Tldr: lots of conjecture, appeals to nebulous and unsourced majorities and an inability to accept any kind of risk like someone who agrees to play chess as long as 'no touchy touchy my pieces, capiche? '
Beyond C&P - Must admit I'm slightly concerned about PvP piracy outcome
- Thread starter NeilF
- Start date
Tldr: lots of conjecture, appeals to nebulous and unsourced majorities and an inability to accept any kind of risk like someone who agrees to play chess as long as 'no touchy touchy my pieces, capiche? '
I agree while AltF4 exists, it's tricky to up the risk/reward metric. But, FD have said they intend to address it as part of their Karma mechanic. Now what I don't quite understand is, worryingly, they seem to be tackling what the Karma mechanics would - habitutal illegal destruction - as part of this pending C&P mechanic. So what does that then mean for any future karma mechanic? No longer planned?
Following on from my earlier comment. If Manifest & Kill Warrant Scans could be performed-in a limited fashion-in Supercruise, then it could help bring an end to truly random Interdictions, especially chain interdictions. In thst case, the developers could afford to increase the difficulty ot evading interdiction, especially in low security & anarchy systems.
One tool that would be great for pirates......or more an update to an existing tool.....is the ability to use Manifest Scanners, in a limited fashion, whilst in Supercruise. A scan would only tell you if a ship contained cargo at all....& possibly if any of that cargo is legal/illegal. Obviously there would need to be ways for pilots to thwart such scans, like running your ship colder to break the scan before completion, or activating your ECM to break the scan. Things that can make Supercruise more exciting & engaging, whilst also helping to explain those pilots talking about "all that juicy cargo!"
I can't see a downside to simply allowing the Manifest Scanner to work from SC TBH, and only benefits.
How about it's a tad vague, and depending on your distances and the quantity they have, it may/may not resolve it?
eg:-
So, from a long distance in SC:-
Gold 50t
---- ---
---- ---
You get closer:-
Gold 50t
Silver 10t
---- ---
And not until you interdict and scan:-
Gold 50t
Silver 10t
Some-rare-thing 1t
Note: Too far away and no details would be given at all!
Or a variation where the quantity is always shown, but what it is is determined by distance/quantity?:-
So, from a long distance in SC:-
Gold 50t
---- 10t
---- 1t
You get closer:-
Gold 50t
Silver 10t
---- 1t
And not until you interdict and scan:-
Gold 50t
Silver 10t
Some-rare-thing 1t
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Probably easier to just show it all. But the issue with this is that all security ships should have a manifest scanner and therefore it would be too easy for security ships to tell if someone is smuggling illegal goods. Maybe in supercruise it just shows that it is carrying cargo of some type but no specifics. Or there should be cargo racks which are shielded from SC scans but carry less cargo for those that want to smuggle.
One non issue (you can't force PvP in ED, so you have to live with that), Two issues that can be solved in parallel (and in fact FD is saying they are working on Karma as we talk).
True (Security Forces should be using it on us too), but it wouldn't be the first time handwavium was used to explain a productive outcome in gameplay?
And yet, reading the complaints of players who take the role of a pirate in-game, sound like they have trouble finding other players that have fun getting "pirated"* in-game.
One even made a thread about "a coalition of the willing victim." - sounds like there aren't that many around, why else making such a thread?
An other made a list of percentages of what players who get "pirated"* to, that list doesn't sound like a lot of those players have fun (something like 25% logging out, 50% chance of angry trader being insulting on comms).
This are just two examples.
There are players who have fun getting pirated, there are players who accept it, but there seems to be a lot of players who absolutely don't have fun getting "pirated"* (based on the complains of players who play pirates in this game).
We will probably never know how many players enjoy the "victim side" of the in-game piracy gameplay.
Taking a step back and trying to look at the situation as neutral possible. Do you think that a large part of players have fun "getting pirated" in-game?
How could the game be changed to make the in-game piracy part of this game more fun for everybody involved?
Would you agree that more players having fun "getting pirated" is beneficial for players who play pirate roles in-game?
*) "pirated" in-game as an in-game action. No indication that players who play a pirate role in the game do real world piracy to other humans.
...I'm a trader too, and in Open (well, generally, after a crap day I know I wouldn't be a good sport and make the right choice of picking solo). I'm open to being pirated/murdered (although I'll rage as hard as anybody else getting killed for the lulz, but that's part of the game really, anger management is a skill).
Now please please drop the inflamatory tone. This isn't American politics, we can, and must as per the forume rules, discuss things in a civilized manner. If your only goal it to try to aggravate and one-up the participants to this thread, I'm sure there's some variation of Hotel California or ED vs SC out there precisely for that.
I have never disputed any of that.
The post that prompted his comment was Rampant's challenge to my statement that piracy adds to the fun. Maybe I should have stated that as should add to the fun, it would have attracted less senseless aggression. That statement was made on a theoretical level, from Frontier's point of view as game designers. They want people in Open, interacting with one another in various ways, piracy being one of them. My statement, in turn, was prompted by some comment earlier that pirates shouldn't be rewarded because they're ruining peoples' fun, which doesn't make much sense considering it was consciously added as a feature and is absolutely intended for use, both against NPCs and players.
Of course we can discuss what happens in reality, and I'm all in favor of Frontier making changes to C&P to try and rein in murderhobos. None of my posts in this thread have disputed the fact piracy isn't fun for some people, or that it could be made more fun for some of those peoplen, but it was important to set the record straight. There's so much emotion being displayed in these threads and too many people interested only in scoring points and playing to the gallery.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at about there being no in game reason? Pirates are a part of the lore of elite, and any real life scenario like this would have some people who prefer to operate outside the law.
In a "game sense" there are perfectly valid reasons - for example I take part in trade CGs like you, I just don't buy my cargo. It's not a bad earner when you get into the top 50%. I've also partially unlocked some of the engineers by "liberating" lavian brandy and modular terminals from people in the past [noob]
These are all perfectly valid approaches to playing the game, they're just not the ones you partake in.
Apparently it's necessary at this point to emphasise that i'm not in the salt mining business, I just *shock horror* enjoy role playing a bad guy in games. I do it in fallout etc. I do it in elite. Sometime I like to help out new players with their PvE missions. Don't tar everone that likes to PvP with the same brush.
Why isn't actual physics one of them? Or communications technology? Or so on and so on.
Also, I never said crime and law shouldn't be a thing in the game, so you can lay off that strawman.
There are a very small minority like you - and you must know this to be true.
I acknowledge that there are a very small handful of players that play both styles, but you must also acknowledge that the number is exceptionally small compared to the number who just want to be "pirate". Correct?
When you play as pirate, do you naturally destroy your target for non compliance, or do you aim to disable and leave them to pay for repairs and lost time?
The basic tenet of what I wrote previously is still correct that the "added fun" alluded to by Jukelo is a load of tosh. Perhaps that should be *mostly* a load of tosh. I am willing to concede that it isn't absolutely 100% of pirates that would not play as trader for "fun" and put themselves out there to be pirated "for fun". However, the number is close enough to 100% to reasonably allow me to keep the tosh descriptive. In addition, the number of traders who find being pirated to be "added fun" is still close enough to 0%, in the grand scheme of things, and **in the current construct** that the tosh descriptive is maintained as reasonable and truthful description.
I welcome your continued discussion - any more thoughts?
Mark H
No need for conjecture on my part when we have such sage sources as Frontier telling us that PvP is a minority appeal. Rumbled again. Your own sarcasm only serves to solidify my point.
So, thanks, I guess.
Mark H
I'd say I've done more trading & exploration than pirating? If that in anyway adds to this question (if I've understood it)?
I would go a slightly different route on this which still allows a reasonable mechanic and provides a reasoned "probability" of cargo carried by each ship.
Follow me along on this...
Our ships' scanners easily distinguish the hull type and other equipment fitted to each scanned vessel.
Our ships' computers could easily be programmed with data on the approximate mass of each hull type and the likely mass of each module fitted.
The only things a scan does not fully reveal is the actual grade of each module, (and therefore basic unmodified mass of each module), and also any cargo carried
The manifest scanner might only be able to ascertain the overall mass of a vessel whilst in SC.
The upshot is that - IN LORE - a probability estimate could be provided by the computer of an amount of cargo carried. And if you want to go a bit further, an error probability could also be displayed.
Of course, the actual mechanics of equations and functions don't need to programmed into the code, just an approximation could be used.
For vessels far away in SC - the error probability is high and the cargo probability low.
For vessels inside long range FSD Interdictor range - the error probability is medium and the number of tonnes of cargo estimate is provided within certain bounds. For a medium vessel carrying 50T you might receive scan reports such as:
Cargo estimate 20-40T (35% error probability)
For the same vessel inside typical Class 1 Grade D FSD Interdictor range:
Cargo estimate 41-46T (80% error probability)
Something along those lines would be my own suggestion, just to give a rough feel for the probability of cargo being carried, simply because it is pants that the NPCs transmit about juicy cargo when there is no mechanic available to players to rationalise this kind of transmission (other than outside intelligence, of course, like you've been scanned leaving a station and that info has been broadcast to a wing or onto a pirates' information dissemination system for forward transmission to the pirates' network - which again could be a tool that appears in game but only for players who have gained reputation with illegal pirate factions - you know - like *content* for pirates).
I'm not simply against piracy - I think piracy could work in this game - but in the current construct it is so nominally close to zero fun for traders that this is the source of the whining. The beef, largely, is not that piracy exists, but that it has no consequences for a pirate and nothing but consequence for traders. There is no symbiosis. There is no eco-system. Only pain on one side and none on the other. Of course, this is the majority view where on the other hand a few players might actually find being a targeted traded fun...
Cheerz
Mark H
Thanks for the reply.
It isn't a question, really of what you might have "done" in the history of your gameplay, but more a question of what you *now* want to do?
The question boils down to:
At the commencement of your next gameplay session, will you choose to go on the piracy session to have fun? Or will you choose to put yourself in the role of target of piracy - *FOR YOUR OWN FUN*?
Now, the logical and reasonable expectation I have is that, of all those who currently play as pirates, that they will just go pirating. They will shun choosing the role of pirate target. If they do choose to go trading, it won't be for the *FUN of BEING PIRATED*, but either simply to earn some credits or to shelve their own fun in order that some other player gets some fun from piracy = the altruistic pirate - of which I logically doubt that there are many in game.
Would that appear to be a reasonable analysis from your own perspective, as it appears to be a reasonable and logical analysis for myself and in all probability (bearing in mind that PvP is confirmed minority gameplay) a reasonable analysis of the majority of players.
Yours Aye
Mark H
Piracy is time consuming, low profit and most importantly everything can be done "easier" and at a lower overall cost - from an in-game perspective.
There is nothing in this game that "forces" a in-game pilot into piracy. Not the desire to make lots of money in a fast way, not social or political circumstances, nothing.
Becoming a pirate is - from a game play perspective - a decision of the player for out of game reasons (player having fun as opposed to in-game character having good reasons to become a pirate).
Why should anybody become a criminal if being lawful is easier and makes more money. OK, maybe a few would simply like to be criminals, but it is far fetched and doesn't really make that much sense if every criminal (in-game criminal) is doing it just because of being a pycho or having fun being outside the law (the in-game character, not the player).
That's cool if you have fun playing the game, but Lavian brandy is a low price commodity easily available.
Modular terminals might be harder to get, but you only need a few units of those things and then they are absolutely irrelevant.
How much time did you spend getting that Lavian brandy and Modular Terminals and how much credits did you spend on ammo and repairs?
Now consider that you could have earned 3000 cr/ton by hauling grain or basic medicine from A to B with an time investment of 10 minutes.
(Not to mention earning easily 10 Mcr/15 min with passenger missions)
Does piracy make any in-game sense under those conditions? To me it doesn't make any sense.
Out of game - fun. OK, not denying that.
That's why I added "RP begging" - demanding cargo for RP reasons and hoping/expecting the cooperation of the other player. And you need the cooperation of that other player, because there is absolutely nothing in this game that forces the player to give you any cargo at all.
If you use hatch breaker limpets, that was covered in the comment you quoted.
I have no issue trading and being interdicted and pirated, EXCEPT that at the moment there's a very high probability any interdiction simply means mindless murder hobo time. ie: Interdiction --> no comms --> pew pew --> thanks for the grief top up.
IF/when the game can rein in these murder hobos, then I'll be more happy trading and being pirated. And I suspect others will too?
I’ve no problems with people playing pirate so long as they don’t mind being treated like Somalian ‘fishermen’. Hunted down like dogs by vastly superior forces and denied safe harbour anywhere in the civilised world.
Give me an alt and I’d jump at that gameplay.
It’s the part time, dilettante, consequence free criminality that’s both irritating and tedious.
Give me an alt and I’d jump at that gameplay.
It’s the part time, dilettante, consequence free criminality that’s both irritating and tedious.