Players can prevent a lockdown before it begins by running the appropriate missions or handing in bounties to reduce "crime pressure" in the system. With the "blockades" and other wanton murder becoming rife as the CG starts, it's something to think about when a CG does not spawn a bounty hunting counterpart as a balance.
On CGs and lockdown: Why the current situation is worse than you think and how I'd fix it
- Thread starter SaliVader
- Start date
I disagree - to me the BGS is one step away from worthless, and having already achieved Elite status in Trade it actually IS worthless to me.
I discovered a nifty trick with manipulating Boom status in fringe systems to make it incredibly fast and easy to pile on Navy rank and Trade missions, used it, made what I needed from it, and that's about all it has to offer me. The rest, I really don't care about in the slightest. I'm not here to play Space Politics. I'd rather play with...
[video=youtube;UaEC-lWSlmI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaEC-lWSlmI[/video]
So why do you even bother participating in this thread if you care so little?
There is something you can do, prevent the lockdown from happening to begin with. And if you can't, where is the problem with that? You don't need control over every aspect of every event: sometimes things happen and you can't do anything about it and it sets the backdrop for what you do in the game. In every game out there that gives you a specific, unfavorable scenario, do you complain that you have no control over the starting conditions?
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To go into a little more detail, because it's useful to understand *which* CGs are likely to hit Lockdowns, and which ones won't.
A lockdown will go Pending once the conditions (a sufficient excess of lockdown-increasing actions over lockdown-decreasing ones) are met. This will happen regardless of what other states are in effect. Once the Lockdown has gone Pending there is no need to carry out lockdown-decreasing actions until it goes active, as they can't stop it happening.
This Pending period will last a minimum of one day, but can last longer, as Lockdown is a 'medium' priority state. If the current faction state is None, Boom or Bust, (possibly also Famine and Outbreak - I can't remember) then the Lockdown will override that state and go into its active state.
Once in its active state, it will then last a minimum of three days *unless* a higher priority state reaches the end of its Pending time. Higher priority states are Expansion, Retreat, War, Civil War and Election. In that case the lockdown will finish early (which can be in zero days - it appears to just vanish from the Pending queue) as the higher state overrides it.
So whether a lockdown starts the day after a CG starts depends on a lot of factors:
1) Is the CG in a popular system or one controlled by a player group? If so, the CG faction is likely spread across multiple systems, and superior states are very likely to be in progress or already pending as the CG starts. The player group may even be able to easily set them up intentionally.
Where the CG time and date is known (or suspected) in advance, setting up superior states in advance is more practical. (More foreshadowing of future CGs in Galnet I think would be good for various reasons)
2) Does the CG itself consist of lockdown-countering activities? A bounty-hunting CG will produce far more anti-lockdown actions than any plausible number of players can counter. A combat zone CG will enforce a War/Civil War state across the factions for the duration (though the losing faction is likely to end up in Lockdown afterwards!)
3) Do CG participants attempt anti-lockdown activities? In a trade CG, submitting to NPC pirate interdictions, destroying them, and handing in the bounties - if multiplied by the number of participants - should be sufficient on its own. Of course, some people use shieldless unarmed traders, so that they get more cargo delivered personally. If everyone does this - or otherwise evades the interdictions to trade faster - then ... tragedy of the commons ... everyone gets a lockdown and trades much much slower.
Certain missions also reduce lockdown - depending on the CG it may be possible for people to incorporate some of those mission types into their return trips. (Surface scan and surface attack missions are the most likely to be available; some economies may have weapon-related cargo missions)
We're going round in circles.
The problem is not with lockdowns, or with counter measures etc.
It is about the time period of the three day lock down with no way to minimise that time period.
I fully understand that it adds an additional background element to CGs.
But three days...
So there is a way to minimize the three day lockdown??
I think the problem here is that a single CMDR can turn a system into lockdown in one day while 8000 CMDRs can't remove the status in less than 3 days.
The way I see it there are two ways to address this:
1. As Sally suggests a coded fix
Or
2. Players get organised
I note there is no group that protects CG's or the systems they take place in or at least they are not vocal about what they do if they exist. Frontier seem fine with groups such as the Fuel Rats and I have to wonder what it would take for players to come together to form a CG protection group?
The current system you describe as happening seems to all be based off CMDR's actions so the obvious fix is for other players to counter this. A software fix for this could almost be considered a nerf in favor of PvE.
1. As Sally suggests a coded fix
Or
2. Players get organised
I note there is no group that protects CG's or the systems they take place in or at least they are not vocal about what they do if they exist. Frontier seem fine with groups such as the Fuel Rats and I have to wonder what it would take for players to come together to form a CG protection group?
The current system you describe as happening seems to all be based off CMDR's actions so the obvious fix is for other players to counter this. A software fix for this could almost be considered a nerf in favor of PvE.
Because I can.
Or because I'm actually posting clandestine information in the form of what looks like forum posts, that can only be decrypted by those who know what they're looking at.
Or because it's perfectly reasonable to disagree with someone as long as you can discuss what you're disagreeing about, and not each other.
Take your pick.
Oooo, I like this idea. I agree, the security response should really affect the system as well as the station, and those effects should be apparent (besides just the lockdown). I only ever went to a checkpoint once, to find out what they were... Nothing interesting there. I like the idea of a station being in lockdown not allowed anyone who hasn't been previously cleared to dock. I'm sure that there are lots of other possibilities that could be implemented too.
Who is this Sally you're talking about?
Yes, lockdown can be ended early with a conflict, but the conflict must have been pending before the CG began, which means that with no prior knowledge of where the CG will take place that is not possible. Sure, a lockdown is not always possible and depends in a lot of factors, but when it's possible it doesn't change the fact that a 1 day effort of as few as 1 commander can completely shut down the CG over the weekend (when most people play), with no further actions required, and no way to counter it because there is a minimum duration for said lockdown.
In other words, yes, player should organize operations to counter these lockdowns, but the current situation is completely skewed in favour of shutting down the CGs. I just made this thread to shed light on this issue and hopefully get FDev to make it an even playing field for both sides.
Or...just have a BHing CG run alongside the trade CG, at least till a coded fix can be done to reduce lockdown time.
Another good element of all this, could be some kind of actual, constantly up to date UI feedback for all states.
I mean, when you hand in missions, it sometimes shows you things like "This system shows less signs of a lockdown"
Ok, so give me the actual lockdown bar! show me exactly how close/far from a lockdown it is! same with the other states.
I mean, when you hand in missions, it sometimes shows you things like "This system shows less signs of a lockdown"
Ok, so give me the actual lockdown bar! show me exactly how close/far from a lockdown it is! same with the other states.
Yes - but as all the states which override lockdown have longer pending times than lockdown does, you have to set them up first.
For a CG taking place in a player group's home system, that's probably already the case. For a CG taking place in the middle of nowhere, it's mostly a matter of luck whether there's one or not. Announcing CGs a week in advance would give everyone time to fight it out first on the setup, if they wanted...
(Given the pattern of Aegis CGs, it wouldn't take that large a group to start setting some up in advance in the remaining engineer systems, of course)
Or players can just BH without a formal BHing CG - it's not as if the bonus payout for it actually being a CG is particularly large as a fraction of the earnings.