Roleplay versus Fairness to others

[eyvind]

[I'd like to apologize for not having any pictures.]

In Deep Space Engineering, we trade less for credits and more for interactions.

A proper trader will try to get around us, not fly right at us..

A proper trader probably would, but checking the chat screen feels like cheating even if there might be some legitimate excuses for it. Having a scout fly ahead is a good practice, but primarily because it gives escorts gameplay and some mind-jogging.

I will not, however, spend half an hour avoiding pirates I know are there just so I don't have to encounter them. I'll try for two minutes, maybe, then I'll feign incompetence (or pretend the incompetence that isn't already present) and interact with the pirate. If the pirate thinks I'm no proper trader, just because I didn't manage to avoid him, and he blows me up just because I spend the minutes I would have used to avoid him to instead... I wouldn't feel fairly treated.

Pirates who stop me or any convoy I lead will INVARIABLY get paid, one way or another. I would much rather that my convoy and I get a fun experience out of it, rather than just some profit loss. We don't trade primarily for the profit, so we don't care a whole lot if we lose some of it, but if we lose some of it without gaining any funtime from it then we'll feel wronged.

Having been a Hacker pirate since my birth at Discovery -- much longer than I have been a trader -- I acknowledge these sentiments and reciprocate them in "yarr harr harr and a bottle of cardamine"-fashion. I stop traders, I try to provoke them into saying something that I can reply to that will hopefully lead to another reply from them. In the end, I won't mind if I don't get paid in credits or cargo, or even whether or not my in-universe role has been fulfilled or not.

If I fail to get paid I'll get smacked by Phate, but I know he appreciates the effort so I'll make an excuse about not having finished labeling my dashboard yet. Then I go back out into the vacuums and grab another victim to provoke.

Considering I do all this in a Falchion, some don't take me as a serious threat. This might not be good for my goals of getting fun out of things, but many traders really -- and I mean really -- enjoy being pirated by light fighters. They know (deluded as they are) that they can blow me out of the sky easily, or at least have me dodging long enough for them to escape. LFs aren't powerful galleons, or even caravels, but that's neither here nor there.

Fairness vs Roleplay! Fight!

KANO WINS!

The question isn't valid, in my opinion. FL is a game, Discovery is a mod, and Pluto is a planet. You play to have a good time -- whatever that means for you -- and to that end you should assume a flexible attitude, since not everyone has the same idea of a good time as you. This is clear, just by this thread.

If someone thinks it's fair, and fun, and in-roleplay to shoot you out of the sky before you can say "Hahaha, I dun thi--" then you should realize that it might have been fair, in-roleplay, and fun for the guy who blew you up. Did you expect, when you launched, to not be blown up? Would it have been more fun if you had not been blown up, and had flown another 70KM to your destination?

You could have met more pirates, had more encounters, and maybe had more fun that way, but there's no sense in thinking like that, because you WERE blown up, and now you're back at Malta/Hood/Foster. Consider your options. Get annoyed? Meh, not a whole lot of fun. It would probably be a better idea, an idea that would probably lead to a little more fun, if you launched and repeated the process.

You could check the talking face and see which systems have people in them, aim to fly through them, and hope for more fun interactions. Maybe you'll get blown up again, and that might be a shame seeing as you were just blown up an hour ago, but maybe you had fun getting blown up?

Every time I get blown up I have fun. Trying to dodge with anything from a Griffin to a Democritus to a Mastodo is fun, in my opinion. But if I'm dodging, someone probably said something to me just before, and I probably said something back at him. He probably said something again, and I probably tried to reply before he started shooting.

Those seconds of fun are all that I expect when I trade by myself. I don't trade much by myself anymore.

Trading in convoys leads to never getting blown up, except in rare circumstances -- like trying to land on Denver without using the docking rings -- and you're almost always role-playing with your friends.

Before I continue that thought, not all convoys are like that. Some convoys are all about survivability. You fly 5 Advanced Trains, have 2 Eagle escort scouts, and keep radio chatter to a minimum. I respect convoys like this, because I know earning money in Discovery can be frustrating and convoys make it more bearable even if all you do is fly and follow orders. I don't criticize people and factions that do this, I think it's a good idea.

Join *USI* if this appeals to you. They have made it into a science, started a university, and are all working on post-graduate projects.

If credits mean a little less to you, join a faction like Cryer, or Gateway, or PanGal, or DSE. We all trade for credits, of course, but:

Credits can't buy a good time.

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<span style="font-family:Agency FB">Good Morning!</span>