But what is the reason for trade routes being so lacking in confrontation out of open ?

[Tinman]

Players complained you couldnt trade grind your way to victory and sell your shields for extra cargo space, so frontier listened and made trading safe. 'Frustrating is not fun' I think was their words. Then those players grinded their way weaponless and shieldless to anaconda and complained it was boring and are now noticeable by their absence.

I think now frontier are starting to repair the damage.

Trading was always as it is now more or less. They didn't "listen to the whiners" and made things easier due to that. If anything things have gotten harder since release due to improved AIs and NPC(/player) wings.

As a sidenote. This whole "FD is only listening to the whiners-argument" that so many seem to be going with don't hold up for a couple of reasons:

1. I can list many many areas where FD hasn't changed their design no matter how much people have asked for it.
2. What people often seem to mean with "whiner" is simply "someone not agreeing with me". The same people who complain about "whiners" doesn't seem to mind if FD DO change something due to THEIR feedback.

 

[Jason S]

I think FD are doing what they want. But I agree that there should be quite safe low margin space (although more eventful somehow than it is now) and perhaps more so high margin dangerous space.

Currently what we have mostly it seems to me is a lot of very high margin and very safe space.

 

[CMDR Generic EventHandler]

At the moment I am in a python, but even when I was in a type 7 I would wish for more interdictions to break the routine of trade runs.

I am a trader.

In the first elite there seemed to be much more chance of meeting hostiles while trading.

In the new Elite DANGEROUS I can do sometimes 20 trade runs without being interdicted.

The question to the community but also to FD if they read this is:

Why is trading so safe and uneventful ?

Is it for realism? As yes I can see being safe is probably the realistic state in the future, but this is a game and I want something more often to happen that breaks the routine.

This is in respect for traders, I understand that there are CZ and RES to go to, what I talk about is the trade runs.

Do you see other CMDR's when you trade? I'm guessing you don't.

Each commander in a system spawns NPCs, If you have 2 - 3 CMDRs in the system you get 2x 3x the number of NPCs, and some of these will try to interdict you. Not just your NPCs that you have spawned but the other commanders npcs will try to interdict you if you're the closest.

In beta they tried turning up the number of NPCs that spawned, this resulted in interdictions 6x in a single system
They turned it down for gamma, and then back up again for release.
It was toned down again and then back up. With wings, and the events that happened in Lugh, we were seeing 100's of NPCs in system at the same time, interdicting all over the place. They quickly put a cap on how many NPCs could spawn at one moment.

For me the spawn rate of Interdicting NPCs is about right, if you go to more populated systems you will be interdicted more.

 

[Jason S]

Do you see other CMDR's when you trade? I'm guessing you don't.

Each commander in a system spawns NPCs, If you have 2 - 3 CMDRs in the system you get 2x 3x the number of NPCs, and some of these will try to interdict you. Not just your NPCs that you have spawned but the other commanders npcs will try to interdict you if you're the closest.

In beta they tried turning up the number of NPCs that spawned, this resulted in interdictions 6x in a single system
They turned it down for gamma, and then back up again for release.
It was toned down again and then back up. With wings, and the events that happened in Lugh, we were seeing 100's of NPCs in system at the same time, interdicting all over the place. They quickly put a cap on how many NPCs could spawn at one moment.

For me the spawn rate of Interdicting NPCs is about right, if you go to more populated systems you will be interdicted more.

Thanks for a good informative post.

Does this mean to get more npc interdictions, that would happen in populated space, but only in open play (i.e. there are real CMDR players), so I should go to open play ?

 

[CMDR Generic EventHandler]

Thanks for a good informative post.

Does this mean to get more npc interdictions, that would happen in populated space, but only in open play (i.e. there are real CMDR players), so I should go to open play ?

Yes, open will give you more interdictions or a big private group.

 

[Triple88a]

It would also no longer feel like Elite since the scale is a major selling point and important part of the games identity.

Sooo what you're saying is you'd rather have 400 billion randomly generated systems with 3 copy/paste stations/planets in each instead of few hundred well designed systems?

 

[Tuub t Tute]

NPC interdict or not based on a few criteria.

Higher combat rank = less chance
Good System Security (government) = less chance
Ship you are flying (pure trader or multi-role) = change in chance

So a 'Conda pilot who is dangerous and in a Federal Democracy will see less interdictions than a Harmless L7 in an Anarchy

When I use Haulers to go between fleet ships I get more interdictions than in multi-role ships with decent armaments.

 

[Ikari]

Trading is safe because the ships are designed with little or no defense with out a wing. If the world of ED was to become more deadly to traders then surely ship manufacturers would create trading vessels with adequate defense like combat drones more turrets etc.

 

[HipToss]

Trade in anarchy space! /

 

[Jaeger]

Why is trading so safe and uneventful ?

It's the way the game is designed. Because the penalty for death is so grievous, (insurance rebuy + loss of cargo) it's not feasible to have a game where commanders die much.

As a design idea, "death should be a significant event" does sound like a good idea. But unfortunately what emerges is the bland uneventful boring game-play we are now stuck with.

The die is cast, the best we can hope for is that another space adventure game will not make the same mistake.