Stop Suicides

[andrewg_oz]

I've just read a thread about a guy annoyed at losing a corvette because they got rammed by a suicide-winder outside a station. Sure, they shouldn't have been speeding, but it's the suicide part that is getting to me.

There are other suicide-related issues in the game. There is the suicide to instant travel, whether from Colonia, from 5000Ly out (for Palin), or just to skip 5 minutes of flying time after yet another skimmer mission stack.

There is the suicide to clear bounties.

There are no doubt other aspects I can't think of right now.

In my opinion, suicide should be an action of last resort. Something that you will almost *never* want to do. Something that never provides a benefit to the suicider.

Now, that may not be possible in all cases. Especially because there are ways to suicide that are difficult to distinguish from combat or accidental death.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to discourage it, though.

Bounties: There should be no way to clear a bounty, apart from letting its time expire and converting into a fine that you then have to pay off. Yes, that means dodging security and bounty hunters for 7 days. Don't like it? Don't do the crime.

Fast travel (Palin): The 'distance from start' should be split into two: the existing 'distance from start', and a new shadow 'distance from start as at last dock' which is only updated from 'distance from start' when you land on a landing pad somewhere. If you die at any time, then 'distance from start' is replaced with 'distance from start as at last dock'. Things like Palin's invitation check must only occur when you land on a landing pad and be based on 'distance from start as at last dock'.

Fast travel (missions): The basic problem here is that some missions pay out immediately while you are in space. IMO they need to change to be like kill vouchers. i.e. you don't get paid until you dock somewhere and if you die then you lose all your vouchers. These new 'mission vouchers' should be able to be cashed at any station with the Contacts facility.

Fast travel (Colonia): I can't think of any reasonable method to discourage this, apart from removing the option to restart in the starting system in a Sidewinder entirely. Is that option really necessary, though? Isn't restarting in the last station in a Sidewinder enough?

Insurance in general: Currently rebuy is only a small percentage (regular backers are 5% (I think), Beta backers (like me) are 3.75%, and Alpha backers are even less). To discourage regular rebuys, insurance costs should gradually rise, say 1% point for each rebuy up to some maximum. It could then decrease over time, say 1% each day/week until it returns to the baseline value.

 

[V'larr]

I could go for just about everything lined out by you here. You've got my vote.

 

[Punished Mobius]

Committing suicide solves all your problems? Well if that isn't realistic than I don't know what is.

 

[DNA-Decay]

[video=youtube_share;R8lbZ5aYfdY]https://youtu.be/R8lbZ5aYfdY[/video]

[video=youtube_share;4gO7uemm6Yo]https://youtu.be/4gO7uemm6Yo[/video]

 

[Kolato]

Are there actually people suciding just on a 5000LY trip?
Are you actually serious?
Erimus managed to cross the galaxy before we even had star filters and route planners yet some people aren't even able to travel 10000LY. Jeez.

 

[Suteksio]

While I agree with your ideas I don't think they will make it live ever. Could you imagine the crying in the forums when some people had to live with their decisions?

 

[verminstar]

Yup, Im guilty of this...suicide winder outside jacques in order to get back to the bubble quick, get what I cant get at jacques and now bout a quarter the way back home.

Should it be stopped? Probably...

Will it be stopped? Probably not, cos its just too useful and convenient ^

 

[dukedastardly]

Agree with OP. . I really hate the Suicidey thing people are exploiting to fast travel back from Colonia, ruined the whole idea and point of Colonia for me. I really can't understand why FD haven't addressed it yet.

 

[DNA-Decay]

I did 5 kylies preloading for Palin.

It was kinda interesting.
Went halfway to the Heart and Soul nebulae.

But, uh I'm a political junkie and a social animal.

Being multiple gaming sessions away from the homeworlds and the work of my team - if I'd kept on out to the Formadine Rift that self destruct button and waking up back in civilisation. Tempting.

 

[Butter of Sorrow]

Bounties: There should be no way to clear a bounty, apart from letting its time expire and converting into a fine that you then have to pay off. Yes, that means dodging security and bounty hunters for 7 days. Don't like it? Don't do the crime.

Assuming you don't get rid of the Suicidewinder meta on the same go, this would quickly lead to exploit abuse.

1. Get a bounty
2. Get a friend
3. Pick a Sidewinder
4. Meet up to have said friend blow you to smithereens
5. Repeat

Infinite profit.

Fast travel (Colonia): I can't think of any reasonable method to discourage this, apart from removing the option to restart in the starting system in a Sidewinder entirely. Is that option really necessary, though? Isn't restarting in the last station in a Sidewinder enough?

This would be a bad idea. You should realize that there are systems with inadequate shipyards which are too far away from other systems for a default Sidewinder to jump out of which would mean you could effectively get your whole save stuck into a single system forever. The transport to Trevithik Dock is a good default because it's a familiar place for everyone and the possibilities to get up and running again are flexible enough there.

Insurance in general: Currently rebuy is only a small percentage (regular backers are 5% (I think), Beta backers (like me) are 3.75%, and Alpha backers are even less). To discourage regular rebuys, insurance costs should gradually rise, say 1% point for each rebuy up to some maximum. It could then decrease over time, say 1% each day/week until it returns to the baseline value.

This on the other hand is an idea I kind of like, although an alternative I would probably prefer more is that at all times the rebuy cost would scale depending on Commander's current credit balance instead of current ship value. It would definitely kill the Suicidewinder meta while making death have much more of an impact to wealthier players - which is something most people want - while still being forgiving enough to less wealthy players.

 

[LoroLoko]

Please, let the people play the game at their own way.
Please, if you want a game with other mechanics and all well ruled by internal laws, put some millions of euros in the hands of developers to create the game you want for us, but remember, maybe I will not like it.
Please, remember the name and lore of the videogame, all the Void are Dangerous.
(I think out of Bubble all systems are Anarchy... without law...)

 

[DNA-Decay]

This would be a bad idea. You should realize that there are systems with inadequate shipyards which are too far away from other systems for a default Sidewinder to jump out of which would mean you could effectively get your whole save stuck into a single system forever. The transport to Trevithik Dock is a good default because it's a familiar place for everyone and the possibilities to get up and running again are flexible enough there.



This on the other hand is an idea I kind of like, although an alternative I would probably prefer more is that at all times the rebuy cost would scale depending on Commander's current credit balance instead of current ship value. It would definitely kill the Suicidewinder meta while making death have much more of an impact to wealthier players - which is something most people want - while still being forgiving enough to less wealthy players.

I must be missing something.
Given that suicide is a label we put on a death. You would just have to ratchet up the Rebuy cost with every death.
So if you're pants and combat (hello) you end up unable to fight.

Everyone says cash is too easy to come by in this game. Well it's not. Every fast cash method has some ethical implication.
Slavery. Skimmer scumming. Mission stacking. Whatever.
Not something I do. (drugs are bad. mmkay)

I'm richer now than I have been in nine months. I've got 80 MCr.
That's not a lot of Conda rebuys as it is. Not that I could afford a Conda. Even Python rebuys. Harsh.

People play SO differently, that it creates problems implementing a crime and punishment for death between CMDRs, let alone auto-euthanasia.

 

[Martind Forlon]

+rep to OP. Ppl do suicides bcs they can (or think so) freely abuse giving game mechanism, it have imo zero to do with playing a role of space ship pilot; for me it is form of cheating. ED seems to me is quite unique in this regard and is (imo again) forgiving too much. Personally I hope that at least these most obvious cases will be stopped with game functioning changes.

 

[Butter of Sorrow]

I must be missing something.
Given that suicide is a label we put on a death. You would just have to ratchet up the Rebuy cost with every death.
So if you're pants and combat (hello) you end up unable to fight.

Everyone says cash is too easy to come by in this game. Well it's not. Every fast cash method has some ethical implication.
Slavery. Skimmer scumming. Mission stacking. Whatever.
Not something I do. (drugs are bad. mmkay)

How does mission stacking have some kind of an ethical implication? If you can do more missions on one go it's just more power to you. It's not an exploit or bug abuse, it's playing the game within its own rules. Whether or not Frontier wants to change those rules that's another matter entirely.

As for illegal missions, I haven't been able to get a single smuggling mission since 2.1 and I haven't even seen slavery associated missions. Even the illegal assassination missions are less than 1% of my total income because those missions are just a waste of time.

 

[Mendaharin Tusca]

I'll admit that I suicided once not too long ago, it was during a CG and got a bounty after a friendly fire incident, and the npc I shot died before I could supercruise out so I got a week long murder bounty. Still feel a bit ashamed about it though, because I feel that life, even ingame life should be respected and cherished, killing yourself just to save a few minutes travel (as is the case in some mission grinding vids I've seen) is utterly disgusting to me. And it makes griefing/PVP more of less consequence free.

- - - Updated - - -

Assuming you don't get rid of the Suicidewinder meta on the same go, this would quickly lead to exploit abuse.

1. Get a bounty
2. Get a friend
3. Pick a Sidewinder
4. Meet up to have said friend blow you to smithereens
5. Repeat

Infinite profit.
.

Yeah, that used to happen, that is WHY we have the current toothless incarnation of the bounty system in fact.

 

[bitstorm]

How does mission stacking have some kind of an ethical implication? If you can do more missions on one go it's just more power to you. It's not an exploit or bug abuse, it's playing the game within its own rules. Whether or not Frontier wants to change those rules that's another matter entirely.

On the face of it I agree with that.

- But people log off / log on to cheat the system which turns something feasible into something ridiculous.

- I would also say that when one faction via one representative asks you to kill 100 skimmers then you should kill 100 skimmers, not 10, because any representative worth their salt would have pre-managed the stacking in such a way as to make it beneficial for their faction.

These are both "within the rules" but folk have been asking for log on/off to be fixed for a long long time, so much in the game relies on it and it breaks so much.

And faction mission accumulation would likely require a serious reworking of the mission system to enable some sort of extra persistence layer, it's doable but it's probably quite a significant job since the underlying mission generation mechani would probably have to be rethought.

 

[d8veh]

Suicide/self destruct should send you back to start with no money and the basic Sidewinder, but how can you distinguish between a guy that accidentally crashes into the station and one that does it deliberately? Or how about somebody that shoots someone and then just sits there until he's dead? I agree that bounties shouldn't be cleared by death. there should be a substantial penalty for anybody that dies with a bounty on them.

 

[Sonof Hibachi]

I suicided a few days ago, half way to Colonia and losing the will to live. I drove my beloved DBX into a star (harder than it sounds), wiped my save and started again in a Sidewinder with attitude. Since then I have enjoyed the best couple of days I've ever had in ED.

I do not play an RP ironman thing, but I also could not reconcile keeping my millions having purposely driven into a star, hence I wiped my save.

Suicide certainly ain't painless, but it can enhance your gaming experience every now and then...

 

[Mendaharin Tusca]

On the face of it I agree with that.

- But people log off / log on to cheat the system which turns something feasible into something ridiculous.

- I would also say that when one faction via one representative asks you to kill 100 skimmers then you should kill 100 skimmers, not 10, because any representative worth their salt would have pre-managed the stacking in such a way as to make it beneficial for their faction.

These are both "within the rules" but folk have been asking for log on/off to be fixed for a long long time, so much in the game relies on it and it breaks so much.

And faction mission accumulation would likely require a serious reworking of the mission system to enable some sort of extra persistence layer, it's doable but it's probably quite a significant job since the underlying mission generation mechani would probably have to be rethought.

Weeeell... thing is, rather ambivalent on this one. While I think it should be fixed, I think it should be fixed by adding a "reload board" button, otherwise getting that rank up mission for instance would be a nightmare. And sometimes you hunt for missions with a very specific hard to find material etc.

 

[andrewg_oz]

Assuming you don't get rid of the Suicidewinder meta on the same go, this would quickly lead to exploit abuse.

1. Get a bounty
2. Get a friend
3. Pick a Sidewinder
4. Meet up to have said friend blow you to smithereens
5. Repeat

Infinite profit.

Fair enough. I wonder if the bounty system could be made zero-sum? If you have a bounty on you, and it is claimed, the value of that bounty is added to your rebuy, so essentially you are paying out your bounty on each death, perhaps multiple times until the bounty expires and you pay the legacy fine.

This would be a bad idea. You should realize that there are systems with inadequate shipyards which are too far away from other systems for a default Sidewinder to jump out of which would mean you could effectively get your whole save stuck into a single system forever. The transport to Trevithik Dock is a good default because it's a familiar place for everyone and the possibilities to get up and running again are flexible enough there.

I agree. I had considered the issue of getting stuck in a system.

What I think would be a cool idea would be to have the ability to store/switch ships at *any* starport, even outposts, regardless of if it has a shipyard or not. Big stations have a storage limit of 30 (I think) ships. Let outposts have a limit of 1. This then allows the transfer of ships to wherever you are spawning.

Then, to cater to the possibility you might not have any other ships to transfer, add the ability as a member of the Pilots Federation you are entitled to remotely purchase any ship/module at Jameson Memorial (Shinrarta Dezhra), at full price (no discounts), then have the ship/module transferred to your current location at standard rates.

That way you could earn money, albeit slowly perhaps, and transfer whatever you need to wherever you're stuck.