Hazardous RES Sites are not Hazardous enough [+ Risk and Reward]

[Gamel0rd1]

The main difference between a high intensity RES site and a hazardous RES site is primarily the presence of the system security or not, however H-RES sites are nowhere near dangerous enough, especially for players who pilot fairly large and/or engineered ships.

I myself fly a fairly well engineered federal corvette and make my money by killing the NPCs in resource extraction sites, specifically hazardous ones. Compared to low and medium intensity sites, the hazardous variant is certainly more... "challenging" (I don't want to say dangerous because if you have no cargo there is no danger at all), yet I still don't believe that the hazardous sites are as challenging/dangerous as they should be.

The largest ship that is capable of spawning in a H-RES is the Anaconda and these always spawn as a wanted vessel. Elite ranked Anacondas are the most difficult ship to kill in this site, but even then they are still incredibly easy to kill - especially if you have an engineered combat focused ship. Since the site's name is "Hazardous", an Elite Anaconda is not particularly much of a hazard. Here are some improvements outlined for the site spawns:

• Weight ship spawn percentages to favour larger ships
• Add Federal Corvette and Imperial Cutter to the ship spawn list

- Only spawn Corvette or Cutter if there is a Type-9 present in the site

• Ships in this site can spawn with engineered modules

- Ships with rank Master and above can spawn with grade 3-5 engineer upgrades to any module

• Ships at rank Elite can spawn with powerplay locked modules (such as prismatic shield or packhound missile)
• Base bounty payouts in these sites are increased by 50% for all ships

I have suggested the base payout increase because of the engineered ships that are able to spawn. These sites, having a higher risk, should have a higher reward payout, including the drop of grade 5 materials from the Corvette and Cutter ONLY IF they are engineered.

Suggested improved spawn percentages of COMBAT ships (not mining ships):

• Small ships - 15% [Payout 15k to 100k]
• Medium ships - 35% [Payout 50k to 350k]
• Large ships including FDL - 40% [Payout 100k to 600k]
• Corvette/Cutter - 20% [Payout 500k to 1M]

- Federal Corvette [Only in FED systems] - 10%
- Imperial Cutter [Only in IMP systems] - 10%

• Chance that a ship is engineered - 33% [Payout increase by 50%]

I feel like these changes would increase the possible risk VS reward as well as even how enjoyable and challenging these sites are to bounty hunt in.

 

[YinYin]

Have you ever tried mining there?

 

[AlSki]

Have you tried taking some cargo there? Just 1 ton will do.

 

[Paso]

I mean maybe instead of implementing what you suggest, seeing that you want more of a risk i take it, maybe use a ship that's not engineered?
Believe me you'll feel the danger then.
You can't really have your cake and eat it too.

Great, now I want cake.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Carry cargo. Lots of high value cargo.

It soon becomes interesting!

@Paso, please don't suggest not using a ship that's primary purpose is combat. It's not the OPs fault FD forgot to give the Corvette any content. Lol

 

[Steyla]

Or try the 'new' USS Pirate Activity thread level 5-7. Which you'll find in systems in War/Lockdown/Civil war? state. There are engineered NPC's. The payment is similar to HAZRES, but there are a lot of Anaconda's, FdL's, T10's and Vultures. Mainly Deadly and Elite, especially in thread level 6 & 7. Don't go in there without an engineered ship or with cargo.lol

Fly/land safe.

CMDR Steyla

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Or try the 'new' USS Pirate Activity thread level 5-7. Which you'll find in systems in War/Lockdown/Civil war? state. There are engineered NPC's. The payment is similar to HAZRES, but there are a lot of Anaconda's, FdL's, T10's and Vultures. Mainly Deadly and Elite, especially in thread level 6 & 7. Don't go in there without an engineered ship or with cargo.lol

Fly/land safe.

CMDR Steyla

Wait... We have those now?!

 

[Steyla]

Wait... We have those now?!

Yep. 2 days ago I was in a thread level 6 Pirate USS with my Cutter. Killed about 5 condas and FdL's. Never lost shields but my hull was down to 80%. There are a lot of Occupied escape pods when you come in and the destroyed ships have quite some G5 mats.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Wait... We have those now?!

Since 3.1 I think. And consider using modded armor as the NPCs might have that pulse laser mode that ignores shields for a small fraction of their damage.

 

[Pyrotiger]

I myself fly a fairly well engineered federal corvette...

Well the whole point of a 'fairly well engineered' fed cor is surely to wipe the floor with all resistance, being an end-game ship. Terminate with extreme prejudice etc. Why not fly a medium-ship into the zone and see how you feel then?

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Yep. 2 days ago I was in a thread level 6 Pirate USS with my Cutter. Killed about 5 condas and FdL's. Never lost shields but my hull was down to 80%. There are a lot of Occupied escape pods when you come in and the destroyed ships have quite some G5 mats.

Since 3.1 I think. And consider using modded armor as the NPCs might have that pulse laser mode that ignores shields for a small fraction of their damage.

*Sets course back home in his Anaconda that has great shields, but crap armour*

Challenge accepted!

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Someone is searching for the "Death Sentence Resource Extraction Site"

Drop in, there's 5 Hydras, two dozen scouts, and 4 Capital Ships plus their escorts of Corvettes, Cutters, Pythons, Kraits and torpedo boats, all opening fire on you as you drop in.


Me, I'll pass.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Have you ever tried mining there?

This

 

[Jake Savage]

Haz rez payouts need to be increased.
As it stands bounty hunting in a haz rez is very low paid compared to other activities in the game.
i used to meet other players on a regular basis when in the rez, now I hardly ever meet anyone there at all.
i think this is because the other players are busy making cash by the mission boards or even exploring.
if payouts were increased then other players would have more of an insensitive to use them.
Just my two pennies worth.

 

[Audaxxx]

It is a bit disappointing that Elite Dangerous isn't really that Dangerous anymore mostly I think due to Engineering being introduced. The rift it's caused between traders/explorers etc. and combat PVPers in open is even more evident, the gap now between un-engineered ships is ridiculous. When it's possible to complete a wing assassination mission solo or for one engineered FDL to take out 10 un-engineered cmdrs (as fun as that experiment was) something is a little bit wrong I would say.

I don't think we should really be able to tell the difference between Player and NPC in terms of difficulty and personally would love it if hollow triangles didn't exist either. This would completely eliminate the divide between "carebear" and "ganker" as all players would be well prepared from dealing with difficult NPC's and would struggle to tell the difference between the two.

Of-course there'd have to be balancing done but this is well overdue anyway. More dedicated slots for combat and trade/exploration is a method I think would work well and have seen it discussed here before along with increasing base values of everything to close the gap a bit. I'd really like to see some time spent on this in the future to put everything right that was broken when engineering came along and bring some difficulty back for engineered ships.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Probably some proof there that every time frontier do something to the mission board, they're not actually balancing the game as a sacred whole first, they're just caving into to public opinion probably directed by their marketing team.

Otherwise they wouldn't forget the sandbox activities every time.

 

[Phil JMac]

I think there has been an effort to move combat from just Res zones recently...

Pirate activity is good, I've had some good fights in distress calls with engineered ships too... I like this as combat should not just exist around rings

 

[Kaocraft]

It's a very Hazardous Site if you're Extracting Resources. If you're in a top-of-the-line warship armed to the teeth with aftermarket modifications? Not so much. But yknow there are actual wars you could be fighting, right?

 

[AP Birdman]

If you're looking for more of a challenge and better mat drops, check out pirate activity detected instances.

https://youtu.be/1O9yrzfwMOo

 

[racer1]

Have you tried taking some cargo there? Just 1 ton will do.

A while back I tried this, I'm elite combat rank, all the ships scanned me, said something along the lines of "sorry we made a mistake" and moved off. This must have been in the 2.3 - 2.4 time frame.