' Wrote:Please, logical discussion only. No trolling saying that I'm just Q_Qing, or that I just need to play longer, tell me why I am wrong, and give you reason for that.
I will attempt to explain everything at length. However, your post truly is a complaint for the most part. It's a fact. I could say that one of the reasons you are wrong is exactly that - perhaps asking yourself and others about how to solve the problem is better than just complaining about it. No big deal, just for future reference. Now on to the content.
Problem #1 with 3 examples:
Quote:Lets look at example number 1:
I started my money making in Dublin, and eventually I started a few chars and joined the mollys. I love the mollys, its fun, interesting, and relatively enjoyable.
Until certain factions come in. Corsairs, who just sent in 12 fighters this afternoon, SCRA who frequently send in groups of 5 fighters, BAF who can call about 5 fighters on if one of them says something like "I'm getting attacked in Dublin, please help". And there are other groups as well.
The point is that the Mollys get ganked a lot. Its not even fun to play a molly anymore because you have to sneak around to find the occasional miner, then haul home before the BAF catch you. However, since the mining nerf the number of miners has gone down drastically. So the mollys don't even have THAT to do anymore.
So instead, we mine, then ship, and mine, and ship.
It seems to me that the problem here is lack of organization on the Molly side. There has been a mess in their leadership for months, if not years. Regardless, if you can't put together something that allows a direct confrontation, you just have to avoid it - run and hide - like the rest. Either way, don't let them catch you with your pants down if you know what's coming - or what can come.
"Its not even fun to play a molly anymore because you have to sneak around to find the occasional miner, then haul home before the BAF catch you."
The faction I have co-founded few years ago is composed of members that find this exact type of activity enjoyable. I am unsure how else you expect it to work.
Perhaps you should not confine yourself only to Dublin, but take advantage of other systems. Mollys can pirate in Cambridge, New London and Manchester. Which means you might get to do something like what was done to you in Example 2.
(edit: forgot about Edinburgh, Newcastle, Poole, Salisbury and perhaps others)
Quote:Example 2:
We had 2 molly miners on, one pirate transport, and I was on my BWT, so I buy the gold ore, and I go through California. On the last trade lane, Paco Pistols and his buddy, who's name I can't remember, say they want 6 million at first, then they said they wanted 1,600 ore. I told them that taking that much would cause me to lose money, but they didn't care. I dropped the ore, and lost a total of 500,000 credits on that run.
This is the first time I have played a lawful trader in about 4 months. The first time, and I get robbed.
I cannot comment on this particular case because faction guidelines (LH) prohibit me from doing so. But if I omit the details and look at it as a general example (very crude approximation):
Pirates cause traders to lose property. Very simple, really.
If pirates start caring about that their victims are losing money (to clarify: caring as in regrets) - then they would have to stop pirating, making them pirates no longer. So if the trader loses money, it is a job well done for the pirate.
Possible solutions can be split into two categories. One is to avoid getting caught. The second is to have a means to minimize losses when you do (other than begging the pirates which as you said doesn't work). I will leave the latter to your imagination.
Or is it the "molly miners" part that is the problem?
Quote:Example 3:
I was on my indy RM about a week ago, and I go with a bunch of Rheinland caps to go have some fun in
Texas and New York.
But what happens? We get ganked. We had 2 fighters, 3 battleships, and 2 cruisers. They send out a carrier, 3 dreds, 2 LABC's, 2 cruisers, 3 gunboats, and 4 fighters to kill us.
Not even fun.
You mounted an invasion into a hostile territory. I suggest that you contact the other party in advance if you want the fight to be organized.
Otherwise, there is a multitude of ways to explain that the neither side was at fault here, I'll just pick this one: They perhaps misjudged how good you were so they sent a force which they thought was appropriate. There is no objective way to tell if the judgement was right or wrong until a rather late stage of the combat. In most cases, anyway.
And as I'll explain further below, fun is subjective. Somebody else in your position might say that it's not fun at all if the amount of hurt sent at you is not high enough.
Quote:Whats the point of spending all that time making money if you can't even do anything with it?
I buy a GEB, I get ganked by Black Navy Guard
I buy a Molly Gunboat, I get ganked by 5 fighters
I buy a Rheiland fighter, and my group gets ganked by a gigantic number of caps.
There is none. Perhaps you should spend less time getting credits if it doesn't have the desired effect. Focus your attention elsewhere, instead.
Quote:The second problem that I found was the severe gap between how good a capital ship is, and how good a fighter is.
Example:
I was playing around on my Molly scylla when the SCRA came into town. 5 fighters. We had 2 cruisers and a couple fighters. They engaged, and ended up killing everyone. Why? Was it because all the mollys were bad shots? Was it because the SCRA just dodged really well?
It was partly both, I would get their shields down in my Scylla, then they would run. They'd shield run, leaving me no chance to kill them. They zip away, in their tiny, fast ships that I can't hit and wait for the shields to regenerate.
This led to everyone dying.
"a capital ship" is about as vague as you can get in desccribing a problem. If you want logic, you should realize that all 3 capital ship classes all have their strengths and weaknesses, which can be put to an advantage if pilot ability and odds allow for it. To dumb it down, a solo cruiser can get killed by 3 fighters, too. Sometimes a fighter can solo a gunboat. Sometimes one gunboat can "GAN-GRAPE(sour)-K" 3 bombers.
It is awfully complicated and tiring to give a general advice here. Perhaps ask some of the players who were shooting you - they were there and might provide you with some more useful info on how not to lose. There are many ways to do it, you just have to find some aand pick the one you like best.
But you will still lose sometimes. The only true loss is if you can't get over it. That is not something others can do for you, it is a mindset problem. Rules or development changes will not be able to change it.
Quote:The third problem frustrates me to no end. Its that of shields regenerating in 6-12 seconds.
In the same fight with the SCRA, I hit 3 of their ships with mortars when they swung by. I hit them while they were about 500m away, got their shields down, and then they would swing past me so that I couldn't open fire. I mortared 3 of them. Not kidding, I shot 3 of them with my light mortar. But every single time, the shield had just regenerated. So, no damage was done, except to their shields.
I think this needs to be fixed to somewhere around 15-25 seconds to regenerate a shield.
Hard luck. Tough for you, but life goes on. I don't think it needs to be fixed. Perhaps try the same situation, just with reversed roles. I can get introduce you to some cruiser pilots who can show you that there are other things that might need fixing. PM me if you are interested.
Quote:The fourth problem that I have seen is a simple thing. The SNAC's blast radius.
Example:
I was on my Mafic in Dublin sparring against Anna.McCarthy, I had a bomber, she had a fighter. She took down every single last one of my nanos, and all of my sb's, and yet at the very end, I shot a snac into her hull, and she died instantly. While I took no damage from being within 30m of the blast.
She should have won that fight, she should have killed me, but she didn't because I got lucky and hit her with my SNAC.
While I am no physicist, I do know that for every action, there is always an opposite and equal reaction. That is one of the reasons why there are blast radius's. But the SNAC doesn't seem to have one, or if it does, its so small that it doesn't really count.
First of all, guns have no blast radius in Freelancer. Use Nova torps instead if you desire the effect you described.
Secondly, you cannot apply real world (Newton, #3) laws of physics to Freelancer. Well, you might, if you accept the existence of invisible drag on all ships, some funny speed caps and collisions that well, uh, I'm not going to go into that at all. I recommend following the linkn in my signature and experiencing a good spaceflight simulator firsthand, if realism is what you're looking for.
(for the record, I don't really see the connection between the law you quoted and a proposed blast that should blow up your ship)
Quote:Fifth problem that I have found is that of the battle razor.
You send out this gigantic ball of white energy towards a target, and you'd think that if that gigantic white ball hit the target, it would do damage, right? No, instead you have a dot about the size of a regular gun shot that has to hit the target.
Perhaps you could study how collision detection computations work and weigh the impact on performance.
Quote:I want playing Freelancer to be fun, but I don't know how to do it anymore.
The best way to change the world is to change yourself. I don't see any of the problems you described as ones that can be solved by altering everyone's behavior, server rules, or game mechanics. The only way I see viable, if you want gaming here to be entertaining, is to change yourself, the way you do things, and the way you think about it.
The alternative is to quit. It is not necessarily a bad one. Online gaming is not the only fun source available.
