At this point, I can only pity you.
Ranting for the first time.
- Thread starter Maximillian Forrest
- Start date
Once for the 1st and a max of 3 for the 2nd.
It depends - if the person scratched your car by unloading an AK in a random direction, I'd imagine they'd be doing their upmost to deal with the offender.
So three railgun hits before bounty? You got a deal.
It depends - if the person scratched your car by unloading an AK in a random direction, I'd imagine they'd be doing their upmost to deal with the offender.
If someone's car get scratched where I live and people start coming out with baseball bats!
Well, to be fair, he did say a max of 3...
But your post shows why it cannot really be a simplistic calculation, and is actually calculated on the amount of damage inflicted before you get a bounty for FF, taking into account weapon strength, distance from target and so on.
How many films have you seen where a random car gets hit by weapons fire, how often does everyone else in the movie then stop what they are doing and try to kill the "evil car damaging maniac"? Now imagine the car is protected by magical shields which isolate it totally from weapons fire.
Err... I think that you need to finish making your point here? A film is just that, a film. In real life, anyone shooting up property is liable for the damage, so what are you trying to say here?
Well, to be fair, he did say a max of 3...
But your post shows why it cannot really be a simplistic calculation, and is actually calculated on the amount of damage inflicted before you get a bounty for FF, taking into account weapon strength, distance from target and so on.
You just won the thread. And all the countless others.
Funny so many who thinks FF something that can be "fixed". Any relaxed mechanic will bite anyone in the back once they are under fire.
The problem with any solution (like hitting someon for a low ammount of damage not being a bounty) is that it would be abused in open play (10 people all hit someone for not-enough-to-get-a-bounty but overall enough to kill them). In solo or private play this could work quite well but would anoy people in open because open would be harder. I simply dont agree that damaging someones shields by a low ammount (by them crashing into you or getting hit by splash damage or whatever) should be "omg friendly fire you must die DIE DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It should be "you mess with the bull and your gonna get the horns, want to stay safe then stay at home".
Also when someone attacks you IMO they forfit their right for you not to defend yourself. If a policman tried to kill you in RL you would be allowed to defend yourself. The police should try and capture you not kill you, ask you to give in and if you say no then fight you - if they tried to kill you first then you should be allowed to shoot back because you arrest someone who is wanted you dont just freakin kill them on sight for a parking fine.
Also when someone attacks you IMO they forfit their right for you not to defend yourself. If a policman tried to kill you in RL you would be allowed to defend yourself. The police should try and capture you not kill you, ask you to give in and if you say no then fight you - if they tried to kill you first then you should be allowed to shoot back because you arrest someone who is wanted you dont just freakin kill them on sight for a parking fine.
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How would learning from past experiences help when a ship comes from behind you and then moves into your line of fire or a player who want to steal your kill purposely and continuously moves into your fire? There are many situation that can occur that will leave you with a bounty and a time period before bounty is payable that are outside the normal reaction time of a player. Why should people not complain about a mechanic (mainly the unable to pay off bounty for X amount of time) that was implemented with the intentions of reducing player vs player griefing, etc that has the consequence of being undeservedly harsh to those who make a simple mistake or that can be exploited by griefers to impose harsh penalities on players who prefer to play within the in game legal code? If a newly implemented game mechanic is not having the developer expressed intentioned effect, people should complain about it.
What time has been added? The timer is until you can pay off a bounty, not time until the bounty takes effect. I agree that actions should have consequences but the actions already had a consequence of giving you a bounty which you will have to pay off to avoid being shot at by police. Leaving where you were to go pay off the bounty both gets you away from what you doing and takes time, satisfying your stated need for a cooling off period. How does adding additional time in the form of a need for a timer to expire to be able to pay the bounty add positively to the gameplay experience for minor infractions? All it seems to add is the need to either leave the system (which incurs additional inconvenience) or stop playing for a period of time. If the only time you could incur this effect was due to your lack of trigger discipline and not something moving into your fire before you can stop your fire then this might be more acceptable to a larger number of players. All it would take to discriminate between accidents (that should be a lesser fine/bounty with no timer) and severe carelessness/purposeful attacks (that should be a bounty, possibly with timer) is additional code that looks at how long the the hit ship was in your field of fire, whether the hit ship had moved between you and your selected target, whether you have a selected target and that target is not the hit ship, if you continue attacking the hit ship after 2.5-3 times the average human reaction time, and if the additional hits were caused by projectiles already in flight before the 2.5-3 times average human reaction time, and other mitigating factors. As it stands the currently implemented system can be exploited by players purposely coming into your cone of fire to give you a time period where you can't pay your bounty, which can effectively shut you out of a system for a while. That same player could also then follow you from system to system and continue to do the same exploitation, locking you out of more systems. A mechanic that can be so easily exploited in that way is not a mechanic that will have many players liking it, either after having someone exploit it against them or knowing that it can be thus used against them. Granted FD has increased the amount of damage before a friendly fire offense occurs, but that limit is easily passed by damage done in one trigger instance of multiple weapon fire groups, and additionally only applies if the ship you hit has friendly or allied status with you. The friendly fire damage buffer before incurring a bounty/fine does not apply if the ship you hit is anything other than friendly/allied to you.
You have a lot to say about any solution to the 'friendly fire' problem. Like it or not, the problem is the weapons you are using, are not always hitting the intended targets. If you look a page back in this forum, you will see that I have stated that this is an 'American' problem, (and no not all yanks have this issue, most are very accurate) by this I mean, the 'yanks' have done everything possible to make it politically correct, to justify a major lack of discipline with weapon control. The term Collateral damage was 1st used by the yanks, in Vietnam to excuse 'overkill' (another American word invention) tactics. They have done such a good job, it is now in the public psyche; that is 'OK' or 'just one of those things' or even, 's*it happens', in response to friendly fire instances. The attitude of 'fire and forget' or the 'bigger the weapon the better' have grown up in the American and therefore, western culture, over the last century and the acceptance of the risk friendly fire, has grown along side it.
In this environment, in this game, there is no answer to the 'friendly fire' question, that will make every one happy. However: One should at least reproach ourselves for making such mistakes and not make excuses or try to lay the blame on others. Bigger, greater weapons, require greater control over the use of them, it is our fingers on the trigger and we should all take responsibility for the damage we do with them. Maybe for the trigger happy or reckless amongst us, missiles could be an option, they only hit the targeted ships, I believe. People need to spend less time, complaining about any sanctions imposed due to recklessness, and a little more time, thinking about their own actions and how to avoid such mistakes in the future.
How about just changing the first shot (of any weapon) into a warning and any shots after that a fine. Keep firing and now you get a bounty. Have the warning on a long timer or something (like a minute) so once it passes you can get away with another FF. The delay should be long enough to neutralize the damage to the shield from the FF so people can't use high power 1 shot weapons. Hull damage will not give a warning though, but it should still be just a non kill on sight fine. Only constant neglect and intentional actions should give you a bounty worth dying for.
I'm trying to think how this could be abused but can't think of it. If anyone else can by all means be my guest so I can try and make a better suggestion.
I also think bounties should be connected to the damage you do. A single bullet from a multicanon and a shot from a PA should not both be a 200cr fine. This gives a scaling bounty to bigger ships due to larger health pools as well.
*Further thinking let me realize multicanons would easily blow through the warning since it shoots so many bullets. Maybe a .5-1 second grace period would do the trick on the warning.
I'm trying to think how this could be abused but can't think of it. If anyone else can by all means be my guest so I can try and make a better suggestion.
I also think bounties should be connected to the damage you do. A single bullet from a multicanon and a shot from a PA should not both be a 200cr fine. This gives a scaling bounty to bigger ships due to larger health pools as well.
*Further thinking let me realize multicanons would easily blow through the warning since it shoots so many bullets. Maybe a .5-1 second grace period would do the trick on the warning.
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The bounty persistence for a friendly fire 'accident' is 7 minutes, which is not really much more than it would take to pay it off even were there no timer. Certainly not really enough to spoil the game.
Just so you know, friendly fire is only when you hit a ship that you have not targeted, anything else is straight up assault. Your concerns with players exploiting friendly fire to shut you out of a system are a bit far fetched, as the most likely exploit would be to get you wanted then be able to legitimately attack and destroy you. As you are aware, there is an allowance for accidental hits even against CMDRs, and if you feel someone is exploiting the mechanic, the best thing you can do is block them in game so they don't have the opportunity to continue ruining your gameplay.
Yes, the friendly fire limit is fairly easily passed if you hit a ship with a couple of class 3 beam lasers, so when using those big weapons, you need to be even more careful, and I am not aware that the allowance is only applicable to friendly or allied ships. It's any ship that you have not targeted, or previously scanned to see that it is a (wanted), valid target.
How can this be implemented in Elite Lore which has no concept of CMDRs or NPCs?
What you are proposing is essentially what the FF allowance already does.
There is a threshold of damage that you can inflict on a shielded ship, that if you are below it results in... nothing happening. Obviously, more powerful weapons cross this threshold quicker than less powerful weapons. Unshielded ships do not give you this allowance. Hit the hull and it's a bounty.
Devs have stated all along that assault with weapons will be a bounty not a fine. It's considered serious to shoot ships that you are not aiming at.
I'm mainly saying to just simply remove the damage threshold (I personally have never NOT got a fine for FF no matter what weapons.) and make it a per hit thing. 1st hit is a warning that pops up a message like a fine/bounty. 2nd shot within the time frame before the warning expires is a static fine. Any shots after that in the same time frame are bounties and scale depending on how much damage you do.