Newcomer / Intro Solutions to deal with sociopath players ?

[Slange Lands]

BTW, many if not most PvPers often choose to play in Solo or PG when they absolutely refuse to be bothered.

Some events, especially tournaments are purposely held in PG because we get ganked by our friends.

So yeah, please make use of whatever mode suits you best.
Of course this means Know Thyself.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I hope nobody is confusing psychopaths with higher functioning sociopaths!

Yes, my daughter has discovered Sherlock, and yes, she is making me watch them all, and yes, every time that phrase comes up, she repeats it.

 

[Screemonster]

Seriously, three of the systems you listed are in the top ten traffic list for the entire bubble (out of 10s of thousands of systems), and one is currently the most dangerous system in the bubble!

"I went to a literal warzone and people shot at me!!! Mods???"

 

[Ethaidan]

Yep BLOCK works great. It is just as valid as PG, Solo, "evasion techniques", and Ganking.

Suggesting that Ganking is "ok" because it only occurs in high population systems misses the point. Open is the only in game access point to meet new players without 3rd party tools. If you are interested in PVE and social interaction without non-contextual PVP combat harrassment, the only tool available is BLOCK.

This has never been about whether ganking is 'ok' or not, that is a completely different discussion. This has been about misrepresenting the realities of the ED universe and providing biased & blatantly false information. Shouting that BLOCK is the only tool available doesn't make that statement any less false.

One the main features in ED is designing, building, and flying ships - and for the most part this involves ships with weapons. Cmdrs who choose the path of bounty hunting, piracy, assassination, combat zones, thargoid incursions, etc. are all going to be shooting weapons at someone. Cmdrs who choose the path of smuggling, piracy, trading or ferrying passengers are going be shot at by someone. The only difference when it is another Cmdr doing the shooting is the potential for the shots to be coming from a better pilot in a better ship than the PvE equivalent. And of course the emotive baggage of why would that Cmdr ever do that - which doesn't seem to bother people as much when it's an AI ship.

As for ganking predominantly happening in high traffic systems, well that's just basic maths. Gankers know that there will be lots of traffic, and hope enough will be in Open to offer them targets. As for the OP labelling them as 'sociopaths', well, sociopaths and psychopaths make up 5% of the population IRL. If we accept that as a reasonable constant in an imaginary future gameworld setting, then when 9000 ships pass through a CG system in 24 hrs (even if it's only 900 Cmdrs passing through), then that's 45 ganker ships - all in Open. Maths!

Actually, for a new Cmdr, accepting a Friend request may be a better option than BLOCK (at least for a short term). Some people assume it must only be to allow them to track you. But that works two ways. If they're on your friend list, you always know where they are, and let's be honest, how many gank ships are going to have a full-sized long-range FSD, Guardian FSD booster, fuel scoop, and a pilot willing to jump all over the bubble hoping that they catch up with someone rather than just stalking a CG or Deciat. You also get to see where they are before you log in - if they're always at Deciat, you know exactly what they're all about.

 

[Screemonster]

Actually, for a new Cmdr, accepting a Friend request may be a better option than BLOCK (at least for a short term). Some people assume it must only be to allow them to track you. But that works two ways. If they're on your friend list, you always know where they are, and let's be honest, how many gank ships are going to have a full-sized long-range FSD, Guardian FSD booster, fuel scoop, and a pilot willing to jump all over the bubble hoping that they catch up with someone rather than just stalking a CG or Deciat. You also get to see where they are before you log in - if they're always at Deciat, you know exactly what they're all about.

Yeah, I've literally never been chased down by a ganker into some backwater over the friend list, but if I see a bunch of them all hanging out in a particular system, then I don't go to that system because obviously something is happening.

But then again you're talking to a guy that advocates blocking for "having an interdictor":

3) If you are entering into major populated systems in SC, cycle quickly through ship targets immediately. Look for other commanders. Hollow boxes are threats, hollow triangles are major threats. If you get a chance to highlight a commander, look at the menu 1 targets to see what subsystems they have on their ship. If they are running a frameshift interdictor, to be safe - BLOCK them. Quit and restart.

So by this logic, bounty hunters are gankers.
If someone fires their discovery scanner and has "firing deploys hardpoints" on? OH NO, HOLLOW TRIANGLE DANGER WILL ROBINSON
Hollow boxes are THREATS.

Assuming that everyone you see could be a ganker and keeping an eye on them, being prepared to drop out or high wake if necessary, that's just being cautious.
Assuming that everyone you see is DEFINITELY a threat and blocking them pre-emptively? That's just paranoia and you might as well just be in solo if that's how you're gonna be.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Yeah, I've literally never been chased down by a ganker into some backwater over the friend list, but if I see a bunch of them all hanging out in a particular system, then I don't go to that system because obviously something is happening.

But then again you're talking to a guy that advocates blocking for "having an interdictor":


So by this logic, bounty hunters are gankers.
If someone fires their discovery scanner and has "firing deploys hardpoints" on? OH NO, HOLLOW TRIANGLE DANGER WILL ROBINSON
Hollow boxes are THREATS.

Assuming that everyone you see could be a ganker and keeping an eye on them, being prepared to drop out or high wake if necessary, that's just being cautious.
Assuming that everyone you see is DEFINITELY a threat and blocking them pre-emptively? That's just paranoia and you might as well just be in solo if that's how you're gonna be.

You'd also have to acknowledge that my Sidewinder and iEagle represent a 'major threat' since both have interdictors.

I mean, really?!

Some might say that they're not a threat because it's easy enough to build a ship that would easily escape in the time it takes to high wake. Then you'd realise that this is true of every ship in the game and it's still good for what you need it to do.

For example, here's my trade Python:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Swap out the prismatic shield for a 5A an you still have over 1000mj and 240t of cargo space.

Now I know to a new player that the credits and engineering that have gone into this thing must seem way out of reach, but I'm only trying to show what's possible. So when you see players who have the same resources as I do saying open is full of gankers who will blow you up and there's nothing you can do about it without major compromises, they are wrong. I'm not going to say that ship is invunerable, but I'm confident I'd have to make a major mistake for that to be destroyed.

 

[Screemonster]

Some might say that they're not a threat because it's easy enough to build a ship that would easily escape in the time it takes to high wake. Then you'd realise that this is true of every ship in the game and it's still good for what you need it to do.

At the current CG I saw a cutter in the high-intensity zone fighting for the other side and thought "what the hell, why not".
We were both running biweave multicannon builds with SCBs. Their cutter vs my corvette. Both of us were very much fitted for PvE rather than PvP.
The two of us pounded away at each other, no particular finesse, just circling and blasting bullets into each other. Occasionally they'd boost away to fire off a bank, and I'd take the opportunity to do the same (and since they had a fighter I'd take that brief breather to kill it) - neither of us was trying to escape the engagement, just slugging away at each other, both being generally massive targets, completely unsuited to a serious PvP fight (an actual PvPer would have brought feedback rails and taken us apart)

The battle ended before either of us managed to get through the other's shields.
I was out of ammo on two of my guns and running low on the others, I can only assume that they were the same since they were running a similar loadout.
I still had another pair of banks to go. They'd been banking more than I had, but they had three banks to my two so who knows how many they had left.

We took the end of the battle as a good time to call a GG and go our separate ways.

On other days, I've literally one-shot someone's shields with a single trigger pull from a T7.
It's astounding how much of a difference outfitting makes. Even if you don't want to go as far as that sort of "a dedicated warship literally doesn't have enough ammo to get through this much shielding" loadout, you can certainly kit a ship out to last the half-minute or so it takes from deciding you don't want to be there to actually not being there.

 

[Ethaidan]

3) If you are entering into major populated systems in SC, cycle quickly through ship targets immediately. Look for other commanders. Hollow boxes are threats, hollow triangles are major threats. If you get a chance to highlight a commander, look at the menu 1 targets to see what subsystems they have on their ship. If they are running a frameshift interdictor, to be safe - BLOCK them. Quit and restart.

As others have pointed out, this is poor advice.

I have FSDinterdicters on three ships. One is set up for CZs (PvE) and assassination missions (PvE), one is set up for elite assassination & massacre missions (PvE), one is set up for cold-running smuggler, pirate, free the hostages missions (PvE). All PvE game play I do in Open, unharassed by baddies because I can readily identify where and who potential gankers are.

If the OP follows this particular advice they're going to be blocking a whole lot of PvE players who otherwise might have invited them to wing up for... cooperative PvE play. They'll also be blocking all of the players who hunt gankers!

 

[fishevi]

Also, as I understand it, when you block player, you lose instance with other players who are instancing with the blocked one.
So you are blocking more players from yourself then you really want.
(seasoned cmdrs, correct me if I am wrong, not 100% sure on that one)

 

[Screemonster]

Also, as I understand it, when you block player, you lose instance with other players who are instancing with the blocked one.
So you are blocking more players from yourself then you really want.
(seasoned cmdrs, correct me if I am wrong, not 100% sure on that one)

well yeah - if you're prevented from joining the same instance as a blocked person, then if your friend is in their instance you can't meet your friend.
If you're trying to get eight people into an instance for a 4v4, and any one of them has any of the others blocked, then rip your wingfight.
If you want to mess things up you can even do it on purpose - you see a bunch of people winged up in supercruise, then mash block on three of them then interdict the fourth, his buddies will have trouble instancing with you. SPEAR have brought up the situation of gankers blocking them, which leaves them unable to get into the supercruise instance while the gankers' buddies run amok among the newbies.

It's.... a non-ideal solution to a non-ideal situation.

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

At the current CG I saw a cutter in the high-intensity zone fighting for the other side and thought "what the hell, why not".
We were both running biweave multicannon builds with SCBs. Their cutter vs my corvette. Both of us were very much fitted for PvE rather than PvP.
The two of us pounded away at each other, no particular finesse, just circling and blasting bullets into each other. Occasionally they'd boost away to fire off a bank, and I'd take the opportunity to do the same (and since they had a fighter I'd take that brief breather to kill it) - neither of us was trying to escape the engagement, just slugging away at each other, both being generally massive targets, completely unsuited to a serious PvP fight (an actual PvPer would have brought feedback rails and taken us apart)

The battle ended before either of us managed to get through the other's shields.
I was out of ammo on two of my guns and running low on the others, I can only assume that they were the same since they were running a similar loadout.
I still had another pair of banks to go. They'd been banking more than I had, but they had three banks to my two so who knows how many they had left.

We took the end of the battle as a good time to call a GG and go our separate ways.

On other days, I've literally one-shot someone's shields with a single trigger pull from a T7.
It's astounding how much of a difference outfitting makes. Even if you don't want to go as far as that sort of "a dedicated warship literally doesn't have enough ammo to get through this much shielding" loadout, you can certainly kit a ship out to last the half-minute or so it takes from deciding you don't want to be there to actually not being there.

That sounds great fun! Like two mini-battleships slugging away at each other and retiring when they lost the light in days of yore! As a strictly PvE player these days I can’t quite bring myself to use SCB ‘magic potions’ though I’m fully aware that’s a stubborn-self imposes handicap, but ALL my ships except my lightweight AspX miner have at least a couple of engineered HRP and an MRP to complement biweaves engineered for as balanced resists as I can get (I’ve only unlocked up to G3 shields and G1 booster mods though so far). I’ve just joined the large ship club myself with an Anaconda laden with large incendiary MC and a huge corrosive, with high-capacity seekers on the smalls and mediums. It’s bags of fun so far against NPCs but I have no illusions how long it would last if I ever got pulled over by someone competent in Open...