Dear FD. The hunt begins on the 28th - but ends a few hours later

[Comrade Error]

that's a good start.

Kill a clean commander for no reason and you lose your ship insurance for 7 days.

If you die in that time you lose your ship.

That would put pirates off ganking commanders for fun and would encourage proper piracy.

I.e interdicting you and making demands, disabling you and not destroying you instantly.

Wouldn't apply to attacking NPC's of course since they are not part of the pilots federation.

If you want to do that then you need to either make piracy a 100x more profitable. Like 20mil per T9 or you make taking ships out non-leathaly 20x easier.

But none of you guys have done real piracy so you guys wouldn't know squat about what encourages it and what doesn't.

I don't expect all of my suggestions to be into reality and I would rather come to a compromise but those suggestions really sound like something would say if they hate piracy as a game mechanic.

 

[Comrade Error]

Now we are getting somewhere, thanks!


The factions which i worked hundreds of hours for would send security i think, but let's just leave it at that (lets agree to disagree on this part).

Your second paragraph addresses some valid points to which i can agree;
- One should be able to make some money by using piracy.
- One should be able to make a blockade, though i would like to see it being difficult to maintain the blockade.
I will come back on this later on in this post.

Combat logging is caused by;
1. People not wanting to lose anything at all, and will do it from the start. I guess this group is rather small. If you can still make some progress while having a occasional loss, then most people will take the loss. The rest of them will go to a PvE group i think (nothing wrong with PvE btw!!!).
2. People who have lost a lot already, and are on their last resources. I understand why they would combat log.
3. People who feel they don't stand a chance when they do not have a combat build. I believe this is the biggest group, especially in the situation when you get pulled from supercruise by a wing.
4. People who have a cargo hold full of engineering materials and don't want tens of hours to go to waste. I understand why they would combat log (it's just too tempting).
5. People who have been killed over and over again.

* When repeated player killing is reduced (piracy is not just destruction), and piracy be made economical, then group 2, 3 and 5 will be less likely to combat-log. For this to happen a system has to be implemented which makes sure that killing for no reason is not economical. If it is not changed, then people will keep combat-logging (or disconnecting/block certain IP-adresses with applications like netlimiter).
* Group 4 is a small group (i think!). If storage would be available, then people would have less to lose (and pirate less to gain since there is less cargo, so i admit this is a bit iffy)
* Group 1,.. well you can't have everything

Now, back to the piracy/profit issue. Let's assume all pirates agree to stop killing the other players on sight, and the other players stop combat logging since there is a big chance they can get away with some minor damage (hallelujah, a miracle has happened). The pirate gets some cargo and makes a buck. The player keeps some cargo and minimizes the loss (i assume not all cargo would/should be claimed, but then again maybe i'm naive here). Every time the pirate robs only a certain percentage of cargo (10%?, 20%?), then security would increase slowly. Kill someone, or rob them clean, and the security would rise fast. This simple system would make it possible for both parties to earn some money with fun gameplay.

Am i sure it would work? Nope.
Do i think it would a an improvement? Absolutely!
Would i combat log to a normal pirate? Nope, i trade in a modded cutter which is armed to the teeth and shielded like the Bismarck (please dont shoot my rudder with a torpedo). If you can rip the cargo out of my hands, then it is yours.

Apologies to all, this post has become longer then i anticipated.

PS. does anyone know how to enable reply-notifications on this forum? Currently i have to check all topics of the previous day to see if i have gotten a reply (not really practical).

Maintaining a blockade can be difficult if people would actually be willing to do a proper escort which is another thing that I personaly would love to be more of a proffesion. I've encountered 2 escorts in my time pirating both times I was able to succesfully pirate them because well I took their escort as hostage. But it was fun non the less.

I don't think that first group is very small. I would say it takes a good portion of 25-50% of combat loggers.
Understand yes but doesn't excuse it.
This might also be a big part of combat loggers but I do believe the first one is still the bigger of the two.
Combat logging has been a thing since long before engineers I believe this is the very smallest one and even then it does not in any way excuse it. If I want to those materials and I am able to get them with piracy then I shouldn't be cheated out of it.
This last group is a funny one. Because people still combat logged in the early days of this game on Xbox even though there were barely any ''griefer'' groups around and only few people actually had ships like the Anaconda and such.

Yea okay but then it should be somewhat easier to disable someone and even a bit harder to escape with a high or low wake but I suppose we have engineer weapons for that now (as a counter to escape that is, apart from heat weapons which I don't like because they're quite OP and generaly I hate taking part in a meta there aren't many viable options for disabeling ships). I suppose it's also better than the system sec thing we have now since it seems like nearly every trade route ends in a high or med sec system. If escorts actually became an intergrated part of the game if a trader was flying a ship and got stolen a big amount of cargo from or killed maybe the cops would be a bit less inclined to help or whatnot because they have an escort and they'll claim the bounty for them?

Also they gotta upgrade the limpets or something, aswell as up the max cargo floating in space because right now you can max have 100 cansiters floating in open space.

You can go into settings and see a list of subscribed threads but that's about it.

 

[Boomer Kay]

If you want to do that then you need to either make piracy a 100x more profitable. Like 20mil per T9 or you make taking ships out non-leathaly 20x easier.

Well, have you ever thought about why Cargo Ships are so weak? T9 can fit the same shield as a cutter, but has 1/3 of the shield multiplier.

Because there should be the very real danger of destruction and simply high waking your flying fortress with 100% certainty was not intended, because that just kills piracy.
I did the math in some other piracy thread - the currently recommended "max defense" build for open, is not something to counter the off chance of meeting a pirate. A minimum defense, max profit build would be highly preferrable and a max cargo T9 Commander can easiely drop about 2 million in profit on the off chance of meeting pirate.
He'll more than make up for that in the long run. And funny enough, if you read the manual, which was not updated since the dawn of time, that is how FD envisioned Piracy and how they describe the pirate career.

In come the RPKs and their poor grasp of the metagame, and all of a sudden, that max profit build is not viable, since they don't care about their financial gains or their financial loss when they shoot you (which is pretty much what we saw happening to the Hunt T9).

Of course you can try to design some convoluted, overcomplicated systems to try and copy just that simple mechanic of trade ships being weak but highly profitable. But with every additional complexity you add, you also have new loopholes and "exploits".

"I'm a pirate, RPKs don't affect my gameplay" ... yea.. right.
"Tagging more complex systems onto the existing ones will eliminate the issues without creating 3x as many new ones" .. you go on believing that. [up]
"RPKing just needs to be discouraged with a light slap on the wrist and it will disappear" .. not gonna happen.
"Anything done against RPKing is also a direct nerf to piracy" .. only if you have no "piracy mechanics" in the game.

So, FD, where's the piracy mechanics and why have you done nothing so far to adress RPKing?

 

[Comrade Error]

Well, have you ever thought about why Cargo Ships are so weak? T9 can fit the same shield as a cutter, but has 1/3 of the shield multiplier.

Because there should be the very real danger of destruction and simply high waking your flying fortress with 100% certainty was not intended, because that just kills piracy.
I did the math in some other piracy thread - the currently recommended "max defense" build for open, is not something to counter the off chance of meeting a pirate. A minimum defense, max profit build would be highly preferrable and a max cargo T9 Commander can easiely drop about 2 million in profit on the off chance of meeting pirate.
He'll more than make up for that in the long run. And funny enough, if you read the manual, which was not updated since the dawn of time, that is how FD envisioned Piracy and how they describe the pirate career.

In come the RPKs and their poor grasp of the metagame, and all of a sudden, that max profit build is not viable, since they don't care about their financial gains or their financial loss when they shoot you (which is pretty much what we saw happening to the Hunt T9).

Of course you can try to design some convoluted, overcomplicated systems to try and copy just that simple mechanic of trade ships being weak but highly profitable. But with every additional complexity you add, you also have new loopholes and "exploits".

"I'm a pirate, RPKs don't affect my gameplay" ... yea.. right.
"Tagging more complex systems onto the existing ones will eliminate the issues without creating 3x as many new ones" .. you go on believing that. [up]
"RPKing just needs to be discouraged with a light slap on the wrist and it will disappear" .. not gonna happen.
"Anything done against RPKing is also a direct nerf to piracy" .. only if you have no "piracy mechanics" in the game.

So, FD, where's the piracy mechanics and why have you done nothing so far to adress RPKing?

Yes, the T series are weaker but you don't see much of those and in actuality the T6 and T7 are hard to disable without killing them. But yes I agree with the maximum profit should mean minimum defence and vice versa but at the same time ships like the Anaconda, Corvette and Cutter can have both simply because of shield booster. Sure they gotta lose at max 64t of cargo but that's hardly a maximum defence and minimum profit scenario. Besides yes there are traders who fly T series unshielded etc but that's a minority and when they do you can predict that they're going to log. The reason I want to it to be easier to disable (I did go overboard with that 20x number) besides the weak structures of T6s and T7s is the big ships with all those shield boosters and such that take multiple interdictions to get their shields down. There is that FSD reboot mine and such but it's a bit hard to incoorporate one of those in-case you do stumble upon an Anaconda that can defend itself and they were pretty much intended as defensive weapons for the traders not the other way around.

Personaly I would like to see a bit more of a piracy specialised weapon only buyable at the Dweller that helps out in piracy or even one of those piracy ships in the older Elites I've heard about.

Response to underlined part: Here I thought we were trying to discurage destruction. You have me very confused since that's what it seems everyone wants at this point and now a self proclaimed carebear wants there to be a chance of ship destruction. Quit messing with my head!

But yes.. piracy mechanics and more0 equipment hopefully.

 

[lysan]

Well, have you ever thought about why Cargo Ships are so weak? T9 can fit the same shield as a cutter, but has 1/3 of the shield multiplier.

Because there should be the very real danger of destruction and simply high waking your flying fortress with 100% certainty was not intended, because that just kills piracy.
I did the math in some other piracy thread - the currently recommended "max defense" build for open, is not something to counter the off chance of meeting a pirate. A minimum defense, max profit build would be highly preferrable and a max cargo T9 Commander can easiely drop about 2 million in profit on the off chance of meeting pirate.
He'll more than make up for that in the long run. And funny enough, if you read the manual, which was not updated since the dawn of time, that is how FD envisioned Piracy and how they describe the pirate career.

In come the RPKs and their poor grasp of the metagame, and all of a sudden, that max profit build is not viable, since they don't care about their financial gains or their financial loss when they shoot you (which is pretty much what we saw happening to the Hunt T9).

Of course you can try to design some convoluted, overcomplicated systems to try and copy just that simple mechanic of trade ships being weak but highly profitable. But with every additional complexity you add, you also have new loopholes and "exploits".

"I'm a pirate, RPKs don't affect my gameplay" ... yea.. right.
"Tagging more complex systems onto the existing ones will eliminate the issues without creating 3x as many new ones" .. you go on believing that. [up]
"RPKing just needs to be discouraged with a light slap on the wrist and it will disappear" .. not gonna happen.
"Anything done against RPKing is also a direct nerf to piracy" .. only if you have no "piracy mechanics" in the game.

So, FD, where's the piracy mechanics and why have you done nothing so far to adress RPKing?

Its in the clouds, just as they intended it to be. The best way is to make a PvE-OPEN, mode apparently FD want players to KoS, however they are also very inconsistent in the direction this game is going to take regarding game mechanics.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

This has been yammered about since ... dawn of time, it does NOT change!
They will not. so stop it, look at how many threads have been mad about this. In 2 years.
Solo or group. That is the answer.
Open = Death from above. Not the record.
On a side note :Security is much more responsive

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Oogie Boogie]

Two days and 15 pages later I have to say that SDC at least bring some emotions back into this game!
CMDR Kohl was probably not as experienced commander, otherwise he had combat logged like many others.
Next time Frontier should give him extra Thargoid- or Engineer-Power to sustain any kind attack or even an accident ramming by a good guy.

And if this was a real commander, why the hell did he not spawn back at the closest station?

 

[Boomer Kay]

Yes, the T series are weaker but you don't see much of those and in actuality the T6 and T7 are hard to disable without killing them.

I haven't been around since the beginning of time, but from the time I've watched the buff-nerf cycle, it seems that FD have long left the "straight forward" path of things and are now creating problems with solutions that were not great to start with.
Ideally, T ships would have minimal shields, flimsy engines but strong hulls/mucho HP (and they have very little for their huge mass).
They should be the "ideal solo pirate" targets.

But yes I agree with the maximum profit should mean minimum defence and vice versa but at the same time ships like the Anaconda, Corvette and Cutter can have both simply because of shield booster. Sure they gotta lose at max 64t of cargo but that's hardly a maximum defence and minimum profit scenario.

It's nearly 100t between the smallest possible and the maximum shield. Flown my Vette in a trade outfit long enough. 500 mW shield vs. the 1300 + SCBs it has now (and even sporting BiWeaves, not A). Those ships should not be really solo pirate targets, since the defense is hard to break - but in "minimum defense" anything but impossible with a wing of 4.

Besides yes there are traders who fly T series unshielded etc but that's a minority and when they do you can predict that they're going to log.

That shieldless rubbish should be balanced with repair costs. But we know what happened with repair costs - good idea to keep the game less tedious, but horrible consequences for the gameplay, since many things that were balanced around repair costs (even things like "do I risk my ship getting damaged for 2 mio repair or do I drop 2 mio in cargo?" .. out the window)

Response to underlined part: Here I thought we were trying to discurage destruction. You have me very confused since that's what it seems everyone wants at this point and now a self proclaimed carebear wants there to be a chance of ship destruction. Quit messing with my head!

But yes.. piracy mechanics and more0 equipment hopefully.

I'm not against ship destruction. It's part of the game and I find the "I should be able to godmode my way trough the game" crowd as numpty as the "hurrdurr, let's just drestroy everything ... as long as it's weaker than us" one.

There's a mod special effect that causes random module malfunction. But in true FD tradition it only works once the shields are down and is .. random of course, making it 80% useless. (have it one one of my Vette's lasers) Sometimes one has to wonder what and how they're thinking. "Let's make a tool that would be good for non-destructive piracy, but at the same time so random, it will work in 1/5 encounters? It might be OP for RPKs but we don't know how to deal with them, so let's pretend this works .. and add a heat meta on top" [weird]

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

And if this was a real commander, why the hell did he not spawn back at the closest station?

"Immersion"?
"Let RPKs have their 'impact' on the game .. but let's not offend 'the crowd' by canceling all of the event, because our first clue was shot down (for no other gains than the lulz)"

And let me add my "wet daydream of actually emergent content" -> a proper pirate brings up that T9, actually recognizes that he might have some valuable information and instead of sharing it with the community "for free" (like the other commanders did), he releases it after being payed 1 billion CR in Palladium. Best Pirate story ever .. how I became billionaire in one minute.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

So after all that, what was the message?

 

[Bobbydylan]

I don't mind dying within this game. Because it is stil a game
I do mind dying because of [REDACTED]. His only goal is to do everything a normal player absolutly will not do. (this happened about a week ago)

This is why i Combat logged on his Asp! I admit it, I combat logged on [REDACTED].
This was NOT! pirating. This was NOT! Powerplay. This was, as usual, getting in other peoples way!

For this clip all he got was a 9.000 total credit bounty! REALLY?
The rebuy on this T-9 must be atleast 6.000.000 credits.

I am so dissapointed in FD right now. Today nothing happened to me. I did not even see mister Kohl show up. But i saw his ASP blown out of the sky by a psycho killer who can do what he wants!
This is so unfair!



Dear fd,
Please do something about this. Make him feel the pain of killing to! Not just me but every cmdr he killed
Because in the future i WILL combat log on him and his friends again... and again... and again..

A verry dissapointed Leut
This hunt is over for me

Hod do you get a 9 credit bounty? Littering?

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

9,000 credits.... The german syntax is 9.000