PASSIVE SENSOR TYPES | How to find stuff & a reason to multi-crew

[DivineEvil]

I don't really agree, no. I think there are plenty of other opportunities for PvP where both parties are ready, willing, and happy to do so. Jumping miners, many of whom don't want to fight (and have little economic incentive to, as I've described in detail already), isn't what I'd consider prime gameplay here. Especially when those miners don't really have any counterplay other than "make your ship a worse and more expensive miner and hope you can still beat a dedicated pirate with it".

I will have to jump here on the side of pavvel. I have already disagreed with him on the side of the original topic and how new abilities given to everyone are unlikely to give advantage to a specific party... but what you've been writing here is just nonsense.

Starbase is designed as open world game PvP-oriented game. There's Safe Zones, not PvP zones. There's no PvE. It doesn't matter what miners want - it is about what they have to take into consideration and deal with. If a miner is making a choice to have a ship completely optimized for mining with no defensive potential, its not other's fault. What you consider a prime gameplay is completely irrelevant. If Starbase would not allow for emergent conflict, then your considerations might have hold any water, but it does. That means that every single miner, hauler and explorer have to take into consideration the possibility that he can be attacked anywhere outside of the safe zones. If that player does not make that consideration and instead optimizes for pure profit, that's his problem to deal with.

Anyone who is optimizing for mining income would probably disagree with this, since this is a good way to not make as much mining as you could be. Mining is generally something you want to do quickly and efficiently, and then move on from to go do other things. Taking fights in a bad warship/miner hybrid just slows down that process.

And? That's the trade-off. Either you have a barebone miner ship optimized for profit, or you make a hybrid that can at least protect itself from a semblance of a pirate ship, or you hire an escort of player(s) piloting dedicated combat ship(s) for a profit share. That's your choice to make, and you face the consequences for that choice whether you're actually getting into combat or aren't.

You're essentially saying that the game have to indirectly support and care for people, who disregard any idea of self-defense in favor of pure profit, with no actually argument for why, and it just sounds ridiculous.

 

[Foraven]

The most interesting pvp is not when both opponents are ready. the best pvp is when someone doesn't expect it and didn't plan it.
consensual pvp is uninteresting, it's "pvp for pvp's sake," which makes no sense whatsoever.

Maybe you like when it happen to you, but most players don't. It's an unwanted interruption to whatever they are doing and potentially a big setback if they lose. The kind of PVP you like is generally only fun for the attacker(s) as the victim is given about no chance to fight back. The victims having weapons or not won't change the outcome much because they are likely to have taken lots of damage before they even realize they are under attack.

I have never been interested in the opinion of the "imaginary majority.

Too bad that "imaginary majority" never heard of your opinion.

Especially since there is no proof whatsoever of what you say.

You can make a poll if you don't believe it.

And if you imagine that the online will be 10,000, you are unlikely to be able not to meet with other players while mining.

And you think everyone will go out of their way to attack each others at every opportunities? You can bet there will be a lot of non-aggression pacts by then so the mining is not interrupted.

 

[Foraven]

Starbase is designed as open world game PvP-oriented game. There's Safe Zones, not PvP zones. There's no PvE. It doesn't matter what miners want - it is about what they have to take into consideration and deal with. If a miner is making a choice to have a ship completely optimized for mining with no defensive potential, its not other's fault. What you consider a prime gameplay is completely irrelevant. If Starbase would not allow for emergent conflict, then your considerations might have hold any water, but it does. That means that every single miner, hauler and explorer have to take into consideration the possibility that he can be attacked anywhere outside of the safe zones. If that player does not make that consideration and instead optimizes for pure profit, that's his problem to deal with.

It's already the case, and most will chose to avoid PVP like plague because it hurt their gameplay.

And? That's the trade-off. Either you have a barebone miner ship optimized for profit, or you make a hybrid that can at least protect itself from a semblance of a pirate ship, or you hire an escort of player(s) piloting dedicated combat ship(s) for a profit share. That's your choice to make, and you face the consequences for that choice whether you're actually getting into combat or aren't.

Right now it's easy enough to avoid the PVP when that's not what you are looking for. When the population will be larger, you can bet players will create their own "safe zones" with NAPs and anti-pirates patrols.

 

[DivineEvil]

It's already the case, and most will chose to avoid PVP like plague because it hurt their gameplay.

And? I was responding to what Recatek have said. What is your point here?

Right now it's easy enough to avoid the PVP when that's not what you are looking for. When the population will be larger, you can bet players will create their own "safe zones" with NAPs and anti-pirates patrols.

Again, what is your point here?

 

[Foraven]

And? I was responding to what Recatek have said. What is your point here?

Miners don't want to be drawn into PvP as a rule. They will do their darnest to not end up fighting in their mining ship. Arguing for them to arm their ship is pointless because they will opt for any other solutions because arming their ship means making their ships far worst at mining.

Again, what is your point here?

Jack of all trade ships sucks and nobody wants to fly such ships if they can avoid it.

 

[Recatek]

consensual pvp is uninteresting, it's "pvp for pvp's sake," which makes no sense whatsoever.

I'm pretty sure that most video games are "pvp for pvp's sake" if you consider genres like MOBAs and shooters, so it makes quite a bit of sense. PvP where one side is in a miner (or in a miner turned into a bad hybrid warship) and the other is in a dedicated fighting ship isn't likely to be interesting -- it's usually decided before either side even sees each other, and then at that point the ship class decides the fight more than anything else. That's boring, and is really just target practice for a pirate who doesn't want a more challenging fight. PvP between two sides that are prepared and ready for it has a much more uncertain outcome and is thus far more interesting.

And if you imagine that the online will be 10,000

No, I certainly don't imagine that. Especially not if FB pursues gameplay design with the "too bad, git gud" attitude you're proposing. I don't think Starbase will ever sustain CCU number that high, and so mining will always be more about being hidden than about being hard to kill.

Starbase is designed as open world game PvP-oriented game.

No disputing that. What's in question here is what kinds of PvP the game should prioritize its design around. I believe it should be PvP that both sides want to participate in. That doesn't mean disallowing lopsided PvP, but if a new game mechanic comes in that harms it, then I don't think that that's terribly important a downside. As I mention above, I believe lopsided PvP is pretty low-quality PvP because the outcome is uninteresting. I'd much rather the game prioritize creating situations where all involved parties are in a strong state to participate and the outcome could go in any direction.

There's no PvE.

Well, I feel pretty strongly that there should be. I'd much rather create situations and flashpoints that people go to prepared to fight, rather than relegating all PvP to second-rate "fights" where one side has a huge disadvantage from the get-go and practically no counterplay.

It doesn't matter what miners want ... What you consider a prime gameplay is completely irrelevant ... If that player does not make that consideration and instead optimizes for pure profit, that's his problem to deal with.

You and pavvel both have this impression that players are chained to their desks and forced to play Starbase. If you make the game experience exceptionally crummy for miners, and keep the pendulum swung entirely in pirates' favor (as pavvel is advocating for -- not giving a single inch to anything that might dare harm precious pirate gameplay), miners are just not going to play. They already hardly do. Then the economy won't function, pirates won't have anything to hunt, and everyone will just leave (again). Then nobody will play. There are other games that offer the economy experience that miner/industrial-oriented players are looking for, none of them are forced to play Starbase. The game has to make at least some concessions to them to keep them around despite periodically just losing their ships in lopsided ambush PvP.

That's the trade-off. Either you have a barebone miner ship optimized for profit, or you make a hybrid that can at least protect itself from a semblance of a pirate ship, or you hire an escort of player(s) piloting dedicated combat ship(s) for a profit share.

Only the first option makes any sort of economic sense, especially when you're looking at 1-2 players tops. You're also neglecting an additional option, which is to just not play a game that's an insufferable slog made worse by prioritizing destruction over creation.

You're essentially saying that the game have to indirectly support and care for people, who disregard any idea of self-defense in favor of pure profit

Yes, because that "self-defense" is still wildly ineffective in practice, and you're better off not even bothering from an economic perspective if you're mining to make a profit (which is what mining is all about). Accepting periodic losses of a cheap ship is better than still having almost the same losses of a more expensive, less effective ship. Besides, it's not like the pirate doesn't get to shoot at something either way. From their perspective the gameplay is basically the same -- find a ship that has almost no chance of winning against them, engage, destroy, maybe take some stuff from it. It really doesn't matter much how the miner is set up in this case.

 

[DivineEvil]

Miners don't want to be drawn into PvP as a rule. They will do their darnest to not end up fighting in their mining ship. Arguing for them to arm their ship is pointless because they will opt for any other solutions because arming their ship means making their ships far worst at mining.

Jack of all trade ships sucks and nobody wants to fly such ships if they can avoid it.

Well, that's their prerogative, like I've already said. To try and entertain the point a little bit more, how far worse a ship becomes if you place a pair of tripods on it? How far worse does it make it if you then have two advanced quad-laser turrets on a ship? Like, you're saying yourself that nobody is willing to make hybrid ships. Then how do you know if they're all that worse compared to an unarmed ship? Have you yourself even tried to calculate the amount of additional mass it would take before taking up on that conviction?

No disputing that. What's in question here is what kinds of PvP the game should prioritize its design around. I believe it should be PvP that both sides want to participate in. That doesn't mean disallowing lopsided PvP, but if a new game mechanic comes in that harms it, then I don't think that that's terribly important a downside. As I mention above, I believe lopsided PvP is pretty low-quality PvP because the outcome is uninteresting. I'd much rather the game prioritize creating situations where all involved parties are in a strong state to participate and the outcome could go in any direction.

Well too bad, because like I've said, the game is already designed for emergent gameplay, meaning no rules outside of blatant metagaming and systematic backstabbing. What makes the PvP lopsided is players who do not want to make some sacrifices to make it less lopsided, to defend themselves. By using unproteced and indefensible mining ship, you are deliberately making the choice to lose any PvP outcome, period.

Well, I feel pretty strongly that there should be. I'd much rather create situations and flashpoints that people go to prepared to fight, rather than relegating all PvP to second-rate "fights" where one side has a huge disadvantage from the get-go and practically no counterplay.

Everyone who leaves the safe zone at any point is expected to be prepared to fight. Otherwise they're expected to be prepared to lose by default. There's no alternative. You're essentially claiming that players are virtually incapable of making any competitive PvP without developer's intervention. From your perspective, all the miners are completely incompetent buffoons, who forget how to operate their keyboard the moment some conflict is inbound, and that all pirates are invulnerable aces flying top-grade min-maxed fighters. From my personal experience, you're just wrong, and you will remain to be wrong until you stop looking at the game in black-and-white terms. There is counterplay.

You and pavvel both have this impression that players are chained to their desks and forced to play Starbase. If you make the game experience exceptionally crummy for miners, and keep the pendulum swung entirely in pirates' favor (as pavvel is advocating for -- not giving a single inch to anything that might dare harm precious pirate gameplay), miners are just not going to play. They already hardly do. Then the economy won't function, pirates won't have anything to hunt, and everyone will just leave (again). Then nobody will play. There are other games that offer the economy experience that miner/industrial-oriented players are looking for, none of them are forced to play Starbase. The game has to make at least some concessions to them to keep them around despite periodically just losing their ships in lopsided ambush PvP.

This works both ways. Pirates mine too. They have to in order to obtain and sustain their ships. Thus, if every single fluffy-waffle miner will leave the game, the game will still function because there will be the need to mine and those pirates are going to do it, because for them there's no skill boundary to do so. Any single ship they have successfully intercepted, captured and repaired is a potential tool to supply themselves. Pirates can play against one another, and they can cooperate with one another. Now, in turn if pirates are not given any functionality to do their part, then you will end up with miners hauling infinite resources into the economy and building nothing but larger miners to haul even more ore, completely defenseless and barebone, with the economy having no means of destruction of value.

Pavvel might be wrong in a sense that a feature given to everyone equally to use isn't really give preferences to miners (which I already argued against), but it doesn't make it better to argue in the exact opposite way like you do, because the status quo is, there's no PvP unless you camp someone on the station and chase them out of the safezone, and the economy is completely demolished because of that, there's very few PvP players who just jousting for fun and little to no miners mining anything because there's no point in doing so. You know, the exact opposite of what you're hypothesizing about, except almost nobody is playing.

Only the first option makes any sort of economic sense, especially when you're looking at 1-2 players tops. You're also neglecting an additional option, which is to just not play a game that's an insufferable slog made worse by prioritizing destruction over creation.

What is the economic sense has to do with it? You're literally saying that the only feasible way to mine is to have nothing but flying crates with thrusters on the back! What in the Pip's name have managed to convince you that's the case? Do you refuse to see just how easy it is to earn value right now is compared to any other MMO? What its going to be then when the refining is going to come about? What is going to happen when the environmental hazards will slap you in the face for neglecting the realities of the gameplay in favor of "economic sense"? You do realize that "economic sense" is supposed to involve considerations for risk and to be prepared to face the consequences to taking on that risk?

Seriously, it feels like you've have got yourself so deeply ingrained into the persona of a harmless miner that you cannot even see the current state of the game, where people sell 900+ crate miners and hundreds of stacks in bulk, essentially because you can get whatever you want with no risk involved. Is this really how you want the game to persist?

Yes, because that "self-defense" is still wildly ineffective in practice, and you're better off not even bothering from an economic perspective if you're mining to make a profit (which is what mining is all about). Accepting periodic losses of a cheap ship is better than still having almost the same losses of a more expensive, less effective ship. Besides, it's not like the pirate doesn't get to shoot at something either way. From their perspective the gameplay is basically the same -- find a ship that has almost no chance of winning against them, engage, destroy, maybe take some stuff from it. It really doesn't matter much how the miner is set up in this case.

Oh, ok. How many times have you defended yourself as a miner to make that statement? How many ships have you lost to a pirate while doing so? How much profit are you actually going to lose if you'd arm and armor your mining ship? Give me the figures. As far as I'm concerned, sacrificing a bunch of m/s to being able to carry some weapons and armor and/or building a ship with some additional thrusters to compensate for it always beats having an indefensible piece of junk for a ship. The only reason why this nonsense even works is precisely because there's no means for pirates to find anyone.

 

[pavvvel]

Maybe you like when it happen to you, but most players don't.

Why should I care?

It's an unwanted interruption to whatever they are doing and potentially a big setback if they lose.

"unwanted interruption" ?
This is adequate gameplay. the developers gave the players weapons - the players shoot.

The kind of PVP you like is generally only fun for the attacker(s)

Why should I care?

as the victim is given about no chance to fight back.

Whose fault is it? Mine? Or the player who didn't take care of himself?

Too bad that "imaginary majority" never heard of your opinion.

Why should I care?

You can make a poll if you don't believe it.

i dont care

And you think everyone will go out of their way to attack each others at every opportunities? You can bet there will be a lot of non-aggression pacts by then so the mining is not interrupted.

lot of non-aggression pacts..?

I'm pretty sure that most video games are "pvp for pvp's sake" if you consider genres like MOBAs and shooters, so it makes quite a bit of sense. PvP where one side is in a miner (or in a miner turned into a bad hybrid warship) and the other is in a dedicated fighting ship isn't likely to be interesting -- it's usually decided before either side even sees each other, and then at that point the ship class decides the fight more than anything else. That's boring, and is really just target practice for a pirate who doesn't want a more challenging fight. PvP between two sides that are prepared and ready for it has a much more uncertain outcome and is thus far more interesting.

you can convince yourself of that.
But the fact remains that what happens off script is the most interesting. in the future I ask you not to tell me about it. I am not interested in your opinion about the value of pvp. because I have already made conclusions about you: you care about casual mechanics for "pvp vs. asteroid"


I am struck by your opinion of what is interesting and what is not, based on the fact that the player is flying a ship without weapons.
Whose fault is it that he has no weapons?
Who made him fly the ship with no armor and no convoy?
All of this is the player's fault.
And there is an important question: if he himself does not want to take care of himself, then why should the ganker care and not kill him...?
And please do not write about the fact that the killed player will delete the game - that's his problem too. If he deletes the game just because he was killed in the game - from such a player in terms of content is of no use. While the ganker will upload the battle video to YouTube and will attract new players to the game.

Gankers are the engine of progress. They make players think about what they are doing.

 

[pavvvel]

It's already the case, and most will chose to avoid PVP like plague because it hurt their gameplay.



Right now it's easy enough to avoid the PVP when that's not what you are looking for. When the population will be larger, you can bet players will create their own "safe zones" with NAPs and anti-pirates patrols.

Pvp is plague.........?
Oh....

 

[Askannon]

Let's say I fought off a pirate:
In any case my ship is far from home, most likely damaged and therefor in need of thorough repeairs to kink out all durability errors to make the ship fast enough so that the travel back to a station doesn't take an eternity.
For most it is simply more fun to just give the ship up and use another, especially when the cargo isn't necessarily full with high cost ore though for that you could use coodinates to get another ship there to get the ore faster than a limping ship could manage by itself.


So what did I gain by fighting off the pirate? A chance to maybe get a ship (possibly painfully) back to a station where it then either needs to be repaired or scrapped.
And what if you lost? You're at the same place as if you didn't armor and arm your ship.


So I have to agree with Recatek here that it is simply not ideal to have weapons on your civilian ships (simply based on the result of the engagement).

 

[Askannon]

Whose fault is it that he has no weapons?

Having no weapons is not a fault in most situations, except for one: fights, which miners avoid as much as they can, the same like fighters and gun ships avoid mining
In any other situation they are deadweight (or would you put crates on your fighter).
So I would say the fact that there are no (dual purpose) weapons that would entice a miner to actually carry them.

Who made him fly the ship with no armor and no convoy?

My answer would be the fact that a ship is (currently) undetectable except by sight (or user error) and that convoys require too much effort to both keep close and not colliding, as well as that coordination is hard.
And again, having armor is in most situations deadweight which will just cause the travel time to increase.

And there is an important question: if he himself does not want to take care of himself, then why should the ganker care and not kill him...?

oh, but the miner does take care of themselves.
Except for one situation (and then not even necessarily) a combat miner is worse than a civilian miner with the same budget.
It's just that a civilian miner has little agency before and 0 during a fight, as any damage will just cause the ship to slow down to a crawl, ruining any chance of escaping, whilst simultaneously checking not for ships but for asteroids just before, so even getting a jump start is not possible.

Maybe you will see a rise of combat miners with capital ships (or another form of fast travel) but I don't think there is a big interest in combat capable miners currently, when all they do is eat time.

Gankers are the engine of progress. They make players think about what they are doing.

I would say difficulties are the engine of progress. But when you are ducked any way you don't need to think and just resign to your fate.

Pvp is plague.........?

Never seen rhetoric? Figures of speech like similes? Or was that just a poor attempt at misconstruing what someone else wrote?
so

Don't litter the thread.

 

[DivineEvil]

Let's say I fought off a pirate:
In any case my ship is far from home, most likely damaged and therefor in need of thorough repeairs to kink out all durability errors to make the ship fast enough so that the travel back to a station doesn't take an eternity.
For most it is simply more fun to just give the ship up and use another, especially when the cargo isn't necessarily full with high cost ore though for that you could use coodinates to get another ship there to get the ore faster than a limping ship could manage by itself.

Again, this magical "for most". Seriously guys, you do not have the right to speak for anyone but yourself. Literally everyone on these forums or anywhere else can make appeals to imaginary majorities of players and their preferences, and all of these appeals will have the same amount of value for the argument - none.

I for one will never give up on a ship that can be brought to life. I had restored my ships during CA with just ores I could find nearby, and even that was extremely satisfying. Having a defeated pirate ship nearby makes it easier. Having that ore in your storage helps too. And yeah, if you're getting out of the safe zone for mining Bastium, you're an idiot. The whole point of getting yourself in the harm's way is to get your hands on the high cost ores.

So what did I gain by fighting off the pirate? A chance to maybe get a ship (possibly painfully) back to a station where it then either needs to be repaired or scrapped.

Um, you also get all the ores which you went out there to get in the first place? And, given that you've managed to take sufficient damage to paint the picture that way, you will also have a pirate's ship which you can salvage to your heart's content and the potential loot that pirate himself was carrying like high-tier firearms. Those can cost a fortune as well.

I mean, if your ship truly worth so little to you that you're more willing to just throw them around and get more instead of actually bringing it back together with the haul, that is only an argument for how desperately broken the economy is. It doesn't really point to an objective law of nature by which defending yourself is meaningless. Saying that the "most" would just give up is utter garbage. You will give up, and you will have fun doing that. That's on you alone, and there's nothing good about it.

And what if you lost? You're at the same place as if you didn't armor and arm your ship.

I guess, but at least you had the change to win, instead of being the best prey a pirate could wish for.

So I have to agree with Recatek here that it is simply not ideal to have weapons on your civilian ships (simply based on the result of the engagement).

I have nothing left to say or do here but to shrug, because for me its just a line of thinking of a deliberate prey, who have never in his life have overcame unlikely odds and doesn't know how satisfying this feeling alone is. I feel kinda sorry for anyone who thinks that way.

 

[DivineEvil]

Having no weapons is not a fault in most situations, except for one: fights, which miners avoid as much as they can, the same like fighters and gun ships avoid mining
In any other situation they are deadweight (or would you put crates on your fighter).
So I would say the fact that there are no (dual purpose) weapons that would entice a miner to actually carry them.

You can put crates on your fighter, OR you can have a CLB array to carry loot, OR you can have a barebeam segment to bolt ore stacks to, or you can bolt ores and salvage straight to your ship. None of this matter. The difference between a fighter and a miner is that the latter has means to carry the ore and some optional equipment and it has more thrusters to compensate. All other differences are superstitious.

You can carry firearms, or you can have tripods, or (if your ship is sufficiently large to justify it) a few turrets. This is not about "enticing" anyone. This is about not being an idiot and actually prepare to defend yourself. And if you do choose to be an idiot, then even another miner can pull up a gun on you, and win, and take your haul and scrap your ship. Not because he has a dedicated fighter ship, and not because he's a master fighter pilot. Just because he's not being an idiot like you chose to be.

My answer would be the fact that a ship is (currently) undetectable except by sight (or user error) and that convoys require too much effort to both keep close and not colliding, as well as that coordination is hard.
And again, having armor is in most situations deadweight which will just cause the travel time to increase.

Look, if you're answering a question, at least try to understand the context of the question.
Also no, convoys require nothing but communication and people being able to stay in formation without aiming directly into each-other butts. It's not that difficult.

oh, but the miner does take care of themselves.
Except for one situation (and then not even necessarily) a combat miner is worse than a civilian miner with the same budget.
It's just that a civilian miner has little agency before and 0 during a fight, as any damage will just cause the ship to slow down to a crawl, ruining any chance of escaping, whilst simultaneously checking not for ships but for asteroids just before, so even getting a jump start is not possible.

Maybe you will see a rise of combat miners with capital ships (or another form of fast travel) but I don't think there is a big interest in combat capable miners currently, when all they do is eat time.

Another bunch of unsubstantiated claims. And the lack of concern for context. Also, claiming that any damage will cause you to slow down to a crawl exposes you as a newbie. Checking for asteroids argument before doesn't even make any sense.

I would say difficulties are the engine of progress. But when you are ducked any way you don't need to think and just resign to your fate.

Again, a narrative from a deliberate prey. That is true, if you do not want to think and if you don't bother fighting back, then YOU ARE ducked any way. If that's the case, then why would you even bother leaving the safe zone?

 

[Askannon]

You can put crates on your fighter, OR you can have a CLB array to carry loot, OR you can have a barebeam segment to bolt ore stacks to, or you can bolt ores and salvage straight to your ship. None of this matter. The difference between a fighter and a miner is that the latter has means to carry the ore and some optional equipment and it has more thrusters to compensate. All other differences are superstitious.

The "Context of the question" wasn't that it isn't possible, but that if it isn't useful it won't be build.
And like you wrote, the other options do have more use cases than just to store ore (and won't weigh as much) so they will be used.

You can carry firearms, or you can have tripods, or (if your ship is sufficiently large to justify it) a few turrets. This is not about "enticing" anyone. This is about not being an idiot and actually prepare to defend yourself. And if you do choose to be an idiot, then even another miner can pull up a gun on you, and win, and take your haul and scrap your ship. Not because he has a dedicated fighter ship, and not because he's a master fighter pilot. Just because he's not being an idiot like you chose to be.

As long as fights are avoided you don't need weapons. Nothing else is said.
And with every ship outside the safezone presumably hostile it is always the best couse of action to steer away from any active ship that's being found.
The bit about enticing was more directed at having miners designed with weapons in mind, which, I will admit, I have absolutely butchered.
Carrying firearms or putting a tripod on a ship is thoughtless in comparison to putting ship weapons or even just a tripod bunker on a ship design.
I also don't think anyone looking for a mining ship will actively seek out ships with either feature.

Look, if you're answering a question, at least try to understand the context of the question.
Also no, convoys require nothing but communication and people being able to stay in formation without aiming directly into each-other butts. It's not that difficult.

I did.
Actually finding someone requires so much luck, that flying around without any protection is not punished and with the correlation between speed and weight actually encouraged.

Convoys will have to fly based of the slowest ship.
Formations is what I meant with keep close and not colliding, but I associate Formations more with a strict shape, so I wasn't thinking of that word.
And you somehow forget the most annoying part about convoys: people, as starting a convoy is hard simply due to how long everyone needs to get going, keeping a convoy together is hard because people in fast ships don't necessarily want to stick with the slow ships and some might need to go anyway.
Not to mention when the convoy needs to stick together for multiple sessions.
Dissolving a convoy is easy: just let everyone do their own thing.
All that is what I mean with coordination.

Another bunch of unsubstantiated claims. And the lack of concern for context. Also, claiming that any damage will cause you to slow down to a crawl exposes you as a newbie.

The context is a miner being attacked, or am I wrong?
The only thing I am doing is make a counter point on the basis that you simply can't have the best tool with you for every single situation and that you always have to decide whether or not you just take a hammer if you want to just hit a nail or if you also take the paint and brush because you might see some discolored spots on the way.
And I admit, "any damage" was extreme, but then again, how long does it take for a ship to suffer from at least one durability error or for any of the many systems required for flight to take critical damage?

Checking for asteroids argument before doesn't even make any sense.

What is a miner doing? He looks for asteroids to mine (or to avoid).
The brain is a fabulous thing that works by using the least expensive resolution to perceive the world.
If you are just thinking about how to most quickly get to a certain place in a super market you don't bother to look at the shelves' contents, while looking for a particular item will cause you to first look for similar stuff and then increase the resolution, looking for the actual item, whilst completely ignoring the price tags.
In that sense, when you are looking at asteroids, you know they don't move unless you move, so your focus is on having clear flight paths or measuring/spotting size. An approaching ship, especially if his thruster trail is hidden, will therefor not register immediately.

 

[Foraven]

Well, that's their prerogative, like I've already said. To try and entertain the point a little bit more, how far worse a ship becomes if you place a pair of tripods on it? How far worse does it make it if you then have two advanced quad-laser turrets on a ship? Like, you're saying yourself that nobody is willing to make hybrid ships. Then how do you know if they're all that worse compared to an unarmed ship? Have you yourself even tried to calculate the amount of additional mass it would take before taking up on that conviction?

Do you spend time designing ships? Try it, you'll see. It's very easy to make a ship that is bigger, slower and more expensive than you would like. It's very easy to spend months in the designer trying to improve a design for it's intended purpose, let alone if you want it to be good at more than one task. Making a multi-purpose ship is like making This tool . Do you think there is anything that tool is going to be good at?

Well too bad, because like I've said, the game is already designed for emergent gameplay, meaning no rules outside of blatant metagaming and systematic backstabbing. What makes the PvP lopsided is players who do not want to make some sacrifices to make it less lopsided, to defend themselves. By using unproteced and indefensible mining ship, you are deliberately making the choice to lose any PvP outcome, period.

That won't make anyone who isn't already inclined to fight an uphill battle fight it. Our fault is getting caught, not forfeiting the fight because we think it's a waste of time to fight it at that point.

Everyone who leaves the safe zone at any point is expected to be prepared to fight. Otherwise they're expected to be prepared to lose by default. There's no alternative. You're essentially claiming that players are virtually incapable of making any competitive PvP without developer's intervention. From your perspective, all the miners are completely incompetent buffoons, who forget how to operate their keyboard the moment some conflict is inbound, and that all pirates are invulnerable aces flying top-grade min-maxed fighters. From my personal experience, you're just wrong, and you will remain to be wrong until you stop looking at the game in black-and-white terms. There is counterplay.

When I do go out in the wild I do take great care to stay away from other players so I can mine in peace. I fly a small ship I can afford to replace and I am prepared to flee if someone try to chase me. Why would I fight? I don't enjoy fighting with the deck against me. If I want to fight I'll bring one of my fighters and some friends.

What is the economic sense has to do with it? You're literally saying that the only feasible way to mine is to have nothing but flying crates with thrusters on the back! What in the Pip's name have managed to convince you that's the case? Do you refuse to see just how easy it is to earn value right now is compared to any other MMO? What its going to be then when the refining is going to come about? What is going to happen when the environmental hazards will slap you in the face for neglecting the realities of the gameplay in favor of "economic sense"? You do realize that "economic sense" is supposed to involve considerations for risk and to be prepared to face the consequences to taking on that risk?

We don't die in this game. The only risk we take is losing the time we spent playing. For many players flying an half dead ship home is not worth their time and will prefer to scuttle it instead. Why bother? We can print a new ship.

 

[Askannon]

I have nothing left to say or do here but to shrug, because for me its just a line of thinking of a deliberate prey, who have never in his life have overcame unlikely odds and doesn't know how satisfying this feeling alone is. I feel kinda sorry for anyone who thinks that way.

Again, a narrative from a deliberate prey. That is true, if you do not want to think and if you don't bother fighting back, then YOU ARE ducked any way. If that's the case, then why would you even bother leaving the safe zone?

I don't believe in miracles and in a fight between a fighter and a miner there is too much stacked against the miner to win anything but a phyrric victory.
And I don't want to fight my way out of situations, but think of a way out of it that doesn't result in a competiotion of who is using the best tool.

All I am here for is for civilian ships to have the option to know from where they are going to be threatened and to get the option to run away or at least to hide.
As it currently stands miners aren't even herbivores, but trees before a lumberjack.

 

[pavvvel]

Having no weapons is not a fault in most situations, except for one: fights, which miners avoid as much as they can, the same like fighters and gun ships avoid mining
In any other situation they are deadweight (or would you put crates on your fighter).
So I would say the fact that there are no (dual purpose) weapons that would entice a miner to actually carry them.


My answer would be the fact that a ship is (currently) undetectable except by sight (or user error) and that convoys require too much effort to both keep close and not colliding, as well as that coordination is hard.
And again, having armor is in most situations deadweight which will just cause the travel time to increase.


oh, but the miner does take care of themselves.
Except for one situation (and then not even necessarily) a combat miner is worse than a civilian miner with the same budget.
It's just that a civilian miner has little agency before and 0 during a fight, as any damage will just cause the ship to slow down to a crawl, ruining any chance of escaping, whilst simultaneously checking not for ships but for asteroids just before, so even getting a jump start is not possible.

Maybe you will see a rise of combat miners with capital ships (or another form of fast travel) but I don't think there is a big interest in combat capable miners currently, when all they do is eat time.



I would say difficulties are the engine of progress. But when you are ducked any way you don't need to think and just resign to your fate.


Never seen rhetoric? Figures of speech like similes? Or was that just a poor attempt at misconstruing what someone else wrote?
so

Stop making excuses for casual gameplay

 

[Foraven]

Why should I care?

The devs do, I'm fine that your are not developing the game.

"unwanted interruption" ?

The devs do see it that way. Tough luck to you.

Whose fault is it? Mine? Or the player who didn't take care of himself?

You seem to think shooting other players is the ONLY possible PvP. Fleeing and hiding from PvPers is just as much PvP (we deny your fun, we win).

lot of non-aggression pacts..?

EVE online has plenty of those. You can't blow up ships forever, at some point you need to rebuild that fleet...

Gankers are the engine of progress. They make players think about what they are doing.

Oh, gankers are not just about getting easy kills?

 

[pavvvel]

The devs do see it that way.

Show me the proof

 

[Recatek]

🎶 This is the thread that never ends... 🎶

how far worse a ship becomes if you place a pair of tripods on it? How far worse does it make it if you then have two advanced quad-laser turrets on a ship?

Worse enough to impact your mining yield compared to the miniscule extra chance it gives you of defending yourself. Tripods require other people, and if you're tying up more than maybe one other person to go mining with you, any additional people are better off piloting their own mining ship instead of being bored on yours.

Like, you're saying yourself that nobody is willing to make hybrid ships.

Because they're typically bad in a game where you can hyper-optimize your ships for a single purpose.

Have you yourself even tried to calculate the amount of additional mass it would take before taking up on that conviction?

Armor is heavy, I don't think we need to go to great lengths to establish that. It's intended to be.

Well too bad, because like I've said, the game is already designed for emergent gameplay, meaning no rules outside of blatant metagaming and systematic backstabbing.

There's plenty of ways to create emergent gameplay that isn't already decided before either side even sees one another, as is the case for the vast majority of pirate vs. miner instances.

What makes the PvP lopsided is players who do not want to make some sacrifices to make it less lopsided, to defend themselves.

Because it isn't worth making every mining run worse for the slim chance of maybe defending yourself in the slim chance of you being attacked on a run. And, even then, a hyper-optimized combat ship is still going to vastly outperform a hybrid ship that's a worse miner and also a bad warship.

By using unproteced and indefensible mining ship, you are deliberately making the choice to lose any PvP outcome, period.

Yes, because efficient and optimal mining is more important to some players, and losses are rare enough to be risk-managed.

Everyone who leaves the safe zone at any point is expected to be prepared to fight.

Sure, but it's still exceedingly unlikely.

Otherwise they're expected to be prepared to lose by default.

If you're mining efficiently enough in a ship that's well optimized for cost, then this is an acceptable loss.

You're essentially claiming that players are virtually incapable of making any competitive PvP without developer's intervention.

I'm pointing out that there are ways for the game to promote actually interesting PvP with more uncertain (and thus, engaging) outcomes.

From your perspective, all the miners are completely incompetent buffoons, who forget how to operate their keyboard the moment some conflict is inbound, and that all pirates are invulnerable aces flying top-grade min-maxed fighters.

Aside from the hyperbole, this is pretty close to the point. A ship built for mining piloted by a player who is not a dedicated combat player has an exceedingly slim likelihood of beating a ship built for killing miners piloted by a player with hundreds or thousands of hours of experience doing so, even if said miner has nominal armor and weapons to defend itself. The chances and likelihood just aren't worth it compared to running cheaper miners that mine better and just accepting the occasional loss as a hazard.

There is counterplay.

Not much. Sensors would certainly increase the degree of counterplay and make things more interesting. The point here is to give some actual agency to miners in this situation.

every single fluffy-waffle miner

Please watch your language.

will leave the game, the game will still function because there will be the need to mine and those pirates are going to do it, because for them there's no skill boundary to do so.

Maybe, but it would be nice if some groups of players other than pirates played the game. Pirates tend to be a pretty small minority of playerbases in games like this.

Any single ship they have successfully intercepted, captured and repaired is a potential tool to supply themselves.

Sure, though this isn't quite as practical as the game presents it in its trailers. Not yet, anyway.

Pirates can play against one another, and they can cooperate with one another.

So far it looks like they're more likely to collapse and fragment all of their groups due to infighting, going by what's happened so far with pirate groups.

Now, in turn if pirates are not given any functionality to do their part, then you will end up with miners hauling infinite resources into the economy and building nothing but larger miners to haul even more ore, completely defenseless and barebone, with the economy having no means of destruction of value.

Almost like there's a lot of potential for introducing interesting PvP objectives and mechanics beyond just pirate vs. miner and gatecamping.

Pavvel might be wrong in a sense that a feature given to everyone equally to use isn't really give preferences to miners (which I already argued against), but it doesn't make it better to argue in the exact opposite way like you do, because the status quo is, there's no PvP unless you camp someone on the station and chase them out of the safezone

See above.

the economy is completely demolished because of that, there's very few PvP players who just jousting for fun and little to no miners mining anything because there's no point in doing so

The economy is completely demolished because there's hardly any game to Starbase and it peaks at 200 concurrent players in a universe designed for a scale of thousands.

almost nobody is playing.

QED

What is the economic sense has to do with it?

Everything. Mining is about optimizing for yield over time. It's an entire sphere of gameplay, and one of the only actual gameplay pillars Starbase has right now. If a strategy (e.g. armed/armored miners) isn't the most optimal way to get more rockstuff in less time, then it isn't worth doing.

You're literally saying that the only feasible way to mine is to have nothing but flying crates with thrusters on the back!

Not the only feasible, but the most efficient, which is what matters.

What in the Pip's name have managed to convince you that's the case?

Experience.

Do you refuse to see just how easy it is to earn value right now is compared to any other MMO?

Yes, but what if you could earn more value?

What its going to be then when the refining is going to come about?

No idea. Starbase's development pace and track record has taught me to completely ignore upcoming features until they're actually implemented and functioning.

What is going to happen when the environmental hazards will slap you in the face for neglecting the realities of the gameplay in favor of "economic sense"?

See above.

You do realize that "economic sense" is supposed to involve considerations for risk and to be prepared to face the consequences to taking on that risk?

Yes, that's the entire point of risk management and acceptable losses.

Seriously, it feels like you've have got yourself so deeply ingrained into the persona of a harmless miner that you cannot even see the current state of the game

The current state of the game is why optimizing for acceptable losses is the most efficient mining strategy.

where people sell 900+ crate miners and hundreds of stacks in bulk, essentially because you can get whatever you want with no risk involved.

QED

Is this really how you want the game to persist?

I've pretty clearly laid out how I want the game to persist, if you happen to read the two forum threads I linked. If you missed those links, they're also in my forum signature.

Oh, ok. How many times have you defended yourself as a miner to make that statement? How many ships have you lost to a pirate while doing so? How much profit are you actually going to lose if you'd arm and armor your mining ship? Give me the figures.

I don't sit with a notebook and jot down a tally mark for everything that happens to me in game. I'm speaking from general experience, same as you.

As far as I'm concerned, sacrificing a bunch of m/s to being able to carry some weapons and armor and/or building a ship with some additional thrusters to compensate for it always beats having an indefensible piece of junk for a ship.

Okay.

The only reason why this nonsense even works is precisely because there's no means for pirates to find anyone.

Maybe. Who knows what will happen in the future with new features.

But the fact remains that what happens off script is the most interesting. in the future I ask you not to tell me about it.

I don't care.

I am not interested in your opinion about the value of pvp.

I don't care.

because I have already made conclusions about you: you care about casual mechanics for "pvp vs. asteroid"

I don't care.

I am struck by your opinion of what is interesting and what is not, based on the fact that the player is flying a ship without weapons.

I don't care.

Whose fault is it that he has no weapons?

I don't care.

Who made him fly the ship with no armor and no convoy?

I don't care.

if he himself does not want to take care of himself, then why should the ganker care and not kill him...?

Because players having agency as they play is important, and players with no agency don't stick around in the game long. It's fine to fish the waters for miners to kill, but you need to make sure to do so sustainably so you still have some left in the game the next time you go out looking.

And please do not write about the fact that the killed player will delete the game - that's his problem too. If he deletes the game just because he was killed in the game - from such a player in terms of content is of no use.

Okay, I hope you're enjoying 200 max concurrent players then, I guess.

While the ganker will upload the battle video to YouTube and will attract new players to the game.

That happens right now, and doesn't seem to be working out that great.

Gankers are the engine of progress. They make players think about what they are doing.

Gankers are entirely dependent on having players to gank. They're pretty helpless gameplay-wise without them. You can either keep all the mechanics stacked in your favor and push people out of the game (as you've been consistently arguing for on the forums), or you can make some concessions so other players still enjoy themselves and you maintain a consistent population of people to gank.

Again, this magical "for most". Seriously guys, you do not have the right to speak for anyone but yourself.

This you? ...

From my personal experience, you're just wrong, and you will remain to be wrong until you stop looking at the game in black-and-white terms.

... We're all allowed to speak from personal experience here, including our general experience with interacting with other players.

Literally everyone on these forums or anywhere else can make appeals to imaginary majorities of players and their preferences, and all of these appeals will have the same amount of value for the argument - none.

To be fair, nothing in this thread is going to change anyone's minds at this point, so I don't think this is a terribly important point.

I for one will never give up on a ship that can be brought to life.

Proud of you.

I had restored my ships during CA with just ores I could find nearby, and even that was extremely satisfying.

It's cool once or twice, but otherwise gets pretty tedious compared to just hopping into a new ship.

you will also have a pirate's ship which you can salvage to your heart's content and the potential loot that pirate himself was carrying like high-tier firearms.

This seems hopelessly optimistic. Not only do you have to prevail against the pirate, you need to do so in such a way that the pirate (which is almost certainly faster and more maneuverable than the miner) doesn't disengage early and leave.

I mean, if your ship truly worth so little to you that you're more willing to just throw them around and get more instead of actually bringing it back together with the haul, that is only an argument for how desperately broken the economy is.

The entire point is to optimize for cheaper miners for the sake of risk management. Though, if you're arguing to make ships even more expensive than they currently are, good luck with that.

You will give up, and you will have fun doing that. That's on you alone, and there's nothing good about it.

Well no. The good part is when it's the most efficient thing to do as far as mining yield per hour and ship costs.

I guess, but at least you had the change to win, instead of being the best prey a pirate could wish for.

A terribly slim chance, all things considered. You seem very wrapped up in the ego/pride of the situation, whereas I'm speaking just from the standpoint of optimizing mining yield -- in this situation I couldn't care less about blowing ships up or not, it's about the time efficiency.

I have nothing left to say or do here but to shrug

(...immediately continues posting...)

its just a line of thinking of a deliberate prey, who have never in his life have overcame unlikely odds and doesn't know how satisfying this feeling alone is.

I'm not sure, but I think this might have sounded tougher and more inspiring than it actually reads in text.

You can put crates on your fighter, OR you can have a CLB array to carry loot, OR you can have a barebeam segment to bolt ore stacks to, or you can bolt ores and salvage straight to your ship. None of this matter. The difference between a fighter and a miner is that the latter has means to carry the ore and some optional equipment and it has more thrusters to compensate. All other differences are superstitious.

Well, no. We're talking about the difference between a good fighter and a good miner. Both of those depend on optimization, since Starbase allows you to hyper-optimize your ships to extreme degrees. Hybrids are usually a weakness.

You can carry firearms, or you can have tripods, or (if your ship is sufficiently large to justify it) a few turrets.

Turrets work terribly. Tripods require other players.

This is not about "enticing" anyone. This is about not being an idiot and actually prepare to defend yourself.

There's nothing idiotic about optimizing for yield.

even another miner can pull up a gun on you, and win, and take your haul and scrap your ship.

The likelihood if this actually happening, especially when said other miner probably won't have whatever tracking equipment the game eventually gets, seems pretty slim.

Not because he has a dedicated fighter ship, and not because he's a master fighter pilot. Just because he's not being an idiot like you chose to be.

I think the bigger idiot here is the one who foregoes efficiency to feebly try to prepare for extremely rare and non-catastrophic circumstances.

Look, if you're answering a question, at least try to understand the context of the question.

This goes both ways.

Also no, convoys require nothing but communication and people being able to stay in formation without aiming directly into each-other butts. It's not that difficult.

Convoys require a lot of other players, many of whom are probably going to be very bored for most of the session, and who would be better off in their own mining ships getting your group even more rockstuff.

Another bunch of unsubstantiated claims. And the lack of concern for context.

Again, you don't have a monopoly on the ability to speak from experience.

Again, a narrative from a deliberate prey.

You seem really hung up on this prey stuff -- is this all just some sort of ego/pride thing?

That is true, if you do not want to think and if you don't bother fighting back, then YOU ARE ducked any way.

Yes, that's what risk management is about. It isn't worth sacrificing your ship's effectiveness at the one thing it's intended to do (procure rockstuff) for a marginal increase in performance in something it isn't intended to do (fight), and still likely won't succeed at.

If that's the case, then why would you even bother leaving the safe zone?

Because there's good rockstuff out there, and you're likely to be able to get it regardless of pirates if you're cautious.

Stop making excuses for casual gameplay

I don't know, I think the person vociferously arguing against anything that could possibly give their opponent any sort of counterplay or advantage is the one trying to keep the game pretty casual for themself.

Good thread catch-up. See you tomorrow to say all the same stuff all over again in different ways!