Could ED benefit from 'Soft Death' mechanics?

[Robert Maynard]

To be fair, this wasn't specific to PvP.

It seems very much aimed at PvP piracy noting the bits relating to what would happen to targeted player ships in the event of soft death and the removal of the targeted player's ability to self-destruct

 

[Robert Maynard]

Unless I am completely misunderstanding this doesn't sound like lots of fun for the target. Ganker's dream 2.0

Over the years it's become clearer that some of those seeking PvP in the game are not even slightly interested in whether the targeted player has fun, to the point where if the target is actively not having fun then the fun for some attackers is enhanced.

 

[Lateralus]

Don’t need to watch them on YouTube thanks.

I'm not trying to promote them, their videos just show the scenarios I described happening fairly frequently.

Would it though? Given that the empty ship would exist in the instance after the pirate had stripped it of anything of value, awaiting reboot / repair or some form of NPC assistance.

If the Inara stats are anything to go by, just over two fifths of players are pledged - which might indicate that a significant majority of players aren't looking to paint a target on their ship for players and NPCs from the other twelve powers to shoot at.

In that time, someone can interrupt the pirate, maybe system security or other players etc.. so there is more of a chance that they will leave with more than currently is with the usual flow of events (they don't comply to pirate messages, fly away and get blown up). If they choose to rebuy early at 0%, then the former player ship in the instance is technically no longer their property and can be treated like an NPC (it doesn't have to disappear until all parties have left the instance).

Re. Powerplay point - just trying to illustrate how those three gameplay areas encourage non-ganking based pvp. If you get attacked and its none of those scenarios then its likely a gank, so we should be trying to enhance the PvP gameplay in those three areas specifically if we want to offer the PvP players something other than gank targets.

But in ED, there is no boarding. So there really isn't much player activity. The defeated target player has nothing to do but sit staring at the computer screen. The pirate has nothing to do except spam limpets and continue shooting out various modules over an extended period of time until the ship finally blows up. Meanwhile I am imagining less than pleasant discussion.

Unless I am completely misunderstanding this doesn't sound like lots of fun for the target. Ganker's dream 2.0

As I said, they would be able to opt for a rebuy from that point if they want to skip time... but they would forfeit the potential to survive the encounter. Not paying a rebuy is sufficient motivation not to capitulate & rebuy I think.

It seems very much aimed at PvP piracy noting the bits relating to what would happen to targeted player ships in the event of soft death and the removal of the targeted player's ability to self-destruct

It would benefit PvP & PvE IMO. They would have the option to rebuy at 0%, not self-destruct... otherwise that would happen literally every time and make it pointless. Ship has to be operational to self-destruct.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Sooo... I don't really get the advantages from the target player's POV who during this soft death period gets to sit and do nothing in a helpless situation...

But moving on to the pirate.... Lets assume its a good honest pirate that just wants some loot. In ED there is no stealing ships or stripping it for internal modules. So even though the pirate disabled my billion credit Imperial Cutter all they can take is my 784t CMM Composite worth 4 Mil Credits (yay?).... if the pirate remembered to bring enough cargo racks for 784t. Oh wait.... its a pirating murder boat with a single 32 slot cargo rack (maybe?).

No problem! The nice pirate could do this with a wing of friends! One of the pirate ships could be a designated cargo ship to carry all the loot! So as long as its a wing of pirates attacking an unlucky target they can split the 4 Mil Cr profit.This sounds like a fantastic money-making venture.

 

[Lateralus]

Sooo... I don't really get the advantages from the target player's POV who during this soft death period gets to sit and do nothing in a helpless situation...

Alright, here is the idea as simple as I can put it:

1. The ship will go into soft-death at 0%
2. The ship owner will have the option of sitting it out until help arrives (potentially saving them millions of credits in rebuy/cargo), or rebuying immediately for their convenience.
3. If they rebuy early, the disabled ship is no longer owned by the player and becomes a permanently disabled, technically NPC ship that does not disappear on logout of the original owner - allowing it to be looted (essentially defeating combat logging as an activity).
4. If help arrives for the disabled player, the ship can be repaired using repair limpets and the target player survives and doesn't have to pay a rebuy and may even have cargo left.

But moving on to the pirate.... Lets assume its a good honest pirate that just wants some loot. In ED there is no stealing ships or stripping it for internal modules. So even though the pirate disabled my billion credit Imperial Cutter all they can take is my 784t CMM Composite worth 4 Mil Credits (yay?).... if the pirate remembered to bring enough cargo racks for 784t. Oh wait.... its a pirating murder boat with a single 32 slot cargo rack (maybe?).

No problem! The nice pirate could do this with a wing of friends! One of the pirate ships could be a designated cargo ship to carry all the loot! So as long as its a wing of pirates attacking an unlucky target they can split the 4 Mil Cr profit.This sounds like a fantastic money-making venture.

That's an argument to whether piracy is worth it at all... While I agree that it currently isn't when you can only hatch break 20-30t, it would be a lot more worth it if pirates can loot 100s of tonnes.

 

[Lateralus]

I mean, the scenarios where people just backspace don’t make good videos. It’s only fun and engaging when people do fight back. So they’re not going to be putting out the boring content* because that would show their frustration and encourage people to do the opposite to what is engaging as a boarder.

It’s also the reason Mongrel Squad went on a killing spree when physicalised cargo became a thing. People submitting isn’t fun, them fighting back is, and they wanted to force people’s hand. - I know this for a fact.

Having been on both sides over in the Verse, it’s a hella lot more fun for the border than the boarded. - Especially if you’re someone who doesn’t want to git-gud at FPS.

The truth is, much like here, the majority of actions result in a barrage of abuse and salt from the target, not someone trying to fight back and proclaiming “gg” when they inevitably wake up back in the hospital bed.

*Edit: …as much…

Yeah, it kind've seems like you're arguing against PvP piracy as a thing in any open world game... I'd recommend people don't play games where encounters with hostile players makes them sad. We all know how people are on the internet lol. It is what it is...

 

[Greasetrap42]

If they rebuy early, the disabled ship is no longer owned by the player and becomes a permanently disabled, technically NPC ship that does not disappear on logout of the original owner - allowing it to be looted (essentially defeating combat logging as an activity).

In theory, not sure if it’s possible without a persistent universe, especially with the way instancing works in ED.

Yes, instancing issue. The ship must be separated from the cmdr. Unless...

... does a dummy duplicate of the target ship get created, such that the target player can respawn and still play the game? So the ship exists in two places for a period of time.

This is sounding like a complicated solution that well... I can't see Frontier implementing something complicated like this for such limited benefit. Just so a pirate can more effectively steal some CMM Composite. I don't think so.

 

[Lateralus]

Thrusters at 0% has the same effect for the target. - with the opportunity to Reboot and Repair.

They wouldn't be able to reboot at 0% - their options would be rebuy or stay and wait. Remember their ship is disabled, options that are available at 1% or greater would not be available. Technically they are dead with a chance at being res'd by a third party.

They can sit it out now.

Yeah and they can combat log, self-destruct, reboot... This would be a totally different scenario.

In theory, not sure if it’s possible without a persistent universe, especially with the way instancing works in ED.

As a developer I'd say its very possible to change a defunct, no longer owned player ship into an NPC ship for the remainder of an instance. You don't need PES for this because you do not need it to remain there permanently, only until all players have left the area.

The target can Reboot and Repair and repair with limpets now. Don’t need soft death for that.

Back to my original point, soft death is a mechanic to allow boarding. It’s the only reason it’s in SC and it doesn’t have any reason to be in ED without interiors.

See my first response, this is not the same scenario as thrusters disabled, ship functionality will be disabled (except reserve life support). And I've already stated what the advantages are to this beyond ship boarding several times.

 

[rootsrat]

So this concept has been pretty successfully implemented in Star Citizen.. For those who don't know what it is, 'Soft Death' refers to ships not immediately exploding when their hull health reaches 0%, but rather they go into a fully disabled state (where self destruct does not even work). The ship could then slow down to a stop with all systems disabled (making decent life-support systems more relevant). Continuing to apply damage to the disabled ship will eventually make it explode as per normal..

This could be good for piracy and powerplay gameplay as it could give the player engaged in those activities more options than simply killing their target. Trying to disable subsystems of a target has always been a pretty messy affair in this game, and usually results in the death of the target or the target floating away at high speed, making piracy extremely difficult to pull-off.

Applying soft-death to Elite, we could have it so repair limpets from an other ship restore the ship to a flyable state. This would encourage a fuel-rats style service gameplay pathway to open up for groups who wish to rescue and repair stranded players - who would then be able to avoid an unnecessary rebuy. It would also give more time for system security to react to hostility (player ships could have higher soft-death HP than NPCs for example). However in places like CZs we'd probably need NPC soft-death to be switched off so targets can be disposed of quickly.
Edit - The player who's ship is soft-deathed at 0% would have the option to rebuy immediately and save time. Their original ship would remain in the instance permanently disabled until all parties leave the instance.

Also logging out of a soft-death ship should take you to the rebuy screen immediately when logging back in. The 0% ship could remain in the instance even after the player logs out, as it is essentially a dead ship, allowing it to be looted (this would again help piracy and powerplay game-loops).

Also if we are to have any future ship-boarding gameplay for space legs, this mechanic would be more useful than say, disabling the targets thrusters which result in said drifting.

Thoughts?

Personally, I think that a device to stop the 0-drives ship from moving instead of trying to bump-stop it, would be a much simpler and better addition.

Pretty much same outcome, but still with some options for the victim.

 

[Lateralus]

Yes, instancing issue. The ship must be separated from the cmdr. Unless...

... does a dummy duplicate of the target ship get created, such that the target player can respawn and still play the game? So the ship exists in two places for a period of time.

This is sounding like a complicated solution that well... I can't see Frontier implementing something complicated like this for such limited benefit. Just so a pirate can more effectively steal some CMM Composite. I don't think so.

Yes it would create a duplicate, but it would be permanently bricked (not possibel to repair) and disappear with the end of the instance (destroying the duplicate)... the ship has already been rebought, so the original is no longer owned by the player. I'm not sure why this is a big problem...

Its not that complicated really.... quite a straight forward solution to combat logging destroying player piracy.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

So this concept has been pretty successfully implemented in Star Citizen.

Thoughts?

1) The word "successfully" is debatable.

2) We shouldn't be looking to copy anything from Star Citizen, except the quality of their anti-aliasing.

 

[aRJay]

Alright, here is the idea as simple as I can put it:

1. The ship will go into soft-death at 0%
2. The ship owner will have the option of sitting it out until help arrives (potentially saving them millions of credits in rebuy/cargo), or rebuying immediately for their convenience.
3. If they rebuy early, the disabled ship is no longer owned by the player and becomes a permanently disabled, technically NPC ship that does not disappear on logout of the original owner - allowing it to be looted (essentially defeating combat logging as an activity).
4. If help arrives for the disabled player, the ship can be repaired using repair limpets and the target player survives and doesn't have to pay a rebuy and may even have cargo left.

That's an argument to whether piracy is worth it at all... While I agree that it currently isn't when you can only hatch break 20-30t, it would be a lot more worth it if pirates can loot 100s of tonnes.

The problem with 3 is there is nothing to loot from a disabled ship.

To be honest I don't think this gives an attacker enough of an advantage in this game to be worthwhile, possibly not even if we had interiors.

Also why do you assume the self destruct has to be powered by the ship, there are lots of self contained explosive device designs that need nothing more than a simple mechanical action to trigger.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Personally, I think that a device to stop the 0-drives ship from moving instead of trying to bump-stop it, would be a much simpler and better addition.

Pretty much same outcome, but still with some options for the victim.

A limpet that can pull a ship without power/engines to a stop would be a nice addition.

Its a bit of a pain trying to bump stop a ship that hit boost the moment you took out its power/engines.

 

[Lateralus]

Personally, I think that a device to stop the 0-drives ship from moving instead of trying to bump-stop it, would be a much simpler and better addition.

Pretty much same outcome, but still with some options for the victim.

Disabled player ships can combat log though, 0% ships would change to NPC ships on owner logout (same as early rebuy scenario)...

 

[Lateralus]

The problem with 3 is there is nothing to loot from a disabled ship.

To be honest I don't think this gives an attacker enough of an advantage in this game to be worthwhile, possibly not even if we had interiors.

Also why do you assume the self destruct has to be powered by the ship, there are lots of self contained explosive device designs that need nothing more than a simple mechanical action to trigger.

Why is there nothing to loot? The cargo in the ship would remain of course otherwise there is no point in doing this... Remember, if they go to 0% they are dead with a chance of rescue. Not drifting at > 1% hull.

In the current situation, they would just die and lose all their cargo. With this, they would have the option to rebuy or not, and the cargo would remain until the end of the instance. The owner may survive if they are rescued, pirates will get cargo, combat logging achieves nothing that an early rebuy wouldn't.

 

[Lateralus]

Good for the attacker not for the target. The statement you were replying to was “I don't really get the advantages from the target player's POV who during this soft death period gets to sit and do nothing in a helpless situation”



Nice Call to Authority.



I’m sure you have a string of successes space games to your name to imply It’s so easy.



Not to the satisfaction of the people questioning it seems.

As a supposed pirate, you are arguing quite hard against something that would help piracy... Bizarre indeed.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Why is there nothing to loot? The cargo in the ship would remain of course otherwise there is no point in doing this... Remember, if they go to 0% they are dead with a chance of rescue. Not drifting at > 1% hull.

In the current situation, they would just die and lose all their cargo. With this, they would have the option to rebuy or not, and the cargo would remain until the end of the instance. The owner may survive if they are rescued, pirates will get cargo, combat logging achieves nothing that an early rebuy wouldn't.

Seems that we're finally getting to a core point - that the fact that menu exit at any time is permissible is anathema to some players who want those who may use it in the same instance as them to be punished.

 

[Lateralus]

No they wouldn’t. They’d reboot and repair and wake out, perhaps with some cargo left that the pirate hasn’t liberated yet.

The only reason they would die is because the aggressor doesn’t have good enough trigger discipline. And if you can’t stop a ship without blowing it up, you don’t deserve the juicy cargo. Git-gud! As they say.

Not if they're dead...

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Personally, I think that a device to stop the 0-drives ship from moving instead of trying to bump-stop it, would be a much simpler and better addition.

Pretty much same outcome, but still with some options for the victim.

Come on, say the "g" word. We all know what you are talking about.

Say, if you grapple hook a much heavier ship from a lighter pirate one... Should the lighter ship be dragged behind the heavier one, looney tunes style?

 

[Lateralus]

Seems that we're finally getting to a core point - that the fact that menu exit at any time is permissible is anathema to some players who want those who may use it in the same instance as them to be punished.

Currently if a ship reaches 0% they die... under this suggestion, they would not die and have some options to survive (but not combat logging). This is not covered by what happens when they are disabled but > 1% because they are still alive at that point. It's a different scenario.