Merge transports' nanobots into hull

[Antonio]

Freelancer is based solely on player interaction, not "exploring". What "discovery" are we talking about when the forum nav map updates the day the patch comes out? "Exploring" by flying in empty systems with 1 unique visit per month is the definition of playing singleplayer in multiplayer. We need less of that, not more. The main purpose of changes should be to keep encouraging player interaction, that's what this mod and game are based on.

What is sometimes neglected is that "single player" activities is what keeps people playing before they find friends. Having 30 more people doing "single player" activities (in places where they will still meet other players anyway) will still give you more interactions with them than if they stopped playing after a few weeks because they found nothing fun to do alone. Single player activities are the only reason to log at all if you don't know how to find players to interact with, which is very common now.

I think you misunderstood me, what I meant by singleplayer isn't someone playing alone, but someone playing in a way that has little to no chance of interacting with others. A new player trading on his Mammoth is a perfect example of that - he's doing it alone, but he's doing it in a way where he'll very often meet players unless he's doing a very obscure route. The problem is how spread out those routes are.

Snip

If you stopped throwing unfounded accusations for a second you'll notice this has nothing to do with pvp. Pure pvp is not that hard to find, just log a Xeno and tease people in front of Manhattan, something will shop up to shoot you eventually. What I'm referring to is traders and the dispersion of their routes which leads to lack of pirates. You don't have to be a "pvpwhore" to be a pirate, do you? When's the last time you logged one and tried to pirate somewhere? You're lucky to get 1 interaction every 15-20 minutes on average unless it's an event, and I'm being generous here. I can't even say the same about New York being an exemption anymore because it's become -that- spread out.

Now think if you have 1 interaction every 5 minutes because all traders are in a better connected and more fluid area. Suddenly logging a pirate is actually worth it, and not only that but it's also worth it for another player to quickly log a lawful and find the said pirate. You have completed the interaction loop of trader-pirate-lawful, something that's lacking nowadays. People either log pirates to strictly PvP lawfuls, not interact with traders, because it's so hard to interact with them in the first place, or they log a trader themselves. Some of the best spontaneous in-game roleplay encounters I and many others had were on a pirate/trader in the pirate-trader relationship, provided that the other guy doesn't immediately go "kill me it's cheaper" or "2 mill or die". Right now it's not worth it relative to the amount of players you meet, all I'm saying is to increase the likelihood of that happening through better system connections. We don't even have to purge any systems that are there for pure "discovery", but they'd be pushed aside in favor of systems traders transit through.

Sorry for the off-topic, final post.

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