Changes that could indirectly help vs the griefboats

[Firebeard]

Lets start with the fact Im not against PvP - Im a large advocate that it helps add more excitement/paranoia to a game.

However I get that many people dont like it and for me the issue is the "min/max" approach the game currently encourages.

Im going to suggest a proposal that is threefold and i think would mean everyone would need to balance their ships more.

1) shields block all kinetic based damage and only "drop" when absorbing thermal (ie laser) attacks.

2) Space is dangerous - starting in the bubble/colonia area anarchy systems should have around 60% chance to be interdicted moving out about 2-5% right out in the wilds.

3) High Sec systems should respond immediately with defensive craft - im talking everything g5 and silly if you report a crime.

What this would do is encourage explorers to also carry weapons and shields, unfortunately currently once out of the bubble you may as well have a tinfoil suit on.

The shield changes i just thought as being ways to prevent ramming damage (everyones favourite loophole) and mean PvP ships have to become more balanced a railgun sniper suddenly becomes pointless with even an A1 shield.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

1) shields block all kinetic based damage and only "drop" when absorbing thermal (ie laser) attacks.

I don't particularly like the way that engineering has meant resistances are usually equalised so all weapons are equally effective versus player ships, certainly.

This isn't the fix, since Incendiary is available as a modifier for frags and multicannons (and both rails and plasma have quite a substantial thermal damage component, too)

2) Space is dangerous - starting in the bubble/colonia area anarchy systems should have around 60% chance to be interdicted moving out about 2-5% right out in the wilds.

This was the original game design back in 1.0 - up until about 500 LY out from Sol, there was a chance of attack in uninhabited systems.

It was not at all popular even with that fairly short radius and was gradually phased out in stages between 1.1 and 2.2, but you can get a similar experience nowadays by carrying a bit of non-limpet cargo on your exploration trips if you want.

3) High Sec systems should respond immediately with defensive craft - im talking everything g5 and silly if you report a crime.

Unlikely to make a difference in practice - they already have pretty quick ATR arrival for any habitual killers. If a player can survive long enough for even a full G5 combat ship to do serious damage to a player PvP-fit ship, they can already survive more than long enough to just escape under their own power.

What this would do is encourage explorers to also carry weapons and shields, unfortunately currently once out of the bubble you may as well have a tinfoil suit on.

Most explorers nowadays do carry shields - it's a lot easier to carry a sizable shield without losing significant jump range nowadays, for various reasons, and with Horizons and SRVs it's convenient for a bit of landing safety. If anything they're more likely to be shielded now than they were in the days when NPCs regularly went for them near the bubble.

Weapons whether carried or not aren't going to make a difference in a fight versus a player, though. Not really useful versus NPCs, either, as an explorer can just run if they have the shields to hold them off for a few seconds.

On the other hand, in practice, even a mildly cautious explorer isn't really at risk of player attacks anyway: there are 20,000 systems in the bubble where they can sell their data, and very few of them will have hostile players in.