The death of the fighter pilot.

[Cosmos]

What you are touching on could also tie in with the hell mode that FD discussed in the KSer/Dev Diaries... for what ever reason FD have since chosen not to go through with it, however such a hell mode could also have serial CLers dumped in it as well.

As ever tho, I know some refuse to distinguish "Dirty" CLers from "Clean" Menu Loggers. Now, I am not going to give my opinion on that, but just say that, agree or not FD have stated Menu logging is an acceptable action at any time, so, with this in mind, it is not reasonable imo to expect those people to get punished in any way.

I've never really been up for some sort of hell mode as you describe, it seems overly vindictive. If people CL repeatedly put them in solo for a period, if they continue doing it, remove their option to play in pg and open, for longer and longer periods. Its only because of the P2P system that we are suffering this situation and have to consider times when folks genuinely are disconnected from the game.

Being mindful we are going way off topic here, I would say that I doubt anyone would have a problem with menu logging if it weren't for the ridiculously low bar set for doing it. If Froniter want people to consider their position that leaving the game during combat (via the menu) is 'exiting the game gracefully' and not the asinine joke it presently is, they need to up the time required to do so. Sixty seconds should do it.

Truth be told there is absolutely no valid reason to have not done this already. What I suspect is the 15 second timer is there to attempt to hide prolific cheating that takes place on a regular basis and a rather large flaw in the design of the game.

 

[lysan]

Maybe this is already posted, so forgive me if I'm repeating.

Nither you or your fighter pilot will physically be in the fighter. You will all be onboard the main ship.
The fighter is connected by link to the controls of the NPC or you.

If the fighter is destroyed, the NPC pilot will survive as he or she was never on the fighter, same goes with you.
Your main ship can be destroyed and until now there are only one escape pod (100% silly) onboard, thus you will be the only one who will survive.

 

[Drelthar]

I just wish there was no telepresence, then we could make decisions that made sense, like bothering to try and scoop the escape pod from the fighter pilot or not.

 

[Cosmos]

Maybe this is already posted, so forgive me if I'm repeating.

Nither you or your fighter pilot will physically be in the fighter. You will all be onboard the main ship.
The fighter is connected by link to the controls of the NPC or you.

If the fighter is destroyed, the NPC pilot will survive as he or she was never on the fighter, same goes with you.
Your main ship can be destroyed and until now there are only one escape pod (100% silly) onboard, thus you will be the only one who will survive.

Both pilots are in the main ship you are flying.. The fighters are remote controlled via neutal link no matter who is piloting them. You or your wingman can pilot either the main ship or the fighter.

 

[Flin]

Could FDEV give playersa choice by buying a passenger bay or an actual additional escape pod for the crew?

The crew might abandon you if you haven't earned enough rep, but having one available for the crew (E. G. Not already occupied by a passenger in the case of passenger pods) increase the chance of staying on.

 

[Mephane]

The way I see is that fighter pilots don't really die, they just decide your a bad captain/risk who almost got them killed, and they don't want to play with you anymore. Once their pod gets rescued, they change their name and move to a distant system.

I'd prefer if instead of outright dying, or as by your headcanon quitting, the NPCs would demand financial compensation for physical trauma, medical bills or whatever. Game mechanically, they'd become part of your rebuy cost. The price could even be as high as the price they asked to be hired them in the first place, but if you are willing to pay they will stay, and thus also the rank you trained them up to won't be lost.

 

[nats]

It'll be interesting to find out if enemies will be able to target your fighter module in their subsystem targeting. No reason they couldn't I guess. Is the npc supposed to piloting the drone from the cockpit or from inside the fighter module? If this module is destroyed then shouldn't the npc pilot be killed as well if that's where he is working from?

There are a lot of implications that come from allowing a pilot on board your ship to fly fighters for you. Where will he sleep? Is he going to require food etc and therefore increase running costs (assume thats in his fee maybe). Can he die from ship damage. Can I eject him if hes no good or kill him myself if I feel like it? Why doesnt he just take over your ship and kill you whilst you are asleep? If they are such good pilots why don't they have a ship of their own? What is their motivation?

Its just a very badly thought out mechanic to me and it makes no sense at all having a pilot on board to fly a robot ship. It breaks the immersion massively.

 

[Kzak]

I'd suggest that fighter pilots always survive - no reason they don't have escape pods of their own - but if your ship is destroyed frequently or if you do things the pilots don't like (such as pirating trade ships while the fighter pilot is a stand-up law-abiding person), they'll lose loyalty and eventually will leave your service.

 

[AnotherVoice]

Want a trade off ? Make it so when you respawn after your main ship is destroyed, you get a "mission critical message" telling you that your crew pilot is in an escape pod at X location and that you have X time to scoop / save him. Would work like any normal salvage mission.

If you don't, he dies for real.

 

[Goose4291]

I just wish there was no telepresence, then we could make decisions that made sense, like bothering to try and scoop the escape pod from the fighter pilot or not.

That would be awesome gameplay.

Imagine the painful decision when a fights not going your way of trying to evac your marrooned pilot, who you've spent months building up, or leaving them to the perils of the void.

Add in the ability to scoop up other peoples pilots (to for example sell as high-value slaves, ransom to the original owner or salvage) and we're onto another interesting game mechanic that could be explored

 

[Siranui]

That would be awesome gameplay.

It would, but it would also cause howls of outrage from players who lose their pilot just before going to bed. There would need to be a 24h timeframe.

 

[VR Murgle]

I think some thought needs to be put into this; what's my motivation? Why would I level up my pilot if I risk loosing him/her? I think it would be way better to drop the idea of tele-presence and have your NPC pilots sit in the cockpit. Upon destruction they eject, and you can then try pick them up. If you get destroyed before you succeed your attacker(s) could either scoop them up or destroy the pods or even leave them where they are. At the rebuy screen you will be informed of your crews fate and if they survived you''ll have an option to 1. rescue them from their kidnappers. (Player or NPC) 2. return to scoop them up. 3. inform next of kin. 4. do nothing and hire a new crew.

Should your crew be aboard the ship when it is destroyed they will also end up in an escape pod and you will be face with the same options.

(Of course if you yourself fly a fighter you'll also end up in an escape pod and will have to be picked up by whomever or what ever is flying the ship in your abscence. Failure will end in a rebuy screen obviously)

Having NPC pilots die on ship destruction might lead to them being treated as expendable ammo, as well as adding an other reason for combat logging, either because it just takes too long to level them up or because it's simply to easy to get them to an effective level. And yes I know there's probaly a happy middle where it is hard enough to level to not see them as expendable yet not too hard to just not bother but do you really want to wait until that point is found?

Besides it doesn't hurt to add some depth to ship launched fighters because if there's anything E: D needs, it's little stories to help this galaxy of ours breathe. Use the fighters to add some gameplay rather than just an other weapon in our asenal, please, pretty please with sugar on top.

And while your at it add some meaningful ways to deal with the random escape pods floating in space. Allow us to obtain salvage rights when we come across them and deliver them to the nearest station or a station of their own choosing. (did anyone say passenger missions?) Maybe we just picked up an elite pilot who'd want to work for us... Or maybe I am a soulless and want to sell the occupant into slavery...

But, but, but, then we'll have everyone and their mother flying around with Elite pilots at their disposal!

So what?!?

Either we're throwing kamikaze pilots at every possible target or we employ high value Elite ranked pilots, paying a handsome sum to keep them happy, same difference.

Accept that everyone who wants to will have Elite pilots and that they will rarely, if ever, die either that or don't have them level at all and then find a way to make that interesting. Why? Think engineer mods and more specifically heat weapons. Learn from MMO's and don't create an other mandatory optional upgrade. It will only frustrate people and will not make for a better game, quite the opposite.

Oh and, these pilots want to get paid and the higher their ranked the more they'll want. Taking a percentage of your profit every time you bring them with you even if they never leave the hangar...

 

[tarragon]

I'm not sure if there is already a dicussion on this topic but I really want to share a worry about the new npc crew members that will be piloting these ship launched fighters.

They die when your ship is destroyed.. but you don't. It begs me to ask why? If you can fit an escape pod into a SRV why not a fighter? Hell ejector seats were put into fighters in WW2, what happened there? If I die in my SRV, I teleport into my ship even though it is in orbit many miles away. I fail to understand the logic here. It's common knowledge that in all situations, the pilot is more valuable than the lump of metal. Lump of metal can be replaced but pilot cannot. Somehow this is long forgotten?

Also something I am unsure about is if they are out fighting and get destroyed, I then 'print' a new one, who pilots it? Either a)The same guy who did escape pod back to my ship or b) I need to have another pilot on board for every fighter I can print. A. makes little sense that they die on my ship destruction and B. means that its gonna get awful crowded in the ship!

From what I can gather in the braben vids, they rank up with experience. I can imagine it being pretty easy to get emotionally attached to them as they fight for you and win fight after fight. Getting a cheaper 'harmless' pilot and training them up to expert or deadly will be a very rewarding task as you get lots out of this deal. This could take weeks or months depending on play style. Then a suicide winder slams into you at a mailslot. Boom. Crew dead. Rebuy and loss of cargo. Somebody has lolz, you cry.
Or perhaps its a crazed npc that is interdicting you repeated while magically regenerating its hull. Or perhaps you just took a goofy shot and hit the cops while your hull was low. You get my point. This mechanism could create a whole new type of salty tear thread where players weep their lost crew and a whole new lolz game for those that want to drink those tears. I'm not expecting FD to have put any kind of mechanism to counter this becuase lets face it, when has that ever happened?

Previously the only thing that would be lost was credits and maybe cargo, very annoying already and most people will strive to avoid it. Staying in Solo, combat logging etc.. surely this will only get worse?

Edit: (not really relevant anymore): I may be wrong on this, but if our launched fighter is already out and fighting and suddenly the fight starts going south, it is now a player choice to hang around and wait for the fighter to dock before waking out of there, or just wake out and leave the poor son of a b*tch to die. Or just log, which im betting will be a popular choice.

I guess I just don't understand the decision here to kill off crew members. Haven't they just raised the stakes of losing combat just a little too far?



TLDR:
Ship launched fighter pilots die and I don't understand why. Isn't it just another reason to rage quit or Combat Log?

Edit: OK so it was my misunderstanding that the pilot is in the fighter when they are actually on board your ship using tele presence to pilot a drone. Still doesn't excuse there death on ship destruction and increased logging will still be an issue.

You can designate them as VIP passenger and then they survive. It was announced and honestly, it makes sense. You only need to fork for these cabins.

 

[Siranui]

You can designate them as VIP passenger and then they survive. It was announced and honestly, it makes sense. You only need to fork for these cabins.

That's a pretty nice solution. I must have missed that announcement.

 

[Robert Maynard]

That's a pretty nice solution. I must have missed that announcement.

As did I.

@tarragon, can you link to the post / stream where this announcement was made, please?

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

They die when your ship is destroyed.. but you don't. It begs me to ask why? .

ok i am not 100% sure however I *think* it is because the pilots federation pays for our remlock survival suite and this suite is damn expensive. Only players are part of this Federation, and the system is not available on the open market for none Pilot Federation members. (designated by hollow box)

unfortunately escape pods simply do not physically exist in Elite D (yet?) but I cant imagine it would be that hard to implement, and if we get proper ships crew, it may endup a prerequisite to have an escape module in the future which would take up an internal slot. in the mean time us pilots would still use what we have now.

 

[Robert Maynard]

ok i am not 100% sure however I *think* it is because the pilots federation pays for our remlock survival suite and this suite is damn expensive. Only players are part of this Federation, and the system is not available on the open market for none Pilot Federation members. (designated by hollow box)

unfortunately escape pods simply do not physically exist in Elite D (yet?) but I cant imagine it would be that hard to implement, and if we get proper ships crew, it may endup a prerequisite to have an escape module in the future which would take up an internal slot. in the mean time us pilots would still use what we have now.

The stream where passengers were discussed indicated that passengers would have escape pods....

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The stream where passengers were discussed indicated that passengers would have escape pods....

cool, if that is actual physical pods then this could be the start of some new interesting gameplay

 

[edgar]

I understand that the lore explanation is that the fighters are piloted via telepresence; but what explanation is there (if any) for the presence of a physical human body that's clearly seen to be sat in the cockpit?

 

[Robert Maynard]

I understand that the lore explanation is that the fighters are piloted via telepresence; but what explanation is there (if any) for the presence of a physical human body that's clearly seen to be sat in the cockpit?

An automaton mimicking the movements of the pilot in the drone cockpit analog back on the mother ship? (although I'd prefer if the canopy were frosted or made opaque)