Although I agree that high sec shouldn’t be completely safe, I still think that suicide ganking is sub-par. Aside from being really counter-intuitive and artificial-feeling, it’s also totally implausible that space cops would just let randos loot a ship (or train, or whatever) that just got blown up by some bandits. Obviously if they can secure the area they aren’t going to let random people loot the wreckage, this isn’t California.
So yeah maybe this has been suggested before but here’s my alternate idea. Space cops should decloak (not teleport in) and boost ship’s damage resistance and maybe do some reps when a ship is attacked, based upon the size class, base value of the ship and the security status of the system. They should also attack gankers and actually do enough damage to eventually kill them. But let people defend their own ships, just with a big advantage. In the case of DSTs and stuff, if you tank for long enough they have to call off the attack because the damage scales or whatever. This would be a lot more interesting than insta-pop of everyone involved so I wonder why it hasn’t been tried yet?
Another related idea would be to have Concord monitors loot some of the wreckage of a ganked ship, depending on the security status. So it doesn’t just get harder to kill someone in high security systems but you also get less loot. This would make picking routes and ganking spots a bigger deal maybe. Naturally Concord puts your recovered loot into asset safety or something.
Edit: I think the advantage of a system like this, where the gank takes longer, also means that the suspect flag from suicide ganking is actually relevant. Third parties could jump in if things go on for awhile, whereas currently the suspect flag and kill right systems don’t seem to do anything here.
It has. And it lead to the current system because the old system could not fulfill its role. Look up m0o.
Furthermore, the idea that people should bring escort fleets for their haulers is not new either and it’s one of the worst ideas ever to “fix ganking”. Not only are these escort fleets incredibly boring, tedious and time-wasting, they are also pointless. For instance, DST aren’t worn down by DPS, they are insta killed by Alpha. Currently because you don’t have time to kill them with DPS; in your system it will be the same because you want to kill them before repairs go into effect.
Escort fleets would not help because gankers just bring more DPS to compensate for potential repairs or ewar, which in turn leaves the escort fleet pilots behind with a lost protection target and the feeling of wasted time and effort.
On top of that comes that these fleets are expensive. No one is going to move around with a freighter or DST for hours for 5M reward or something like that. Hauler rewards simply do not allow for that kind of effort.
Yes, just because 15 years passed after a failed system was fixed, you should try again and see of the failed system works 15 years later. Do you know what Einstein said about the definition of insanity? Not to mention that gankers nowadays are even more crazy and dedicated than 15 years ago. Surely, this time around, tankable CONCORD will definitely work just fine. Fails in history are lessons to learn from, not blueprints for repetition.
Aside from all the stuff that has probably changed in the 15ish years since, there is no reason that it would need to be the exact same system.
Here’s an example: let’s say, hypothetically, it takes a group of Talos 3 cycles to kill an orca before Concord shows up and pops them.
If the system gave the orca defenses so that it would take 30 cycles, and warp scrambles and ramps up damage so that the Talos die in 30 cycles, it’s basically the same system only 10x as long. This duration gives the pilot, his alts, anyone who sees suspect flags and so-on time to actually involve themselves in the event.
I am not sure how it could be possible for this to “fail” (doesn’t need to be perfect anyway) since it could literally be the same system we have now only on a longer time frame. I guess you could try and remote rep the attackers and so-on but this increases the expenses of the gankers by a lot, or reduces the DPS of the attackers etc.
Your idea ignores that concord spawns with a delay. The Orca is not being killed with 3 Taloses because that’s enough DPS, it’s being killed like that because it needs to die before concord arrives. The same thing applies to your system, unless you spawn concord instantly upon aggression.
An alternative scenario is that this reduces the cost for gankers. While it’s currently not possible to really kill an Orca with just 3 Taloses due to its raw HP, under your system it becomes possible. This banks on the principle that no one, definitely no random people, are going to interfere with a gank. Most people aren’t hanging around in suitable ships, don’t notice the 3 or 4 flashies in a system, don’t care, have better things to do, or any other reason to not get involved that will backfire on your own activities.
Increasing DPS from Concord would also have to be so high in the end that it alphas a ship between rep cycles. The idea behind m0o was that they could indefinitely tank whatever DPS was thrown at them and tackle and kill anything that moves. This will happen again with your system.
In essence, such a system either changes nothing for ganking because you still need overwhelming DPS/Alpha to overcome the system, or it makes ganking easier and cheaper than before because you need fewer alts, fewer ships. Especially the latter is not desireable.
An easy fix would be something like they have for the Rorqual and the Citadels. a Seige mode module that would give the mining ship an ability to only take a limited amount of damage in dps, say 1000 a second. no matter how many ships are firing at it. this would extend the survival time to something people could respond to. It would also, like the Rorqual, pin it in place. As a result Concord times would need to be somehow extended too.
I know I know, this has the possibility to make ganking just impossible. but if some nerf was also in play (in addition to not being able to move, and that once seige mode is gone u will die normally to the second wave of gankers) - make it a low slot so cant use upgrades, or a high slot to use up a mining module slot OR disallow command ship assistance, etc.
Not totally fleshed out - but hey its an idea worth looking at.
Then there are other ideas. such as an anchorable command boost deployable with awesome shield boosts, or a warp core stabilizing ability of the fleet. Or when activated calls the cops before a shot is fired (with fines for abuse, lol). Or one that gives all the deployed combat drones super ability to kill gankers, so on and so on. and yes these would only work for mining ships and only within 100km of a asteroid belt beacon.
Yes, just because 15 years passed after a failed system was fixed, you should try again and see of the failed system works 15 years later. Do you know what Einstein said about the definition of insanity? Not to mention that gankers nowadays are even more crazy and dedicated than 15 years ago. Surely, this time around, tankable CONCORD will definitely work just fine. Fails in history are lessons to learn from, not blueprints for repetition.