Could ED benefit from 'Soft Death' mechanics?

[Lateralus]

And....

The defeated cmdr can:

a) Take an early rebuy. Sounds like the only reasonable option.
- a duplicate ship is created so when the defeated cmdr respawns elsewhere the pirate still has the disabled ship to rob, shoot-up, whatever.

b) Sit there helpless and do nothing, while alarms and warnings are flashing, while life support is draining, watching the pirate steel the cargo. The defeated cmdr can call a friend to come in a ship with repair limpets to make the ship function again. Because everybody has a friend nearby flying a ship with repair limpets. And if the pirate is lucky they can also defeat the helpful friend when they show up. And of course the pirate can destroy the disabled ship at any time. All this so you can maybe save yourself the rebuy on your ship and any cargo the pirate didn't take. Do this all before life support runs out. Sounds like a great idea!

So in many FPS games, when you are incapacitated, you have to wait for rescue yes? (Or you can choose to die and respawn with some kind of penalty - like losing your gear)

This is the same concept, but in your ship...

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

It used to, 100% doing PvE piracy when Low Temp diamonds were first introduced into the game... Something was tweeked later and it stopped working. Maybe NPC power priorities were fixed or something like that. But it did used to work around 2016/2017ish.

It never did ever since I started playing, which was in 09/2019. Just as a data point.

 

[Lateralus]

I don't really have a problem with OP's suggestion per se, it ain't that bad. The way I understand it, it's just another layer of protection before the rebuy screen. Ultrasoftcore if you want... Or something like being downed in a team BR. As long as the CMDR is willing to wait in this disabled state and not do anything else in the game, he can be rescued by other players and avoid the rebuy. Cool, I guess. Could make for some epic rescues for people with lots of explo data, freshly farmed titan drive components etc.

The rest is just glazing on the top: how to make the ship stop, how to "give up" without existing to menu, how to exit to menu without exiting the disabled state, instance stuff etc.

Of course, we're talking here about mechanics like deceleration limpets or grapple hooks. that FDEV haven't bothered to implement for the current game state. So I don't really see this happening. But I have nothing against the idea itself...

Besides, in my headcanon, there's always a ship husk floating about when I get killed. How else would I be getting my engineered modules back at rebuy? The rescue rangers found them and towed them back to base, right? Too bad they can never find my blackbox. Anyway, it has to be the rescue rangers. Don't tell me Felicity Farseer has copies of my egineered FSD, which I deliberately painted mint green, in some underground bunker somewhere.

Exactly, another layer of protection before you visit the rebuy screen... while it simultaneously provides options for pirates, explorers and rescue players. Also with potential applications later down the line if we do get ship-legs.

 

[Lateralus]

It never did ever since I started playing, which was in 09/2019. Just as a data point.

OK sure, things had definitely changed by then... you used to be able to empty an NPC transport ship of diamonds without it drifting by 0% 'ing it's powerplant. It just used to stop dead.

Something that has the same effect would be useful in-game. If ship boarding is to ever be a thing, we cannot have drifting ships, it would be a total circus.

 

[galahad2069]

Yeah but that is life support time dependent... Engineering options could extend this time.

Engineering can either increase the integrity or reduce the mass of life support modules but no blueprint I know of can extend the timer (synthesis can do that though).

 

[Lateralus]

Engineering can either increase the integrity or reduce the mass of life support modules but no blueprint I know of can extend the timer (synthesis can do that though).

I know there isn't a blueprint for that currently... But it could be introduced should the requirement for longer survival times be needed...

 

[BL1P]

Is it still the case that if you disable a ship and a team m8 drops into your instance the disabled ships PP repairs and flys off ?