(01-05-2025, 12:20 PM)Chenzo- Wrote: Nobody will ever want to run escort ‘Caus they want to make the profit/get the end goal themselves.
Banding together as smugglers would have been the dumbest idea ever. A lone bomber can down a transport in under 30 seconds as proved multiple times by XA instant engaging & blue messaging. Banding together meant you all die.
The ultimate prize of the smuggler ID was the only thing which kept people who were smuggling going. The credits alone wouldn’t make me want to do that run.
TLDR: Buy in price wayyyyy too high, XA officials used the event to abuse/break rules 1.0 & 2.1 repeatedly, people kept on going to get the ultimate prize only. The event took me just over 30 hours playtime due to death, taking evasive routes etc. I’m actually disappointed in myself for sloggin’ on for that long.
Consider this simplified outline. Let's say every time you jumped into Texas, there was a gunboat or bomber waiting for you. And I mean every time. You know that this player will try to kill you.
- You may choose to decrease your own profits to pay an escort. Actually screw it, why do you need money if you can get the ID? The escort gets ALL the profit. But only if they ensure you make it to your destination. Anyway, the profit you make is reduced by some number, between 20-100%, depending on your generosity.
- You may choose to swap to a 3600 transport (e.g. Serenity) or a frigate (Longhorn, ahem). This won't affect your profits over the long run, but it will require you to make more runs, and therefore make more actions quicker, not enabling you to watch a steam on your second monitor as easily. When the enemy player attacks, you now have a greater chance of surviving the encounter. Of course, if you haven't fired your guns in 10+ years of playing this game, your chance goes up by only a few percent, but it goes up. Let's say the profit you make from the run goes up from -100% (always die), to 0% (die half the time). But you're still working towards that ID.
- Finally, you may choose to involve other players in your run. No one else wants to wake up or skip work to start the event at 10am on the dot, but you are willing to sacrifice some game time for the following benefit. The benefit being, the enemy player, when faced with a convoy, has to both decide if they can take them all on. If they cannot, they will likely demand everyone pays them, and lets everyone go (this outcome is likely less profit loss than paying an escort). On the other hand, the enemy knows that they can easily defeat the convoy in 30x seconds, where x is the number of transports. But now you have two secret weapons up your sleeve - cruising and countermeasures. So as soon as the enemy is shooting one unlucky transport (the chance it is you decreases with x, so you want to increase x), you simply activate cruise and spam the countermeasure dropper button. Overall, the profit you make with this method varies wildly from run to run, since it is -100% when you're targeted, 100% when you're not, and say 80% if you have to pay to pass.
To more seriously respond to your other points:
If the smuggler id was the only thing that mattered, why do the 5 people that got it only account for half the delivered slog? Remember, other people who think differently from you are playing the event, and I have to try to accommodate them all.
If you believe that other players are abusing a rule, report them. But consider also that different players play the game differently, and are able to do so without breaking the rules.
