Can we get an overhaul of both bounty hunting and the RES system?
As it stands Resource Extraction sites are about the most non sensical things in the Elite verse.
Imagine for a second that you worked in a current day real life mine. Now imagine one day whilst at work the guy or gal next you gets summarily shot and robbed.
Would you?:
A. Run
B. Attempt to defend your co-worker and possibly your own life
C. Continue working and hope the baddie doesn't pick you next
Every day the galaxy over miners in Elite pick option C and and continue merrily mining away whilst all around them their cohorts are robbed and summarily executed. This is some of the most un-immersive claptrap in the game.
Lets go back to our imaginary current day mine shall we?
Yesterday your co worker was shot and robbed, today do you....
A. Find a new job.
B. Take a personal day to deal with the trauma.
C. Stiff upper lip it and head back to work at the same place. In the same spot.
Once again in the far distant future our intrepid miners pick option C and turn up day in and day out to the same place in the same rings (taking some imaginative leeway with npc persistence here) and patiently wait for the pirates to finish massacring their fellow miners.
All of the that assumes a Haz Res. In any other type of rez site it's just as insane but more from the pirates perspective; you're a pirate who's buddy is currently getting annihilated by a wing of system security condas do you...
A. Keep pirating as if nothing is happening.
B. Keep pirating and hope system sec is tired from a full day of pirate massacre and leaves you alone.
C. Keep pirating and hope that CMDR in his Fer-De-Murderboat doesn't notice you once he's done soloing an entire wing of other pirates.
D. All of the above.
As it stands both RES' and bounty hunting as a career could use a massive overhaul starting with doing away with RES's all together. They make zero sense in any context. Not even from a miners perspective. Why would you, as a merry npc miner, choose to share your mining spot with even one other ship? Why would you continue mining whilst others are in the process of being spaced? None of it makes a lick of sense.
All that said space combat inside an asteroid belt is fun. So how do we preserve that and do away with they non sensical RES system? By using another mechanic that's already in the game; unidentified signal sources within planetary rings.
They'd have to be scanned and wouldn't always be a miner or a miner being harassed by a pirate. Sometimes it'd be just a pirate. Or a group or miners (who act appropriately suspicious and respond with swift defensive measures should a cmdr approach too close) or a group of pirates, or a group of smaller ships racing each other through the roids, or a ship stuck in the belt with no fuel or a busted FSD. The possibilities are endless.
This means that there's no more endless conga line of pirates waiting to get blown up in one convenient location so rewards per kill would need to be adjusted.
Now, about those CZ's...............
As it stands Resource Extraction sites are about the most non sensical things in the Elite verse.
Imagine for a second that you worked in a current day real life mine. Now imagine one day whilst at work the guy or gal next you gets summarily shot and robbed.
Would you?:
A. Run
B. Attempt to defend your co-worker and possibly your own life
C. Continue working and hope the baddie doesn't pick you next
Every day the galaxy over miners in Elite pick option C and and continue merrily mining away whilst all around them their cohorts are robbed and summarily executed. This is some of the most un-immersive claptrap in the game.
Lets go back to our imaginary current day mine shall we?
Yesterday your co worker was shot and robbed, today do you....
A. Find a new job.
B. Take a personal day to deal with the trauma.
C. Stiff upper lip it and head back to work at the same place. In the same spot.
Once again in the far distant future our intrepid miners pick option C and turn up day in and day out to the same place in the same rings (taking some imaginative leeway with npc persistence here) and patiently wait for the pirates to finish massacring their fellow miners.
All of the that assumes a Haz Res. In any other type of rez site it's just as insane but more from the pirates perspective; you're a pirate who's buddy is currently getting annihilated by a wing of system security condas do you...
A. Keep pirating as if nothing is happening.
B. Keep pirating and hope system sec is tired from a full day of pirate massacre and leaves you alone.
C. Keep pirating and hope that CMDR in his Fer-De-Murderboat doesn't notice you once he's done soloing an entire wing of other pirates.
D. All of the above.
As it stands both RES' and bounty hunting as a career could use a massive overhaul starting with doing away with RES's all together. They make zero sense in any context. Not even from a miners perspective. Why would you, as a merry npc miner, choose to share your mining spot with even one other ship? Why would you continue mining whilst others are in the process of being spaced? None of it makes a lick of sense.
All that said space combat inside an asteroid belt is fun. So how do we preserve that and do away with they non sensical RES system? By using another mechanic that's already in the game; unidentified signal sources within planetary rings.
They'd have to be scanned and wouldn't always be a miner or a miner being harassed by a pirate. Sometimes it'd be just a pirate. Or a group or miners (who act appropriately suspicious and respond with swift defensive measures should a cmdr approach too close) or a group of pirates, or a group of smaller ships racing each other through the roids, or a ship stuck in the belt with no fuel or a busted FSD. The possibilities are endless.
This means that there's no more endless conga line of pirates waiting to get blown up in one convenient location so rewards per kill would need to be adjusted.
Now, about those CZ's...............
