against this childish behaviour? Writing here as if this were acceptable behaviour does not help.

So called "Gankers" are not a desired part of the game. It is FDev's fault that they failed to prevent this by some clever in-game mechanics, no question. So it is up to the player community to counter this... and not by telling other Cmdrs (that are not Gankers) how they should behave.
 
I wish Fdev had an in game way to see what gankers (modern day pirates) were in what systems. A modern day bounty hunter could make millions in bounties for each ganker destroyed, and that would be great imho. But alas there is no current way to get that info in real time.

So yeah, PG or solo it is for most. I wonder if Legacy will have any ganker issues going forward.

Oh and I think one or two steps were missed. When interdicted, submit before you lose, turn towards whomever or whatever interdicted you and boost away behind them. They will have to turn all the way around to fire on you.
 
I can do all those things. I have gank-proof ships, I can evade after being interdicted if I expose myself to that kind of gameplay, but I get nothing out of it. I dislike most of the ganker's attitude and behaviour, and engaging with them in-game is a total waste of time (as nice as they might be as a person if you meet them at the pub). You can call that a me-problem, and you are probably right, but it still pushes my buttons.

Sure, we are being "ganked" by the flowers right now. But it is for an in-game reason, and it serves the story. We are at war, and they have taken over those systems. We are being shown right now that Salvation has bitten of more than we can chew. You can of course fabricate some idiotic explanation that the gankers are "at war" with us, that they "have control over their systems", that they "roleplay" as "murder hobos", and so on. I say that is all poppycock to justify their free-for-all-behaviour. Watching the typical Deciat, Sol or ShinDez ganker's stream makes it pretty clear that all they are doing is roflstomping over other childrens' sandcastles without even a hint of connection to the game's lore or story (or even in-game logic), and in a very immature and unlikeable way, too. It's just a castle made of sand, right? Lots of sand at this beach, no harm done. Chill out, carebear :rolleyes:.

I can go along with the gray zone, the gankers who take the extra step. Roleplay (and really do it) as a PvP bounty hunter. Pull people, scan them, tell them you want to collect their bounty, blow them up - or let them go if they are clean. Not a problem. Encounter a PP enemy? Tell him he is an enemy and blow him to pieces. You have my blessings (if you do the communication part). Pull a clean harmless Cobra in Deciat and blow it up in seconds with not even a hint of communication? Not so much.
 
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I wish Fdev had an in game way to see what gankers (modern day pirates) were in what systems. A modern day bounty hunter could make millions in bounties for each ganker destroyed, and that would be great imho.
I know a player who does that. Can't mention his name here because of forum policy, because no doubt some of the folks here would consider that guy a ganker, too. He interdicts and scans random players for bounties, and if he finds one, he destroys the ship to get the voucher. The problem of course is that a bounty doesn't necessarily mean the interdicted player was a ganker, so he often hears the same angry accusations of "ruining someone else's game," although his actions are entirely lawful.
 
I know a player who does that. Can't mention his name here because of forum policy, because no doubt some of the folks here would consider that guy a ganker, too. He interdicts and scans random players for bounties, and if he finds one, he destroys the ship to get the voucher. The problem of course is that a bounty doesn't necessarily mean the interdicted player was a ganker, so he often hears the same angry accusations of "ruining someone else's game," although his actions are entirely lawful.
I am guessing we are talking about the same CMDR. I would not consider him a ganker. Most of the time. Collecting bounties from players is a valid in-game reason the way he does it (including communication). Also, he acts like the adult he is on his streams, which helps alot in my book.
 
I am guessing we are talking about the same CMDR. I would not consider him a ganker. Most of the time. Collecting bounties from players is a valid in-game reason the way he does it (including communication). Also, he acts like the adult he is on his streams.
The question is, where to draw the line? Is it OK to attack ships of opposing powerplay factions? He sometimes does that, too.

NPC pirates exist, so is it OK for players to play pirates?

Thargoids attack for no specific reason, so is it OK for players to attack others for no specific reason? You can see where this is going.
 
Just because some CMDRs have the skills to evade a gank, inherently means that some do not have the skills.

The ganker will have had far more game play time to build and engineer a murder boat and understand the game mechanics to be successful. A relatively new player will not have any of these.

So why do gankers pick on them? Because they are an easy target.

If the PvPer is a decent person (and this includes not having a murder boat) he might knock the shields down but not destroy the target but communicate and advise that he could have done so and point the target to places to go for help.

Can't see it happening though.

Steve
 
The question is, where to draw the line? Is it OK to attack ships of opposing powerplay factions? He sometimes does that, too.

NPC pirates exist, so is it OK for players to play pirates?

Thargoids attack for no specific reason, so is it OK for players to attack others for no specific reason? You can see where this is going.
also, I explicitly said it above: PP is okay, as long as you communicate it (getting the pattern? - this is the part where the CMDR in question crosses the line, hence my "most of the time"). And if you stick to the rules. Clean opposing CMDR? Tell them to defect or else. Clean allied CMDR? No PP reason, no blowy uppy.
 
Just because some CMDRs have the skills to evade a gank, inherently means that some do not have the skills.

The ganker will have had far more game play time to build and engineer a murder boat and understand the game mechanics to be successful. A relatively new player will not have any of these.

So why do gankers pick on them? Because they are an easy target.

If the PvPer is a decent person (and this includes not having a murder boat) he might knock the shields down but not destroy the target but communicate and advise that he could have done so and point the target to places to go for help.

Can't see it happening though.

Steve
much more so if they drop on you in wings of four like vultures.
 
I don't record my game, and yes it's anecdotal but it goes to show it happens. I guess I need more practice evading interdictions, I suppose that when Frontier eased back on the difficulty of evading NPC interdictions the knock on effect meant that it didn't allow for general PVE players to get to the level necessary to counter the gankers?

You don't need need to get better at evading interdictions unless your goal is for your CMDR to be bait.

My CMDR essentially never fights interdiction. I only make exceptions to that rule if I'm in a combat vessel that I know can survive focus fire for the duration of a long cooldown, if delaying the submission allows me to drag opponents to more favorable areas (jet cones of white dwarfs, or certain rings, for example), or if I'm stalling to give my own wing time to drop in.

Maximizing the minimal loss state almost always involves submitting. In essentially any vessel, you are much more likely to survive ten short cooldowns than a single long cooldown. Submitting and waking twice also frequently takes less time than playing out an interdiction, success or fail.

It's fully possible to win an interdiction as a defender. It's even possible to win most of the time. However, if one is being interdicted frequently, you have to win almost every time for fighting to produce a more positive long-term outcome than the submit-escape routine. I will never be that good, so I don't even try. This is not a flaw with the interdiction system, this is a flaw with so much content having to pass through the interdiction mechanism bottleneck.

I have engineering and a modicum of piloting skill, but PvP as a trader sucks, period.

I like it.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-0ZAV8zzk


And those were not noob gankers. They were quite pro running emissive lasers, so specifically built against ax cold builds.

No one should be without emissive weapons. It's a hard counter to a lot of stuff and synergizes well with almost every other weapon system. My CMDR's trade ships have emissive weapons!

And as we have said 'ad nauseam' it takes no flying skill whatsoever to gank a transport ship.

My CMDR has never lost a transport ship.

Griefing is abusive behaviour to make others miserable.

By this definition I'd wager most griefing in this game has nothing to do with direct PvP and would persist into any conceivable PvE-only system that had any multiplayer component what so ever.

You can't have ganking in 100% PvP games like FPS

I've been ganked in CQC more than than in Open!

Back when CQC was new, I frequently encountered stat padders working together with members of the opposing team in TDM...often winding up in what was ostensibly a 5v5 match that was really 8v2, or 7v3.

Same sort of thing happens in pretty much every team-based shooter I have ever played--from Unreal Tournament, to the original CS, to Battlefield, to Planetside--and really took off once stat tracking, ranks, and unlocks became a thing (all of which are perverse incentives that harm gameplay, but persist because they are monetizable).

No idea. What's there for somone playing PvP in 4.0 that isn't in 3.8?

A potentially more comprehensive battlescape and likely a larger population meaning more frequent organic encounters.

Most players that call themselves "average", and yet know how to outfit their ships so they don't explode when subjected to a bunch of scavs on foot, tend to be considerably above average.

As far as I can tell, I'm average (near the mean), but the mode is so far below me that I can't even fathom the behavior of most players when their characters are confronted with hostility.

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Saying that the victim should have been in solo, had better shields, a better ship or skills is simply victim blaming.

I accept this as true, but dismiss it as irrelevant, as there are no player victims directly resulting from inter-character violence, and player-character victims are neither incongruous nor undesirable in the Elite setting.

I would never have touched this game if there was not a distinct possibility of my character being victimized. Anything that precludes this is just some Mary Sue power fantasy, which is not conducive to my immersed in a dystopian setting where my CMDR should at least have started off as a nobody.

So why do gankers pick on them? Because they are an easy target.

First rule of survival is never be the easiest target around.

If the PvPer is a decent person (and this includes not having a murder boat) he might knock the shields down but not destroy the target but communicate and advise that he could have done so and point the target to places to go for help.

I don't judge players based on the characters they play and I absolutely do not want every character my character encounters to be a decent person. That would be weird to the point of surrealism. Some times I want my character to slay monsters, sometimes I want him to run and hide from them (but never because he, or I, wasn't trying), sometimes I want him to be the monster...but I do not want a game where monsters are against the rules.
 
I don't judge players based on the characters they play and I absolutely do not want every character my character encounters to be a decent person. That would be weird to the point of surrealism. Some times I want my character to slay monsters, sometimes I want him to run and hide from them (but never because he, or I, wasn't trying), sometimes I want him to be the monster...but I do not want a game where monsters are against the rules.
but that is the thing. The typical gankers in question DON'T play a character. If at all, all they do it mutter "murder hobo" under their breath as a lip service, because it vaguely covers the RP part and is a carte blanche to do whatever they want. Go watch a few ganker streams on Twitch, if you dare. It is hard to endure, but very telling. And count how many times they say "easy kill".
 
but that is the thing. The typical gankers in question DON'T play a character. If at all, all they do it mutter "murder hobo" under their breath as a lip service, because it vaguely covers the RP part and is a cart blanche to do whatever they want.

They don't need to. I can presume the obvious; that if they wanted to hurt me, Morbad the player, they'd do something more than having their video game character chase off, or get shot down by, mine.

As long as they aren't breaking the rules of the game, whatever their characters do can be worked into my narrative with trivial difficulty, and far less loss of immersion than if the game had heavy handed mechanisms forcing everyone to play narrow, pre-vetted, roles. The game's mechanisms are far from ideal, and they encourage quite a bit of incongruous behavior, but ganking doesn't particularly stand out here.
 
They don't need to. I can presume the obvious; that if they wanted to hurt me, Morbad the player, they'd do something more than having their video game character chase off, or get shot down by, mine.

As long as they aren't breaking the rules of the game, whatever their characters do can be worked into my narrative with trivial difficulty, and far less loss of immersion than if the game had heavy handed mechanisms forcing everyone to play narrow, pre-vetted, roles. The game's mechanisms are far from ideal, and they encourage quite a bit of incongruous behavior, but ganking doesn't particularly stand out here.
Maybe they cannot hurt Morbad, the player, or me, the player, but there is a sizeable probability they will hurt Joe Newbie, the player, and this is what they are after - their so-called salt. This is why they hunt down Joe Newbie, but not Morbad. Almost EVERY ganker stream I have surveyed shows them thriving on the possibility that Joe Newbie, the player, not Joe Newbie, the CMDR, will get salty.
 
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