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+--- Thread: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP (/showthread.php?tid=189123)
Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - ronillon - 07-29-2021
As I understand this, if we want to increase trader/pirate interaction we need following:
A) Motivate traders to trade
Although there should be other comparable credits/hour sources of income, like PvE. Because we want traders to recruit from people who actually like trading, not because it is the most profitable way of generating credits.
- Ore trading is profitable and tied to mining and/or POBs which make it quiet fun to do since it can be a group activity.
- Another way would be to make trading more challenging. For example very profitable route, which leads through "enemy" territory. Route where 5k transport just can't survive without heavy armor upgrades and/or player escorts. Giving a feeling of achievement and engaging while on the route. Again potential group activity.
B) Motivate pirates to sit at tradelanes/gates.
What does motivate pirates to wait for traders?
- Interesting RP sure, but that is hard to affect by gameplay changes.
- Making pirating profitable and engaging. No one wants to wait for hour or more for one single encounter while having nothing to do in the meantime.
- Pirating NPCs would give additional profit and give something to do while waiting for players. (Special "Pirated Goods" or credit cards, allows pirates to get profit even when flying ships with low cargo space like VHF/B.)
C) Increase the chance of pirates encountering traders.
- Making system changes that would force choke points, but that would hurt gameplay in other ways.
- Channeling traders through choke points by preferably circular trade routes that stand out profit wise, to create fairly predictable trader behavior.
We already have stuff like: Pristine Ice <-> Iridium, Aluminium <-> Gold, He <-> He3. And faction bonuses for certain commodities.
- Discouraging traders flying around choke points by making the route not profitable. Either by making it take too long, or by requiring heavy armor upgrades and/or player escorts which cut from the profits or making it outright impossible. Although this could potentially hurt smugling.
As for preventing abuse of NPC transports:
Special commodities that can be only sold on certain bases could limit this to local pirate groups only.
Maybe special stations next to existing bases for sale of pirated goods that would allow docking only ships of the said pirate faction.
If this is not possible to be restricted by ID directly, it could be by special faction reputation that would be forced on IDs.
Example:
Liberty Rogue ID would force Reputation_LiRogueSellPoint = 1, all other IDs would force it to be -1.
Special pirate goods docking port on Buffalo Base would allow docking only ships with Reputation_LiRogueSellPoint = 1
Definitely not ideal but a start for a discussion I guess.
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Czechmate - 07-29-2021
At the end of the day only one thing matters - if Pirates and Traders have fun interactions and consider the other person's enjoyment too.
If people don't they will avoid interactions no matter what system.you put in, simple as.
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Hidamari - 07-29-2021
the bomber balance is absolutely disgusting right now, im not sure who did it but it is easily the absolute worst experience one can have in this game.
as a trader when i used to play a whole lot you could defy a pirate in a bomber and attempt to flee.
now there is 1 option you capitulate or you near instantly die.
making this relationship between pirates and traders boring as there is no variance in the interaction.
you die so quickly infact that really the bomber might as well have administrator cannons.
if you're more than 4k from a place to dock you're 100% dead.
It is an experience that made me actually think "wow, maybe there really is no saving this place".
Not only would I not want to ever experience that again, id never want anyone else to experience that either.
Why would anyone ever put themselves through that?
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Czechmate - 07-29-2021
I mean you don't have to die - you can fulfill demand
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Skorak - 07-29-2021
I guess one could make it so that killing a transport also has the chance to drop some extra stuff with the pvecontroller.
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Karlotta - 07-29-2021
The way in which we need to raise trade/pirate interaction is by concentrating trade along the same routes that can actually be "camped" by pirates without dying of boredom or frustration. And to do that you need to:
1. Reduce the number of possible routes that can be taken like this: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=157354
This also drain the irp remote/unexplored/fringe/isolated systems and gives them another feel than "another system with 4-5 jump hole exits to all sides, yawn"
2. Additionally focus trade along "highways" by adding more alternative sell points for commodities/ores right on those highways.
3. Add alternative activities right on (within radar range) those highways:
- Immersive PvE zones that fit in well in the lore, which reflect the most important conflicts in a logical place for it to take place, not just random points where X small fringe faction fights house Y and for some reason faction Z also shows up
- low profit npc piracy
- Mining fields also on highways and not just at the ends of them, within radar range of a lane so pirates can make a surprise attack from them
- things like quasi-lawful casinos with associated race tracks or irp dueling zones
When a trader sees pirate activity in a system, there must be a chance that the pirate is busy doing those things instead of camping at lanes, so there is a chance to slip through in his mind.
About leading trade route through enemy territory, that would be smuggling. But for god sakes make it realistic. Pirates can camp 1-2 systems out of their home systems, you dont need to lead a lawful trader route right through omicron gamma to help corsairs with activity. Make actually taking the "dangerous" route realistic and immersive, dont make oorp behavior (lawful factions trying to slip through gamma or Virginia without permission) high profit, for christ's sake. A perfect example of a botched attempt of creating activity with unimmersive stuff that barely misses the mark but still misses it is the pristine ice route from cortez to delta:
- commodity of "pristine ice" ice unclear what its even supposed to be or what its used for
- shipping ice over several systems, almost all of them containing ice themselves.
- routes bait lawfuls into either breaking liberty law (virginia way) or waltzing right through an alleged fierce pirate strong hold (gamma). The only thing that keeps that constellation from creating stupid situations every day is that both virginia and gamma are oorply dead empty systems when they shouldnt be irp.
- pve and mining zones in cortez so far from the lanes they may as well be even farther from the "highway", since the large distance keeps them from generating any interactions with random travelers.
But I'm writing this fully knowing that once again, it's totally pointless. We have 20 small problems, all of which can be addressed, but one giant problem that keeps all of them from being solved: It's that those who have the power to solve them don't engage in any kind of rational discussion, especially outside their echo chamber channels. If you're lucky one of them will read far enough to post a roughly related meme that does nothing but show that he didnt even understand what was being said, and act offended when you mention his behavior later on. If you very lucky you'll get a "yeah I thought about doing that some time ago" about one of your 7 suggestions, and nothing more will happen. And don't forget the "I'm ignoring it because you're angry that I've been it ignoring it for years".
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Hemlocke - 07-29-2021
Only part of what Karlotta said that I'm iffy on is putting mining locations on highways, I'm not entirely sure how well that'd go because it'd make coming from any angle other than from the trade lane rather unviable for a solo pirate. I guess if the assumption was group pirating then my concern is pointless.
Can't really add anything to the rest of it, pretty good ideas.
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Haste - 07-29-2021
(07-29-2021, 05:06 PM)Hidamari Wrote: the bomber transport balance is absolutely disgusting right now
FTFY. It's not bombers - which have to be at their power level to actually do their job against capitals - that are the issue. It's not even the rework. Pre-rework a Hellfire Rocket Pod bomber could shred an armoured 5k in something like 15-20 seconds. It wasn't any better. SNACs even have a much lower multiplier against transports now than before.
While the majority of ships in the mod have gotten buffed into viability over time, Transports are the only class that instead has seen more nerfs than buffs - at least when looking at 5ks, the most common choice of transport. This is dumb.
Realistically transports are perhaps tied with gunboats in how direly they need a balance pass. They might even have gunboats beat. Transports need vastly more survivability in return for - probably - slow travel times under fire (destructible thruster(s) that provide the majority of their speed, for example). This would make piracy much more interesting, and if the time-to-kill of transports was high enough it would even make escorting an actual viable activity. Yes, I know, escorts can fly ahead. I mean escorting in the way you see NPCs do, where they fly alongside their transport convoy leader attempting to defend it. Good luck doing that now, or at any point in the past decade.
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Lusitano - 07-29-2021
why traders would care about rats? i mean pirates? about 90% of the pirates enconters i ever had has not more than "give me X M or die! "5% has a bit more like " hello trader what you have there? what about you give me a donation of Xm? no ? then die" in other words, prime RP . Hidamari is right but that is not even the worse, capital ships against traders? wtf?! "Ohh you can pay " yeahh pay one, next system pay another, another trade lane pay another, and at the end it was just losses, and all to some rats that sit their ships on the trade lanes waiting. if people want to see more people trading, they should give traders good chances of sucess, and not certain loss or death.
RE: Pirates vs Traders PvE/PvP - Corile - 07-29-2021
(07-29-2021, 05:06 PM)Hidamari Wrote: now there is 1 option you capitulate or you near instantly die
As it should be, although this is not even remotely the case.
If you decide to fly a 5ker without escorts, there is no reason why you shouldn't instantly die to a pirate.
Transports should be easy to kill because this gives people the incentive to either fly small cargo transports that are more combat capable (like the BWT, Scarab or even Bison), or fly 5kers and hire escorts.
If you make 5kers combat capable, there is no reason to fly anything else for trading.