Strap in guys, its a bit of a long post!
As we all know the new C&P is...well honestly a bit of a mess.
The previous system didn't stop grief, but also didnt do much in terms of adding to it, beside the occasional friendly fire, and needing to warp in and out of the system.
Now we've got a whole new folder on our hands, but now not only does not deter any potential Grief/Ganking it only adds more to the players actually abiding the rules.
For exmaple:
You go to a thargoid attacked station, forget to request clearance, get fined, and cant access the passenger lounge(and you have to undock go to the rescue ship and clear it there),nor can you clear the fine inside, or you brush into a stubborn npc while docking and get a meaningless 200cr fine.
This just adds an unnecessary mouse click , that adds zero gameplay value, and does not address the real issue.
And Real Issue is that gankers and griefers and whatever you want to call them don't value credits, so issuing even global bounties won't do anything, nor will adding a bigger bounty for murder, there needs to be one more reason not be a criminal other than "This number on top of your head is now a bit bigger)
The issue is the "high security" systems are the same as any other.
What should have been done instead:
High security systems are HIGH meaning there are ATR and patrols flying around always, and if you get intredicted a warning goes off your ship and you immediately have response of ATR with more than just guns, that make that kind of ganking near suicide, especially in starter systems.
Hell, we've been delivering thargoid tech for years now, why can't the ATR have some Form of a shutdown field that only affects weapons or shields?
That can be easily tested and scaled down for lower security systems, with low security having only the Standard patrols responding, and medium having lower size ATR squads with lower tech.
As for dealing with the player mechanics as a result.
and we can use the Notoriety(or infamy as i prefer to call it, yes i know it means the same thing ) mechanic to use.
Players with high enough infamy will be shunned and have their pilots federation license revoked, making them pilots federation outlaws/outcasts.
This would require them to use a masking module to fly in regular space that spoofs their ID, and use the anonymous protocol in stations, prices should also be raised for any module or commodity while in this state, as naturally when you don't know who you're selling to, stations should raise rates for said player as a result.
**To reverse this Players would need to turn themselves in, pay any and all fines they have, and then pherhaps do missions for the pilots federation, raising their reputation back slowly, untill they get their PF license officially reinstated, at special Re-education centers.
A play would need to do this every time their Infamy Went above the tolerance threshold (for gameplay purposes)**
Anarchy systems should become Hotspots, where these players can set home bases and make their own rules.
Also, black market rates should be increased 50x times at least to justify any pirating of. Any sort to be worth anyone's time.
Anarchy should have very high paying black markets, and whole economies based off of black market goods, attracting even regular traders to seek out and dare make tens of millions of trading very risky illicit goods, as well as dealing with real commander pirates, as well as highly dangerous NPC pirates.
To compliment this , An activity hot map filter should be added to the galaxy map, showing where large concentrations of commanders are located approximately, this should only work if the systems in question have been explored, or are known by the player, as to avoid finding or ganking deep space explorers, this shouldn't be hard to implement as stations log any commanders arrival regardless, i imagine this looking like the PP bubble filter in the galaxy map, except this one will have Color dependent on Density of commanders per LY or so.
The offending players bounty should be the value of the destroyed ship.
Once the offending player has been killed, or has cleared his bounty on his own volition, either by self destruction, getting killed by someone else, or turning himself in, the full, or partial amount of the money will go to the victim, FROM the offending players bank, if the amount is available.
Anyone claiming the bounty should will be compensated as usual.
Also When using anonymous protocol, being scanned would have the risk of being detected, the higher the system security the higher the chance of being "unmasked" by system authority vessels, upon detection station will proceed to fire warning shots destroying the players shield generator, and or. Modules and dropping their health down to a certain percentage.
If the warning is not heeded,and the player doesn't leave the area station will destroy its target.
Also, if player commits ANY violation once Unsmaked the station will immediately fire to kill regardless if the time to remove oneself from the area or not.
Same for megaships, but as those usually have way less defense they would become way more important to pirates.
A few more points on How The Infamy scale would work (in the way i see it)
Once first level of infamy is gained, there is a generated sphere of threat awareness around the players location, triggering a warning broadcast to all stations and systems within an x Ly radius, performing a crime anywhere within this sphere centers it back on the Player immediately, as for using any outposts or stations without the anon protocol will do the same.
The higher the infamy the more this sphere increase up until a threshold
Once a high enough infamy is reached federation license is revoked, once this happens a strong wing of NPC bounty hunters are dispatched ONCE trying to subdue the player, if they are successful, all damages done by the player credits (partial or full) wise will be removed from the players account and given to the victims.
If not, the player stays an outlaw until he turns himself in, or gets killed.
Also, the players location will be available to nearby bounty hunter players who have a special module equipped (wink wink) that will show any players with a high infamy and high bounty and their approximate location, also, a bonus bounty will be issued in addition to the bounty the pilot accumulated thus far.
This will make an outlaw play style actually work, as right now, pilots federation giving out licenses to pilots that murder their own employees, makes nos ense.
Also, infamy will only raise when killing a HUMAN players, killing NPCs, will only instate local bounty, for game play purposes, as it's just NPCs, and really who cares?
This bounty will still instate anonymous protocol, but only in said system, like it works right now.
Or, this can be played around with, eg: power playe NPC killing will raise a faction wide awareness, and not a pilots federation, making all stations of said superpower hate you, requiring anon mode.
Since you already have the HOSTILE warning on the HUD when in an opposing factions system.
As for hot ships/Modules.
Im not sure this is needed, all bounties should simply be commander wise.
That or Ships should not turn HOT from getting fines, especially from miniscule fines like 200cr, again it adds no gameplay value and hurts clean players way more than actual outlaws.
Also tiny refinements that would improve QOL Significantly:
Burning Stations should not issue any fines of any sort,they are on fire, i doubt loitering will be a problem in a station that you can sit undocked at for more than 10 seconds without boiling, also, station bulkheads should close(if they can) and requesting emergency docking will open them briefly.
Anonymous Access should not be triggered by 200cr fines,or any fines at all. it adds an unnecessary mouse click that adds 0 gameplay value, it should only be issued on BOUNTIES.
Thats about it, i for sure missed some things as the C&P is not a simple thing anymore.
Poke me at what you think!
Cheers![cool][cool]
As we all know the new C&P is...well honestly a bit of a mess.
The previous system didn't stop grief, but also didnt do much in terms of adding to it, beside the occasional friendly fire, and needing to warp in and out of the system.
Now we've got a whole new folder on our hands, but now not only does not deter any potential Grief/Ganking it only adds more to the players actually abiding the rules.
For exmaple:
You go to a thargoid attacked station, forget to request clearance, get fined, and cant access the passenger lounge(and you have to undock go to the rescue ship and clear it there),nor can you clear the fine inside, or you brush into a stubborn npc while docking and get a meaningless 200cr fine.
This just adds an unnecessary mouse click , that adds zero gameplay value, and does not address the real issue.
And Real Issue is that gankers and griefers and whatever you want to call them don't value credits, so issuing even global bounties won't do anything, nor will adding a bigger bounty for murder, there needs to be one more reason not be a criminal other than "This number on top of your head is now a bit bigger)
The issue is the "high security" systems are the same as any other.
What should have been done instead:
High security systems are HIGH meaning there are ATR and patrols flying around always, and if you get intredicted a warning goes off your ship and you immediately have response of ATR with more than just guns, that make that kind of ganking near suicide, especially in starter systems.
Hell, we've been delivering thargoid tech for years now, why can't the ATR have some Form of a shutdown field that only affects weapons or shields?
That can be easily tested and scaled down for lower security systems, with low security having only the Standard patrols responding, and medium having lower size ATR squads with lower tech.
As for dealing with the player mechanics as a result.
and we can use the Notoriety(or infamy as i prefer to call it, yes i know it means the same thing ) mechanic to use.
Players with high enough infamy will be shunned and have their pilots federation license revoked, making them pilots federation outlaws/outcasts.
This would require them to use a masking module to fly in regular space that spoofs their ID, and use the anonymous protocol in stations, prices should also be raised for any module or commodity while in this state, as naturally when you don't know who you're selling to, stations should raise rates for said player as a result.
**To reverse this Players would need to turn themselves in, pay any and all fines they have, and then pherhaps do missions for the pilots federation, raising their reputation back slowly, untill they get their PF license officially reinstated, at special Re-education centers.
A play would need to do this every time their Infamy Went above the tolerance threshold (for gameplay purposes)**
Anarchy systems should become Hotspots, where these players can set home bases and make their own rules.
Also, black market rates should be increased 50x times at least to justify any pirating of. Any sort to be worth anyone's time.
Anarchy should have very high paying black markets, and whole economies based off of black market goods, attracting even regular traders to seek out and dare make tens of millions of trading very risky illicit goods, as well as dealing with real commander pirates, as well as highly dangerous NPC pirates.
To compliment this , An activity hot map filter should be added to the galaxy map, showing where large concentrations of commanders are located approximately, this should only work if the systems in question have been explored, or are known by the player, as to avoid finding or ganking deep space explorers, this shouldn't be hard to implement as stations log any commanders arrival regardless, i imagine this looking like the PP bubble filter in the galaxy map, except this one will have Color dependent on Density of commanders per LY or so.
The offending players bounty should be the value of the destroyed ship.
Once the offending player has been killed, or has cleared his bounty on his own volition, either by self destruction, getting killed by someone else, or turning himself in, the full, or partial amount of the money will go to the victim, FROM the offending players bank, if the amount is available.
Anyone claiming the bounty should will be compensated as usual.
Also When using anonymous protocol, being scanned would have the risk of being detected, the higher the system security the higher the chance of being "unmasked" by system authority vessels, upon detection station will proceed to fire warning shots destroying the players shield generator, and or. Modules and dropping their health down to a certain percentage.
If the warning is not heeded,and the player doesn't leave the area station will destroy its target.
Also, if player commits ANY violation once Unsmaked the station will immediately fire to kill regardless if the time to remove oneself from the area or not.
Same for megaships, but as those usually have way less defense they would become way more important to pirates.
A few more points on How The Infamy scale would work (in the way i see it)
Once first level of infamy is gained, there is a generated sphere of threat awareness around the players location, triggering a warning broadcast to all stations and systems within an x Ly radius, performing a crime anywhere within this sphere centers it back on the Player immediately, as for using any outposts or stations without the anon protocol will do the same.
The higher the infamy the more this sphere increase up until a threshold
Once a high enough infamy is reached federation license is revoked, once this happens a strong wing of NPC bounty hunters are dispatched ONCE trying to subdue the player, if they are successful, all damages done by the player credits (partial or full) wise will be removed from the players account and given to the victims.
If not, the player stays an outlaw until he turns himself in, or gets killed.
Also, the players location will be available to nearby bounty hunter players who have a special module equipped (wink wink) that will show any players with a high infamy and high bounty and their approximate location, also, a bonus bounty will be issued in addition to the bounty the pilot accumulated thus far.
This will make an outlaw play style actually work, as right now, pilots federation giving out licenses to pilots that murder their own employees, makes nos ense.
Also, infamy will only raise when killing a HUMAN players, killing NPCs, will only instate local bounty, for game play purposes, as it's just NPCs, and really who cares?
This bounty will still instate anonymous protocol, but only in said system, like it works right now.
Or, this can be played around with, eg: power playe NPC killing will raise a faction wide awareness, and not a pilots federation, making all stations of said superpower hate you, requiring anon mode.
Since you already have the HOSTILE warning on the HUD when in an opposing factions system.
As for hot ships/Modules.
Im not sure this is needed, all bounties should simply be commander wise.
That or Ships should not turn HOT from getting fines, especially from miniscule fines like 200cr, again it adds no gameplay value and hurts clean players way more than actual outlaws.
Also tiny refinements that would improve QOL Significantly:
Burning Stations should not issue any fines of any sort,they are on fire, i doubt loitering will be a problem in a station that you can sit undocked at for more than 10 seconds without boiling, also, station bulkheads should close(if they can) and requesting emergency docking will open them briefly.
Anonymous Access should not be triggered by 200cr fines,or any fines at all. it adds an unnecessary mouse click that adds 0 gameplay value, it should only be issued on BOUNTIES.
Thats about it, i for sure missed some things as the C&P is not a simple thing anymore.
Poke me at what you think!
Cheers![cool][cool]
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