Sandro, in a way, the Pilot Federation signature (hollow) is almost like a military IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) system. How about going one step further and tie the color of the signature of the "notoriety" of the pilot? So a potentially friendly pilot would show as green, a potentially unfriendly pilot as red. Any pilot with a relatively neutral karma would show as some other color, perhaps white. This wouldn't have anything to do with wanted status, either in the current system or elsewhere, just tied to karma.
Elite: Harmless - Karma System aka "be the Tamagotchi" - FRESH SALT, MINED RIGHT HERE
- Thread starter ranje
- Start date
Sandro, in a way, the Pilot Federation signature (hollow) is almost like a military IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) system. How about going one step further and tie the color of the signature of the "notoriety" of the pilot? So a potentially friendly pilot would show as green, a potentially unfriendly pilot as red. Any pilot with a relatively neutral karma would show as some other color, perhaps white. This wouldn't have anything to do with wanted status, either in the current system or elsewhere, just tied to karma.
Hello Commander Brian of Ardagh!
Yes, as I've said in other posts, the basic concept of a karma system is to follow trends and identify behaviours and intent. If you had this then there's lots of ways of using it to deliver information as well as more direct consequences.
So it might be possible to have colour or image of a signature to quickly show information about a player's status, assuming we could ensure legibility (the sensor space is already reasonably loaded as far as information delivery).
Yes, as I've said in other posts, the basic concept of a karma system is to follow trends and identify behaviours and intent. If you had this then there's lots of ways of using it to deliver information as well as more direct consequences.
So it might be possible to have colour or image of a signature to quickly show information about a player's status, assuming we could ensure legibility (the sensor space is already reasonably loaded as far as information delivery).
What are your thoughts on how player vs player pirating would continue as a legitimate style of play if you put the threat of death in context of a karmic punishment system?
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
.... it's also not outside the realms of possibility that karma could be used as another criteria by the matchmaking system, should a player's karma sink so low.
Yes, that's the idea.
Auto-shadowbanning sounds like it should be in the drawer of last resorts and based on human review. I'm sure there are people who deserve it, but your FOTM newbie-ganker hardly deserves that. The more restrictions matchmaking has to respect, the harder it gets, and I would imagine that blocking players is already not easy on it.
(edit) And no matter what measures a karma system takes, they must always be communicated to the player; I don't think that silently introducing more or less subtle sanctions would be a good idea since this is not a horror game where your world ever so slowly deteriorates until tentacles grow from the walls. (Last line of karma: the entire galaxy has collapsed into a single black hole, and Cthulhu is permanently trying to interdict you. Make a sanity roll.)
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This would in effect be a soft shadow ban if those whose Karma is very bad are likely to only instance with each other.
I think this would be taking things a tad too far, though.
Hello Commander -Denali-!
Interesting question. On face value, I think it would be able to survive such a change. Fundamentally, piracy does not require the destruction of the target vessel (which is when karma would be interested in tracking, unless of course we also wanted to use the system to track piracy for other reasons), and no cargo is gained from this event. Hatchbreakers should ignore shields if you are worried about accidentally dusting a ship to get at the cargo hatch - there are various ways you can try to increase your chances of successful piracy.
There are various arguments about the viability of piracy as an economic enterprise with regards to cargo value and drop rates etc., or the benefits of being able to "declare piracy", or the effectiveness of cargo collection under fire, but I think they are maybe different discussions, with their own challenges and proposals.
Interesting question. On face value, I think it would be able to survive such a change. Fundamentally, piracy does not require the destruction of the target vessel (which is when karma would be interested in tracking, unless of course we also wanted to use the system to track piracy for other reasons), and no cargo is gained from this event. Hatchbreakers should ignore shields if you are worried about accidentally dusting a ship to get at the cargo hatch - there are various ways you can try to increase your chances of successful piracy.
There are various arguments about the viability of piracy as an economic enterprise with regards to cargo value and drop rates etc., or the benefits of being able to "declare piracy", or the effectiveness of cargo collection under fire, but I think they are maybe different discussions, with their own challenges and proposals.
I think what the jist is to stop gankers and griefers be able to pick out a human controlled sheep, in a giant field crammed with sheep the same colour, same size.
It's unfair for a player in a hauler, in space with a whole npc backdrop of ships, including haulers to stand out like a beacon so that a station camper can simply and without effort fire missiles through the letterbox at that ONE human player knowing that they ARE human. A ganker should not discriminate between a human or NPC ship. They should either fire at everyone / everything or no one at all.
Name tags are ok, as a lot of NPC's have sensible names, and some players have obviously PC names. But to distinguish a PC from an NPC without any effort is highly meh.
It's unfair for a player in a hauler, in space with a whole npc backdrop of ships, including haulers to stand out like a beacon so that a station camper can simply and without effort fire missiles through the letterbox at that ONE human player knowing that they ARE human. A ganker should not discriminate between a human or NPC ship. They should either fire at everyone / everything or no one at all.
Name tags are ok, as a lot of NPC's have sensible names, and some players have obviously PC names. But to distinguish a PC from an NPC without any effort is highly meh.
Thanks for the reply. Most pirates post a chat demand for cargo before taking it by force, just like NPC's. It's pretty common before stealing anything because it is more economically viable (you can sell to market for full value) but only works if the threat of death seem realistic. Otherwise people would just take the chance of getting away since the pirate would have to weigh karma vs a load of cargo. Similarly, if you can only take cargo by force and then have to sell it to a blackmarket you cut the profit potential by so much that it becomes not worth the time. EDIT: To add, limpets are very easily destroyed by PD so they aren't very effective at taking things by force.
Player pirates are the only real challenge to trading. I think that NPC's being more ubiquitous than players, it would simply be too challenging if NPC pirates were as strong of a threat as player pirates. Keeping that viable supports a lot of game play. All the challenges of CG delivery missions, all the resulting CG player bounty hunting- that's all game play that's at risk if player pirating becomes a thing of the past!
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Cute idea. Presumably this would also disable the CMDR tag on targets as well, so it's just a name? But Building on the idea that this might just slow griefers down, my immediate take away would be the new tactic would be to watch local chat and take names down of CMDRs who reveal themselves. It would effectively kill local chat because everyone would be worried about who might be listening. There goes casual interaction and a mistrust of anyone who tries to start it up.
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Bad Karma should be reserved for players that are griefers. C&P should add challenge and fun to players that are just ordinary criminals. Being a pirate in a game shouldn't be punished the same as being a massive jerk.
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It seems the discussion from the suggestion forum has continued over here.
Any constructive criticism on my ideas from that thread?
Any constructive criticism on my ideas from that thread?
You know, in other games, people just punish jerks themselves... usually by shooting at them.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Absolutely - not something to be done lightly - although I'd suggest that the matchmaking restriction would be put in place automatically and, if deemed too harsh, removed on review. A way of restricting the jollies of the most prolific low karma players quickly (that might catch some that would be "released" on review) rather than letting them ply their "trade" unrestricted until such time that a review could take place.
thats how they npcs work already
shoot first, questions are on the rebuy screen.
Just to highlight some of the hypocrisy of many players, if people like me and many many others want the Pirates, psycho's and murderers to have consequences regarding their actions (all legitimate game play styles, psychos and murderers will exist then). The other career paths have to have consequences, threats and risks too.
For instance, I just proposed this for an idea in another thread;
"I think pirates should get a specially modified limpet that can hack exploration data, so when the explorer player sells his date, the pirate actually receives the money etc from an x number of random systems that he has collected data from... And the data is transferred to the black market.
By doing this way, the pirate doesn't want to kill the explorer player, because then he cant sell his data, but still needs to interdict him and get through his defences to plant the software on the ship, as the Pirate doesn't actually take the data from the explorer, just redirects the information once it is sold.
Also, if engine wear and tear comes in, it means pirates in more combat oriented ships that cant go out exploring, can still increase their explorer rank.... Just through dodgy means... And makes a positive use for the karma system.
It also goes with out saying, that certain engineers may offer counter measures that reduce the impact of the limpets.
Thoughts?"
All that happened was explorers stating crying like children and how unfair it all was....
It is completely unfair to ask traders to be the only ones to be effected piracy and criminal activity, whilst explorers seem to think they are above everyone else and think they should deserve to get special snowflake treatment and should have to deal with any dangers or consequences in game...
Absolutely not, this is a game meant to be played by everyone who may want to play different styles. Yes, there needs to be a proper C&P/Karma system, more depth, proper consequences to player actions and there is no justifiable reason why explorers should be exempt from risk from npc's or other players.
The more I listen to these hypocrites on this forum, the more I actually want to support griefing.... Simply because it seems most people deserve it. Everyone wants to make changes to the game so they can do what ever they want with a little threat or effort as possible and not because it would actually add some much needed depth to the game.
For instance, I just proposed this for an idea in another thread;
"I think pirates should get a specially modified limpet that can hack exploration data, so when the explorer player sells his date, the pirate actually receives the money etc from an x number of random systems that he has collected data from... And the data is transferred to the black market.
By doing this way, the pirate doesn't want to kill the explorer player, because then he cant sell his data, but still needs to interdict him and get through his defences to plant the software on the ship, as the Pirate doesn't actually take the data from the explorer, just redirects the information once it is sold.
Also, if engine wear and tear comes in, it means pirates in more combat oriented ships that cant go out exploring, can still increase their explorer rank.... Just through dodgy means... And makes a positive use for the karma system.
It also goes with out saying, that certain engineers may offer counter measures that reduce the impact of the limpets.
Thoughts?"
All that happened was explorers stating crying like children and how unfair it all was....
It is completely unfair to ask traders to be the only ones to be effected piracy and criminal activity, whilst explorers seem to think they are above everyone else and think they should deserve to get special snowflake treatment and should have to deal with any dangers or consequences in game...
Absolutely not, this is a game meant to be played by everyone who may want to play different styles. Yes, there needs to be a proper C&P/Karma system, more depth, proper consequences to player actions and there is no justifiable reason why explorers should be exempt from risk from npc's or other players.
The more I listen to these hypocrites on this forum, the more I actually want to support griefing.... Simply because it seems most people deserve it. Everyone wants to make changes to the game so they can do what ever they want with a little threat or effort as possible and not because it would actually add some much needed depth to the game.
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Are you kidding? The powers that be seemingly agree with their point of view and action against the evil gankers is imminent!
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