Firstly, I'd like people such as ryoken, exlibrismortis, Penpen, POZ and alike to stay out of this in case of intentiont s of opening the previous useless discussion.
This is something else: Is the gate locking against the rules? If so, why? Would you want a ship /equipment which would have one purpose only: locking the gate (JH would be better, gameplay-wise)?
I think it falls under the "Abusing Game Mechanics",other thing is when it is used in RP by Police
' Wrote:I think it falls under the "Abusing Game Mechanics"
Yes, the same way like shooting people falls into that. It's there and it works and the game knows about it. The time-out block is something different, however I do not think necessarily bad thing.
Elaborate.
' Wrote:Yes, the same way like shooting people falls into that. It's there and it works and the game knows about it. The time-out block is something different, however I do not think necessarily bad thing.
Elaborate.
Do Xenos have resources to control Jump gates? I'm aware of them having guns. So one action is completely inRP (shooting) but I'm not sure about locking gate, it comes closer to abuse of game mechanics. There is little RP justification in doing so. Random gate failures make things more colorful though.
Unlawfuls shouldn't be able to use jumpgates in the first place. Blocking gates is using game mechanics. If it is abusing or not is merely opinion, in the end, it's a decision by people "in charge" if it's within the rules or not.
Gallia locked their gates. Liberty and Bretona locked their gates (SP) why cant the police and such do so now? no idea.. they lost the keys perhaps? the hackers swallowed them?
actually It would be better to have the ability to lock the tradelanes. stopping smugglers, blockade runners, pirates, terrorists from using gates to escape, and keeping people out of Alaska. all things that would be done in real life, but not in a game.
edit: and i completly missed the point..
pirates blocking gates? thats just rude, and an exploitation of game mechanics, unless it is the hackers. its not against the rules though...
Gates are automated structures. Their coding is to allow a single ship access at a time. A pirate beginning a gate sequence to delay a transport's use of the gate is completely in-roleplay, as it takes in a safety measure built into jumpgates that are also in-roleplay. It's not abuse of game mechanics, it's abuse of a safety feature on the jumpgates. It also turns on their ship's autopilot. Locking a gate does one of two things; Makes them jump, or puts them into the sequence or queue, where they are able to be fired on by the transport. If the transport is smart, he'll enter the dock queue, find the pirate who got into it ahead of him, and shoot it till it leaves the docking sequence, at which point his ship will be the next to begin using the gate.
If said pirate is getting shot at by the gates automated defences, one would think that it would not allow the pirate to enter the queue in the first place.
It's not really abuse, although in my opinion only the Hackers would be aware of this on the unlawful side. Dab said everything.
Just saying,
In flak 88 you can shut down jump holes and jump gates by just shooting them.
Anyway, dab explained it in a RL'ish/RP'ish way which works for me.