So Hatch Breakers & piracy - They're not really working very well so how can they be improved?

[NeilF]

As I see it:-
1) They're too simple to use. Aim & fire and done, and not even any need to worry about shields now etc - Can that be improved?
2) They do not allow the pirate to scale to target. ie: You want to use them on a CMDR in a T9 then I'd suggest it's impossible to get a reasonable amout of cargo.
3) They do not allow a pirate to get cargo out in a reasonable area. ie: Cargo is most likely ejected out over a huge area, which makes collecting unrealistic/a pain.

So how can Hatch Breakers be improved so they have a modicum of challenge, and offer a viable means of extracting viable amounts of cargo?


Challenge?
- Maybe you at least need to reduce shields down to 50% before you can target a Hatch Breaker?
- Maybe you need to target the cargo hatch and then get it down to 90% before you can target a Hatch Breaker?

In short anything to at least create some level of requirement/challenge instead of point and click?


Quantity of Cargo?
It should be possible to obtain more cargo from appropriate targets? For example when pirating a T9 with hundreds of tons of cargo, I'd argue current Hatch Breakers are not fit for purpose. ie: It's impossible to get any meaningly amounts of cargo out, and certainly in small enough areas to collect.

- Maybe allow multiple hatch breakers to be deployed/used?
- Maybe skew the amount of cargo ejected according to the amount on the victim? ie: It's easier to throw out handlefuls if there's huge piles?
- Maybe eject the cargo quicker and/or in bundles? ie: Allow collector limpets to pick up more than 1t at a time? - http://goo.gl/MGoUbc



Any other thoughts from folks?



EDIT:-
How about combining some of the suggested challenges/requirements above?

ie: The lower the victim's shields the quicker/more cargo the hatch breaker can chuck out (possibly skewed by hatch breaker class and quanity of cargo on board the target)?

 

[babelfisch]

I still think cargo needs to be bundled in packs of up to 12 units in order to make piracy profitable. Don't know if it would fit through the cargo hatch though.

 

[DaveB]

First up, I'll say in advance that I'm not a pirate so please take everything I say with a grain of salt.

It seems to me the hatchbreakers are a bit too much like just "a better way to shoot the cargo hatch open" - No matter how you adjust the current hatchbreaker behavior you're still going to have the pirate facing the problem of collecting cans before they despawn thanks to going out of range or simply timing out. I'd instead argue for a different approach altogether.

Hatchbreakers were introduced to fill a glaring gap in the piracy "toolkit" and IMHO they failed to do so.
Let's replace hatchbreakers with a more comprehensive solution. Introduce a "hacking suite" - having one equipped in some systems is itself a crime and will attract a fine if security detect it (Perhaps scale percentage chance of the cops detecting it if they scan you based on the class of the hacking suite and the sec level of the system?)

You still have to get a limpet onto your victims hull, but if you do you've got another little minigame to take control of target subsystems. An attached limpet will scramble comms - preventing anything but local chat and if the cops haven't already turned up will cancel a security response or at least slow it down substantially. It will inhibit FSD charging as if the target was severely mass-locked whether they are trying to low or high wake. Other than that, what it can do is based on the minigame results.

Successfully take control of target subsystems and you can do various things.
Control the thrusters and you can shut them down.
Control the FSD and you can shut it down completely, rather than rely on the charge inhibiting effect.
Control the cargo hatch and you can eject cargo, specifying how many of which cans. Obviously the cargo ejected via hacking the target ship will be "abandoned"
etc.

You can make multiple attempts to control any subsystem but the more times you fail, the harder subsequent attempts to hack that subsystem become.

The victim can also initiate minigame(s) to take back control of their systems. If they regain control of every system they can then try and eject the hacking limpet. As with hacking them, multiple attempts are possible but each failure makes subsequent attempts harder.

If the limpet is successfully ejected by your victim, the timer on a security response resets and restarts and their comms and FSD behave normally again.

The limpet will auto-detach and self-destruct once its owner leaves the instance.

This doesn't directly address the issue of collecting the dropped cargo, of course, but you won't have the cargo scattered all over space at least. It might also be possible for a hacking limpet to act as a "secondary controller" for collector drones, maybe allowing control of extra collectors beyond the normal capacity of the installed controller or otherwise increasing the efficiency with which they pull in cargo that the hacked cargo hatch drops...

 

[Robert Maynard]

Anything that further facilitates immobilisation of the target ship will be used to mine salt....

.... although salt would also be mined by the target initiating a 15-second delayed menu exit.

 

[DaveB]

Anything that further facilitates immobilisation of the target ship will be used to mine salt....

.... although salt would also be mined by the target initiating a 15-second delayed menu exit.

In fairness anything that further facilitates any aspect of piracy in general will be used to mine salt. However, piracy as a career has been getting the smelly end of the stick since day one. It does need some beneficial attention. As primarily a trader and therefore the pirates "target market' even I can see that.

 

[babelfisch]

I'd also like to see better tools for NPC piracy, like, maybe, actually being able to demand cargo?!

 

[bladebss]

If you could have lots of collector linpets and follow along the target thats spewing cargo and let the limpets collect as you follow that would be super fraking great! As in.. not having be be still for the canister not to blowup on your hull when the lipet takes it in..

Point defence and ecm stop hatchbrakers traders should never leave home with out them. The way past this is to have a hatchbreker that fires more than one at a time as the shoot faster than ecm reloads and the point defence cant esily deal with 2 targets at once.

Pirate stations should accept stolen goods on the market. No black market cus they ARE the black market. And if the pirate station is in a system where say battle wepons are ilegal you should be able to buy and sell them in the pirate station, ilegal goods shouldnt be plentiful unless theres a roaring trade though.

The ability to pay off your bounty at pirate stations at a large cost and it become a legacy fine. Bounty times the time left in minutes. Something you can do for say assult or an unpaid parking ticket but murder wil be very expensive to pay off but you could if you realy need that bount off your head.

The sacrifices needed to have a load of collectors plus a larger hatchbreaker and still have cargo will keep things in check. And it will alow pirated to collect there booty on the fly and help with profits if they know where a pirate station is near buy (many of them are in anarky systems but not all and are often outposts) the bounty thing will alow pirates to remove some of the heat on them if they plan on going for a big score in a hisec system but will be inpractical for much else but getting rid of assult charges for suprise attack.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Strange, i think its good where it is at the moment.

You can use the hatch breakers while the target shields are up to grab a few tons of something and let the target escape while you scoop, or you can go for the big haul by taking down shields and powerplant... but NPCs now above Novice reboot, and the higher ranks do it quickly. Its rather tricky now getting a large haul. Either target low ranked ships, or for the bigger ranks you have to take thrusters out, then PP. They come to a stop. They will then reboot (very quickly) to fix their PP. Once that happens, finish off their thrusters again, but do not take out their PP, that way they don't reboot.

However! Their weapons and PDTs will remain active, so you also need to take those out, especially any PDTs because those will blast your limpets making piracy impossible with limpets (hatch breakers or collectors).

The problem here is that if you are not careful, by the time you have done this, they have lost all hull.

Missiles and canons can help with this, or even lasers are decent for sniping (if you can take your time).

Still, don't see why it should be made more of a challenge to pirate by requiring certain things, its already tricky enough.

But when you get it right, it works a treat. I've managed to pirate over 100t of LTDs off a T9 once. That's a tidy profit. Still looking for a t9 with 198+ t, that would enable me to fill my hold.

 

[Jezzah]

Strange, i think its good where it is at the moment.

You can use the hatch breakers while the target shields are up to grab a few tons of something and let the target escape while you scoop, or you can go for the big haul by taking down shields and powerplant... but NPCs now above Novice reboot, and the higher ranks do it quickly. Its rather tricky now getting a large haul. Either target low ranked ships, or for the bigger ranks you have to take thrusters out, then PP. They come to a stop. They will then reboot (very quickly) to fix their PP. Once that happens, finish off their thrusters again, but do not take out their PP, that way they don't reboot.

However! Their weapons and PDTs will remain active, so you also need to take those out, especially any PDTs because those will blast your limpets making piracy impossible with limpets (hatch breakers or collectors).

The problem here is that if you are not careful, by the time you have done this, they have lost all hull.

Missiles and canons can help with this, or even lasers are decent for sniping (if you can take your time).

Still, don't see why it should be made more of a challenge to pirate by requiring certain things, its already tricky enough.

But when you get it right, it works a treat. I've managed to pirate over 100t of LTDs off a T9 once. That's a tidy profit. Still looking for a t9 with 198+ t, that would enable me to fill my hold.

The pp rebooting thing is a right pain in the . They only need 1% back in there and hey-ho they back to full operating capability. It's a change to npc behaviour that only really affects piracy. It says so very much about this game that there is only one halfway lucrative way of being a pirate (admittedly of npcs) that being piracy of Low Temperature diamonds. It's nothing still compared to other professions but it's better than nothing.

I haven't played since 2.1 dropped maybe things have changed and I'm talking rubbish.

 

[Fishy]

It says so very much about this game that there is only one halfway lucrative way of being a pirate (admittedly of npcs) that being piracy of Low Temperature diamonds. It's nothing still compared to other professions but it's better than nothing.

It says even more about mining that piracy is the easier way to collect Low Temperature Diamonds.

 

[Jezzah]

It says even more about mining that piracy is the easier way to collect Low Temperature Diamonds.

Easy? I wouldn't use that term it's quite challenging but admittedly a better way to get them than mining! Anything is better than mining.

 

[NeilF]

I still think cargo needs to be bundled in packs of up to 12 units in order to make piracy profitable. Don't know if it would fit through the cargo hatch though.

Not sure about 12 units, but certainly 3-4 seems OK to me!?

And, I'm sure 3T of gold would use up far less space than 1T of Tea for example... So I don't think we need the realism of cargo size

- - - Updated - - -

If you could have lots of collector linpets and follow along the target thats spewing cargo and let the limpets collect as you follow that would be super fraking great! As in.. not having be be still for the canister not to blowup on your hull when the lipet takes it in..

Point defence and ecm stop hatchbrakers traders should never leave home with out them. The way past this is to have a hatchbreker that fires more than one at a time as the shoot faster than ecm reloads and the point defence cant esily deal with 2 targets at once.

Pirate stations should accept stolen goods on the market. No black market cus they ARE the black market. And if the pirate station is in a system where say battle wepons are ilegal you should be able to buy and sell them in the pirate station, ilegal goods shouldnt be plentiful unless theres a roaring trade though.

The ability to pay off your bounty at pirate stations at a large cost and it become a legacy fine. Bounty times the time left in minutes. Something you can do for say assult or an unpaid parking ticket but murder wil be very expensive to pay off but you could if you realy need that bount off your head.

The sacrifices needed to have a load of collectors plus a larger hatchbreaker and still have cargo will keep things in check. And it will alow pirated to collect there booty on the fly and help with profits if they know where a pirate station is near buy (many of them are in anarky systems but not all and are often outposts) the bounty thing will alow pirates to remove some of the heat on them if they plan on going for a big score in a hisec system but will be inpractical for much else but getting rid of assult charges for suprise attack.

I've not seen a point defense stop a hatch breaker recently?

- - - Updated - - -

But when you get it right, it works a treat. I've managed to pirate over 100t of LTDs off a T9 once. That's a tidy profit. Still looking for a t9 with 198+ t, that would enable me to fill my hold.

Wow!? A CMDR? If it was an NPC did you have to blow it up too?

 

[Ouberos]

a lot depends on the rank of the target. Against high ranked NPC the Hatchbreakers often get rammed or squashed by the rolling target so launching a breaker is not an automatic win.

Hull integrity also has an impact on the HB so knocking out shields in order to take some hull can make things easier.

It would be nice to have more tools but for me things work ok currently. The NPC Traders aren't as defenceless as you think and success is often down to practice.

I don't have much experience against player traders though so couldn't comment on that.

 

[Fishy]

Wow!? A CMDR? If it was an NPC did you have to blow it up too?

NPC hatches are the only places where LTDs appear in those quantities.

 

[Minonian]

I still think cargo needs to be bundled in packs of up to 12 units in order to make piracy profitable. Don't know if it would fit through the cargo hatch though.

Racks instead of single canister? makes sense, but i'm not sure fits trough the cargo scoop. maybe the drones can take out the canisters from the rack?

 

[Lateralus]

I've not really got too much of an issue with hatch-breakers to be honest, as they are not really the crucial issue of successful piracy.

As others have said, the 2.2 changes to NPC rebooting really screwed PvE piracy over - we were all making nice profits in 2.1, now it's so frustrating. You have to chase Harmless or Mostly Harmless NPCs, as they are the only ones that do not reboot.

As for PvP piracy, the best pirates don't even bother with hatch-breakers as you cannot get much cargo with them before the player wakes out. It's more effective to use threat and extortion.

 

[sewerratuk]

As for PvP piracy, the best pirates don't even bother with hatch-breakers as you cannot get much cargo with them before the player wakes out. It's more effective to use threat and extortion.

What play the game as an actual pirate?
Are you crazy [woah]

 

[NeilF]

As I see it:-
1) They're too simple to use. Aim & fire and done, and not even any need to worry about shields now etc - Can that be improved?
2) They do not allow the pirate to scale to target. ie: You want to use them on a CMDR in a T9 then I'd suggest it's impossible to get a reasonable amout of cargo.
3) They do not allow a pirate to get cargo out in a reasonable area. ie: Cargo is most likely ejected out over a huge area, which makes collecting unrealistic/a pain.

So how can Hatch Breakers be improved so they have a modicum of challenge, and offer a viable means of extracting viable amounts of cargo?


Challenge?
- Maybe you at least need to reduce shields down to 50% before you can target a Hatch Breaker?
- Maybe you need to target the cargo hatch and then get it down to 90% before you can target a Hatch Breaker?

In short anything to at least create some level of requirement/challenge instead of point and click?


Quantity of Cargo?
It should be possible to obtain more cargo from appropriate targets? For example when pirating a T9 with hundreds of tons of cargo, I'd argue current Hatch Breakers are not fit for purpose. ie: It's impossible to get any meaningly amounts of cargo out, and certainly in small enough areas to collect.

- Maybe allow multiple hatch breakers to be deployed/used?
- Maybe skew the amount of cargo ejected according to the amount on the victim? ie: It's easier to throw out handlefuls if there's huge piles?
- Maybe eject the cargo quicker and/or in bundles? ie: Allow collector limpets to pick up more than 1t at a time? - http://goo.gl/MGoUbc



Any other thoughts from folks?

How about combining some of the suggested challenges/requirements above?

ie: The lower the victim's shields the quicker/more cargo the hatch breaker can chuck out (possibly skewed by hatch breaker class and quanity of cargo on board the target)?

 

[Minonian]

Easy peasy... And makes simple the cargo recovery to everyone.

4/8/16/32/64

 

[StiTch]

In fairness anything that further facilitates any aspect of piracy in general will be used to mine salt. However, piracy as a career has been getting the smelly end of the stick since day one. It does need some beneficial attention. As primarily a trader and therefore the pirates "target market' even I can see that.

Hear, hear

OP, the best thing we can do for Piracy is a karma system (yes, you like them don't you ) that penalises CLing.