Another Diplomacy Exploit

[taltamir]

I admit it. I was rash in my statement. I do not think adding weapons to civilian ships should be prohibited. A red letter design menu warning when you add weapons to your civilian craft should suffice. I prefer keeping this game as open ended as possible. Adding restrictions would put this game on the dumping down road.

Very good suggestion... a "warning" in ship design is appropriate...
the problem with that is that people who already KNOW it is doing that are complaining that you cannot CONFINE armed merchant to your OWN systems (thus eliminating the AI issues), and that the AI cannot differentiate between armed transports and an invasion fleet and consider the former less severe then the latter (although potentially still annoying to them); or at the very least, TELL you its armed transports instead of "military ships" that bother it (while being equally bothered, just being more clear on the cause for the deteriorating relationships)

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: Gerth

The idea/mechanic of privately armed ships roaming into sovereign systems is actually the artificial notion. Such a game mechanic in no way reflects reality. Now, I do agree with the notion that realism should be dispensed with when it mitigates the enjoyment of a game. But I don't see arming private vessels as a necessary solution.

Maybe ships today don't, but I that is more because we have instant communication to anyone on the planet and if you get in trouble help can come in a matter of hours usually. If you look back on the past where merchants had to fend for themselves most of the time, many did include at least some small amount of armaments. I would think that in space, with its vast distances, pirates everywhere, and relatively long reaction times even if you could communicate with someone willing to help you (is communication actually instant in distant worlds, or is that just an abstraction?), you are pretty much out of luck.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Cindar

ORIGINAL: Gerth

The idea/mechanic of privately armed ships roaming into sovereign systems is actually the artificial notion. Such a game mechanic in no way reflects reality. Now, I do agree with the notion that realism should be dispensed with when it mitigates the enjoyment of a game. But I don't see arming private vessels as a necessary solution.

Maybe ships today don't, but I that is more because we have instant communication to anyone on the planet and if you get in trouble help can come in a matter of hours usually. If you look back on the past where merchants had to fend for themselves most of the time, many did include at least some small amount of armaments. I would think that in space, with its vast distances, pirates everywhere, and relatively long reaction times even if you could communicate with someone willing to help you (is communication actually instant in distant worlds, or is that just an abstraction?), you are pretty much out of luck.

but in the distant world universe they have TRUE instant communication rather then "virtually instant", and their warp engines CAN be used inside a system... higher level engines have a warm up of mere 4-5 seconds; and the speed of the jump is a fraction of a second within the system (it does take a few seconds between systems though).
So it takes 5 seconds from the moment your ship comes under attack until help arrives IF help is sent.

Even your very first tech level 1 engine is fast enough for ships to be arrive in time from a neighboring system... faster engines just increase the distance this can work for...

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: taltamir
but in the distant world universe they have TRUE instant communication rather then "virtually instant", and their warp engines CAN be used inside a system... higher level engines have a warm up of mere 4-5 seconds; and the speed of the jump is a fraction of a second within the system (it does take a few seconds between systems though).
So it takes 5 seconds from the moment your ship comes under attack until help arrives IF help is sent.

Even your very first tech level 1 engine is fast enough for ships to be arrive in time from a neighboring system... faster engines just increase the distance this can work for...

No... remember, 5 seconds ingame = a few days of time. Not to mention there are hyperdrive inhibitors, which any kind of effective pirate force would be packing as it would pretty much be the holy grail of screwing weak ships over. Once your hyper drive is disabled your only choices are to surrender or fight. We don't even know if communication is really instant, it may just be a thing done for the convenience of the player.

BTW, being able to be a pirate faction would be awesome. Hiding from enemies, preying on ships to capture new technology, ect.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Cindar

ORIGINAL: taltamir
but in the distant world universe they have TRUE instant communication rather then "virtually instant", and their warp engines CAN be used inside a system... higher level engines have a warm up of mere 4-5 seconds; and the speed of the jump is a fraction of a second within the system (it does take a few seconds between systems though).
So it takes 5 seconds from the moment your ship comes under attack until help arrives IF help is sent.

Even your very first tech level 1 engine is fast enough for ships to be arrive in time from a neighboring system... faster engines just increase the distance this can work for...

No... remember, 5 seconds ingame = a few days of time.

Firstly, this is abstracted... secondly, you have shields that can absorb multiple hits and it takes a few seconds for your weapon to recharge... so fine... it takes 2 days per laser shot and 3 days for your ship to jump... luckily your shields can take 50 laser shots (aka, 100 days) and therefore will last far longer then you need to.

Not to mention there are hyperdrive inhibitors

Inhibitors only prevent jumping out from an inhibited space, you can jump INTO it just fine.

which any kind of effective pirate force would be packing as it would pretty much be the holy grail of screwing weak ships over.

never seen a pirate use one, and they wouldn't benefit much from it either.

Once your hyper drive is disabled your only choices are to surrender or fight.

sure... or take 1% of shield damage while the army comes to rescue you.

We don't even know if communication is really instant, it may just be a thing done for the convenience of the player.

Doesn't matter, you have perfect detection of everything in a star system... heck even if they were limited by the speed of a light a star system is small enough for it to not matter. Even if they somehow jam communications you could just DETECT the pirates and then engage them without a distress call being sent.

[taltamir]

http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html
interesting... the solar system is larger then I thought and light slower than I thought. pluto is far out from the other objects in the solar system, its orbit fluctuates wildly... its average is 5.4 light hours from the sun though.
This means that without FTL you would NOT notice a ship in time assuming time conversions are coherent (that is, that it really takes 2 days in game to fire your lasers once).

that being said... the perfect detection and FTL travel show that it is a simple matter to secure anything in a solar system. in game terms, even the slowest engines let you respond in a timely manner to an attack on a mining base in another system (ex is in the ad movie for the game... also i have done it myself). inside the system travel is trivial

[Cindar]

I think it's safe to assume that the weapons are an abstraction, they don't take half a day to fire. Whether hyperdrive is an abstraction is debateable. I think that if it was, though, it wouldn't make sense to rate hyperdrives by how fast they warm up and get ready to warp. 2s vs 5s is not a meaningful thing, but 12 hours vs 24 hours would be.

[forsaken1111]

We don't have armed merchant ships today because we don't have pirates everywhere, crazy giant lobsters, space slugs, killer jellyfish, and big damn sand worms. Look at most other space-based games with private traders and merchants and you will see that most ships carry some sort of armament, even if only to shoot an asteroid or perform a utility role, else the merchant/trader hires on guards for dangerous routes.

Something I would like to see which would greatly improve this:

Actual civilian corporations. These could be non-empire entities which have holdings in space and on planets. They would organize mining, cargo routes, trade routes, etc for profit and pay you taxes. Likely they would hire pirates or mercenaries to escort their own ships, especially along known dangerous routes.

[JonathanStrange]

These armed civilian corps. could also be a fun source of rebellions and independents. Cool.