Ganking is just damage being thrown around. Of transient nature, spiritually meaningless and empty without utilization correct views and ethically aligned technology. In order to execute meaningful action one should first realize the illusory nature of this reality and how physical and mental events arise from an inconstant universe, and then proceed with enforcer cannons, perhaps overcharged autoloader and one with corrosion effect. There are many paths to sim-enlightenment and proper use of multicannons is one of them.
Solution for Ganking
- Thread starter Sirlance
- Start date
How boring you found the video is neither here nor there. You expressed what seemed to be significant doubt about my assertion that the CMDR being fought was one of the best PvPers in the game, an assertion that I thought would be uncontroversial to anyone with significant experience engaging hostile CMDRs (something I would call PvP) in combat in this game.
Given the almost complete absence of jousting in the video I linked, I'm not even sure we're talking about the same video, assuming you have the experience you say you have. Or maybe we are talking about the same video and you have a very different idea of what jousting is as well as a very different idea of what PvP is and think your ideal of PvP, whatever that may be, is somehow more relevant to this discussion?
I honestly didn't even see it implied. From memory, I think I saw @Morbad suggest that some PvPers - including some gankers - were exceptionally skilled (I believe this is true, and tbh it shouldn't be even remotely contentious to say that).
I saw no implication from anyone that "PvPers are better than PvEers" (which I would not believe to be true) and I didn't understand why you or anyone would have interpreted anyone's comments that way. Can you please point me at any comment which implied this? (This isn't nitpicking - I'm genuinely asking for clarity because I am confused by this strand of the conversation.)
Having always struggled (on a game controller) with railguns, I'm curious about what control setup you use?
More generally, and coming back on topic a little:
It appears that some people in the thread use "ganking" to mean "attacking defenceless beginners", while others are using it more broadly to mean any kind of spontaneous attack on another player (perhaps even including semi-consensual attacks, in line with their in-game character). I always thought it meant the former though.
I've watched debates (rather like this one) about ganking for years, and I don't have very strong views about it (or more accurately, I feel quite conflicted about it). Voting with my feet though: I have certainly wrestled with the urge to play in Open on many occasions and almost always rejected it for Solo... I think this is because I don't yet feel "ready" for the unpredictability of Open, even though in principle I would like to agree that escaping from a PvP attack is mostly doable if you don't fly a paper ship. (I don't fly paper ships, but they aren't usually very tough; I can invariably escape from the NPCs when flying transport missions which get me attacked by a wave of criminals, even if I lose the interdiction mini-game or choose to submit, but the irritation of being repeatedly interdicted in the mission system while delivering goods is quite off-putting
)Whenever I fire up the game, one reason I keep giving myself to choose Open mode is that it will make the game more interesting (since the NPCs aren't much of a challenge to experienced players) but yet this reason keeps failing to convince me... There are certainly occasions when I'd need to be nuts to choose Open (e.g. shedloads of exploration data at risk) but mostly I don't have any real excuse, so I confess to being kinda puzzled that the lure of Open has so rarely pulled me in. Having written this essay I guess I'll now have to give it another go and see how I fare!
I certainly didn't intend to imply any such thing.
I do think the subset of skills under or adjacent to direct PvP are more relevant in situations of direct PvP (like ganking, for example), than most other skills though. Not sure why that would be controversial.
Normally I fly with a HOTAS (CH fighter stick, throttle, and pedals), though I've been using (mostly default) KBM controls much more since Odyssey, mostly because I've spent a majority of my time on foot as of late. I'm not particularly good with rails on either and usually rely on FA to stabilize hitscan weapons. This stick has something like 4k hours on it and needs a rebuild...would have replaced it outright, again, but with what FDev has been doing to this game and how few other games I still use the HOTAS for, it hasn't be a priority. Once I get my new PC built up and running to my satisfaction, I'll probably clean up my controls and then use them until they break. I've already bought the DeOxit fader grease for the pots, and some more Nyogel 767A for al lthe sliding surfaces.
I've been interpreting 'ganking' loosely as 'possibly unprovoked attacks by a seemingly superior force' as a rough mean of what's being talked about, as everyone seems to have their own definitions, many of which are uselessly wide or narrow.
I don't think one needs to be a beginner or defenseless for it to be a gank attempt, though those are the ones that tend to inspire the most outrage.
I've watched debates (rather like this one) about ganking for years, and I don't have very strong views about it (or more accurately, I feel quite conflicted about it). Voting with my feet though: I have certainly wrestled with the urge to play in Open on many occasions and almost always rejected it for Solo... I think this is because I don't yet feel "ready" for the unpredictability of Open, even though in principle I would like to agree that escaping from a PvP attack is mostly doable if you don't fly a paper ship. (I don't fly paper ships, but they aren't usually very tough; I can invariably escape from the NPCs when flying transport missions which get me attacked by a wave of criminals, even if I lose the interdiction mini-game or choose to submit, but the irritation of being repeatedly interdicted in the mission system while delivering goods is quite off-putting
Whenever I fire up the game, one reason I keep giving myself to choose Open mode is that it will make the game more interesting (since the NPCs aren't much of a challenge to experienced players) but yet this reason keeps failing to convince me... There are certainly occasions when I'd need to be nuts to choose Open (e.g. shedloads of exploration data at risk) but mostly I don't have any real excuse, so I confess to being kinda puzzled that the lure of Open has so rarely pulled me in. Having written this essay I guess I'll now have to give it another go and see how I fare!
Technical issues aside, it's all mindset. If that unpredictability doesn't strike you as a positive thing and your desire for positive interactions can't weather the possible negative ones, Open may not be for you. If you want a change of pace and won't see a confrontation as a setback, maybe it is.
man you should see some of the "pvp" interactions I've had, a lot of them I don't even bother to record the clip because they'd make for terrible video.
A screenshot works just as well though.
My T9 has a shield for defence (boosted biweave) and has survived every attempt by CG campers to kill it. Admittedly I've made to the station with with hull in single digest percentage more often than I'm comfortable with but I'm still delivering >700 tonnes every time which consistently got me 10% finishes in CGs.
It's not impossible and possibly more important than any amount of armour is being aware of your scanner and spoiling the would be gankers aim before you you're ready to wake.
Earlier today some enemy-pledged anaconda was in one of our systems and they didn't change course at all when I saw them in supercruise and turned to intercept - just absolutely not paying attention, while in enemy space, when a python 2 turns around, bears down on them, and circles around to their rear.
After being interdicted, they adopted the "boost in a straight line" school of defence, which was naturally countered by the "boost faster in a straight line while emptying six hardpoints directly into the target's engines" school of offence.
Same. That and the series of grind hoops required before you can even get to the action. I got tired of Dark Souls pattern fighting in the 80s. So much that is old is claimed to be new again. I also had a good laugh when modern reviewers claimed Portal's puzzle platformer was 'revolutionary and original' just because someone got around to doing it in 3D.
Yep, properly defended and aware T9 is very hard to kill for single attacker, thats it, because, if T9 owner would loiter long around for a full wing of pacifer P2 to drop on such, then even hi-wake would not be enough. But luckly for anyone who is attacked by full wing, getting full wing into instance within short amount of time, can be tricky for attackers, as by time full wing drops, T9 is about to finish charging its FSD, if followed proper steps and being well aware what is happening.
Another thing that full wings (4/4) usually are busy with other things than single targets, so its actually quite rare to find such, and even more rarer to end up being thier target, mostly because.. of instancing, especially if cmdrs who are in wing, are from all over world, literally... and if just one of them have any connection problems or lag, then entire wing is affected. This all gives all required time that any attacked cmdr needs, to wake out of such "problem", especially after interdiction.
But some smart cmdrs knows this and they are usually hi-wakin right in about very moment when wing drops on them (once realized that full wing is after thier ship). Thats situational awarness that only some cmdrs have, since thats what makes big diffrence to fly away or eat rebui.
Shields always lasts few seconds, but then there is plently of armor left, and that usually last to for T9 making that wake out. Bi-waves main advantage over any other kind of shields, that is these can deny chain-interdictions. As when such happens, bi-waves are usually back online, if fallen, by the time next interdiction ends.
T9, if not mass locked, can easly low wake out from smaller ones, and if mass-locked by conda or cutter or vette, or if attacked by a wing then hiwake with equally ease....
On top of all above, if T9 owner didnt slept on MRP's and have things like armoured FSD and plant, I'd say these can make diffrence too, but that all apply preety much to any ship, not just T9's. Armoured plants and especially FSD - along with some MRP's can make such diffrence that ship might well as run out of its hull points first, than being planted or FSD sniped out. Weakest spot of all T9 are its thrusters (quite durable on its own - its size 7 after all), but long as there is dual MRP in bulid, then drives will not go down before both MRP would.
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Classic example of a player following the “common forum wisdom” and actively cooperating with their own destruction. The few times I’ve gone “marauding” as a test, this has been the norm, not the exception.
In practical terms on this forum, regardless of how it gets used elsewhere, it has evolved to mean "any attack the defender doesn't accept the validity of" - noting that the number of defenders who don't essentially have either "all" or "none" as their "valid reasons to be attacked" set is basically non-existent.
Way back, when I still bothered to do anything more than run away from PvP encounters, I was part of a mostly-PvE player group, which was taking part in a high-enough-profile event that occasionally PvPers turned up. There were a few of us around, like me, with limited skill or ship builds but some willingness to at least take a shot at them.
The PvEers leading the group set out what clearly, to them, sounded like sensible rules of engagement, to ensure that their vaguely-PvP wing only attacked other players in justifiable circumstances ... which would have had the consequence that I couldn't have shot at (and this dates it a bit, right?) SDC members without two sets of independent video evidence that they'd been attacking players in this system recently.
Obviously I ignored them entirely and just shot at anyone who was obviously hostile, without much actual success, but it was a good lesson in the real answer to "why don't people band up to be 'good' PvPers and take on the gankers?". [1]
[1] After that experience I went off to be a theoretical BGS researcher and the rest of the PvP-inclined players took up piracy, which I think was better for everyone involved.
There is the problem of that other group that still hangs around like a bad smell and every time a new group tries to get started and publicise themselves as the new anti-ganking squadron, those guys show up and immediately join them - which immediately tanks the new group's reputation.
I'm sure this is the norm (it works on NPCs, so why wouldn't it work on something smarter than fiteen lines of script?!), but I'm not sure this is "common forum wisdom".
My CMDR used to be agressively anti-piracy and spent much of the very early game trying to protect other CMDRs from pirates. However, I quickly became disillusioned with that activity as it became clear piracy 'victims' were often either cheaters who were abusing obvious bugs (ruining the game's pseudoeconomy in the process...which was ultimately Frontier's fault for implementing such broken systems, but that didn't justify the exploits) and were facilitating piracy (which was harming my CMDR) by paying off pirates.
Of course not long after that, Frontier inflated non-performative/non-consensual piracy nearly out of existence...because the best way to deal with an overly loose money supply, and a bunch of easily exploitable money bugs, is to punish almost noone and fix almost nothing, but print more money while keeping prices the same.
The existence of such convoluted rules of engagement, rather than simply screening those who want to be in these in these squads (to exclude those who just want a pretext to shoot anyone they don't like, which, while entirely acceptable gameplay, will quickly give a group a bad name), is baffling to me.
Of course, those with no experience in idenifying and preempting hostile behavior should not be drafting such policies. It would be like me joining some hard core PP group and being given final say on strategy, despite having negligible interaction with those mechanisms. Well, in such a case, I would refuse, assuming I want the group to be successful, because I know I don't anything. From your telling, the leaders of your former group didn't seem to have a clue as to their limits. Sounds like they would have benefited from a more flexible command structure and competent advisors!
That's another problem with the general game balance and powercreep - players never involuntarily encounter anything in PvE that G3 dirty drives won't allow them to just straightline away from, NPC pirates won't actually open fire until they've completed a scan and made a demand, so as long as you don't let them sit in scanning range facing you for ten seconds straight they aren't a threat.
It catches them off guard when they're faced with something that goes off-script - such as by, say, making demands to cut their engines and hold still for a scan and opening fire if they don't do so, and having the speed to keep up.
Then again, given the GIANT RED NOTIFICATION we now get because of people ignoring settlement guards which do do that...
Yep.
That all part of the game's mechanisms, and the in-game depiction of the setting that flows from them, resulting in a massive disconnect between how player's percieve their own characters, the game's lore, and what the game actually shows us. Frontier is trying to reconcile multiple mutually exclusive perspectives into the same game to maximize appeal and thus revenue.
Our CMDRs, who are supposed to be part of some highly exclusive organization that is supposed to exist within an implicitly dystopian setting, also exist within a game that imposes almost no standards of any kind on it's players or their characters, and then softens all the hard edges of that setting to coddle them. Of course, this is still too rough for some. For example, how many C&P arguments have you heard where the comparison was made to the ostensibly reliable justice of the real world?
If Frontier's overblown fantasy dystopian satire is dramatically more just than the societies a significant fraction of their first-world upper-middle-class player base are from, they''re probably not doing dystopian fiction right, in my humble opinion.
It's not that Open, or the rare PvP encounters in it, are particularly rough or especially out of place, it's that Frontier is using the kind of 'chosen one' sophistry, that might work for a single-player game, in an MMO.
That's the most common advice I've seen when it comes to playing the game. I've actually been told that telling new players (or those complaining about being intercepted in Open) that boosting at the attacker (NPC or player) and trying to stay out of their firing arc (or better, getting into their six) while waiting for your FSD to spool up is bad advice numerous times.
It's the same situation with the six-second rule. Why learn how the game actually works, travel quickly to all destinations in the game, and minimize your window of vulnerability, when there's this easy to understand rule?
Well for me when I have got ganked in Cutter, pretty rare but happens, it works. Of course it has rather hefty shields and poor manouverability....And might be that my gankers were not among top 1% of gankers
And DB had it right, right from the start. No Princess Rescuers. How did we come to this place where everyone is a System Lord that runs the galaxy? Soon to personally hand pick the systems the human race decides to live in. And yet weirdly still meekly bows to authority. Pick a lane guys.
That's not the point. There are some people who don't even jump to the colony, but weave on a well-armed warship, but they are ready for PvP.
They don't even have FSD for jumping, they have FSD for fast deployment. It doesn't matter - the main thing is readiness for PVP.
There wont ever be a "solutiuon to ganking" because there is no common, universallyy understood and agreed definition of what "ganking" constitutes. For some, the mere concept of an unannounced PCvPC encounter is ludicrously referred to as "ganking".
There are two options. One, to draw a line as to what is acceptable to the community/rules/EULA for gameplay and those accounts that breach this can be warned and/or eventually banned.
Two is to simply ignore what is a non-problem and encourage people to play more creatively togerther.
FDev have provided plenty of piracy tools and some (limited compared to other playstyles) measure of support for pirates, but it is apparently cumbersome and unfulfuilling since a number of "pirate attacks" have no relation to what's in cargo hold nor any option of toll-paying and typically involve a to-the-"death" (ship rebuy) combat regardless of the spoils or worth to either party.
EvE Online does an excellent job of making disproportionat, indiscriminate attacks potentially unecomonmical for a larger vesdsel to waste ammunition etc. assaulting a minor, non-threat with no goods/components of value. CCP also supprots the ability to provide bodyguard services and to muster a wing of piolts to defened a valuable target.
For some reason, FDev did not want a functional, meaningful economics system, so there's no real avenue nor potential for piracy to be an appropriate career choice [ as 'piracy' being stealing and making black market trades, but with brushes with the law in controlled systems etc. ] FDev also offer only a barebones and bug-ridden means to coordinate with fellow pilots to secure adequate protection from a "gank squad" - these squads are going to exist in any game regardless - but at least providing the means and capacity for mounting a reaosnable defence and therefore mroe meaningful and emergent PC gameplay interactions is a great way to make games fun and inclusive, whilst allowing for a chane to make friends and enjoyment rather than the often one-sided resentment of the 'victim'.
Since Solo / Private play is a thing - maybe some more consideration ought be given to the NPC pirates and their tactics and abilities. If people play in Solo because they only fear PCvPC encounters, then PCvE encounters are clearly not up to scratch.
...Now I'm rambling...
There are two options. One, to draw a line as to what is acceptable to the community/rules/EULA for gameplay and those accounts that breach this can be warned and/or eventually banned.
Two is to simply ignore what is a non-problem and encourage people to play more creatively togerther.
FDev have provided plenty of piracy tools and some (limited compared to other playstyles) measure of support for pirates, but it is apparently cumbersome and unfulfuilling since a number of "pirate attacks" have no relation to what's in cargo hold nor any option of toll-paying and typically involve a to-the-"death" (ship rebuy) combat regardless of the spoils or worth to either party.
EvE Online does an excellent job of making disproportionat, indiscriminate attacks potentially unecomonmical for a larger vesdsel to waste ammunition etc. assaulting a minor, non-threat with no goods/components of value. CCP also supprots the ability to provide bodyguard services and to muster a wing of piolts to defened a valuable target.
For some reason, FDev did not want a functional, meaningful economics system, so there's no real avenue nor potential for piracy to be an appropriate career choice [ as 'piracy' being stealing and making black market trades, but with brushes with the law in controlled systems etc. ] FDev also offer only a barebones and bug-ridden means to coordinate with fellow pilots to secure adequate protection from a "gank squad" - these squads are going to exist in any game regardless - but at least providing the means and capacity for mounting a reaosnable defence and therefore mroe meaningful and emergent PC gameplay interactions is a great way to make games fun and inclusive, whilst allowing for a chane to make friends and enjoyment rather than the often one-sided resentment of the 'victim'.
Since Solo / Private play is a thing - maybe some more consideration ought be given to the NPC pirates and their tactics and abilities. If people play in Solo because they only fear PCvPC encounters, then PCvE encounters are clearly not up to scratch.
...Now I'm rambling...