I just merely pointed out that the choice is not a 'gameplay reason' but your choice to do so if there are nigh on no reason to do so as it's inconsequential to gameplay.
There are plenty of gameplay incentives to make the choices we make and plenty of gameplay consequences to them.
I'm not sure how it could be argued otherwise, if that's what you're arguing. The game doesn't need to demarcate consequence in explicit numerical terms for it to be relevant to gameplay.
You can disagree all you want but everything you ahve said is a choice you made on how you play and has zero consequence to anyone you meet. and PvP facilities nothing in this context at all. See below.
How I play often has major consequences to those I meet, and vice versa. That's kinda the point of multiplayer, especially direct multiplayer.
Much of the gameplay of this game is other CMDRs, and this is explicitly the case for the Open mode.
'Translated to' does not equal 'required' as I originally stated. Off course a lot of skills relating to damage application, combat positioning etc that are gained from PvP can be USED elswhere in the game but they are most certainly not required and are quite irrelevant when you consider the grand scheme of things. If they weren't then people would simply not be able to play the game without the need to go train in PvP, which obviously they don't so...
Not the sort of skills I was thinking about, nor was I implying that all skills are required to play the game to some degree, just that the more things one can do, the more gameplay options there are.
There are skills I would not have even considered if not for PvP that I've found quite useful in contexts outside of PvP, that have nothing to do with damage application or combat positioning. PvP, for example, made me better explorer, trader, and racer than if I had just focused on those tasks to the exclusion of others. I'll never have to avoid scooping from a white dwarf jet cone, or need to worry about landing without shields on a high-g world, because of abilities I acquired fighting or escaping other CMDRs in PvP scenarios. Even the early Buckyballs I participated in were an extension of PvP.
Again taken completely out of context, a re-occurring theme in your quotes of me, but it's besides the point.
I thought the context was PvP and how there are supposedly no gameplay reasons for it.
This was from the point of view as a ganker not someone fighting off a ganker.
Ganking is a major gameplay incentive for gankers and a subset of PvP.
I was just elaborating on other, arguably more contextually supported, incentives.
The tiny 'penalty' you face in the rebuy (given the silly ease at which credits are now made) is nothing as you simply go back and block the attacker, or go 'solo' and carry on about your business. therefore no consequence.
If someone is in Open it's probably to interact with other players. Going to Solo is going to have pretty enormous consequence to their gameplay here, and blocking isn't exactly consequence free.
Consequence has implications far beyond credits, and ship loss is usually not the primary consequence of PvP, nor is rebuy often the primary consequence of getting shot down.
