Crime and Punishment not fit for purpose - needs overhauling

[ꝁestrel]

The main issue of no real disincentive to gank is spoiling the game for those who want to play in open.

The main issue is that CMDRs not interested in PvP have no practical defense against gankers.

Mindless killing isn't realistic. It just wouldn't happen. They'd be hunted down and wiped out. With no way of ever returning to ganking. But of course this is a game. A space 'sim', which would imply its trying to be as realistic as possible. Ganking flys in the face of that goal.

Realism argument doesn't work here. CMDRs are "dying" all the time in non-combat ways. Ships blowing up just isn't a big deal in Elite's universe. IIRC the lore is that CMDRs are ejected via escape pod or something. The fact that stations will blow you up for excessive loitering just reinforces the idea that being blown up isn't a tragedy as it would be IRL.

Gankers attacking noobs at engineer hotspots, community goals, ax hotspots etc is just destroying what could be a perfect game.

Yea I agree. It can't be overstated how much stronger the community would be if people were encouraged to hang out together in popular hotspots. It's sad that a lot of people resign to Solo because they have no chance against gankers. A lot of friendships and experiences that could have been...

So C&P is definitely relevant in preventing this childish activity which serves no purpose and doesn't belong in a modern game.
Yes it's possible but that doesn't justify it.
Fdev need to pull their finger out and deal with this problem once & for all. For the better good of elite dangerous.

Agreed. There are so many ways they can address this problem.

 

[Shir]

The discussion in this thread discusses the Crime and Punishment system as if it were a system to mostly regulate PVP, but it's not. It is there to mostly regulate PVE and the whole game. Pvp is a tiny fraction of the whole Elite thing, and easily regulated by playing in groups or solo. If C&P was tuned for Pvp it would make no sense for Pve.

If anything, it is the criminal gameplay that needs overhauling in Elite. You already have the Black market network, but it is very basic and minimally implemented.

I don't think anything can be done for Elite Pvp really. The fact that to stand a chance in Pvp your ship has to be totally worthless for any other game activity makes it a very limiting activity, and gives zero incentive for most players to interact with it.

P.s. My one personal beef with it is that they changed the bounty system from ship back to commander in Odyssey without wiping existing bounties, and because i did lots of Bgs playing with a Corvette in Horizons, i found myself having 3 billions bounties! Still have them..

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Agreed. There are so many ways they can address this problem.

Actually there are so many ways we the players can relegate the ganker 'problem' to a niche issue rather than complaining to fdev (who would probably destroy open mode if they really tried to GUARANTEE safety via the C&P):
1) become accountable for your own safety, and accept the risk:
- learn situational awareness and evasion (boost towards attacker, then high-wake etc)
- avoid engineering systems in open
2) use adequate protection:
- use basic engineering and accept that min-maxing a cargo ship isn't a good idea in open (a Cutter with 6A shield and engineering is almost ungankable)
- most fast small ships with reasonable hull protection are almost ungankable
3) if all else fails:
- use the block function
- use PGs or solo

People have been publishing guides on all this for the last 10 years ..

 

[CaptainPugwash]

The discussion in this thread discusses the Crime and Punishment system as if it were a system to mostly regulate PVP, but it's not. It is there to mostly regulate PVE and the whole game. Pvp is a tiny fraction of the whole Elite thing, and easily regulated by playing in groups or solo. If C&P was tuned for Pvp it would make no sense for Pve.

If anything, it is the criminal gameplay that needs overhauling in Elite. You already have the Black market network, but it is very basic and minimally implemented.

I don't think anything can be done for Elite Pvp really. The fact that to stand a chance in Pvp your ship has to be totally worthless for any other game activity makes it a very limiting activity, and gives zero incentive for most players to interact with it.

P.s. My one personal beef with it is that they changed the bounty system from ship back to commander in Odyssey without wiping existing bounties, and because i did lots of Bgs playing with a Corvette in Horizons, i found myself having 3 billions bounties! Still have them..

Yes, agreed, although i think it makes sense that a fully engineered and maxed out PvP ship wouldn't be much good for anything else, otherwise it wouldn't be 'maxed out'

 

[Rubbernuke]

P.s. My one personal beef with it is that they changed the bounty system from ship back to commander in Odyssey without wiping existing bounties, and because i did lots of Bgs playing with a Corvette in Horizons, i found myself having 3 billions bounties! Still have them..

Near where I live there is a gorge that has several Clippers dumped in it

 

[Darrack]

My one personal beef with it is that they changed the bounty system from ship back to commander in Odyssey

Having the ship as the bounty holder was one of the most stupid ideas ive ever seen, it should always have been the Commander taking the responsibility for their actions.
Next time i reverse into a gate with my truck im getting the customer to bill Scania.

O7

 

[Kira Goto]

Near where I live there is a gorge that has several Clippers dumped in it

You should’ve just dumped them in a star. That gets rid of the evidence even more cleanly.

 

[Ian Skippy]

One thing Id like to see, unrelated to pvp, is notoriety being superpower specific. If I go on a rampage in imperial systems and get notoriety 10, I shouldnt become persona non-grata for 20 hours in fed space for briefly walking into the wrong room in an edo settlement.

And just mak sec levels relevant. Have godlike cops instantly spawn in high sec making griefing virtually impossible, with virtually no npc criminals present but reduced mission payout. Make anarchy systems difficult with engineered pirate fleets. Low and medium in between.

Open would be fun for all and you pick the risk level you feel confident with.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Having the ship as the bounty holder was one of the most stupid ideas ive ever seen, it should always have been the Commander taking the responsibility for their actions.
Next time i reverse into a gate with my truck im getting the customer to bill Scania.

O7

Commander taking the responsibility for their actions

To a point- after which you should cross to the dark side and unlock criminal gameplay totally.

The thing is this is free gameplay going to waste. If someone becomes notorious enough they should be ejected from the Pilots Fed, have ships that are not registered via them (how I assume they are tracked) and thus be anonymous so that sightings can't match pilot to ship.

Being removed from the PF should then:

Make cleaning modules ever more expensive escalating to a lot at not 10
Make modules and repairs either impossible (if that ship is not sold in anarchy systems) or very, very expensive
Deny access to Shin Dhez PF stations

But it will also mean too that anarchies will have a purpose where criminals 'live', or FCs which by then will be buzzing with hostile security. It would also allow for more complex gameplay in systems where you are hostile- for example if you are not scanned by anyone you might be able to land but log on anonymously, and that you have to jack into the NAV directly to gain a temporary ID.

 

[ꝁestrel]

Have godlike cops instantly spawn in high sec making griefing virtually impossible, with virtually no npc criminals present but reduced mission payout. Make anarchy systems difficult with engineered pirate fleets. Low and medium in between.

Love this. Cops should do more than spawn in quickly though. They should instantly disable the attacker's FSD and cook them alive with overheat.

If high-sec cops existed like that they'd need to reduce profitability in high-sec systems as well though. That way if you want maximum profits you'll have to deal with some serious bad guys in Anarchy systems.

 

[Rubbernuke]

You should’ve just dumped them in a star. That gets rid of the evidence even more cleanly.

There was so much blood it would taint the star though.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Love this. Cops should do more than spawn in quickly though. They should instantly disable the attacker's FSD and cook them alive with overheat.

If high-sec cops existed like that they'd need to reduce profitability in high-sec systems as well though. That way if you want maximum profits you'll have to deal with some serious bad guys in Anarchy systems.

It takes seconds to destroy someone unprepared, even in the most severe ATR deployment (as in, instant drop on shots landing post ATR warning and auto-targeting) an attacker would 'win' since many don't care about destruction (since its just credits).

 

[ꝁestrel]

It takes seconds to destroy someone unprepared, even in the most severe ATR deployment (as in, instant drop on shots landing post ATR warning and auto-targeting) an attacker would 'win' since many don't care about destruction (since its just credits).

Yep. I don't think there's a way to prevent the gank without some clowny game mechanics (wouldn't be worth it). Best they could probably do is how it's done in Eve. Suicide ganking is still possible but not worth the time/effort for the average new guy.

 

[Shir]

Many of these things talked about already exist in the game. If you keep mounting bounties for superpower alligned factions, superpowers will start sending assasins and bounty hunters after you. If your bounties are for independent factions you only have problems in their systems. Which makes sense.

There ARE supercops in the game, it's the ATR ships, which are like pvp engineered NPC police ships that kill you in a few seconds. They will come after you if you have high notoriety and insist in doing crime in the system, for example killing system authority vessels to hurt the system holding faction. Or if the normal police ships keep failing and dying. Again it makes sense.

The whole Elite universe is like Earth in the ancient/medieval ages. Once you get away from your area, people don't have any idea or interest about what you have previously done, unless they somehow connect. There IS random murder and looting in every corner that is not properly policed. I mean, try to reach China from Europe in the middle ages, or just the far side of your country. Try to reach California from New York in the Far West era! I think the system is pretty well implimented overall.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Yep. I don't think there's a way to prevent the gank without some clowny game mechanics (wouldn't be worth it). Best they could probably do is how it's done in Eve. Suicide ganking is still possible but not worth the time/effort for the average new guy.

The answer is simple but rubs people the wrong way. By that its building a ship that can survive long enough for ATR in this case to turn up and be able to escape while ATR distracts. This is the bare minimum anyone should be prepared for. If everyone in Open was able to enact all of Rinzlers Git Gud at Trading, the vast majority of low level ganking would cease to be a problem and the C+P would not require so many contortions to be made operable.

 

[AlSki]

If money and high end ships were harder to maintain unlawfully, bad things are harder to do which would level things somewhat.

This ^

Be an Outlaw if you like but live with the ....

Consequences

 

[Rubbernuke]

Many of these things talked about already exist in the game. If you keep mounting bounties for superpower alligned factions, superpowers will start sending assasins and bounty hunters after you. If your bounties are for independent factions you only have problems in their systems. Which makes sense.

There ARE supercops in the game, it's the ATR ships, which are like pvp engineered NPC police ships that kill you in a few seconds. They will come after you if you have high notoriety and insist in doing crime in the system, for example killing system authority vessels to hurt the system holding faction. Or if the normal police ships keep failing and dying. Again it makes sense.

The whole Elite universe is like Earth in the ancient/medieval ages. Once you get away from your area, people don't have any idea or interest about what you have previously done, unless they somehow connect. There IS random murder and looting in every corner that is not properly policed. I mean, try to reach China from Europe in the middle ages, or just the far side of your country. I think the system is pretty well implimented overall.

The problem is that while it does exist in game, its not joined up enough to be operable.

ATR for example are easily avoided, because all you need to do is count your kills and because everything relies on timers and counts you can jump out and back and reset the clock.

If ATR were random, it would make them much more potent. But even then if you build a ship with chonky modules and hull and expect the shield to break, ATR are not that scary- at least not in the station guns level scary.

 

[Rubbernuke]

This ^

Be an Outlaw if you like but live with the ....

The whole driver for crime is....crazy in ED.

Criminals exist to get rich using illegal means. Crime should pay and only cost you if you get caught- in this case slowly lock you out of society and into the underworld. But credits are not a problem. Getting ships of all types is not a problem. There is no real need to be criminal.

 

[aRJay]

An overhaul to the combat logging mechanic would be good here. One of the prime reasons for simply killing CMDRs rather than pirating is that a proportion still combat log, either by killing the game or properly via the menu. The challenge is therefore only in securing the kill in the short moment after interdicting.

Behaviourally people are going to continue to combat log regardless of perceived etiquette or TOS. To encourage legitimate piracy, in the event of a log, perhaps:

• the ship could stay in instance, perhaps invunerably, giving the pirate the chance to hatch break. When the CMDR logs on again that cargo is lost to them.
• some cargo is automatically disgorged on a log. CMDR loses this when they log on again and the pirate is free to collect from free space.

Piracy would be more profitable as cargo would only not be stolen in the event of a successful in game evasion or combat.

I would love this. This would basically solve the issue of pirate quarry logging.

Keeping in mind how many people get crashes to desktop and other similar problems while playing I think Support would absolutely loath this.

No I have never logged though I have experienced someone logging on me, very many years ago it was a bounty hunting CG there was an interdiction between the station and the best RES for the fight, the ships were a Vulture and a combat fitted AspX, it was I think the second time it had happened in a row this time the Vulture received a fair amount of damage and the almost AspX was shot to bits when fortunately for me the Vulture which had interdicted me logged out or otherwise vanished.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Many of these things talked about already exist in the game. If you keep mounting bounties for superpower alligned factions, superpowers will start sending assasins and bounty hunters after you. If your bounties are for independent factions you only have problems in their systems. Which makes sense.

There ARE supercops in the game, it's the ATR ships, which are like pvp engineered NPC police ships that kill you in a few seconds. They will come after you if you have high notoriety and insist in doing crime in the system, for example killing system authority vessels to hurt the system holding faction. Or if the normal police ships keep failing and dying. Again it makes sense.

The whole Elite universe is like Earth in the ancient/medieval ages. Once you get away from your area, people don't have any idea or interest about what you have previously done, unless they somehow connect. There IS random murder and looting in every corner that is not properly policed. I mean, try to reach China from Europe in the middle ages, or just the far side of your country. Try to reach California from New York in the Far West era! I think the system is pretty well implimented overall.

I would agree, although I would say there is scope for dialing it up a bit more so that a notoriety 10 cmdr would be chain interdicted by the ATR and messages sent to all cmdrs in the vicinity asking for help, or else a galaxy wide bounty board.
This would also add more distinction and variety to a rather ‘samey’ bubble where a lot of players can currently pass between high sec and anarchy systems without really noticing much of a difference.