I don't consider myself skilled, merely experienced.
I believe a functional crime and punishment system should encourage pilots to take risk in unsafe system in exchange for lucrative profit. This way, there is a distribution of population in almost all spectrum.
Less experienced traders can stick to safer systems with less profit and less risk. Less experienced criminals can stick close to anarchy/low security systems with less risk of being disrupted by authority.
I'm not a great combat pilot, I can avoid taking hits well but struggle to lay down effective fire in return. I play in Open but 99% alone & PvE, apart from my location (I avoid hotspots like a true country bumkin) I am probably very much a pirate's content, and avoiding them is content for me.
Your proposed C&P system would of course apply to all, you and I both. I am careful to only pirate (PvE) in anarchy system, and maintain a squeaky clean image but occasionally make mistakes & get a bounty. I don't suicidewinder it away, so on those occasions I run for the hills & explore for a week or so until the heat has died down & then return to pay off the fine.
If FDev are to implement an AI-based C&P system it needs to be able to allow me to escape, but still be a sufficient deterrent/fun for a player at your level (and familiarity with the wrong side of the law). I struggle with envisioning something that would accommodate us both, inevitably it will always be too lenient at your end, or too harsh at mine. I have thousands of hours in ED & have played Elite in one form or another for 30+ years, I'm unlikely to git much gudder
ED is not a game designed to be played as a goodie, it's intended to simply present you with a moral choice & allow the player to act out those choices consciously, and being a successful baddie is clearly more exciting. For a C&P system to get approval for implementation it needs to allow for players like myself as well as the freeform PvP pirates & gank squads it's intended to reign in or provide a challenge for.
I believe the Engineers system is effectively a difficulty slider for PvE, and that a fully kitted out G5 loadout is for playing PvE at the easiest setting.
Right now we have a whole bunch of PvP enthusiasts who have non-engineered modules, and the perfect opportunity for a charismatic community leader to persuade these guys that rocking around in easy-mode is deeply, deeply uncool & that using non-engineered ships is the hardcore way to go.
What do you think?
