On Improving The Safety of Commanders In Game
- Thread starter Phisto Sobanii
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As a rule of thumb, avoid talking about things you don't know.
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I will defend to the death my right to log into open in an unarmed, unshielded ship and get ganked repeatedly!
Ah, good. Lets situate security.Ah, that explains your security situation then!
Please explain to me how you're going to vet 11,000 players.
Or how you're going to provide security detail evenly distributed among instances holding 11,000 players.
Or how it's failing to plan when CMDRs arrive in Open after being told Fleetcomm or other PGs would be the best modes to arrive.
Also this.
OP, you're clueless. Go organise an event with a mere 50 people, never mind 11,000, and see how far your "advice" gets you. lmao.
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The trick is not to get blown up repeatedly in an unshielded, unarmed ship in Open. It's possible, it's easy, but it might include a return on investment calculation or avoiding other players.
The problem is that the game is fundamentally not set up to allow for useful "good guy" operations in that sense. So hundreds of people have tried it, found it doesn't work, and either given up or switched sides [1].
Think about the old games like Freespace or Tie Fighter. You had escort operations in that, and the set up was usually:
- ships to defend: slow, poorly armed, extremely tough, time to escape several minutes
- defence fighter: fast, moderately armed, not very tough
- attack bomber: quite fast, heavily armed, still not very tough
So the question is whether the bombers can get enough bombs launched before the fighters shoot them down, or whether the fighters can destroy or drive off the bombers before that point. That's fun whichever side you're on - and you got to play both in different missions, of course.
Now compare with the same in Elite Dangerous:
- ships to defend: slow, poorly armed, extremely weak, time to escape <1 minute (15 seconds or less if prepared)
- defence fighter: fast, heavily armed, extremely tough
- attack fighter: fast, heavily armed, extremely tough
- (NPC attack fighter): medium speed, medium armament, medium toughness, really easily distracted
No matter how much firepower the defenders pour onto the attacker, they can't possibly destroy it before the ships being defended are destroyed. That's probably not great fun for either side, but at least the attacker gets to appreciate the explosions.
(Whereas if you toughen the ships to defend up enough to take the hits, they then don't need an escort at all as they can just escape under their own shields and speed)
That's not to say that you can't have the good guys (or at least the neutral guys) defending explorers successfully in Open - but the approach has to be very different to the combat-heavy approach that would be taken in other games, and really doesn't fit well with a big sign saying "thousands of easy targets over here at this date and time".
On the original Christmas Carriers Convoy departure, I tried to come up with a sensible escort arrangement that would keep squishy freighter-explorers safe from anything smarter or less predictable than a basic pirate NPC. A few hours of practice later, and it was very obvious that to make it work you'd need:
- a serious numeric advantage over any attacker
- a lot of training and practice for both defending escorts *and* the ships being defended (as in months of weekly drills)
- stronger comms and coordination tools than either Elite Dangerous or Discord provides and a big team to run them
- thorough vetting of all escorts and ships being defended
- perhaps most crucially, not doing anything more interesting for the ships being defended than sitting still (and in comms silence, to keep channels clear for the people who needed to talk) with FSDs pre-charged ready to leave in a second if anything happened
I reported that back, and the organisers - understandably - gave up on the idea of running it in Open. Not ideal, but the game just isn't set up for fleet defence operations of that sort, and I don't think it would feel very Elite-y if the ship setup was more along the Freespace/Tie Fighter lines for separating small, medium and large ships.
As an aside: to those criticising the DWE organisers for "not making it clear" that you shouldn't show up in Open with a non-hardened ship ... well, I've seen them consistently mention that for weeks and point out that Fleetcomm PG is their primary recommendation and failing that "not Open". There's only so clear you can be when people aren't reading it, and with 12,000 signups it doesn't take many people not to read it for there to be plenty of targets in Open.
[1] I'm pretty sure at least half of the names I've seen mentioned attacking explorers around DWE have previously been members of one "good guy" group or another. I guess that there might not be a lot of fun in blowing up easy targets, but it's probably still way more fun than failing to defend easy targets is...
I was quite surprised reading about the number of CMDR's arriving at the start system in open, it was bound to be a focus as much as a CG is and the heavy combat crews would be there in force to have a 'good time' at the 'lesser' ship's expense.
I am useless at combat and not likely to improve - I was much better 30 years ago in the original Elite - I have played in open and lost a ship or 2 to PvP players without firing a shot of my own, but may already have visited the CG station fully laden many times previously to the encounter. I get shot, the PvP'er feels good, I rebuy and carry on, but in Solo or PG and am quite happy. I had my fun in open, donated a ship as part of the fun and carried on in another mode. I played knowing at some point I'd be interdicted and lose the ship, it was fun just not knowing when
I'd never take my explorer build in open, it is equipped to 'defend' against NPC pirates of the level I'd expect to encounter but not against any human piloted ship...
I am useless at combat and not likely to improve - I was much better 30 years ago in the original Elite - I have played in open and lost a ship or 2 to PvP players without firing a shot of my own, but may already have visited the CG station fully laden many times previously to the encounter. I get shot, the PvP'er feels good, I rebuy and carry on, but in Solo or PG and am quite happy. I had my fun in open, donated a ship as part of the fun and carried on in another mode. I played knowing at some point I'd be interdicted and lose the ship, it was fun just not knowing when
I'd never take my explorer build in open, it is equipped to 'defend' against NPC pirates of the level I'd expect to encounter but not against any human piloted ship...
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After years of being called griefers and psychopaths, who can blame them?
Seriously though, there are lots of "good guy" PvPers out there.
They just didn't want to associate themselves with the "leadership" of this event.
Those guys go so far as to ban people for giving proper fitting advice.
Weird stuff going on over there.
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On second thought, lets not being that discussion in here.
The focus needs to be on the insights of those criticising the security situation.
On second thought, lets not being that discussion in here.
The focus needs to be on the insights of those criticising the security situation.
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I get friend requests from time to time... Nothing mysterious about that or even nefarious.
In fact, I recently got one from a commander, who for the next 2 weeks appeared online... In SOLO! I finally messaged him as to what the point was for sending me a friend request if he only plays in solo... No response.
Go figure.
Well said and I agree with it all, the game ultimately is played by Human beings and as is the case we all have different moral codes and agenda's which dictate how we play the game. Whilst I don't agree with griefer's and that is just my own stance but the warnings were given by DWE about the dangers ahead, so the blame rests with the individual whether or not to take the risk of being Griefed and not DWE.
Fly safe Cmdr's
o7
Deleted member 115407
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Indeed, the organizers made it way to easy.
Ah, that explains your security situation then!
Thanks for confirming said rule of thumb
Don't believe everything you see on the internet
The problem as I see it is that the only way to get involved with any sort of community event in Open is to come with a pure PvP build, preferably with organised friends. Otherwise you're always on the losing side. There is no way anybody in an exploration vessel could ever stand up to a PvP ship, shields or not.
It's a gripe I've had from early on. Ships are waaaay too easy to kill in Elite. Given the spread out nature of the galaxy, and how combat in Elite is geared entirely for 1v1, battles should go on for a very long time. In the very early game when everybody was mincing about in Cobras still, this kinda happened. You could fight till your shields dropped, then fight some more, and then providing you didn't push it, bug out.
Now if you're not running a frigate filled to the teeth with engineered bits, then you get insta-killed by an unwanted PvPer.
It's a gripe I've had from early on. Ships are waaaay too easy to kill in Elite. Given the spread out nature of the galaxy, and how combat in Elite is geared entirely for 1v1, battles should go on for a very long time. In the very early game when everybody was mincing about in Cobras still, this kinda happened. You could fight till your shields dropped, then fight some more, and then providing you didn't push it, bug out.
Now if you're not running a frigate filled to the teeth with engineered bits, then you get insta-killed by an unwanted PvPer.
But I enjoy getting blown up repeatedly in open, in my unshielded, unarmed ship. How else am I supposed to spend my billions? High-waking is boring.
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If that's what you want, then do it - or let it happen? - anyway. Have fun getting blown up.
You might want to optimize your ship for maximum rebuy cost. I think a good starting point would be that station that offers all modules at an increased price.
Deleted member 115407
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This guy's not kidding.
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