Newcomer / Intro Quitting solo

[Kuroshio]

That's the only (but massive) downfall of Open Play : it is the most toxic environment a Multiplayer game could possibly have. And all that is fully intentional (factual Design Decision).
And in such an environment, no Community or Cooperation can never exist - as it's entirely based on mistrust and betrayal around every corner.

Sorry, but that is a) extremely exaggerated and b) quite misleading. And by slightly misleading I mean: I have yet to actually meet a hostile player. And though I live on the fringe, I have participated in two community events and done a lot of rares trading in the Lave area, with one single attempted interdiction (cut short by my hyperspace countdown.) One.

Yes, there are - as everywhere - outliers, but the enormous effort one has to put in a combat capable ship and the vast space alone keep a lot of potential candidates for that away. Most psychos aren't very patient, and the million credit price tags are the best safeguards we players have against them.

I have, on the other hand, met explorers and exchanged tips about the directions we should take, said "hi" a lot of times, sometimes answered, sometimes not, and cooperated with other players in my part of the fringe. Look at the community goals, the Lugh situation - self-organisation and emergent cooperative gameplay is actually a very dominant part of the game, and I rather suspect it to grow with Wings.

If you want to see a real toxic environment, come to Chernarus. The very fact that Elite is not like that is one of the reasons I turned my back on DayZ, although even there, defensive cooperation wins against lone psychos.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

-- Deleted --

 

[OirishM]

I said don't be unnecessarily rude. From what I've personally encountered (I have been pirated as well), pirates, while firm, are rarely rude off the bat. If the first thing that comes out of your mouth (metaphorically speaking, of course) is fowl, the encounter will likely end that way.

The point is people aren't going to be polite to a group whose express purpose is to ruin your ship if you don't give them what they want. Use some common sense.

Irrelevant. But to answer your question: not always, no. It's a display of dominance for sure but not necessarily aggression. Many bounty hunters interdict targets as well. And is that a sign of aggression? They may not even know if their target is wanted during interdiction, just as a pirate may not even know if their target is carrying any cargo. It's merely business.

If it's irrelevant, then don't *you* bring it up. You brought up interdictions, and the matter of what is and isn't interpretable as an aggressive action, which means it isn't irrelevant to post a differing opinion to yours.

And lol @ "not always, no". I could simply be deploying a scanner while I'm in an interesting system when you get your hardpoints-deployed warning, so by your logic, there's no reason to treat that as an automatic sign of aggression.

I think we'd all agree that's about as feeble an argument as "I'm just pulling you out of mach 9000 to see what you're worth, why would you assume I'm going to attack you?". Everyone knows what is pretty likely to happen once interdiction starts.

It is also entertaining to watch people get so salty about piracy. Heck, I was just trying to help the poor guy with some information from my own experience.

An insight into the pirate psyche is always useful.

 

[the100thmonkey]

I think you're being a little dramatic.

I've played open mode exclusively for hundreds of hours, and have been pirated twice. I did the Yembo community goal too. I lost 200,000cr (about 15 minutes work) to an extremely polite pirate.

True, I'm not running rares, but honestly I don't understand why people bother with them, and consequently have moved away from the starter systems and ignore the Lave sector. Once you have a T6, it's more profitable and - if one were to take you for your word - much safer to find your own commodities routes.

Frontier don't need to address any problem because the problem is not in the game mechanics. It's in the players who get ganked on their easy-cash rares run and then do the same thing again expecting a different result, because they don't want to try anything else, then come on the forums and complain.

Basically, if you're a player pirate or a ganker, you need to focus your attention on one or two high-traffic systems. Community events and rares routes enable that player strategy. Indeed, I believe that one of the primary motivations for them is to enable it. Don't like it? Don't participate in a mechanic that is pretty transparently intended to cause it. It's not hard.

 

[SlackR]

I have logged hundreds of hours in open and been interdicted once in all that time...
Ps. I ran away!

 

[Tall_Toot]

To the OP - try to ignore the hype.

I've bounty hunted, explored, traded and merc'ed my way up to a Viper via the Adder and I've never even logged into Solo. Can honestly say in 3 months of playing - I've never tried my luck an unshielded bloat trader through a heavily populated system mind- I've never been interdicted by a human player, not even once. Most I've met will ignore you, a few might say hi, and the occasionally nuisance might kill steal from you when you are working a RES. That's it.

And to the human pirates out there? I've got my rebuy, and if you are wanted I'll cheerfully waste 3k worth of ammo for your 200 credit bounty my friend, just to prove a point.....

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[Ian Doncaster]

It then seems you live in a remote region, play during oddball hours or simply have not many other Players around you during your play times.

It's worth saying that most places - including some which you'd expect to have people - are "remote". I've been hanging around the Alioth region - capital of the Alliance and well-known landmark - the last few days, and regardless of the time of day rarely see another player. In a system two jumps away (and only one jump away for people with ships optimised for jump range, which mine isn't) ... the traffic report says 20 player ships came through in the last 24 hours. Sol sector was similarly quiet. I saw one other player in Sol itself - in long distance supercruise - and none on the systems on the way in or out. (I tend to play at a time which would be evening in GMT, so nothing particularly obscure)

I've been playing in Open since I started ... in that time, I've been shot down once by a player (very early on not far from the start systems, them in a Cobra they didn't know how to fly, and me in a Sidewinder much the same) and helped another player take down NPC Anacondas twice. The rest of the encounters have been "docking at the same station" or "seen thousands of LS away in supercruise"

 

[Universal Evil]

6. If interdicted, never deploy hardpoints right away unless it's IMMEDIATELY after you land in the instance and you don't think your interdictor has targeted you yet. When you are targeted, those targeting you will get a notification when you've deployed hardpoints (but not when you've retracted them). If you do this it is a sign of aggression.

7. Also, similar to #6, don't fire before your interdictor's intent is clearly understood. Often times I will scan someone who I come to find has no cargo and they open fire on me. Most of the time I open fire back and kill them. Sometimes I let them go even if they have opened fire. But the latter is more rare.

Sorry this is all I can think of but I'll post more if I think of any.

I'm not sure if you're making a joke by saying that a pirate making an interdiction isn't meant as an aggression, but to everyone else it IS an aggression and it will also be that to you in the game, that's why you'll get a WANTED paintet on your behind the moment you interdict someone if they are NOT wanted themselves first, just like if you open fire on someone who isn't wanted.
So all put together if you interdict me you'll get a wanted sign on you, and I can then open fire on you while you do your cargo-scanning(if I have scanned you to be wanted ofcouse) and I'll still wont get a wanted sign on me even if you haven't fired on me yet, this is how the game is, not my opinion. So don't claim interdictions is not an aggresive move... :-D

 

[crazyprsn]

There are always people who will see you as a target and kill for no reason but after 700 hours in open I've never personally met one.

Met one last night. Was in a cargo-less Eagle, and got interdicted. Said "hi" to the CMDR, no response. Cobra deployed hardpoints and I started evasive. Started gunning me down easily, and I got frustrated and called him a mean name right before I blew up. Other CMDR replied, "and I was going to let you go, too."

Not sure if I believe that. Watch out, new CMDR's. Be suspicious of everyone, even if there's no reason for them to kill you. Always be ready to fight (and die). In hindsight, I could have refrained from comparing him to a diseased member, but I don't think being polite to one such as that would have saved me.

 

[purf]

^ on the other hand, from just a few minutes ago, *the* typical encounter with a fellow CMDR:

I'm flying an Eagle, NAV Beacon in Sol, Swoosh, new contact: It's a player in an Asp.
I check him, (Mostly?) Harmless and Clean. Circle him a bit, curious if he will check
and KWS me (I'm worth 34k to Empire) while my heart rate raises as I'm weighing my
chances against a player's Asp - but he doesn't. Instead, he just warps off.

boooring, this Open

 

[Nightmoon]

IMHO Open Play and the entire rule base (no consequences even for the biggest mass murderers) is fully geared to and optimized for psychos doing nothing but destroying as many other Player ships as they can.
It's so bad some intentionally do nothing else in protest - in order to wake the Devs up to that insane imbalance which has all but destroyed the Open Play community, infected with that cancer the Devs have given special treatment and nutrition ever since.

Huh.... Reminds me of EVE Online... Which is why I quit EVE.

What I find amusing is that, judging from some of the posts here, Elite has the opposite mechanical problems as EVE did:

In EVE, PvP in the starting "heavily populated" high-sec systems is next to non-existent due to the threat of CONCORD (the brutally-effective in-game police force): You open fire on another player or a neutral NPC, and chances are CONCORD would reduce your ship to a smoldering wreck before you could finish the job. In fact, surviving CONCORD intervention wasdesigned to be impossible. Players actually suffered disciplinary action if they pulled it off.

On the other hand, Elite prevents EVE's "bump scrambling" mechanic where a player in a tiny ship could prevent a much larger ship from warping away just by repeatedly bumping into it to trigger the avoidance mechanism to keep it from aligning to its destination. Most other space games would prevent that by either not modeling collisions or more realistically modeling what happens when a small, fragile craft collides with something orders of magnitude larger and more heavily armored.

Frankly, I'll probably never leave single-player mode. I like my space sims and evolving storylines, but I hate the drama of dealing with other players.

 

[CMDR Alex Occasus]

I will agree with several other posters here.

I have been playing since just before release. I will admit I did solo mode for the 1st week just getting my bearings, but I play open mode now. It's all a matter of finding a system you like and going about your business. I have met a few CMDRs and had a friendly chat, but in general I go about my business and get more bother from NPCs.

Now, that's not to say when I see that square box or triangle in the system I am doing my work, that I get about my business and avoid as much as possible. I most certainly do. But space is very big. Go find a home where you make a bit of a living. In general, if you don't pick a popular one, you are going to be AOK.

 

[RobWolves]

It completely depends what you are after. If you want the player interaction then the further out from the starter systems you travel, the more unlikely it is to come across hostile CMDRs. However, it also means you are less likely to come across friendly CMDRs also. I'm not saying you won't of course, just the player population is thinner the further out you go.

In saying that, the danger of staying close to the starter systems is a realistic risk. I like the higher volume of CMDRs and so still hang around Eravate, etc. However, I do get set upon by hostile CMDRs weekly. Luckily, I've evaded all Interdictions since the February update and I've also escaped when attacked around Nav Beacons.

Only yesterday, I was at the Nav Beacon in Eravate, searching for Wanted's in my little Eagle. I saw a fellow 'Clean' CMDRs in a fully kitted out Anaconda. No sooner had I said 'Hi' with my weapons retracted and he had turned to face me and blasted me with a multitude of lasers. My canopy blew and I was down to 32% hull. Luckily, I already had 4 pips to shields and boosted away as fast as I could and managed to jump out of there. Made my way to the closest station, only to find it had no repair shop. So off to find another one. All I can is, thank god for my A rated life support.

I decided to get my Freewinder and go back after about 20 minutes. He was still there and immediately shot at me again without warning. I managed to get away again. I was clean, had no cargo, had no weapons deployed either time. He had a kitted out Conda, clean before he shot me, Friendly to Feds, with enough money he knew the fines would be peanuts and was clearly just attacking anything that moved for the hell of it.

Do I like what he did, no. Has he got the right to do that, of course. Did it annoy me, a little, but I'm more happy that I got away and just wish I could have flicked him the finger as I got away. It was fun though in a 'crapping my pants and living to tell the tale', kind of way.

So basically, my warning to you is just be wary of cold hearted killers around the starter systems.

 

[Lobstris]

I'm fairly new to the game, just got my first cobra. I keep seeing stories about the fun people are having with each other and I really want to take part but at the same time I'm seeing posts on reddit about new players just getting killed all the time. It took me what felt like ages to get my cobra and I keep thinking that if I stop playing solo I'm just gonna get killed and be right back to square one. Is it really as bad as it sounds?

No things are not as bad as they sound. I've not died to a player since the start of Gamma and I've been interdicted once. Outside of core worlds (around Sol, the Lave rare trade group, Alioth, Achenar) and worlds where events are being forced by GalNet, you won't usually see other humans, and even if you do, most leave you on your own. Whether this changes or not with 1.2 next week, remains to be seen.
.
*Edit* To be fair though - I did start in a Cobra at the Founder's world, so there were less people around as I got started. I've not experience the melee around current starter worlds, other than in the betas (again with more limited player numbers).

 

[RedLion]

ah no

I'll stay on solo for a while