Where are the pirates and murderers?

[pluton]

I started in the ED gamma release, spent a few nervous days in Solo mode, but I've been playing Open ever since. Trading and exploring. Fetching ores, ferrying metals and superconductors, and rushing cargoes of algae and coffee to feed starving populations.

I fly a Cobra with no offensive weapons. I've carried rare goods hundreds of Ly across known space, while blasting unexplored systems with a borrowed Advanced Discovery Foghorn for extra credits. I aided the Crimson revolution at Lugh, and I earned the permit for a holiday in Sol.

In all this time, I've been interdicted only twice by players. The first was an Asp which deployed hardpoints but did nothing. The other was a psychopathic Cobra which started shooting immediately without any communication, even though I had no cargo at the time. Unlike NPCs, I couldn't out-run him, and in the panic I forgot to start the FSD as soon as it cooled down. I barely escaped with shields down and major hull damage.

Now I want to try again and the best chance is probably a busy system at peak time. I jumped into Leesti at 19.30 UTC last evening with a cargo of rares (worth 16k each on the local market) and SCruised in a straight line to the starport. I could see CMDR players on the radar, but no incidents. I jumped to Lave and flew to Lave Station, still with the cargo. Again, players on the radar but no attacks. Back to Leesti, fly all the way to the station and back to the star at 75% speed. Nothing.

OK, try Uszaa, the local anarchy system. Cruise 4300Ls to Guest Installation with my rare cargo, but only an NPC Eagle bothered me. Cruise to another station in the system but nothing. On to Orrere, another local anarchy. Same story.

I sell my goods and cruise around the Lave neighbourhood buying rares. Orrere, Uszaa, Diso, Zaonce, Leesti. Only NPC Eagles and Vipers attack me, and I can easily run from those.

Then I travelled to the Onionhead system, sold the rares and bought the infamous narcotic. The Feds are doing a poor job of suppressing the Onionhead trade. I cruised in and out of Harvestport without incident. I went to look at the capital ships and conflict zones as a sightseer (no CMDRs there, and only one in SCruise). I flew back to Leesti then sold my cargo at Orrere, again without incident.

I've made a few trips to the Lave area in the past few days. I've been to Sol, Eranin, Cosi and other popular areas and seen plenty of CMDRs on the radar, but I've not been interdicted or attacked. Have I just been lucky?

Where are the pirates and murderers that I read about?
Do they only attack Sidewinders and Haulers?
Are they all on the forums, complaining about solo mode?

NOTE, I don't usually fly around hoping to be attacked. I just wanted to test if I can escape, and if not I can afford to rebuy the ship.

 

[Julio Montega]

Give the game some time and the newer players time to fit their ships to their likings.
As soon as they get the taste of piracy they might start to exploit the trader's tool to their advantage.

 

[Jackie Silver]

I was attacked (interdicted by pirates) a couple of times at Leesti a week or two ago. I saw (and fought against) lots of Commanders yesterday at the Kappa Fornacis high intensity combat zone near Panem, so you may've been unlucky there.

On the whole, though, you're right, the threat from Commanders ain't as high as it's cracked up to be.

 

[Tigga]

It's rare, as it doesn't make you much cash, it's tricky, and for a lot of people a Cobra may not be worth the hassle, especially if they don't check your subsystems.

 

[aMinDAmoK]

1) It is far to easy to get away from interdiction. By simply submitting, the target has an advantage to getting away very quickly. This is especially true if you are flying anything that has a tank on it or is fast.... or both. Cobra's are poor targets for interdiction for instance.

2) Interdiction cost money. Every time there is a cost in hull damage that must be paid. So, that has to be taken into consideration before interdiction. It simply isnt worth the effort when there is such a small chance at profit.

 

[Snakebite]

I started in the ED gamma release, spent a few nervous days in Solo mode, but I've been playing Open ever since. Trading and exploring. Fetching ores, ferrying metals and superconductors, and rushing cargoes of algae and coffee to feed starving populations.


Where are the pirates and murderers that I read about?
Do they only attack Sidewinders and Haulers?
Are they all on the forums, complaining about solo mode?

NOTE, I don't usually fly around hoping to be attacked. I just wanted to test if I can escape, and if not I can afford to rebuy the ship.

I don't think many people are playing as pirates for a variety of reasons.

There seems to be a whole bunch of us, myself included, playing as bounty hunters and lots of complaining at the complete lack of wrong-doers to prey on.

This seems to be in stark contrast to all the traders playing in bubble wrap mode saying that they are doing so to avoid all the Greifers in open...

My best guess is that what is going on is this....

Too many people playing it safe in solo and using the griefer myth to justify their cowardly behaviour.
The resulting lack of traders has resulted in the pirates going home hungry.
The resulting lack of pirates resulting in bounty hunters flying around aimlessly.

I could be wrong but thats the way it appears to be unfolding

 

[mandellorian]

Its a vast game where given the number of copies reportly sold so far the player to star ratio is somewhere around 1-10,000 the game is far too big for the concentrations needed for most of what the PVP crowd are after...i`ve been playing since release and rarely see another human...unless you goto the newbie spawn system or sit around sol...space is empty and vast and we are but motes in it.

 

[Black Ops]

I don't think many people are playing as pirates for a variety of reasons.

There seems to be a whole bunch of us, myself included, playing as bounty hunters and lots of complaining at the complete lack of wrong-doers to prey on.

This seems to be in stark contrast to all the traders playing in bubble wrap mode saying that they are doing so to avoid all the Greifers in open...

My best guess is that what is going on is this....

Too many people playing it safe in solo and using the griefer myth to justify their cowardly behaviour.
The resulting lack of traders has resulted in the pirates going home hungry.
The resulting lack of pirates resulting in bounty hunters flying around aimlessly.

I could be wrong but thats the way it appears to be unfolding

I actually would LIKE to pirate, but, lack of targets. also, the interdiction module should work like(I know some will hate the comparison) warp scrams in Eve. once scrammed, you have to either get enough distance from the ship to escape, have a counter-module(warp stabilizers) to negate the scram effect, or kill the scrammer. In ED, interdictions are easy to escape from. submit, boost away, engage FSD, and you can't be caught. not good for locking down a target at all, it's an, shall we say INEFFECTIVE approach. Also, the minute most players actually has their pixels harmed, they run to solo mode, hop on the forums, and scream like someone ran a "train" on them in prison.

HTFU. seriously.

 

[Katkon]

Yes, they're on the forums. Haven't come across one even remotely dangerous/threatening player in-game yet since release. Not one. That may change over time.

 

[Bangfish]

I could say the same about bounty hunters. I have been flying in core fed systems with 300k bounty for ages and not a single player interdiction.

 

[Bigcheese]

My best guess is that what is going on is this....

Too many people playing it safe in solo and using the griefer myth to justify their cowardly behaviour.
The resulting lack of traders has resulted in the pirates going home hungry.
The resulting lack of pirates resulting in bounty hunters flying around aimlessly.

I could be wrong but thats the way it appears to be unfolding

This is most likely what is happening.

I guess there are some network problems as well, resulting in less players being visible. I hope it's a network problem and not a community cowardice one, but I think both are very plausible.

 

[Snakebite]

I actually would LIKE to pirate, but, lack of targets. also, the interdiction module should work like(I know some will hate the comparison) warp scrams in Eve. once scrammed, you have to either get enough distance from the ship to escape, have a counter-module(warp stabilizers) to negate the scram effect, or kill the scrammer. In ED, interdictions are easy to escape from. submit, boost away, engage FSD, and you can't be caught. not good for locking down a target at all, it's an, shall we say INEFFECTIVE approach. Also, the minute most players actually has their pixels harmed, they run to solo mode, hop on the forums, and scream like someone ran a "train" on them in prison.

HTFU. seriously.

The interdiction system itself works fine, with a little practice i found I can sucessfully interdict 10/10 NPC's and 9/10 PC's.
The problem is that once interdicted they can easily escape back into supercruise.

I would suggest that the interdiction device also come with a supercruise suppression device that prevents players from getting away too easily.

 

[ChaseBears]

it's not necessary to do an EVE-style warp scrambler. There's a lot of downsides to that system. Being inescapably locked down would be completely awful in Elite considering how painful ship death is. Conversely, being nigh-immune to lockdown is awful for or bounty hunters.

Also consider how much interdicting the AI likes to do, it's not just players.

There's much simpler changes to interdiction that could help. Individual interdictions should be important and decisive- if a player get interdicted it should be a big deal. Conversely, if a player escapes after having lost an interdiction, it should be more difficult for pirates to continuously interdict them.

-Submitting to interdiction should put your drive on the long cooldown, depending on relative mass. A Sidewinder interdicting a Cobra should cause only minimal cooldown, for example. If you intend to escape an interdiction, you should do it in supercruise. The multiple interdictions game is good for noone.

-Small ships should still be able to very lightly mass lock larger ships. For example, a Viper going up against an Asp should still be able to cause a 3x delay on its frame shift charge.

-Frame shift charging should drain your engine power slightly...not sure about this one.

-The interdicting ship should spin out to a lesser degree, making it harder for players to boost awaaaay.

-There should be more transparency on what causes hull damage in interdiction.

-Every time you are interdicted by a specific player, you gain a temporary bonus in the interdiction minigame. Your FSD is adapting to the harmful interference projected by that specific player's interdictor unit.

 

[Snakebite]

it's not necessary to do an EVE-style warp scrambler. There's a lot of downsides to that system. Being inescapably locked down would be completely awful in Elite considering how painful ship death is. Conversely, being nigh-immune to lockdown is awful for or bounty hunters.

Also consider how much interdicting the AI likes to do, it's not just players.

There's much simpler changes to interdiction that could help. Individual interdictions should be important and decisive- if a player get interdicted it should be a big deal. Conversely, if a player escapes after having lost an interdiction, it should be more difficult for pirates to continuously interdict them.

-Submitting to interdiction should put your drive on the long cooldown, depending on relative mass. A Sidewinder interdicting a Cobra should cause only minimal cooldown, for example. If you intend to escape an interdiction, you should do it in supercruise. The multiple interdictions game is good for noone.

-Small ships should still be able to very lightly mass lock larger ships. For example, a Viper going up against an Asp should still be able to cause a 3x delay on its frame shift charge.

-Frame shift charging should drain your engine power slightly...not sure about this one.

-The interdicting ship should spin out to a lesser degree, making it harder for players to boost awaaaay.

-There should be more transparency on what causes hull damage in interdiction.

-Every time you are interdicted by a specific player, you gain a temporary bonus in the interdiction minigame. Your FSD is adapting to the harmful interference projected by that specific player's interdictor unit.

Some interesting ideas, I like the one about larger engines requiring much longer cool down periods

 

[Katkon]

I could say the same about bounty hunters. I have been flying in core fed systems with 300k bounty for ages and not a single player interdiction.

And where would that be, exactly?

 

[DAYLEET]

People complain without reasons, they use their fears to accuse and scold.The peer to peer nature of the server is not helping either, theres supposed to be 800+ cmdr in my area and i see maybe 2 or 3 a night and we all are busy doing something else than pvp. regardless of what the naysayer are saying there is much to do in game other than pvp and there is those "bracket" of playing where your ship isnt optimal for pvp.

A lot of people wanted a peaceful play time in solo mode and they are getting it and i am not blaming them. It is their rights and Braben gave them that right. I deplore however that Braben could not discern the fundamental differences between multi and solo and put everyone together, so even when you are playing multi it is best to think of it as solo so you are not disappointed.

Ive no time to actually play the last few weeks but i love to log and look at the map and i can't help thinking that even if you were to force everyone into multy with a single server it would not change a thing. And it's fine, space should be stupidly vast and mostly devoid of people. I dont believe owning ships in ED is like owning cars, it's more like a choice to not have a house and buy a ship instead and get a dangerous job that can leave you ruined or dead in a matter of days, not a popular choice for the majority of the people i would guess.

 

[Andovar]

wait, are you saying that all the griefer threads are blowing things completely out of proportion?
impossible!

 

[DaveB]

I see players every time I play but actual interactions with them are more rare. Mostly I see hollow blips in SC and attempting to chat in SC is a waste of time unless you're both on the same long trip. Hanging out at a nav beacon popping wanteds I see a few from time to time, but not every day and I'll usually open comms with them so that we don't get into a scuffle over which bounties we go after. Smalltalk at a station is slightly problematic for a number of reasons unless you're just hanging around outside. That leaves the folks who are after a piece of my hide or some of my cargo.

Over the last couple weeks I think I've had maybe half a dozen actual interactions with other players. Only two of these involved exchanges of fire.

Two pirates - both negotiated but while one accepted my offer and the encounter ended with no shots fired, the other got greedy and opened fire. He gave me a decent fight and the bounties on his hide barely covered my repair and reload costs.
One attempted murder - interdicts and immediately starts shooting. He clearly underestimated the alpha an asp with 6 beam lasers could dish out so when his cobra was shieldless after the first boom&zoom, he kept zooming and left the fight.
Two folks hunting in the same nav point I was in. We used the comms for smalltalk and coordination so we didn't steal each others kills.
One long SC during which I and another cmdr opened comms to relieve the mutual boredom