Piracy and smuggling need love.
- Thread starter VladtheImpaler
- Start date
IMO piracy should never be as profitable as other legal professions, it should primarily be the realm of dedicated RP people.
I'd go so far as to say the second someone "pirates" then all legitimate professions are locked out, and most stations shoot to kill. I think it's daft someone can pirate for a bit then jump in a trader and trade for a bit for cash then jump back into a fighter and pirate again. EVERY misdemeanour should have a value attached to it and only when a player pays off this "soul cleansing" tab can they be legit.
Basically only way to wipe the slate clean is to start again from scratch, no money and the basic sidewinder.
Piracy should be the hardcore difficulty mode and only for the most dedicated IMO. Not a casual money making system.
Of course Pirates will need "bases" with my ideas. But once again should be a play style for RP and not to make money. Maybe dedicated ships and weapons and cheaper repair and refuel costs? The bases would have special BB missions for pirates as well.
I'd go so far as to say the second someone "pirates" then all legitimate professions are locked out, and most stations shoot to kill. I think it's daft someone can pirate for a bit then jump in a trader and trade for a bit for cash then jump back into a fighter and pirate again. EVERY misdemeanour should have a value attached to it and only when a player pays off this "soul cleansing" tab can they be legit.
Basically only way to wipe the slate clean is to start again from scratch, no money and the basic sidewinder.
Piracy should be the hardcore difficulty mode and only for the most dedicated IMO. Not a casual money making system.
Of course Pirates will need "bases" with my ideas. But once again should be a play style for RP and not to make money. Maybe dedicated ships and weapons and cheaper repair and refuel costs? The bases would have special BB missions for pirates as well.
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I would enjoy this. Pirates would still be able to use anarchy bases. But, I believe, piracy pays too low for it to work right now.
So you want an outrageous penalty, orders of magnitude greater than anything that currently exists, for the least rewarding profession? Interesting. There would have to be some pretty good systems in place for most to even consider trying out piracy.
Something to note would be that you could circumvent some of your intended effects by using a second account to make credits for your pirate account.
Have you ever tried piracy?
I'm not being extreme at all. I am telling you exactly how player piracy works in this game. People either drop the cargo you demand or you kill them. If they refuse and you attempt to shoot the cargo hatch out or limpit you may get a handful of tons here and there (if you find someone who doesn't combat log these days when attempting to limpit), but it is essentially a meaningless amount of profit. It is much better to kill them and give them something to think about next time. If for RP reasons some don't that is fine, but I can assure you the majority of player piracy (and any amount of successful money making) is how I described.
Again try to understand I am not guessing or assuming any of this. Sure it will sound like I am tooting my own horn, but I am telling you that is how player piracy is done from someone who used to pirate a lot after launch day when you could make acceptable money player pirating rares, and played with and against all the well known pirates. If you think the norm is player pirates searching out other players, finally finding some, demand cargo and they ignore, try to shoot out their cargo or hatch break 5 tons off of them, and everyone leaves alive and happy then you are very sadly mistaken.
I completely agree. I wish they gave us at least 3 different save slots though, that way someone could have a solo game and also try multiplayer in open if they wished.
But being able to go back and forth screws up so much.
I thought Mr Ryder was initially pulling my leg a few weeks back, but on the system map where it tells you repair, commodititiieieisisies market, refuel, munitions etc, as you hover over a station or outpost it now also lists "black market." Sadly, it says this for nearby systems that you haven't even been to yet - well in my case anyway.
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Fair enough viewpoint, but, errr, how do you suggest they can improve the fun factor of buy x tons at A, sell at B...?
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I agree that being able to pick and choose is wrong! In both principal and concept, especially now that PP is here. However, that's for adding to the latest lengthy thread on that topic...
For trade
-relieve us of tedium and lack of QoL (quality of life) factors that make trade less fun and more manual labor - e.g. integrate trade price tracking within the market view, we wouldn't use 3rd party tools if we had better internal tools that at least told us by automated means prices and relative prices, profit % for any given item we look at vs all the other markets we have personally visited, say with some X time factor before that data fades.
-remove the drudgery of plotting routes manually every single time, even within the same game session. Stored routes, etc
-allow and enhance better market intel into the game to make choice of goods moved more than just memorized price X here, price Y there. GalNet really doesn't affect trade volume at all, but if there were enhanced demand/supply tips there, something that actually measurably impacted trade economics, it would provide more depth and for those that like trade, more fun in beating the system or getting more profit
-I agree to some extent you just have to like trading or you don't. But something can be more fun because you not only inject actual more entertainment options, complexities, etc - but also because you remove as much of the non-fun factors like routine drudgery of overcoming poor UI, lack of basic price information that makes us rely on 3rd party tools, etc
For mining and other professions,similarly. For mining in particular, fix and enhance so much of the manual bizarreness that is the current 'refinery', provide other tools that actually helps us mine better, faster, more profitably. So many modules could open up other options. Right now pretty much it's see rock, blast rock, then try to handle the mess of things that the manual-matic refinery plus managing drones process is.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! I've taken much inspiration from EVE-Online though.
I do not believe in barring people from certain aspects of the game depending on their gameplay time. I think the natural learning curve of the game is enough to deter new players from doing anything drastic.
Ideally yes, I've tried to come up with realistic features that makes trading more fun and the only thing I can come up with it pure player controlled markets.
Other than that, I do believe that a Risk vs Reward plus Fun vs Reward should be considered for all professions. I've done trading so I can only speak of that:
Trading is not fun, so to motivate people to do trading, it needs to be profitible. Since trading is profitible, it also needs to carry a meaningful risk to balance the profits.
By doing this, following thing will happen: Rich traders attracts pirates.
But now, pirates needs to be countered as well because otherwise people would just stop trading: Therefore we need a good penalty against pirates, but not that sort of penalty that stop people from pirating. I think my solution in above post is good way to do it.
In this case, the following would happen: Rich traders attracts pirates, who then attracts bounty hunters.
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Thanks!
Regarding your question; Maybe it should, my math isn't stellar so I don't know how if this would be overly profiteble for bounty hunters or not (my main drive is the concept of Risk vs Fun vs Reward). My idea is very rough around the edges though, I'm sure other people around these forums knows better than me.
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Cool, so basically a "press here to automate process" button?
I sense I'm walking into a person's opinion that just can't be reasoned with but why not - give it a shot.
No, I mean tools that will let us scale our brain, our human player ability to trade - automation of some of the record keeping tasks does not mean a single I-win or Automate Please button.
It merely means effective manner of processing information and outputting your decisions without making each step a pen-and-paper process, because that is what it is right now. If your defense of manual trading is based on should Elite trading be a game of memorization, then we may as well stop debate and just hopelessly agree to disagree forever.
for example, forget even prices - just take one aspect of a 3rd party trade tool that people can use WITHOUT using price data they did not previously have access to because never visited that system - some don't mind and what that advantage, some wish to enjoy that as a challenge for themselves. But say you want to know if Synthetic Meat is sold somewhere because you have a mission for it.
I would not support a tool in game that you press one button that says - find all mission items - and it plots a route from current location to every world where every item you need is located, even if you've never visited that world. That would be a 'press here to automate process' button.
What I would like, is what the Commodities Market screen does absolutely poorly but hints at possible future enhancement - when I visit a world, it imports that world's import/export data, I am not cheating or looking at a third party tool - I am looking at data I myself saw and had access to. But it does not bizarrely say what items by name that world we just visited had for sale, it does not note the prices that world had for that item, it lacks even 1995 Amazon era - year after they were founded - UI tracking for 'shopping cart' info for products I looked at.
All it tells us is if that world imports or exports an item that has a corresponding item on the world we are looking at commodities screen on. So the current alternative is exactly 3 options-
1) just memorize best you can and play randomly
2) write down on analog or digital notepad all the items, prices, locations
3) use a 3rd party tool in full or limited fashion (full to give you easy trade route suggestion, or just limited to tell you what items it has for only worlds you visited before)
Your somewhat snarky reply conveniently ignores that if you're going to be against automation processes, then you may as well uninstall the game because that ship has sailed with FA able to be toggled - or do you 100%, n0t 99% - but 100 absolutely point zero percent - of the time fly with FA off?
Do you ever use gimble weapons, ever - on any ship? That's targeting automation. By your analogy, that would be a press here to fire and automate I win button.
Do you use the nav route ability or do you hand select and jump point tp point, one a time, via a manual route YOU personally selected and inputted? Because that nav route for fast or economical calculation is also a press here to automate process button.
And if you draw the line somewhere, where you say but this is normal automation, and your idea is I-win button automation - define and explain where and how that line exists because one liners, while great for the twitter generation, does nothing to support or refute anyone's position, much less your own.
Aw thanks, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week!
For the record, i've criticised the poor-effort system view since day one in regards to commodities trading - black markets - exploration/trading history, and the total lack of cohesion between these elements.
If all that waffle you've typed explains how to increase your "fun factor" I hope you get your wish Cmdr.
[Press once here to fully automate Cmdr blocking procedure on forums.]