The Open v Solo v Groups thread

[Riverside]

Which seems to be trying to suggest that the player at the controls, who may be pretending to be the character that they have chosen to be, is not in control of the actions taken in-game when ganking.

It's not so much a distinction as an attempt at deflection.

No deflection intended Robert, I'm happy to leave that kind of tactic to you & Rubbernuke

It is how I have approached the game for nearly 8 years & over 15,000 hours. I don't use external tools, I just play the game as presented making choices my Cmdr can make. There are occasional exceptions of course, I'm not religious about it


Initially assuming any other Cmdr is going to just pop you given the chance is a sensible stance to take, and one borne out of experience. You can take sensible precautions to (attempt to) avoid being interdicted, particularly if you are attentive in supercruise & IFF anyone nearby or headed in your direction.

 

[Morbad]

Which seems to be trying to suggest that the player at the controls, who may be pretending to be the character that they have chosen to be, is not in control of the actions taken in-game when ganking.

I have no idea how you could have come to that conclusion. Nothing in Riverside's statement, nor in the obvious fact that an in-game character does not have access to the game's block list, implies anything at all about what the player is or is not pretending, nor the the degree of responsibility they have for the actions of their character.

 

[Bigmaec]

You mean you can see inside the ships?

View attachment 338547

Next you will tell me by flying in SC cautiously you will spot and evade trouble (instead of flying AFK with automation and getting dropped).

Blasphemy. Blocked.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Players can lie when communicating - so the player who claims to be a pirate may not be telling the truth, i.e. they're just spinning the target along before popping them.

Which is still not planning, reacting to the actual situation or anything at all.

It's certainly not as punishing as some players want it to be.

Concept is not necessarily the same as "how it's played".

If people actually played the game, used what was available in game they'd be better at coping rather than simply pressing pause and escape.

Should according to who?

According to the situation. To escape a pirate you use a properly loaded out ship, fly defensively and stay alert. If interdicted then follow StandardGitGud guidelines and try again.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Why should the player vanishify a whole ship and cargo when they lose the interaction, and the pirate gets nothing for winning it? What impetus is there to fight, or form alternate strategies to cope / escape etc?

What else?

 

[Darrack]

A pirate vessel is a glorified trader, losing slots for hatch breakers, cargo, collectors, fsd interrupt missiles.
In my above video I would've had a good chance to blow up that Clipper with my armed Corvette (Miner), a trader is even less restricted.
I simply chose not to to not risk 300 tons of LTDs. And the pirate is always at risk from gankers, and lawful PvPers.
You just have no plan about all of this, no offense.

No offence taken but i see pirates a different way, those that cant be bothered to work for wealth ie Mine/trade but just like a burgler chose to rob others.

O7

 

[GJ51]

If it can be done

It's fair

Itchy Nipples proved that several years ago

 

[Darrack]

Itchy Nipples proved that several years ago

There's cream for that

O7

 

[Morbad]

Players employ the uncounterable snare, cripple, burst gearing to erase non equivalently geared players in game.

No such thing as uncounterable; it's usually comically easy for any moderately experienced CMDR to escape from even an overwhelmingly superior force, even if they have equal or greater experience.

Dealing with actual pirates would be fun. (I even produced a guide on how to pirate NPC miners in game.)

Dealing with lulz pk gankers is not.

It's the same thing as far as I am concerned. Neither is significantly more or less contextual than the other. Maybe I can't guess what I did to offend these CMDRs (I usually can), but I really can't fathom what would possess someone able to afford to acquire and maintain a potent pirate vessel would need to take cargo from others for. It's like Elon Musk using one of his private jets to smuggle weed and counterfeit Yeezys, not even covering operating costs in the process, when he could just pump and dump dogecoin to his idiot social media followers, or short-sell some company he's threatening to buy.

I'm also not playing a character who is easily intimidated, or keen to hand over his cargo, purely on a matter of principle (his, not mine), so the gameplay loop is the same...fight or flight, because surrendering assets is not even going to cross my CMDR's mind. The only, slight, difference is that the ganker is better equipped for the task of opposing my CMDR, because that scanner is dead weight and those cargo racks are just a handicap on hull integrity or SCBs.

You might see a difference between pirate and PvP vessels.
Maybe.

Strictly speaking a pirate wing just needs one ship with a cargo rack and cargo racks don't look any different from HRPs.

Is it butter? Or is it 6k hull integrity? Shoot (or scan, I guess, but what fun is that) my CMDR to find out!

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Piracy is so much better with a dedicated collector in your wing.

You know, assuming your target doesn’t immediately combat log when you disable them.

Some of my best experiences have involved piracy, whether I was robbing or getting robbbed, but the positive instances are few and far between. Between the P2P instancing, general bugs, and lack of profit most times compared to everything else, piracy just seems like a rich (and patient) man’s game.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I have no idea how you could have come to that conclusion. Nothing in Riverside's statement, nor in the obvious fact that an in-game character does not have access to the game's block list, implies anything at all about what the player is or is not pretending, nor the the degree of responsibility they have for the actions of their character.

This bit, my emphasis:

Quick addendum to that, 'ganking' is an in-character action (it may have out of game motivation), blocking is not, it's an action the player takes.

.... inferring that there's a difference between what the player does when "in character" and when not - given that it's the same player in both cases.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Which is still not planning, reacting to the actual situation or anything at all.

It's something - as it expresses a disinterest in the content offered by the attacker.

If people actually played the game, used what was available in game they'd be better at coping rather than simply pressing pause and escape.

Depends how they want to play the game - for some the ganker mini-game is a tediously predictable waste of limited game time.

According to the situation. To escape a pirate you use a properly loaded out ship, fly defensively and stay alert. If interdicted then follow StandardGitGud guidelines and try again.

.... or block after the end of the encounter and move on. As mentioned, the content that some offer is not to everyone's taste - and those offering the content are optional, even in Open (on a case by case basis).

 

[GJ51]

There's cream for that

O7

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrWvqjX3IwU

 

[Morbad]

.... inferring that there's a difference between what the player does when "in character" and when not - given that it's the same player in both cases.

There is, but that doesn't in any way imply that the player is not responsible for their character's actions. No one has even come close to suggesting that.

I am not my characters and my characters are not me, but I am obviously wholly and solely responsible for everything my characters do. Even if I allow them to exist as discrete mental constructs, they can only act through me and I am never in less than full control. No one is using the player/character dichotomy to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions, only to explain those actions within the context of the game's setting.

The game allows, indeed frequently encourages, us to play monstrous characters who do monstrous things. These actions are often entirely contextual, even as they they offend some people less willing to separate the game world from the real world. Conversely, there are plenty of actions that may widely be considered less offensive, that are also far less contextual. Those who value the contextuality would typically rather encounter monsters and atrocities that are internally consistent than more sympathetic characters and actions that are not. Adherence to that internal consistency is the virtue, context defiance the sin.

 

[Fizzatron]

Let me know if this needs to move to suggestions, I kinda get the feeling that if I did post there I might get told to come here..

This one would possibly work more for the suggestions section but it is tangentially related to PVP/Open so I'm thinking it might be better discussed here if folks think it's worth it in relation to PVP etc..

The suggestion is having a module that acts like the profile cloner on foot, but for ships. Could be a good way to bait and switch gankers, for bounty hunting, blockade running, and smuggling.

I think it would be fun to see the signature/ID of a paper thin eagle turn into a Corvette death machine once interdicted from SC by a ganker, or the other way around. Might keep things interesting for the gankers and also provide a bit of cover for those blockade running gankers..

The scan in supercruise would show a ship with the cloned signature though a scan in normal space will only work outside a particular radius so that it only works with long range scanners but closer will reveal the ruse and also lead to action by system authorities if you get pulled and spotted.

BTW; CMDR Buttholejenkins, if you are out there, my admittedly not battle ready Corvette, went pop in seconds a while back in Shinrarta, what the ens is your ship/outfitting?

 

[Riverside]

This bit, my emphasis:

.... inferring that there's a difference between what the player does when "in character" and when not - given that it's the same player in both cases.

Perhaps you are over-thinking this. My Cmdr cannot relog, or block, or mode switch. They are not in-universe actions. A 'ganker' probably does make the out of game decision to specifically target another Cmdr (rather than an NPC) to frustrate the player but the actual act of firing on the other Cmdr is entirely in-universe.

There are circumstances (occasionally poor game design but usually bugs) where I the player need to relog to fix a stake instance for example, but in general I approach the game as if I really were an independent small business owner (and occasional revolutionary etc). Unlike what Morbad describes I largely am playing 'me' - but 'me' 1300 years in the future. This is the essence of role playing a character, or to use FDev vernacular, my personal narrative.

Obviously the player is controlling the character, and I the player obviously don't live in an information vacuum so there are times when this ideal is compromised but stuff like blocking & CLogging are not among them. It simply doesn't occur to me to do it.

You have often commented something that infers you would prefer that others played the way you play. I can relate to that, I would like it if everyone played the way I play. But we don't, we each approach the game in our own way & those differences aren't a source of frustration (for me), they are what makes the multi-player environment interesting

 

[Robert Maynard]

Perhaps you are over-thinking this. My Cmdr cannot relog, or block, or mode switch. They are not in-universe actions. A 'ganker' probably does make the out of game decision to specifically target another Cmdr (rather than an NPC) to frustrate the player but the actual act of firing on the other Cmdr is entirely in-universe.

The CMDR and the player are the same entity, i.e. the CMDR does what the player decides that they will do and has no say in the matter - the CMDR is merely the in-game avatar of the player controlling it.

You have often commented something that infers you would prefer that others played the way you play. I can relate to that, I would like it if everyone played the way I play. But we don't, we each approach the game in our own way & those differences aren't a source of frustration (for me), they are what makes the multi-player environment interesting

There are others who do - just as there are others who don't. That they are all mixed together is Frontier's decision - although there are means, with differing levels of selectivity, for each player to decide which players (behind the CMDRs) they want to play with and when to leave interactions that aren't fun.

Naturally what is considered "interesting" by some players is not considered interesting by all players.

 

[Darrack]

CMDR Buttholejenkins

Names like this just reinforce why Solo is the way forward, for my immersion anyroad.

O7

 

[Screemonster]

Bad C&P design killed the opportunity for pvp piracy to work in this game.

Not just that, but the lack of concentrating factors for players to encounter each other outside of supercruise. Even CGs are mainly a supercruise gauntlet.

Absolute peak time pirating was when the double-painite spot in the hyades sector was the meta mining location, and the Borann triple-LTD spot before carriers. They provided a location where you could encounter and hunt down other players outside of supercruise, and while Borann was more busy the painite spots were ideal hunting grounds because they generally weren't busy enough for it to be worth showing up to gank people in supercruise, and most of the miners spent most of their time in the rings themselves then high-waked out of the system so gankers couldn't catch them on the way out either.

Those were the times when I'd be able to drift up to someone, pop the scanner, and yarrharrfiddlededee in comms to try and make it entertaining for them as I demanded a frankly pointlessly tiny tribute for making their day more interesting.

Sometimes they logged out on the spot.
Sometimes they logged back in on the spot and got a volley of missiles for their troubles, arrrrrr.
Sometimes they saw that I was in a T7 and decided to fight and that was where the real fun began.

 

[Darrack]

Those were the times when I'd be able to drift up to someone, pop the scanner, and yarrharrfiddlededee in comms to try and make it entertaining for them as I demanded a frankly pointlessly tiny tribute for making their day more interesting.

See this i would gladly get on board with, 20 or 30ts of Voidys for some fun like this? no worries id be in Open all day, sadly mate your in the minority.

O7