Video: No! You can't keep that stolen ship!

[Montoya]

DUH!

 

[Zadig]

Hey,

What if the pirate who steals a ship can then choose between a) bringing to the the chop shop for direct compensation or b) has the obligation to bring it to some sort of NPC pirate cartel which then in turn offers the ship for sale to the pirates, otherwise the ship disappears when the player logs off, or activates its delayed self-destruct after the owner claims it (like 1h)?

This would support the black market, provided few regulations: the stolen ships still remain marked as stolen, not spawnable because cannot be insured, but can still be kept by the pirate who buys it (the guy who captures it could get a discount) until bounty hunters get their hands back on it?

This would makes things really more attractive to me than not being able to keep the ship at all...

 

[marcsand2]

So now you must work hard for your money or steal enough ships for the chop shop to be able to buy in game a legit ship without the risk that the legit ship will be hunted down.

 

[Printimus]

But moooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, i want my cake and to eat it too.

 

[Sraika]

But moooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, i want my cake and to eat it too.

Wouldn't it be other people's cake? Your cake has insurance.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I think it is obvious that this fix for the exploit is not really a fix. As stated, one can chop shop or simply remove the weapons and expensive components. If you can do that, the same exploit we have always known about will work for that too, so the proposed solution is not a solution at all.

Fact is Chris has always said you will be able board and steal ships, and CIG has to figure out a way to make that a playable dynamic. So far they have not.

I'll own I am terribly disappointed this seems to be the official word and is so poorly done. They need to find a way to address the exploit directly by tracking player interactions and they haven't even looked that over yet. Also they did not answer about stealing NPC ships, which is obviously NOT an example of an exploit, so do we get to keep those?

 

[Zadig]

But moooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, i want my cake and to eat it too.

It's more like: mooooom I brought you 5 cakes for the clan, can I eat one now?

 

[Bambooza]

I'm still in favor of the ship becoming the property of the insurance companies which spawns missions for bounty hunting, enforcement and salvagers. This gives the thief a constant threat against them and their newly acquired ship with limited to no safe harbor given most ports would not allow you to land with stolen property as well as a built in timer given no place to get repairs unless your org provides support. So the end result is that the thief is being hounded by NPC's and PC's while in possession of the stolen ship while few if any stations allow landing of the ship (remove the issue of storage and retrieval as well as remove the ability to hide with in unreachable space due to game mechanics) . Finally there needs to be options with what to do with the ship and that should include the ability to sell, scrap and change the hull ID for a costly fee, say 70% of the market value after all they just manage to steal it and survive long enough to apply the mod. The final bit is the reputation hit for stealing a ship should be dramatic and even if you change the hull ID for the ship the bounty placed on you by the insurance company doesn't disappear.

Game design should never be abrupt such as invisible walls but should be gradients that allow the player to follow their own path but discourage edge conditions.

 

[Zadig]

I'm still in favor of the ship becoming the property of the insurance companies which spawns missions for bounty hunting, enforcement and salvagers. This gives the thief a constant threat against them and their newly acquired ship with limited to no safe harbor given most ports would not allow you to land with stolen property as well as a built in timer given no place to get repairs unless your org provides support. So the end result is that the thief is being hounded by NPC's and PC's while in possession of the stolen ship while few if any stations allow landing of the ship (remove the issue of storage and retrieval as well as remove the ability to hide with in unreachable space due to game mechanics) . Finally there needs to be options with what to do with the ship and that should include the ability to sell, scrap and change the hull ID for a costly fee, say 70% of the market value after all they just manage to steal it and survive long enough to apply the mod. The file bit is the reputation hit for stealing a ship should be dramatic and even if you change the hull ID for the ship the bounty placed on you by the insurance company doesn't disappear.

Game design should never be abrupt such as invisible walls but should be gradients that allow the player to follow their own path but discourage edge conditions.

That! What he said ^^^^

 

[Deroth]

When CR talked about that future plan he also stated that it would be expensive (potentially more expensive than buying the ship normally) and problematic (as you'd have militia and bounty hunters after you and the trip to someplace that could help you would be deep in pirate space where you also run the risk of non affiliated pirates also attacking.) It also sounded like it was a far downstream option that might not even get implemented until after release.

I got the impression from when CR talked about it in that video a while back it is a mechanic he wanted to only be practical in the case of ships that could not be purchased through any normal means.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Damn your logic Montoya I have no response! So I'll post what I was going to post before watching your video:

----- I have stolen a total of 1 ship in the PU so far, and here is why it was awesome and here is why not being able to keep it at the end sucks nuts:

In PU 2.6 A flight of asshats takes Kareah and does what was the usual "this is ours now come try take it off us!" spiel that was so popular in 2.6.

I go over in a 350r "Zero Hour" and am ANNIHILATED by three Superhornets and a Gladius. So I get my own Hornet "Lopeta Tama", go over and am DESTROYED in moments. I jump in my Connie "Reoccurring Tendencies 2" and although it lasts a few moments longer i'm dead again. I go for the Nuclear Option of "War Rocket Ajax", my Aurora LN - somehow they even manage to kill me in the mighty Aurora, I still don't know how they did it...?

...So I formulate a plan... I don't NEED to get into Kareah but if I can maybe it'd be more even numbers if some stay outside... I just wanna even the numbers.

I jump back into my 350r and rename it "Pawn Sacrifice" for this one mission - I QD in, fire a few shots to get their attention then dive at Kareah at top speed, ejecting moments before the ship hits the station. I fly off into the void in my Ejector seat and man they take you far off... I get back under control further off than I would have liked, but this group had me pegged, as I EVA'd in they were landing and taking up position inside the station. A Hornet kept lookout off in space, the Gladius and a hornet landed and entered and the third Hornet blew them up. Crap. However it then hid in a shadow and the pilot EVA'd into the station himself.

Hot Damn! got me a Super Hornet. I came out of the shadows at the third lookout hornet and as it wasn't my ship spammed missiles and emptied the 5x Tarantulas into it, sending it straight to hell. I had three asshats trapped on Kareah and had seen off the fourth, but another two ships were suddenly on me! Must have been a bigger group than i'd first realised perhaps the others had been over at the ICC causing grief... So we dogfought it out, more ships appearing all the time, some running to replenish, some sticking around only to be vaped.

It was great. I was having a whale of a time, I'd evened the odds almost single handed, and man it's amazing what skills you acquire in someone elses ride... and suddenly the ship vanished around me and I was EVAing with my crappy pistol drawn.

Owner must has suicide'd on Kareah and recalled his Hornet back on Grimhex.

It was over. Such a pisser. I was going to keep it and call it the "Golden Buttnugget".

So, apart from an abrupt ending and a story which will fade from memory in time, what did I get out of that apart from bragging rights? -----

Thats what I would have written if Montoya hadn't used his brain and smothered it in Logic - Logic? Thats 'BobFace Kryptonite.

 

[Bigcracker]

I don't like the idea of some of this. If I go through the trouble of stealing your ship,risking being caught and parking your ship on my secret hidden asteroid base it should be there when I come back and not despawn once I leave the "session". This makes me feel like the game will be a space GTA online and not a full persistent MMO. If I take your ship to the chop shop I should get the option of taking your guns, ammo and ship upgrades instead of getting piles of scrap or just money.


I get the whole idea of insurance fraud and been a worry of mine before but CIG needs to come up with ways for it not to be abused that doesn't hinder your average player,pirates or even law bidding bounty hunters experience. If you're a bounty hunter chasing a guy down and he doesn't feel he has any risk of ramming his ship into you, because he will just wake up with a brand new ship without being captured with only a slight increase in price that kind of eliminates the fun of chasing someone down... Or if your a Bounty hunter and find a guys ship you destroy his way out and all he has to do is go to a kiosk and spawn a new one just for a little bit more money..

 

[AntiSqueaker]

So right now, in a hypothetically fully fleshed out PU, things would go like this.

I gather a group of pirates together. We raid a small convoy guarding a Starfarer. We disable, board, and expel all the defenders, and fly off with our new ship.

Originally I would have kept the ship as is (after selling off cargo) and probably paid some black market NPC to wipe the VIN equivalent and replace them with some spoofed codes (which scale up to the ships $$$, much easier to find spoofed codes for a Freelancer than a Javelin), then sold the ship off to a TESTie who wants a slightly singed and bloody Starfarer for well below market value. Or just keep it as a "hot" stolen flagged ship and kept it at the base in case we need a Starfarer.

Now I simply drive the ship over to a friendly salvage shop, strip off all the juicy bits (engines, shield generators, weapons, etc etc) and then feed the rest to a Reclaimer, because there's zero way to keep that ship.

That's lame and pretty un-immersive. I get they want to combat insurance fraud, but this is a really hamfisted and over the top way to do it. So much of the pirate mythos is pirates stealing better ships through daring and clever plans, then sailing off with it to commit more plundery acts.




Also note that, unless CIG changes the rules for specific ships, this means so stealing military ships (no F8 for you unless you're a 10k concierge sucker!) or any rare alien ships, a la Vanduul.

Laaaameooooo.

 

[Radegast74]

I'm still in favor of the ship becoming the property of the insurance companies which spawns missions for bounty hunting, enforcement and salvagers. This gives the thief a constant threat against them and their newly acquired ship with limited to no safe harbor given most ports would not allow you to land with stolen property as well as a built in timer given no place to get repairs unless your org provides support. So the end result is that the thief is being hounded by NPC's and PC's while in possession of the stolen ship while few if any stations allow landing of the ship (remove the issue of storage and retrieval as well as remove the ability to hide with in unreachable space due to game mechanics) . Finally there needs to be options with what to do with the ship and that should include the ability to sell, scrap and change the hull ID for a costly fee, say 70% of the market value after all they just manage to steal it and survive long enough to apply the mod. The final bit is the reputation hit for stealing a ship should be dramatic and even if you change the hull ID for the ship the bounty placed on you by the insurance company doesn't disappear.

Game design should never be abrupt such as invisible walls but should be gradients that allow the player to follow their own path but discourage edge conditions.

Yeah, I thought that basically, the ship VIN equivalent would be known to be a stolen ship, and that would lead to the Insurance companies placing bounties on the stolen ships, which would lead to bounty hunting missions...

Also, if you report a ship stolen, you lose use of it for a "reasonable" amount of time, like a week or 2 in real time, depending on value. In the meantime, you would have the use of a loaner Aurora or something...

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Agree with others thoughts the ship should be property of the insurance company and that it can become a Public Enemy style free-for-all, but further to that, the ship should not be able to despawn, Bed or Pad when that guy logs-off the ship will just sit there sticking out like a sore thumb until someone comes and claims it for the insurance company or blows it up.

That way if an ORG thinks they can steal a load of ships then their base will be highlighted for everyone to besiege and lay waste to.

And until it's recaught/destroyed the original owner gets a loaner ship from the insurance company. Something small and inoffensive. So an Idris is stolen and you are loaned a Freelancer. Yeah, you're not letting your friend 'Steal' that ship.

 

[Bigcracker]

Also note that, unless CIG changes the rules for specific ships, this means so stealing military ships (no F8 for you unless you're a 10k concierge sucker!) or any rare alien ships, a la Vanduul.

Laaaameooooo.

Ya pretty much that whole you can gain ships in the verse is going quickly out the window. Also whats the point of the Warlock and that expensive Sabre now?

 

[StdDev]

Insurance fraud still needs to be addressed. Even without stealing a ship... I could take my own ship, strip it of weapons and components, and arrange an accident.... file for a replacement and voila! I have a new ship with all the stock components on it... and the components I took off the original.
So... let the game mechanics develop organically.. don't get bent about these initial attempts to deal with problems..... who knows what it will look like way down the development line?
In CR we trust, hallowed be his name.

 

[maynard]

[WALL O' TEXT]

I say you should be able to keep a ship you steal from another player in lawless space, as long as you don't ever take it to civilised space where the insurance company would find out and claim it

and you would have no recourse if someone stole it from you

to prevent massive insurance fraud your victim would be flagged and lose coverage for any of her ships if she ever left civilised space in them

so over time fewer and fewer people would be willing or able to to leave civilised space, making it harder and harder to eke out a living from Piracy

and all the dreamers with visions of getting rich off of hunting down your Pirate ass will wind up working for Big Benny's at some God-forsaken outpost in the Bumfukt System

people are talking a big game now, but when the game goes live and losses persist, we will find out just how risk-averse humanity really is

[/WALL O' TEXT]

 

[Vavrik]

I think the idea of taking a ship and simply being able to fly it away and keep it is ludicrous. It's the wrong mechanic to make this game fun, unrealistic, and turns pirates into nothing more than griefers. The thing is, it was never described as being that easy.

 

[Vavrik]

So right now, in a hypothetically fully fleshed out PU, things would go like this.

I gather a group of pirates together. We raid a small convoy guarding a Starfarer. We disable, board, and expel all the defenders, and fly off with our new ship.

Originally I would have kept the ship as is (after selling off cargo) and probably paid some black market NPC to wipe the VIN equivalent and replace them with some spoofed codes (which scale up to the ships $$$, much easier to find spoofed codes for a Freelancer than a Javelin), then sold the ship off to a TESTie who wants a slightly singed and bloody Starfarer for well below market value. Or just keep it as a "hot" stolen flagged ship and kept it at the base in case we need a Starfarer.

Now I simply drive the ship over to a friendly salvage shop, strip off all the juicy bits (engines, shield generators, weapons, etc etc) and then feed the rest to a Reclaimer, because there's zero way to keep that ship.

That's lame and pretty un-immersive. I get they want to combat insurance fraud, but this is a really hamfisted and over the top way to do it. So much of the pirate mythos is pirates stealing better ships through daring and clever plans, then sailing off with it to commit more plundery acts.




Also note that, unless CIG changes the rules for specific ships, this means so stealing military ships (no F8 for you unless you're a 10k concierge sucker!) or any rare alien ships, a la Vanduul.

Laaaameooooo.

I'm glad you wrote this. After what I just wrote, perhaps I can use this to explain my point of view. Just for the record, I'm not against piracy at all, and I would like to make it part of my game. it's just that I want to have fun, have a challenge, and take some risk if I'm a pirate. The game has to have those elements, or it's just another space griefer sim.

So you gather a group of pirates together, and raid a small convoy guarding a Starfarer. You disable, board and expell all the defenders then fly off with your new ship.
Does that sound realistic to you? If so, then explain how that ship was not able to fly for the prior crew, yet is it able to fly for you. The ship is damaged, and so needs to be repaired before it can fly. You have a choice: Tow it to the nearest friendly repair facility, or fix it in-situ. Both have risks and costs associated. If you intend to sell the ship, you have the added costs of the ship identity. These costs AND risks need to add up to more than the value of a single ship.

Why? Because this is not a valid profit model. It's the "stick a feather in my cap" model. If this was the profit model, then there is no motivation to ever buy a ship, for anyone, and nothing prevents the game from devolving into a space griefer sim. Instead, a better profit model would be to go after the cargo, and some of the more portable ship parts, and maybe even ransom for the crew.