Seems pretty fair to me.
So fed up with interdiction spam
- Thread starter Mephane
- Start date
Seems pretty fair to me.
Stop right there. I outright refuse to "deal" with pirates that fall under Magical Reputation Armour. If the RNG decides that Annoying Pirate #581 belongs to Legal Faction I Want To Keep A Good Standing With But Don't Have The Jurisdiction #340, destroying the pirate is not an option. Heck, I may right now be on a mission to improve my rep with them, not decrease it.
I play with a hotas and that's not my experience. I do agree that being intercepted by named NPCs you've destroyed is silly.
Given the absence of any further elaboration, I have no choice but to assume you were being sarcastic there.
Given the absence of any further elaboration, I have no choice but to assume you were being sarcastic there.
Was going to elaborate but I had a feeling that if I did that would spark a debate and today I don't feel like debating much.
But basicly without submission maybe it would be a bit more interesting and people would be forced to play a bit safer maybe even incoorporate lots of pews and stuff on unsafe routes.. instead of low wake over and over again. But of course then it would be ''NERF ZE AI''.
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Was going to elaborate but I had a feeling that if I did that would spark a debate and today I don't feel like debating much.
Some time ago Sandro discussed FD's thought process on this topic. I can't recall the exact details but it went along the lines of changing the process to get it to where they really wanted it. They definitely do not want it how it is now.
The intention is to make the interdiction worth fighting. Sandro mentioned the idea of some way for aggressors to prevent their target jumping again, for a period of time, so winning the interdiction would avoid this.
I imagine the reason this hasn't really materialised (and seems to have fallen way off the radar) is because it would clearly require a significant overhaul of several mechanics for this to happen and still be fun and balanced.
I am surprised that it hasn't been given higher priority, given the interdiction mechanic can play such a prevalent part in a typical game session. But I imagine the reason for this is because submit is generally accepted as "OK" and not in need of urgent attention.
The introduction of persistent AI has probably shifted the balance from "OK" to "Definitely not OK" though.
It's never bothered me and rarely causes me any issues. But that doesn't mean I think the mechanic is OK. I just don't see it changing significantly any time soon. But it is on FD's list.
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They possibly have a couple of issues then.
Firstly, to make an interdiction worth fighting (engaging with the mechanic), they have to make it work reliably. I don't think it's there yet, at least for some players (myself included), who get a wildly shifting escape vector which is not possible to follow. This has been the case since the 1.4 change, and while I admit that I don't bother with it any more, so it might be better, it must be reliable if they are going to force it on players and have punishing results if they fail.
Secondly, I really think they may be approaching it from the wrong angle. In some of the demos of 2.2 gameplay, they showed a ship losing an interdiction and losing 2/3 rds of their shields. It seems to me they are going the wrong direction by making it more punishing to lose an interdiction, and they would have much more chance of getting currently reluctant players to engage by punishing the interdictor / aggressor, and giving the 'victim' some kind of small advantage.
As I have said, I never bother with the actual mini game, but I do (often) fight the ship interdicting me once I've submitted. Of course, If I'm doing a smuggling mission, I will boost, chaff, silent run to avoid being scanned, and the mechanic needs (IMO) to enable players to still do stuff like that, and being magically prevented from waking out won't help in such situations, and stands to potentially limit things that players want to do in the game.
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There are alternatives, I'm sure there are, just need to think them out.
How about, make it so an interdiction that the target fights and loses to is an outcome neither pilot wants, so a successful interdiction damages the FSDI Module. Higher fidelity models like the A and D (IIRC), while usually the better choice, can take less of this kind of punishment before they become unreliable, a risk to the interdictor or just plain inoperable.
Improve system security, pretty obvious this one, increase response times on the systems main trade routes. Could be your mayday is sent during interdiction? Fix the time it takes for system security to complete a local wanted scan. At the minute it seems like it requires the same amount of time as a cargo or full warrant scan, which isn't enough time to assist a T6 under attack from a Vulture.
Guns and other defences. Lets stop with this silly idea that haulers shouldn't carry guns or upgraded defences because it drops their jump range... unless your carrying a low value cargo like fruit or bauxite, you should assume that someone is going to want to take it from you at some point, and be very clear on the point that if someone is paying you over a million creds to ship something with little or no monetary value, they KNOW someone is going to come try to take it from you.
There is no reason that the game cannot be balanced in a way that allows the player to manage their own risk, but if the AI kerfuffle of 2.1 told us anything, it is that some players will point blank refuse to adapt to this sort of thing. They are holding the entire mission and combat system is what is frankly a sorry state by insisting that they be able to fly Elite level missions and carry the highest value cargoes without risk. It is as simple as this, If you cannot protect your cargo, you rely on the police to protect your cargo, if you cannot rely on the police because your in a med-low security system, you put yourself in that position and deserve whats coming to you.
This is what I meant.
I still think the penalty for failed interdiction should be equal to both parties, though. But not excessive in either case (otherwise, why would anyone interdict when it causes prohibitive damage to you when you win).
If the mini game works and doesn't glitch, that's the first requirement met. Following that, we need a tangibly recognisable security rating system. High security should mean high security. And the security level must (must!) be prominently displayed on the hud before you jump to it and whilst you're in the system. If you're about to jump to a low security system then that should be very obvious, without needing to micro manage the galaxy map.
I'd even go so far as to say that the route planner should have the option to only route through high security (or low, or anarchy, whatever you want).
If high security systems provide high security then suddenly you give a whole new raft of game play options to both traders and pirates. I'm thinking, lore wise, all traders are provided a security escort in SC on shipping lanes, so any interdiction is immediately responded to, spawning a very, very deadly force with you when the instance loads. But that presence drops off in medium, low and disappears in anarchy.
With that, traders can choose to take a slower route to their destination and only trade to and from safe systems (limiting their options) or go through risky systems and take the risk or equip the ship to defend itself.
Pirates can choose to route to only low security systems to ply their trade also. Or they can take the risks in higher security systems.
Then it would be totally acceptable to give aggressors an FSD inhibitor of some kind, that only works if your target submits. Obviously, such a module would need its own balance and consideration to be fun.
Oh and all high security ships will be equipped with FSD inhibitors by default, of course. So the pirate will need to be capable of defeating that force. Swings and roundabouts.
Also consider that smuggling would follow its own set of decisions. High security and losing an interdiction = high security scans
so what route do you take? All that is a huge amount of development. But it would be so worth it.
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I've just started playing a little more of ED, mainly because it needed updating, I hadn't bothered for quite some time. Anyway, its much better area wise now. There is more to do and see without the need to jump all the time. But I do think that the interdiction is a little soul destroying. I'm not into pew, pew much, but exploration, trading, mining and so on. It just seems that the game interjects this, when its not really needed.
It's a shame, because the game does stand up better now than it did, where trading, exploring etc, is concerned. It is quite detailed now, that side of the game. It runs more as a sim-like experience whilst playing the more interesting (for me) part of the game, which is everything other than pew, pew or pointless pew, pew.
I wish they could think of more interesting obsticles to put in the players way, for those players that don't really want the pew, pew side.
But overall ED has come on and its much better now, I feel. I got into the miliions and large ships in Beta, not sure I want that again, just a decent size hauler, or maybe just exploration & mining. Not sure, but not pew, pew. The game is better than that really, on the whole.
It's a shame, because the game does stand up better now than it did, where trading, exploring etc, is concerned. It is quite detailed now, that side of the game. It runs more as a sim-like experience whilst playing the more interesting (for me) part of the game, which is everything other than pew, pew or pointless pew, pew.
I wish they could think of more interesting obsticles to put in the players way, for those players that don't really want the pew, pew side.
But overall ED has come on and its much better now, I feel. I got into the miliions and large ships in Beta, not sure I want that again, just a decent size hauler, or maybe just exploration & mining. Not sure, but not pew, pew. The game is better than that really, on the whole.
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more than 200 missions from SOL, I calculated my interdiction rate at 1 interdiction per 12 missions...maybe it has something to do with my low combat rank Novice, because I erased my save when 2.1 came out. I've been killed once since the erase, but it was my own stupidity. Maybe the low combat rank is the key to low interdiction rate, I don't know, but in some missions I had wished to be interdicted in order to have some combat.
I think a good first and very simple step towards encouraging to fight the interdiction would be to no longer damage the ship if you fail. (I'd actually extend this so that neither interdictor nor interdictee receive any damage in all outcomes - submitting, escape, failure to escape.)
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At first I took this literally and thought you were suggesting a Hauler should try to fight against a pirate with a single small gun... but actually that is a very clear example why indeed it cannot be demanded from all players to be able to put up a fight, because there are ships that can't. If fighting becomes inevitable, not only would that mean that combat becomes a mandatory activity, but also many ships would become immediately useless in the face of the odds. The aforementioned Hauler, the T6, possibly the Keelback, the T7 and T9. And for pure traders who have absolutely no interest in combat, their ship options will boil down to the fastest ships only, Cobra MK III, Clipper etc.
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These two things are already confirmed features for 2.2. As to whether FD will also improve security responses, only they know.
Cool, I'm not up to date with the intended feature list for 2.2. So they're seemingly working towards this bit by bit.
I'm certainly not disagreeing, but I think interdictions need to be considered solely from a gameplay perspective, not realism. Combat is one of the main ways that FD try to challenge players, and their challenge is to get all players to want to engage in it. Quite a few it would seem aren't that interested.
Yes, the mini game is problematic for some people, and if it's to be a core feature that has to be engaged in, then it really cannot suffer from bugs and randomness. At least that is my opinion.
Making the chance of being interdicted (and of that interdiction not being met by overwhelming police response) should absolutely depend on system security states. It should also be factored in what a player is doing, so mission rank and so on should make a difference. This has been proposed by lots of people, lots of the time.
As Mephane points out, clips of 2.2 showed the security level of a targeted system being shown on the HUD when the FSD is charging. I don't want to pour cold water on what is a good step forward, and I presume that FD are therefore making security levels count more, but... It seems a bit late to find out you're about to jump into a dangerous area when your drive is already charging, and unless, as you suggest the galaxy map can be filtered to only see and only use certain security levels, I fear it's not going to solve many problems.
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The first step for any changes is to stop interdictors materialising out of nowhere. We cannot try and outmanuever them or find ourselves forced to flee if they just pop into existence on our tails. Add to that the reincarnating and the infinite jumprange issues.
I'm all for more challenging encounters and being chased halfway across the galaxy but not until it is done properly without cheating.
I'm all for more challenging encounters and being chased halfway across the galaxy but not until it is done properly without cheating.
I never consider anything but game play reasons. That's why I said it can't be too punishing for the aggressor otherwise why would they do it in the first place.
I'm talking about players. You can't change the interdiction mechanic for the aggressor without taking into consideration how it would impact players who want to use it. If you make a failed interdiction attempt highly punishing, it'll just put players off doing it.
There's no reason to make interdiction more punishing (essentially, making any emergency stop more punishing, that's all it is).
Make it work properly, give players reliable ways to minimise their risk if they choose to limit their routes, back that risk up with real safety, allow them to easily choose those routes, make the alternatives scale down in safety but give reasons for players to opt for the risky routes (ie missions to a low security destination always pay more, make very high rewarding missions demand that you avoid high security systems to remain discrete, etc).
You do all that and then you have the freedom to make submitting to an interdiction an absolute act of submission. Then, and only then, will fighting interdiction be desirable. And fun.
Obviously, if you lose the interdiction mini game, as the target, the current rules still apply (both emergency stop, the aggressor cannot use the FSD inhibitor).
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Yeah, agreed. I actually had a clean night 2 nights ago, no interdictions, then bam, last night, I had 2. One, at least, scanned me and then left. The second, scanned me, ordered me to drop my cargo (of which I have none), and then started attacking.
It feels like a bad combination of game logic and a bug or two, that is going on.
It feels like a bad combination of game logic and a bug or two, that is going on.
Hmm, last night it was : Take off. 7 interdictions. Land. Take off. 8 Interdictions. Land. Take off. 7 interdictions. Land. Take off. 2 interdictions. Land. Logout.
This was seemingly from a large number of missions taken at once as I don't normally get anywhere near this amount. And almost all by the same NPC's. I even dropped from SC once to try and avoid them and, magically, two of the inerdictors were already there waiting for me when they were a few 100Ls away the last time I looked! It's wizardry I tells ye!
This was seemingly from a large number of missions taken at once as I don't normally get anywhere near this amount. And almost all by the same NPC's. I even dropped from SC once to try and avoid them and, magically, two of the inerdictors were already there waiting for me when they were a few 100Ls away the last time I looked! It's wizardry I tells ye!
Yes, of course an average T6 hauler cannot hope to kill a pirate, a T6 is almost always going to be reliant on, either carrying cargo that nobody would want to steal, operating routes that do not pose pirate threats, or failing that being able to hold out until the police show up. There is nothing wrong with that, if the game gives the player the proper tools to be able to effectively manage their risk level. That is where the idea optional combat should come in, not the current B/LW/repeat mechanism we have at the minute. This is all totally do-able with rules in game.
Take for example, requiring police intervention. Once a pirate has been engaged by the police that should be the end of his threat to the player, the pirate should be left with exactly the same options the player has when the odds are that far against them. High-Wake or Die. Attempting to Low-Wake and interdict the player again should no longer be on the cards, the police should just do to him exactly what is happening to players at the minute, chain interdict, or in the case of my earlier suggestion, rip the guy out of super cruise and blow him to pieces.
But the hauler should need to be equipped to be able to survive this sort of encounter, they should at least have a shield, preferably one with sufficient mass coverage that it doesn't immediately collapse. They defiantly need a turret, and the skill to be able to keep an aggressor making evasive maneuvers and not just sitting there with a firing solution, wrecking the player before the police arrive.
But we saw during the AI buff at 2.1, a subset of players will not do that, they feel entitled to take Elite level missions, or haul Palladium through Anarchy systems, and I paraphrase "I'm not fitting a Shield Booster, I'm a hauler not a combat ship!". Just as we see here, with complaints about chain interdiction's, despite the multitude of exiting ways they can stop them happening, they wont, they will just complain about it until F-Dev does something about it. And as such the players who fly sensible builds are left with a rather mediocre game experience, just to cater to the min-maxers.