Piracy/interdiction changes to keep Traders in the game

[NeilF]

I posted this in another thread, but felt it might be useful as a conversation piece in its own suggestion thread? So here's a set of changes to try and tighten up the piracy/trader interdiction mechanic.



Six things need to happen IMHO:-

Traders are penalised if they keep dodging

The game knows if you are being interdicted, so if (as a trader) you keep dodging (your process just happens to end during an interdiction), after a couple of times, you are penalised in some fashion (eg: an increasing time penalty before being allowed back into OPEN). At the moment it's all too easy to terminate your process to dodge any interdiction.​

Pirates are heavily penalised for murder

If traders knew they are not likely to be killed, they'd be much more willing to "play ball" (& not end up playing solo through constant fear of destruction).

eg: Bounties that cannot be simply paid off, but which are retained for say X gameplay hours (not real hours) before they can be?

I'm especially interested if anyone can see an issue with this one as it is quite a big change to the current kill and easily get away with it mechanic!​

Show Pirates if the Victim is EXITing

If a player is exiting to desktop/menu, show this countdown on all other players HUDs (in the instance). Make the countdown 20-30 seconds? Maybe apply a damage multiplier while in this state? eg: 25% more damage?​

NPC pirates do not murder if you play ball

Likewise if you hand over some cargo, NPC pirates will generally also let you go. Maybe NPCs could demand (over comms) a value of cargo (eg: X tons of Y) based on your actual cargo. As long as you jettison this, they will typically let you go.​

Dedicated (interdiction) messages

Allow default messages to be defined (against hot keys), so you interdict someone and quickly let them know they need to pay with X tons of their most valuable cargo for example.​

Make scooping easier

Picking up even half a dozen bits of cargo can get frustrating! Its painful for pirates (and miners) so make it less painful. eg: Add a small magnetic effect to the scoop. Or allow ship to ship docking (see sig)​

Note1: Maybe also add other mechanics such as when a "Pirate" kills a player (trader), immediately broadcast it over the coms channel in the system (as some sort of distress signal), so any local bounty hunters could start looking in that system - Maybe specify a rough location or put up a temporary location to navigate to? So if a pirate kills someone, bounty hunters nearby (in the system) can come to investigate?

Note2: Maybe introduce a small "sales tax" on trading in "Group" or "Solo" to make "Public" more appealing to traders.

 

[Robotic Dreamer]

The scooping. Yes. I had to rage quit from mining a few times because I just got fed up and motion sick (Spinning space, spinning 'roids, and a little screen to pay attention to) after trying and failing at picking up little rocks. My suggestion is that if the gear or rock is 50m or closer, and within the little box, there should be at least an upgraded scoop that will suck it up automatically.

 

[Toxic_Waster]

I'm able to pick up 10-15 cans only before they start popping. This puts the serious cap on pirate income.

 

[Twotricks]

Excellent suggestions.

Most importantly, if Frontier does not want to separate solo and open play : there should be some incentive in playing open. Perhaps slight bonus on trades, bounties ... whatever.
Otherwise most people will just haul in solo mode to minimize risk.

 

[NeilF]

Excellent suggestions.

Most importantly, if Frontier does not want to separate solo and open play : there should be some incentive in playing open. Perhaps slight bonus on trades, bounties ... whatever.
Otherwise most people will just haul in solo mode to minimize risk.

...or as I put it a "sales tax" in solo/group play, so public is more enticing to traders

 

[Frans Cantor]

Yeah the expiration on cargo limits the income in pirating... What if you could jettison x tonnes of stuff in one object? Then when you pick it up you receive x tons of that stuff. If it is more than you can carry you have to jettison the extra before you can move.

 

[Tigga]

Traders are penalised if they keep dodging

The game knows if you are being interdicted, so if (as a trader) you keep dodging (your process just happens to end during an interdiction), after a couple of times, you are penalised in some fashion. At the moment it's all too easy to terminate your process to dodge any interdiction.
​

This should start from the moment the interdiction starts, and should end a minute after you jump away from an interdiction. While I like the in-game timer for quitting, it should be 30 seconds, or it should broadcast it to anybody in sensor range so they know you're quitting.

Pirates are heavily penalised for murder

If traders knew they are not likely to be killed, they'd be much more willing to "play ball" (& not end up playing solo through constant fear of destruction).

eg: Bounties that cannot be simply paid off, but which are retained for say X gameplay hours (not real hours) before they can be?

I'm especially interested if anyone can see an issue with this one as it is quite a big change to the current kill and easily get away with it mechanic!​

Good. I say 48 real hours, being refreshed on next crime. You're going to have to make pinging NPCs a fine though...

Dedicated jettison hot key

Allow a key to jettison one ton of your most expensive cargo (ignoring rares, unless there is nothing but rares).

This would allow you to quickly and easily "pay".
​

Include rares. Maybe make it 5t.

Make scooping easier

Picking up even half a dozen bits of cargo can get frustrating! Its painful for pirates (and miners) so make it less painful. eg: Add a small magnetic effect to the scoop.
​

There's a lot of things you could do with scooping. Bunching of cannisters so you can scoop more than 1t at once. Wider scooping angle, higher scooping speed.

Note1: Maybe also add other mechanics such as when a "Pirate" kills a player (trader), immediately broadcast it over the coms channel in the system (as some sort of distress signal), so any local bounty hunters could start looking in that system - Maybe specify a rough location or put up a temporary location to navigate to? So if a pirate kills someone, bounty hunters nearby (in the system) can come to investigate?

You could have it happen as soon as a reported crime is commited, or perhaps with a small delay depending on the 3rd party's status with the locals.

Note2: Maybe introduce a small "sales tax" on trading in "Group" or "Solo" to make "Public" more appealing to traders.

I'd be in favour. Not big, but an amount.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I'm able to pick up 10-15 cans only before they start popping. This puts the serious cap on pirate income.

My scooping record is now 42. That was some intense scooping. A Type-6 decided to drop everything rather than just what I asked for. It's doable, but these were nicely bunched.

 

[Paranoid Android]

Note2: Maybe introduce a small "sales tax" on trading in "Group" or "Solo" to make "Public" more appealing to traders.

No.

There seems to be a lot of call for more traders to play in open, so people can play the pirate against them (at least in this forum there's a lot of suggestions trying to increase the number of traders in open). Why would any sane person want to play against a human pirate in a well equipped ship, when they are in a trade ship with little to no offensive capabilities. The only course of action would be to relinquish cargo or try to run/die. This is a no-win scenario for the trader. (I'm not talking about someone trading in an Anaconda - I'm talking about someone with a T6/T7)

I really don't see the need for a pirate to face a human player. To me it's not PvP when one guys has a big gun and the other is a big target. There's no skill there. It appears to be some perverse power play. If it's not - can someone explain the need for a human target for pirates?

Add to that the few "pirates" who just want to kill players and there really is no sense in a trader playing in open.

Now human pirate/human bounty hunter PvP sounds a lot better to me. That's a skill v skill situation. It even satisfies the ones who get off killing human players - whether they call themselves pirates or not.

 

[NeilF]

I really don't see the need for a pirate to face a human player. To me it's not PvP when one guys has a big gun and the other is a big target. There's no skill there. It appears to be some perverse power play. If it's not - can someone explain the need for a human target for pirates?

That's a fair point, but looking at the broader picture, human players with the threat of human pirates may simply fly in groups more often? Or other game mechanics may thus develop.

And if as a trader, I was interdicted every few days and it cost me 10% of my profit on that one run? Would I really be that bothered? Is that really game changing?

For what it adds towards a deeper online game, I think its worth finding a balance whereby traders can be brought back into the game.

Traders simply playing in solo, and terminating the process on any/all interdictions isn't really helping gameplay. The reason they are doing this is:-
a) They can get away with it.
b) Because it maxmised their profits of course.
c) They're not comfortable with the risk/outcome of interdictions.

If they couldn't get away with it (a), and the cost of (b) was fairly minimal when online, and with (c) you were fairly sure if you played ball you'd just lose some cargo (a small %age), what's the issue given the greater good/outcome of the game?

 

[Skanvak]

Traders are penalised if they keep dodging

I am totally against. Traders should be free to keep dodging all interception. No change in physical property of the game for gamey reason.
​

Pirates are heavily penalised for murder

Well, I think the actual system is quite balanced. The risk with more penalisation of pirate (and they already get shot when entering station if they are wanted) is that they will be no more pirate. I think that ED has a far west feeling, so if you want more penalisation why not organized it in game (I will be glad to hunt pirates for more money). Another way is to have it be discuss in a roleplay fashion. Do we want the law to change.
​

NPC pirates do not murder if you play ball

Having Npc behave in different ways is good so yes. But the behaviour should be random and some may be bloody murderer anyway.
​

Dedicated jettison hot key

Well, not the most expensive cargo but jettison all cargo why not, otherwise the time is part of of the challenge.
​

Make scooping easier

Against, the mechanics make it interesting and reward people good at it.


​

On the solo/group vsopen play problem. I never said it but I think they should be separate world. Either you accept pvp or not. But I don't feel like a taxing people. This make me think that you try to impose on other you gameplay through the developper, which I resent because Elite is a game where you choose you game style.

On the Distress Signal. Actually if you have report crime against me the system authority will drop at your location after some time. It could be interesting to allow player to broadcast an open Distress Signal (but not automatic and not on ship destruction) that would allow other players/npcs (Bounty Hunters/Good Guys/oother Pirates) to enter the battle. Though I wind it hard for the pirate, I think it is in the spirit of the game.

 

[Tigga]

This is a no-win scenario for the trader. (I'm not talking about someone trading in an Anaconda - I'm talking about someone with a T6/T7)

The trader wins with every run he makes without being pirated. Don't want to win so much on runs you don't get pirated, but want to avoid pirates? Get a combat ship to trade with. Now you don't lose when you get pirated, but you don't win so much when you don't.

 

[raok]

That's a fair point, but looking at the broader picture, human players with the threat of human pirates may simply fly in groups more often? Or other game mechanics may thus develop.

Well, then there will be even bigger pirate groups vs escorted traders. This is endless. I still agree, that there should be some mechanism to make open to be more popular, even for the traders. I also admit that I do not have idea why and how, but neither I have read one from the forum.


Maybe 1st step could be to add more aggressive NPC pirates, group of pirates? Then you can protect against them with your friends and share the profits? This would still mean, that you really need those aggressive pirates attacking almost on every run, or attacking even 100% of times. I wrote this in another thread so not going to repeat it all here, but would make trading to be slower as well -> Balancing income between different trades, piracy, smuggling, trading, hunting, etc.


But the most minimal fix to this imho would be to (implementation in mind)...
1.Leave the ship in the space after alt+F4 for longer time, have some harmless AI pilot to drive it, like someone here proposed.
2.A lot more interdictions.
3.Make FSD to be on cooldown way longer after interdiction, so that the trader HAS to fight against the pirate.


But sure, coop trading would be way more fun.

 

[Skanvak]

I really don't see the need for a pirate to face a human player. To me it's not PvP when one guys has a big gun and the other is a big target. There's no skill there. It appears to be some perverse power play. If it's not - can someone explain the need for a human target for pirates?

Add to that the few "pirates" who just want to kill players and there really is no sense in a trader playing in open.

Now human pirate/human bounty hunter PvP sounds a lot better to me. That's a skill v skill situation. It even satisfies the ones who get off killing human players - whether they call themselves pirates or not.

Actually in ED the incentive to kill a player is the same as killing/pirating a NPC. On this I agree. I guess the point with human player is 2 folds : One is that human are more likely to listen to threat and then not fight, the second being that th epirate may believe they had better loot (like rare product). For the other reasons I agree with you though it is often more fulfilling to interact with a human. But in ED PVE and PVP are one and the same!

Your reasoning prove to me that solo/group and open play should be separated.

 

[Hethwill_Khan]

Penalising Interdiction dodging is silly. Plus how do you know if a commander is a trader ? A Cobra can be anything, trader, pirate, etc, same with any other ship.

Second, bounties, this has been discussed everywhere else. By all means drop whatever bounty excess in pirate's heads for murder - read again, we don't care and it won't stop the murder. In the end it will only benefit the bounty hunters, which is good. More player interaction

I think the Jettison is not complicated nor is scooping, but if they fine tune it I don't mind.

Further, and for me this is the biggest put-off.

Any Trader can submit and the FSD cooldown timer is pretty much the same as it takes to Cargo Scan.

Please tell me how to "force" a full shielded trader to drop cargo ? He will just boost off even before I end my scan.

Sadly, as a multiplayer fan, I make most pirate profit from NPCs but I rather try my luck and die from it ( be it from a well outfitted trader or bounty hunter ) while preying solely upon humans.

Helping the blockade in LT 1349 yesterday not a single player trader interdiction gave me any booty. It was either non-essential supplies to the Fed faction or simply the traders would run off.

Read the underlined line. That is what must change for piracy to be "clean" and without that much fuss and murder.

Plus you cannot say a murderer is a pirate. It might be just someone wanting to try a set of guns...

 

[Paranoid Android]

This is my background:

I currently trade for credits to pay for upgrades (I also explore occasionally when I just want to "fly" about for a few hours in the unknown). Eventually I hope to have a ship set up for each of my "professions" but I need to earn a lot more credits to get to that point... so far I have a cobra for the trade/exploration and an Eagle for combat.

The cobra is unarmed (although it is well shielded because I am not a total moron) to get the maximum jump distance. I chose an Eagle for combat because I'm not that good at it yet and the insurance is cheap. It's also incredible fun to pilot.

I am happy in my ability to escape most interdictions in the cobra. Even if the interdiction is successful - I can escape because the cobra is fast and nimble. When I can eventually afford a T6 for my trade runs I will find out if I am still able to escape unscathed!

I trade in a private group. Interdictions are almost entirely by crazy homicidal NPC pirates who are firing on you the moment they can line you up. I have yet to be killed - I have 100% successful escape record against NPC pirates.

I bounty hunt in open because I welcome the chance to come up against a human pirate... I've not met one yet (although if they are in a vastly superior ship I will probably run because I am not a total moron!)


Now to your points:
Flying in groups might encourage traders into open *if* (and it's a big if) they could be sure the system would keep them together and there were ways of sharing the "wages" fairly amongst the group. This may be fixed in 1.2 when "wings" are finally implemented - we'll have to see. This will only help some of the time (for example: I am not able to play Friday/Saturday nights when most of my friends are able to play due to work commitments. I also play into the early hours some week nights when my friends are tucked up in bed because they work "normal" hours. Grouping up with strangers is less appealing to me - I have played a lot of MMO's and PUGs are almost always a bad idea.)

If there was proper organised crime as you suggest (you pay a "fee" on an agreed basis and you're not troubled again for an agreed amount of time within a system) that might work better than the current situation where the pirates are (by their very nature) in complete anarchy and you can get interdicted 3 times between the star and the station by three different pirates all claiming 10% (or if you are even more unlucky just wanting to blow you up). That pirates are able to "work" in Federation/Imperial systems seems off. As they jump into any non anarchy system I believe they should be accosted by the local authorities. It should be almost impossible for them stay in system for any length of time. If I pilot my flying brick into an anarchy system then I deserve all I get. Pirates should form groups to protect their patches from other pirates who are trying to muscle in on their patch. I don't know how the game could be change to enforce this - the players would have to to do it themselves. (The need to share credits amongst the group would require a change to the current system - the organisation of pilots could be done out of game via forums?)

As to your last points:
a) I am against terminating the client each time you are interdicted - I think the client should be able to tell if the system crashed or if it was terminated purposefully and some form of punishment/deterrent put in place to discourage pilots to exploit the game in this fashion. Perhaps if the launcher monitored the game client somehow?
I don't see solo play in the same light as the disconnect exploit. They are "helping game play" if it means they make a bunch of credits and buy a viper to go bounty hunting (or even if they want to play the pirate) in open play.
b) The entire point of trade is to make profit. It's the only upside to trading. Your trading rank is dependent on how much profit you've made.
c) The risk/reward ratio for traders in open play verses group/solo is vastly different - there is no benefit to trading in open - it's all just additional risk.

I still don't see the problem with traders sticking to solo play because I still don't see the additional attraction from a pirates point of view of robbing from a human pilot verses an NPC pilot.

 

[Paranoid Android]

The trader wins with every run he makes without being pirated. Don't want to win so much on runs you don't get pirated, but want to avoid pirates? Get a combat ship to trade with. Now you don't lose when you get pirated, but you don't win so much when you don't.

So effectively you'd make the T6/7/9 useless?

Why is it you want to pirate a human player? What makes that better than pirating an NPC?

 

[Paranoid Android]

Your reasoning prove to me that solo/group and open play should be separated.

I would not be against fixing solo/group vs open... in the same way that in other MMOs you pick a PvP or PvE server and it's either impossible to change, or it costs money to transfer your account from one to the other. I *would* like to have more than one commander if that was the case. I'd keep my current trader in group, and I'd start a combat pilot in open.

Were that to happen: I think you'll find that Open play would lose the majority of traders (I'm not saying no one on open would trade, but that the pilots on open are unlikely to be the guys who would pick trade as their first profession). For that reason - I think the only people to lose out by fixing the solo/group open choice would be the guys who want everyone to play in Open.

 

[Tigga]

So effectively you'd make the T6/7/9 useless?

No. It would still be awesome at moving stuff, just pilots of ships with no ability to fight should pay a lot more attention to not having a pirate hit them in the first place. Best way to avoid getting pirated is not to get interdicted. A lot of interdictions that happen on Tx ships are because Tx ships are just flying point-to-point without watching their surroundings. Very few players seem to care when a Asp with a 750k bounty pulls up behind them. When you jump in, maybe check the area for wanted humans, and if there are some, keep an eye on them, and maybe consider not going to where you want to go to avoid them.

When wings come out these ships will hopefully be able to fly with NPC escorts. Hopefully police will get stronger in higher security sectors. The flying pirate magnets then should hopefully be safer in these sectors, and you'll need to tool up a bit/take some risks to go to more risky sectors.

Why is it you want to pirate a human player? What makes that better than pirating an NPC?

Because it's harder. NPCs in this game are kinda easy and kinda boring. I like challenging interactions.

 

[Tolstoy825]

In my opinion, a simple fix would be to allow traders to hire guards. Once player grouping gets added what could happen is a trader offers another player a contract to guard them for X amount of time. During that time, the guard gets a % cut of whatever money the trader makes. The guard would get his percentage as soon as the trader makes the transaction at the space station. If the trader is destroyed, the contract is immediately terminated and no further payments are made to the guard. The contract can be voided in 2 ways. Both parties agree to void it, or if the trader is destroyed. Once voided, no further money is paid to the guard. If the guard is destroyed, he simply respawns and can try to make it back to the trader. Upon voiding the contract, or upon its completion, the two parties can rate each other, which would give them a rating that would be visible to other players, so they can know if someone is worth hiring or not.

 

[Hethwill_Khan]

Tolstoy, Wings will make that possible without so much confusion.

But then Wings are not trader exclusive, thankfully.