I mentioned it in a previous post which got NO responses.
Add cargo insurance, and let the pirate take a cut if you're interdicted/killed? A T7 or T9, or Python could generate hundreds of k in credit for the pirate and only cost the player 50 to 25% of his normal cargo restock cost.
Actually, I mentioned you specifically and linked to your post in this thread.
Addressing a few of the general "Oh yeah? So how would you design it different, Einstein?" comments in the past page or two. Well, @Skuli has the right idea. There have been other good ideas floated by quite a few people so far on this thread. Here's my general take:
A. The notion of a "food chain" design where some players are the vegetarian "prey" animals and some players are the "top of the food chain" hunter carnivores is fundamentally flawed. Very few people (no one, actually), would really choose to be a prey animal. Nobody likes to feel they do all the work and other players get to "leech" off of their work by attacking them with superior mechanics in the attacker's favor and imbalanced "fight to survive" mechanics that favor that attacker. Nobody. In. Their. Right. Mind. Example of this basic design failure: ArcheAge. Just google "archeage financials" if you aren't already familiar with the huge mess.
B. Instead, you look to Arenanet and their game GW2 for stellar design examples. Their community is overall the most friendly, helpful, cooperative and supportive--while also being HIGHLY COMPETITIVE--game community I've seen in my entire history of gaming, and more than 50% of their total game is devoted to PvP interaction at the team level and the massive level. And pretty much 90% of their end game revolves entirely around PvP and WvW.
C. Various ideas off the top of my head:
1. Reduce ship maintenance/repair costs to a nearly flat curve across all classes of ships. Keep the steep curve for bootstrapping yourself into the next larger/more expensive class of ship, but make the cost of repair for a complete loss or hull damage relatively cheap and only slightly more expensive for the larger ships. Like a range from current 137K to replace an A-class viper to something like 400K to replace an A-class anaconda. Don't get too hung up on the numbers I threw out: just look at the time for an _average_ player to recoup a total loss of their ship and normalize it to a very flat range that sits around the 10-minute mark. Viper loses ship: 10 minutes of trading to recoup cost. Anaconda loses ship: 15 minutes of trading to recoup cost. Everything else falls in the middle of that curve.
WHY: This improves the balance of the _cost_ portion for the TRADER of the risk-reward equation for PvP interaction.
2. As @Skuli suggests, introduce a defacto type of cargo insurance for the trader. This could be done in a variety of ways. You could simply allow the trader to rebuy any lost cargo for 5% of the amount they paid for the lost cargo in the first place. Or, you could simply add a "forced cargo hold ejection" mechanic to encounters that the trader loses to a pirate. Something like "an amount equal to the sum of your two smallest cargo holds are auto-ejected if you 'lose' the interdiction and subsequent combat. And if your ship is destroyed outright, when you rebuy it it comes back with the full cargo that was not auto-ejected because of losing the fight".
WHY: This improves the _cost_ portion for the TRADER of improving the balance of the _cost_ portion of the risk-reward equation for PvP interaction.
3. When a pirate _attempts_ an interdiction, they get a 10K bounty just for that action alone. If they shoot at a player ship, they get another 10K bounty. If they murder a player ship, they get a 50K bounty. All bounties "stick" for 7 real-world days and cannot be paid off until the 7 days are up. You want danger? Play as a pirate and run around with a bounty you cannot easily unload. All the time.
WHY: This adds a currently non-existent _cost_ portion for the PIRATE side of the risk-reward equation. Now, the pirate stands to lose something roughly equal to the 5% cargo loss of a trader. Again, don't get too hung up on my specific numbers: they're just WAGs. The point is to balance the financial losses of the trader to be roughly equal to the financial losses of the pirate. #1 equalizes the financial loss from hull/component damage of the fight. #2 and #3 balance the cargo loss of the trader versus the bounty cost of the pirate. My WAG numbers for #2 and #3 are based on a trader losing 2 8-slot cargo holds of a commodity worth 1300 per unit. That's 20,800 credits. So if a pirate needs to shoot the trader to make them drop 16 tons of cargo, the pirate gets the 20,800 to pay off the two 10K bounties they racked up from interdicting and then shooting. But if the player just outright murders the trader anyway, then the cost is MORE excessive for the pirate. As it should be.
4. Improve the "security rating" of systems in various ways: Make "high sec" systems roughly 50% of total, and set up the economies so that trading in the high-sec systems maxes out at around 12,000 cr/ton/hour for the "best" routes. Make the "low sec" systems roughly 40% of total, and set up the economies so that trading in the low sec systems maxes out at the current rate of 16,000 cr/ton/hour for the "best" routes. Make the "anarchy" or "zero sec" systes roughly 10% of total, and make the trading endpoints in zero sec systems worth much more than the best routes today. Like: 24,000 cr/ton/hour for the "best" routes. Finally, improve the AI response time and strength of NPC system authority vessels much faster/stronger in high sec systems, about the same as they are today in low sec systems, and of course non-existent in zero sec systems.
WHY: This balances the _reward_ portion of the risk-reward equation. Traders will want that sweet sweet honey, and pirates will know where to lurk. Traders will be armed to fight more effectively, and they'll be fully aware they're going to get jumped a LOT if they want that sweet, sweet honey.
5. Balance the interdiction attempt minigame and also the post interdiction combat/escape mechanics to be BALANCED on the basis of both combat skill _and_ gearing choices. Since larger, fatter trade ships with larger, fatter automated cargo drops (larger "smallest" cargo slots) are also slower, and less maneuverable, they need some other counters to having their ship crippled by long range cannons and smart component targeting by the pirate. But they need BALANCED counters.
WHY: Nobody wants lopsided combat, or why bother? That's the problem now.
6. Provide _other_ cooperative roleplay elements to piracy as a lifestyle. For example, "Pirates and Bounty Hunters" could be an entire mini-game to itself with different risk-reward mechanics. Bounty Hunters get to potentially cash in on the accumulated bounty of a pirate if they successfully nail the pirate. BUT! If a pirate gets interdicted by another COMBAT SHIP (aka, a bounty hunter), and the pirate wins the fight, they automatically get a huge payoff just for winning against a merciless bounty hunter who surprised the pirate and jumped the pirate first. How much? No clue. 50,000 cr? 100,000 cr? Some propotion of the current bounty on the pirate's head? SOMETHING. In this scenario, both the BH and the pirate _risk_ the same cost of a ship loss or ship damage (see #1 above), and they both share a proportionate potential reward. Balanced risk-reward. What a concept.
WHY: Combat hungry players need MORE outlets and excuses for balanced PvP _without_ it all revolving around robbing traders at gunpoint. That just creates bad blood in the community. See ArcheAge for a cautionary tale.
