[Tritian]

Originally Posted by netburnrol

You can also be the little guy. Or you can be the coward that attacks the weak and is chased by the warrior.

THAT IS WHAT JUMPGATE IS ABOUT. You can't just say, well the weak shouldn't be weak, thats not fair. Thats LIFE, and even in your books, its still true.

Without the weak, there is no need for the strong, without the strong, there is no need for the bad guy, without the need for a bad guy there is no need for the weak to be worried, without worry there is no excitement, and without excitement, there is no fun.

Very true net. If only everyone understood this. You cant remove victims without removing extremely vital aspects of gameplay from the rest of the game. This is what drew me towards Jumpgate in the first place, and got me to recommend it to all my friends. The fact that you could do anything, be anyone.

It's extremely unfortunately that Jumpgate Classic destroyed all of that with the insane bounty rules it currently has, and the horrible Military Tag/War Meter system which hampers player driven RP greatly.

I think ND should find ways on making the consequences of death easier to cope with for the haulers, rather then removing extremely important key aspects of the games mechanics.

[Eraser55]

Originally Posted by GrimGriz

And, here's the definition of how "pirates" in jumpgate work:

• The inability of the victim to exact some means of retribution beyond utilizing similar game mechanics.
• The intended purpose of an act of "interaction" must be to negatively impact the game play of another person.

Note! What you say is true to a point. But only if you are expecting everyone to have every other ships ability at any time. And that is not possible or intended by the game developers.

I quote again:
Griefing may not occur if the perpetrator's intent is not to negatively impact the victims game play or if the victim is capable of exacting retribution at the present or in the future. The perpetrator must have an unfair advantage that was not intended by the developers of the game to exist.

The second point is that being pirated does not impact negativly on all players of this game. Quite many find it exciting danger that may or may not happend to them.

And any player that does experience this and find it to negative to resort to quitting the game does not understand how this game works at all and is to dumb to find a solution for getting back at the pirates.

And yes. If it is intended in the game, and you dont like it. I believe the often used phrase, find your self another game is valid. Carebear.

[netburnr]

I agree Trit, and thats where the whole discussion came up on the cargo being podded. That way of the hauler were to come back, they could pick up (most of) their stuff and continue with their day.

Also, I heard that Jumpgate Classic now has insurance on equipement hauling, which IMHO should have always been like that. Loosing 300-500M because you were hauling instagators really fucking blew, and I never understood why they would have the insurance like that.

Ok, so your mining for 2 hours, and a flux (or pirate yarr) comes by and blows you up. What have you lost? 2 hours, maybe some good ore. Well if you can go back, and get most of your ore, then what have you lost? 2.5 hours. Ok, so you wasted some time because of some arsehole (or AI).

How about this. The pirate ripped you, he now has a -50 faction standing, he has to run 50 transport missions, guess what, thats more than 2 hours in most cases, not to mention if he gets killed while trying. He doesn't have insurance, he doesn't have armor when he launches, etc etc etc.

Just because you think the bad guy doesn't have it hard enough doesn't make that true. ND has done a lot of thinking to try to stop civ-ripping, and there has to be a line drawn somewhere. CivRipping will be around as long as there are civilian ships. Its that simple.

[GrimGriz]

Originally Posted by netburnrol

CivRipping will be around as long as there are civilian ships. Its that simple.

I agree, all ships should be armed and no longer considered civilians


If they want to keep players as victims in Evolution, they need to make those free accounts, because no one in their right mind pays to be a victim.

[Tritian]

God, you act as if civilians are getting civripped all the fricken time. I bet most non-PvP'ers here, who have been playing Jumpgate for years, can count the number of times they were civripped on both hands. Most likely even one hand.

Furthermore, saying "no one pays to be the victim" is ridiculous. No one pays to play a game where they win all the time either... atleast, not for long.

Oh, and it's not like haulers are completely defenseless either. Perhaps the Tows after that stupid nerf which crippled them, but the Freighter for example is impossible to get killed in with the simplest of tactics. It has so much shield and armor, it's futile for a lone pirate to take it on. All a freighter needs to do to evade or even kill one or multiple pirates is simply make it to the next Jumpgate and nuke the pirates.

[GrimGriz]

There's no such thing as a non-pvper...and THAT is why they haulers and miners need to be able to defend themselves

[ilk]

Grimgriz, it's been a while since I played so some of my memories are slightly vague, but what did/do you do for fun most of the time in Jumpgate? If the answer is haul/mine then your arguments sound like someone trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Now if you were just asking for mining/hauling to be more rewarding then I (and most people) would be totally on board with that. I myself vastly preferred mining to hauling for making money - it was a "real" activity that resulted in material being added to the economy, as opposed to hauling things from station to station to manipulate the prices then hauling them back. I rejoiced when I found that I could just about keep myself in equipment mining pures with a heavy miner, but I still posted arguments for a worthwhile reward model for mining.

However I never once thought "I want to be invulnerable while I'm doing this" nor even "if a dedicated fighter craft wants to go toe to toe with me, I think it is fair that I have an even chance of beating him, even full of ore". To me that's just insane. Now, I apologise if that isn't your exact sentiment but it certainly seems to be.

I think the better way to protect people who want to do economic activities without risk is to put them in "safe" zones where the rewards are relatively low. Arming them just invites attack - you have to remember that the kinds of people who quit because they are civripped are the kinds of people who aren't interested in learning how to fight, making their ships capable will just lead to those same ships being abused (or co-opted) by people who CAN fight. Same goes for turrets - plus I don't want to see AI guns in a skill-based PvP game unless they are area-defense and easily circumvented/destroyed. NOT mobile on a player controlled ship.

[GrimGriz]

Originally Posted by ilk

Grimgriz, it's been a while since I played so some of my memories are slightly vague, but what did/do you do for fun most of the time in Jumpgate? If the answer is haul/mine then your arguments sound like someone trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Everything at one time or another, most recently I did a lot of pvping versus OV while flying for Solidarity. I never took much to arti-hunting, as flying in straight lines out of sight of everything was rather dull to me, and hauling put me to sleep. Jump, line up, accelerate, wait, jump.... I took to mining, especially when the orbiting thing happened, and after that I took to mapping roids and such. It was good relaxation after a long day of work. So, the answer isn't haul/mine, more mine/pvp.

Now if you were just asking for mining/hauling to be more rewarding then I (and most people) would be totally on board with that.

I was fairly happy with how rewarding mining was...my only real wish was that you could complete missions for ore at POS.

However I never once thought "I want to be invulnerable while I'm doing this" nor even "if a dedicated fighter craft wants to go toe to toe with me, I think it is fair that I have an even chance of beating him, even full of ore". To me that's just insane. Now, I apologise if that isn't your exact sentiment but it certainly seems to be.

It's not invulnerability at all, I assure you. However, I strongly believe they should be able to defend themselves. Of course, with my aim, the result would probably be the same, but at least I'd go down swinging. If you take someone with decent aim, Algore for example, I'd be hardpressed to take out his miner if he was manning a turret. A player shouldn't have to be easy prey just because he decides to mine, and a pirate shouldn't be able to pwn all miners and haulers without a wingman or 2.

I think the better way to protect people who want to do economic activities without risk is to put them in "safe" zones where the rewards are relatively low. Arming them just invites attack - you have to remember that the kinds of people who quit because they are civripped are the kinds of people who aren't interested in learning how to fight, making their ships capable will just lead to those same ships being abused (or co-opted) by people who CAN fight. Same goes for turrets - plus I don't want to see AI guns in a skill-based PvP game unless they are area-defense and easily circumvented/destroyed. NOT mobile on a player controlled ship.

I think the only way zones should be safe is if they're actively made safe by players (or even bots). Artificial safezones seem silly to me, at least in the jumpgate universe. I also think part of the reason escorting never worked is because of the 'kinda' safeness of factional space. Most of the time escort duty was boring.

Don't generalize about people quitting after getting civripped. It doesn't necessarily having anything to do with them learning how to fight. I personally think they quit because they realized that Netdevil made them completely defenseless. You really can't mine or haul in Jumpgate without the permission of the people that fly fighters, because you can't defend yourself. If someone decides they don't want you mining, the best you can do is get in a fighter and blow them up...which means they still win, because you're not mining....

Now, about the turrets themselves... I think you're envisioning star destroyer turrets or something......or making a run on a stationary dragon....I'm thinking a lot less dangerous...more along the lines of 2 size 3 or 3 size 2. I agree that they probably shouldn't be AI turrets, unless the AI had worse aim than a player would....or maybe if the turrets were AI controlled they had a reduced rate of fire or something.

There's lots of reasons miners and haulers that could defend themselves against a single vessel would be a good thing:

• It would teach pirates teamwork, because they couldn't harass a solo miner/hauler without putting themselves at risk.
• We wouldn't have to have gentleman's agreements not to shoot haulers or miners. They would know they are valid targets and would be prepared to shoot back.
• Time for help to arrive. Right now, you can park behind a miner/hauler and just hold the trigger until they explode. If they're shooting back and you have to making passes at them, it takes you longer to make them splode, which means help has longer to get there to save them.
• I really miss making attack runs on ships with turret from when I played TIE fighter
• Close-minded fighter pilots might see haulers and miners as actual players, and not just something for them to fight over or harass.

[Eraser55]

OMG, not turrets again... ND, give the miners all the turrest they want. And we will see what happens-..

GG I could break your logic to make telletubbies sound smart, but Im too tired of this turret thing..

maybe later..

[GrimGriz]

Originally Posted by Eraser55

OMG, not turrets again... ND, give the miners all the turrest they want. And we will see what happens-..

GG I could break your logic to make telletubbies sound smart, but Im too tired of this turret thing..

maybe later..

I'm tired of it too, but ilk addressed me directly. I'd be impressed if you could make anyone sound smart though, so I'd like to see that

[ilk]

Originally Posted by GrimGriz

A player shouldn't have to be easy prey just because he decides to mine, and a pirate shouldn't be able to pwn all miners and haulers without a wingman or 2.

Most of what you are saying makes sense, but this is the core issue I think. There is no way around this - if you are mining you are going to be vulnerable unless there is a PvP switch or Uber AI bots to protect you. (Or, heaven forbid, a support system of human beings helping you out in some way)

If I understand what you are saying, you don't expect your miner to be invulnerable or even able to defeat the incoming pirate, you just want some extra survivability so that you feel like you had a chance. You are advocating turrets, so you are a sitting target (unless you have AI turrets, which are just an anathema to me for a skill based game). You can't be talking about survivability through speed and agility, because that would just result in the pirates using the miner to attack you, and given that they won't have a hold full of ore, they will still be faster and more agile. So, what are you really getting? An extra five seconds while the more agile ship circles you to death? Ten? Thirty (a lifetime in Jumpgate Classic PvP)?

I feel if you want to mine in dangerous areas and make mucho credits (which I hope is possible in Jumpgate Evolution) then you are going to be vulnerable, and will require escorts. Solo acts can stick to the paddling pool where AI enforcers can hold their hand, but they shouldn't get a lot of reward for it.

I don't see how beefing up Miners combat ability make any kind of sense - good combat craft will be used for combat regardless of the name in the ship description.

I apologize for hijacking the thread, I've seen this come up a few times in different threads but for some reason the post that triggered my response was in this one