PvP Hi guys. Little question about those you engage.

[Deleted member 110222]

This thread is purely for research. I need to know how your Piracy victims, gankees, etc., react when they appear to be running a mission at the point you attack their vessel.

Would you say it's common for said ships to "blindly" attempt to continue their mission, if they escape your clutches? For example, they return to the system immediately after jumping out?

I'm asking as I'm hoping to one day make a tutorial video by a trader, for traders, on how to survive Open.

My number one rule? "Sometimes you will fail a mission. Try to come back alive though."

Please no bragging about how your targets never escape. Stick to the hypothetical situation where they survive the initial onslaught. It's what they do next that's important.

Thank you.

 

[ALGOMATIC]

Traders never escape. Never. Simply because they have paper thin shields and are dead before 15 sec cool down. Some of them also fight the intrediction and always lose which is a certain death.

The only ships that escape are pve condas, T10 or stealth dbx.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Traders never escape. Never. Simply because they have paper thin shields and are dead before 15 sec cool down. Some of them also fight the intrediction and always lose which is a certain death.

The only ships that escape are pve condas, T10 or stealth dbx.

Completely ignores the bit where I ask you to think hypothetically, no?

If you only know destruction and can't fathom a world where on occasion the victim successfully evades, then you have nothing to add to this topic. Please do not use this as yet another opportunity to state how you always win. That is not what I was asking.

 

[rOmiLaYu]

Everytime this trader has escaped, he's high-waked.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Everytime this trader has escaped, he's high-waked.

When you say "this trader", are you referring to yourself, or am I not understanding correctly?

 

[rOmiLaYu]

When you say "this trader", are you referring to yourself, or am I not understanding correctly?

Yes, referring to myself. Only ever lost one trade ship to PvP and that was over a year ago.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Yes, referring to myself. Only ever lost one trade ship to PvP and that was over a year ago.

Alright, thanks for clearing that up.

This video idea of mine is going to be a long time coming. I'm doing it on Xbox so I need to buy a capture card first anyway. That will be a couple months.

In the meantime, I can do research through various means on how one can survive in the Open environment with a ship not "maxed out for combat". The idea of a video in part stems from my general success in survival against PvP vessels.

And that survival often comes from damage limitations, by learning how to avoid direct conflict in the first place.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Haven't picked up anyone who was running a mission, yet. Not that I know of.

Traders, like at the CG, it's a mixed bag. Some submit, some run, some fight.

Traders in the Pleiades last night were a little more stubborn. Everyone either ran or fought.

Been pirating my way from rares station to rares station tonight, and haven't seen a single CMDR. Shame, but I don't think it's because rares trading isn't lucrative (it totally is, especially with today's jump ranges), rather I just don't think the rares systems are widely publicized enough for people to use them.

*edit*

You know... I wonder if the cat I killed last night was on fetch mission. He fought awfully hard over a handful of cheap mineral commodities.

 

[DaggerSnake]

This thread is purely for research. I need to know how your Piracy victims, gankees, etc., react when they appear to be running a mission at the point you attack their vessel.

Would you say it's common for said ships to "blindly" attempt to continue their mission, if they escape your clutches? For example, they return to the system immediately after jumping out?

I'm asking as I'm hoping to one day make a tutorial video by a trader, for traders, on how to survive Open.

My number one rule? "Sometimes you will fail a mission. Try to come back alive though."

Please no bragging about how your targets never escape. Stick to the hypothetical situation where they survive the initial onslaught. It's what they do next that's important.

Thank you.

Are you just looking for traders or mission runners? You mentioned misson runniers in the opening sentence. As a mission runner exclusively, I ran a Cobra MkIII engineered for speed. Shockmines and and light on everything. I never found anyone to be a threat in a big ship. Couriers could be an issue.

In Open, I just keep an eye on the hollow icons. I'll stop and keep rotating to face an aggressor until they are sick of trying to get on my 6. I also like the pre-drop then boost and charge FSD while in FA off facing the drop point. As soon as the would be assassin drops into normal space, rotate back to vector and jump while they cool. Works like a charm.

I've never tried pirating, I think it could be fun though. Good luck on the video.

 

[BirdWisdom]

This thread is purely for research. I need to know how your Piracy victims, gankees, etc., react when they appear to be running a mission at the point you attack their vessel.

Would you say it's common for said ships to "blindly" attempt to continue their mission, if they escape your clutches? For example, they return to the system immediately after jumping out?

I'm asking as I'm hoping to one day make a tutorial video by a trader, for traders, on how to survive Open.

My number one rule? "Sometimes you will fail a mission. Try to come back alive though."

Please no bragging about how your targets never escape. Stick to the hypothetical situation where they survive the initial onslaught. It's what they do next that's important.

Thank you.

The last thing I remember was that I was desperately looking for some kind of goods and some or even attracted me to this trap, and told me to join our group of winge, and i was thinking at the same time that ED has one hope in the future when it comes to pvp. but it ended as I did where I landed in their winge and flew out of the station and they target me with dumb missiles instead and I fumla my anaconda and I try to fly back but ended up crashing into the mailbox side in opening, after that never open again

 

[lordpsymon]

So far I've found people seem to low-wake, only for me to interdict them again. Rinse and repeat until they explode or combat log.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Damn... my one CMDR tonight. Happened to be an explorer who ran so cold that I couldn't keep up with him in H-Jump, even with my G5 fast scanner.

Don't know what I would have done with him if I caught him, but...

 

[Serin Vickers]

Let's talk a bit about how interdiction looks from the side of the pirate:

When a pirate tries to interdict a trader in a trading ship or multipurpose ship with likely trading fit they log with a 25% chance. That means 1 in 4 interdictions of suspected traders aren't going anywhere and the trader remains safe.
The ones that go through were either in a wing and the pirate has to fight the wingmen while the trader tries to run and likely gets away because the pirate is busy - or the trader was by himself, not complying with demands to drop 32 to 64 units of stuff and ends up forcing the pirate to destroy the trader's ship. One in five successful interdictions (means without counting the ones who logged off) actually drop some cargo and comply with demands. Those are usually the ones with nearly worthless crap in their cargo hold. Piracy doesn't pay very well for the hassle involved and you can't even cover repair costs for large ships.
Unrelated to the act of piracy, something related to any PvP combat interaction, one out of five interdicted players just throws very weird insults at you when they sense hostile intentions. They also react negative to loud vuvuzela sounds being played via voice chat. I suspect most people just can't appreciate art.

Now that this is out of the way the way I handle the piracy deal is that when they dropped cargo and I let them go I don't interdict the same person for 15 minutes should I see them again in the system - and I do tell them that - but after that I'll not hesitate to have this whole thing repeat as if we never met. This usually gives them enough time to wrap up what they were trying to do before they leave for good or come back with friends the next time around. Most don't come back though and just disappear - not sure if they switched to solo/group, went offline or left the system to do something elsewhere. For the trader paying with a bit of cargo is far less damaging to income than losing the ship and its cargo.

A major issue with piracy is that the whole "use hatchbreakers to force cargo out of the enemy if he doesn't comply" isn't working very well. As pirate you pretty much rely on the trader dropping cargo volunatarily or else have to try and kill them as punishment. Hatchbreakers never work as the trader either has enough time to charge the FSD and leave or loses his ship while you try to stop him from FSDing out while you shoot more hatchbreakers in hopes to get value out of this whole ordeal.
On the side of the trader there's no guarantee the pirate lets you go after cargo has been dropped and there's no proper punishment for the pirate should he kill the trader in either outcome. Ideally the game would distinguish between minor crimes (shooting at someone and stealing their cargo) and major crimes (like murder/ship destruction) with various degress of police intervention and restrictions but it doesn't.


If you trade in open regardless - what could a trader do to avoid losing the ship?

Win the interdiction. This is binary in that winning the interdiction mini-game removes all risk. It is also unlikely to happen when you're in a bulky trading ship.
Run shields on your ship. Never run shieldless in open. Without shields all of the below is pointless.
Play in a wing. You're in open and the whole point of that is multiplayer. It's much harder to prey on a group than it is to prey on lone players.
Against small ships you can try to charge your FSD and high-wake out while having 4 pips in sys to hopefully get your shields to last long enough. Against bigger ships which are mass-locking your smaller vessel you're pretty much dead, even if you're a bit faster. Against any decently PvP fit ship you won't have the shield buffer to get far enough away to charge your FSD and high-wake out.
Speaking of wakes, never low-wake - you just get interdicted again.
Try to dodge any attempt of the enemy at disabling your FSD by changing course a lot and applying lateral thrust in various directions.
Run with multiple heatsinks and dump them one after another to prevent getting locked.

There is one major issue with all of this in general: It's not very effective. Running shields hurts income and your shields are still weak. The damage of the attacker pretty high to boot. Putting on a full complement of guns and utility slots makes you heavier, as such reduces jump range and doesn't even guarantee you survive any interdiction. Most trading ships are not overly fast so you can't boost away and run. In busy areas you also face the issue of having to wait for a landing pad to free up, which hurts trading efficiency further and exposes you to risk of getting ganked. In the end there's no benefit to trading in open mode unless you trade in a wing with many other traders who run the same route (which in itself has severe downsides as the route burns out faster).
Due to all of this I personally would simply not recommend a trader to play in open. You'd do it because you want to add a handicap but don't get anything positive out of it. There's no meanginful interaction between traders and PvPers, it's very one-sided. Elite's current game design simply does not support trading in open well enough to make it an interesting choice - you only punish yourself and can't ever put up a fight that would create good gameplay for any attacker to begin with.

 

[Marra Morgan]

They almost always try to low-wake.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Right, seems a lot of us traders are low-waking. That's good information.

9/10 times I encounter a potentially hostile vessel, I immediately jump to the most distant system on my navigation panel. The reason is so I can select the system as quickly as possible, and also, it maximises the chances that a suspect CMDR won't be able to follow. (The latter point is a bit of a lottery)

Upon reaching the escape system, I immediately drop out of SC as soon as my FSD cools down. After that, I choose a third system to go to, this time from the galaxy map to ensure it's populated for refuelling purposes. At that point, there's a good chance I will have lost the pirate.

Does it mean that I might not be able to complete a mission? Yes it does. However I'm radical. I often accept that I won't be able to complete a contract due to hostile environments. It's all about minimising tour losses.

Sometimes there are only two choices. Fail the mission and die, or fail the mission but live. I prefer the latter.

 

[Ouberos]

Which platform do you play on Commander?

 

[-Denali-]

I've never had anyone say they were specifically doing a mission. Many don't even talk. That may be because I'd shoot down their shields before saying anything myself. I haven't played the pirate since engineers came out though, so...

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Which platform do you play on Commander?

Hi. Sorry I didn't reply sooner. A lot on my mind.

This research is aimed at the Xbox community first, but the basic principles of play are the same on all platforms. As an Xbox and PC regular, I have grounds to make this statement.

 

[StiTch]

Successful escapes will typically be the result of strong engineering, making compromises between defense and cargo, and high waking. Ideally your SC route to destination won't just be a straight line. In busy areas this gives the chance for the attacker to turn his attention elsewhere.

Tbh though Rinzler has this one covered. His own open survival vid for traders covers it all but engineering, and he still escapes a total death machine.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Successful escapes will typically be the result of strong engineering, making compromises between defense and cargo, and high waking. Ideally your SC route to destination won't just be a straight line. In busy areas this gives the chance for the attacker to turn his attention elsewhere.

Tbh though Rinzler has this one covered.

This is true. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who outright refuse to watch his frankly brilliant video, simply because of who he is.

Their loss, but still. :/

I watched the video and think it's great. Why do you think I rarely see PvP in Open at all? It's because of his knowledge.

Knowledge that most "1%ers" of respective games would NEVER share. I hope you understand my meaning here, which is entirely meant to be a compliment to Rinzler's knowledge of the game.

As I say though, SDC hatred on Xbox is also strong. A lot just won't watch him out of spite. Like I said, their loss.