Karma vs PvP Piracy

[Zambrick]

I make a solid few million every CG in cargo income, and a bonus reward of usually the 50% or higher tier at the CG I pirate.

Don't need to do any other activity and I can make a nice steady income.

Catch is that the pay is never comparable to the exploits like Quince, but as an activity piracy is exciting, dangerous, and profitable enough to sustain itself.

As for Arena, it needs more ships (Taipan isn't added why?) and perhaps a free battle mode where one can take their personal ingame ship (or use pre-built sets) and fight others in rebuyless arena battles.

The Battle Arena idea is good. I thought that in the battle arena you could fly any ship that you wanted into it. However once you start the fight, your ships offensive and defensive capabilities are normalized to the other ships. No Engineering stuff. They could have weight classes, S,M,L. They could have Role Classes, Combat, Exploration/Scout, Trade, passenger, and multi role. So they could have events like the Large class Passenger Beluga Bowl. Or the Small Combat Eagle Classic etc... (EDIT: The matches could be commentated like they are in the Bloodbowl game. One Guy named Gus who has a very crude manner of speaking and Timmy the Thargoid who sounds like various noises that cats make during a cat fight.)

An ABA trade route in the bubble will get you more money in 2 hours than an entire CG would get you. (I average 65 to 85 mil and hour) Assassination missions from an allied minor faction will get your more credits in 2 hours than a CG. (30 Mil if in a system at War with lots of assassination missions.) An exploration trip will get you even more in less time depending on the circumstances. I once made 103 million with 5 mining missions from my allied faction and then spent the rest of the time getting low temp diamonds. I made 23 million from the missions and the rest from the diamonds. It took me 3.5 hours.

Those are just 3 of the ways to make good money legitimately and without using a single exploit. The only way to make money pirating at a CG is if it is a bounty hunting CG. Other than that, it pays a pittance compared to every other way to make money. Even criminal assassination missions.

Once Karma gets put into place, they will have a baseline for activities that the person has partaken in. That can allow them to offer missions based upon Karma level. Missions that will further decrease it but give you a great pay out. Or ones that will increase the level and not pay as much. Right now there is no mechanism in place that can make those offers.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

Now you're sounding angry.

I don't get it.

So you're complaining that a CMDR in a stock sidewinder can't get away from an engineered wing they went looking for? The problem is?

You can report anyone for whatever you want, but YMMV. I suggest using the feature sensibly to get the best results.

no im saying if somoen did that they might learn some EMPATHY for players in starter sidewinders who get interdicted or otherwise attacked by a wing of engineered gankers. which i am sure you knew but what beats me is why you try to twist the argument? i dont know where you get the idea i was angry. the sidewinder in itself may do better than some other ship types as someone else pointed out in the next post or two. i assume you made your post before reading those.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

I make a solid few million every CG in cargo income, and a bonus reward of usually the 50% or higher tier at the CG I pirate.

Don't need to do any other activity and I can make a nice steady income.

Catch is that the pay is never comparable to the exploits like Quince, but as an activity piracy is exciting, dangerous, and profitable enough to sustain itself.

As for Arena, it needs more ships (Taipan isn't added why?) and perhaps a free battle mode where one can take their personal ingame ship (or use pre-built sets) and fight others in rebuyless arena battles.

how about an 'import your build' mode? it just copies over your chosen ship, plus engineered mods, and you can do what ifs against other people in similar ships. setting the ship purpose (why you built it) might be awkward, so the mode could have issues unless FD know some magic formula they can calculate a rating and set ships of similar size tonnage and rating as opponents.

i have never really been interested in arena or CQC or whatever name it has at the moment - but now i see there may be more reasons why gankers dont want to play than even odds. i may have been doing them an injustice if they cant find opponents in arena most of the time. bots would help. arena could even have a harder AI than the main game - although then you will get some say why cant we swap them into the main game which would cause issues with those pve only players who are not in combat builds etc and we start the cycle over lol.

 

[Ozram]

So how often have you been interdicted by a wing of engineered CMDR's when flying a starter sidewinder?

I don't think it happens nearly as often as you seem to be claiming.

To be fair, it must happen enough it's got FDs attention.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

So how often have you been interdicted by a wing of engineered CMDR's when flying a starter sidewinder?

I don't think it happens nearly as often as you seem to be claiming.

i havent because i read that it happens so i chose solo. im not into pvp. doesnt interest me. and i used to think it was less frequent than it seemed because when it does happen, it creates a lot of threads and is VERY high profile. but then Sandro was posting about a karma system which i think seems to show FD have seen something in their statistics that concerns them enough about it to want to clamp down on it a bit, or reduce it at least. that would seem to be indicating it went on a lot more than i thought to the point FD think its damaging. especially the method they are putting up - trends over time. so a few unfair fights here and there wont trigger it - so not to completely try to eliminate, just reduce it down.

EDIT: it just occured to me another reason why FD may not want the odd unfair fight to trigger it - perhaps powerplay, or maybe just in case there are to be missions to assassinate commanders at some point - nobody would take those if they all fall foul of the karma system in a big way. so hired assassin as career choice?

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

To be fair,

I've never seen it happen.

And that's after about 1600 hours of play.

Zaphod has never been ganked by a wing in Eravate unless he was wanted.

The same goes for the alt account.

On the other hand, I've gone out and pummeled sidewinders on rare (or at least fairly infrequent) occasions myself.

I'm sure many wings could have done the same without my notice.

Still... it hardly seems commonplace.

yes it didnt seem commonplace. maybe we were mistaken in that belief.

 

[AnotherVoice]

Hello Commanders!

A few comments:

* Yes, we will need to consider areas of lawless space that would normally be considered exempt from karma (such as barnacle sites), we're chewing this over.

I strongly hope that these sites will not be exempt from karma, or you'll see any ganker in existence "prostesting" in these areas.

 

[jasonbarron]

So how often have you been interdicted by a wing of engineered CMDR's when flying a starter sidewinder?

I don't think it happens nearly as often as you seem to be claiming.

It happens on a routine basis in Eravate. I've watched it happen numerous times. Funnily enough, it's often people with a variation on the name Mobius that are doing it

 

[jasonbarron]

You

only

play

solo.

None of this applies to you.

Please move along.

[alien]



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFUqVeQg-Yg

Good one! I wasn't shooting for that much intensity, but that was really quite funny

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

I strongly hope that these sites will not be exempt from karma, or you'll see any ganker in existence "prostesting" in these areas.

i can think of some potentially lore ways to be a reason why these areas are not exempt from karma. if its an area FD wants players to go experience such as the thargoid base and so on... dont you think the powers will also be taking an interest? do you think that at least SOME of those power affiliated npc ships would ignore orders to lay low if some gankers are around? maybe there is a capital ship task group nearby monitoring what it going on and gathering intel. maybe they see what they consider not piracy but MURDER being done? maybe they have standing orders to apprehend or eliminate pirates and other criminals in addition to their semi covert duties. so maybe then the karma system WILL be present when traffic to a place is over a certain level based on all that probable presence.

and then the commanders who suddenly run afoul of the karma system at the ancient ruin sites suddenly find themselves facing a federal battlecruiser and frigate and 30 or so fighters and a demand to surrender at once. i would like to think so anyway.

 

[Ozram]

I strongly hope that these sites will not be exempt from karma, or you'll see any ganker in existence "prostesting" in these areas.

I only hope that if Karma (and protection) comes to these places that it be done within the confines of the game. IOW, it would start off as Anarchy and lawlessness and remain so until one of the superpowers makes their presence felt (preferably through some CG or other). IOW, a capital ship can go and oversee defense in the spot with a warning of sorts about illegal activities being punishable blah blah and so forth. Otherwise, I hope that the mere fact a location becomes a point of interest, is not enough to remove the effects of the Anarchy state.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

I only hope that if Karma (and protection) comes to these places that it be done within the confines of the game. IOW, it would start off as Anarchy and lawlessness and remain so until one of the superpowers makes their presence felt (preferably through some CG or other). IOW, a capital ship can go and oversee defense in the spot with a warning of sorts about illegal activities being punishable blah blah and so forth. Otherwise, I hope that the mere fact a location becomes a point of interest, is not enough to remove the effects of the Anarchy state.

if a power makes a move on an anarchy the other powers will all assume its a bid for power in it. so it could degenerate to a war state anyway.

 

[Gunnet]

I only hope that if Karma (and protection) comes to these places that it be done within the confines of the game. IOW, it would start off as Anarchy and lawlessness and remain so until one of the superpowers makes their presence felt (preferably through some CG or other). IOW, a capital ship can go and oversee defense in the spot with a warning of sorts about illegal activities being punishable blah blah and so forth. Otherwise, I hope that the mere fact a location becomes a point of interest, is not enough to remove the effects of the Anarchy state.

Karma is likely going to be explained as a Pilots Federation 'honour' system rather than anything to do with the superpowers. It would work fine with lore if the PF immediately began imposing its code upon members in any system with a POI.

If anything, anarchy systems being exempted from the PF's "zero tolerance policy regarding dishonourable behaviour among its members" in the first place is a gameplay convention that doesn't make sense from an in-universe point of view.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

Karma is likely going to be explained as a Pilots Federation 'honour' system rather than anything to do with the superpowers. It would work fine with lore if the PF immediately began imposing its code upon members in any system with a POI.

If anything, anarchy systems being exempted from the PF's "zero tolerance policy regarding dishonourable behaviour among its members" in the first place is a gameplay convention that doesn't make sense from an in-universe point of view.

sounds like the small print the lawyers insisted on when drawing up the terms of membership 'hey if you dont include this expect to get sued BIG time. i mean we talking globular cluster big time damages. this covers it.'

 

[AnotherVoice]

The whole point of Karma is to reduce senseless murder in Open by giving it consequences (and thus, bringing back people into open at some extend) .

If the system doesn't cover hotspots area such as alien sites, which are gankers paradise for salt extraction, it would be kind of missing its primary purpose.

 

[Ozram]

Karma is likely going to be explained as a Pilots Federation 'honour' system rather than anything to do with the superpowers. It would work fine with lore if the PF immediately began imposing its code upon members in any system with a POI.

If anything, anarchy systems being exempted from the PF's "zero tolerance policy regarding dishonourable behaviour among its members" in the first place is a gameplay convention that doesn't make sense from an in-universe point of view.

What do you mean by zero tolerance? Even with the proposed changes there will be plenty of tolerance including total "tolerance" in anarchy systems (aside from those with POIs). That doesn't make much sense, so let's add in the sense. If not one of the big 3, then perhaps the PF itself should have a "special guard" that can make its presence felt, by bringing along well engineered contingents (and the Karma system). Remember, the point is not to make space "safe", especially not in Anarchy systems. The point is to stop career gankers from harassing newbies with out any consequences.

 

[jasonbarron]

What do you mean by zero tolerance? Even with the proposed changes there will be plenty of tolerance including total "tolerance" in anarchy systems (aside from those with POIs). That doesn't make much sense, so let's add in the sense. If not one of the big 3, then perhaps the PF itself should have a "special guard" that can make its presence felt, by bringing along well engineered contingents (and the Karma system). Remember, the point is not to make space "safe", especially not in Anarchy systems. The point is to stop career gankers from harassing newbies with out any consequences.

What do you mean by "aside from one's with POI's?"

 

[Gunnet]

What do you mean by zero tolerance? Even with the proposed changes there will be plenty of tolerance including total "tolerance" in anarchy systems (aside from those with POIs). That doesn't make much sense, so let's add in the sense. If not one of the big 3, then perhaps the PF itself should have a "special guard" that can make its presence felt, by bringing along well engineered contingents (and the Karma system). Remember, the point is not to make space "safe", especially not in Anarchy systems. The point is to stop career gankers from harassing newbies with out any consequences.

I'm just quoting lore. My point is that the exceptions to the karma system are already going to be a concession to gameplay at the expense of believability, so it doesn't make sense to call for even more leniency in the name of believability.

 

[AnotherVoice]

I strongly doubt than onboard computers in 3300 couldn't identify a hostile ship ID and linking it to a pilot federation member ID. All these information could be find in the black box left by the destroyed ship. Therefore, the karma system from PF could apply anywhere, lore wise.

 

[Mohrgan]

I strongly doubt than onboard computers in 3300 couldn't identify a hostile ship ID and linking it to a pilot federation member ID. All these information could be find in the black box left by the destroyed ship. Therefore, the karma system from PF could apply anywhere, lore wise.

Na, I think the game needs the Anarchy systems to stay out of the PF's hands. There has to be a place where nefarious activity goes un-noticed, even by the PF. Without that, those playing hardened criminals will be without a place to thrive. We are warned, at each jump, when we enter an Anarchy, it should continue to mean something.