It wouldn't be a problem if all they did in the system was blow stuff up to grind rank. The problems start when they hang around and decide to do missions which, naturally, default to kicking the hell out of the anarchies more often than not.
Question on AFK play
- Thread starter Christian-117
- Start date
Exploration, when you want to fully scan a system or find something that is worth some money, worth scanning, and you have to travel 15 mins.
I just don't see any value in making a player wait for an extended period of time, unless your business model is selling microtransactions in order to reduce wait time.
I used to have a tape loader, I don't recall loading anything for 10 mins, but even then I didn't have to sit in front of the screen for 10 minutes, waiting for something to happen. I got up, got snacks, went to the loo, and came back to a blinking cursor for me to type RUN.
Funnily enough I do the same playing ED! 
the kicker was when you got the magazine covertapes and if you just left the tape running then after the game you wanted had loaded it'd then run on and on and on just playing the screeching for the next game in the list.
And the +2 speccy's tape deck didn't come with a counter to find the right place in the tape again.
And after the tape played... "Checksum error"! Rewind and try again...
Or if the player ate the tape and made tape salad!
Have to admit, using turrets and afk to rank to combat Elite is a bit off, though I'm not against the build and have considered making one myself. However, realizing that gives me pause for thought on it though, I'm currenlty at Master IIRC and would prefer to get to Elite organically, shall we say. The solution to it would be if kills that are 100% from turrets don't count towards your combat rank, though I don't know whether damage is tracked to that degree of detail so I won't say that's an easy fix to implement.
I've got to say I wouldn't like that. Almost all my kills are from turrets! My cargo ships are set up so I just press the fire button, wait for the pirate to explode and then check for good materials.
That kind of playstyle needs a rank of its own: outfitting.I've got to say I wouldn't like that. Almost all my kills are from turrets! My cargo ships are set up so I just press the fire button, wait for the pirate to explode and then check for good materials.
Combat-wise, no skill involved.
If Frontier were to do that, and I'm not full on advocating that they do, there's more to it as you rightly point out, it would be simple to stick a multicannon in there and plant a few shots to validate the kill.I've got to say I wouldn't like that. Almost all my kills are from turrets! My cargo ships are set up so I just press the fire button, wait for the pirate to explode and then check for good materials.
I mean, dude, that's the entire point of that gameplay loop you're engaging with. That isn't pointless travel time, you're actively doing a gameplay thing in the game. Exploration is intentionally a "choose your level of engagement" tiered gameplay system, and each tier of it is more time investment for higher amounts of money and bigger details. Honk, FSS, fly to the planet and DSS, land on the planet and look for discoveries and/or collect Exobiology samples. Each of these is a tier that gives you a greater reward for investing more time in what you're doing.
The only part that can be considered "idle" is flying from the main star of the system to whatever you want to do a DSS scan of or land on. And traveling for 10-15 minutes (which you can choose to stop doing at any time in the process) is not the same as your previous "30-90 minutes of wasting my time in Supercruise" claim. If you're including the entire length of time you're doing exploration stuff as "wasting my time", maybe you're doing the wrong thing in the game and should find something more active to make your money.
What microtransactions apply to travel time?! You can't buy faster supercruise or micro-jumps with Arx, you buy paint jobs and stuff. Nothing obtainable by Arx gives you any sort of gameplay related shortcut or advantage. What does Arx even have to do with what you're complaining about?
If the problem you have is "I want to get up and do something else during my time supercruising through liminal space", they make this thing called a Supercruise Assist module that will fly the ship for you during the boring part while you go do something else. And in exploration gameplay, you're pretty unlikely to be unexpectedly interdicted on the way over. So... what's the problem?
I took it as a reference to the Smeaton gold rush.
Similar discussion from a bit back and a some builds as well I believe:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/afk-farming.569453/
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/afk-farming.569453/
r tape loading error, 0:1
No I do it for credits, and afk killing in low res does not increase rank by much since the enemies are too low ranked, you stop getting xp from them after you hit a certain rank as well
IF ONLY it would reward you in any kind of way.
Exo pays absolute peanuts and Is next to exploration the most tedious game loop in game.
That's why I don't do it.
None. That's why I said: wait timers make only sense IF your business model is based on micro transactions to shorten said wait timers.
Fdev only has wait timers but no microTRX, unless that part is also "future content" for siad micro TRX.
For some people yes, for others, no.There's no right way t play the game. Fish are just as tastey whether you catch them on a rod and line or a long-line.
It's certainly not everyone's 'sort of game', but immersion wise, there is an argument to be made. Some cmdrs are good at making money from trading, or mining, but suck at dogfighting. Might they not have the option of ploughing their money into a build that doesn't leave them at the mercy of pirates? Especially if they're already rich enough to buy a battle cruiser, and only the technical limitations of the game get in the way?