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On Warp and allowing Pirates the chance but not guarantee to catch their prey.


Corphius

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So I recently read a post about warp and how the pirates feel like its annoying because it makes it too easy to escape danger. First off I totally agree that there has to be a way for them to catch prey as this is their play style and what is fun for them. At the same time I would like to avoid gate camps like in eve that make it impossible for a solo guy to travel to certain places. How about some sort of mechanic that makes the emergence point random someplace within the target bodies sphere of gravitational influence making it so that pirates can't just sit in the only doorway to a particular point of interest forcing them to deploy in a way that they can cover a certain area where they expect to catch some prey. On the other side of that you could have ships coming out of warp release a high energy signal like a photon burst or somthing that the camping ships will see on sensors to allow them to take action and burn to intercept. This gives both sides an equal chance of completing their goals while making it fun and exciting for both sides. The picking up of the "signal burst" should also be effected by time lag proportional to the distance from the source and the speed it would take the  light to reach the observer. This would give the person coming out of warp a few seconds or tens of seconds depending on the distance to get on their best course and have a chance to escape while still leaving the attackers the chance to do what they do. I would like to see more emphasis on the use of sensors and radars in conjunction with the vast distances encountered in space because if I had a matte black hull and I was say 10k km away from you; you would have to rely on sensors because we simply can't see that far. While I understand the importance of piracy in a believable scif world I also think we need to consider the time investment. If it takes a guy hours to locate and mine a substantial amount of minerals to sell it should also take a guy hours to find and act on potential prey. Since its a game it should not be that easy for a pirate to make the money a industrialist makes in a shorter amount of time than the guy spent traveling and extracting the loot. Again I'm not against piracy I think it makes it more fun when I have to factor in those risks lets just make it more of a game of witts and tactics than a game of who has the most meta ship/fleet that can just sit in one spot and wait for people to shoot.

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Playing a bit of "devil's advocate" here so take it for what it's worth.

 

I will pull arbitrary numbers out my rear to try to illustrate my point, these numbers are obviously not factual, but to understand you, you are saying that an industrial player should make say 50k per hour of game play, but a pirate should earn 30k per the same hour?

 

With that part I will disagree. An industry can be automated for an hour to make that 50k with the player free to craft, travel, mine. A pirate has to wait, watch, pay close attention, and risk life and ship for 30k. That system definitely pushes against pirates and penalizes them. If that is the point then I misunderstood your part about agreeing with the side of pirates. Most modern games try to balance a players virtual income with the amount of virtual work they do, so that no matter what path you choose, two players starting the game at the same time can be more or less even a month later. Only when a game design does not want a lot of players in a particular job will they do something like that. (*cough* schematics *cough)

 

Now do *I* believe pirates should make as much as a law abiding citizen? No, I don't (Is that @XKentX I hear running down the forums to address that statement? lol) but that is based upon my own interpretation of the ads and roadmap of the game. The PVP was idealized between orgs/factions and not individuals. (or so it appears) Of course, to make for example, that blockade of Talemai work as I am sure they are trying, moving out the warp in safezones is a must. The pirates will end up benefiting in other places until a player police force could be established. (Don't worry, not holding my breath, funding a police force is way beyond the current state of the game.)

 

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They still have to break fast travel so pvpers can get more free lunch which seems counter productive.

They still have to add defense to the game and PvPers want more weapons.

They still have to add traps and other tools to slow down or give a non PvP person a chance to retrieve their ship

They still have to add territory wars and it serves the purpose of what is being asked here. You cant escape because you are rooted to the land.

They still have to make reasons to fight and not just im a megaorg with almost 1 trillion vs your mom and pops outfit vs amazon with a military.

 

The effort does not equate to the time frame of quantifyable results for progress it takes to make ships worth flying or losing.

Just because the devs didnt design pvp to happen does not mean that people should be entitled to anything

Just because nobody wants to fight you or wants to use fast travel does not mean im trying to flee you as much as the virtual road trip im on.

Just because you see my ship does it mean you dont have to put 120mil h worth of effort to take my ship as I put into it.

Just because a pvper camps out in a spot for 10hrs does it mean they should be guarenteed anything

Just because PvP exists does not mean it should ever be a shortcut to all other grind infested playstyles or that my effort be served on a silver platter to you.

Just becuase you dont want to chase or run down players does it mean that im against it as much as the 30k kmph limit and the only option being to warp.

 

There is no real downside to going pvp vs the total losses on the other side with no recourse or balance. I know you want to PvP but warping costs me likely cost me more than the pvp ships coming after me alone not to mention the hardware and cargo.

 

At what point does your need to take my stuff negate the need for me to keep it or to have any chance at progressing if the only option once disruptors are added or that the warp gate distance makes it so that efficiency will win out and players find another way to exploit this game to take out all their competition right before territory wars drop. If you already steal everything then what is there left to steal? Since you will be forcing people to use up all their reserves to keep trying to progress but cant. To those who have excess surplusses that is not an issue. To those who got kneecapped or still paying JC's hostage ransom to get their industry back or building a new one from the ground up will quit. As more people run it they quit. Less and less pvp happens and everyone gets bored and quis since this game essentially sucks ass on all cylenders and the games being mimiced here do it better anyways. Is that what PvPers really want? To get silver platter sack lunch handed to them until they kill the game before launch? BC that is what will happen.

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19 hours ago, Deintus said:

Playing a bit of "devil's advocate" here so take it for what it's worth.

 

I will pull arbitrary numbers out my rear to try to illustrate my point, these numbers are obviously not factual, but to understand you, you are saying that an industrial player should make say 50k per hour of game play, but a pirate should earn 30k per the same hour?

 

With that part I will disagree. An industry can be automated for an hour to make that 50k with the player free to craft, travel, mine. A pirate has to wait, watch, pay close attention, and risk life and ship for 30k. That system definitely pushes against pirates and penalizes them. If that is the point then I misunderstood your part about agreeing with the side of pirates. Most modern games try to balance a players virtual income with the amount of virtual work they do, so that no matter what path you choose, two players starting the game at the same time can be more or less even a month later. Only when a game design does not want a lot of players in a particular job will they do something like that. (*cough* schematics *cough)

 

Now do *I* believe pirates should make as much as a law abiding citizen? No, I don't (Is that @XKentX I hear running down the forums to address that statement? lol) but that is based upon my own interpretation of the ads and roadmap of the game. The PVP was idealized between orgs/factions and not individuals. (or so it appears) Of course, to make for example, that blockade of Talemai work as I am sure they are trying, moving out the warp in safezones is a must. The pirates will end up benefiting in other places until a player police force could be established. (Don't worry, not holding my breath, funding a police force is way beyond the current state of the game.)

 

I just think that a pirate shouldn't get in minutes what a miner spends hours making thats all. So yeah I may have worded my last post poorly. And I totally take that back if it actually takes a pirate hours of stalking and standing watch to catch some cargo ships. It just seems like right now there should be lots of opportunities with everyone having  to rely on mining for money. It would just suck to spend all that time for someone to steal it with less effort. Also it probably would help to know that I don't really mine or pirate im more or less just trying to get into the conversation lol.

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As long as there's no way to defending against pirates with with meta ships... and there's not atm... it needs to be easy to avoid combat.

 

The only legitimate purpose for combat at the moment is to test combat and that's best done between willing participants who don't have anything to lose cause they're flying easy-to-replace borg cubes. 

 

When weapons are better balanced and defensive systems exist, so that escaping an attack is possible, we can talk about exposing non-combatants to the risk of attack.

 

Pirates should not get free access to the goods I spent hours collecting. They should waste a lot of time on ships that escape from them before they catch someone off guard and they should be risking serious losses if they happen to go after a Q ship.

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1 hour ago, Daphne Jones said:

When weapons are better balanced and defensive systems exist, so that escaping an attack is possible, we can talk about exposing non-combatants to the risk of attack.

I have not encountered pirates yet, but I heard that if your ship is maneuverable enough you can escape by changing your vector so they cannot close distance. Is the issue that this is not possible or that it is impractical to make hauling ships that are maneuverable enough? Perhaps hauling ships with a focus on escape capabilities could be an area of ship design.

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1 minute ago, fiddlybits said:

I have not encountered pirates yet, but I heard that if your ship is maneuverable enough you can escape by changing your vector so they cannot close distance. Is the issue that this is not possible or that it is impractical to make hauling ships that are maneuverable enough? Perhaps hauling ships with a focus on escape capabilities could be an area of ship design.

I've only encountered them in a ship with no radar, so there was no hope at all.

 

But certainly a ship carrying cargo is never going to out-maneuver a dedicated combat ship.

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