I feel like I'm being punished - Insurance game mechanic flaws

[CYB34]

Lost a 90 mil Python and I didnt have insurance CR.
Exploded right in front of the station with the canopy breached and 0:00 on life support.

I almost made it from the warzone. So close.

Anyway, I loved it. The game slaps you in the face for not paying attention or ignoring rule number 1.

 

[Dandare71]

The game does punish a lot, puts you off playing.

 

[KillingTime]

The game does punish a lot, puts you off playing.

I'd say its more like it gives you the rope but it's up to you if you hang yourself or not!

 

[Rashhaverak]

I can agree with the suggestion that a pilot should be able to liquidate existing assets to pay insurance costs; however, the idea that you could fly without insurance and "pay it back later" after you earn enough is a non-starter for me.

No one would bother being concerned with insurance costs if you didn't have to pay it up front. The idea that once you buy a ship, any rebuys become permanently discounted at 95% is not a good one. It would eliminate risk from the game.

 

[Matnik]

Wait...the only way to make money in this game is trading?

I disagree. I can make it rain green as a bounty hunter/smuggler at extraction sites. Wait for the cops to get involved, take a few pot-shots at the criminals when they've got heat on them, wait for them to drop all their cargo, then just scoop it on up. As soon as you're getting scanned, boost away. Yes, you've still got to get that booty into a station, but it's far more exciting than playing Spacexcel

 

[SCADVID]

Wait...the only way to make money in this game is trading?

I disagree. I can make it rain green as a bounty hunter/smuggler at extraction sites.

When? Last time I checked extraction sites in some systems, the place was devoid of anything. Did meet a fed cop, but that was it. Even ventured into the nav beacon instances. Sometimes there might be some boogeys to hunt, but none of those options made me more than exploration itself. If it wasn't a waste of time to explore without the ADS I'd be doing that for the credits (it beats these boring trade routes).

 

[PhazonAran]

When? Last time I checked extraction sites in some systems, the place was devoid of anything. Did meet a fed cop, but that was it. Even ventured into the nav beacon instances. Sometimes there might be some boogeys to hunt, but none of those options made me more than exploration itself. If it wasn't a waste of time to explore without the ADS I'd be doing that for the credits (it beats these boring trade routes).

Do you know that community goal at HR 706 ? Over the weekend, I made about 20 000 000 cr of bounties in the only RES of the system. And this is only the amount that counted towards the CG.

 

[Harbinger]

Wait...the only way to make money in this game is trading?

The original post is 3 months old, a lot has changed in the balancing of other careers since then. Trading still wins but it's not as OP as it was compared to other careers.

 

[Matnik]

When? Last time I checked extraction sites in some systems, the place was devoid of anything. Did meet a fed cop, but that was it. Even ventured into the nav beacon instances. Sometimes there might be some boogeys to hunt, but none of those options made me more than exploration itself. If it wasn't a waste of time to explore without the ADS I'd be doing that for the credits (it beats these boring trade routes).

Pure luck, most likely. I've found some sites, on the doorstep of a station, which at one point was just spitting high bounty pythons and condas into a row of four fed cops, and they were dropping all kinds of cargo before death. I've also been to extraction sites and nav beacons where there's just nothing happening, so I give it five minutes and then move on.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

I did that exact same thing, but when I was playing it took me months to get to my ASP. Wiped my save and made a new save, CMDR Ralof. Now I fly a Python

You're goals are wrong, however. You're aiming towards getting the next ship. Slow down, buy a really expensive ship with no upgrades and slowly build it up, be a pirate, have some nice chats with some of the starter-system folk, etc.

You'll love the game when you play it like a hippie. Do it slow

 

[Tall_Toot]

So I bought the game a week ago, I was so excited with it, its pretty awesome.


I don't want to hear stuff like "welcome to elite" or "this is a realistic kind of thing" in no way this is a realistic insurance mechanic.

Ah, so you favour 'realistic' insurance. A bit like car insurance perhaps? Lets take the example of a new driver needing insurance for his first car and apply that to a Sidewinder.

For example - lets take a Sidewinder = 32000 credits. The insurance company will want to make a profit of course, and you want to drive away an armed spaceship without any proof of passing a 'driving' test, for purposes unknown. The statistics for you wrecking said Sidey inside a week are ooohhhh, 95% at a guess - not to mention any claims you may be liable for causing.

I'd be amazed if the first insurance premium was around say, 32,000 up front.................

Or isn't that what you mean by 'realistic' mechanic?

 

[I and I Redeye]

Good suggestions from the OP.
Nice and simple and makes sense.

Except for the "buy my ship back later" bit. It was lost and is an insurance write off.
It still needs to be a stiff penalty flying without insurance.

Maybe we should get little fines for flying without insurance when scanned by security.

 

[Dandare71]

I'd say its more like it gives you the rope but it's up to you if you hang yourself or not!

Not exactly, the game trips you up and punishes you for falling down, that's what rich kids in public schools do.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Not exactly, the game trips you up and punishes you for it, then the devs wonder why people complain so much.

Maybe I missed something, but I haven't seen the devs wondering about it. The reason people complain so much is, IMHO, not because the game 'trips you up'. It is because people in general never take responsibility, and will complain about everything, everywhere, all the time. In this case the OP turbo-boosted an uninsured ship into a gigantic space station. What is unfair is not that he lost his ship, but that he is allowed to get back into a sidewinder/secondary ship without taking mandatory flying lessons first. I'm just glad he didn't boost into somebody else and ruined their day too...

 

[Briarée]

So I bought the game a week ago, I was so excited with it, its pretty awesome.

Like everyone else started with the crappy sidewinder did a few missions, did a bit of mining, did a bit of bounty hunting, a bit of exploring pretty much tried most of the things you can do in this game.

After I got my Viper and did some bounty hunting, I realized the only way to get a new ship (in a reasonable amount of time) is to do trading. So I started trading rares, which made me a good amount of money, I then got my Cobra and did rares trading with it, then got the Type-6 and started looking profitable trading routes for normal merchandise. So I did just that.

Now after 7 days worth of work spending quite a lot of hours in it, playing on a daily basis for about 5 to 8 hours I was finally able to afford an ASP, was so excited, I bought it, but of course this move almost left me broke ( about 150k cr left in my account). So I thought ok to remedy that, I would do some rares trading again, until i was able to buy more cargo space.

Note here that I owned already 2 ships a Viper and a Cobra, but they were stripped out from their outfittings.

Started collecting rares, then as I had my cargo full and was about to exit a stations airlock, I accidentally pressed the boost key... I was stunned and in shock to see my ASP explode into pieces...

As you can imagine, I did not have the cash for claiming back my ship (and the max loan was 200k which wasn't enough) the ship would cost ~390k to reclaim.

So now I lost about 8 million credits, just like that, because of an accident. Which translates to a week's worth of work being a complete waste of my time.

If this is not punishment for the player, then I don't know what is... The insurance mechanic is definitely lacking features.

And here come my issues with insurance/respawn:

- Why when I already had 2 ships docked, I could not sell them to acquire the cash and reclaim my ASP? That SHOULD be possible.
- Why you have only ONE chance to claim your ship and not being able to claim it later on, after you got some credits together? This one chance only mechanic doesn't make much sense...
- And finally why I can't just re-spawn in my already owned ships and have to start ALL OVER again with the sidewinder in the starter system?

I'm SO bummed out right now, I feel punished for having an accident and loosing 8m instead of 380k, because 'reasons'...

I don't want to hear stuff like "welcome to elite" or "this is a realistic kind of thing" in no way this is a realistic insurance mechanic.

I don't even want to continue to play this anymore and I feel like I wasted my money because things like that, can and will happen again. Imagine instead of an ASP it was a Python or an Anaconda that got blown up and there was no cash for the insurance...

I don't think anyone would want to play ever again after something like that...

working as intended, you get punished for your mistakes:

mistake #1: flying what you can't afford to loose (not enought money to cover buy back fee).
mistake #2: piloting error.

Welcome to Elite: DANGEROUS

 

[AveMe]

this is ONLY your fault.
i bought ASP with 13 000 000 + 2 ships ( T6 and cobra ). you need two times more credits than you need to buy empty ship.
if ship cost 50kk - you need 100kk. NEVER fly without insurance for 3 deaths + cargo to your freighter.

 

[EUS]

I think it should be possible, as an option, to liquidate your other assets to cover the insurance, but with a hefty penalty 70% of value instead of 90% (you should have sold your assets prior to losing your uninsured stuff).
Another option would be to "borrow" the money, with a real-time countdown to pay it back, if you exceed the time limit, a galaxy-wide bounty is placed on your head. Bounty of maybe extra 20% of remaining principle (on top of the current bounty premium in place), so that you can pay it off, but it'll cost you.

 

[bullfrog]

recommend rebinding the boost key to a key combination, eg shift + tab so you cannot press it by accident

 

[Rankaze]

Hello Commanders!

Just to drop this in the forum as I leave for the weekend (sorry, I'm mean like that):

We have considered the concept of liqudating assets to pay off insurance premiums. I'd be interesting in hearing arguments for and against this.

This seems reasonable to me. I mean, you HAVE the assets.

Probably shouldn't get full value for them, though... can't sell something at the best price when you gotta sell it now.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Old thread this

Personally I would make the insurance amount you can borrow related to your combat rating. The higher the rating the more you can borrow. That should be a low hanging fruit for FD

Liquidating ships is also a good idea ... however as this was asked 3 months ago I guess FD thought otherwise.

Welcome to Elite: DANGEROUS

mistake #3: Thinking ED is called that due to the risk in the game. It's appropriate sometimes, but not the reason. <shrug>