Botfeeding

[Herbivore]

All the community can hope to do is discourage that kind of behaviour,

Uhm... no.

It is actually possible to fix this extremely easily, by setting regen capacity of caps to 0 and add what ever quantity of hull and shield is deemed necessary to compensate.

Even if that was impossible or undesirable for any reason, it would be possible to interdict transfers via flhook like for when you're cloaked.

People would just have to agree to this being done and pressure the devs enough to do it.

Instead, the people who could pressure devs prefer to say "oh people who do that are totally lame and unfair, so lets fly around calling everyone lame and use that as an excuse to be lame towards them".

That's indeed a solution. If you play to exclusively to win. If you don't give a damn about the other side's enjoyment.

This is coming from the guy who has made it a habit for the last 2 years to fly around in gangs of 3 4-years-of-experienc snub pilots, search for single noobs in snubs that they can attack, let 1 ace attack the noob while the other two taunt and IRP insult him, and when the noob runs or base hugs, the other 2 attack too, and when the noob docks and they didn't get their blue message they follow him to the next system and do the same thing again, and then brag everywhere about how all they do is fair dueling, and how noobs try to protect themselves from that by getting help or gettingcaps are so totally lame.

Because doing that is so fair, not play-to-win at all, and caring so much about other people's fun.

[FynnMcScrap]

To be honest, it's just another tactic amongst many. It may be annoying but if you can not kill the cap feeding the snub then you simply brought the wrong ships to the fight. Do not rage about losing if you can't bring enough firepower to a fight.

Never come to a shootout with a poking stick , eh ?

So we all fly around in the biggest possible ship, never loosing or at least not loosing often, because we set winning over everything else ? Oh well... sonds quite exciting to me.

However, since Discovery has no matchmaking whatsoever, if we want fights that both sides can win (which I think we can all agree are the most enjoyable fights), we have to do our own matchmaking.

Nope, I do not think we can all agree on that, and that is the problem.
Not game balance, not rules.

See me right here :
I will rather loose a fight than loose my fun. And as long as my opponent thinks the same it tends to work out well.
If you want to find a reason to botfeed - or to cheat, or to win no matter what cost - or whatever - you will find one.

Your decision to play it that way. Mine to not.
It is still a game , you know.

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FynnMcScrap, Foreman of Tinkers Haven

[Mímir]

On a theoretical level I agree that both sides should be able to fight with everything available to them, including botfeeding, but the game is too old and too modded (hello caps) for that to work out somewhat sensibly.

Maybe a simple solution like Karl's suggestion of adding armor to caps and removing b/b could work? You can give a battleship 10.000.000 hullpoints, and I wouldn't care as long as I can cruise or thrust away. I know Knjaz and other FC's would argue that it radically changes fleet combat, but at least the way I see it that change is easier to adapt to than botfeeding.

With botfeeding you sometimes end up in situations where both sides do it, and the game becomes pointless or it at least forces you to rely on a few very specific loadouts, and the game loses flavor.

The botfeeding promotes gimmick-oriented snub PVP with a heavy reliance on missiles, torps, snacs, MR's and nukes, and while there is nothing wrong in gimmicks as they are definitely things that require a lot of training to master, it ultimately waters down snub PVP in my view.

Also with a decline in player numbers on top of the fact that the ones that still play seem to prefer caps, and a change in general attitude towards winning > everything, it is becoming harder and harder to find a fun fight, and I really don't understand why it has to be like that.

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[Curios]

That is a problematic question on how to fix it. Solution of removing bots\bats from capital ships is a nice one (along with removing bots\bats from anything that have more then 150 of them). But it's a fair pile of work and you'll have to also compensate the hull armor for those ships which can lead to a funny hull armor values with our armor upgrades system. Like if you give a battleship 5 millions armor it'll have 20 millions with CAU8. That's a serious retard and system would need a huge fine tune and many many changes before it's good enough.

However on the topic of bot feeding itself - it's very destructive and produce a lot of bad oorp feelings which is bad for the game. In that case admins\devs have to act quickly - but they do not. Why so? Who knows. Ignoring the bad behavior problems (with LITTLE exceptions towards the persons like Sina for reasons far from attempts of protecting the wealth of community) is a long term dev strategy here so we're not going to see any actions on that front anyway, brace yourself.

[Trogdor]

I would rather see bots/bats replaced with a more complex system of shield/hull repair modules, with basic ones sold on npc bases and improved versions built on player bases.

Bots and bats are completely oorp. Who makes them? Why are they available on every single base? What are they made out of? To me, they are only an oorp representation of one's ability to repair one's own ship.

Imo, unless you're a repair ship, or you're a carrier and a snub has docked with you, you have 0 business repairing another ship. Therefore, I'd rather see repair ships get repair lasers, remove bots/bats, and replace them with regeneration modules. (Being able to push a button and instantly repair your BS hull/shield is pretty silly)

You could make different kinds. For example, let's say you didn't remove bots/bats entirely, just removed the keybind that allows you to consume them, turning them into 'ammo' for a repair module. Then, maybe you can 'toggle' your repair module on and off, and when it's on, it consumes bots/bats and repairs over time. Or you might have one that doesn't use bots/bats at all, and just provides passive healing, but heals for less over time.

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[Curios]

I'd say it's over complication. Easier to remove bots and bats from everyone and to buff the hulls.

[Vrabcek]

Removing them from capital ships might be the most reasonable among all ideas here. Removing them from snubs would bring more harm than good, but thats only my opinion.

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[Trogdor]

I'd say it's over complication. Easier to remove bots and bats from everyone and to buff the hulls.

Except it would influence how fights play out. It would force combatants to be more aggressive, in order to overwhelm their opponent's HOTs, instead of fighting protracted battles where they kite and dodge and eventually wear down their opponent over a very long period of time.

If you just buff hull and remove bots/bats, all you do is make fights last longer. Whereas if the bigger, slower target never runs out of repairs, the smaller, faster target has to be more aggressive, exposing himself more to the bigger target's weapons.

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[Curios]

Well, i doubt anything would change dramatically since all the kiting is being done just to save hull points. People will still be kiting to save hull points anyway.

[Trogdor]

Well, i doubt anything would change dramatically since all the kiting is being done just to save hull points. People will still be kiting to save hull points anyway.

Yes, but if they do, they allow their target to regenerate, too, and both parties regen to full, neither 'runs out' of bots/bats. And so if they want to kill their target, they have to not kite as much.

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