Pirates combat logging in open

Globusdiablo · Mar 26, 2015

I've been playing mostly in a group, but have been reading alot about pirates complaining about other cmdrs combat logging in open.

So I took my tooled up Python into open to see what all the hubbub was about. Flew out of Leesti, and sure enough I got interdicted by cmdr x in his Clipper: "Drop your cargo, or you die!" He cried. I'm not carrying any cargo fool...

I go at him, stocked up on shield cells and chaff.

Guess what he did the minute his shields depleted? Yeah. He combat logged. Sheesh.

Fly safe commanders.

System Lord · Mar 26, 2015

I've had a similar experience. Practice what you preach, you scurvy pirate scum!

Komemiute · Mar 26, 2015

Globusdiablo said:
I've been playing mostly in a group, but have been reading alot about pirates complaining about other cmdrs combat logging in open.

So I took my tooled up Python into open to see what all the hubbub was about. Flew out of Leesti, and sure enough I got interdicted by cmdr x in his Clipper: "Drop your cargo, or you die!" He cried. I'm not carrying any cargo fool...

I go at him, stocked up on shield cells and chaff.

Guess what he did the minute his shields depleted? Yeah. He combat logged. Sheesh.

Fly safe commanders.

+1. Nice. Have some rep on me!

Kepnik · Mar 26, 2015

Haha, these guys...

So lame, why do you go online if you cant bear losing a fight, why do you play pirate
if you dont want to have a good fight ? Why do you play pvp if youre afraid of losing...

A shame but on the other hand it will be fixed soon. Should be quite easy, if you have
been under attack you cant log out for 1 minute would be okay, and a quite easy solution,
from my point of view.

These people should really go back to Sims 4, it even contains pools now ;-)

Kyokushin · Mar 26, 2015

Yesterday we hunted for a griefer, and he combat logged 3 times. Fortunately we destroyed he once.

scorpyon · Mar 26, 2015

Pirating is hard...

They should be able to kill anyone without any fear of being shot back, otherwise what's the point?
How's a pirate supposed to make a living if the other ship has guns?
Fix it, FD!

*giggle*

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Kepnik said:
A shame but on the other hand it will be fixed soon. Should be quite easy, if you have
been under attack you cant log out for 1 minute would be okay, and a quite easy solution,
from my point of view.

I'll admit that 1 minute is a "little" long. Waiting to log out for a minute after you finish combat is going to be quite tiresome. (Since it will include combat with NPC hunting too)
I think 20-30 seconds should be more than enough for someone to finish you off if you are trying to log out.

EddyRockSteady · Mar 26, 2015

Kepnik said:
A shame but on the other hand it will be fixed soon. Should be quite easy, if you have
been under attack you cant log out for 1 minute would be okay, and a quite easy solution,
from my point of view.

Nope - that won't work at all. There is no solution to the problem. Makes a complete mockery of the non-AI combat mechanic, which is why I cannot even be bothered with it.

Kepnik · Mar 26, 2015

Kyokushin said:
Yesterday we hunted for a griefer, and he combat logged 3 times. Fortunately we destroyed he once.

Haha, thats the spirit, think about yourself as a cat, you can wait hours for him to come back ;-)

Negative Entropy · Mar 26, 2015

Kepnik said:
but on the other hand it will be fixed soon. Should be quite easy, if you have
been under attack you cant log out for 1 minute would be okay, and a quite easy solution,
from my point of view.

please elucidate on that 'easy' solution. you realize we are not talking about anyone logging out, but pulling the plug on the network, blocking P2P on router, killing their elite dangerous process, or even switching computer off.

What easy solution exists for this?

Dortmunder · Mar 26, 2015

Forced online with a garbage online system is the problem.

Why they use a P2P mix system rather than a full client/server system is beyond me. Would probably stop that "jumping" around of players and NPC's I've seen a lot of too.

Haven't they said they're going to start doing something about combat logging? How about making it not possible. Fix the game, not the players.

Kepnik · Mar 26, 2015

Negative Entropy said:
please elucidate on that 'easy' solution. you realize we are not talking about anyone logging out, but pulling the plug on the network, blocking P2P on router, killing their elite dangerous process, or even switching computer off.

What easy solution exists for this?

I thought they are just logging out, but I still dont get the problem, if you disable the possiblity for the ship to
vanish the player can log out as long as he wants. So I would also agree to a 5 minute delay beeing under fire or
not. If you log out, your ship will be in game for another 5 minutes.

Would make the game a bit more realistic, so you have to go to a station to
log out and be save. Problem solved... ?

DarthBlingBling · Mar 26, 2015

Kepnik said:
Would make the game a bit more realistic, so you have to go to a station to
log out and be save. Problem solved... ?

Good luck exploring

Muzz UK · Mar 26, 2015

Combat logging is being looked into and FD will be coming up with something soon. It's a sticky in one of the forums.

Kepnik · Mar 26, 2015

DarthBlingBling said:
Good luck exploring

dont always think about why it wont work guys.

Whats the problem, so you log out 5 mins ahead of the time you want to... you can stay
in cockpit and disable the counter anytime if you decide to go on.
Also if you are exploring and going out of supercruise "anywhere" nobody will find you within 5 minutes.
And if you are really exploring you are 99% of the time alone and far away from any other commander...

Sure this solution is far away from beeing perfect and would
need some thinking into the detail, but I cant see why
it should not solve this issue.

Bortas · Mar 26, 2015

Kepnik said:
Sure this solution is far away from beeing perfect and would
need some thinking into the detail, but I cant see why
it should not solve this issue.

Because in a p2p environment both peers are absolutely equal. There is no way for the game to tell who cut the connection between the peers. Theoretically, if such a system was in place, an exploiter/griefer could forcefully disconnect you from his peer, and YOUR ship would remain in his game, free for him to destroy.

If implementing something like this was as easy as you think, it would have been done already.

Pyrion · Mar 26, 2015

Here is the solution from a programmers point of view:

* As soon as the client detects that the other client is not there anymore (combat logging), the opposing ship is replaced by an AI ship fighting to the death in that clients instance.
* The result of that fight is reported back to the global servers where player data is stored. That server verifies if the player is indeed still logged out, if it indeed got into the same instance with me before it logged out, then saves the new ship state (probably destroyed)

I am not sure if that covers every possible loop hole, but this would be my suggestion. I am a professional programmer and have been for the last 25 years. But i have no experience in programming online games, so maybe i am not aware of some things.

OamodSias · Mar 26, 2015

Negative Entropy said:
please elucidate on that 'easy' solution. you realize we are not talking about anyone logging out, but pulling the plug on the network, blocking P2P on router, killing their elite dangerous process, or even switching computer off.

What easy solution exists for this?

Off the top of my head, I'd go with sessions. Your session is only ended when you use the menu to log out; if you pull the plug or your connection drops unexpectedly, your session is still active for a period of time; during which your ship just floats uselessly in space (it can still be attacked); or, as Pyrion mentioned above, AI control is handed over. The session could also be handled by the server; it already knows where you are (I think) so when you do DC it knows if it was graceful or not. When you reconnect, the server responds with the last set of information it had on record; and, if you were killed whilst DC'd for example, then the client throws you to the insurance screen.

Kepnik · Mar 26, 2015

Bortas said:
Because in a p2p environment both peers are absolutely equal. There is no way for the game to tell who cut the connection between the peers. Theoretically, if such a system was in place, an exploiter/griefer could forcefully disconnect you from his peer, and YOUR ship would remain in his game, free for him to destroy.

If implementing something like this was as easy as you think, it would have been done already.

At least it seems that way ;-) but sure, you are right, I dont have any understanding how
the netcode of elite works. On the other hand, I am quite confident that FD will come
up with a solution, otherwise the game is not worth playing.

If there is no short term technical solution it could be a solution to punish combat logging with
temporary bans. Quite sure you can verify the process of logging out in combat due to the
log files. Worst case solution : one support employee has to check log files and ban
people manually, or you could to it like in league of legends, where std players
can contribute to the game taking part in the tribunal ( you can vote if someone
should be punished for bad behaviour - due to reports of players after the game ).

But I hope there will be a technical solution, I just wanted to start to do some pirating and
this way it makes no sense...

Finn Tarses [RoA] · Mar 26, 2015

I have had an experience were I was interdicted by 1 Python + 1 FDL in Lugh - since it's war, it's fair game of course. I was alone and my wingmen didn't seem to get to my instance in time. So, facing a fight in my Python vs. the 2 other vessels. I didn't stand much of a chance, tried to destroy the FDL first, but I simply drew too much fire from them both. My shields were gone in like no time, couldn't even fire shield cells. My last option was to actually ram the FDL, too at least make it withdraw or break off the attack.
That did take care of its shields but the other CMDR was not impressed at all and kept on firing. Shields off...urgh....
Withdrew and tried to jump out of this mess...my wingmen were still out of reach...
So, the inevitable happened: the FDL could masslock the Python to the point they both focussed their fire on my FSD drive. At about 50% hull, my FSD and Drive were both gone. I was toast. Restarting modules didn't help either. So, I died...even though I thought the Python "should" be able to withstand more firepower. Unfortunately not. The other CMDRs tracked me down to the nearest Outpost and actually saluted me for not logging out. So, at least I died with honor. I made some critical mistakes in the battle and hence I deserved to loose. But 8 Million loss is of course a bit harsh. I find the masslock behavior a bit harsh - in this case a smaller vessel could effectively masslock a heavier vessel - the effect simply is too heavy. Maybe time to un-nerf the Python, since the FDL exists? Or the Python will simply be the PvE ship deluxe and the FDL it's PvP sister.

DrSpin · Mar 26, 2015

Anyone who thinks that there is a simple fix for combat logging, please look at this thread:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105778&highlight=combat+logging

TL;DR version: there isn't an obvious technical solution, and whilst you can and should report someone logging, I can imagine that a) FD don't have a lot of manpower to spend on detailed investigations and b) they will be very wary of banning or punishing people without a ton of proof. Both of these make it a bit unlikely that anything will happen.

I'm (sadly) not optimistic we'll see a fix any time soon (never mind the other hacks that are out there).