Balancing of NPC piracy

[khalismur]

Can't agree more. Piracy requires more skill, patience and is a bit riskier than most other activities, specially when done in systems with a government (without anarchy). The pay is ridiculously low for the effort in terms of credits but oh boy it is very fun indeed, at least!

On a side note, imagine if they'd release a "tether" module(hard point or utility), able to equalize the target ship's velocity vector with your own. That's be very fun for piracy and I can see the community finding other fun uses for such a thing too.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Can't agree more. Piracy requires more skill, patience and is a bit riskier than most other activities, specially when done in systems with a government (without anarchy). The pay is ridiculously low for the effort in terms of credits but oh boy it is very fun indeed, at least!

On a side note, imagine if they'd release a "tether" module(hard point or utility), able to equalize the target ship's velocity vector with your own. That's be very fun for piracy and I can see the community finding other fun uses for such a thing too.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the tether is a bad idea, more the equivalent of the docking computer, as the bump stop can be quite quick for those who are good at it, so it’s one of those rare cases where piloting skill increases the CR/hr. It would only need a few server side number adjustments to make piracy more realistic and worth the effort and skill.

 

[Dragsham]

I wholly disagree. The grappling hook or tractor beam etc is a must have for pirates and indeed combat.
But it must be limited to its module size and consequently its effectiveness

 

[GraphiteGB]

I wholly disagree. The grappling hook or tractor beam etc is a must have for pirates and indeed combat.
But it must be limited to its module size and consequently its effectiveness

And guardian tractor beam could be adjusted to collect stolen/ clean goods with out getting in the weak as cow poo SRV on planets to assist EDO addon...
Walking players raid. ship players suck up/take the cargo stolen bounty... all pirates in the group win... mission contract complete..

 

[Muetdhiver]

I wholly disagree. The grappling hook or tractor beam etc is a must have for pirates and indeed combat.
But it must be limited to its module size and consequently its effectiveness

100% this.

Though my preferred solution would be to have RCS limpets that can attach to the target ship and slow it down.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

100% this.

Though my preferred solution would be to have RCS limpets that can attach to the target ship and slow it down.

I’m just concentrating in this thread on the easy to change balancing aspect, that’s all. You are talking about a new feature, which would be nice, but I wanted to concentrate on the economy BGS aspect here.

 

[khalismur]

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the tether is a bad idea, more the equivalent of the docking computer, as the bump stop can be quite quick for those who are good at it, so it’s one of those rare cases where piloting skill increases the CR/hr. It would only need a few server side number adjustments to make piracy more realistic and worth the effort and skill.

Sure, it can be quick but what's the point of it? Feels so dumb not to have other alternatives to stop a ship 12 centuries from today other than booty-bumping 3~4 times. A grappling hook, or some guardian tether beam would make MUCH more sense and find more use other than purely piracy. It would even fit in with the lore of what we know of guardian technology -> see the guardian fighter "wings" and how they are attached to the craft's core

Otherwise, imagine a dumb missile attached to a cable that detonates on hit and melts a soft-metal head, thus creating the same effect as a grappling hook connecting two ships. Both are much more elegant solutions than bumping. It takes some skill to do that sure, but it feels quite ridiculous.

This would speed up piracy, thus help balance it by increasing profits per time invested, which is the point of this thread, no?

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Sure, it can be quick but what's the point of it? Feels so dumb not to have other alternatives to stop a ship 12 centuries from today other than booty-bumping 3~4 times. A grappling hook, or some guardian tether beam would make MUCH more sense and find more use other than purely piracy. It would even fit in with the lore of what we know of guardian technology -> see the guardian fighter "wings" and how they are attached to the craft's core

Otherwise, imagine a dumb missile attached to a cable that detonates on hit and melts a soft-metal head, thus creating the same effect as a grappling hook connecting two ships. Both are much more elegant solutions than bumping. It takes some skill to do that sure, but it feels quite ridiculous.

This would speed up piracy, thus help balance it by increasing profits per time invested, which is the point of this thread, no?

Still don’t agree, you easily spend 20 minutes waiting for a ship to turn up with valuable cargo, the tether would save you one or two minutes, and a T7 full of LTDs (say 120t) nets you about 30-35m at current black market prices. There’s no way a tether could make the same difference that a T7 full of higher value minerals such as muschravite would.

 

[khalismur]

Well I certainly wished we had better tools to be pirates 1280 years from now instead of banging butts. Using weapons with inertia transfer is a bit better already, but not nearly as interesting and sense-making as would a cable or guardian tether. Hard for me to believe you don't see what I'm saying. You're fine bumping the ships? Does that make any sense to you whatsoever? lol

The current way is the most non-intuitive and most nonsensical way of stopping a ship I can think of. Heck, give us a tool to hack the other ship's thrusters, or limpets to repair and take control of them. Or just limpets attaching to the ship and using their own thrusters to slowly stop it. ANYTHING is better than butt bumping...

 

[Chaines]

As much as I like canon & bump stopping pray... You're absolutely right. First time I went and learn to pirate I could not trust what i read

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Well I certainly wished we had better tools to be pirates 1280 years from now instead of banging butts. Using weapons with inertia transfer is a bit better already, but not nearly as interesting and sense-making as would a cable or guardian tether. Hard for me to believe you don't see what I'm saying. You're fine bumping the ships? Does that make any sense to you whatsoever? lol

The current way is the most non-intuitive and most nonsensical way of stopping a ship I can think of. Heck, give us a tool to hack the other ship's thrusters, or limpets to repair and take control of them. Or just limpets attaching to the ship and using their own thrusters to slowly stop it. ANYTHING is better than butt bumping...

We are talking at cross purposes, as I said further up, this thread is supposed to be about easy balancing changes that could make piracy worth more. The tether would be costly to implement and would have further ramifications: how would it be limited to just piracy? What effect would it have on combat in general?? That’s why I didn’t want to confuse the issue by discussing things that aren’t going to happen any time soon.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

As much as I like canon & bump stopping pray... You're absolutely right. First time I went and learn to pirate I could not trust what i read

The weirdest thing here is that you have to stop the prey at all: why should collectors be limited by some weird absolute concept of velocity? All you should need to do is match speed.

 

[Jmanis]

So.... maybe I'm missing something... but whenever i pirate an NPC, i zero velocity, fire off hatchbreakers and wait for the loot to drop... tanking any hits im taking.

Specifically, NPCs manouver differently if they're a lone target which you don't open fire on and just hatch break. They kinda focus on just slowly scooping up cargo rather than doing combat manouvers. They'll still attack if you're in weapons arcs, but tank that.

It means further hatch breaks don't spew cargo everywhere because they're moving so slowly. So no need to bump stop a driveless ship.

Granted this doesn't work if they're in a wing or you attack them, so it limits your options.... but if you hit a lone T9 this should work well. I'll verify this behaviour in a minute.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

So.... maybe I'm missing something... but whenever i pirate an NPC, i zero velocity, fire off hatchbreakers and wait for the loot to drop... tanking any hits im taking.

Specifically, NPCs manouver differently if they're a lone target which you don't open fire on and just hatch break. They kinda focus on just slowly scooping up cargo rather than doing combat manouvers. They'll still attack if you're in weapons arcs, but tank that.

It means further hatch breaks don't spew cargo everywhere because they're moving so slowly. So no need to bump stop a driveless ship.

Granted this doesn't work if they're in a wing or you attack them, so it limits your options.... but if you hit a lone T9 this should work well. I'll verify this behaviour in a minute.

If you kill the drives of a ship that is doing 150m/s it will continue drifting at that speed and collectors are not able to collect if launched at speeds over about 80-90 m/s, hence the bump stop. This isn’t very ‘realistic’, as all it would require in real physics would be to match your speed with the victim. In that case the tether would not be needed anyway. You can of course just hatchbreak a victim while you are travelling slowly and tank their returning fire (this was the main method until about a year ago), but now NPCs will jump out soon after you launch hatch breakers and you won’t get their full cargo.

 

[GraphiteGB]

Been to the incorrect systems... aka those that should not have LTD...
And those systems drop table... none were non trade goods but the RNG drop of LTD still...

Aluminium 191T
Gold 30T
Gallite 28T
Praseodymium 21T
Uraninite 129T
Bauxite 7T
Coltan 19T
Silver 51T
Samarium 1T
Gallium 202T
Silver 134T
Tea 286T
Rutile 8T
Palladium 4T
LTD 7T

stupid miners... and there Tea..

Force shell, force shell cannon still rules... bump stopping pah…

 

[Chaines]

stupid miners... and there Tea..

Force shell, force shell cannon still rules... bump stopping pah…

I use both, first force shell in order to slow them down, then a light bump to hold them almost still. I like to be able to almost cut engine but that's just me.

And hey at last you had some tea !

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Been to the incorrect systems... aka those that should not have LTD...
And those systems drop table... none were non trade goods but the RNG drop of LTD still...

Aluminium 191T
Gold 30T
Gallite 28T
Praseodymium 21T
Uraninite 129T
Bauxite 7T
Coltan 19T
Silver 51T
Samarium 1T
Gallium 202T
Silver 134T
Tea 286T
Rutile 8T
Palladium 4T
LTD 7T

stupid miners... and there Tea..

Force shell, force shell cannon still rules... bump stopping pah…

Force shells are the advanced bump stop

 

[khalismur]

We are talking at cross purposes, as I said further up, this thread is supposed to be about easy balancing changes that could make piracy worth more. The tether would be costly to implement and would have further ramifications: how would it be limited to just piracy? What effect would it have on combat in general?? That’s why I didn’t want to confuse the issue by discussing things that aren’t going to happen any time soon.

You opened the thread but it's opened for discussion on ways to "balance npc piracy", not in the very specific thing you want to discuss. My suggestions would improve gameplay by removing the butt bumping, for a more technological, lore friendly and less nonsensical solution. Don't see how that's not "balancing npc piracy" nor why you should dictate what's discussed in this open thread.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

You opened the thread but it's opened for discussion on ways to "balance npc piracy", not in the very specific thing you want to discuss. My suggestions would improve gameplay by removing the butt bumping, for a more technological, lore friendly and less nonsensical solution. Don't see how that's not "balancing npc piracy" nor why you should dictate what's discussed in this open thread.

Yeah I kind of expected you to get narked by me steering the discussion. I do agree with you up to a point. Was the bump stop part of some design for piracy by fdev? I doubt it. Does piracy seem half baked? Yes. But the fact remains that piracy won’t achieve its deserved cr/hr via the tether alone. It would be easier (and perhaps more engaging to many), but would it be more profitable? Only very slightly and nowhere near enough to beat laser mining: for that we would need to be able to to catch T7s and T9s with the highest value minerals. For those that can’t master the bump stop (or don’t want to) an additional module (which would penalize space/weight/power requirements) could make it easier, why not.

 

[Suitret]

I would like to see some hatch breaker limpets engineered, dropping more than 10 units of cargo and with secondary effects.
One of them could be the ability to effectively stop a ship when its drives are at zero.
Now this would make me smile.