Crime and Punishment not fit for purpose - needs overhauling

[aRJay]

As I understand it, to actually get to Elite, you need to go out of your way to fight increasinly tough enemies, which isn't something that happens organically to a relatively non-combat oriented player like me who generally stays out of combat zones, avoids high-level assassination missions unless the reward is really worth my while, and typically only fights NPCs that that interdict me enroute to my destination.

I think the highest ranked NPC I've ever encountered en route was a dangerous one, and even that was a fairly easy fight, even if it was also a fairly long one. Which might've been a lot shorter if I'd bothered to put more effort into engineering, or used "this one weird trick". I just don't want to develop bad habits, which is a fair description of "common forum wisdom" and "this one weird trick" guides.

For reference, according to Inara, I've been sitting at the combat rank Novice for the last eight years, though I'll soon rank up to being Competent.

You just need to gain points by beating ships in combat, you gain more points the higher they rank above you but you still gain points for beating those ranked just below you.

So you would would still be making progress by beating Harmless shios but you would get more per ship from Competent ones, no need to start hunting Deadly and Elite ships for a while yet.

The weird trick is that it isn’t all about the money.

Of course that is all mostly irrelevant to you as a non combat player.

 

[aRJay]

An AFK build will grind your rank up too I imagine

I suppose so but why cheat yourself that way, I bought the game for me to have fun not for my computer to have fun.

 

[Rat Catcher]

The wired trick is that it isn’t all about the money.

I have no idea what the "one weird trick" is, us noobs, eh?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

As I understand it, to actually get to Elite, you need to go out of your way to fight increasinly tough enemies, which isn't something that happens organically to a relatively non-combat oriented player like me who generally stays out of combat zones, avoids high-level assassination missions unless the reward is really worth my while, and typically only fights NPCs that that interdict me enroute to my destination.

That's a rough description of my playstyle; it took me several years to make Combat Elite but it happened eventually because everything does if you play for long enough.

Of course if SCO had been a thing from the beginning I'd probably still be Dangerous at most; there was a fair bit of hanging around waiting for NPCs to get organised to interdict in a vague (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to play ED as if it were FE2.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I have no idea what the "one weird trick" is, us noobs, eh?

One "one weird trick" is to let the NPCs do almost all the work, and then poach the kill out from under them at the last minute, to increase your combat rank. The other is to create a heavily engineered "AFK Ship" that'll automatically do all the killing for you.

Personally, I don't see the point of doing either. If I can't kill an NPC before the police arrive, I'll count that as a loss, and go on my merry way. And my combat ships are all G3 engineered, because I'd rather develop my own skills, rather than let the engineering do most of work for me. Even when running unarmed, I never did the "boost boost boost jump" strategy to "escape" from successful interdictions. I'd much rather low wake and spend my time until the jump trying to stay in an enemy's six (and thus develop skills necessary for combat) than take the "easy" way out.

 

[metatheurgist]

This is fun. I got Elite combat in 6 months (June 2015, only reason I know is I have a pic). Still only Elite now, I haven't increased my combat ranks in years, can't find any reason to fly my ship for combat in this spaceship game anymore. Which is funny because I'm fairly sure if "the content" that I had before "prestige" ranks was counted I'd be a bit higher.

 

[Rat Catcher]

One "one weird trick" is to let the NPCs do almost all the work, and then poach the kill out from under them at the last minute, to increase your combat rank. The other is to create a heavily engineered "AFK Ship" that'll automatically do all the killing for you.

Ah... Ok... thanks!

Personally, I don't see the point of doing either.

Nor me

 

[Wily Rites]

I'm nearly deadly, I think that follows dangerous, a PvPer commented the other day, "How do you get to be dangerous without having used teams or playing PvP?". The answer to that is engineering.

I absolutely love it, and use pirate kill missions as a metric for the build, so naturally to do rack up quite a lot quite quickly. That said, I'm nearly at deadly but gather that from deadly to elite is a very big step. I wasn't doing combat style play, until getting set upon in the engineering systems. I really love exploring and would likely be doing that using the codex if I'd not run into the PvP squatters.

I've a conundrum tonight as I've work to do exploring out to the east of the bubble, on the path of the guardian ruins and having just found some brain trees out there too. Yet I have to go back and forth as I also have a PvP lesson in game, which is utterly incredible and I wouldn't want to miss it for the world!

It seems to me that CQC would solve this, if it wasn't so broken. I have real issues with dying in game as I find it breaks the immersion, makes it feel like a cheap video game rather than the utterly incredible game and galaxy that it is. I like that it feels dangerous because you don't die, because it feels real

Now to the subject of the thread, crime and punishment or cause and effect. I think that in many ways the issues here are linked to a slight underestimation of the importance of engineering, and not only as a static practice, but as a perpetually evolving system. If it is not perpetually evolving you will get massive jams as folk settle into 'meta' norms; Which are totally unrealistic, effectively then the whole thing stagnates. As such policing them becomes as detached from reality as the static system that is churning out honed killing builds for any clan, and combining those with folk who want to play realistic trades, that can not be F1 defensive against the F1 killing machine.

These things should have a place, I love the game lore that CQC is a simulation in game, as such none are dying in reality, but why is it so disconnected from the engineering world? If the PvP'ers had some other playground than a key early game engineering spot, things would be quite different. Shinrarta is a democracy and should be relatively safe, but its not its a ganking hotspot and gankers training ground.

As such I could not agree more with the excellent thoughts raised by this thread.

To my mind the solution lies in the crime model being left relatively untouched but reinforced by adding a further layer of abstraction, giving it the ability to differentiate between a single friendly fire hit in a CZ and a full attack upon a friendly. To achieve this state would need to be implemented: has the attacking craft previously hit a friendly, if so how many times? Etc. Where have you been and what have you been doing, giving the state as miner, bounty hunter, trader, mercenary, ganker etc. With such state already recorded, any logical decision will be much fairer.

Now I get that this would be a massive undertaking, adding complexity to the state mechanism across the board, but I don't see any other solution. But then I also do see how this could be made somewhat simpler by writing a state glob that is kept on each players client machine. Fully encrypted HMAC token that stores a state machine. This would be written to at opportune moments, such as you bullet or your collision causing a ship to destruct, changing frame shift mode or system, docking etc etc.

This state token would store a k-dimention state table (a regular expression) that records the pilots activity, and is very quickly read written and transmitted. From this point on the game would poll this glob when it would have been making binary logical state changes. Giving the extra nuance required to differentiate between a crime and friendly fire. An intentional collision and a one off occurrence. As we go about our business, the game records words that represent our acts, so as to give a more comprehensive picture of what we have been up to. No need to store this data, some perhaps, some short log, but more importantly is the state of the state token. As this would be used to make decisions that have been previously made on simple true false flags.

I would propose that this mechanism be linked to both the current crime system as well as the pilot federations onboard computer and ranking, it would effectively be an upgrade to that system. Such that the federation be called in to resolve issues when pilots begin to show the signs of space madness, in which ever way they see fit.

A system of degradation of ship and modules could also be attached to the pilots state glob, that only extensive grind could clean off. As such, if players commit higher order crimes, as described by the pilots federation, they begin to do things that reflect their state of mind, such as breaking modules and failing to maintain their own ships, breakdowns in space, leaving rubbish on the dashboard ... Visible in any video that is produced that reflects then their behaviour.

This system would depend entirely upon the quality of the implementation of the protocol and HMAC token as well as the system that verifies each token when it is required. For an example, if there is a PvP kill, both tokens would be used in the evaluation of the outcome, because higher order logic is applied.

 

[Darrack]

PvP much harder (at least against a skilled opponent

Nope its not.
PvP aint some mythical beast, as ive said before i have played PvP in other games to a very high level, its just practice and learning what works, just like PVE.
Currently PvP in ED isnt hard at all, whats hard about an engineered combat ship vs a trader? nothing its easy.

O7

 

[Rubbernuke]

Nope its not.
PvP aint some mythical beast, as ive said before i have played PvP in other games to a very high level, its just practice and learning what works, just like PVE.
Currently PvP in ED isnt hard at all, whats hard about an engineered combat ship vs a trader? nothing its easy.

O7

Considering that a player can do and fire things no NPC has access to, or you using what you know to find and eradicate someone else, I disagree. The same can be said for evasion, where other powers who have to haul manage just fine.

 

[Darrack]

Considering that a player can do and fire things no NPC has access to, or you using what you know to find and eradicate someone else, I disagree. The same can be said for evasion, where other powers who have to haul manage just fine.

Your talking about two players in combat ships up for a scrap, how often does that happen?
I can count on one hand the amount of times in Open my combat ships have been interdicted.
No one can seriously say with a straight face that a pirate combat ship (or ganker) attacking a trader/explorer is PvP, its just not.

O7

 

[Rubbernuke]

Your talking about two players in combat ships up for a scrap, how often does that happen?

I can count on one hand the amount of times in Open my combat ships have been interdicted.

It happens more often than you think. Maybe join a power that actually does something, perhaps?

No one can seriously say with a straight face that a pirate combat ship (or ganker) attacking a trader/explorer is PvP, its just not.

O7

Of course it is, because its direct player v player activity. For the trader its on them to escape, or give in to the pirates demands- that, or find places that are not frequented by others to trade. Just looking on Inara and seeing the last update gives you an idea (its what I used to find my BGS testing grounds).

If the C+P was better then the trader would have more options outside of the ship itself.

 

[Darrack]

For the trader its on them to escape, or give in to the pirates demands

That's fun the first few times (ive met some decent pirates) but it gets tedious after a while.
Lets be honest ive nowt against role play pirates, i feel sorry for them, if they spent more time doing missions they could actually feed their family
To me PvP is a fair fight, this isn't, ive spent my life training martial arts, boxing bla bla, it used to be my job to 'look after' folks, do i go down the street punching folks because i can?

There's a line between some folks having a laugh and harassment.
I wish Fdev would just make an area for folks to do PvP without bothering others, oh wait.

O7

 

[Rubbernuke]

Lets be honest ive nowt against role play pirates, i feel sorry for them, if they spent more time doing missions they could actually feed their family
To me PvP is a fair fight, this isn't, ive spent my life training martial arts, boxing bla bla, it used to be my job to 'look after' folks, do i go down the street punching folks because i can?

There's a line between some folks having a laugh and harassment.

That's fun the first few times (ive met some decent pirates) but it gets tedious after a while.

But its not against the rules though, is it? There is also nothing against the rules that says you can't fly a faster ship, or use SCO, use a different system, have a friend with you etc. Do you also hate NPC piracy?

To me PvP is a fair fight, this isn't, ive spent my life training martial arts, boxing bla bla, it used to be my job to 'look after' folks, do i go down the street punching folks because i can?

Those people were protected by you, why can't people in game do that (like they do in Powerplay, or just in general)?

Plus this is a game, not real life. Everyone has access to the tools they need, they just have to use them.

There's a line between some folks having a laugh and harassment.

And if you think its crossed you have tools to deal with that, or go ask FD support.

I wish Fdev would just make an area for folks to do PvP without bothering others, oh wait.

O7

Because ED (in Open) is a game of opportunistic encounters. While matched games and organised PvP have a place the 'real' game is you v whatever you come across and how you deal with it.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

It happens more often than you think. Maybe join a power that actually does something, perhaps?


Of course it is, because its direct player v player activity. For the trader its on them to escape, or give in to the pirates demands- that, or find places that are not frequented by others to trade. Just looking on Inara and seeing the last update gives you an idea (its what I used to find my BGS testing grounds).

If the C+P was better then the trader would have more options outside of the ship itself.

I get told I’m a ‘PvP-er’ by the PVE players and “haven’t done much pvp eh!?” by the more skilled players I have come across. My style of piracy rarely involves combat, and my weapon choices are usually way less than optimal for a proper 1v1, plus the fact that I often use small ships. If it goes as I would like, there will be an attempt to flee by the trader, followed by a successful disabling of the trader, followed by a negotiation and exchange of goods. We might even have a chat about the state of the game, where we both come from, etc etc. it does happen, and as you said above is all very “pvp”! ;-)

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Lets be honest ive nowt against role play pirates, i feel sorry for them

No need to feel sorry, my kids are fine.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I get told I’m a ‘PvP-er’ by the PVE players and “haven’t done much pvp eh!?” by the more skilled players I have come across. My style of piracy rarely involves combat, and my weapon choices are usually way less than optimal for a proper 1v1, plus the fact that I often use small ships. If it goes as I would like, there will be an attempt to flee by the trader, followed by a successful disabling of the trader, followed by a negotiation and exchange of goods. We might even have a chat about the state of the game, where we both come from, etc etc. it does happen, and as you said above is all very “pvp”! ;-)

PvP comes in many forms, not just Red Baron dogfights. My favourite was probably some cheeky early morning engineering going horribly wrong and being chased by Patty People™ in a really ropey taxi Asp. Never fired a shot back but managed to get away.

 

[Darrack]

Because ED (in Open) is a game of opportunistic encounters. While matched games and organised PvP have a place the 'real' game is you v whatever you come across and how you deal with it.

But thats not the game many folks want, hence why Mobius is so popular, back on topic there is still very little risk or punishment for the actions of some.

O7

 

[CaptainPugwash]

But thats not the game many folks want, hence why Mobius is so popular, back on topic there is still very little risk or punishment for the actions of some.

O7

As far as I’m aware, open mode has a much higher average number of players than mobius.

 

[Rubbernuke]

But thats not the game many folks want, hence why Mobius is so popular, back on topic there is still very little risk or punishment for the actions of some.

O7

Why is that relevant when I'm pointing out what Open 'does'?

But yes, back on topic. C+P does need change- in the end if its against NPCs or other players there are many ways FD could enhance criminal gameplay as well as be a more effective buffer in open. Regardless it still takes the will of the defender to do something because no C+P is ever going to be perfect- ED is not Space Engine and has hostile NPCs and players in it.