I've always thought that ramming is one of those things that can't be solved with mechanics like the criminal system. Ramming is basically a calculation of velocity and mass and shields and hull, I would expect. There's no way of telling who rammed who from the game's perspective.
What can you do?
1. Radically reduce the amount of damage taken in collisions. This seems like particularly a bad idea, a recipe for space bumper cars, and would make docking trivially easy. Nobody would care if their ship bounced off the sides of a space station letterbox if there wasn't a risk that their bad flying would be fatal.
2. Is there a damage threshold from ramming that would incur a fine? If you are flying so recklessly as to cause serious damage to another player, then could that be deemed to trigger 'Wanted' status or a fine of some sort? The problem here is again distinguishing between Mr Nasty and his victim, let's call him Buzz Lightweight - Nasty will also take damage and so Buzz would get a fine or criminal status - ideal for the three other players in Mr Nasty's wing who can now attack Buzz and collect their bounty.
3. Could you link the throttle speed to the damage from the ram and use that? So in other words, if a player has his throttle in the blue range, and Mr Nasty boosts into him, would it be possible to assign blame based on the relative throttle speeds? It sounds like it might work but you have a big problem with thresholds - there might be a sweet spot which would cause damage without triggering criminal status. There would almost certainly be occasions when Buzz is trying to escape at full throttle and gets rammed - it's one thing to get rammed to death, it would be much worse if Buzz had to pay off an unfair bounty for causing damage to Mr Nasty on top of that. And given the different masses and top speeds of the game's various ships, how would you figure out what happens if Mr Nasty is in a disposable Sidewinder and Buzz Lightweight is in a Type 7?
4. The only other thing I can think of is looking at the amount of overall collision damage a pilot takes within a particular period. Most pilots don't take much damage whereas someone using ramming as a combat tactic is going to rack up a much bigger sum that would be anomalous if FD are collecting telematics. The problem there is that it could only work in a meta-game sense - FD would have to ban or isolate players for persistent ramming. Yet ramming is a legitimate combat tactic in some circumstances, particularly for the big trading ships that don't have a great load-out, and banning players for doing it would seem to be over-the-top and still wouldn't stop Buzz Lightweight feeling hard done by.
So, I still think ramming is one of those things that can't be dealt with using fines and bounties without causing far more problems than it solves.
But perhaps someone else has a good idea.
Edit:
The reason I posted this was because people complain they are being rammed when not in combat and so cannot respond with weapons without becoming criminals. So ramming is a way of getting round the criminality system and in an ideal world, the game would be able to tell who rammed who and assign criminality to a rammer. So the points above are examining ways in which that might be done. There is a fifth option:
5. Get rid of the criminal system altogether. No fines, no wanted status, no bounties for player vs player attacks. Any commander can attack any other commander without incurring a bounty or a fine. Keep it for NPCs. Instead, level the playing field so that players in freighters or flying solo can make some arrangement to respond to group attacks eg NPC wings.
What can you do?
1. Radically reduce the amount of damage taken in collisions. This seems like particularly a bad idea, a recipe for space bumper cars, and would make docking trivially easy. Nobody would care if their ship bounced off the sides of a space station letterbox if there wasn't a risk that their bad flying would be fatal.
2. Is there a damage threshold from ramming that would incur a fine? If you are flying so recklessly as to cause serious damage to another player, then could that be deemed to trigger 'Wanted' status or a fine of some sort? The problem here is again distinguishing between Mr Nasty and his victim, let's call him Buzz Lightweight - Nasty will also take damage and so Buzz would get a fine or criminal status - ideal for the three other players in Mr Nasty's wing who can now attack Buzz and collect their bounty.
3. Could you link the throttle speed to the damage from the ram and use that? So in other words, if a player has his throttle in the blue range, and Mr Nasty boosts into him, would it be possible to assign blame based on the relative throttle speeds? It sounds like it might work but you have a big problem with thresholds - there might be a sweet spot which would cause damage without triggering criminal status. There would almost certainly be occasions when Buzz is trying to escape at full throttle and gets rammed - it's one thing to get rammed to death, it would be much worse if Buzz had to pay off an unfair bounty for causing damage to Mr Nasty on top of that. And given the different masses and top speeds of the game's various ships, how would you figure out what happens if Mr Nasty is in a disposable Sidewinder and Buzz Lightweight is in a Type 7?
4. The only other thing I can think of is looking at the amount of overall collision damage a pilot takes within a particular period. Most pilots don't take much damage whereas someone using ramming as a combat tactic is going to rack up a much bigger sum that would be anomalous if FD are collecting telematics. The problem there is that it could only work in a meta-game sense - FD would have to ban or isolate players for persistent ramming. Yet ramming is a legitimate combat tactic in some circumstances, particularly for the big trading ships that don't have a great load-out, and banning players for doing it would seem to be over-the-top and still wouldn't stop Buzz Lightweight feeling hard done by.
So, I still think ramming is one of those things that can't be dealt with using fines and bounties without causing far more problems than it solves.
But perhaps someone else has a good idea.
Edit:
The reason I posted this was because people complain they are being rammed when not in combat and so cannot respond with weapons without becoming criminals. So ramming is a way of getting round the criminality system and in an ideal world, the game would be able to tell who rammed who and assign criminality to a rammer. So the points above are examining ways in which that might be done. There is a fifth option:
5. Get rid of the criminal system altogether. No fines, no wanted status, no bounties for player vs player attacks. Any commander can attack any other commander without incurring a bounty or a fine. Keep it for NPCs. Instead, level the playing field so that players in freighters or flying solo can make some arrangement to respond to group attacks eg NPC wings.
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