There's no requirement for any player to engage in any game feature that they choose not to engage in - and PvP is very much an optional aspect of the game as other players are optional in this game while very player enjoys the privilege of experiencing and affecting the shared galaxy. I was a backer / player long before I was invited to become a moderator - so my opinions were well known long before the invitation was made.
PvP isnt necessary. the fact i see you is.
anyway, the terms PVP means "players versus player" but not player shooting other player.
in elite everything in terms of bgs or powerplay is PvP.
is the competition, PvP in elite can be made ONLY through PVE!
i win a cz killing npc, not players.
i win in powerplay killing npc or moving commodities, not killing players.
the squadron ranking is PvP and you can be the first of the rank just doing PvE activities.
this is a consolidate mechanic and works well but chease to be balanced when some features permit players to exploit it and make for his group a big advantage, just the simple old example: you can make fortification for powerplay in solo with a shield less cutter and you can carry more merit than me, so in a 1vs1 match when the one who delivered more fish in a station win, the player in solo win against me if we have the same ships, i have to fit my ships to avoid to be killed from other player so i have be forced to play solo with a shield less cutter because no one want a one way match!
Some math:
100 shield less cutter in solo vs 100 cutter with shield and 1 shield cell bank for open play (and probably cant be enough)
1 shield less cutter can carry 794 tons, they are 100 so 79.400 tons for each run
1 cutter with shield and bank can carry 666 tons assuming you use a 6a prismatic shield and a 6bank, 100 of it are 66.000 tons each run
79.400 tons vs 66.000 tons, so for a balanced match, assuming all we have the same ships, the open group need 20 more player to have the some rateo of the solo group, but also in open there the variability of beeing spotted by some humans, more lethal than npc of course.
theres not skill needed for commodity moving, so also a low tier cmdrs can make his part, and we all know the money for buy a cutter or a t9 is really easy to made at this point of the game, in our community and i think in all the others, theres daily some group of cmdrs have to share a buch of massacre mission, we have some new player make 300\500milions of cr in a day doing nothing.
Why NEVER ever doing something about that? A LITTLE LITTLE thing to make everyone happy! not open only, but damns, make the people in open have A SUPER TINY BIT advantange in terms of reward! A REALLY LITTYLE, may 5 or 10% more. why not? whats the problem aboout. can make happy the open player, and can make happy the solo player they just have to accept the fact open play is more difficult and its good to have a little little boost in terms of bgs and powerplay!
Using the tools available to all players, regardless of game mode, in a feature that does not require any player to engage in itsi-PvP. Not using a bot though - that is against Frontier's ToS/EULA.
Botting and cheating are against Frontier's rules. What constitutes an exploit is for Frontier to determine - and affecting pan-modal game features in any game mode is not an exploit.
we know that, but a cheater dont care about rules, of course.
and theres not way to report they if they do that in solo, of course, we cannot know, we have no proof.
In elite dangerous all cheaters and bot play solo, this is a well knowed fact and they still exist, we have proof of that