Open Letter Mr Braben and Mr Sammarco

[Deadspin]

Yes it would be liken to committing suicide if you chose to stay in lawful systems. That was the choice said player killer or Pirate made when they committed the murder or robbery.

After becoming wanted for the duration of the time across all lawful systems and or the ship that caused the crime is destroyed, then the pirate or PKer will have to stick to Anarchy and lawless systems. Law enforcement does everything that it can to keep the public safe.

Letting a serial killer or violent thief roam free isnt something that we allow even now. If a crime is committed and it is reported with detailed information, then the police dont go "meh, just let it go he hasnt killed someone in like a whole hour". No, they go and they try to capture that person. The only chance the criminal has is to hide. The only place they can hide is in Anarchy systems.

Think of it this way. A lawful system is the equivalent of a safe military/police patrolled shipping harbor here on earth. Those that are patrolling the harbor dont allow Pirate ships just to mingle around with the rest of the merchant ships. They are in fact barred from the harbor entirely and might be destroyed in the process.

Since we cant put you in virtual Jail there is only one equivalent. That is hit you in the the wallet.

Killing the griefer and making them go back to the system of their origin is a way to control the repeated offenses. So you had better have your last landing location be in an Anarchy system or you can kiss your ship goodbye.

There should be the same amount of risk at being a Pirate or PKer as there is being a trader or explorer.

Put it this way it is completely up to the Traders or Explorers discretion if they allow you to kill them. Their current benevolence allows you to have your fun. They can always go to Solo or Mobius and then you have no one to shoot at.

1: You can't talk to how we do things currently. If you take a step back and look at the current system, the wanted and bounty mechanics fit with the lore of policing billions of pilots across thousands of systems controlled by 3 opposing major-factions and managed by thousands of minor-factions. A lawful system is also a system composed of at least 5 (usually more) minor factions all vying for control of the system in some way, shape or form. Your analogy is flawed.

2: There is no benevolence involved and without the PKer there is no real risk involved for traders and explorers. Explorers escape risk* the instant they're free of the bubble and both parties are only subject to random NPC interdictions inbetween, which are easier to escape/evade than taking candy from a 6 month old baby. A trader does not lose his entire credit balance** nor have his world suddenly restricted should he fail his mission or be killed by pirates or player activities.

3: While I agree with you, truly I do, there needs to be more care taken with how the C&P system is adjusted in order to place more risk upon the aggressor without completely locking them out of parts of the game, especially when you consider that anarchy systems are more random than not, therefore the current distribution of systems is not capable of supporting a player base that's been restricted to it.

* - Risk from player/npc aggressions.
** - Some outlying cases of flying a ship without rebuy no doubt exist.

This is why I will NEVER play in open. I would rather play this game solo than play with people, people ruin games. And it only takes a couple to ruin a game enough for me to leave the game (or find a way to play by myself). So the whole open vs solo debate? a pointless debate, open will always be ruined by greifers and such, and nothing can really be done about it, and solo is the only way to avoid greifers.

Until greifers are punished openly and shamed in front of the world, this will only get worse.

There's an extremely fatal flaw with your line of thought here: Open isn't ruined by griefers. I'm not a griefer and don't pursue pvp very often (and when I did, it was with a warring player faction) and, having been in open since before Gamma released, I've never been subjected to the whims of a griefer. I've met a few but I was always in a position where I either wasn't worth attacking (A ship with teeth that could fight back) or there was no point in attacking me (in the case of someone attempting to block a pad at Robigo, when I was already on it). I've even been jumped by griefers during the DGs but I moved along without paying them any attention. I was in an Anaconda that was half fit for trade, half for fighting. (IE: Poorly fit for both)

Low speed ramming isn't "by design" it's an exploit.

1: It's not low speed ramming. It's taking advantage of the fact that players won't follow the speed limit.
2: It's not an exploit. An exploit, by definition, gives you an advantage over other players. An eagle with 4% hull and no shields does not have an advantage over anything.
3: The entire process is a direct result of this forum clamoring for FDev to fix station ganking via ram.
4: If you really want to do something about it. Stop speeding. Ram their ships at 90m/s and watch them go boom with impunity. If enough people stop speeding at CG stations and allowing this to happen to begin with, the tactic would lose it's fun and people would move on.

People being zapped by PKs just because its an anarchy system does not come into the original reason for taking up this task. People don't think, 'hmm anarchy system, I'll give it a miss'.

When they get zapped or exploited or whatever and have to pay out a sizable chunk of their in game earnings just to recover, people feel sad, aggrieved and retreat to solo. Who does that leave behind? The galaxy shaped by PKs!

I don't buy it and it think something needs to change.

1: For all of the talk about restricting PKers to anarchy systems, you sure do hand wave the fact that the CG is in an Anarchy system pretty quickly. When deciding to take part in a CG, where that system is located and what the surrounding space is like / could be like. In life, this is called "planning ahead" and when you get to said system, this thing called "situational awareness" should take over. Maybe people do need to think, "Hmmm anarchy system, I'll give it a miss.."

2: Considering that we all can shape the galaxy in the same way no matter the mode we're flying in, your final statement is patently false.

 

[Lobstris]

Well I think for starters you could separate collision dmg vs weapon dmg, and you could also easily calculate the delta of damage that causes a destruction to assess the intention i.e. someone who is low on health dying from a minor collision. It might not be perfect but it could be a lot smarter with a little attention to detail.

Another, more complex approach I'd suggest would be to look at the positional/velocity information for repeated collisions involving the same commander ID, if such telemetry is sent to the server. Note if the commander is involved in a number of such events over a certain period of time, then take some form of 'action' (friendly warning -> escalating to shadow ban after multiple infractions).

I wonder how much attention Frontier actually pay to players reporting such incidents?

 

[Deadspin]

It may be abuse of a mechanic but it's also easily countered by obeying the speed limit.

Do you think Frontier really cares about it? Players killing players for no reason at monument sights (Crashed ship, barnacles, Jacques etc) is a much more visible issue.

 

[Zambrick]

It may be abuse of a mechanic but it's also easily countered by obeying the speed limit.

Do you think Frontier really cares about it? Players killing players for no reason at monument sights (Crashed ship, barnacles, Jacques etc) is a much more visible issue.

So your saying that they posted this on twitch because they were just being good citizen traffic cops? You know what they were doing.

You also get wanted when you bounce off of the station really hard. Even if you do the speed limit. So a 1000 ton object moving at 100ms and a 400 ton object moving at 100ms. That leaves 200ms extra force in which ever direction the large ship hits you from. Thats pretty quick to try and avoid smacking off the front of the station.

The Exploit was the fact that when they finished grieving one guy all they did was jump away from the station and jump back. That was the exploit.

Just to clarify. The 400 ton ship would be moving forward and be able to apply 80000 units of force. The 1000t ship would be moving forward and apply 160,000 units of force to the opposite direction of impact. Or something like that. Not sure of the maths completely.

 

[_Fissure]

Remember it's anarchy system and anarchy station stop complaining, you don't like what happened in anarchy don't go there, easy.

The "because I can" argument is one of the most infantile that a player can make.

 

[Deadspin]

So your saying that they posted this on twitch because they were just being good citizen traffic cops? You know what they were doing.

What exactly are you going on about here? The method I know of, the one I'm talking about, involves ambushing a larger ship in the mail slot with a pre-scuffed eagle or sidewinder, so that the larger ship impacts it, destroys it, then is in turn destroyed by the station.

If people are ramming to get kills in an anarchy system, what exactly is FDev supposed to do about it? It's within the mechanics of the game and if a player applies some situational awareness to their piloting, they can easily switch to pg/solo before the griefer has a chance to grief.

 

[Alderius]

Well, the answer is always the same, if you don't want other people ruining your game then don't play with other people in an open environment, and then expect FD to write code to create a bunch of rules to prevent people from doing what they do. That is why FD created solo and groups, because that is where the rules are (NPC "players" that follow the rules in SOLO, and human players that follow the rules in Mobius). Of course, other player groups play by whatever their rules are.
Personally, if the NPC's get a bit tougher in 2.2, I don't see any reason for open mode at all, you can get everything you need in Mobius.

 

[Artemis Zodiac]

take the stripey draught excluder off your shoulder and get some knowledge on what a modern day space epic is supposed to be...

whats that i hear?..."errr....no....sorry were not doing that"....


real known top flight crew FD have assembled.

 

[Lotus222]

Sure the issue may be looked into. Although, it doesn't seem very serious of an exploit. Until then, people can always go to their "safe space" on the solo play.

 

[captainkapp]

Is this really an issue. As a cmdr in charge of your own ship and the option to subject yourself to open and involve yourself around other roleplayers you just might die in horrific ways. I play in open and I have realized playing it safe is the best way to go. Sure its a game but if you feel like your death will be the last you might keep away from community goals and the such. I watched the vids from the CG and its nothing different from any other role-playing situations you may encounter.

 

[AutoMechancal]

this is not a perfect solution as there would be edge cases where a player *just* makes it into station with a knackered ship and falls foul HOWEVER

i would suggest a "law" that every ship should be spaceworthy, and non space worthy ships involved in a collision are deemed at least partially at fault.

i would suggest that when docking by law, all ship must have 2 pipps to shields and have over 30% hull (TBD) to be deemed spaceworthy....... silent running ships without shields would be considered the equivalent of cycling on a main road at night dressed in black or driving at night in a car with no lights.

ships with heavy damage and with shields down, have to take it VERY carefully, which is as it should be....... but with the increased charging of shields now in super cruise then it should be fairly easy to get a ships shields online before dropping out.

of course clean ships which are under fire from aggressors outside the station should have any crimes due to a player desperately trying to escape passed on to the aggressors.

Or you could just fly in under 100ms and not get kill by the station and laugh at the guy wasting his time. This works 100% and doesn't involve
some stupidly convoluted rules like the above.

Also your bit about crimes is so laughably exploitable I almost wish it was in game.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Or you could just fly in under 100ms and not get kill by the station and laugh at the guy wasting his time. This works 100% and doesn't involve
some stupidly convoluted rules like the above.

Also your bit about crimes is so laughably exploitable I almost wish it was in game.

Here is the thing i dont get...... why do people insist on exploiting inthe 1st place. Cheating , exploiting, acting like a berk in a single player game sure but in MP games where the person being mucked about with is a player i just dont get it.

Its obvious that flying a ship with 1% hull and no shields into a ship to cause the defences to go mental is not in the spirit of the game just as the ramming in front of the station before the speed limit was in place or the misxile spamming and getting the point defences to agro the station which was not inteilligent enough to work out there was a crime was also a clear exploit so i just do not get why some do it

 

[AutoMechancal]

Here is the thing i dont get...... why do people insist on exploiting inthe 1st place. Cheating , exploiting, acting like a berk in a single player game sure but in MP games where the person being mucked about with is a player i just dont get it.

Its obvious that flying a ship with 1% hull and no shields into a ship to cause the defences to go mental is not in the spirit of the game just as the ramming in front of the station before the speed limit was in place or the misxile spamming and getting the point defences to agro the station which was not inteilligent enough to work out there was a crime was also a clear exploit so i just do not get why some do it

Because it's in the game.

Really we should have vector calculations done so the game knows who actually hit who, but I suspect that's very hard to add in. Because what we have now just looks to see if your where going over 100ms or not when you collided.

 

[Cervantes01]

Please stop with the open letters. FD do a good job of listening to the community and don't deserve pitch forks and rabble rousing every time someone doesn't likes emergent gameplay. You have solo mode after all.

 

[Theodrid]

Please stop with the open letters. FD do a good job of listening to the community and don't deserve pitch forks and rabble rousing every time someone doesn't likes emergent gameplay. You have solo mode after all.

So, not content with hijacking the term 'roleplay' the Elite psychos now wanna hijack 'emergent gameplay'. This nonsense around stations is neither of the above, it is exploration of the game, pure and simple.

 

[AutoMechancal]

So, not content with hijacking the term 'roleplay' the Elite psychos now wanna hijack 'emergent gameplay'. This nonsense around stations is neither of the above, it is exploration of the game, pure and simple.

Only so long as your ship goes over 100ms. Slow down cmdr speed kills!

 

[Theodrid]

Only so long as your ship goes over 100ms. Slow down cmdr speed kills!

I agree on speeding, but the punishment for it should be a 600 cr fine, not death by a combination of Muppet and station fire followed by a rebuy, it's ridiculous.

 

[AutoMechancal]

I agree on speeding, but the punishment for it should be a 600 cr fine, not death by a combination of Muppet and station fire followed by a rebuy, it's ridiculous.

If you hit someone while speeding and they die it's murder, if they hit you and your speeding it's still murder. You can literally avoid the rebuy screen by flying below 100ms regardless if the other ship dies, so instead of complaining about the rules follow them maybe. The only muppets I see are the ones speeding giving idiots easy kills.

 

[Theodrid]

If you hit someone while speeding and they die it's murder, if they hit you and your speeding it's still murder. You can literally avoid the rebuy screen by flying below 100ms regardless if the other ship dies, so instead of complaining about the rules follow them maybe. The only muppets I see are the ones speeding giving idiots easy kills.

So, those getting their hulls to 1% and waiting for an opportunity to exploit the game are fine in your book and someone doing 101 is the one in the wrong? What a bizarre sense of right and wrong and moral compass you have going on. Instead of defending muppet behaviour why don't you rally against it for what it is, a jerk move.

EDIT - You can mention murder all you like but where does the intent to murder lye, is it with the guy doing 102 or the guy waiting with 1% hull?

 

[AutoMechancal]

So, those getting their hulls to 1% and waiting for an opportunity to exploit the game are fine in your book and someone doing 101 is the one in the wrong? What a bizarre sense of right and wrong and moral compass you have going on. Instead of defending muppet behaviour why don't you rally against it for what it is, a jerk move.

I did just say that their should that vectors should be taken into account, but looking back on the previous page must be so hard. The thing is that all you need to foil the jerks plan is to fly slower then 100ms, which is super simple to do. Changing the games code is not as simple and takes time too. By all means point out that the current system is inadequate, but I'm giving you a easy work around that's immersive to boot.