The Past 48 Hours: On how emergent gameplay happens

[rOmiLaYu]

I'll hit you with the TL;DR up front. Open is the best mode, PvP is fun, and these past two days have been dynamic and engaging.

Now, if you're still here; I've been out exploring on my main account since late December and have been out of human contact since that time. A few weeks back, having relegated the Battle for Carcossa to the pages of history, I dumped my last few tonnes of biowaste outside the Rock and loaded my alt up on a carrier and came back to the Bubble. This week's combat CG in Kumo-Land caught my eye and so I trundled out here in a moderately engineered Anaconda set up for PvE.

Once in system, I noticed the same folks in system chat that are always gathered for CG's. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. One in particular is notorious for griefing and PK'ing. This time around he was RP'ing as fighting for Trask. Fair play to him. We all know who he is and what he's up to. No ill will at all. Blaze your own trail, CMDR. So I pack off into a Medium CZ and get to work mowing through NPC's. I'm fairly average in combat. I can handle myself, but I'm not terribly dangerous to anything other than an NPC. I've only ever killed one other CMDR, and he was in an SRV.

I say all that to say that about half way through the fight, I noticed my shields are dropping faster than I feel like they should. It is at that point I realize that I am being attacked by a hollow red triangle. You guessed it, that guy. I flip around and start targeting him. He's already down to no shields and 34% hull. I can do this, right? I managed to whittle him down a few percentage points when two other CMDR's wing up with me and go after him. He decides to boost and low wake. We pursue and I - of all people - manage to out maneuver him in supercruise and interdict him....but I failed the interdiction and he got away. I thanked the guys for the wing and headed to bed.

Tonight, I see the same CMDR prowling supercruise space near one of the CZ's. Feeling full of myself, I decide to interdict him again but he makes it into the CZ before I have a chance. I drop in behind him and immediately go agro on him....only to have my butt handed to me. He's in a meta built PvP FdL and I'm in a PvE Anaconda with efficient beams and overcharged multicannons. Believe it or not, I manage to stay in the fight for a good few minutes and schwack 20% off his shields. He's all over me. I can't maneuver to get many shots. He's flying FA Off and I'm clearly out flown. About this time, a wing of CMDR's jump into the CZ and I message them asking for help. My thrusters go offline. I repair/reboot. They come back on line. I boost away and try to highwake. FSD fails. 18% hull. Repair/Reboot. 7% hull. FSD charging. FSD failed. "Anybody out there that can help me?" 2% hull. When all of sudden a Corvette in onionhead paint rockets across my screen, rails blazing. And then I see a Krait Mk2. And then another Krait...and then a wing invite.

And then ship went boop. Eject! Eject! Eject!

I spawn in Crimson Whateveritis to a message from the wing, apologizing that they couldn't save me but said CMDR who made ship go boop is dead now, too. I thank them and immediately fly back out. We all share a wing mission with each other and go to work. A few minutes later, the PK'er is back. All four of us break contact with the NPC's and swarm him. His ship went boop in about 45 seconds. "Romi's Revenge!" was the yop heard in system chat from the three random CMDR's that came to my aid.

80mil CR, a rollicking good time, and some real emergent and electrifying game play.

Try Open(or don't.) It's better out here!

Fly aimless, CMDR's. o7

 

[wargarita]

Yes, a lot of fun in open but no balance, everyone on the same side.

 

[yianniv]

Great story!

 

[St0rmFury]

Cool story, cmdr.

PvP meta lances have 1 weakness against PvE builds, they can't take sustained attacks even with G5 prismatics because their method of combat involves full pips to ENG or SYS when jousting and then full pips to WEP when attacking. It works well against weapons with low fire rate (plasma & rails), but terrible against beams & MCs. Also because their shields are usually engineered for maximum raw strength, they have terrible thermal resistance. So if enough cmdrs are attacking the meta-lance with gimbal beams or incendiary MCs, he will go down fast.

And since you don't lose combat bonds on death in EDO, you're pretty much flying with minimal risk and still make progress for the CG (unless you don't have enough for a rebuy).

 

[CMDR John Luke Paperbone]

I'll hit you with the TL;DR up front. Open is the best mode, PvP is fun, and these past two days have been dynamic and engaging.

Now, if you're still here; I've been out exploring on my main account since late December and have been out of human contact since that time. A few weeks back, having relegated the Battle for Carcossa to the pages of history, I dumped my last few tonnes of biowaste outside the Rock and loaded my alt up on a carrier and came back to the Bubble. This week's combat CG in Kumo-Land caught my eye and so I trundled out here in a moderately engineered Anaconda set up for PvE.

Once in system, I noticed the same folks in system chat that are always gathered for CG's. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. One in particular is notorious for griefing and PK'ing. This time around he was RP'ing as fighting for Trask. Fair play to him. We all know who he is and what he's up to. No ill will at all. Blaze your own trail, CMDR. So I pack off into a Medium CZ and get to work mowing through NPC's. I'm fairly average in combat. I can handle myself, but I'm not terribly dangerous to anything other than an NPC. I've only ever killed one other CMDR, and he was in an SRV.

I say all that to say that about half way through the fight, I noticed my shields are dropping faster than I feel like they should. It is at that point I realize that I am being attacked by a hollow red triangle. You guessed it, that guy. I flip around and start targeting him. He's already down to no shields and 34% hull. I can do this, right? I managed to whittle him down a few percentage points when two other CMDR's wing up with me and go after him. He decides to boost and low wake. We pursue and I - of all people - manage to out maneuver him in supercruise and interdict him....but I failed the interdiction and he got away. I thanked the guys for the wing and headed to bed.

Tonight, I see the same CMDR prowling supercruise space near one of the CZ's. Feeling full of myself, I decide to interdict him again but he makes it into the CZ before I have a chance. I drop in behind him and immediately go agro on him....only to have my butt handed to me. He's in a meta built PvP FdL and I'm in a PvE Anaconda with efficient beams and overcharged multicannons. Believe it or not, I manage to stay in the fight for a good few minutes and schwack 20% off his shields. He's all over me. I can't maneuver to get many shots. He's flying FA Off and I'm clearly out flown. About this time, a wing of CMDR's jump into the CZ and I message them asking for help. My thrusters go offline. I repair/reboot. They come back on line. I boost away and try to highwake. FSD fails. 18% hull. Repair/Reboot. 7% hull. FSD charging. FSD failed. "Anybody out there that can help me?" 2% hull. When all of sudden a Corvette in onionhead paint rockets across my screen, rails blazing. And then I see a Krait Mk2. And then another Krait...and then a wing invite.

And then ship went boop. Eject! Eject! Eject!

I spawn in Crimson Whateveritis to a message from the wing, apologizing that they couldn't save me but said CMDR who made ship go boop is dead now, too. I thank them and immediately fly back out. We all share a wing mission with each other and go to work. A few minutes later, the PK'er is back. All four of us break contact with the NPC's and swarm him. His ship went boop in about 45 seconds. "Romi's Revenge!" was the yop heard in system chat from the three random CMDR's that came to my aid.

80mil CR, a rollicking good time, and some real emergent and electrifying game play.

Try Open(or don't.) It's better out here!

Fly aimless, CMDR's. o7

This is a nice read, i guess going open in situations where there are other people around AND you are required by the situation to fly a combat ship has it's merits.

Unluckily at the moment i'm bulk trading ... it's a fully engineerd T9 that can save my ass when confronted by ant NPC, but can't risk going around in open with it. And i'm not even thinking about Community Goals zones, just normal play.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

I'll hit you with the TL;DR up front. Open is the best mode, PvP is fun, and these past two days have been dynamic and engaging.

Now, if you're still here; I've been out exploring on my main account since late December and have been out of human contact since that time. A few weeks back, having relegated the Battle for Carcossa to the pages of history, I dumped my last few tonnes of biowaste outside the Rock and loaded my alt up on a carrier and came back to the Bubble. This week's combat CG in Kumo-Land caught my eye and so I trundled out here in a moderately engineered Anaconda set up for PvE.

Once in system, I noticed the same folks in system chat that are always gathered for CG's. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. One in particular is notorious for griefing and PK'ing. This time around he was RP'ing as fighting for Trask. Fair play to him. We all know who he is and what he's up to. No ill will at all. Blaze your own trail, CMDR. So I pack off into a Medium CZ and get to work mowing through NPC's. I'm fairly average in combat. I can handle myself, but I'm not terribly dangerous to anything other than an NPC. I've only ever killed one other CMDR, and he was in an SRV.

I say all that to say that about half way through the fight, I noticed my shields are dropping faster than I feel like they should. It is at that point I realize that I am being attacked by a hollow red triangle. You guessed it, that guy. I flip around and start targeting him. He's already down to no shields and 34% hull. I can do this, right? I managed to whittle him down a few percentage points when two other CMDR's wing up with me and go after him. He decides to boost and low wake. We pursue and I - of all people - manage to out maneuver him in supercruise and interdict him....but I failed the interdiction and he got away. I thanked the guys for the wing and headed to bed.

Tonight, I see the same CMDR prowling supercruise space near one of the CZ's. Feeling full of myself, I decide to interdict him again but he makes it into the CZ before I have a chance. I drop in behind him and immediately go agro on him....only to have my butt handed to me. He's in a meta built PvP FdL and I'm in a PvE Anaconda with efficient beams and overcharged multicannons. Believe it or not, I manage to stay in the fight for a good few minutes and schwack 20% off his shields. He's all over me. I can't maneuver to get many shots. He's flying FA Off and I'm clearly out flown. About this time, a wing of CMDR's jump into the CZ and I message them asking for help. My thrusters go offline. I repair/reboot. They come back on line. I boost away and try to highwake. FSD fails. 18% hull. Repair/Reboot. 7% hull. FSD charging. FSD failed. "Anybody out there that can help me?" 2% hull. When all of sudden a Corvette in onionhead paint rockets across my screen, rails blazing. And then I see a Krait Mk2. And then another Krait...and then a wing invite.

And then ship went boop. Eject! Eject! Eject!

I spawn in Crimson Whateveritis to a message from the wing, apologizing that they couldn't save me but said CMDR who made ship go boop is dead now, too. I thank them and immediately fly back out. We all share a wing mission with each other and go to work. A few minutes later, the PK'er is back. All four of us break contact with the NPC's and swarm him. His ship went boop in about 45 seconds. "Romi's Revenge!" was the yop heard in system chat from the three random CMDR's that came to my aid.

80mil CR, a rollicking good time, and some real emergent and electrifying game play.

Try Open(or don't.) It's better out here!

Fly aimless, CMDR's. o7

Nice story that kind of sums up why I like open too.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

T9 that can save my when confronted by ant NPC, but can't risk going around in open with it

Actually a T9 is pretty tough: with an engineered 6A prismatic it can survive virtually any 1 on 1 attack and also most wing attacks. I have an engineered shieldless T9 that has survived various attacks at CGs.

 

[CMDR John Luke Paperbone]

Actually a T9 is pretty tough: with an engineered 6A prismatic it can survive virtually any 1 on 1 attack and also most wing attacks. I have an engineered shieldless T9 that has survived various attacks at CGs.

I have enginereed prysmatics and shield boosters too.

My build:

Il Moro di Venezia

The problem with gankers being then when submitting interdiction you can't make enough distance from them ... so you are mass locked and it takes forever to jump out. They kill you before.

They don't even ask for cargo of nothing ( but that's another story ), they just blow you of the sky and there is no way of getting out of it alive ( at least in my experience )

 

[Bantha]

I'll hit you with the TL;DR up front. Open is the best mode, PvP is fun, and these past two days have been dynamic and engaging.

Now, if you're still here; I've been out exploring on my main account since late December and have been out of human contact since that time. A few weeks back, having relegated the Battle for Carcossa to the pages of history, I dumped my last few tonnes of biowaste outside the Rock and loaded my alt up on a carrier and came back to the Bubble. This week's combat CG in Kumo-Land caught my eye and so I trundled out here in a moderately engineered Anaconda set up for PvE.

Once in system, I noticed the same folks in system chat that are always gathered for CG's. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. One in particular is notorious for griefing and PK'ing. This time around he was RP'ing as fighting for Trask. Fair play to him. We all know who he is and what he's up to. No ill will at all. Blaze your own trail, CMDR. So I pack off into a Medium CZ and get to work mowing through NPC's. I'm fairly average in combat. I can handle myself, but I'm not terribly dangerous to anything other than an NPC. I've only ever killed one other CMDR, and he was in an SRV.

I say all that to say that about half way through the fight, I noticed my shields are dropping faster than I feel like they should. It is at that point I realize that I am being attacked by a hollow red triangle. You guessed it, that guy. I flip around and start targeting him. He's already down to no shields and 34% hull. I can do this, right? I managed to whittle him down a few percentage points when two other CMDR's wing up with me and go after him. He decides to boost and low wake. We pursue and I - of all people - manage to out maneuver him in supercruise and interdict him....but I failed the interdiction and he got away. I thanked the guys for the wing and headed to bed.

Tonight, I see the same CMDR prowling supercruise space near one of the CZ's. Feeling full of myself, I decide to interdict him again but he makes it into the CZ before I have a chance. I drop in behind him and immediately go agro on him....only to have my butt handed to me. He's in a meta built PvP FdL and I'm in a PvE Anaconda with efficient beams and overcharged multicannons. Believe it or not, I manage to stay in the fight for a good few minutes and schwack 20% off his shields. He's all over me. I can't maneuver to get many shots. He's flying FA Off and I'm clearly out flown. About this time, a wing of CMDR's jump into the CZ and I message them asking for help. My thrusters go offline. I repair/reboot. They come back on line. I boost away and try to highwake. FSD fails. 18% hull. Repair/Reboot. 7% hull. FSD charging. FSD failed. "Anybody out there that can help me?" 2% hull. When all of sudden a Corvette in onionhead paint rockets across my screen, rails blazing. And then I see a Krait Mk2. And then another Krait...and then a wing invite.

And then ship went boop. Eject! Eject! Eject!

I spawn in Crimson Whateveritis to a message from the wing, apologizing that they couldn't save me but said CMDR who made ship go boop is dead now, too. I thank them and immediately fly back out. We all share a wing mission with each other and go to work. A few minutes later, the PK'er is back. All four of us break contact with the NPC's and swarm him. His ship went boop in about 45 seconds. "Romi's Revenge!" was the yop heard in system chat from the three random CMDR's that came to my aid.

80mil CR, a rollicking good time, and some real emergent and electrifying game play.

Try Open(or don't.) It's better out here!

Fly aimless, CMDR's. o7

I love this kind of story.
Right on Commander!

 

[CaptainPugwash]

M

I have enginereed prysmatics and shield boosters too.

My build:

Il Moro di Venezia

The problem with gankers being then when submitting interdiction you can't make enough distance from them ... so you are mass locked and it takes forever to jump out. They kill you before.

They don't even ask for cargo of nothing ( but that's another story ), they just blow you of the sky and there is no way of getting out of it alive ( at least in my experience )

My main advice would be to always high wake to the furthest away star system in the list on the nav panel. You can then try and jump back in again to your destination system, and I would go at full throttle and crash into the planet that is orbited by your destination station. You’ll lose 1% hull but you have a better chance of evading interdictions, and you can then go back into SC while facing any potential enemies.
You should also ditch that size 3 SCB and get that FSD engineered for fast boot.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Reminds me a little bit of the Feds vs. Nova CG last year. I sided with Nova despite being Winters, citing Federal overreach and the folly of driving Nova into the arms of the Emperor instead of maintaining the division (some fluff).

I was chased across systems by a cheesy vette/krait/chief gank wing, fought in CZs scowling at green triangle wings of never before seen Aisling pilots that'd probably ventured out of PG, that I should have been trying to take that one chance to thump. Was stalked for minutes in a CZ by one of their PvPers that'd nornally be hunting my T9 in powerplay, perplexed that I was a green triangle I guess, before she decided she wasn't having it and handed me my asp. All the while I'm waiting for fellow feds to arrive and point at the traitor. The frustration of the whole thing is still palpable , but funny thing is I remember the stuff that happened, and don't regret it (okay, apart from maybe not strafing the Aisling pilots, that won't happen next time). There was one green triangle Imperial in a poorly built vette that shot me (like totally on purpose I'm certain!) in a CZ and it felt like the red rays from my eyes and not my plasmas got him to 40% hull before waking!

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

M

My main advice would be to always high wake to the furthest away star system in the list on the nav panel. You can then try and jump back in again to your destination system, and I would go at full throttle and crash into the planet that is orbited by your destination station. You’ll lose 1% hull but you have a better chance of evading interdictions, and you can then go back into SC while facing any potential enemies.
You should also ditch that size 3 SCB and get that FSD engineered for fast boot.

Noting that for non-landable planets there's no orbital cruise state (you cannot be interdicted in orbital cruise). So if you can, crash into a landable. When you re-enter cruise you can see if your assailant is there and wait them out before landing. A non-landable will have the treacle-slow gravitational effects making it harder for them to get behind you (and they may just overshoot), so still better than nothing.

Truth is though, T9 or no, apart from CGs, Deciat, San Tu and maybe a couple of other needle-in-haystack systems, you're vanishingly unlikely to get ganked.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Noting that for non-landable planets there's no orbital cruise state (you cannot be interdicted in orbital cruise). So if you can, crash into a landable. When you re-enter cruise you can see if your assailant is there and wait them out before landing. A non-landable will have the treacle-slow gravitational effects making it harder for them to get behind you (and they may just overshoot), so still better than nothing.

Truth is though, T9 or no, apart from CGs, Deciat, San Tu and maybe a couple of other needle-in-haystack systems, you're vanishingly unlikely to get ganked.

My other comment to the T9 pilots out there would be to have your highest threat button mapped so you can hit it during the interdiction. If it’s a cmdr always submit then high wake. If it’s a cmdr that has just sent you a message about wanting to discuss business opportunities (could be my cmdr) then it’s a nice RP opportunity so PLEASE stop to talk, while selecting a suitable system to jump to on your Nav panel just in case. It’s very unlikely that a pirate build will be able to destroy you before you jump, at worst you will lose a few tons of cargo (yarr)

 

[CMDR John Luke Paperbone]

My main advice would be to always high wake to the furthest away star system in the list on the nav panel. You can then try and jump back in again to your destination system, and I would go at full throttle and crash into the planet that is orbited by your destination station. You’ll lose 1% hull but you have a better chance of evading interdictions, and you can then go back into SC while facing any potential enemies.
You should also ditch that size 3 SCB and get that FSD engineered for fast boot.

Crashing into the planet looks like a good advice, i'll take it. Fast boot on the Fsd could be helpful but i have my doubts about it ( mass lock ).

The underlying problem, however, is human generated here. What i don't really like about the situation i described is that flying in open with that kind of ships only server the purpose of being cannon fodder to oles while having nothing in return.

They don't roleplay, they don't have particular motives either. People with brains could interdict a ship like mine and request a cargo drop. This could be some kind of interaction that brings some kind of fun to all the parties involved, so that T9's could fly open.

But no, gankers don't do that. So much better going solo and read them whine that there's noone in open.

Apart from that, it would be nice to fly my ship in wing while being escorted by combat ships. Next trading oriented CG i'll try to set up something like this.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Actually a T9 is pretty tough: with an engineered 6A prismatic it can survive virtually any 1 on 1 attack and also most wing attacks. I have an engineered shieldless T9 that has survived various attacks at CGs.

This. Any ship can be made gank-proof while still serving its purpose. It's one if the nice things about open: preparation pays off and unless you are new you are never helpless.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Crashing into the planet looks like a good advice, i'll take it. Fast boot on the Fsd could be helpful but i have my doubts about it ( mass lock ).

Always high wake from these situations (with players). Ships cannot mass lock you for high wake. They also won't be able to inmediately re-interdict you in supercruise. Have a route planned if possible and bind a key to "next system in route" so that you can switch from your in-system target to a high wake destination.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

i have my doubts about it ( mass lock ).

There is no mass lock if you high wake (jump to another system on the Nav panel)

But no, gankers don't do that. So much better going solo and read them whine that there's noone in open.

I gain some satisfaction from evading gankers, but this is totally up to you of course.

Apart from that, it would be nice to fly my ship in wing while being escorted by combat ships. Next trading oriented CG i'll try to set up something like this.

Agreed, and I think fdev expected us to do this a lot, but most combat pilots don’t find it worth it maybe. It’s not always easy to get together at the right time either.

 

[Zador]

get that FSD engineered for fast boot.

What's the benefit of that? Only helps if the FSD is powered off for some reason, doesn't help you jump any faster.

 

[Old Duck]

I like Open too. Of course the question now is, which Open? Horizons or Odyssey OP?

 

[Ian Skippy]

What's the benefit of that? Only helps if the FSD is powered off for some reason, doesn't help you jump any faster.

Not sure, but won't it help with disabling FX?