Fixing Piracy

[Karst]

Piracy (or the lack thereof) in the moment certainly is an issue, and although game mechanics surrounding transports are not the only reason for that, it cannot be ignored.

I wanted to post something here about how the distance an average transport can thrust while under fire is simply too great to allow effective pirating, but I wanted some hard testing to back it up. So I brought a test transport to conn, simply thrusting in a straight line, no shooting back, no strafing, nothing but trying to get as far as possible simply with hull, shield and regens.
My transport was an AUVIII Ryuujin, small transport shield.
The results:

Purple Goddess Sabre, three debs: 50k
Solaris/Pulse/Razor Imperator: 30k
Basics Salvager (essentially identical to a light core Basics gunboat): 20k
SNAC-only bombers: 50-60k (approximation. Depending on the exact loadout and the attacker's timing, it can change, but is unlikely to exceed or go below those numbers by much)
Scylla: ~15k
Charon Percheron: ~15k

The fact that I managed to cover a distance greater than half of most tradelanes in a 5k transport with subpar hull and a mere AUVIII and without even the slightest of evasive maneuvers, much less returning fire, says quite a lot about just how survivable transports are.

If you then consider something like a CAUVIII Shetland which has more than twice the base hull of my test ship, I think you'll see there's a bit of a problem here.
By far the most effective pirate ships are in fact other transports - another thing that reveals just how powerful transport-class ships are.
I think it's very reasonable that lower cargo capacity, smaller transports have good combat capabilities and good survivability, but the amount of distance even 5kers can cover while under fire is so high that even low armor variants can simply thrust away from most pirates (I know I haven't included Nova bombers. They're much harder to test, because not moving at all as the transports makes a huge difference. Also nobody could be bothered to log one, soooooo).
Transport shields are incredibly effective, with their unmatched restore delay. And a transport's hull with full bots and even pedestrian AUVIII will last a long, long time.

The argument that pirates "shouldn't be solo" is ridiculous. Transport captains can trade perfectly well solo, so they should be able to be pirated solo as well. Why should the pirate have to come up with allies to challenge a trader, when the trader doesn't?

So, here's some suggestions:

1) Transport thrust speed. A huge factor in transport survivability, obviously. It was buffed totally unnecessarily in .87 - should be reverted to 140 for heavy transports at least, and possibly also 150 for small transports.

2) Transport base hull. Arguably excessive on 5kers. On a non-5ker, you're sacrificing cargo space for turrets, but not armor. 5kers still have so much armor that it allows them to thrust away from most threats in most situations.

3) Transport shields. This mainly concerns bombers. I don't have a big problem the way it is now, simply because I don't necessarily think bombers should be super effective pirate vessels. But as it stands the restore delay on small transport shields (which are the only ones anybody should be using) really ruins bomber attacks, especially with SNAC-only bombers.

4) Something completely different, that was mentioned by Lyth and several others: commodity base prices are FAR too low. If a transport doesn't fear their load of food rations going up in smoke, that's fine. But their load of diamonds, optronics, luxury consumer goods etc. also won't worry them much.
High-value commodities should have their base prices increased fivefold. Or even tenfold. Carrying commodities like that should involve a certain risk.

I'll leave it at that for now.

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[Curios]

@Karst,

yep, most of the points are correct and go in line with my own. I and Zane were doing some testings a while aho with a question of "can the CAU8 liner escape a pirate Roc bomber if he's 50k away from the station". He was simply hitting thruster in a straight line and I was trying to use all means I could to take him down with bomber. So he was able to make those 50k with no regens left but still with a fairly full hull bar which mean he could make another 10 or so klicks. And ye, he was not shooting back - just going there.

So your calculations are close to the truth. If we take into consideration that most lanes are 40-60k long or so that, sometimes, pirates in the middle way can be seen from the other sides, leaves only very few reliable pirate stops in all across the space. Which is bad of cause.

Also I can point that pirates in 4.85 and below versions had a better jump hole network to navigate - jump holes were an actual shortcuts. But now traders go much faster simply by lanes then pirates can navigate via their jump hole networks. And it's w\o taking the complete dumb placement of some moved holes which leaves little to no use from flying through them. Balance ™. It was super stupid move - but the argument is that it's done so transports do not use them as shortcuts for trading. Hello, what? It's a whole purpose of pirating the hole. It's a dangerous route but a faster way to selling point either - so you're paying for speed with possibility of being ambushed there with no lanes or bases around.

Now we're to expect a bunch of traders to ram in here to say that it's all fair and cool.

All in all my points are:

1. Transports needs to lose agility and we need a general calculation methods for matching parameters for transport ships.

For example:

Base armor - 50k
Base cargo space - 2500
Base turret mounts - 6
Base agility - medium transport
Base speed - 120
Base model form-factor - medium sized

1. If we're giving bigger values to the ship, for example armor, then we're decreasing some other parameters with some rate.

Example - we want to mult the base armor by 2. Result - 100k hull armor.
Then we decrease the agility to heavy transport, or decrease cargo space by 700 units or increase ship's model size by 1.4.

Something like that. So in the end we might have either more armored ships and armed ships with less speed and cargo space or you can trade all the defense for cargo space.

This also leaves an interesting ability to make custom ships. This requires just to add special variants of the same ship with same infocards to shiparch.ini and to sale commodity.

So for example there could be 4 Kamome variations for sale with same infocards and model but with different balance of parameter values. (If someone played The Age of Pirates game he'll know what I do mean).

2. Scanners are retarded - max scan range must return to 4k. Seriously, our space is too small for such a long scanning ranges - it's really retarded. Yes, battleship scanners will again become to be just an expensive toy but that price is really worth the effect.

3. Jump hole network needs a rollback to what it was in 4.85 - ideology of adding new holes must follow the lines of More danger for More speed. Not More danger for 2 times more travel time like it is now.

4. Forbid caps from pirating again - maximum we need a new ship type that will be exclusive of big pirate factions - Pirate Frigate with power core and params being lower then of a cruiser but with some far cargo space. Should not have cruiser heavy slots. Lower power core and relatively big sizes of medium cruiser to pay for cargo space and armor\weapons. Real cruisers and battleships need to go and do their war duties somewhere else.

Maybe I'll come with more but it's those main points for now.

P.S. STOP MESSING WITH SPEEDS - REVERT ALL TO SOME 4.85 NUMBERS FOR SAKE.

[Highland Laddie]

Quick questions on your test:

What's the survivability vs 2 bombers? What about vs bomber & gunboat pair?

And...did it ever occur to you to sub-target the 5ker's thruster to prevent them from using it?

[lIceColon]

nothing can be done until pirates realize that player piracy is purely an rp/pvp event with little profit in it, as it should be.

[Curios]

nothing can be done until pirates realize that player piracy is purely an rp/pvp event with little profit in it, as it should be.

Wat, piracy is a way to make money - that's the whole purpose. Traders are cash bags indeed, they would do much more money then pirate can in any day - but pirate is making cash that way as well. Mercing, Pirating, Escorting and any other stuff like that must be profitable enough. Of cause traders pays the bills - it's their part, being a money bags - not PVP barges.

[Highland Laddie]

Pirating/Mercing/Escorting will not pay out equally as Trading/Smuggling. You'll make cash, sure enough, but not nearly on an equal level. That thinking is just false.

[Unlucky_Soul]

The argument that pirates "shouldn't be solo" is ridiculous. Transport captains can trade perfectly well solo, so they should be able to be pirated solo as well. Why should the pirate have to come up with allies to challenge a trader, when the trader doesn't?

So, here's some suggestions:

1) Transport thrust speed. A huge factor in transport survivability, obviously. It was buffed totally unnecessarily in .87 - should be reverted to 140 for heavy transports at least, and possibly also 150 for small transports.

2) Transport base hull. Arguably excessive on 5kers. On a non-5ker, you're sacrificing cargo space for turrets, but not armor. 5kers still have so much armor that it allows them to thrust away from most threats in most situations.

3) Transport shields. This mainly concerns bombers. I don't have a big problem the way it is now, simply because I don't necessarily think bombers should be super effective pirate vessels. But as it stands the restore delay on small transport shields (which are the only ones anybody should be using) really ruins bomber attacks, especially with SNAC-only bombers.

4) Something completely different, that was mentioned by Lyth and several others: commodity base prices are FAR too low. If a transport doesn't fear their load of food rations going up in smoke, that's fine. But their load of diamonds, optronics, luxury consumer goods etc. also won't worry them much.
High-value commodities should have their base prices increased fivefold. Or even tenfold. Carrying commodities like that should involve a certain risk.

I'll leave it at that for now.

First of all kudos on taking the time to do some tests. Your tests have shown a different side of the argument.
now for your suggestion. I will post my opinions on it.

1) I agree with you there. IMO The thrust speeds should be inversely proportionate to the armor the ship has . A bigger and heavier ship should move slower than a lighter one.

2) If the thrust speed is nerfed, the base hull armor shouldn't be touched.

3) Transport shield shouldn't be changed. Advantageous for small transports in this regard.

4) No comments on that. not the right person with the right know how to comment

I would like to suggest some changes regarding 1)
say X is the transport thrust speed

For transports with hull 50 - 70k: No change.
For Transports with Hull 70 - 120k: X - 10
For Transports with Hull 120 - 170: X - 10
For Transports/Liners with Hull 170k and above : X - 10

*Agility should be buffed in certain cases for example where x ship hull is 50k and y ship is 70k. Thrust speed remains same for both but agility x > y. In short the lesser the hull, more agility.

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[Curios]

Pirating/Mercing/Escorting will not pay out equally as Trading/Smuggling. You'll make cash, sure enough, but not nearly on an equal level. That thinking is just false.

I didn't said it's equal - I said all those gentle persons are making cash off the traders, not PVPing with them. It's just hilarious to assume that trader vs pirate encounter is a pvp encounter.

[sindroms]

A PVP encounter does not mean a combat encounter. It means that it is an interaction between two PLAYERS, thus- Player versus Player. It is not a PvE encounter, that's for sure.

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[lIceColon]

@ curios You're right. it can, as I've stated, also be an RP encounter.

If you think about it for just a second, traders make money off the game, an "infinite" resource that does not require effort or compromise on part of anybody else. So suppose a trader makes 20mil an hour. In doing so, he is generating 20 mil for the Disco economy, 20mil that wouldn't have existed otherwise.

A pirate's earnings however is entirely dependent on the trader. Pirates make money off traders, and when a pirate earns, a trader loses. So in order for a pirate to continue earning, traders must be willing to continue losing. Of course, the punching bag experience isn't very fun, so most traders will avoid getting pirated whenever possible, hence piracy isn't a sustainable method of income.

There is no way to buff piracy without punishing traders, and punishing traders isn't very good for the disco economy.