I play open exploration, trading and combat except:
1) Combat zone community goals -> Too CMDR heavy, too easy to get killed for a 200cr bounty/missfire or accidental ram
2) Occasionally trading community goals again when it gets CMDR heavy for docking/pirates
3) Where my internet is dodgy
4) When I need that extra security when I'm low on insurance credits and am grinding a safety margin.
5) Avoiding "psychos"
I enjoy open and the interactions, especially seeing a full station and system when playing. Even the ones where I face a 7mil rebuy screen are exhilarating (in hindsight) yet if they occur too often it will put people off playing Open in anything but PVP ships.
Points 1 and 2 are generally the number of players per community goal which may decrease/change after 1.3 so I make no comments on those.
Point 3 I think is very valid for many people and needs to be considered before nerfing solo since rubber banding ruins immersion for all, not just the laggy player.
Point 4 is my personal preference and I'd even take an income hit here since I'm essentially playing high risk vs high reward but lowering my risk.
As for point 5 this is the sticking point that puts me off open on a regular basis. I'd like some way of knowing if the CMDR interdicting me is out for blood and target practice or an honourable pirate out for cargo.
Whilst by no means perfect a player based rating system applied to players by players to show how bloodthirsty they are could work. If I could see this rating as they were interdicting I'd stop and cut engines for a low violence rating and hit boost for a high rating. It would also encourage non-lethal piracy and discourage random killings. I know random killings is part of the game but it also ruins the game for open traders. Out of the 8/9 player interdictions I've had there were 3 that shot without so much of a "Y'harr" on the comms panel with a further one saying he was crazy before blasting away.
Luckily in most cases my Clipper ran away with relative dignity but recently having upgraded to a lumbering Anaconda it made things difficult.
Naming no names I was interdicted, masslocked and killed in short order by a wing. I caught up with one of the CMDR's at a station later and had a chat. What I didn't see at the time due to having no thrusters is that a second wing entered the area and he explained that they needed to "secure the airspace" since this new wing had caused problems earlier.
In this case I'd give a rating of 7/10(ish) when I think that my ship had 0% thruster health and no weapons so there was little need to destroy it, however, they did not instantly kill me and did engage in communications before so it could have ended differently had the new wing not shown up. It did also ruin my entire 7mil (top 5%) profit on the community goal and made me consider switching to solo/private group more often but if im honest I'd miss the interaction.
Not sure how well it would work since player ratings could easily be exploited but something similar to this would be great for peace of mind and stop traders instantly submitting and bolting to supercruise. Maybe make it so that rating will return to 0/10 over time so you can lower your status away from bloodthirsty and turn over a new leaf.
I know crime is due an overhaul in 1.3 and my entire post may be pointless if it fixes the problems but I thought I'd share nonetheless, maybe food for thought..
