Same way as IRL, you're put in jail until you pay what you owe.That's not a solution. The dead guy doesn't pay the bounty, the state pays.
Same way as IRL, you're put in jail until you pay what you owe.That's not a solution. The dead guy doesn't pay the bounty, the state pays.
Considering I know all of the little tricks you've mentioned (I powerplant snipe almost all the time), I think this has more to do with combat rank than anything else. I very rarely get any kills worth more than 200k even with a kill scanner (I'd say 90% less than 200K, 8% ~220k, and 2% 300k or higher). This includes Clippers, Condas, Pythons, FDLs, and even FAS. It seems strange because I'm 70% into Dangerous, which is the third highest rank in Combat, and the targets I kill range anywhere from Master to Elite.
Same way as IRL, you're put in jail until you pay what you owe.
You blow up the ship, not the character. Notice just before your ship blows up you hear "eject, eject, eject", and then we respawn as the same CMDR.Right but here's the difference, is space we blow you up instead of put you in jail.
So where's the NPC escape pods?You blow up the ship, not the character. Notice just before your ship blows up you hear "eject, eject, eject", and then we respawn as the same CMDR.
Sounds like a question for FD.So where's the NPC escape pods?
I'd like to see a reduction of all ship-related prices instead. Refund all players who own assets for which prices will go down. Then implement mechanics which introduce running costs, like ship crew members, so that larger (and in theory more expensive) ships require a higher income to operate. Players in big ships should not fear a high insurance cost, they should know beforehand that going to war in a big ship is going to cost. Finally, balance out the game professions which currently make obscene amounts of money compared to the others.
Loved this summary, it mirrors my own thoughts on how spending should have been all the way back when the game was released, I never really understood why the biggest ships had such huge values compared to the cheapest and certainly would have preferred running costs and higher insurance costs and much cheaper ships (so insurance would probably finish about the same as it is currently, but would be more relevant a cost)
Why do we want the ships to be cheaper when a person can already buy a cutter in a few hours of gameplay?
As it stands right now, you can spend hundreds of hours just trying to get money for a single ship
Its been a while since I've blown up but if I recall when your ship is actually exploding at the last second before you can eject you see the explosion rip into the cockpit. Again it's been a long time since I've died and I'm sure the ship matters but the evidence shows that you can't eject before the ship exploded. And the showing up as the same commander could just be "video game logic". Alternatively if you don't like coming back to life you could do one death characters which I would love to do once we have more commander slots.Sounds like a question for FD.
While I do wish ships and insurance were cheaper, the running costs idea doesn't seem like a very good one. Theoretically it sounds fantastic, but in practice it would be detrimental. Powerplay Merits are effectively the same mechanic; things deteriorate and require upkeep. I'm fairly certain that a large portion of the player base cannot afford or have the time to participate in Powerplay past Rank 2 or 3.
So yes, they could buy the big ships, but they'd never be able to use them for very long. If you balanced it so that said players could afford it, the required upkeep would likely be so minimal that the rest of the playerbase would barely notice it and brush it aside.
All you'll be doing with running costs is further push the casual player out of the game.
As of right now since the game is effectively incomplete (as in it has it's bare bones basics and that's about it), Elite's main content is, in fact, the ships you can fly in and how you can outfit them. People want to obtain ships faster because it provides them with more content to play with. As it stands right now, you can spend hundreds of hours just trying to get money for a single ship only to repeat that grind just to be able to outfit and insure it.
When more expansions are released, the complaint of how long it takes to get the bigger ships will be gone because there will be far more things to do in the game than just buying and upgrading ships.
On the other side of the coin a brand new player can own a cutter in about 25 hours of play time.
The problem stems from the ideology that once you get the end tier ships you're done. Now that I'm in an anaconda I have never had so many options. I've done mining trading combat and a little bit of exploring in the vessel. If anything once you get these late game ships even more of the game opens up to you.
The cutter with 250 Million credits (assuming smuggling at 10M per hour) is a glorified trading ship. It's going to go from point A to point B ad nasuem.
If someone spends 25 straight hours to get a cutter (and I suspect it would take longer, as they'd have to get a decent Asp Explorer and Trade rank for smuggling AND the Naval Rank first), more power to them. That's some commitment.
That is probably Elite Dangerous's main weakness; it's having the ships you want and not fearing the rebuy screen (whether that be from a surplus of credits or skill in combat) that allow players to just roam around and enjoy the game to the fullest. I'm having far more fun bounty hunting in a Haz Res now that I have both an A rated Corvette and A rated FDL (though need armor for both) because I don't have to worry about how much money I'm making; I can afford to fly both and the FDL's Military armor is relatively cheap.
Also to whoever said you can reach a cutter in 25 hours I would love to see cold hard proof on that.
Doing Robigo long distance smuggling runs I average 15m an hour smuggling at tycoon trade rank. So I can farm up a 209m Cutter in about 14 hours from having nothing.
What about Faction Rank you ask? 95% of the Shadow missions from Robigo go toward Imperial rank. Which is in my opinion the second fastest way to rank up. Easily done in 14 hours.
What about Trade Rank you ask? New character with no Trade ranking will make less money starting off, but would rank up insanely fast with Shadow missions (I have). Even with no rank you would still make about 8-10m an hour.
With all this being said, and doing the math a Cutter can be obtainable within 25 hours of gameplay.
What about Faction Rank you ask? 95% of the Shadow missions from Robigo go toward Imperial rank. Which is in my opinion the second fastest way to rank up. Easily done in 14 hours.
What about Trade Rank you ask? New character with no Trade ranking will make less money starting off, but would rank up insanely fast with Shadow missions (I have). Even with no rank you would still make about 8-10m an hour. ...