Combat trashing

[XKentX]

1 hour ago, blazemonger said:

Posted this in the community forums, you will get replies form the community. If you want NQ's opinion, log a ticket.

It is not a bug it's a question about game mechanics.

 

If we submit a ticket every time we have question about game mechanics then NQ support will need to explain game mechanics to every person personally.

 

Putting it on the forums answers it to everyone by only 1 NQ reply. Makes sense isn't it ?

[XKentX]

24 minutes ago, Umibozu said:

so basically what you want is : remove the only tactic currently available to the victim, so pirate can fully , unobstructed without any risk benefit from being a pirate?

How about putting a gun on your ship and blowing that pirate to pieces ?

 

Tip: Pirate ships are usually paper thin light and blow up easily.

[XKentX]

6 minutes ago, Umibozu said:

With current state of game its cheaper to warp than hire an escort, so till atmospheric pvp comes in , this duscussion has no merit.

and as why, i detest people deciding to play role of villain, here is an example:

 

Last week there was a player who got ambushed and killed in pvp while he was trying to relocate, slowboating was only option as he could not afford a warp just yet, so he packed all his belongings and tried his luck.

When he got killed , he tried to negotiate release of his ship and his items, and basically got told to bugger of( i am being nice here)

So dont expect from me any help in getting piracy profitable endeavor.

That player decided to establish a base in a PVP zone (or in an area separated by PVP space)

 

Got blown up in PVP.

 

People that blew him up are the bad guys.

 

/logic

[Umibozu]

2 minutes ago, XKentX said:

That player decided to establish a base in a PVP zone (or in an area separated by PVP space)

 

Got blown up in PVP.

 

People that blew him up are the bad guys.

 

/logic

Yes , they are, they pulled the trigger, piracy is in fact  anti-social behaviour

 

and instead lets say negotiate the quanta payment told him to f**** ***

[XKentX]

Just now, Umibozu said:

Yes , they are, they pulled the trigger,

 

and instead lets say negotiate the quanta payment told him to f**** ***

You seem to like negotiations. Once you mine your next ore let's negotiate on the price of it. I say no more than 20q for t1. Where should I pick it up ?

[Umibozu]

6 minutes ago, XKentX said:

You seem to like negotiations. Once you mine your next ore let's negotiate on the price of it. I say no more than 20q for t1. Where should I pick it up ?

If i was selling ore , i would consider your offer. And yes, in one of the games i have played i did pay some pirates to look  the other way .

[XKentX]

2 minutes ago, Umibozu said:

If i was selling ore , i would consider your offer.

It doesn't mater if you want to sell it or not. I want to negotiate on the price. Don't tell me "to f**** ***".

[blazemonger]

The argument "If you do not want to get shot at, put a gun on your ship" feels a bit shallow to me.

 

I don not care for PVP, I accept it exists and accept it may cost me my ship. That does not mean I should not have the option, while still alive and in my ship,  to minimize the potential benefit you may have from shooting at me with no provocation or reason but you wanting to shoot at me. Again, I am not denying that in the game setting you have that choice, but the notion that seems to be prevalent with some PVP players that the game needs to cater to their playstyle in a way that diminishes the options/choices others have is plain wrong and rather sad.  You want to shoot me for no reason, fair enough but stop playing the victim when I choose to deny you your lollipop.

 

Frankly, if while being attacked, I have the time to remove components from my ship and delete contents of my container before the final blow I'd say it time for you to GitGud and do better.

[Umibozu]

1 minute ago, XKentX said:

It doesn't mater if you sell it or not. I want to negotiate on the price. Don't tell me to "to f**** ***".

Firstly i didnt say that , secondly hows that relevant?

[Deintus]

18 minutes ago, Umibozu said:

With current state of game its cheaper to warp than hire an escort, so till atmospheric pvp comes in , this duscussion has no merit.

and as why, i detest people deciding to play role of villain, here is an example:

 

Last week there was a player who got ambushed and killed in pvp while he was trying to relocate, slowboating was only option as he could not afford a warp just yet, so he packed all his belongings and tried his luck.

When he got killed , he tried to negotiate release of his ship and his items, and basically got told to bugger of( i am being nice here)

So dont expect from me any help in getting piracy profitable endeavor.

Not trying to argue. At the end of the day the main topic of the thread is "Does NQ mean for it to be this way/Will it change"

 

I stated my view. You stated yours. Now it's up to NQ to see what direction they want the game to go in, they have 1 vote for allowing it after modifications and 1 vote for disallowing it altogether. That's what I see.

 

[XKentX]

2 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

The argument "If you do not want to get shot at, put a gun on your ship" feels a bit shallow to me.

 

I don not care for PVP, I accept it exists and accept it may cost me my ship. That does not mean I should not have the option, while still alive and in my ship,  to minimize the potential benefit you may have from shooting at me with no provocation or reason but you wanting to shoot at me. Again, I am not denying that in the game setting you have that choice, but the notion that seems to be prevalent with some PVP players that the game needs to cater to their playstyle in a way that diminishes the options/choices others have is plain wrong and rather sad.  You want to shoot me for no reason, fair enough but stop playing the victim when I choose to deny you your lollipop.

 

Frankly, if while being attacked, I have the time to remove components from my ship and delete contents of my container before the final blow I'd say it time for you to GitGud and do better.

One of the things people don't get is that there will always be guys that have chosen to play "the bad boys" or villains or whatever you call it. That's the point of sandbox.

 

If you provide a good playing ground for the villain(PVP space) they can get their gameplay there and be happy while the folks that don't want to PVP are completely safe in PVE space. Everyone is happy.

 

If the villians don't have a good playground then they come to play to the safe-heaven player's homes. You don't want this to happen. I gave an example above. It is much more destructive to the PVE playerbase.

 

 

 

[blazemonger]

34 minutes ago, XKentX said:

That player decided to establish a base in a PVP zone (or in an area separated by PVP space)

Got blown up in PVP.

People that blew him up are the bad guys.

That player was foolish and took a huge risk, I have no sympathy for what happend towards him I understand his likely frustration though.

People that blew him up are the bad guys, yes. They had no reason to blow him up but wanting to blow him up. If they ignored a plea for payment instead of losing the ship then they are not even pirates, just bandits.

 

 

42 minutes ago, Umibozu said:

With current state of game its cheaper to warp than hire an escort,

Escorts are pretty much a non argument as they would not really work since there is no fleeting mechanics in game..

 

  

9 minutes ago, XKentX said:

One of the things people don't get is that there will always be guys that have chosen to play "the bad boys" or villains or whatever you call it. That's the point of sandbox.

Actually people get that just fine and this whole argument is not actually about that

 

9 minutes ago, XKentX said:

If the villians don't have a good playground then they come to play to the safe-heaven player's homes. You don't want this to happen.

You are actually wanting this to not happen as you want the game to shift towards a point where you can do what you want while your victim can't by denying them perfectly reasonable options

[Umibozu]

3 minutes ago, XKentX said:

One of the things people don't get is that there will always be guys that have chosen to play "the bad boys" or villains or whatever you call it. That's the point of sandbox.

 

If you provide a good playing ground for the villain(PVP space) they can get their gameplay there and be happy while the folks that don't want to PVP are completely safe in PVE space. Everyone is happy.

 

If the villians don't have a good playground then they come to play to the safe-heaven player's homes. You don't want this to happen. I gave an example above. It is much more destructive to the PVE playerbase.

 

 

 

Playing the villain and being a villain, there is a difference , at least to me.  When you come to play to safe-heaven's player home, you stop being pvper/pirate and become a griefer nobody wants around.

[blazemonger]

3 minutes ago, Umibozu said:

Playing the villain and being a villain, there is a difference , at least to me.  When you come to play to safe-heaven's player home, you stop being pvper/pirate and become a griefer nobody wants around.

Let's not pivot from the OP which has nothing  to do with  this

[Umibozu]

6 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

Let's not pivot from the OP which has nothing  to do with  this

My bad, got carried away. Sorry

 

Here is a thought,  If a pirate blows a ship, then offers it back to the owner for a fee or takes half the cargo, gives the rest back, he will have a chance to go at the person again, because , they will know they will loose only part of their cargo/ some money, and they will try again and wont be so eager to destroy the cargo. so more targets for the future.

 

Take all of it, that person will never try again. Less and less potential targets.

 

Be a smart pirate, not just a pirate

 

 

[Penwith]

DU needs to get rid of the 29,999 max speed, end of story.

 

Right now, there is a primacy of attack, when it comes to pvp between pirates and non-pvpers. A ship already traveling at max speed has an advantage, and with a decent pilot, he/she can maintain lock on their target until it is crippled or destroyed.

 

The defending hauler or non-pvp optimized ship has far less in the way of actual active or passive defense than this game needs, and until such is added, the defenders' ability to delete elements and trash cargo is their only real option, once they realize they cannot escape their fate.

 

The primary defense against piracy is eliminating or reducing the window of engagement, when one cannot simply avoid  the pirates. While some cavalierly state that haulers can just approach their destination from a less-used angle, the obvious and easy counter is for pirates to deploy scouts along the previously lesser used approaches. The haulers will still suffer the same fate as they simply cannot generally carry enough fuel to try many different approaches on a single trip.

 

Since there is a max speed, the usual means of reducing the engagement window is out of the question, and that is to be too fast for the pirate to effectively engage or pursue. If the pirates have friends orbiting the approach vector, at max speed, there's nothing the target can do beyond attempt to veer off (which causes its own set of problems, potentially) or pray they can survive the soon-to-be-incoming fire.

 

As a juicy enough target will be pursued, veering off is a delaying tactic at worst and a gamble at best; gambling the pirates will run out of fuel or low enough on fuel that they cannot return to a refueling point or base and so must break off. As pirates often work in groups, veering off may just simply put an as yet unseen pirate in the target's path.

 

Others argue the hauler should just put weapons on the ship and shoot back. This a silly argument. Haulers, by the nature of ship building, need to prioritize cargo, lift/engines, and fuel over everything else, to be efficient. Where one decides to skimp on cargo or fuel, weapons and armor can be added, but this adds further risks to the hauler in the need for additional trips back and forth or for having less fuel to use to avoid pirates by approaching via lesser used paths.

 

Pirates tend to focus their ships on one, perhaps two, things, non-of which hinder their ability to choose a victim and go after it.

 

Where I would like to see the max speed eliminated, I do believe that a max acceleration rate should be applied, per core size, with the larger core possessing a lower rate of acceleration and the xs cores having the highest. This would mean that pirates could just park in space, waiting for a particularly juicy target, and then burn after it when they opt to do so. Yes, they can do this now, with the max speed limitation, but were that removed, it would be a much more viable and consistent tactic. Also, detection of ships should depend partly upon their speed, with unmoving ships being not much more than a hole in space, with fast ships creating a large and long exhaust trail, bright light at the tail of the engines, etc.  Meaning, that pirates, under my scenario, could just sit silently, if an escorted hauler passes through their area, being virtually undetectable by the hauler's defenders...the pirate(s) await less dangerous pickings to show.

 

There's far more to it than what I have written here, including actual long-range, self-guiding missiles and not rocket pods, ECM, ECCM, ablative/refractive armor, kinetic armor, reactive armor, shields, etc., but at the very start, DU could be a much better game for it by eliminating the max space speed and instead going with a limitation to absolute acceleration. Humans cannot, as a species survive much more than 9gs of acceleration before bodies cannot take it and we pass out, and this for only brief moments as we cannot endure 5gs for more than two minutes. Now, as this is the far future, we can make allowances for science and evolution, so perhaps a limitation of 15g or 20g, perhaps more, but there's no rational reason why one could not survive traveling 100,000kmh in space, aside from bumping space rocks and debris (which this game mostly ignores) becoming catastrophic collisions at that speed.

 

So, pirates complaining about their victims dumping cargoes and trashing their ship elements is...poetic justice.

[Olmeca_Gold]

1 hour ago, Umibozu said:

which quite often ends up in them quitting.

Eve Online actually gathered data on this and it turned out that the new players who lost ships early on were likelier to stay in the game. Meaningful human interaction makes the game interesting, no matter which side you are on.

 

The game can better educate new players about what to do and what not to do. Keeping piracy completely unviable is not a real long term answer to any problem.

[Penwith]

1 hour ago, Olmeca_Gold said:

Keeping piracy completely unviable is not a real long term answer to any problem.

Funny, enough people currently make quite a lot in salvage of ships they have captured, so piracy is currently not even close to unviable.

 

Where the question of viability is answered is in the tactics used by the pirates, not by the victim. This is why, from all the evidence I have seen via video, forums, and chat discussions, groups of pirates are far more successful than those who go it alone.

 

With enough firepower brought to bear on a target, in a relatively short period of time, the victim simply runs out of time in the decision loop of "can I make it?" or "screw it all, I've lost everything!" and then begins the process of tossing overboard all of their valuables. And this depends on whether their ship design allows them access to their containers while in flight. Smarter ship designs do, the economical ones quite often won't. Simply viewing the different ships venturing off into space shows us that.

 

This latter fact will change as ship building theory and practice evolves.

 

Also, early on in EVE is not same as here. Losing the vast majority of your major investment to pirates is not an "early on" loss. I lost numerous ships in EVE, some to pirates, most to battles, some to NPCs when I was afk mining, but I always had ready back-ups that I could jump into and go back to what I was doing. In DU, it is quite different, in that few can lose an M core hauler to pirates and then turn around and get into another, similar, ship, load it up with cargo and head back out.  So, it is more of an apples to oranges comparison than not. Also,  in EVE all the combat advantages do not fall on the side of the pirates, like they do currently in DU.

 

For pirates to succeed in this game, there must be a well-grounded mining/industry and space hauling system, where the risk to reward ration is in their apparent favor, but where pirates can infrequently score big payoffs from rich victims. In a situation where the sharks are bigger, faster, and more numerous than the little fish, the risk to reward ratio is so low that haulers will necessarily do everything they can to avoid giving anything to pirates, whether by tossing cargo/destroying ship elements, warping only, or simply not carrying any cargo between worlds outside the safe zone.

 

Of course, there are and will be exceptions, especially when it comes to better organized or larger organizations that can either pay for escorts or provide their own. Yet, the smaller orgs and solo players, will look at the risk and very likely choose from their very poor list of options.

 

I think the long-term viability in piracy requires a much more balanced PVP system (as we can all likely agree), but also an understanding among players who like to steal and destroy the hard work and time investment of others, that if a pirate expects to capture the majority of his victims, soon he will no longer have anyone to BE his victim. Expecting or demanding otherwise is counter to the long-term interests of pirates, regardless of the short-term gain. And if the short-term is your current pirate meta, then I doubt those players will stick around, after "ruining it" for many others.

 

So, in fact, they would not be pirates at all, but trolls...

 

 

 

 

[blazemonger]

7 hours ago, Penwith said:

DU needs to get rid of the 29,999 max speed, end of story.

 

If you want lower speeds, go play a dogfighting game or one of the many "space in a fishbowl" games which pretty much are WW2 style dogfighters just set in space but otherwise following atmosphere physics.. This is a space/SciFi game, speeds in space are higher than in atmosphere, physics are different in space.

 

"I bought this Strawberry Cheesecake, it's great but has issues. Please remove the strawberries as I do not like their taste"

 

[Penwith]

26 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

 

If you want lower speeds, go play a dogfighting game or one of the many "space in a fishbowl" games which pretty much are WW2 style dogfighters just set in space but otherwise following atmosphere physics.. This is a space/SciFi game, speeds in space are higher than in atmosphere, physics are different in space.

 

"I bought this Strawberry Cheesecake, it's great but has issues. Please remove the strawberries as I do not like their taste"

 

If you are referring to me, with this, then you've taken my words to mean the opposite of what they do mean. I am against limiting the space speed to 29,999kph, and would like it to be extended to at least .5c (half the speed of light), because one can at least argue that C-fractional is possible with enough scientific advancement that would prevent the catastrophic destruction of a ship merely because it ran into a single grain of space dust.

 

I'm much more in agreement with space combat ala David Weber's Honor Harrington series, with c-fractional missiles carrying bomb-pumped laser emitters as warheads, but I will take that as much that as DU is willing to deliver. Currently, DU's model is modern air combat in space, and that puts me off it.

[blazemonger]

I guess that is what you get for clicking reply too quick

 

That said though.. on the scale of DU, I think the 30K speed is a fair limit. Maybe we'll see changes in the future but for now I think this is at best a low priority consideration.. There's quite some bigger fish to fry for NQ.. 

 

 

[Penwith]

10 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

I guess that is what you get for clicking reply too quick

 

That said though.. on the scale of DU, I think the 30K speed is a fair limit. Maybe we'll see changes in the future but for now I think this is at best a low priority consideration.. There's quite some bigger fish to fry for NQ.. 

 

 

Your point about speed only really matters when you are dealing with destinations, not combat, but even then a trip to the outer planets would be far better to be taken at 50,000 or 100,000 KPH than the current max.  Again, though, this would require some shifting of design parameters, in that such speeds need or should rely upon the acceleration in G associated with a max acceleration per core size. Larger ships will generally have slower accel rates than smaller ships, given the differential in mass, although mass would be the actual determining factor. However, I think to keep it simple is best, by limiting accel by core size.

 

It would, perhaps, be best to make such a change earlier rather than later, in the development of this game, should the designers come to agree with the idea.

 

Beyond point to point travel, when looking at a hauler attempting to avoid pirates in a known lane of travel, the victim, er player, is currently held to the same max velocity as the attacker, who is already likely on or at least within radar detection range, of the lane. Once detected, the pirate only need to approximate the hauler's bearing, and then burn fuel to achieve near parity with the hauler, whose velocity can be assumed to be 29,999, by the pirate.

 

If max speed we say, 100,000KPH, there's far more leeway in this assumption, if the pirate guesses incorrectly, the hauler has more time, probably much more time, to make a course change or to adjust speed. Right now, with the max speed being so relatively low, and the acceleration to that speed being fairly quick, it takes an on the ball hauler player and a inattentive pirate to achieve the same result, a divergence in engagement probability due to relative speeds.

 

Why this ultimately matters is, 1) a hauler, with very likely a lower rate of accel, could actually burn away from the destination, reach a certain distance and flip ship, then burn towards the destination, in order to attain a much higher closing velocity.  Now, the pirate(s) would need to either be spread out along the route of travel,  (which is what I would do), in order to achieve a few hits with each, hoping for a lucky hit to cripple the target's engines, and then chase it to match speeds and board, or hit it all at once in that brief window of opportunity, hoping to achieve the same result.  Yet, the qualifier here is that the hauler may be going 75,000kph, not 100,000, and with a slower accel rate than the pirates (assuming their cores are smaller, specifically because of the accel advantage), turning to a new heading may be a worse choice than blazing ahead.

 

While my poor explanation does not include mention of all the nuances that this type of combat contains, upon reading it one may see that as vast as space truly is, and that this game attempts to show us, combat in space is currently a knife fight between opponents, usually with them both running at the same speed, but the defender having no real option but to reduce the loot gain by the pirate.

 

Such a change would also allow for much larger solar systems, with greater distances separating the planets/moons, given that they can still be reached fairly quickly by a fast ship, albeit at a much greater velocity than is presently attainable.

 

If a change to this manner of travel were to happen, then I'd be happy to see change to warp travel as well, either limiting its use to travel between solar systems or limiting its use to certain minimum distances outside the gravity wells of stellar bodies. This last would be of benefit to pirates, btw.

[HellToupee]

Speed limit works in the haulers favour as the only chance of catching them is to be in position ahead of them which is easily avoided by not taking the obvious path, without that limit an interceptor is easily going to catch a hauler, the acceleration advantage alone will mean they can now start from behind and overtake with the window only limited by fuel which a ship without cargo will have far more burn time. 

[blazemonger]

Your argument would only be true if your thrust to weight ratio is higher than mine which generally will not be the case.

[GraXXoR]

Pirates are scum. Full stop. Their entire gameplay style is designed to profit off of others’ hard work in a non-mutually-beneficial way. 
 

TBH, they are only just above the bottom feeders that are the gankers, griefers and murder hobos.

 

still the game does need to provide them with a measured and meaningful way to play that doesn’t just end in complete destruction of their mark. 
 

like legitimate cargo dumping leaving a trail of canisters and tractor beams capable of canister recovery... just off the top of my head. 
 

anything would be an improvement on the current state.