How to defeat a commander that tries to scan your ship while you're in the station

[Tuub t Tute]

The first problem is, that scanning another ship for whatever reasons suddently is called anti-social behaviour. That is the same nonsense than ramming is anti-social behaviour, or mind you even shooting at other ships. This are all game mechanics put into the game to be used. It is a sandbox and you can all the time use all this mechanics how you like, nothing wrong with it.

Funny it is only anti-social behaviour if players do these things, the NPCs are not accused for doing the same. Yeah, well
at least they won't scan you inside the hanger, but hey, that could be changed, problem solved [yesnod]

Players have already noted occasional "insta-scans" from NPC, so there are enough issues already in that kettle of fish. If the game can offer you a mission that can be failed before you even leave the station, then that is a faulty mission design. It is more like a fruit machine than a game of skill.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Just stay in solo.

Surely that would be a precursor to this whole thing folding into the OvGvS megathread? "I cannot scan fail players in Solo or Group, all modes aren't equal, this isn't FAIRRRRRRRRRRRRR", etc?

 

[sewerratuk]

I hate Robigo missions with a vengeance, but being able to scan a ship inside the hangar is just stupid. Fish for smugglers, yes, wait for them to pop-out their heads from the hangar, yes, wait for them at around the corner at the nearest star, yes, blockade the system, yes, fire first, yes... Find the station and scan fish in a barrel, NO!

Someone please start a bug report on this - I think this should be considered as such. In the same manner you cannot shoot a ship in the hangar, the ship should not be susceptible to a scan either.

This for sure +1
At least make it a fighting chance

 

[Altair8800]

Yeah, but then they cant mode switch to maximise profits

This is not correct. Doesn't take much to figure out, that switching between solo and several private groups and avoiding open completely works even better, because the implementation fighting BB updates with mode switches is broken, of course. All these things need a major overhaul because it is completely out of whack.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

If the mission overhaul in 2.1 is anything close to what is proposed / imagined then mission totals will be limited by faction strength.

Even at ally with multiple minor factions I would hope there would be a limit where your npc contact thinks "hang on, we are putting a lot of eggs in one basket here" and refuses to offer you more missions until you complete some you are holding?

 

[Altair8800]

Players have already noted occasional "insta-scans" from NPC, so there are enough issues already in that kettle of fish. If the game can offer you a mission that can be failed before you even leave the station, then that is a faulty mission design. It is more like a fruit machine than a game of skill.

Yes, but that is not intentional I think. This looks like a problem in the networking code, where client and server are out of sync, and your client misses some game time and just receives the data that your ship was scanned.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

If the mission overhaul in 2.1 is anything close to what is proposed / imagined then mission totals will be limited by faction strength.

Even at ally with multiple minor factions I would hope there would be a limit where your npc contact thinks "hang on, we are putting a lot of eggs in one basket here" and refuses to offer you more missions until you complete some you are holding?

Yep, hopefully this will get done, because all these hacks implemented so far made things much worse.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Why do people switch between solo and open anyway? Wouldn't Solo and PG make a lot more sense?

 

[Goose4291]

Why do people switch between solo and open anyway? Wouldn't Solo and PG make a lot more sense?

It'll be to increase the number of instances they hop between whilst mission stacking.

 

[Lowievisser]

mmmh so now is scanning also ganking in the elite community

interesting....

 

[Ian Skippy]

It'll be to increase the number of instances they hop between whilst mission stacking.

But what does it do? Switching between solo and pg already gives a new bb every time...

 

[Altair8800]

It'll be to increase the number of instances they hop between whilst mission stacking.

Not needed at all. Switch solo -> group 1 -> solo -> group 2, rinse and repeat.

 

[Mephane]

Let's just call out the elephant in the room:

Only cargo scans performed by actual police NPCs should produce a fine and a mission failure. That cargo scans from players (btw: what about pirate NPCs, do they also trigger mission failure when they cargo scan you?) also have this effect was a mistake in the first place.

 

[xondk]

There are quite a few cmdr's that are anti slavery, Robigo seems like the perfect place to target slave runners in Open. Not saying that is what happened with the Op, most of the anti slave runner cmdr's seem to target Anaconda's and Lakon's on the popular imperial slave routes.

Robigo is a hive of criminal activity, gloves are off when flying out there in Open.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - -
The Cartel lost control of the system a while ago, it is still Anarchy tho, despite being Empire controlled

Yeah, that seems a bit silly, then, but yes, clearly if its an empire system that doesn't support that smuggling then they aren't technically in the wrong, so I would maybe lean towards saying it sounds like a bug.

I see. Playing the game the way it was meant to be played and scanning others cmdrs you suspect of being scumbag smugglers is griefing, but logging in and out to avoid the consequences of your actions is perfectly legit gameplay. Makes sense.

No one said that, as for gameplay, scanning others to reveal their illegal action is fully legit game play, logging in out and such is not gameplay, it is entering and leaving the game and as such something not allowed to be used per frontier to avoid gameplay. That it doesn't make sense that it can happen, that they are scanned while docked and at 'at' the location giving the smuggling, is another thing and really a bug, because if anything you'd think the system forces against slavery and smuggling would do something about the place that actually does the smuggling missions, rather then just the individual smugglers, you know, attack the source, but this does not happen, so yeah, a detail not thought off most likely.

I asked my son, who's a gaming guru like only a 12 1/2 yr old can be, what his thoughts were..
He carefully mulled it over for about .00001 of a second before answering ;
" If he didn't enter a hackers cheat code , and its possible IN the game, then it's not even an issue"
.
Buckle up ladies and gentleman, there's several whole generations out there who think "griefing" is just a term used by
dinosaurs.

Yes, it is not an illegal action, I believe most agree on that, however it is a jerk thing to do, just like say, opening and closing a loud squeaky fence gate is annoying to your neighbours, if you do it continually, you are fully allowed to do so, but you are kinda a jerk. It is a more moral thing then actual game play, and add that it doesn't make sense mechanic wise, of course the station is aware that the people there are smuggling, but also that npc's can't scan through things (heck we can't scan through asteroids us players either for simple sensor contact) but that we for some reason _can_ scan people that are inside a dock, makes it a bit abusive, it is at best a bug that should be fixed, people can of course then just scan those that leave the hangar, yes, and should be able to. But yeah, obvious solution to it, that would actually get something done about slavery, would be getting a faction to take over the station that doesn't support smuggling, problem solved, no more slavery there, instead of just randomly scanning random people, solving ultimately nothing, only thing you do is annoy and prevent a limited few people from doing smuggling.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Yes, it is not an illegal action, I believe most agree on that, however it is a jerk thing to do, just like say, opening and closing a loud squeaky fence gate is annoying to your neighbours, if you do it continually, you are fully allowed to do so, but you are kinda a jerk.

Aren't you forgetting to mention the poor victim is a slaver? Seems relevant if your argument is based on morality...

 

[sewerratuk]

But what does it do? Switching between solo and pg already gives a new bb every time...

I think there real question here is:
Why should anyone else care if people mode switch or not?

 

[Noob]

Let's just call out the elephant in the room:

Only cargo scans performed by actual police NPCs should produce a fine and a mission failure. That cargo scans from players (btw: what about pirate NPCs, do they also trigger mission failure when they cargo scan you?) also have this effect was a mistake in the first place.

This. 100% right.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think there real question here is:
Why should anyone else care if people mode switch or not?

I have an interest in the motivators of other people.
I have time to kill in between test runs, academic discussions help fill that time.
The exploit reveals a flaw in the persistence of the game I am playing.
Mode switching shouldn't be a part of gameplay on principle. (Same issue I have when you get docking denieds and have to log off/on in solo)

But mostly I have time to kill.

 

[Goose4291]

Only cargo scans performed by actual police NPCs should produce a fine and a mission failure. That cargo scans from players (btw: what about pirate NPCs, do they also trigger mission failure when they cargo scan you?) also have this effect was a mistake in the first place.

Beyond achieving your aim of shutting down another channel of player interaction, care to quantify why you think this?

 

[Altair8800]

Let's just call out the elephant in the room:

Only cargo scans performed by actual police NPCs should produce a fine and a mission failure. That cargo scans from players (btw: what about pirate NPCs, do they also trigger mission failure when they cargo scan you?) also have this effect was a mistake in the first place.

The shadow missions say: get scanned and mission will fail, so works as intended. The pirate NPS's, same as most hollywood wannabe player pirates, don't have a cargo scanner. They just demand that you drop cargo without a clue if you have any at all.

 

[Noob]

Beyond achieving your aim of shutting down another channel of player interaction, care to quantify why you think this?

Your view of player interaction is exactly what forces people into Solo. It's pestering, not interaction.

 

[WR3ND]

Aren't you forgetting to mention the poor victim is a slaver? Seems relevant if your argument is based on morality...

Well, we can distinguish between real people playing a game from characters in a game, to be fair.

My main issue here is that I think the whole mode changing thing is counterproductive to legitimate game-play (i.e., a fun, equitable, and rewarding gaming experience). I understand why people do it, to maximize profits. If it wasn't an option, they would just find something else to do. It isn't a game feature, it's an exploit, even if not considered an illegal one (in terms of FD's rules). There should be better options than to switch modes to stack missions in this way so as to not encourage a poor gaming experience. Whether someone considers it manipulative or not, part of game design of this scale is social engineering and part of the mark of a development team is how well and seamlessly they go about it and address these kinds of issues.

We'll see what 2.1+ holds. I look forward to it.

As for "gank-scanning" specifically, sure, I don't particularly mind if someone is shielded while in a dock hangar. I would also prefer if NPCs and PCs had the same capabilities and competence in the game, though I'm not sure how realistic of a goal that is. On the other hand and if I'm not mistaken, players are a part of the Pilots Federation whereas NPCs aren't, so there is at least some distinction in-game.