No money for insurance -> basically delete your game

[GJ51]

I don't understand these insurance haters...

its always easier to blame everything but yourself...

 

[Valethar]

The mechanic is broken. No real life insurance works like this. In real life insurance the excess is simply taken from the insured price.

The insurance person doesn't turn up at the car crash and say "oh, so you don't have $5,000 in your bank account right now? WELL TOO BAD NO INSURANCE FOR YOU!"

You're missing the point. This isn't real life. Dennis Haysbert isn't going to show up with a Safe Driving Check for you if you don't scrape your hull on the way out of the station, so learn how to play the game the way it was designed instead of crying because you didn't RTFM before you fired up the engines.

 

[dayrth]

Right hand panel, first tab. How much money you have directly above how much your re-buy cost is. In big, glowing numbers. If this is not enough then I don't think anything will be.

 

[FuzzySpider]

The mechanic is broken. No real life insurance works like this. In real life insurance the excess is simply taken from the insured price.

You're right. When I crash my car in the cold vacuum of space, destroying it in a massive explosion of nuclear intensity, I want my entire car back in pristine condition along with my life.

Ohh, and I'm also glad I don't have any no claims bonuses.

If anything the current mechanic is too easy. It should be 5% for your first death, then 10% for your second if it happens within a week, then 20% for your third if that happens within a week (dropping down to 10% again after a week then 5% after the second week) and so on up to 50% of your ships cost.

Make reckless play actually costly.

 

[Insomnia]

Right hand panel, first tab. How much money you have directly above how much your re-buy cost is. In big, glowing numbers. If this is not enough then I don't think anything will be.

Exactly.

 

[Aeropilot]

If this was real life the insurance guy would say: "It seems you've crashed your vehicle 7 times... No insurance for you!". And then you would never have any insurance.

 

[Valethar]

Right hand panel, first tab. How much money you have directly above how much your re-buy cost is. In big, glowing numbers. If this is not enough then I don't think anything will be.

Reading comprehension and basic math skills are hard, apparently.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The mechanic is broken. No real life insurance works like this. In real life insurance the excess is simply taken from the insured price.

The insurance person doesn't turn up at the car crash and say "oh, so you don't have $5,000 in your bank account right now? WELL TOO BAD NO INSURANCE FOR YOU!"

IF you are suggesting a more realistic insurance system where the more you claim the higher the percentage loss is to encourage sensible play I would be all for that. The base cost of the premium itself is covered by the pilots federation though again for persistent abuse I would like them to refuse insurance.

For pilots in the military fighting in combat zones of course I would expect them to cover the costs in that 1 scenario.

with all the above however then I also agree, rather than a like for like, a reduced cash alternative could also be offered for those without the cash for the escess

 

[clinton]

If anything the current mechanic is too easy. It should be 5% for your first death, then 10% for your second if it happens within a week, then 20% for your third if that happens within a week (dropping down to 10% again after a week then 5% after the second week) and so on up to 50% of your ships cost.

Make reckless play actually costly.

Totally agree. This is the way to increase the difficulty, not through a confusing mechanic which has little connection to the intuitive understanding of insurance.

This would punish reckless gameplay, not the occasional mistake. Perhaps an additional 5% for every claim over the last week is appropriate?

In cases where one can't afford the excess, they can still claim but they'll only get the sale price of the ship minus the excess. For example, if you crash your ship four times and want to claim a fifth time, you'll face a 25% excess. If you don't have the cash on hand, they'll sell your ship at 90% and take the 25% excess and you'll be left with 65% of the ship price (a 35% loss), a significant penalty, as well as a 30% excess next time.

The good thing about this is that it won't hurt new players that much, as their insurance costs are quite low anyway as much of their equipment is loaned.

This would make for interesting gameplay decisions. You're quite wealthy but go hunting in a Eagle and get blown up. Do you claim insurance on the Eagle, or take the hit and keep the lower excess incase you crash your Python?

 

[Kyokushin]

Hi,

Even though I'm mildy mad, I'll try to explain the point (I'm sure this is posted every week, at least).
To start from the beginning:
Actually I do like and love hardcore games, I do like games that make me think, that make me want to get better, that have a very steep learning curve.
I don't have a problem with dying, or dying often, or dying every damn time in a damn game, till you learn how to develop yourself.
But what the actual is this? Never did the game explain to me, that if I don't have enough money for my insurance and the 600,000 loan are not enough, my progress of hundreds of hours is gone forever.
Details might bore you, but in 200 hours and 30.000.000 credits later, it was the first time ever I got into this situation. In this ressource point with these many asteroids, I got a lag and my Clipper crashed into the big damn stone.
Instant death.
And now I have to start over with the ing Sidewinder and the bit credits I got left _again_ to grind 200 hours _a_g_a_i_n_?!
Isn't there any better solution for this?
Frontier, don't you got any alternative, instead of basically deleting everything the player has ever achieved?
Couldn't there be a hardcore mode or at least a big damn warning sign at the beginning?

You made a critical mistake. Everybody know the first rule of Elite - do not fly without insurance.

In real life if you hit a tree with the car you are dead. You cannot respawn. You should be happy you can start from fresh here.

Current insurance mechanics is OK. You just need to have cash for rebuy. It is not really hard, however your ships bulild should be wise. Maxed ship is not always a good choice, because of very hight rebuy cost.
Increasing rebuy cost is not good. Players in combat zones dying more often than explorers or traders. They should not be punished like that.

 

[Aeropilot]

Totally agree. This is the way to increase the difficulty, not through a confusing mechanic which has little connection to the intuitive understanding of insurance.

This would punish reckless gameplay, not the occasional mistake. Perhaps an additional 5% for every claim over the last week is appropriate?

In cases where one can't afford the excess, they can still claim but they'll only get the sale price of the ship minus the excess. For example, if you crash your ship four times and want to claim a fifth time, you'll face a 25% excess. If you don't have the cash on hand, they'll sell your ship at 90% and take the 25% excess and you'll be left with 65% of the ship price (a 35% loss), a significant penalty, as well as a 30% excess next time.

The good thing about this is that it won't hurt new players that much, as their insurance costs are quite low anyway as much of their equipment is loaned.

This would make for interesting gameplay decisions. You're quite wealthy but go hunting in a Eagle and get blown up. Do you claim insurance on the Eagle, or take the hit and keep the lower excess incase you crash your Python?

You know what? I actually like this idea.

 

[Ydiss]

Totally agree. This is the way to increase the difficulty, not through a confusing mechanic which has little connection to the intuitive understanding of insurance.

This would punish reckless gameplay, not the occasional mistake. Perhaps an additional 5% for every claim over the last week is appropriate?

In cases where one can't afford the excess, they can still claim but they'll only get the sale price of the ship minus the excess. For example, if you crash your ship four times and want to claim a fifth time, you'll face a 25% excess. If you don't have the cash on hand, they'll sell your ship at 90% and take the 25% excess and you'll be left with 65% of the ship price (a 35% loss), a significant penalty, as well as a 30% excess next time.

The good thing about this is that it won't hurt new players that much, as their insurance costs are quite low anyway as much of their equipment is loaned.

This would make for interesting gameplay decisions. You're quite wealthy but go hunting in a Eagle and get blown up. Do you claim insurance on the Eagle, or take the hit and keep the lower excess incase you crash your Python?

I'm not going to say whether I think it's a good idea or not. But I will say this. If your intent was to make the death penalty less confusing, your solution isn't going to achieve it.

 

[clinton]

I'm not going to say whether I think it's a good idea or not. But I will say this. If your intent was to make the death penalty less confusing, your solution isn't going to achieve it.

My intent is to make the death penalty less surprising.

Elite Dangerous should be dangerous. It should discourage people from being reckless. However it should do so in a way that is reasonable. Increasing the death penalty 20 times because you didn't do your sums right isn't making the game more dangerous, it just annoys people.

A 5% increase insurance for each death in the last week would do more to make the game more dangerous than a silly "you lose 100% even though you've got plenty of equity in the ship to cover the excess". Players will see the insurance going up, they'll have time to make better decisions.

At the moment, you can crash cheap ships just for fun. The 100% death without insurance penalty isn't making the game dangerous, it's just making it infuriating for some people who forget about it (it hasn't happened to me).

A progressive increase in insurance is the way to go, and a forced ship sale for players who can't afford the excess in cash (with the cash taken out of the excess) is a fair way to deal with those who don't fly with spare cash.

By the way, I'd personally increase the sale penalty from 10% to 20%, and apply it also to the outfitting section. It shouldn't be free just to swap around modules. If you overinvest and run out of cash and have to sell there should be some loss.

With a 20% sale penalty someone who crashes a ship without insurance excess covered effectively loses 25%. That's 5 times more than with the excess. I think that's a reasonable penalty without inducing rage quits.

 

[_Flin_]

The OP raises a legitimate point.
For a mechanic that is as important as this one, it should be made clear what it means.
There were proposals for a big "WARNING, YOU ARE FLYING WITHOUT INSURANCE" message on liftoff. Never got implemented, though.

I mean I get this whenever I try to land without landing gear, but can't get it when I am at risk to lose my whole progress?

This is the minimum of information that should be there, and as it is right now it is very very newbie unfriendly.

 

[SteveLaw]

Increasing the death penalty 20 times because you didn't do your sums right isn't making the game more dangerous, it just annoys people.

When does the death penalty increase? It's always 5% of the value of your ship including equipment.

 

[Ydiss]

When does the death penalty increase? It's always 5% of the value of your ship including equipment.

Just for accuracy, isn't it 10% for the hull and 5% for modules? Beta/backer discounts notwithstanding.

(you're right though, it's a set value. But I think he meant the loss of the whole ship because someone couldn't do sums like total balance - rebuy )

 

[Yokoshima]

Hi,

Even though I'm mildy mad, I'll try to explain the point (I'm sure this is posted every week, at least).
To start from the beginning:
Actually I do like and love hardcore games, I do like games that make me think, that make me want to get better, that have a very steep learning curve.
I don't have a problem with dying, or dying often, or dying every damn time in a damn game, till you learn how to develop yourself.
But what the actual is this? Never did the game explain to me, that if I don't have enough money for my insurance and the 600,000 loan are not enough, my progress of hundreds of hours is gone forever.
Details might bore you, but in 200 hours and 30.000.000 credits later, it was the first time ever I got into this situation. In this ressource point with these many asteroids, I got a lag and my Clipper crashed into the big damn stone.
Instant death.
And now I have to start over with the ing Sidewinder and the bit credits I got left _again_ to grind 200 hours _a_g_a_i_n_?!
Isn't there any better solution for this?
Frontier, don't you got any alternative, instead of basically deleting everything the player has ever achieved?
Couldn't there be a hardcore mode or at least a big damn warning sign at the beginning?

Yeah. Don't fly without insurance. And it won't be 200 hours. Get with a friend and RES farm for 3-4hrs. Get a fully kitted out cobra. RES farm for ~2m/hr for 15 hours or trade. One good weekend and you will be back. And it's not as if you lost your rank.

 

[tdshooter]

tough its kinda obvious what happens if you cant pay insurance.... thats your own fault for not realizing but FD might give you compensation if it was a lagg issue ive had a similar thing happen to my fer de lance just randomly blew up i guess my client and the server didnt agree on where i was and the server said asteroid or something but i contacted FD and got compensation so maybe try that?

 

[Krieger]

Not to mention in the game manual (both physical and online, with links on the launcher!) tells you about insurance (pg 111 as seen in the table of contents)

Nevertheless I think I would be better to make insurance the first paragraph in the manual instead of one of the last.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Perhaps we can come at this a different way.

Instead of players managing to not lose everything flying without insurance, and have it all catch up to them later (with bells on, in an expensive ship)...

...FD could have the station or outpost just shoot you down every single time you launch without insurance.


No ambiguity, no "risk", 100% guaranteed loss. Do that a few times in a hauler or an Eagle, and there won't be any Anacondas or Clippers lost after 400 hours of play.