Open letter to Devs, Why I am now combat logging and what to do with this pirate.

[SiriusSeven]

OP does have a valid point. You either play good guy or play bad guy. You shouldn't be able to appear as a 'clean good guy' if you are pirating or killing other players. As it stands now, the ability to instantly pay off your bounty leaves no room for professional bounty hunters to operate, as 90% of players don't have the cahoonahs to keep their wanted status and simply pay it off as soon as they can.
Needs looking at imo.

Yes. This is true. I think the most straightforward approach is, as was stated, enforce a time limit in cases where the person has committed a crime against another player (who cares about NPCs).

There are workarounds. Escorts in Wings. Catching pirates in the act (even going so far as to set up traps/bait). But, it's still too cumbersome. An 8 hour in-game time limit on player bounties would be great.

 

[Darkium]

How to clear your name: Get bounty, jump in your free sidney, kill yourself with alt/friend account and claim the bounty. Sure, you can pay it off too if the bounty is small.

Not only do most pirates show as clean but they cash in the bounty they have on their own head.

Swapping with yourself or a friend should be a bannable offense.

I also believe the bounty hunting should be adjusted like this:
-Max bounty a criminal display is current insurance cost.
-The voucher equal whatever was is displayed bounty, and when you cash it in, you reduce is bounty by the voucher value.
That way, you can still swap money around, but no money is created out of bounty.

 

[SiriusSeven]

How to clear your name: Get bounty, jump in your free sidney, kill yourself with alt/friend account and claim the bounty. Sure, you can pay it off too if the bounty is small.

Not only do most pirates show as clean but they cash in the bounty they have on their own head.

Swapping with yourself or a friend should be a bannable offense.

I also believe the bounty hunting should be adjusted like this:
-Max bounty a criminal display is current insurance cost.
-The voucher equal whatever was is displayed bounty, and when you cash it in, you reduce is bounty by the voucher value.
That way, you can still swap money around, but no money is created out of bounty.

and how would legit bh feel about that ?

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Swapping with yourself or a friend should be a bannable offense.

So If my friend wants to shoot my ship, he should be banned? I don't think you've thought this one through mate.

 

[iain666]

stuff

Stuff that I'd rep you for, but you have The Master as your avatar and therefore I cannot see you as anything other than evil so even when I agree with you I can't record it

 

[Sandmann]

All the Type 7 and 9 traders went to Mobius

And the sidewinder, hauler, and adder ones too. And a good whack of the cobra and asp ones. Over 5000 traders just in mobius... imagine what open would look like if they all WANTED to come back?

 

[Kloric]

Hello, I'm kinda new to the game. All I have played is Bounty Hunter and mostly on solo so I can learn the game, and the OPs dispute to me seems very important and would break being a BH on open to me.. I also see the issue of always having a Wanted tag if you can't clear it for x ammount of time, I mean as BH's how many times you shoot at a npc ship and accidentally clip a clean ship and get fined and a wanted..
My thoughts on it would be to add a reputation meter in almost like a clean/wanted meter.. as you do bad things that meter goes down, sure you can pay off your bounty but the meter doesn't change. do enough and your unable to pay off your bounties anymore..
Seems fair and resonable to me unless I'm missing something I am still new to the game, also something to be able to talk to a npc to say 'hey my bad' before being fined and tagged wanted would be awesome lol....Another idea I had about that meter as posting this is to be able to always pay off your bounty but if your negative on the meter the bounty is still active for players and continues to grow and when you pay it off it only stops npc ships from attacking you.. /salute

 

[CMDR Reza Malin]

Stopped reading at --open letter..

You are such a badass. Wish i was as cool as you.

 

[Kloric]

Also incase anyone tries to dispute the being new thing, yes I bought the game in July of last year, I got to play it for a entire few weeks and my computer down, just got back on here 4 days ago lol.

 

[Katkon]

Station griefing is supported. If you want to shoot at people in stations in 1.2 that is totally allowed. Combat logging is not. If you don't like the rules, don't play the game. In the end the entire OP can be summarised as 'got pirated, didn't like it, combat-logged'. For shame...

Technically, combat logging is supported though frowned upon. FD is looking into it and "may" take action at "some point". FD officially frowns upon combat logging, while 99pct of the player community frowns upon griefing - though officially supported. While I support neither practice, I know which one I deem worse - and it's not combat logging.

 

[Sandmann]

How to clear your name: Get bounty, jump in your free sidney, kill yourself with alt/friend account and claim the bounty. Sure, you can pay it off too if the bounty is small.

Not only do most pirates show as clean but they cash in the bounty they have on their own head.

This is why I really liked having the bounty appear as a debt on the pirate. If you couple that with un-payable bounties for murder, suddenly it makes killing a serious choice, not something to do for lols.

 

[Distance]

To everyone complaining about shooting players in a station I direct you to the beta trailer showing a trade ship being blown up in a Coriolis at around 14 seconds :

[video=youtube;-pltB5_f7Ow]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pltB5_f7Ow[/video]

You can shoot people in a station but you're going to get killed. The previous exploit was chaff and shield cells tanking the station defenses which was a bug and was fixed (along with pdt bug). This was actually greifing, shooting people in a station and having to deal with actual consequences isn't.

Stuff that I'd rep you for, but you have The Master as your avatar and therefore I cannot see you as anything other than evil so even when I agree with you I can't record it

But I need my imaginary internet points (says the guy with 666 in his name . . . )

 

[Sim Maker]

Interesting Poll results so far.......if you figure options 2 and 3 are the same thing....."Pirates need a spanking".........it is 85% saying it needs to change, and only 15% saying it is ok "as is"....
.
I hope FD are listening.........I think we all like the idea of some areas of Anarchy Space being like the Pirates of the Caribian or the Coasts of Somalia.........Pirates should be able to sell their illegal goods in saftey and with profit in these areas...................what FD needs to work on are the "Puppy Pirates".........they remind me of our puppy......he is in his "rebellious" phase.....let him out late and night, all good....call him in again, and he stays out....keep calling, he stays......take ONE step on the the gravel driveway as if coming to get him, and he is in the house like a shot..............
.
Yes to the Pirates that wear their bounty with pride, and stay clear of Policed space becasue it is as "Dangerous" to them as lawless space is to a trader....woe be the traveller stepping on to their turff.......but the Puppy Pirates, have to go...paying off fines so you can "hide" next to Policed stations.............just so lame........

 

[Sandmann]

Stuff that I'd rep you for, but you have The Master as your avatar and therefore I cannot see you as anything other than evil so even when I agree with you I can't record it

Lol... I've got the Vashta Nerada as mine, and I've given him imaginary internet points. Go on... you know you want to. (and at least he has the REAL master, not that odd female one).

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Technically, combat logging is supported

Oh really? FDev Supports combat logging you say?

For clarity’s sake, “combat logging” is when a Commander ungracefully exits the game (e.g. using ALT + F4 then shutting down the game process) to avoid defeat, destruction and damage.

Commanders might use this exploit the moment they are interdicted or the moment before they are about to be destroyed.

Although this is flagged primarily as a multiplayer concern, the issues (and solutions) apply equally to the single player game.

First things first: we do consider this an undesirable exploit. It’s not “part of the game”.

"It's not part of the game" is "supported". Gotcha.

while 99pct of the player community frowns upon griefing - though officially supported. While I support neither practice, I know which one I deem worse - and it's not combat logging.

Oh really? you know EXACTLY what 99% of the community thinks? And that just happens to line up exactly with what you think? Well, that must be swell.

 

[Katkon]

Find me a single post where FDev have said murder in stations is forbidden. Just one post that specifically mentions murder in stations.

Why? That's not my point at all. My point is that I don't derive my moral compass, my sense of decency, based on what a game designer says is technically permitted in-game.

Fact of the matter is that combat logging is viewed as an undesirable exploit, is technically supported, and is not something FD is actively actioning currently, per their own forum posts. Station murder/griefing, however, has been ratcheted down SUBSTANTIALLY lately with dumbfire nerfs and other tweaks, that make it very difficult to get away with murder in stations now, save for ramming. If that isn't an obvious sign that blowing people up en masse while they trying to land wasn't an intended design feature, I don't know what is. FD have TALKED about combat logging, but they've ACTIONED station griefing. Actions > words.

 

[SiriusSeven]

Hello, I'm kinda new to the game. All I have played is Bounty Hunter and mostly on solo so I can learn the game, and the OPs dispute to me seems very important and would break being a BH on open to me.. I also see the issue of always having a Wanted tag if you can't clear it for x ammount of time, I mean as BH's how many times you shoot at a npc ship and accidentally clip a clean ship and get fined and a wanted..
My thoughts on it would be to add a reputation meter in almost like a clean/wanted meter.. as you do bad things that meter goes down, sure you can pay off your bounty but the meter doesn't change. do enough and your unable to pay off your bounties anymore..
Seems fair and resonable to me unless I'm missing something I am still new to the game, also something to be able to talk to a npc to say 'hey my bad' before being fined and tagged wanted would be awesome lol....Another idea I had about that meter as posting this is to be able to always pay off your bounty but if your negative on the meter the bounty is still active for players and continues to grow and when you pay it off it only stops npc ships from attacking you.. /salute

Fantastic idea. You could even have the pirate/murder reputation meter slowly decay back to neutral as people forget (would take many many hours). You would then be able to pay your bounty if it hasn't been claimed in the meantime. You could call this "Pilot federation rep"

In any case, friendly fire, and other fines should be exempt. Theft of player cargo (piracy) and player murder should be the only things that matter for this mechanic. We have the standard faction rep for everything trivial or NPC.

 

[Distance]

Regarding combat logging, using the in game 15 second counter is deemed ok as you're using the in game mechanics to close the game and risk damage/death (even if I and many others think the 15 second timer is too short). It's killing the process or using the hack to intercept the "death sent" message to the server that is the problem.

 

[Sandmann]

Fantastic idea. You could even have the pirate/murder reputation meter slowly decay back to neutral as people forget (would take many many hours). You would then be able to pay your bounty if it hasn't been claimed in the meantime. You could call this "Pilot federation rep"

In any case, friendly fire, and other fines should be exempt. Theft of player cargo (piracy) and player murder should be the only things that matter for this mechanic. We have the standard faction rep for everything trivial or NPC.

Yeah, personally I would make it ONLY for murder, and permanant till death.

 

[SiriusSeven]

Regarding combat logging, using the in game 15 second counter is deemed ok as you're using the in game mechanics to close the game and risk damage/death (even if I and many others think the 15 second timer is too short). It's killing the process or using the hack to intercept the "death sent" message to the server that is the problem.

Yes. By the logic everyone is using, this would clearly be ok. (I think 15 seconds is too short, and you should have to flee the instance successfully.... but that's not the present mechanic).