Too dangerous

[FuelX]

Hi,

Here's a short galactic trader's story;

I was going for Persephone carrying some basic medicine to help the locals there in my clipper. I was interdicted 7 times in a row by a bunch of killers. When they finally won once the 3 of them jumped on me and killed me without a word while I was unable to hyper drive.

I know I'm not the fist to talk about this and I wont be the last. I had similar encounters before, but never this violent or with so much tenacity. I don't really care about it, I'll make these credits back quickly enough. I just think it's dumb and maybe a little sadistic. But I wanted to write about it, because it will definitely affect the way I play.

I mean, there's not much gain from multi-play except some rare cool docking encounters. So without any benefit from it, there is no way I'll play in multiplayer again. If those kids had fun from it, great for them. If they feel proud about making people leave the multiplayer, congratulations. However, if they wanted to enrage me they failed. They just convinced me I don't need the multiplayer to enjoy exploring this marvelous universe.

I'll definitely keep playing this great game, but a small part of it is over for me.

Have a nice day, except if you're a PK

 

[Darrett]

This is one of the reasons I think bounties need to be added onto the insurance costs of people who murder others.

 

[SirAdelaide]

Adding current bounties to insurance, only wiping if resting to a sidey would be a sensible start. But it would also help if system security had some teeth. If sys sec gets killed, the military should step in with overwhelming force.

 

[Pendra]

Hm, why not just play hide and seek with them. Dropping out of FSD and all. Evading, etc.

 

[Loskene]

Adding current bounties to insurance, only wiping if resting to a sidey would be a sensible start. But it would also help if system security had some teeth. If sys sec gets killed, the military should step in with overwhelming force.

The point of the military is that it doesn't operate on home soil. That's what the police is for.

OP, you were in a clipper and you actually got caught and killed? What was chasing you?
Did you try any of the usual escape attempts at any point between the 7 interdiction attempts, like dropping to impulse and hyperjumping, flying straight at them, looping around the star, crashing into planetary rings and jumping out the other side. Anything?

 

[Malfahri]

Well I was in Persephone with my wing and we interdicted a Clipper multiple times. I always dropped this message upon first interdiction:

Do Not Run!!! Please stop your engines and prepare to be scanned. If you run you will be fired upon.

Programmable key board ftw.
Now if someone runs every time, we stop being nice and destroy the ship. We de-cargoed and released numerous ships without incident tonight.

 

[vizvayu]

Hm, why not just play hide and seek with them. Dropping out of FSD and all. Evading, etc.

Persephone is a medium security system allied with the Empire. They should be the ones playing hide and seek with the system security services... not the other way around.
Game mechanics are realy F UP right now. I hope the 1.3 upgrade will make a difference.

 

[Pendra]

No, it won't. AI sec forces mean nothing against anyone. No changes to this in 1.3.

Anyway, I run around the Wolf 406 CG. Man those instances were packed with angry FDLs and Vultures. You must be certified crazy to fly there in a trader tincan in open.

 

[FuelX]

I see lot of great ideas! I guess better and more aggressive security would be an efficient way to prevent some player killing. I will keep hoping for an incentive to multiplayer for traders and explorers. However, I guess a more punitive approach makes sense and would be realistic.

 

[Pendra]

Upping the bounty will just fuel the bounty exploit. I work up my bounty then allow myself to be killed for some sweet cash.

 

[vizvayu]

I see lot of great ideas! I guess better and more aggressive security would be an efficient way to prevent some player killing. I will keep hoping for an incitative to multiplayer for traders and explorers. However, I guess a more punitive approach makes sense and would be realistic.

More aggresive security is definitely needed. But it won't be enough if the security ships are mostly Vipers and Cmdr. ships are FDLs, Pythons and Anacondas. We also need money sinks: We need repairs to cost a lot more than they do now. We need a better thought insurance system that makes loosing ships often more expensive. We should have to pay for the insurance, and it shouldn't cover 95% of the ship always for ever, that's nonsense. We need reasons to start using smaller/cheaper ships, with lower rated modules, so a few Vipers from system security will finally be effective.

 

[TaoZero5]

Well I was in Persephone with my wing and we interdicted a Clipper multiple times. I always dropped this message upon first interdiction:

Programmable key board ftw.
Now if someone runs every time, we stop being nice and destroy the ship. We de-cargoed and released numerous ships without incident tonight.

Why not learn to do it better?
If they run, take out their drives. Take out their shields and weapons. Then take out their cargo.
You'll get more cargo that way - and the target gets to limp home (maybe) with an exciting tale to tell.

 

[FuelX]

Well I was in Persephone with my wing and we interdicted a Clipper multiple times. I always dropped this message upon first interdiction:
Now if someone runs every time, we stop being nice and destroy the ship. We de-cargoed and released numerous ships without incident tonight.

Well I don't know if you were one of them, but I didn't receive any message. I don't mind, I would not have given my cargo anyway. I think piracy is quite dumb as pirates have so little leverage: It is easy to make profit and my life is not threatened for real. But I don't mind it.

PKs, whatever they want to achieve, are just making the multiplayer less attractive for some other players.

 

[FuelX]

If they run, take out their drives. Take out their shields and weapons. Then take out their cargo.

True, that would definitely make me give up my cargo!

But still, I'm mostly a trader. So, without incitative (maybe there will be next update?), I'll just hit "Solo" the next time I play...

 

[rightsideupsidedown]

I do emergency drop sometimes if I think something fishy is going on in a system it's just not worth losing 60 tons of rares. I see your point that you were trying to influence a specific system. You could always emergency drop a couple times on the way to the station and you might make it there anyway. They don't gain any credit reward for doing that and they can lose rep with factions also. To my knowledge there is no faction in game yet that awards a reputation bonus for that sort of behavior. There may be factions one day though that do and there may also be a rep faction for bounty hunting also.

I posted in a thread about addressing piracy possibly with a patch and it would be a cool idea to add a faction with an unlockable reward in the form of a special ship/add on specifically designed with a slight advantage to pirating, bounty hunting and what you just described as pking. They are probably bored and waiting for power play to be dropped. For the first time in almost a year of playing Elite, in game time will actually influence Elite universe. This is why I think a patch for Pirating/Trading that integrates with Power Play should be in the works. Traders and Pirates should feel like they have an influence on Power Play as much as players that only want to fly combat in a system teetering between Federation, Alliance, Independent or Empire control. I'm not entirely sure how Power Play will work after reading about it. There are already a lot of groups on the forums that have chosen both a faction and home system and began blockading/trading to make preparations for Power Play.

Adding more meaningful progression will reduce that type of interaction.

More aggressive security is definitely needed. But it won't be enough if the security ships are mostly Vipers and Cmdr. ships are FDLs, Pythons and Anacondas. We also need money sinks: We need repairs to cost a lot more than they do now. We need a better thought insurance system that makes loosing ships often more expensive. We should have to pay for the insurance, and it shouldn't cover 95% of the ship always for ever, that's nonsense. We need reasons to start using smaller/cheaper ships, with lower rated modules, so a few Vipers from system security will finally be effective.

I agree. I see a lot of players flying Python, Anaconda, FDL as their regular ships and I kind of imagine with all these lower tier ships being introduced that the balance to this would be the fact that a larger ship is a risk. The point of taking your larger expensive ship out of docking is to have an impact on a specific system or Power Play (whether it be combat or trading) not for regular cruising/trading. I'm not saying we shouldn't be able to joy ride our 100 million credit ships but is there a reasonable expense/risk associated with it's usage? When fuel costs were reduced I was astonished because there's already so many semi-exploitable ways of making exceptionally large amounts of credits. It hurts the remaining depth of the controls/modules/choices to make things too arcadish and casual.

 

[Morbad]

But still, I'm mostly a trader. So, without incitative (maybe there will be next update?), I'll just hit "Solo" the next time I play...

Beating these people is all the incentive I need to trade in Open.

Design a ship around the worst threat you a plausibly going to face. I built my blockade runner Clipper to survive twelve C2 railgun hits every two seconds for twenty seconds (more time than needed for cooldown + hyperspace jump charge).

Been interdicted quite a few times in this ship, and I've never seen it's shields fail. I always submit, and by the time they have the instance loaded, I'm boosting directly away from them, or straight past them (forcing them to turn and reverse direction) at 440m/s.

 

[lonewarrior]

Well I was in Persephone with my wing and we interdicted a Clipper multiple times. I always dropped this message upon first interdiction:

Programmable key board ftw.
Now if someone runs every time, we stop being nice and destroy the ship. We de-cargoed and released numerous ships without incident tonight.

If a wing Interdicts you and tells you to cut your engines it's far more likely they just want a free shot at you while your not moving
-
You don't need to be standing still to be scanned, just not engaging the FSD

 

[rightsideupsidedown]

This makes me think of some possible addons like stealth FSD charge internal component from a trade faction that removes the verbal/non verbal notification when you charge your FSD. From a pirate faction, a limpet that delays or disables FSD charge for a limited amount of time.

 

[Mercy Killing]

Evading, etc.

Technically, that's what the OP is doing. Evading them by choosing solo mode. It's a permanent evasion.

 

[Troa Barton]

Upping the bounty will just fuel the bounty exploit. I work up my bounty then allow myself to be killed for some sweet cash.

The bounty exploit is a problem that needs to be addressed. The issue really lies in the fact that if you die with a bounty on your head you only pay what you're wanted for in the system you spawn in. They made this worse after capping the bounties. If they just made it to where if you got cashed in on you HAD to pay your entire bounty this would be a non issue and then they could increase bounties.
Sure people could still use this to transfer credits but because you have to pay more than your bounty to have them wiped it would essentially be a credit sink to do it. It would then be more beneficial to a player or a farmer to transfer cargo instead.. But if they do that at least they're playing the game to amass the capitol to do it.