' Wrote:I applaud this bold move from the admin team, because having a rule with a list of so many exceptions was ridiculous in itself, and because it added a lot of OORPned to the game.
There are how ever legitimate conecerns, in my opinion, that this will lead to more "cap spam", and a very hard time for lawfuls while they try to remove pirates.
Should it turn out that there will be too much abuse, which is in my opinion 60% likely, I would like to suggest that other options than jsut putting it back in place with all those exceptions be considered.
Here my thoughts about possible countermeasures against "cap spam" and abuse:
The situation where a cap ship fleet of pirates defeats a cap ship fleet of navy inside house space should not occur, and if it does only rarely. It would mean that the house has lost sovereignty of that space, and it would basically mean civil war. Since that is not suposed to happen according to the storyline, pirate cap ships should try to avoid open confrontations with the navy. The best way to achieve that is to make those pirate cruisers too weak to fight the navy on eye to eye level. This is also the most realistic thing for the RP environement. It will also make them less capable of instakilling transports, which is a concern for many people. The reballancing of pirate cap ships should look like this:
-The changes below should affect unlawful crusiers that are forced to operate in house space, and who have to get their gear without the economy of a planet to back them up. These are factions like Rogues, Molies, Hessians, LWB, Blood Dragons. Outcasts and Corsairs have planet economies and are fighting open wars, so they both have the means and the motivation ti build strong cap ships. In order to stop them from abusing their ships for piracy where they shouldnt, their IDs will not allow their cap ships from entering house space. Its the most logical thing RP-wise as well as balance-wise.
-Do not make pirate cap ships slower than navy cruises, or they will be unable to retreat from the navy. Pirates should have more priority on speed than on ship strength, so that they can avoid the navy and run. Don't make them faster, but dont make them slower either.
-Make their guns slightly slower, slighlty weaker, and slighlty less energy efficient than house navy cap ship guns. Make their hulls and powercores slighly weaker and price slightly higher. Rag-tag pirate cruisers arent able to get top notch technology, and have a harder time getting the materials they need for what they can build throught unlawful chanels, and that should be reflected in the game. Again it would mean harmonizing ballance as well as RP environment.
Some people will shout hot unfair this is. Well, life ain't fair, especially when lawlesness is involved. Your most important tool as a pirate should be your brain and your skill, not your ship power. As a pirate, you are not fair to traders, by definitation. Pirate vs trader isnt fair, so why should navy vs pirate be? And no, I'm not a purely lawful player. I pirate a lot, alone, in a VHF. This is also the motivation for the next point:
-Don't make transport speed higher. Because that will eliminate the VHF's ability to defeat a trader alone. Thh trader will be able to get to safety faster, and when you pirate in a VHF, you need time to do your damage. Making transports faster will hurt fighters more than it will hurt cap ships, and I believe that is not the intent.
-You may also want to give transports better shields against cap ship weapons. But I wonder if its possible to do that without also giving them more imunity to snubraft weapons. If its possible and you do that, don't overdo it with immunities like 90%. Because if you do that, then why wouldn't cap ship use the same kind of shields? And if they are effectively again unable to kill a transport... you will have transports buzing around cap ships, only instead of saying "haha rules say you cant shoot me" they will say "haha game mechanics gave me a totally unrealisticly high resistance to your guns and you cant do squat against me". One isnt much better than the other.
EDIT:
About people pirating in transports: You have the ability to make high demands and still get all the cargo when the guy refuses. There should be a price for that, not a reward like a rule that keeps certain types of ships from shooting you.
This doesnt work. The lolcap fleet raids on gamma are painful enough, without a nerf on unlawful caps. if it were to take 3 corsair caps to take down one bunter, this is gonna get nasty.
also, the bunter npc caps regularly spawn in missions - they are hard enough to do, never mind if they were buffed.
' Wrote:or hire a scout, merc or freelancer. Oh, and run. Plenty of options.
running = dieing. one capiv bwt lasts exactly 15 seconds against a cruiser. and if you run and are successful, and you dock.... then... you're dead anyway, cos of four hour rule.
remove four hour rule for docking transports, else there's no chance of winning if you want to run. I like running away. its fun. i could cause GBs quite a lot of pain with my bwt, but now.... not a chance of fighting, not a chance of running, as i cant get away fast enough to avoid damage, and if i do, i get pwnt by the docking rule.
the options for traders are now:
fleet jump
dreadnought escorts
