Damaged station fines

[Rozmar_Hvalross]

Ok
Im in my cutter, evacuating people from a station. Im about to touch down when a close explosion occurs. Im flung to another pad, and am told off for blocking the pad. I leave within five seconds, but gain a 500cr fine. Whatever.
I go to take some missions. I cant because im wanted.
I go to pay the fine. I cant in a damaged station.
So I have to go back to the rescue ship, pay it off then pick up passengers.

The way I see it, if there is an official who is in a position to track and issue fines, there should be someone who is able to recieve payment for them.

My mind moves to this analogy: you are trying to save someone in a burning building. They are screaming for help, and might die soon. You go to help them up, the floorboards below you break and you trip over. You land on a $20 vase and it shatters. You get to the person you are rescuing and they say "you have to pay for that vase!". "What? Im in danger, i cant take the money! You have to leave the building and give it to my housemate who is with the firefighters outside the building! THEN you can help me up and save my life!"

Its unintelligable. At best its inconvinient and at worst it is immersion breaking.

I have a couple suggestions to fix this:
1) allow us to pay fines at damaged stations. Noone is going to stop you from taking them somewhere better because you have a bad credit history
2) increase the time until you incur penalties from pad loitering. The station is in disarray. Things are not running smoothly. They wont notice infractions right away. Plus there are explosions and debris.
3) you could implement a reputation mechanic. If you are friendly or allied with a faction they are willing to turn a blind eye and give missions despite your wanted status. More reputation means a larger threshold before turning you away.

Tl;dr people who arent sure if they will be alive tomorrow shouldnt turn away help because you had a fender bender. Allow us to pay fines at damaged stations.

 

[Riverside]

I have had this too, I feel your pain

The mechanism is there to deter pad blocking & trolls hanging around in the station delaying other players in a time critical situation. The cost of having to return to the medical frigate isn't unbearable compared to the benefit.

I spent a few days ferrying refugees the first time I did it, mulling over a better solution & was unable to think of one that ticked more boxes or had less of a downside.

 

[The_Lorenzo_12]

The way I see it, if there is an official who is in a position to track and issue fines, there should be someone who is able to recieve payment for them.

This right here. Who's giving out fines, but not taking payments???

 

[Rozmar_Hvalross]

I agree there needs to be a way of stopping trolls.
we 100% need the fines, but not being able to pay the fine is stupid.
At the moment, if you are in an undamaged station you can do the same thing, but you CAN pay the fine off. letting us pay off fines means it will at WORST be equal to an ordinary station. And if you get a fine in a normal station, it is not the fault of the station, but yourself or another CMDR.

I haven't even seen any trolls in all my deliveries? only problem ive had is the fact I am using a cutter and someone had their conda parked in the rescue ship landing pad for about 5 mins, but I am patient. don't care if i don't get bonus money.
How often do trolls mess with people doing rescues versus how often do the perilous interiors with CMDRs
the damaged stations are literally doing more trolling than the trolls are. ive been flung about by explosions a LOT more than people have gotten in my way.

 

[Makaki]

I like suggestions #3 and #2

3) I love the reputation mechanic idea, an extra perk for obtaining that allied or friendly status. And could be in the form of timer multipliers for any infraction. Something like +10%, +20% more time. This would affect the warning times and the actual fine times.

2) Special case for damaged stations, I like it too. Could be another overall multiplier. And could be combined with the ones above too?

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

Just an idea:
Rather than getting a fine; If one is actually there to assist in the evacuation, then having a 5 minute time limit on the landing pad in which to load passenger, should be sufficient. After which one is subject to immediate destruction by the station. Trolls could still troll, but it would come at a hefty price.

 

[Dogface]

1) allow us to pay fines at damaged stations.

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I just had this happen to me, and my initial feeling was "LET'EM BURN!" I left and paid the fine in another system, and I am not going back anytime soon.

I had not thought about trolls in Open, so it makes more sense. But I agree that if there is someone there to issue fines, there should be someone to resolve payment. IMMERSION!

side rant: The Reputation payout is not that good nor consistent enough to lose whole trips for a ridiculous fine.

 

[Daynen]

Fines for this sort of thing are about as useless as FBI warnings on movies. Those who are determined enough will find a way around them every time, while those of us who are just minding our business will be endlessly inconvenienced by them.

When the anti-troll measure ends up as maddening as the trolls themselves, that's a failed feature in my book.

 

[dxm55]

This sounds exactly like the old mechanics where accidentally even hitting a Sys authority vessel with a single multicannon round resulted in you getting a bounty on your head and having every one of the boys in blue coming after you. They fixed it now to give some leeway when you're targeting said vessel.

FDev needs to fix this. Either by making damaged stations an exception to this rule entirely, or like you said, allowing pilots to pay the fine there and then after docking.

This is a design oversight, obviously.....

 

[Genie]

Yep I agree with allot of what is said here. More broadly I think the fine system is too simple and rigid which can lead to making things unfair (like this post highlights), and yet at times the rigid rules allow trolls to cause probs unnecessarily. I accept it will never be perfect but there should be more allowances during rescue missions as well as if you are allied etc. Penalties along with some of the docking / exit rules should also vary a bit depending on the controlling faction imo.