I wanted to make some suggestion about how to improve suicide-ganking. Realized, that it cannot work unless something is done with faction police.
I understand that if someone gets low towards amarr, faction police will attack him.
I also don’t have problem with faction police around gates/stations will attack criminals of that security status.
But why do they chase these players and why do you die instantly by the hand of faction frigate that is not on the grid when you warp to safespot? I don’t get the purpose of this.
Wouldn’t it be actually better if the faction police wouldn’t chase criminals/neg status around the sector? What is the purpose here?
Do you think this mechanic could be removed or replaced by ability of players to freely engage on anyone who would be chased by faction police in given sector?
Concord (and gate and station guns) attacks criminals, those with a criminal flag.
Faction police (in escapable ships) attacks capsuleers with low sec status and/or low faction standing.
The first is a punishment for illegal action. The second is more along the lines of “we don’t like you, but Concord won’t do anything, so we’ll just make you feel unwelcome until you leave”.
All in all, it seems reasonable. The only thing i’d improve is stopping the unwanted from docking on local stations, but that would have balance issues associated with it.
I don’t. Point is that the criminal that waits his timer has low security status and hence is chased by faction police. Only citadel gives immunity to that.
You do not die instantly to FacPo. Quite the contrary, they help you get away because they web first before they apply a warp disruptor, which effectively propels you into warp before they can catch you.
And that’s the point. That criminals cannot linger around leisurely in high sec as they wish. Is that a problem? Players can already engage criminals freely, but they don’t because either they think/know it’s a trap, not enough people are there to effectively chase criminals nor are people interested in police work (otherwise there would be more wardecs against criminal entities like CODE to hunt them).
FacPo fills an important role that players do not want to take over even though they could already.
you do die almost instantly in small ship like frigate,rookie ship, shuttle
they web first true, then they prevent warp (not sure if dis or scram tho), it is almost impossible to undock with anything slower than 4sec align time due to this, but again I don’t have a problem with this exact mechanic, only by police chasing targets outside station/gate
no you cannot engage on criminal with more sec than -5.0 who is flying in 0.8 0.9 1.0 - such player is criminal to the eyes of police but not in the eyes of other players
my initial thoughts were to enable other players to attack criminals with more than -5.0 (but still criminal in given sector according to sector sec) but when they cannot fly freely and they are hunted by police there is no point of this, essentially I think the faction police hurts the interactions between anti-gankers (those willing to engage on criminals) and gankers/criminals.
Most -10 gankers use scout alts to find targets while they keep their ganker in station, once they find a target, they undock their ganker and strike, they never even see the facpo. This is in stark contrast to ganking on a single account where they will have to warp around the system to find targets while keeping one step ahead of the facpo, this requires a large number of bookmarks around gates, and patience.
Ganking with a scout alt is more efficient, but a little less fun, and can get very repetitive.
Ganking on a single-account is more challenging and fun, but can get very tiring.
The prescence of the faction police adds a little more depth and variety to ganking, I see no reason why they should be removed. Even if they were removed I doubt the multi-account gankers would change their playstyle, as staying in one spot in space too long when you’re freely-shootable by anyone isn’t exactly wise.
The major problem with the Faction Police is they make interactions between criminals and vigilantes impossible. I see why the FacPo are there, and it’s fine to have NPC enforce some consequences on those that take the criminal path, but as it is, there is no window at all for the players to do the job. At the very least, players should be the ones chasing the baddies up until -5, and then add the FacPo to the mix.
But in my opinion, they should be removed outright to make space for player bounty/criminal hunters, or replaced with some sort of uber NPC à la the new FOB pirate NPCs that shows up much more infrequently. Sure, place some added risk on criminals (consequences! give them to the bad people!), but at least give the criminals some room to get lazy or offer a good fight to someone looking for satisfaction for a previous criminal offence. As it is, highsec combat is largely just one-dimensional ambushes and sniping from behind the safety of NPCs. Maybe it is doomed to always be that way, but the marginal effect of the faction police probably prevents more content than it enables.
You have a point there. I find it quite ironic that a mechanic used to punish gankers could actually have been training them to be more effective all along. (Did I use irony correctly there? Calling @Sasha_Nemtsov - My English could use some work.)
Even if that is the case, I still doubt that just removing the facpo will make any significant difference. I would propose a change in the mechanics that would allow antigankers to become the replacement for the facpo, with all the powers that entails. An example of such powers would be a way to warp to a ganker, no matter where he is in the system, almost as if they are fleeted with him. The facpo already do this, after all.
There is one further consideration, however. If you are to replace the facpo with players, there is a very high chance that the majority of ganking would happen uncontested, as only so many antigankers can be in so many systems at once.
No sure, this, plus it is effort, are reasons why CCP hasn’t touched the Faction Police in a decade. It would be less safe for your average highsec citizen to allow criminals to loiter on gates and stations, and enter mission pockets.
As it is though most ganking is “uncontested”. Probably 95%+ of my personal crimes go unopposed by players and the facpo really is just a small nuisance easily ignored. I’ll grant that they do limit my target selection, but their effect on the mechanics of a gank is negligible almost everywhere.
Making more space for players to interact while criminal would increase the window for antigankers to catch me with my pants down or bait me into a real fight. As it is, with unfailing NPCs that show up and decide any fight between players, I just never undock in real combat ship in highsec while an outlaw. Given that the NPCs are now getting into the ganking game themselves camping gates and the like, the small added risk of letting a criminal sit on a gate seems pretty small potatoes and perhaps worth the upside if it allows criminals and vigilantes to have a real fight.
I think we might get there someday, but at the glacial pace Eve development has reached, I don’t expect it any time soon.
Yes exactly, it is not a problem as you can stay tethered at citadel or use less than 5sec align time ships and insta-undocks. With this you can move freely around highsec no matter of security status. But you cannot stay longer than few seconds. If we ever want to get rid of current fast ganks where there is basically no time for defenders to react, sometimes even when it happens on the grid but its 200km from gate its over before you warp there, then the faction police must be reformed.
Imo faction police should act at gate and station but not warp to you in middle of the sector.
This is not a suggestion to make ganking easier - it is already easy as hell and faction police is minor annoyance as you just stay docked/tethered until your target is about to jump anyway. If criminals could stay in space it would allow more player interactions - they might try bait, antigankers might try hunt/blob lots of possibilities. In worst case, 99% of the gankers will stay docked/tethered even after this change and nothing wrong happens.
