Why I and many others will rarely play open

Traders don't use the shield meta because it 'hurts their minmax' and they won't be 'forced to change how they play'.

By using Prismatics you can actually get a lower size shield and use the bigger slots for Cargo. I must have missed the Traders Poll where you got those facts from.


Judgemental?

Everyone is saying choose the right mode for you - this is the basis from which all discussion must flow.

Not everyone by a long way

What we don't like is people complaining about Open, when they have chosen open.

Nobody is complaining about Open, they are complaining about griefers and lack of consequences for gankers or players playing their own game in Solo or PG as the game was designed and sold. Let me sum it up as you seem to have missed most of the thread:

At least one Pirate is calling for ATR ships to be sent immediately to Player Killers in High Sec
At least one PVPer is calling for optional higher difficulty NPCs - something along the lines of Thargoid difficulty even, Pirate Threat 20 perhaps
Many people are calling for more consequences for gankers especially in High Sec - even some gankers call for this as suits their game style of being outside the law
Some people are calling others losers coz they dont agree with them and dont seem to realise or can't cope with the fact this is an Open Forum
Some players are calling for Anarchies to be made more exciting from NPCs
Some players are calling for Open Only PP or BGS, or more rewards for flying in Open, or less rewards in Solo / PG
Some players want Open to just lose a few griefers and will be more than happy
Some players think Open is full of cheaters and nothing is done or nothing is done quick enough or the penalty is too lenient when proven (by Frontier not the player)
Some traders and explorers enjoy being ganked and escaping, some dont
Some people dont like the chain interdiction mechanism and all the advantage given to the attacker not the defender leaving Hi-Wake as the only option
Some people dont trust Open and choose PG or Solo but would like to play more in Open
Some players just want more gameplay and wish gankers would offer some worthy 'experience' rather than just submit and Hi-wake because thats tedious
Some people now dont trust Pirates as a result of gankers and griefers and now cant distinguish between the three
Many people want the Security to actually mean something and be differential in-game Hi / Low / Anarchy etc - gankers and traders and explorers have all said this
Some gankers only come out in Open in full Alpha strike combat ships unlike some traders and explorers and multi-role players who play Open all the time
Some people want PVP specific Combat Zones as well as NPC ones
Some people think they should demand people do not blaze their own trail in their own game that they paid for themselves
Some people see Open as a pure war zone and think its more 'difficult', most people see it as a Social platform where many things can happen apart from Combat

And yes some people want everybody else to agree to their gameplay style or bow down to them on the forums as having the final word on the matter, but not many as this is silly and childish and they are missing or ignoring most of the points raised. And missing the point the game is always changing and isn't set in stone and improvements can always be made to improve balance.

Last time Open was unbalanced Frontier introduced the new C&P system and did a whole LS with Sandro to introduce it, a lot of people on all sides think its still unbalanced and could do with improving so they get more gameplay in all modes.
 
By using Prismatics you can actually get a lower size shield and use the bigger slots for Cargo. I must have missed the Traders Poll where you got those facts from.

I was quoting someone who told this very thing this week. Not gonna give his name, but he did like your post. :)

Judgemental?

Nope, just stating a fact. If your ship gets destroyed you lost, the people raging about it wouldn't do so if they were winning. Again, people can fly anyway they want. Given I tend to dork around in small ships in Open, including hotspots, I don't particularly go out of my way to do everything I can to prevent losing my ship. That is my choice, so when someone makes it go poof I'll be a loser. But at least loser who wont complain about it on the forums, because nobody forced me to do what I do so whatever happens is my responsibility and my problem.

People flying crappy ships in Open to minmax their profit are more than welcome to do so, but I will point out that if they lose and start blaming others they aren't just losers but also sore losers. :)

Last time Open was unbalanced Frontier introduced the new C&P system and did a whole LS with Sandro to introduce it, a lot of people on all sides think its still unbalanced and could do with improving so they get more gameplay in all modes.
No argument there, but keep in mind that while many people agree on that it currently is unbalanced, they tend to strongly disagree on what would be an improvement.
 
Is there a suggestion that the gankers don't min/max their ships to optimise it for a combat role - and I doubt that they would be keen on being "forced to change how they play"?
Gankers and PvPers absolutely optimise their ships.
The thing is, there's a level of minmaxing in both careers that goes beyond optimising and into "squeezing the last drop of optimisation out to the point where the ship fails to be useful".

For instance, let's take a combat player that fits themselves with a 2D frame shift drive in order to shave some razor-thin margins off their mass and get their ship moving a hair faster. Since they're not expecting to do any hyperspace jumps (indeed, they're no longer capable in most systems) they downsize the fuel tank to save even more mass.
This is a thing some people do. They're absolutely minmaxing to squeeze a little more agility out of their ship.
They're also completely hosed if they end up in a situation where they have to high-wake. And bounties are a huge problem for them unless there's a shipyard in the system that's owned by someone other than the controlling faction.

Is this "optimised" for a combat ship?
For PVE, absolutely not. Anything less than 20ly is a huge pain if you're doing combat missions - if nothing else, assassinations are generated within a 10ly radius so if I take missions in system A to systems B and C, I want to be able to reach C from B.

Likewise, if you're a trader - yes, you can squeeze some extra cargo out by not fitting a shield. You can squeeze out some more jump range by D-rating your thrusters and keeping the stock lightweight hull.
But is that optimal? Personally, I'm happy with a 680t capacity on my T9, sitting behind a class 6 prismatic and some military hull, with an FSD booster to give me some extra range. I lose out, like, 13% of my capacity compared to a nothing-but-cargo build - but is the risk of dying to a stiff breeze worth 13% more cargo?
What's the cost of each scenario? What does losing 790t of cargo plus rebuy cost me?
I have to make eight trips in that deathtrap before it makes a single trip's difference. If fitting that shield saves me a single rebuy, it just saved me eight trips. Personally, I consider that more optimised to the task of delivering cargo in a galaxy festooned with space pirates than the unshielded one.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Gankers and PvPers absolutely optimise their ships.
Indeed.
The thing is, there's a level of minmaxing in both careers that goes beyond optimising and into "squeezing the last drop of optimisation out to the point where the ship fails to be useful".
In what way does the ship stop being useful? I would agree that after a certain point squeezing the last drop of optimisation has much greater "cost" (in terms of time, engineering, etc.) than it's worth and also that compromising the ability for the ship to do things, like travel, may not be too useful.
For instance, let's take a combat player that fits themselves with a 2D frame shift drive in order to shave some razor-thin margins off their mass and get their ship moving a hair faster. Since they're not expecting to do any hyperspace jumps (indeed, they're no longer capable in most systems) they downsize the fuel tank to save even more mass.
This is a thing some people do. They're absolutely minmaxing to squeeze a little more agility out of their ship.
They're also completely hosed if they end up in a situation where they have to high-wake. And bounties are a huge problem for them unless there's a shipyard in the system that's owned by someone other than the controlling faction.

Is this "optimised" for a combat ship?
For PVE, absolutely not. Anything less than 20ly is a huge pain if you're doing combat missions - if nothing else, assassinations are generated within a 10ly radius so if I take missions in system A to systems B and C, I want to be able to reach C from B.
Indeed. I wonder if they'll be able to call an Apex after landing on any landable body in the system?
Likewise, if you're a trader - yes, you can squeeze some extra cargo out by not fitting a shield. You can squeeze out some more jump range by D-rating your thrusters and keeping the stock lightweight hull.
But is that optimal? Personally, I'm happy with a 680t capacity on my T9, sitting behind a class 6 prismatic and some military hull, with an FSD booster to give me some extra range. I lose out, like, 13% of my capacity compared to a nothing-but-cargo build - but is the risk of dying to a stiff breeze worth 13% more cargo?
What's the cost of each scenario? What does losing 790t of cargo plus rebuy cost me?
I have to make eight trips in that deathtrap before it makes a single trip's difference. If fitting that shield saves me a single rebuy, it just saved me eight trips. Personally, I consider that more optimised to the task of delivering cargo in a galaxy festooned with space pirates than the unshielded one.
I would not advocate leaving a shield out of any build (apart from an altCMDR ship that holds Tritium on the Carrier ready to top up the Carrier's tank) - the question becomes "how much should I compromise my build to play among those who want to attack me when the best outcome is 'not dead' and there's no prospect of doing anything but run away from them?".
 
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I saw 2 PP players total in 9 months of Open PP with 99% of time in enemy Control systems killing ships, 1 wasnt in their system and 1 was at Engineers. More chance / risk in theory maybe but practically speaking, hardly ever happened to me. The only way to guarantee it is to shrink PP entirely to 1 -3 systems of Control / Home and vastly reduce player area. For all I know 100 Cmdrs could have been in next system but they never saw me and I never saw them. Only by concentrating all PP into much smaller area could it even begin to happen the way you think it could. Its not people hiding in Solo, its the amount of systems they could be in or traveling through that makes them hard to find.
yeah PP area is big, isnt easy spot other cmdrs in open.
But.,others cmdrs play solo, thats the fact.
Remove solo and private from powerplay, and you can found in every QG, at every hours some cmdrs. you can found in every expansion some cmdrs, etc.
 
yeah PP area is big, isnt easy spot other cmdrs in open.
But.,others cmdrs play solo, thats the fact.
Remove solo and private from powerplay, and you can found in every QG, at every hours some cmdrs. you can found in every expansion some cmdrs, etc.
There are about 11K populated systems within 150 LY of sol. It's highly unlikely all of them have at least 1 CMDR at all times even if PGs and Solo were removed.
 
Traders don't use the shield meta because it 'hurts their minmax' and they won't be 'forced to change how they play'. All this griefer talk is just a bunch of, literally, losers refusing to learn from their failures and demanding the game be changed until their broken methods and absent skill works sufficiently well.
What? This trader does. Otherwise you can lose even to an NPC which really hurts.
 
Remove solo and private from powerplay

You'd have to remove PP modules & weapons etc too from PP then and just make them available at Tech Brokers or somewhere. I know the recent / latest PP shake-up threads have advocated this as well as many other changes so you only get people in PP who want to do PP and not just shopping for better equipment. Which seems fair enough, most players seem to actually be a hindrance or no help at all to the 'proper' PP players or even do the 'wrong' thing or over deliver to one nearby system coz its easiest for them. Most BGS players and non-engaged players passing through do the majority 'right' thing by contrast, by actually passively helping the faction in charge.

Is it a bad thing to be sent to rebuy from NPC interdiction?!

Asking for a friend...

If the 'friend' was in the kitchen making a cuppa then not at all, if they were actively watching then its still not bad, just 'oops' :)
 
You'd have to remove PP modules & weapons etc too from PP then and just make them available at Tech Brokers or somewhere. I know the recent / latest PP shake-up threads have advocated this as well as many other changes so you only get people in PP who want to do PP and not just shopping for better equipment. Which seems fair enough, most players seem to actually be a hindrance or no help at all to the 'proper' PP players or even do the 'wrong' thing or over deliver to one nearby system coz its easiest for them. Most BGS players and non-engaged players passing through do the majority 'right' thing by contrast, by actually passively helping the faction in charge.



If the 'friend' was in the kitchen making a cuppa then not at all, if they were actively watching then its still not bad, just 'oops' :)
Every suggestion (excluding those open-only no-compromise brainfarts) I heard in the last years said modules should be put into techbrokers and
then pp can be made a pure pvp optional only for people interested in it.
 
Every suggestion (excluding those open-only no-compromise brainfarts) I heard in the last years said modules should be put into techbrokers and
then pp can be made a pure pvp optional only for people interested in it.
Put the modules in techbrokers

Remove fast-tracking, replace with being able to bank your commodity allowance up to a particular limit (ie. you get your allowance added to the bank every 30 minutes whether you collect it or not, until your personal warehouse is full)

Provide materials as the salary for participating - oddly enough, each faction provides the specific materials needed to unlock their module isn't that nice
 
If the 'friend' was in the kitchen making a cuppa then not at all, if they were actively watching then its still not bad, just 'oops' :)
It was elite mission conda's, 3 of them, i was in my type9 full of stolen gold, going for fat paycheck from black market😎
0,2 ls from station, on my 3rd interdiction from that scary elite conda's , elite pirate Clipper decides to jump in...
Rebuy, no fat paycheck for that round.

I swear, it was 7 conda's there, 2 cutters and fdl pirate king, i killed few but they got me, barely 🙄

I mean, my friend...
 
Is it a bad thing to be sent to rebuy from NPC interdiction?!

Asking for a friend...

If you are in a T9 loaded with Beryllium and you just jumped out from the source station in Pleiades looking at another 15 jumps towards WHN... and you get one of those interdictions that simply cannot be beaten and get blasted... yea, it is bad
And if that was the last available load of Beryllium available in Pleiades, it gets quite dramatic
 
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