Submit to Interdiction exploit

[geoffrey.hdt]

One of the most discussed exploit is combat logging and I know there is already a thread dedicated to the same.

But another exploit, pretty common and well know is to submit to a FrameShiftDrive interdiction: the player being interdicted throttle down, dropping with the other player interdicting, no hull damage and very short FSD cooldown. I could understand that this initially was implemented to allow some players to drop at the same place, or to shorten an interdiction triggered by an authority vessel.

However A LOT of players use it as an exploit to escape while being interdicted: submit, 4 pips to engine, 2 to shield, bootst continuously until FSD cooldown is over, then jump/scape. It becomes very frustrating to attempt interdicting.
(EDIT: I know you can shoot the drives straight after your target submit...but then you end up with people complaining on forum about these psychos who shot first and asked questions later...)

This could be avoiding by allowing to submit only if both players have throttled down. This way:
- If one of the player do want to drop without damage for any reason and the other player is OK with they, they can. I could see a message on the top right of the other player HUD saying "Target submitted to interdiction, throttle down now to accept".
- If you feel that the other player may do this as an exploit, you do not throttle down and keep trying to interdict him.
- If you get interdicted by an authority vessel, or a hostile NPC which you want to fight (or do not want to be bothered with = minor exploit that nobody really cares about), you may still submit since the rule would apply to players only.

Another solution would be to have, after submitting to interdiction, the same FSD cooldown as the one you get after a successful interdiction. While I would be personally OK with that, it seems that a lot of players are not.

 

[FuzzySpider]

I don't think that's an exploit. The ship is simply fleeing from you. Take its engines down quicker or accept it got away.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

Take its engines down quicker or accept it got away.

And then you will see players complaining that pirates shoot first and ask questions later...

When this happen, I do have the feeling it is an exploit: the target tries to avoid the interdiction and, when he realizes he is going to loose, submits and goes away. Eventually the same situation repeats just after that over and over...if the target does not log off while back in supercruise.

 

[ocflyer]

One of the most discussed exploit is combat logging and I know there is already a thread dedicated to the same.

But another exploit, pretty common and well know is to submit to a FrameShiftDrive interdiction: the player being interdicted throttle down, dropping with the other player interdicting, no hull damage and very short FSD cooldown. I could understand that this initially was implemented to allow some players to drop at the same place, or to shorten an interdiction triggered by an authority vessel.

However A LOT of players use it as an exploit to escape while being interdicted: submit, 4 pips to engine, 2 to shield, bootst continuously until FSD cooldown is over, then jump/scape. It becomes very frustrating to attempt interdicting.

This could be avoiding by allowing to submit only if both players have throttled down. This way:
- If one of the player do want to drop without damage for any reason and the other player is OK with they, they can. I could see a message on the top right of the other player HUD saying "Target submitted to interdiction, throttle down now to accept".
- If you feel that the other player may do this as an exploit, you do not throttle down and keep trying to interdict him.
- If you get interdicted by an authority vessel, or a hostile NPC which you want to fight (or do not want to be bothered with = minor exploit that nobody really cares about), you may still submit since the rule would apply to players only.

Another solution would be to have, after submitting to interdiction, the same FSD cooldown as the one you get after a successful interdiction. While I would be personally OK with that, it seems that a lot of players are not.

Submitting to interdiction was OK with Han...

Obiwan: "That's no moon, that's a space station."
Leia: "I got a bad feeling about this."
Han: "Yeah, maybe you're right. I'm turning us around."
<Millenium Falcan shakes and shutters>
Luke: "How come we still heading toward it?"
Han: "We're caught in its tractor beam. It's pulling us in."
Obiwan: "Cut your engines. There's another way."

See. Obiwan had the right idea. I stick with my definition: If the developers intended for a graceful exit from hyperspace, then it is intended gameplay, not an exploit. As FuzzySpider said, target the drive if you want to complete the job of interdiction. Don't do a half-a## job of interdiction and expect your victims to fall at your feet, so to speak.

 

[deathmagnet]

I don't think that's an exploit. The ship is simply fleeing from you. Take its engines down quicker or accept it got away.

I agree. I do not think this is an exploit. There are many skilled and wealthy pirates out there. You don't need (edit) to have the devs make it harder to escape, you need to make it harder to escape.

 

[Red Zodiac]

The OP wants help with interdiction? Why not improve his interdiction skills?

 

[Broken_Wolf]

submitting and running away is no exploit, just an alternative to fighting. if they changed it to make it harder to escape then players with bigger ships could pull smaller, and then their only option being to self destruct or combat log to avoid the enviable.

 

[Ben Ryder]

I don't think that's an exploit. The ship is simply fleeing from you. Take its engines down quicker or accept it got away.

Agree with Bella the fella

 

[DocLooshkin]

My preferred pattern of play is a random mix of courier and fetch missions, Nav Beacon bountying and trade. I'm in a moderately-specified Cobra. My combat skills against real players are best described as lumpen, if not actually comical. If I go up against a dedicated pirate or PKer in open, I'm likely to see - at most - thirty seconds of combat, after which I find I no longer require a ship to fly through space, often in many new and interesting directions at once.

Failing the somewhat random interdiction mini-game causes my ship damage, which costs me time and money, so I much prefer to avoid it. Running away ASAP after interdiction carries a far lesser chance of losing money.

If this bothers you, consider: the lion hunts the zebra. If the lion manages to sneak up behind the zebra, he doesn't pop up and say 'hello, I'm a lion' and the zebra doesn't say 'oh, gosh, you sneaked up on me, I must now stand still and wait to be eaten'. The lion attacks and brings down the zebra. Or the zebra dodges and runs for it's life.

That's the way it is. That's the way it's supposed to be. Why should it be different here?

What the devs think of this is best answered by them - althought the fact that at least one of them has described this as an exploit in another thread is telling. Personally, I've given up trying to guess what goes on in FD's strange and unspeakable collective mindset. If they do 'fix' this 'exploit', by whatever means, you may want to ask yourself what the consequences will be.

The last remaining option for weaker ships is to drop out of open and play solo mode, which is what I'm doing to avoid the station rammers. Will piracy be better for you if the only ships left in open are all either beginners with nothing to steal or heavy combat builds?

If FD goes further and solo is somehow nerfed to force players like me into open, do you imagine that I will be a good little commander and do as I'm told?

I will shoot you. I will ram you. I will do everything I can to try and cost you money until my ship is a cloud of debris. And then I'll respawn - and most likely throw together a combat build and come looking for you ASAP. Perhaps I'll be in my Cobra, or perhaps I'll have enough money by then to have built something truly dangerous, just for revenge. Either way, when it comes to the idea of me voluntarily giving up the fruit of my time and patience, of all my hard work, you'll get nothing and like it.

Do you imagine I'm the only player who thinks this way? How long do you think it will be before we organise, if we're forced to it? If there are enough guns pointed at you, whatever skill and money you possess will be vastly less of a deciding factor. Will you enjoy being hunted and obliterated on a daily basis?

Does it sound like fun, Geoffrey?

 

[Distance]

The cooldown was removed to allow players to get back to sc faster after a police interdiction but the devs haven't gotten round to adding the cooldown after submitting back in to normal interdictions.

I don't have the quote from Sandro but most people consider it an exploit if you pvp at all. It's the main reason why pirates will open fire if players don't cut engines and when combined with jumping to another system to negate the masslock it makes it pretty much impossible to die to an interdiction.

 

[Mister5150]

Your by yourself in open and a wing decides to interdict you what are your options?

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Yeah... I was mulling over that, and how it interacts with the "disruption-free hyperspace jump" mechanic:

Starjump (hyperspace FSD) - fixed (and very short) charge time - ideal?

In my book, both mechanics need refining. The single-digit-second cooldown for submitting, and the hyperspace starjump thing.

 

[ocflyer]

And then you will see players complaining that pirates shoot first and ask questions later...

When this happen, I do have the feeling it is an exploit: the target tries to avoid the interdiction and, when he realizes he is going to loose, submits and goes away. Eventually the same situation repeats just after that over and over...if the target does not log off while back in supercruise.

By your argument, the only way for a trader to fight against piracy is to win the little interdiction game. For if he loses, he must give up cargo and/or be destroyed according to your view of how the game should be played. That's not a fight, that's capitulation to the whims of every pirate and griefer. If you want to pirate some cargo, then you're gonna have to catch me first (said the Ginger Bread Man).

 

[RadimentriX]

One of the most discussed exploit is combat logging and I know there is already a thread dedicated to the same.

But another exploit, pretty common and well know is to submit to a FrameShiftDrive interdiction: the player being interdicted throttle down, dropping with the other player interdicting, no hull damage and very short FSD cooldown. I could understand that this initially was implemented to allow some players to drop at the same place, or to shorten an interdiction triggered by an authority vessel.

However A LOT of players use it as an exploit to escape while being interdicted: submit, 4 pips to engine, 2 to shield, bootst continuously until FSD cooldown is over, then jump/scape. It becomes very frustrating to attempt interdicting.

that's what you get for being a worthless pirate. deal with it

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

Does it sound like fun, Geoffrey?

Wow, so much hate or explosive reactions on this forum...
1) I have never mentioned that I interdict players to kill them for fun. I'm actually always polite and try to make them understand that piracy is what makes trading fun. And if they don't, I suggest them to go Mobius (a private group where PvP fights is basically forbidden).
2) Frontier is working (see topic "Crime Update") on making bounties for players higher and non wipe-able unless some days have passed without any crime or being scanned by authorities. This should discourage psychos to commit free crimes, unless they want all local bounty hunters to go after them.
3) Sure, keep encouraging pirates to shoot your drives straight away (via railguns from my side), then blame them you get destroyed. Anyway I get it now and will send a macro, before each interdiction, explaining that I will go for the drives if they submit or attempt to escape. It may help, who knows.

 

[Distance]

Yeah... I was mulling over that, and how it interacts with the "disruption-free hyperspace jump" mechanic:

Starjump (hyperspace FSD) - fixed (and very short) charge time - ideal?

In my book, both mechanics need refining. The single-digit-second cooldown for submitting, and the hyperspace starjump thing.

Totally agree +1

By your argument, the only way for a trader to fight against piracy is to win the little interdiction game. For if he loses, he must give up cargo and/or be destroyed according to your view of how the game should be played. That's not a fight, that's capitulation to the whims of every pirate and griefer. You to pirate some cargo, then you're gonna have to catch me first (said the Ginger Bread Man).

Right now traders fly with minimal everything and no weapons as you can pretty much escape anything in open. I know because I'm a trader in open.

It should be up to the trader to fit the myriad of modules and defensive measures available to be able to hang in there after an interdiction and be able to survive until their fsd has cooled down correctly. Right now there are even traders in open running without shields as the mass lock negation and quick cooldown mechanics mean it's rare to get killed.

To balance the changes out I think they will need to increase jump distances for certain drives as kitting out say a T9 with bigger shields etc means the already abysmal jump range will become even smaller but this also applies to other trade ships.

If you add this in to piracy mechanics it's not just the traders that get away scott free it's pirates too. It's pointless to try and hunt down and fight a big bounty pirate (or murderer!) who knows what they're doing as they'll make use of the same "exploits". The whole interdiction mechanic suffers as well as all the profession balances.

These are also the main reason why players interdict and shoot on sight as if there's any chance to stop a fleeing ship then there's no time to type to your "victim". People can say "oh have pre-typed responses to paste in to chat". A lot of good pirates do but since there's no in game mechanic to have preset messages it's a null point. Using out of game methods to get around a broken game mechanic isn't really a valid option.

Some people talk of a new module to stop fsd charging. I see there's no need for this if they fix the current mechanics.

Masslock should also be looked at in regards to multiple ships. They should add up the mass of all ships to decide the mass lock rather than only ship A can masslock ship B etc but that's another discussion entirely.

I really hope this thread doesn't get consigned to the interdiction thread cess pool.

 

[faluc]

The problem is not the short cooldown after submitting.
The problem is that the trader can hyperspace jump regardless of masslock.

 

[DocLooshkin]

Wow, so much hate or explosive reactions on this forum

Your play consists of parasitising someone else's hard work and, presumably, sometimes damaging or destroying their ships. Did you expect applause?

I'm actually always polite and try to make them understand that piracy is what makes trading fun

Trading is tedious. It is the work needed to obtain reasonable amounts of in-game currency. That is all. Your thieving is not an improvement.

Frontier is working (see topic "Crime Update") on making bounties for players higher and non wipe-able [...] This should discourage psychos to commit free crimes

Nothing in the history of the internet has ever discouraged a troll from doing anything. I doubt that these very minor tweaks will do so.

Sure, keep encouraging pirates to shoot your drives straight away (via railguns from my side) [...]

Are your railguns meant to be intimidating? Good luck with that!

[...] then blame them you get destroyed

If you interdict and fire on someone without provocation, you are 100% responsible for the consequences. Just as I am responsible if I then choose to blow tens of millions of credits on cramming as many revenge ships as I can afford straight down your throat.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The cooldown was removed to allow players to get back to sc faster after a police interdiction but the devs haven't gotten round to adding the cooldown after submitting back in to normal interdictions.

That Frontier have not changed the FSD cooldown time after submission is interesting - presumably, it would be a single value change from e.g. 10 seconds to 40 seconds - it suggests, in my opinion, that they have considered the consequences of such a change and left it for the moment.

If every interdiction, successful or submitted, were to have a 40 second FSD cooldown for the target, those who simply interdict and destroy the target regardless would get four times the time window to complete their deed.

It may be that they are waiting until after changes are made to the bounty system to make penalties for destroying clean ships more meaningful before they increase the FSD cooldown on submission to interdiction.

As to the hyper-drive escape route - scan and follow.

 

[Distance]

That Frontier have not changed the FSD cooldown time after submission is interesting - presumably, it would be a single value change from e.g. 10 seconds to 40 seconds - it suggests, in my opinion, that they have considered the consequences of such a change and left it for the moment.

If every interdiction, successful or submitted, were to have a 40 second FSD cooldown for the target, those who simply interdict and destroy the target regardless would get four times the time window to complete their deed.

It may be that they are waiting until after changes are made to the bounty system to make penalties for destroying clean ships more meaningful before they increase the FSD cooldown on submission to interdiction.

As to the hyper-drive escape route - scan and follow.

Hit the nail on the head as usual.

I think it's a mix of the "fix" not being as simple as changing a value as they still need to keep the zero cooldown for police interdictions and the crime and punishment system being totally ineffectual.

As for the "scan and follow" suggestion. It sounds great on paper but in practice it's a different story.

By the time you've scanned and jumped the target only has to arrive in the next system then drop to normal space and there's no way to catch them. If they don't drop to normal space and jump to another system the scanners don't work in sc and due to instancing sometimes it won't even show their 2nd jump wake when you enter the system. Mixed with the lack of cooldown for masslock it still gives a free pass and players would start doing that instead.

It would lead back to the original problem and traders would continue to fit ships with the bare minimum load outs with very little consequences.