I'm not a Frontier developer, but I expect this is quite complicated. Because (I just deleted a big explanation about seamlessly duplicating a ship on-the-fly that isn't really the original ship in a peer-to-peer arrangement). Put more than 60 sec thought into it and its not trivial.
Could ED benefit from 'Soft Death' mechanics?
- Thread starter Lateralus
- Start date
And when the looting by the code abiding pirate is done, does the ship automagically repair itself? Or does the pirate need to flip the reset switch? Or does the victim still only have the chance to log out and eat the rebuy, finally?
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Menu exit is not combat logging - per Frontier's definition and theirs is the only one that really matters.
Rather than "die" the target would be unable to self destruct and the player would need to wait around while their ship is pillaged by the pirate - not seeing the fun for the player - and they still lose their cargo, and may not even need to pay a rebuy (depending on whether they are pledged and at what rank) - so in addition to losing the cargo they'd also lose time - all so someone else can have fun at their expense.
The question isn't so much whether Elite would benefit from soft-death mechanics, because it has them. It's a question of whether it would benefit from Star Citizen's soft death mechanic, and like others, I say no. Elite's more realistic space-flight model is one of its advantages over Star Citizen. There is simply no reason for a ship to stop dead in space when its hull health reaches zero. Nor for unpowered doors to power open when you fire a few shots into them, for that matter.
Piracy in Elite Dangerous would benefit from a tractor module or boarding claw to grab drifting ships for sure. The function could even simply be built into the interdictor. But Piracy in Elite needs more than that to be viable, like a profitable black market economy.
Piracy in Elite Dangerous would benefit from a tractor module or boarding claw to grab drifting ships for sure. The function could even simply be built into the interdictor. But Piracy in Elite needs more than that to be viable, like a profitable black market economy.
Would easy from fdev to implement a rescue NPC service request via a menu option... easy.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Consider for a moment that hostile boarding of player ships was implemented.
It would be restricted to Odyssey only (as Horizons does not offer on-foot gameplay).
... and, given the differing PEGI ratings of Horizons and Odyssey, I don't expect that Horizons Live Open is going anywhere (as Horizons is still sold as a PEGI-7 game)....
It would be restricted to Odyssey only (as Horizons does not offer on-foot gameplay).
... and, given the differing PEGI ratings of Horizons and Odyssey, I don't expect that Horizons Live Open is going anywhere (as Horizons is still sold as a PEGI-7 game)....
I pirated lots of players, I am well aware of where the friction points are... combat logging was always the main one.
Here's some proof for you as you seem to be implying I dont know what im talking about:
Soft Death?
We already have a word for this state of inoperable but not destroyed, disabled.
It can already happen if some modules are down to 0%. Before reboot and repair, you could absolutely be left disabled. Though you always had the choice to self-destruct.
However, boarding mechanics or even just more interactive piracy are things I've wanted since 1.0. It requires a lot of foundational work to ED that I don't see on the horizon, unfortunately.
We already have a word for this state of inoperable but not destroyed, disabled.
It can already happen if some modules are down to 0%. Before reboot and repair, you could absolutely be left disabled. Though you always had the choice to self-destruct.
However, boarding mechanics or even just more interactive piracy are things I've wanted since 1.0. It requires a lot of foundational work to ED that I don't see on the horizon, unfortunately.
Even easier is for the player to click some other option then Open on the starting screen.
Their marketing practices are where they screw up... Their approach to PvP gameplay design is several tiers higher than Elite im afraid. Jumptown, Ghost Hollow, Supply or Die, Contested zones, ship boarding... More priority is given to PvP than we get here.
To summarize the gaming issues I see with the OP idea:
1. There isn't much gameplay or fun for the target that has no option other than:
(a) sit and watch, do nothing while they get robbed and might get destroyed anyway while bells, alarms, red flashing, and life support runs out.
(b) select an early rebuy and respawn elsewhere.
2. There isn't much gameplay for the pirate other than spamming collector limpets and maybe harassing the target with a slow drawn-out destruction.
3. It is not profitable for a pirate to loot a 784t Imperial Cutter if they don't have the cargo space. And generally cargo isn't very valuable anyway.
4. It seems like a mechanic that enables harassment of other players. I have no issue with PvP pirating. But not disabling a ship and giving a ganker a captive audience for a designated period of time. There is no upside to a potential target. They 'might' be able to keep their cargo? Whoopeedoo. Its better to take the loss and keep playing. Or stay in solo mode.
1. There isn't much gameplay or fun for the target that has no option other than:
(a) sit and watch, do nothing while they get robbed and might get destroyed anyway while bells, alarms, red flashing, and life support runs out.
(b) select an early rebuy and respawn elsewhere.
2. There isn't much gameplay for the pirate other than spamming collector limpets and maybe harassing the target with a slow drawn-out destruction.
3. It is not profitable for a pirate to loot a 784t Imperial Cutter if they don't have the cargo space. And generally cargo isn't very valuable anyway.
4. It seems like a mechanic that enables harassment of other players. I have no issue with PvP pirating. But not disabling a ship and giving a ganker a captive audience for a designated period of time. There is no upside to a potential target. They 'might' be able to keep their cargo? Whoopeedoo. Its better to take the loss and keep playing. Or stay in solo mode.
Soft death is a placeholder mechanic in Star Citizen.
They added it because the game didn't support ship disabling via component subtargeting. In the future, they will remove soft death in favor of the new engineering system which I've had the pleasure of testing. I've tested the very first Evocati versions of this feature and some of the later ones. So Star Citizen is slowly moving toward the type of system we have in Elite today.
I've spent a lot of time doing PvP piracy (group and solo) in Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous. I just can't see how soft death would be beneficial to Elite.
If Elite added a "tether" of some kind to slow down floating disabled ships then we wouldn't need anything else.
They added it because the game didn't support ship disabling via component subtargeting. In the future, they will remove soft death in favor of the new engineering system which I've had the pleasure of testing. I've tested the very first Evocati versions of this feature and some of the later ones. So Star Citizen is slowly moving toward the type of system we have in Elite today.
I've spent a lot of time doing PvP piracy (group and solo) in Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous. I just can't see how soft death would be beneficial to Elite.
If Elite added a "tether" of some kind to slow down floating disabled ships then we wouldn't need anything else.
If you read through the thread I've outlined the key differences between been disabled and bricked... One allows self repair and combat logging. The other does not.
Like ganking wouldn't have already sent them there lol
I'm not going to debate you on what combat logging is because it's a derailment attempt. Nice try though.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
When combat logging is mentioned its definition becomes relevant - and Frontier were clear when they made known their definition that they knew that not all players would agree. Perhaps unsurprisingly it is still the case that not all players agree with the official definition (as it applies to this game).
You don't really need to say any more than that, and could have saved a whole load of extra words.
FDEV are free to call combat logging whatever they like. Most players have their own opinions of what a conveniently dissapearing player is though.
How many are most?