Cargo still available after destruction [Legacy]

[Janus]

This is something I encountered today. I was on an MP server returning to Pearl Station with a full load (-1 bay I needed to sell for fuel) of 100 units of mined cargo when I was destroyed by a player. This is totally fine, no complaints. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

But upon reloading last save, I found my 4 cargo bays still full. And the killer reports that he got my cargo. This sounds like something that someone could exploit the hell out of. I know this is probably working as intended but it could definitely be used as an exploit. Shouldn't progress be saved when you undock as well?

[MiaZ]

I don't understand why saving when you undock would fix this?
Couldn't you still undock with a full cargo, let your friend kill you and take the cargo then reload save?

Saving your cargo contests as empty upon death might fix it alittle but I still see away around this.

[Vice]

Yes, there can often be ways around some protection mechanisms. One thing I could do is just block cargo from spawning for any human player upon their destruction. Either externally (to other players) or internally (to the player themself). Drawbacks to these though are it eliminates the possibility of players attacking others for raids and/or it means a player loses their cargo when they are destroyed and respawn. Not allowing cargo to spawn externally from destroyed human players might be the most viable way to go, at least allowing a player to respawn with what they had. I'm open to feedback on it.

[Marvin]

Granted it hurts to lose cargo ... especially when you're in the habit of "going down swinging" when you feel you've lost too much of your booty and would rather die than lose it permanently. But it hurts a lot worse to lose the stuff you've installed in an equipment slot. So, before any further debate on my part, I ask the question: If you lose installed equipment during battle, can it be retrieved by another player ... or does it go the way of vapor?

[Vice]

When equipment is destroyed, it is destroyed. For cargo, although it can appear after a player has been destroyed, there is also a small chance it will be destroyed during the explosion also. If the attacking player doesn't stop firing soon enough, their own weapon fire can destroy the cargo container left behind.

[MiaZ]

Yes, there can often be ways around some protection mechanisms. One thing I could do is just block cargo from spawning for any human player upon their destruction. Either externally (to other players) or internally (to the player themself). Drawbacks to these though are it eliminates the possibility of players attacking others for raids and/or it means a player loses their cargo when they are destroyed and respaw:(n. Not allowing cargo to spawn externally from destroyed human players might be the most viable way to go, at least allowing a player to respawn with what they had. I'm open to feedback on it.

"Not allowing cargo to spawn externally from destroyed human players"
Personally, I don't like that option much.
It takes too much away from the pirate play style.
Maybe not allowing equipment stored in cargo bays to spawn externally from destroyed players might be enough. That might be how it is alreadY?

There are other way to exploit equipment and cargo that don't involve PvP as well.
I think if players don't drop cargo when destroyed it won't take long for this other
method to become talked about and I'm not going anymore into that one here.

If players lose cargo and equipment on death, I would not like that much either.
I can live with losing my cargo but equipment, that can be a pain, lol







[Edited on 1-31-2016 by MiaZ]

[Rubber Chicken]

I don't like the idea of cargo that can't be pirated either, but I can see a spawn camping type situation potentially occurring if the destroyed player re-spawns with lost cargo intact.
How likely that scenario is in reality, I'm willing to bet is very small, but it's still possible.

What kind of MP 'player-actions-solely-affect-economy' effect it might have by the items essentially being 'cloned' between two players, I couldn't say.

[Iron man]

Following Miaz opinion. I noticed a few piracy starting around. New player killing new player taking their cargo bay. The player who died just reload and if he saved he didn't loose time and the pirate is happy he got his cargo.

That also could be use in a exploit but I do believe if no cargo appear that will take away the piracy option.

About the equipment getting destroy during the combat. I do really like the idea but when that happened to me to be honest I just blow myself up and start fresh.
A possibility to fix equipment destroy by buying comodity will be interesting but I guess that not possible at this stage.

[matchbox2022]

Yeah I think it's almost a non-issue, it would take friends and a fair bit of compliance to exploit it...I think it's fair as is honestly...unless 64 people start using the servers at a time.


Since it would usually be an enemy downing said cargo carrying player, they really shouldn't be working together anyways....
Otherwise then safe space or even disputed space would always be safe. It's not entirely no consequence to the miner either, they do have to keep mining and perhaps the vulture still circles.

In order to keep it truly fair though. I have an idea, but it's implementation may be too difficult to really use effectively.
If the pirate defeats a cargo carrier, they simply split the bill. The miner gets to keep half of what he had of all item categories, and the rest are dumped into space for the pirate.
That way there's a consequence but its not all bad.

To be blunt I think the let's not exploit this card should just be played if it's that much work to fix.

PS. I do think equipment shouldnt be destroyed persay, just severely damaged / non-operable until repairs done....and equipment should wear out (acquire damage) after extended use, requiring upkeep. Those fulcrum drives can't be made by nokia.

[Edited on 1-31-2016 by matchbox2022]

[Rubber Chicken]

PS. I do think equipment shouldnt be destroyed persay, just severely damaged / non-operable until repairs done....and equipment should wear out (acquire damage) after extended use, requiring upkeep. Those fulcrum drives can't be made by nokia.

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic.

I agree with this mostly. While equipment destruction is more 'sim' than "rendered inoperable until repaired" I would rather go for the latter.

Of course, there would have to be a caveat against the Repair Sys. being able to repair the equipment so station-only repairs would be a must. The 'blanket' system of hitting the Repair button at the station, as opposed to individually selecting items to repair might have to be tweaked as well.

I'm not to sure about degradation-over-time and reliability issues being a good thing though. It's not so much that I would be against it, but implementing it would probably take quite a lot of effort.

I think it really boils down to the question of how much would implementing this eat into time and effort Vice would rather allocate to other goals and tasks he has set for continuing to work on Legacy.



[Edited on 1-31-2016 by Rubber Chicken]

[Marvin]

The ability to clone cargo exists anyway ... it goes along with cloning the pilot profile. Clone your profile -> hand over the cloned equipment to a comrade -> exit and return in your original profile. Now you both have the equipment. And, as long as we can clone profiles ....

[MiaZ]

Yeah I think it's almost a non-issue, it would take friends and a fair bit of compliance to exploit it...I think it's fair as is honestly...unless 64 people start using the servers at a time.


Since it would usually be an enemy downing said cargo carrying player, they really shouldn't be working together anyways....
Otherwise then safe space or even disputed space would always be safe. It's not entirely no consequence to the miner either, they do have to keep mining and perhaps the vulture still circles.

In order to keep it truly fair though. I have an idea, but it's implementation may be too difficult to really use effectively.
If the pirate defeats a cargo carrier, they simply split the bill. The miner gets to keep half of what he had of all item categories, and the rest are dumped into space for the pirate.
That way there's a consequence but its not all bad.

To be blunt I think the let's not exploit this card should just be played if it's that much work to fix.

PS. I do think equipment shouldnt be destroyed persay, just severely damaged / non-operable until repairs done....and equipment should wear out (acquire damage) after extended use, requiring upkeep. Those fulcrum drives can't be made by nokia.

[Edited on 1-31-2016 by matchbox2022]

yeah I think tis pretty much a non issue too.

IF you going to exploit there will always by way to do it, unless you shift to only online saves like
Elite D,, and I would hate that.. >(

If people want to spoil their own fun, they just won't experience the game the way it is meant to be played.
For them that's ok if they want to, for me I will play as intended.

[Janus]

Well, I've thought of a way to kill the exploit although you won't like it. I don't much like it myself, but the way things are now, piracy has no economic impact whatsoever.

Here's my idea. Progress is saved on station/city docking/undocking. The only other way to save is to quit. When you quit, progress is automatically saved. Upon destruction, progress is saved as part of the destruction subroutine. Now, before people start saying, but.. but.. but.. make this the case only in multi-player. Or maybe have it be an option in the server program to give ADMINS the choice if they want it on their server. Or would that be too much programming work? I do know that would be some extra coding, but I don't know how much.

[Edited on 1-31-2016 by Janus]

[Sinbad]

Good debate here. Here's my 2 pence (UK) on the topic:


Should pirate players be able to collect cargo after destroying another player?
Yes. It's incentive for the pirate-style gameplay.

Should the destroyed player be able to have his cargo back again after re-spawning?
Ideally, no. Perhaps a special auto-save when you are destroyed by another player.

Should the destroyed player be able to lose equipment?
No. But severly damaged, yes. Can only be repaired at a station. Some equipment can take forever to find again.



[Edited on 31-1-16 by MCCON]

[MiaZ]

If things are made to be too painful to players who lose their cargo or equipment then everyone will be avoiding other pilots and running away.
I'v seen this in another game I wont mention, where penalty of dead is too great.
It also may lead to griefing.

Piracy does have an economic impact, for the pirate at least, he gets a little more reward.

[Janus]

I understand about death penalty. But when I was talking about economic impact, I wasn't referring to the killer or the victim. I was talking overall economic impact. And I was mistaken. It does have impact this way. But not in a good way, I think. Suddenly instead of having 25 units of diamonds, there are now 50 units available to the market, albeit all 50 may not yet have been sold. And the extra 25 came without any effort to mine them. Sure, 25 ain't much, but over the course of time, that will be millions of units that took no effort whatsoever to mine or in the case of electrical, fusion etc. units, manufacture driving the price down.

[Rubber Chicken]

I disagree about the effort PvP in order to pirate takes. Granted, PvP time and effort can vary, there's always the chance one might end up in a 20+ minute battle with a skilled opponent. I don't think mining a few bays of metal takes much more than that, unless you are mining for specific materials.

Keep in mind that for the most cargo collection ability by a pirate, they will also be running a civilian ship, which takes a fairly high skill set vs. a military ship to be combat-effective.
Either that, or they will be working in teams. If you are alone and they are not, RUN! Very few of us can take more than 1 player on at a time.

Back in EM, where a certain custom gun combo and ship setup could fire all day long with almost no energy drain, 1v1s could often reach the 40-minute mark between 2 equal pilots. Now in Legacy, where energy gets eaten faster and said combo doesn't fire all day, the same pilots could probably have a higher chance of that happening. I would imagine there might also be a better chance for the attackee to defend or escape regardless of skill level vs. an average pilot.

If however, you run into a 'Dread Pirate Roberts' type pirate such as Iron man or Miaz, or maybe even me (should I decide to go to MP) , I'd suggest dropping cargo and running for dear life! :P:P

[Janus]

These are good thoughts. And I hadn't taken into account the time in PvP, but if you are someone like me who is not setup to fight, that PvP is going to last less than 30 seconds. It won't even be PvP. It will be slaughter. That's what happened to me. All of a sudden, I'm taking fire and then I hear "Incoming missile." Then I'm looking at myself exploding. And I'm not complaining about that. That happens. I knew it could when I chose an MP server. When he said "I got ur cargo." and was looking at 4 full bays, was when I started not liking it. To me it wouldn't have mattered if I kept my cargo and he got none, or I lost it and he got it all. Either way would have been fine. But both ways? That just didn't strike me as right.

[Marvin]

If things are made to be too painful to players who lose their cargo or equipment then everyone will be avoiding other pilots and running away.

Which is the advice I give to any new guy when somebody shows up who I recognize as a possible hostile. Run. And, btw, just follow me.

[Rubber Chicken]

These are good thoughts. And I hadn't taken into account the time in PvP, but if you are someone like me who is not setup to fight, that PvP is going to last less than 30 seconds. It won't even be PvP. It will be slaughter. That's what happened to me. All of a sudden, I'm taking fire and then I hear "Incoming missile." Then I'm looking at myself exploding. And I'm not complaining about that. That happens. I knew it could when I chose an MP server. When he said "I got ur cargo." and was looking at 4 full bays, was when I started not liking it. To me it wouldn't have mattered if I kept my cargo and he got none, or I lost it and he got it all. Either way would have been fine. But both ways? That just didn't strike me as right.

I can see what you mean about the 'dual cargo' thing. I don't know really how it could be remedied without further punishing the luckless party, or other players who haven't experienced this.

It is true that 0% chance to run or defend ambushes can happen, but for the times that might be survivable, I'd suggest trying to set your ship up as much as possible for running or stealthing away if you're not going to be returning fire.

I know that's a bit of a 'blanket' answer to something that's easier said than done, but admittedly, it's the best I've currently got.

[matchbox2022]

See my post about footing the bill, also, if auto-saving on death, you'd technically lose EVERYTHING.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

Here are my two cents.

PvP
This whole cargo exploit is a joke, no offence vice but I just really don't want to see bounty and pirateering go down the proverbial behind over an obvious save state issue that is just a little tricky to keep the SP guys happy. I put forth a solution lol, add some lines to the server software and game code (convars) which give player immunity in the starting sectors and also cargo drop immunity until the player has reached some set allocated time on the server itself. The cargo immunity can be optional. I bet you can see where I am going with this mate . This provides a buffer for newbies to learn the servers rules and player base before risking something of value, they also know exactly WHEN they will be risking value. I will extend below my thoughts on the actual dupe

Cargo Dupe
The dupe bug as I see is a pretty big issue for MP but if you go and change it then when you load back into SP you are screwed hard.. A better method to fix this would be to save a death state! but not just the simple idea mentioned above about saving before death no no, but an actual death state! hard coded into the game.

When now when you die the game triggers a death state for that pilot and marks the pilot with this state.. upon respawn SP or MP your cargo is wiped just your cargo (or you wipe whatever was lost during the death as usually happens in death). The best bit about this kind of save feature just like in an OS you can't get rid off it easily.. Once marked by the game code your only way to remove the mark in that slot would be pilot deletion.

This actually solves a number of dupes, such as transfer of save files between players this won't work because the hardcoded game SLOT IS MARKED so when your mate gets your save loaded the games going to just delete the cargo on load. You yourself can't grab a backup save and load that one either because again it replaces that save SLOT and its marked!





Ok good night we all happy now no... but in all seriousness I believe this is a much better solution than simply preventing cargo from being dropped on death and punishing the SP player for being a rookie.

[Edited on 2/3/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]

[MiaZ]

"now when you die the game triggers a death state for that pilot and marks the pilot with this state."
Ok but what about the other 99 save game slots?

I can load up pilot 1 and then save in pilot 2 spot, will this mean both have the "death state"

[Janus]

This is all very well and good except the death state should be removed after deleting all cargo. Otherwise every time you load that character any cargo will be lost. That's not good at all.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

I should probably clarify.

I stated that once the pilot was marked the mark would remain until the pilot was loaded or deleted hence once you loaded that character the state will remove itself because the game would then re save without the death state applied. So in regards to Janos's comment about the effects of the state happening every time you used the character that issue wouldn't happen .

In regards too what Miaz said about switching save slots this is also not a work around because the death state is linked to the character (pilot) it doesn't matter if you change the save slot as once you click the pilot or load the game up again it will apply the death state to that pilot in the new slot until cleared by a new save (as you would have selected the character in the menu or played the character this would re save the game without the mark)

The death state would do its job while the character is being loaded into the game world yes but the mark would remain active even in the character selection screen.

The only thing I didn't account for was renamed characters as this can be done during character selection, now this is easily prevented with a simple check to see if it's marked and if so display a warning that you will loose your cargo by renaming the character.




Hope this clears up the confusion.

[Edited on 2/3/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]