I'll be up-front, I say this from the perspective of someone who's rarely in busy open systems to be pirated, let alone in Open anyway. But the issue of Clogging isn't the "main problem", rather, it's a symptom of a bigger issue; that the victim of a pirate and/or combatant has zero bargaining power, and no ability to identify the difference between a pirate and a combatant, until it's too late.
Combat logging is one of several underlying problems that makes CMDR piracy difficult. Context defying escapes make other considerations moot, and even the threat of them has a significant chilling effect on piracy (and other) gameplay.
Other major underlying problems include defensive inflation and the fact that escape has always been just a high-wake away. There are very few practical mechanisms to stop competent pilots from jumping out, and essentially no way to follow them (wake scanning is a joke and will only work against the lazy, who only exist because consequences are nil regardless). These are the some of same mechanisms that significantly curtail the viability of bounty hunting, or effective policing of CMDRs in general.
Anyway, if anything, I'd say the victim has
too much bargaining power. Afterall, if the pirate doesn't appease the player of the CMDR being targeted with the gameplay provided, that player can go about their business in a mode where the pirate can never touch them. Even if the player enforces their own limits on such behavior, pirates are impotent to inflict significant consequence for non-compliance...the most the victim can lose is a load of cargo and a ship, the latter of which will be returned to them, essentially free of charge.
As for pirate vs. combatant. A pirate is perforce a combatant. Piracy is openly hostile. It's extortion backed by the threat of force. The only indicator of an interdictor's specific intent should be their reputation, or that of the group they belong to.
No such guarantee exists for the victim of an interdiction; you're either:
- Idealistically; going to walk away with slightly less cargo (the win-win of piracy)
- Going to start walking away with less cargo, but be killed anyway (the win-lose of piracy)
- Just be killed outright (the lose-lose of piracy)
This is a bizarre collection of worst-case scenarios that does not reflect my experience, or the experiences of anyone who has more than a few, well at all.
My CMDR has been pulled over by pirates on numerous occasions over the last five-and-a-half years. He's lost cargo
once to a hatchbreaker (back in 1.2 when he was in a shieldless Asp X, smuggling slaves so he could afford one of those fancy new Vultures), and was still able to make sure the pirate couldn't take it before narrowly, but successfully escaping (from an actual pirate who just wanted to steal my CMDR's hard earned rares with his Clipper).
About 90-95% of the time, my CMDR simply leaves. About 5-10% of the time, he's able to destroy or drive off the pirate(s) and go about his business (or at least dock safely). My CMDR has never lost a ship without choosing to stand his ground and fight, at least initially (though he does occasionally wait a little too long to bail on a losing contest), and has certainly never lost a ship to anyone, or any wing, well-equipped for piracy.
It should not take a wing of three or four CMDRs of similar experience to for me to feel my CMDR's shieldless trade ships are at some vague risk of losing cargo (either through theft or destruction), but it does.
As soon as that interdiction starts, there is no guarantee which of these scenarios a non-com player is getting themselves into
A cargo ship in dangerous space is hardly a non-combatant and the idea that they should view themselves as such is lunacy. If one thinks they have something others may want, and realizes that there is nothing stopping them from trying to take it, the only rational recourse is to make efforts to protect oneself. The gamist types will stay out of Open and take just what they need to prevent NPC piracy (which is usually nothing). Those staying in Open will quickly learn basic escape and evasion, throw some HRPs and countermeasures on their CMDR's ships, and also become virtually immune to piracy...unless they are piracy tourists who think being mugged is somehow desirable.
the only chance you have to control the outcome is to clog.
Complete nonsense.
- single-purpose defensive modules (i.e can't be re-employed sensibly in an aggressive role; an example from EVE is warp-core stabilisers... allows you to "ignore" warp disruptor points, but also trashes your sensor lock speed, meaning you can't shoot back quickly)
- Additionally to above, if there's "overriding" type modules, then there should be aggressive counter-measures requiring fitting, so as to weaken the combat ability of an interdictor
- Some way to up-front determine whether the interdictor plans to kill or simply pirate the target; maybe even two interdictor variants with advantages to either type of activity.
- If plausible, a way to make the mechanics like PvE; where all the risk during the act of piracy is worn by the agressor, not the defender.
All of these are silly.
There isn't any defense that cannot be used offensively and the specific example of a "warp-core stabiliser" would barely reduce combat effectiveness...hitscan weapons or any weapon used at point blank range doesn't much need working sensors to be effective. A panicked "non-combatant" boosting in a straight line with a tin can death trap is not going to last any longer even if their attacker has to turn off their entire HUD or fly in third person.
Pirates already weaken their combat ability by taking, at the very least, one ship that has a cargo rack and one ship that has an interdictor. Arbitrarily handicapping the offensive capabilities further would not save anyone who needs these kinds of mechanisms.
The third suggestion would either need you to be able to read the interdictor's mind, or further heavy-handed mechanisms to prevent anything other than piracy depending on interdiction type, which would be silly and useless, not to mention counter-productive if it keeps others from using the low wake--my CMDR has interviened on several occasions to disrupt piracy, sometimes he's even successful, occasionally without even destroying the trader before they can drop the cargo--wich it would have to do to function as intended.
Not plausible, because PvE is not plausible. NPCs are idiotic and habitually bite off more than they can chew, having no apparent regard for their lives, nor the success of their endeavors. I mean, there are plenty of brain-dead players out there, but most of them can learn something and aren't constraining their CMDR's behavior to try to cater to even worse pilots, so there is no plausible way to keep them from leveraging tools and tactics NPCs will never be allowed to.
That's a very insightful post, and some good ideas there.
I like the idea of purely defensive weapons that incur little to no "cargo tax" as an excellent means of solving the issue.
The "I don't play this mode and don't know how PvP priacy works, but I assume these are issues and I guess this might fix them", angle is not providing much in the way of insight.
Most of these are solutions to invented issues, or ones that are so fundamental to multiplayer interactions that the only way to 'solve' them is to make the gameplay you are trying to fix completely impossible to perform.
Something that was costly, but weighed little and did something that was not permanent but would enable you to escape would be an excellent solution in my book. Obviously we wouldn't want it to be just a simple button but rather something requiring a bit of skill or timing to make work
It already exists, and it is a button press! It's whatever you bound your "enable FSD to hyperspace jump" key to.
If it got any easier you'd just be playing in Solo.