Alternative Options - Printable Version

Alternative Options - Printable Version

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RE: Alternative Options - Ash - 05-23-2015

(05-23-2015, 05:06 PM)Crackling Wrote:
(05-23-2015, 05:04 PM)Ash Wrote: FL shoots trade lane
Copper sees that as an unlawful act
Tries to interact with FL as an unlawful target (to arrest/fine etc)
FL is now labelled as an unlawful

These little situations can escalate quickly into things that are far bigger than the initial event, usually with someone getting killed.

Nothing bad in it. He can insult police inRP, refuse to pay fine and be engaged too, no? Almost the same thing. And I think you can do that.

..by which point the cop is likely to have taken the long line of behaviour which is typical of an unlawful character as an indicator that this FL is indeed acting unlawfully.

There are other points I am happy to discuss but i didn't really want to linger on the particulars of the FL ID which are already widely debated.

RE: Alternative Options - Blodo - 05-23-2015

There are some fine points of OP I agree with, such as bureaucracy (which I sorely believe needs to cut down on the time limits for a start, it should not take 3 months to validate a faction for officialdom for example). SRPs and whatnot should be encouraged, etc. But there are other points that are debatable.

For example take the hardwired RP. This is a case of I think misunderstanding intentions behind the rule. Nobody is going to get sanctioned for 1.7 because they didn't respect an NFZ, I'd say that would be a ridiculous sanction and guy who submitted that would likely get warned himself for malicious reporting and wasting admins time. I'm not sure what precisely the issue there might be, other than amount of info to be consumed if one wants to be aware of all house laws. But this to me is both unfortunate and a bit of a boon. Unfortunate in the respect that, just like real life law, the majority of people do not understand house law universally, and this is fine because the only thing it impacts is their RP and definitely will not get them sanctioned. Maybe blown up at worst. And a boon because, just like in real life, it gives cops something to do other than shoot unlawfuls only. So as I said I'm not sure where the problem is.

Second one is mod systems. Yes, a lot of those are useless and already have been decided to be deleted by next version. But for example you mentioned Omega-9, specifically that it just increases the amount of time it takes to travel in Omega systems. Seems like you hit the nail on the head, because that's precisely why that system was added: to funnel trade traffic away from the jump holes of deep Omega systems back onto the lanes. AFAIK it was successful, so that's the purpose of it, we just need to figure out what else to do with it. There's a couple of other systems like that spread around here and there. They could be removed completely, but coincidentally they are a fix for vanilla connections that have not been very well balanced in regards to the trade system for example.

IDs have already been mentioned, but I'll just add my two cents: I can't think of a better way to sort them out right now. Permissive IDs (like the trader ID back in the day for example) are not vessels to "great rp", they just get taken by everyone as an inevitable "path of least resistance" option. Factions like CR or SCRA no longer get made not because of ID rules, but because the stigma instantly attached to any non canon faction attempt no matter whether hat faction found an ID that would suit them or not, and this is a community issue not a rules issue. The SRP ID still exists, but yes that returns us to the point about bureaucracy.

Then there's the tech chart. It's not really been instituted as a way to stifle people's RP, that would be kind of senseless. The reason why it's here in the first place is for balance reasons. We used to have a fairly free ability to mix and match guns a couple of versions ago, and that of course resulted in the vast majority of players min-maxing their equipment with their ship to get the most OP combination possible. So tech chart was instituted to improve on balance without admins having to chase up OORP equipment setups. The middle ground here is that if you really want a particular set up because you think it will improve your RP, you can submit an SRP for it, and yes its bureaucracy and it could be processed faster and less painfully, but still the option is there and the RP can come from ingame if so needed.

Finally there's the grinding. The only thing right now in Disco that is worth grinding for are caps (unfortunately), unless you get involved in factions then you grind for faction expenses or whatever. If you have a fighter/bomber/gunboat and a 100 mil, you probably wont need to grind for a month unless you spend time ingame 24/7 dying all the time or something. A 100 mil is 4-5 long range trade runs, give or take 3-4 hours of trading. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, if you only fund your characters. POB grinding is another matter altogether, but those need to be rebalanced/redesigned regardless.

End of the day most of the problems raised here, they are either not really problems, they rather show other problems or they are imperfect solutions to past problems. Some of these are real however and I'd like to discuss those more. For example I'd like to hear what else we could do to improve the SRP submission system and faction creation submission system so that it's more streamlined, easier to access, and faster in general.

RE: Alternative Options - Ash - 05-23-2015

(05-23-2015, 06:14 PM)Blodo Wrote: For example take the hardwired RP. This is a case of I think misunderstanding intentions behind the rule. Nobody is going to get sanctioned for 1.7 because they didn't respect an NFZ, I'd say that would be a ridiculous sanction and guy who submitted that would likely get warned himself for malicious reporting and wasting admins time. I'm not sure what precisely the issue there might be, other than amount of info to be consumed if one wants to be aware of all house laws. But this to me is both unfortunate and a bit of a boon. Unfortunate in the respect that, just like real life law, the majority of people do not understand house law universally, and this is fine because the only thing it impacts is their RP and definitely will not get them sanctioned. Maybe blown up at worst. And a boon because, just like in real life, it gives cops something to do other than shoot unlawfuls only. So as I said I'm not sure where the problem is.

While your point is valid and under most circumstances this will not lead to any severe consequences from the admins; i frequently hear assumptions from players about some of these 'rules'. Many believe they are integrated into the discovery server rules somehow and this information is adapted by most newbies (that often tend to be the ones that breach them). In this sense it is safe to say that it is now common knowledge; like firing around a zoner base for example is a no-go, not so much because of the RP, but because of the supposed ooRP consequences.

(05-23-2015, 06:14 PM)Blodo Wrote: Second one is mod systems. Yes, a lot of those are useless and already have been decided to be deleted by next version. But for example you mentioned Omega-9, specifically that it just increases the amount of time it takes to travel in Omega systems. Seems like you hit the nail on the head, because that's precisely why that system was added: to funnel trade traffic away from the jump holes of deep Omega systems back onto the lanes.

Now this to me seems like obsessive balancing. There will always be shortcuts, and there has always been a risk entailed when travelling through hessian/corsair contested space. That was the price of a shortcut in vanilla which some of us may remember was demonstrated perfectly with the S13 <-> Berlin hole way back when. While it was lulzy, there was a clear option between taking the shortcut and likely getting pirated, or taking the safe route through frankfurt. This has never really been a bad thing in my opinion. It's unfortunate to see the geography of the mod changed to force people into positions that will better serve the RP of the mod as a whole. Cross road systems are a terrible idea that wastes time and creates space that nobody knows what to do with. Our opinions obviously differ on this as I think directing activity back to trade lanes is a poor excuse for creating a new system; especially with all of the calls from the community to integrate system ideas.

(05-23-2015, 06:14 PM)Blodo Wrote: Finally there's the grinding. The only thing right now in Disco that is worth grinding for are caps (unfortunately), unless you get involved in factions then you grind for faction expenses or whatever.

--#-#--

POB grinding is another matter altogether, but those need to be rebalanced/redesigned regardless.

I was referring to these examples in particular as they represent some of the 'advanced stages of the game' shal we say.

RE: Alternative Options - Blodo - 05-23-2015

(05-23-2015, 06:53 PM)Ash Wrote: While your point is valid and under most circumstances this will not lead to any severe consequences from the admins; i frequently hear assumptions from players about some of these 'rules'. Many believe they are integrated into the discovery server rules somehow and this information is adapted by most newbies (that often tend to be the ones that breach them). In this sense it is safe to say that it is now common knowledge; like firing around a zoner base for example is a no-go, not so much because of the RP, but because of the supposed ooRP consequences.

This is true and I saw it myself. But the main issue with these players is that they aren't really on forums to begin with, so they can't educate themselves. I'm open to ideas how we can communicate to players that house laws are different from server rules, and can be broken with only possible RP consequences as opposed to hard sanctions.

(05-23-2015, 06:53 PM)Ash Wrote: Now this to me seems like obsessive balancing. There will always be shortcuts, and there has always been a risk entailed when travelling through hessian/corsair contested space. That was the price of a shortcut in vanilla which some of us may remember was demonstrated perfectly with the S13 <-> Berlin hole way back when. While it was lulzy, there was a clear option between taking the shortcut and likely getting pirated, or taking the safe route through frankfurt. This has never really been a bad thing in my opinion. It's unfortunate to see the geography of the mod changed to force people into positions that will better serve the RP of the mod as a whole. Cross road systems are a terrible idea that wastes time and creates space that nobody knows what to do with. Our opinions obviously differ on this as I think directing activity back to trade lanes is a poor excuse for creating a new system; especially with all of the calls from the community to integrate system ideas.

Here's the thing about that: the shortcut eventually became "the one true way", as was the case with diamond niob (which was on top of everything else also overpowered as a commodity anyway). When it becomes "the one true way", it is like a black hole and sucks the activity away from the surrounding area. During 4.84 diamond niob times the only activity in Rheinland was found in New Berlin around the S-13 JH, and everyone else you found was either heading to or from the jump hole. That's not even a minor imbalance, that's just meh. Sure, I had fun camping the hole in my Hessian and killing everything and everyone and it being a constant battle for survival, but also blowing up the same BHG BC gets old after some time too. Maybe I want a change of scenery? I can't get it because everything and everyone is in New Berlin and heading out. So instead of an uncontrolled shortcut, we create a controlled one, and it's also a more obvious one where one can easily associate lanes with traffic, potential piracy and the need for security.

But yea, once again I'm open to suggestions what to do about O-9 for example other than deleting it.

RE: Alternative Options - Ash - 05-25-2015

(05-23-2015, 08:14 PM)Blodo Wrote: But yea, once again I'm open to suggestions what to do about O-9 for example other than deleting it.

I understand the motive for creating O9 despite not necessarily agreeing with it. It bothers me though that to realise the desired effect a relatively empty and purposeless system was created. When I look at the universe map I see that all the system links are all very linear. If the question is about making the route through the omegas longer, then why not:

Delete an existing optimal route/system link that attracts haulers
Interlink existing systems in a way that makes traversing the omegas more complex

I am in favour of the latter where for example:

Scrap Omega 9 and instead reroute the traffic from O5 through O7 by linking it to Saar or O54. Alternatively you could link O5 to O58 and with smart jump-hole placement, make it the optimal route over the routes via O41 or O55. Then again, you may not even have to make this link, but instead leave it as it is and allow traffic to flow through these systems.

The effect would be the same, it tidies up the omegas and directs traffic to parts of the area that are actually inhabited by the natives.