F Dev: Please clarify what decays Notoriety as being Docked does not decrease Notoriety

As reported in many instances there seems to be confusion as to whether being docked actually decays Notoriety, then there's the issue of published discrepancies for notoriety decay time, so please clarify;

1). Does being "Docked" constitute Game time for Notoriety decay ?.
2). Is Notoriety decay time 2 hours for every Notoriety point, OR, 1 hour for every Notoriety point ?.

See here for a bug report on this issue
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/415771-Notoriety-does-not-decay-as-described
 
On Friday evening I had a notoriety of 2. I carried on playing for 2 hours, completing some missions and it dropped to 1 after about 2hrs. So I undocked, and left the ship flying (still in the station instance, just flying at full speed away from the station) for a couple of hours (watching telly etc), checking on it occasionally then once it went back to zero jumped to a factor & paid off my bounty.

Sitting in dock isn't playing the game, it's just waiting. Anything you can spend 2hrs doing while docked (checking the gapmap for example, or reading the news) can be done while undocked in an empty instance.

So while it might be nice to know, it's something you can work out for yourself just by playing. Once you know, you don't just sit there docked a second time :)
 
Last edited:
Sitting in dock isn't playing the game, it's just waiting.
You have missed the point of my post completely. I want to establish from F-Dev why there's a discrepancy with "Docked", they need to clarify exactly what constitutes game time to decrease Notoriety.

So while it might be nice to know, it's something you can work out for yourself just by playing. Once you know, you don't just sit there docked a second time :)
Its great that you've discovered through trial and error that "docked" doesn't decay notoriety, essentially a workaround for a bug, and it is a bug because they distinctly mention that "Docked" counts a game time.

They should perhaps text a advisory notice when Notoriety becomes zero, messages would be a good place, or a countdown timer would also be nice.
 
Last edited:
You have missed the point of my post completely. I want to establish from F-Dev why there's a discrepancy with "Docked", they need to clarify exactly what constitutes game time to decrease Notoriety.

Its great that you've discovered through trial and error that "docked" doesn't decay notoriety, essentially a workaround for a bug, and it is a bug because they distinctly mention that "Docked" counts a game time.

They should perhaps text a advisory notice when Notoriety becomes zero, messages would be a good place, or a countdown timer would also be nice.

You may be right about it being a bug, but I think there are easy mistakes to make and less likely ones, and I would say notoriety not counting down whilst pad blocking probably isn't a mistake.

Several of the features in ED are black boxes - it is intended to be unknown. Generally the community tests & explores the limits of these parts of the game (I call it Black Boxing, others call it Exploring), essentially not knowing stuff like this is part of what makes the game more interesting to some, and frustrating to others. Eventually the mechanic will be fully explored & any loopholes (like the one I used) will be either regarded as okay or patched out of the game, for example by checking for user input every few minutes. Although what I did was functionally similar to the Hutton run (which takes around 1.5hrs) so probably not that ;)

Once the contents of a black box is known (by the wider community) the challenge is gone, it just becomes a matter of following a simple set of instructions from some youtuber, then complaints that the game is too easy. It's not easy when you have to find stuff out for yourself, it's a challenge. I enjoy that challenge. Admittedly this is a pretty simple mechanism to apply this logic to, but it still works (for me).

Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path & leave a trail.
 
essentially not knowing stuff like this is part of what makes the game more interesting to some, and frustrating to others.
There is a vast difference between published rules and Exploring.
FD MUST make it known what are the rules and regulations of the game, that is not open to interpretation or "exploration", Exploring the unknown is a part of game play but the game's rules still apply.

Its absurd to say to any newcomer in town, "there's the town, there are rules, you'll find the limits as you commit the crimes, and FIY we wont tell you what the rules are BUT we will kill you if you transgress".
 
Last edited:
There is a vast difference between published rules and Exploring.
FD MUST make it known what are the rules and regulations of the game, that is not open to interpretation or "exploration", Exploring the unknown is a part of game play but the game's rules still apply.

Its absurd to say to any newcomer in town, "there's the town, there are rules, you'll find the limits as you commit the crimes, and FIY we wont tell you what the rules are BUT we will kill you if you transgress".

'Ignorance is no defence'.

You are talking about a new feature. The rules will become common knowledge soon enough.
 
I had this issue last week, played for over 6 hours while maintaining a notoriety of 1, upon restarting the game the notoriety disappeared.
This could be an issue where the server is not sending the "lower notoriety by 1" event to the client.
 
I tested this and found that my notoriety (of one) would not go to zero while docked in a station, but it did reset to zero once I left the station and returned. I didn't time this, so it could just be a coincidence that just happened to go to zero when I left and then returned to the station.

FDEVS, could we please have a timer next to our notoriety level?
 
FDEV have a FAQ on C&P here.

Last bullet under notoriety states:
Notoriety does decay while docked, however it will not update in your statistics until you undock and jump to supercruise.

If you find this is not the case, I guess a bug report or is in order (or adding your observations to existing reports)

Bit annoying, should update more frequently like the statistics page.
 
I can confirm that sitting in a dock does not decay notoriety.

I accidentally killed a weakened eagle in a res zone and picked up a 5k bounty.

I though oh fine, I'll sit in the dock with ED running in the background and go play some Conan.

Aw bummer - no notoriety decay. I guess when you're a criminal you got to fly around and be a criminal for a while. Either jump into a clean ship or go farm USS's or planet surfaces in an anarchy system for a while.
 
But that's a true pearl. It's not mentioned very often here that exploring in ED has more than one dimension: It's exploring the game itself what keeps me playing (and I guess many others too). Doesn't mean I can't be quite obtrusive with the most obtrusive bugs or "features" of ED by times...

Well it's the explorers that find the bugs - I'm interested in the whole C&P mechanism, it's core to the game I play that I like to put myself into a dilemma - a situation where there are no easy choices and I quite like the traps the game has for the unwary like the refuelling/notoriety one currently raging, or the OP's point here.

I did a skimmer mission tonight and enjoyed the trap of not knowing whether the skimmers were wanted or not. I was able to reliably determine which were wanted & which were clean (and avoid shooting those even though the consequences are minimal). My game wasn't in killing them, or even finding them, it was in working out whether I should shoot them or not.

This 'depth' just isn't even on most players' radar, and in plenty of cases it may not even be intentional, the lack of skimmer IFF probably is just a bug ;)
 
This 'depth' just isn't even on most players' radar, and in plenty of cases it may not even be intentional, the lack of skimmer IFF probably is just a bug ;)
Ah how quaint, two players who's idea of game play is to determine through trial and error a games rules or bumble your way through to mastery of a complex machine, what you refer to as "Exploring", figuring out how a game works is your idea of "GAME PLAY", I can only think how boring the rest of the game must be to you, I have a suggestion, You should never be given a Instruction manual or access to utube and google for information on how to make a game or machine work, you could really stretch the game for years..... what fun you'd have trying to determine the mechanics of a complex machine through trial and error.

I have a proposal for you, next time you wish to travel by plane ask the captain of the Plane for the keys, sit down in the cockpit and figure out how the plane works for yourself, then take off and land the plane, surely that would give you great satisfaction and bragging rights, "look I figured out how to fly the plane all by myself", just ensure that there's nobody else in the plane when you attempt your first take-off, but I doubt you'd ever get the Plane off the ground as days later you'd still be looking for the key hole.......hint, airliners don't have keys......
 
Last edited:
Ah how quaint, two players who's idea of game play is to determine through trial and error a games rules or bumble your way through to mastery of a complex machine, what you refer to as "Exploring", figuring out how a game works is your idea of "GAME PLAY", I can only think how boring the rest of the game must be to you, I have a suggestion, You should never be given a Instruction manual or access to utube and google for information on how to make a game or machine work, you could really stretch the game for years..... what fun you'd have trying to determine the mechanics of a complex machine through trial and error.

I have a proposal for you, next time you wish to travel by plane ask the captain of the Plane for the keys, sit down in the cockpit and figure out how the plane works for yourself, then take off and land the plane, surely that would give you great satisfaction and bragging rights, "look I figured out how to fly the plane all by myself", just ensure that there's nobody else in the plane when you attempt your first take-off, but I doubt you'd ever get the Plane off the ground as days later you'd still be looking for the key hole.......hint, airliners don't have keys......

Indeed ;)

not knowing stuff like this is part of what makes the game more interesting to some, and frustrating to others.
 
The game drops you into the seat of a spaceship in the future and leaves you to explore that world. That's what puts the adventure into a space adventure game.
 

Would you seriously have preferred to know nothing about the crime and punishment changes so you can "explore" how it works?

Does killing an NPC in self defense, gaining notoriety for 10 hours (I killed 5 of em), and being basically locked out from doing whatever type of play you were trying to enjoy in the game for 10 hours of game time, sound like fun to just go out and "Figure out"?

I guess one mans trash is another mans treasure. Well done, I'm just astounded.
 
I can confirm that sitting in a dock does not decay notoriety.

I accidentally killed a weakened eagle in a res zone and picked up a 5k bounty.

I though oh fine, I'll sit in the dock with ED running in the background and go play some Conan.

Aw bummer - no notoriety decay.…

There's your answer:

FDEV have a FAQ on C&P here.

Last bullet under notoriety states:
Notoriety does decay while docked, however it will not update in your statistics until you undock and jump to supercruise.

If you find this is not the case, I guess a bug report or is in order (or adding your observations to existing reports)

Bit annoying, should update more frequently like the statistics page.
 
Would you seriously have preferred to know nothing about the crime and punishment changes so you can "explore" how it works?

Does killing an NPC in self defense, gaining notoriety for 10 hours (I killed 5 of em), and being basically locked out from doing whatever type of play you were trying to enjoy in the game for 10 hours of game time, sound like fun to just go out and "Figure out"?

I guess one mans trash is another mans treasure. Well done, I'm just astounded.

It is how I play the game. I don't use how-to guides, I read the patch notes & game manual, but I don't use player created tools, I just play the game. I've done this for about 4,500 hours so I've learned a fair bit I've done most activities the game offers. I'm not bored, I don't think the game is too easy, because I haven't just copied another kids homework.

Who do you suppose wrote all those helpful guides? Other players who figured it out for themselves :)

I don't expect others to follow the same path as me, but I do think complaining that it's too hard when others have the same info (or more), or too easy (because someone else did the hard work for you) is a bit lame. I like that the game doesn't always hold your hand, and sometimes it means I don't achieve things. I've never completed the Ram Tah mission for example.
 
Back
Top Bottom