So I have watched with great interest as Frontier has made a series of changes to the game to help improve its overall long term health and viability. We know that advances in players' ability to do things cooperatively are coming with Odyssey and currently Frontier is making balance changes to earnings for various game loops.
I would very much like to see Powerplay and BGS be changed in favor of Open play. I would similarly like to see more players in Open to interact with each other as opposed to having a ‘ghost town’-feeling universe where the majority of players choose to play in Solo or Private Group as opposed to Open mode because of the perception (slightly mistaken though I believe it to be) that playing in Open is needlessly putting oneself at risk of being murdered consequence-free.
As such, I’ve come up with a set of suggestions concerning direct and indirect PvP, as well as crime and punishment in Elite that I think would go some way to addressing this, and I’d love your feedback on them.
Introduction and assumptions
The main ideas incorporated herein are based on the following assumptions that I believe to be true, and that I think (based on comments made by Frontier in the past) that Frontier also believe.
I strongly believe that Frontier agrees with the above statements and the overhaul to the crime and punishment system in 2018 included changes that support this view. However, I don’t think that the game’s current crime and punishment system quite achieves these goals, because of the following:
The below set of proposals are my attempt to achieve the goals that Frontier have said in the past that they have for the crime and punishment system in Elite.
Open, Powerplay and the BGS
With the above goals in mind, I would like to submit for your consideration the following changes:
Given that this is a boost to earnings in Open rather than a nerf to earnings in the other game modes, the only possible objection to this (and the above suggestion in point 1) that a player might have is because they want to be able to affect other players without running the risk of being opposed. In my view, this isn’t a legitimate objection.
Note: It would be simpler to just nix BGS Influence gain and Powerplay merit-earning in any game mode other than Open, and this would be my real preference. But the above suggestions allow much the same behavioral effect without ‘nerfing’ any aspect of a Solo player’s experience. I am well aware of the historical arguments on this issue and it is for this exact reason that I offer a compromise whereby Solo players can continue exactly as they are now while still offering a concession to the obviously valid point of the majority of BGS and Powerplay groups that these gameplay loops were intended to be open to the wider variety of player interaction found in Open.
The current system of not really providing PvP players with meaningful gameplay loops (other than going to San Tu and trying to match up or using external Discord servers) has led to a large number of well-equipped player killers that are bored and, as such, run amok. In my opinion, this is both a failure to engage these players as well as a disservice to those upon whom they take their boredom out. I would like to propose a whole new system that would allow for dynamic gameplay to keep the ‘wolves’ happily killing other wolves and remove the incentive for the wolves to kill ‘sheep’, for all but the most determined of griefers (which will be addressed further down). My idea to accomplish this is the following:
PvP System
This is an opt-in PvP-flagging system in which players are incentivized to fight other players ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME. It would function similarly to a weekly CG. Once opted in, you are locked to Open until that weekly cycle ends. The rewards of the system would be awarded similar to a CG with rewards for the top 10 Commanders, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. In addition, the top 10 Commanders' names would be posted every week as an acknowledgment of their skill and an inducement for those who seek bragging rights to keep at it. The entire point of this system is for PvP Players to become each other’s content in a way that is both sanctioned and well rewarded by Frontier. These players deserve to feel heard, appreciated and rewarded just as much as any PvE focused players and this system will allow them to do so in a structured manner which, I very much hope, will capture the attention of most thus causing them to opt-out of the ‘Senseless griefing’ play loop.
Rankings
Per kill, the reward would be the Combat Rank Points (CRP) of the target Commander, plus 0.25x the Points Owned by the Target (POT). Killed Commanders lose points. The reward formula would then be: Points Earned = CRP + (POT x 0.25).
*EDITED ORIGINAL POST: MY SYSTEM WAS SUCCEPTABLE TO "WIN TRADING" THEREFORE I SUGGEST THAT 1. PLAYERS LOSE SOME POINT VALUE UPON DEATH 2.THERE BE A MODIFIER BASED ON THE VALUE OF THE SHIP KILLED SO THAT PEOPLE COULD NOT GIVE UP DEATHS IN A NOOBWINDER AND GET FULL VALUE AND 3. OTHER LIMITERS BE PUT INTO PLACE TO COMBAT WIN TRADING SUCH AS DIMINISHING RETURNS AS WELL AS A CAP UPON EARNING ANY POINTS AFTER A DESIGNATED NUMBER OF KILLS ON THE SAME TARGET EACH WEEK.
Combat Rank Points (CRP)
Galaxy map flag
When opted in, players will be displayed on the galaxy map (perhaps via a red ‘friend symbol’), along with their current ‘value’ according to the above table. Players with Notoriety will be opted in automatically with their bounty value displayed and a point bonus for their kill. They are displayed as targets but ineligible to collect any points under this system while they have notoriety.
The above system should be thought of as the ‘carrot’ side of the PvP rework. This system would give PvP players a fun mode of play that will hopefully challenge and engage them, as opposed to murdering those who have no interest in that aspect of play.
Frontier would then take players who participated in the weekly contest and, similar to how CGs currently work, pay some actual decent rewards in credits (and possibly even more creative prizes). Once set up, this system would just keep rolling every week — moving a high portion of the killers from bored to engaged in a system that gives them bragging rights as well as decent rewards while segregating them from non-combat players by motivation where possible.
Now that we have covered the ‘carrot’ side, let's take a look at the ‘stick’ side of things. The idea here is to maintain the freedom of murderous psychopaths to act as they choose, but provide a large disincentive for them to engage in this behavior — just as in real-life society, engaging in certain behaviors carries penalties so prohibitive as to hopefully largely dissuade these activities.
A determined player-killer who chooses to ignore the consensual PvP system described above (and those other brilliant community-created consensual PvP loops which are already adequately organized) should be able to attack others, but with more consequence than currently exists.
First of all, every ship sensor should have a Kill Warrant Scanner built-in. Forcing the hunters of criminals to waste a slot on a Kill Warrant Scanner both puts them at a disadvantage to the criminals and greatly lowers the chance that player killers will come across another player who can scan them for bounties. Many griefers may have a massive amount of bounties in dozens of systems, and they should always be at risk of all players having access to this information. In addition, I would point out that gankers and griefers regularly prioritize killing anyone found with a Kill Warrant Scanner — this would remove their ability to do this. From a lore perspective, I would point out that it would be entirely within the Pilots Federation’s interest to incorporate this change as one of their members killing another of their members would be among the highest possible taboos.
All kills versus other players (only kills, not accidental shooting that does not result in a kill, also not any single-contact crashes such as the shieldless ‘suicidewinders’ used to trick people into killing you) should be treated entirely differently to NPC kills. For kills against other players the following system should be engaged:
Basically, the TL;DR of this is that combat-oriented players get a cool new system to test their mettle against each other for profit and bragging rights or they can choose to senselessly murder non-combatant players (while accepting the stiff penalties) — but they can’t do both. I am hoping they will choose the former out of self-interest, but even if they don’t, there are enough roadblocks along the mayhem path to cause them serious issues. All of the above would cumulatively provide a lot more opportunity for consensual PvP while massively disincentivizing non-consensual PvP.
Player piracy
While being a serial murderer should not be an attractive career path because of its effect on the experience of others, there should still be a place for player piracy. Knowing how and where to conduct these activities will be discussed below, however I would very much like to see ships (whether NPC or player) drop their full cargo, minus some randomly determined loss due to destruction, upon being killed. This would allow for killers who are smart enough to stay in anarchy systems to actually earn money in their playstyle. Once again, the point of this is to provide smart criminals with opportunities, as opposed to mindlessly murdering new players with nothing worth taking.
System security states
Ok, so now we’ve covered the other points — let’s get into the idea of making the various system states have meaning. High Security, Medium Security, Low Security and Anarchy systems should all feel different. One of the things you will always hear from Elite 1984 players was how scared they were when jumping into an anarchy system.
Frontier has said several times that they want the different security ratings of the systems to affect the player’s experience, but at present, this is only true of the NPC interactions. Players, by far the biggest threat in the game to other players, largely ignore system security states. The most dangerous systems in the game are always the ones with the most players in them — regardless of security rating. This cannot be what Frontier intended.
Here, then, is my idea of how system states should be a modifier for all of the above changes:
*EDIT: PLAYERS WHO HAVE NOTORIETY (UNDER THE NEW SYSTEM) SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SIMPLY LOITER IN SECURE SYSTEMS. THEREFORE ATR SHOULD BE HASSLING THEM REGULARLY (THE MOST OFTEN IN HIGH SEC, LESS SO IN MEDIUM AND EVEN LESS SO IN LOW SEC). ONCE ENGAGED ATR SHOULD CONTINUE TO HARASS AND ATTEMPT TO KILL THE PLAYER UNTIL THEY VACATE THE SYSTEM. THUS EVENTUALLY FORCING THE PLAYER KILLER BACK TO ANARCHY SPACE WHERE THEY ARE SAFE FROM AUTHORITIES.
However, Anarchy systems more than 30ly from inhabited space should not spawn pirates. Crime should only be a consideration near populated systems. This is both common sense and an obvious concession to not unduly harm the exploration gameplay loop.
In addition to the above existing system states, I would add one more: OUTER RIM. Basically think of the Reavers in Firefly. Consider putting a 30ly ‘shell’ surrounding the Bubble (and all other inhabited spaces) where this system state exists. This should be an absolutely terrifying system in which all of the rules of Anarchy Systems apply, but in addition, there should be a much greater percentage of spawn rate for wings of highly-engineered NPC pirates to attack you. There should be some very high incentives in greater payouts of some kind to incentivize high-level players to go there.
Conclusion
So there are my thoughts. I know that this explanation was not brief but I did try to think it through to the best of my ability. I wish to thank anyone who took the time to read through all of this, whether you agree with my ideas or not. I would very much appreciate civil discussion on these topics. Please share what you like in this thread and discuss what could be done better or differently. I am not at all expecting Frontier to make these changes lightly or quickly, or even at all. I’m sure there are plenty of people smarter than I who could suggest even better ideas, but as I noted Frontier has shown fantastic willingness to rethink some long-existing issues for the health and viability of the game going forward, so I wanted to kick off a conversation on this matter that might generate a workable solution.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. Further, I would very much like to thank Commanders: Arsen Cross, WolfDragon, Swordsmith95, Kontrolldon and Audaxius who contributed ideas to this proposal as well as Souvarine who, as always, I submitted my ramblings to in the hopes that he could make them somewhat presentable. Anything worthwhile in this post is completely their doing, any idea you cannot stand is mine alone.
I would very much like to see Powerplay and BGS be changed in favor of Open play. I would similarly like to see more players in Open to interact with each other as opposed to having a ‘ghost town’-feeling universe where the majority of players choose to play in Solo or Private Group as opposed to Open mode because of the perception (slightly mistaken though I believe it to be) that playing in Open is needlessly putting oneself at risk of being murdered consequence-free.
As such, I’ve come up with a set of suggestions concerning direct and indirect PvP, as well as crime and punishment in Elite that I think would go some way to addressing this, and I’d love your feedback on them.
Introduction and assumptions
The main ideas incorporated herein are based on the following assumptions that I believe to be true, and that I think (based on comments made by Frontier in the past) that Frontier also believe.
- More players playing the game in Open mode will make the galaxy more vibrant.
- PvP players also deserve the right to have an enjoyable play loop.
- This right should not extend to consequence-free mayhem.
- ‘Seal clubbing’ is bad for the game as attacking the new players immediately induces them to either quit the game or go to Solo forever.
- Player piracy should be a viable option whereby there is significant wealth gain possible with increased risk to the player to encourage acquisitive piracy over senseless murder.
- There should be some meaning to the various system security states: High Security, Medium Security, Low Security and Anarchy systems should all feel different.
I strongly believe that Frontier agrees with the above statements and the overhaul to the crime and punishment system in 2018 included changes that support this view. However, I don’t think that the game’s current crime and punishment system quite achieves these goals, because of the following:
- The most dangerous places in the galaxy are reliably the systems with the most players in them. This is irrespective of the system’s security level.
- Players still routinely report that they feel they are being killed with impunity in high-security systems.
- Very few players engage in piracy (as opposed to simple player-killing).
- Because of a lack of viable opportunity for fun and rewarding play within their chosen gameplay loop, bored PVP players end up with nothing to do more attractive for them than causing mayhem, and when they choose this path they find that it’s far too easy to get away with.
The below set of proposals are my attempt to achieve the goals that Frontier have said in the past that they have for the crime and punishment system in Elite.
Open, Powerplay and the BGS
With the above goals in mind, I would like to submit for your consideration the following changes:
- Powerplay and BGS effects are weighted such that any effect upon these systems is 5x for activities conducted in Open only as opposed to Private Group or Solo mode. If at any time for any reason between accepting the mission or merits and turning in the mission or merits you enter any mode other than Open, you are automatically relegated to receiving the lower amount of credit.
- All activities should pay out 1.5x in Open mode. Mining should generate more ore. material farming should generate more mats, mission-running should pay out more credits, exploration data should pay out better, trade missions should pay out more. Every aspect of the game should pay out better in every way to incentivize this mode of play without taking away anything from those players who wish to play in Solo. They will still earn exactly the same money they make now.
Given that this is a boost to earnings in Open rather than a nerf to earnings in the other game modes, the only possible objection to this (and the above suggestion in point 1) that a player might have is because they want to be able to affect other players without running the risk of being opposed. In my view, this isn’t a legitimate objection.
Note: It would be simpler to just nix BGS Influence gain and Powerplay merit-earning in any game mode other than Open, and this would be my real preference. But the above suggestions allow much the same behavioral effect without ‘nerfing’ any aspect of a Solo player’s experience. I am well aware of the historical arguments on this issue and it is for this exact reason that I offer a compromise whereby Solo players can continue exactly as they are now while still offering a concession to the obviously valid point of the majority of BGS and Powerplay groups that these gameplay loops were intended to be open to the wider variety of player interaction found in Open.
The current system of not really providing PvP players with meaningful gameplay loops (other than going to San Tu and trying to match up or using external Discord servers) has led to a large number of well-equipped player killers that are bored and, as such, run amok. In my opinion, this is both a failure to engage these players as well as a disservice to those upon whom they take their boredom out. I would like to propose a whole new system that would allow for dynamic gameplay to keep the ‘wolves’ happily killing other wolves and remove the incentive for the wolves to kill ‘sheep’, for all but the most determined of griefers (which will be addressed further down). My idea to accomplish this is the following:
PvP System
This is an opt-in PvP-flagging system in which players are incentivized to fight other players ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME. It would function similarly to a weekly CG. Once opted in, you are locked to Open until that weekly cycle ends. The rewards of the system would be awarded similar to a CG with rewards for the top 10 Commanders, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. In addition, the top 10 Commanders' names would be posted every week as an acknowledgment of their skill and an inducement for those who seek bragging rights to keep at it. The entire point of this system is for PvP Players to become each other’s content in a way that is both sanctioned and well rewarded by Frontier. These players deserve to feel heard, appreciated and rewarded just as much as any PvE focused players and this system will allow them to do so in a structured manner which, I very much hope, will capture the attention of most thus causing them to opt-out of the ‘Senseless griefing’ play loop.
Rankings
Per kill, the reward would be the Combat Rank Points (CRP) of the target Commander, plus 0.25x the Points Owned by the Target (POT). Killed Commanders lose points. The reward formula would then be: Points Earned = CRP + (POT x 0.25).
*EDITED ORIGINAL POST: MY SYSTEM WAS SUCCEPTABLE TO "WIN TRADING" THEREFORE I SUGGEST THAT 1. PLAYERS LOSE SOME POINT VALUE UPON DEATH 2.THERE BE A MODIFIER BASED ON THE VALUE OF THE SHIP KILLED SO THAT PEOPLE COULD NOT GIVE UP DEATHS IN A NOOBWINDER AND GET FULL VALUE AND 3. OTHER LIMITERS BE PUT INTO PLACE TO COMBAT WIN TRADING SUCH AS DIMINISHING RETURNS AS WELL AS A CAP UPON EARNING ANY POINTS AFTER A DESIGNATED NUMBER OF KILLS ON THE SAME TARGET EACH WEEK.
Combat Rank Points (CRP)
| Cmdr. | Harmless | Mostly harmless | Novice | Competent | Expert | Master | Dangerous | Deadly | Elite | |
| Target | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
| Harmless | 1 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 0.67 | 0.50 | 0.40 | 0.33 | 0.29 | 0.25 | 0.22 |
| Mostly Harmless | 2 | 4.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 1.00 | 0.80 | 0.67 | 0.57 | 0.50 | 0.44 |
| Novice | 3 | 6.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.20 | 1.00 | 0.86 | 0.75 | 0.67 |
| Competent | 4 | 8.00 | 4.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 1.60 | 1.33 | 1.14 | 1.00 | 0.89 |
| Expert | 5 | 10.00 | 5.00 | 3.33 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 1.43 | 1.25 | 1.11 |
| Master | 6 | 12.00 | 6.00 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 2.40 | 2.00 | 1.71 | 1.50 | 1.33 |
| Dangerous | 7 | 14.00 | 7.00 | 4.67 | 3.50 | 2.80 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.75 | 1.56 |
| Deadly | 8 | 16.00 | 8.00 | 5.33 | 4.00 | 3.20 | 2.67 | 2.29 | 2.00 | 1.78 |
| Elite | 9 | 18.00 | 9.00 | 6.00 | 4.50 | 3.60 | 3.00 | 2.57 | 2.25 | 2.00 |
When opted in, players will be displayed on the galaxy map (perhaps via a red ‘friend symbol’), along with their current ‘value’ according to the above table. Players with Notoriety will be opted in automatically with their bounty value displayed and a point bonus for their kill. They are displayed as targets but ineligible to collect any points under this system while they have notoriety.
The above system should be thought of as the ‘carrot’ side of the PvP rework. This system would give PvP players a fun mode of play that will hopefully challenge and engage them, as opposed to murdering those who have no interest in that aspect of play.
Frontier would then take players who participated in the weekly contest and, similar to how CGs currently work, pay some actual decent rewards in credits (and possibly even more creative prizes). Once set up, this system would just keep rolling every week — moving a high portion of the killers from bored to engaged in a system that gives them bragging rights as well as decent rewards while segregating them from non-combat players by motivation where possible.
Now that we have covered the ‘carrot’ side, let's take a look at the ‘stick’ side of things. The idea here is to maintain the freedom of murderous psychopaths to act as they choose, but provide a large disincentive for them to engage in this behavior — just as in real-life society, engaging in certain behaviors carries penalties so prohibitive as to hopefully largely dissuade these activities.
A determined player-killer who chooses to ignore the consensual PvP system described above (and those other brilliant community-created consensual PvP loops which are already adequately organized) should be able to attack others, but with more consequence than currently exists.
First of all, every ship sensor should have a Kill Warrant Scanner built-in. Forcing the hunters of criminals to waste a slot on a Kill Warrant Scanner both puts them at a disadvantage to the criminals and greatly lowers the chance that player killers will come across another player who can scan them for bounties. Many griefers may have a massive amount of bounties in dozens of systems, and they should always be at risk of all players having access to this information. In addition, I would point out that gankers and griefers regularly prioritize killing anyone found with a Kill Warrant Scanner — this would remove their ability to do this. From a lore perspective, I would point out that it would be entirely within the Pilots Federation’s interest to incorporate this change as one of their members killing another of their members would be among the highest possible taboos.
All kills versus other players (only kills, not accidental shooting that does not result in a kill, also not any single-contact crashes such as the shieldless ‘suicidewinders’ used to trick people into killing you) should be treated entirely differently to NPC kills. For kills against other players the following system should be engaged:
- Notoriety should apply to both the player and the ship.
- Notoriety would not be incurred when killing a murderer nor engaging in consensual PVP as stated above, or by combat in Anarchy systems, or by combat against an opposing team player in a Conflict Zone, or by killing a player with report crimes turned off.
- Notoriety should cease to apply to players killing NPC ships. The existing system of bounties and NPC bounty hunters adequately deals with PvE crime.
- The value of the ship flown by the player committing the murder should be added to the base value of the bounty. A meta FDL valued at 149M would result in the first kill receiving an addition to the penalty of 149M for their first murder. This value should be doubled for every additional murder. The vast majority of ‘seal clubbers’ will chain several kills over the course of a play session. Increasing the penalty incurred for what are, in essence, serial killers seems to be simple common sense.
- Players acting as PvP bounty hunters should receive the full bounty payout for killing the offending player. If in a wing, the bounty should be split evenly between all members. This is balanced by ensuring that the player criminal who dies has to pay that entire penalty out of their own net wealth. Criminals would not be able to abuse this as a money transfer method as it's all coming from them. If they do not have the funds to pay the penalty then they should be put into debt after the liquidation of any assets owned to pay the penalty. At worst, a person gaming the system would be able to avoid paying for their crimes — but only at the expense of being reset back to a starter Sidewinder, and even then having to choose to either earn the money to pay back that debt or abandon the account and go through the process of spending all the time to unlock engineers and regain Powerplay modules, etc. Essentially, you could game this system to a very limited extent — but at great cost of your time, and those added days or weeks to rebuild a new account in which serial killers are not murdering innocent players is well worth the small subsidy by the Pilot’s Federation.
- Any commander with Notoriety should automatically be flagged in the weekly PvP system described above — not as a contestant but as a ‘murderer’, with an added bonus in point value. This incentivizes PvP players to hunt them for their bounties. They would have no way to unflag from this until their murder penalty has been paid. They would, however, not be able to claim any credits for bounties or points under that system while carrying the Murderer status. Those who choose to commit murder of other players would in essence be a part of the game but not as contestants, only as prey.
Basically, the TL;DR of this is that combat-oriented players get a cool new system to test their mettle against each other for profit and bragging rights or they can choose to senselessly murder non-combatant players (while accepting the stiff penalties) — but they can’t do both. I am hoping they will choose the former out of self-interest, but even if they don’t, there are enough roadblocks along the mayhem path to cause them serious issues. All of the above would cumulatively provide a lot more opportunity for consensual PvP while massively disincentivizing non-consensual PvP.
Player piracy
While being a serial murderer should not be an attractive career path because of its effect on the experience of others, there should still be a place for player piracy. Knowing how and where to conduct these activities will be discussed below, however I would very much like to see ships (whether NPC or player) drop their full cargo, minus some randomly determined loss due to destruction, upon being killed. This would allow for killers who are smart enough to stay in anarchy systems to actually earn money in their playstyle. Once again, the point of this is to provide smart criminals with opportunities, as opposed to mindlessly murdering new players with nothing worth taking.
System security states
Ok, so now we’ve covered the other points — let’s get into the idea of making the various system states have meaning. High Security, Medium Security, Low Security and Anarchy systems should all feel different. One of the things you will always hear from Elite 1984 players was how scared they were when jumping into an anarchy system.
Frontier has said several times that they want the different security ratings of the systems to affect the player’s experience, but at present, this is only true of the NPC interactions. Players, by far the biggest threat in the game to other players, largely ignore system security states. The most dangerous systems in the game are always the ones with the most players in them — regardless of security rating. This cannot be what Frontier intended.
Here, then, is my idea of how system states should be a modifier for all of the above changes:
*EDIT: PLAYERS WHO HAVE NOTORIETY (UNDER THE NEW SYSTEM) SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SIMPLY LOITER IN SECURE SYSTEMS. THEREFORE ATR SHOULD BE HASSLING THEM REGULARLY (THE MOST OFTEN IN HIGH SEC, LESS SO IN MEDIUM AND EVEN LESS SO IN LOW SEC). ONCE ENGAGED ATR SHOULD CONTINUE TO HARASS AND ATTEMPT TO KILL THE PLAYER UNTIL THEY VACATE THE SYSTEM. THUS EVENTUALLY FORCING THE PLAYER KILLER BACK TO ANARCHY SPACE WHERE THEY ARE SAFE FROM AUTHORITIES.
- HIGH SECURITY: This should be nearly absolutely safe for all players to play in Open mode, knowing that they are basically in the equivalent of hanging out near City Hall in the middle of the afternoon with police presence visible. If any player is attacked by another player and has ‘Report crimes’ turned on, the ATR should respond within ten seconds. Experienced players will know that the time-to-kill in Elite with an experienced ship, especially against weaker targets, can be as low as a few seconds. This ATR response should be a wing of six, with five of them engaging the attacker and the sixth immediately providing healing beam/repair limpet assistance to the victim. All attacks by players on players automatically generate a bounty at a x2 multiplier. Player murders automatically generate the murder penalty described above, but x2. All BEGINNER engineer systems should be High Security systems. *EDIT NOTE: Yeah, thinking it thru a little more I'd say that the beginning engineers should be HIGH SEC, later ones can start to go low sec and the latter ones that require combat rank and such could maybe be mixed into some anarchy systems.
- MEDIUM SECURITY: This should be a fairly safe place for players — basically analogous to a residential neighborhood. If any player is attacked by another player and ‘Report crimes’ is turned on, the ATR should respond within 20 seconds. This response should be a wing of ATR ships engaging the attacker. All attacks by players on players automatically generate a bounty. Player murders automatically generate the murder penalty.
- LOW SECURITY: This should be a little risky — basically think about being at the slightly dodgy end of town just after sunset. If any player is attacked by another player and ‘Report crimes’ is turned on, the ATR should respond within one minute (no response for NPC attacks). This response should be a wing of N+1 (where N is the number of attackers) engaging the attacker. Player murders automatically generate the x0.75 the murder penalty described above. There should be some minor incentives in greater payouts of some kind to incentivize high-level players to go to these systems, with missions or resources that pay more than in High or Medium Security systems.
- ANARCHY SYSTEM: This should be VERY risky — basically think being in the worst neighborhood in your country at midnight. If any player is attacked by anyone, there will be no response. Player attacks and murders of any kind will not be reported. Going into these systems should scare any but the most brave/foolish. Even in Solo mode, you should be afraid: there should be a much greater percentage chance for highly-engineered NPC pirates (including wings) to attack you. But these should also be potentially the most lucrative systems: the biggest bounties are here, the most pristine mining rings are here, and missions to go to these systems should pay more.
However, Anarchy systems more than 30ly from inhabited space should not spawn pirates. Crime should only be a consideration near populated systems. This is both common sense and an obvious concession to not unduly harm the exploration gameplay loop.
In addition to the above existing system states, I would add one more: OUTER RIM. Basically think of the Reavers in Firefly. Consider putting a 30ly ‘shell’ surrounding the Bubble (and all other inhabited spaces) where this system state exists. This should be an absolutely terrifying system in which all of the rules of Anarchy Systems apply, but in addition, there should be a much greater percentage of spawn rate for wings of highly-engineered NPC pirates to attack you. There should be some very high incentives in greater payouts of some kind to incentivize high-level players to go there.
Conclusion
So there are my thoughts. I know that this explanation was not brief but I did try to think it through to the best of my ability. I wish to thank anyone who took the time to read through all of this, whether you agree with my ideas or not. I would very much appreciate civil discussion on these topics. Please share what you like in this thread and discuss what could be done better or differently. I am not at all expecting Frontier to make these changes lightly or quickly, or even at all. I’m sure there are plenty of people smarter than I who could suggest even better ideas, but as I noted Frontier has shown fantastic willingness to rethink some long-existing issues for the health and viability of the game going forward, so I wanted to kick off a conversation on this matter that might generate a workable solution.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. Further, I would very much like to thank Commanders: Arsen Cross, WolfDragon, Swordsmith95, Kontrolldon and Audaxius who contributed ideas to this proposal as well as Souvarine who, as always, I submitted my ramblings to in the hopes that he could make them somewhat presentable. Anything worthwhile in this post is completely their doing, any idea you cannot stand is mine alone.
Last edited:
