How do you feel about ganckers?

[Screemonster]

There are, or were, certainly gankers I would not want to be in the same room with if I could help it. But that probably goes for "normal" CMDRs as well. Are there donkey holes amongst gankers? Most certainly. Is that a surprise? Probably to no one who ever left the house. The world is full of them, because it is full of all kinds of people. But, as in real life outside, most of them are probably regular Joes who just have potentially questionable gameplay ethics.

yeah, it's more that... I dunno, once people get onto the feedback loop of convincing themselves that someone that inconveniences you in a video game doesn't count as a real person, that's what leads to the actually harmful and sometimes criminal behaviour like doxing.
It's not confined to video games either. I've seen people posting screeds online absolutely mystified that the cops paid them a visit for conducting criminal harassment against someone over their steven universe fanart - they were going after someone they'd convinced themselves was a baddie and hence deserved anything that came to them.

I dunno man, I don't get it. It's like people convince themselves that as long as their cause is good then anything they do is automatically good too - and if you question their methods for going too far, that means you're on the side of the baddies too.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

So how would a new player like myself do that, relatively low jump distance, no combat experience and no credits for combat modules and ships.

First of all, take care of the credit shortage. You don't need engineering for it, and there are multiple ways. I think that was touched upon in your other thread - exobiology is very lucrative, and all you need is a decentish jump range and an Artemis suit. Or you go scanning earth likes and water worlds in terraforming and agriculture systems, or, easier, you follow the so called "road to riches", that leads you through known systems with these types of planets. But can make you a few millions easily. All you need is a basic Cobra or Hauler, both will get you around 20 ly jump range with an A-rated FSD.

Or you outfit a Cobra for core mining. It's a bit involved and you need to acquire a few skills, but it is a lot of fun. Go and mine Monazite or Musgravite cores, both sell for 500k+ per ton easily, often more. A typical mining Cobra can hold what, 32 tons of cargo plus 6 tons in the refinery, so that's probably 19 million per mining run. And core mining is a lot of fun. Not as efficient as laser mining, but a lot more fun.

For the materials, there are a few shortcuts, a few of them requiring relog gameplay. You might like it or not. If you want to visit the crystal shards, that's doable with 20 ly jump range. Or you might be able to hitch a ride with a carrier. There are also those braintree sites closer to the bubble, but I don't know what you can get there.

For a data ground stock there's always Jameson's Cobra, but that's boring relogging. You can just hand out in supercruise, at tourist beacons or... I forget what they are called... distribution centers? where you can scan ships to your heart's content.

And for manufactured materials there's the good old Dav's Hope circuit. A ground site with a good selection of low and mid level materials you can hoover up in an SRV, and you can make it a game how quickly you can do the circuit. Also requires relogging, and gives no high grade materials. But you can build a nice ground stock.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

yeah, it's more that... I dunno, once people get onto the feedback loop of convincing themselves that someone that inconveniences you in a video game doesn't count as a real person, that's what leads to the actually harmful and sometimes criminal behaviour like doxing.
It's not confined to video games either. I've seen people posting screeds online absolutely mystified that the cops paid them a visit for conducting criminal harassment against someone over their steven universe fanart - they were going after someone they'd convinced themselves was a baddie and hence deserved anything that came to them.

I dunno man, I don't get it. It's like people convince themselves that as long as their cause is good then anything they do is automatically good too - and if you question their methods for going too far, that means you're on the side of the baddies too.

yeah I get what you mean. Sometimes I feel like Walter. Well, not the drawing a piece part .

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

 

[R4dioS1lence]

As much as I have fun every time I see a ganker get rekt, specially by a less experienced player (a recent new player who was youtub'n their experience took down a Krait Mk II plasma ganker even while riding a middling engineered Vette, beautifull stuff), I don't mind them gankers. The only problem gankers pose is when they specifically target new players, as if taking out that Defenseless pilot is something of note, and not simply being nocive to people who don't know left to right. People who think that's an achievement have so low standards that I can only pity them. And new players have an extended insurance, that for them losing ships costs even less, so the weak ganker has even less of an impact on the galaxy. There are worse things that badly intentioned players can do to others, like trapping new players into concentration camps and forcing them to choose between loosing nearly everything they have by forcing a self-destruct or mining for little gain, or harassing a terminal cancer patient (included on that other story).

Tapping the sign that everyone else is already tapping:
The costs of losing a ship (ganker or not) come from either inexperience, as in walking around with unpaid bonds/exploration data (ALWAYS CASH IN THOSE ASAP) or flying around without credits for a rebuy (biggest no-no that nearly every new player will learn the hard way about), or come from normal gameplay (losing cargo/missions). To ganker or to NPC, these costs & risks are normal part of gameplay loop, and any experienced player will minimize these costs & risks, that again being part of the gameplay (the galaxy is dangerous, be ready). The ganker is just someone who is way more dangerous, smarter and unpredictable than NPCs (most of the time, at least).

The main objective of Elite Dangerous is for us to "blaze our own trail", and being a nuisance to the galaxy can be included on that (while not breaching the Terms of Service, mind you), same as hunting these nuisances can also be. Also keep in mind that a ganker may be someone defending a system from possible attackers, shooting first and asking questions later, either for BGS or for PP. These interactions are all fair in the game's design, and aside from the first two examples above of actual bad faith from players, only the obvious hackers are problematic. The easier ones will do stuff like one-shot-kill weapons, or have shields that are completely immune to damage, making it easier to file reports. The others will fumble the numbers just enough to have an extra edge, and picking these out is nearly impossible (for us, for FDev it depends on their in-place systems to verify player-to-player interactions). I wouldn't mind finding more gankers if this meant not finding people being openly racist/transphobic and other kinds of harassment that do breach ToS.

 

[Jack Winter]

I think I blew myself up - stood next to a red barrel, turned off shields and shot it.

I suppose you could have called an APEX or asked a friend to pick you up.

 

[Jack Winter]

So how would a new player like myself do that, relatively low jump distance, no combat experience and no credits for combat modules and ships.

Play in solo or find a good gang to play with in PG. If you log into open you are consenting to getting blown up by logging into the PvP game mode..

 

[Screemonster]

Also keep in mind that a ganker may be someone defending a system from possible attackers, shooting first and asking questions later, either for BGS or for PP.

Last time I killed a guy it was because they went AFK on the pad.

 

[St0rmFury]

Some gankers who use "ships go boom huehue" as a reason are being disingenuous because if that's all they want, there are plenty of NPC ships they can blow up.

Nay, what they want is ship goes boom sprinkled with salt.

 

[husky of snow]

Some gankers who use "ships go boom huehue" as a reason are being disingenuous because if that's all they want, there are plenty of NPC ships they can blow up.

Nay, what they want is ship goes boom sprinkled with salt.

Playing devil's advocate, humans fight back better then npc, so there is more chalange

 

[St0rmFury]

Playing devil's advocate, humans fight back better then npc, so there is more chalange

Doesn't really work in most ganking incidents because they victims are usually flying unarmed paper planes optimised for jump range.

And sometimes when victims do fight back, the gankers will either high wake or clog (combat logging).

 

[husky of snow]

I just had a thought

If pvp is what you want, there is a whole area for that, arena I believe it's called. If the fight is arranged and agreed to, that's one thing. But if it's not, why is it ok?

Blaze your own path

Ok. I want to be aware lord and control the entire game, so I'll mass lock and kill you, and why not hack too, I'm blazing my own path.

I want to have 17 fully upgraded ships and sit outside new player zones and kill everything that moves

Yes, that's blazing a trail of destruction...as well as burning down the game

Counter thoughts?

 

[husky of snow]

One thing I've heard that hasn't been mentioned yet is, some people ganck other players to send a message to frontier: your crime and punishment system doesn't work

Thoughts?

 

[Screemonster]

Some gankers who use "ships go boom huehue" as a reason are being disingenuous because if that's all they want, there are plenty of NPC ships they can blow up.

Nay, what they want is ship goes boom sprinkled with salt.

"ship go boom huehue" also includes your own ship if you're not a coward

I've never had a ganker clog on me, had plenty of miners do it when I was doing piracy though.

Playing devil's advocate, humans fight back better then npc, so there is more chalange

Humans also have far more interesting loadouts than most NPCs, which tend to have... I'll charitably call them unoptimised mixes of weaponry.
NPCs also won't surprise you by dropping into silent running, will rarely use engineered weapons outside of very rare scenarios and are... in a word, more predictable.
You see a human pilot out there, you have no idea what they're going to do.

NPC piracy is... routine very quickly. Strip shields, missile the drives, boost ahead of them and gently bump them to a stop when their shields recover, hatchbreak until empty, and so on. NPCs never reboot like humans do, so it's all pretty humdrum.
Humans, on the other hand, you get to talk. Parrrrrrlay. Arrr-pee.

 

[Schmack]

What? There's still ganking and griefing? I thought the Crime and Punishment system fixed that.

 

[husky of snow]

What? There's still ganking and griefing? I thought the Crime and Punishment system fixed that.

From an interview with a gancker I listened to.

Crime and punishment doesn't work. Fines are easy to take care of, warrants on ships are fixed by selling the ship, being wanted in systems just makes them go to another system till the timer ticks down

From the same interview

(Paraphrased)

Why do you gank

To show frontier that the current crime and punishment system doesn't work

 

[husky of snow]

I want to be clear on something

I haven't been gancked. I've met two people in open, both were nice. This thread was just to have a discussion, this thread wasn't made in anger or anything like that

 

[Dunkel Reynolds]

Please stop adding a "c" to "gank"

 

[husky of snow]

Please stop adding a "c" to "gank"

Sorry, didn't know

 

[Reggit]

I don't gank (well...except gankers!)
But regardless of how you define it - I love 'em!
I'm experienced enough to avoid them entirely if I choose - but sometimes, knowing they're around, keeps the game interesting (Dare I say exciting?)
I suppose my perspective is slightly different from a new CMDR (Hey, I got ganked plenty when I was new - but that's what motivated me to get better and fight back) o7

I've met two people in open, both were nice.

For the most part - this is what you'll find!

...I want to be aware lord and control the entire game, so I'll mass lock and kill you, and why not hack too, I'm blazing my own path.

Please don't CMDR.
I can understand the frustration...But cheating would make you worse than the gankers (And get you banned too)

 

[Northpin]

A simple question that can have a complicated answer regarding it.

How do you feel about ganckers? Are they people just playing the game? Are they bullies? Should there be a punishment for gancking? If so, what should it be? Are you a gancker yourself? If so, why? Does anyone have any stories to share regarding ganckers?

They are part of the game (but only if you allow them to) - so actually you have the power to deal with them

So, you can make them part of your game by being prepared to play with them around.
However that may mean you will run builds that are not exactly optimal to your intended (pve) play. And also you may find your gaming session being disrupted by their interferences (being interdicted and forced to high wake or getting sent to the rebuy screen) thus delaying the process of achieving your goals both for that session and for longer term goals.
Some CMDRs do seem to enjoy this wolf and hare gameplay. Some don't.

Or you can just remember that other players are totally optional in your gameplay.
And you can either play in Solo or in a PG with friendly CMDRs that do enjoy a coop gameplay.
Or you can play in Open and make use of the Block function, blocking any commander that kills you. As someone esle put it: "you killed me and i no longer exist in your game"


Personally, i'm part of the second category - i play mostly in Solo/PG with rather rare moments when i do play in Open - especially for random AX coop instances.
But even in that instances you need to be aware of the fact that a ganker or a wing of them may pop in the instance and ruin it. If that happens i write down the names and block them - even tho the next day i may clear up my block list (it's usually empty)