I was working on mission Enemy of my Enemy. I purchased the almost required Interceptor. I tried to run my nullsec travel as soon as possible after restart. I made a mistaken in not accepting mission last night to be travelling from a different direction. I had to travel back to agent in my interceptor for mission.
I thought I was safe enough in that the only way I could be killed (from my reading) was with purposeful smartbomb gank with a spotter. …I was killed with the a smartbomb gank thanks to the nice people of Northern Coalition.
I have no problem with Northern Coalition. If they want to expend their time and resources in this manner they deserve the occasional reward. It did not cost me too much and I did not drop too much. I harder think I was worth the effort.
But I was troubled by this. The only group a smartbomb gank is usful for is an Interceptor. Other pilots will either be too big for smartbombs and much easier to kill other ships than smartbombs. I just did not see how it was worth the potential payoff to camp at the location they camped.
I tried to think like a ganker. If they had someone looking for Interceptors at the agent, they could almost guarantee they the mission and where they would be going. The could generally infer mission runners were new Interceptor owners. They might infer that the ships might be more valuable as a mission runner purchases more expensive gear to not only protect them from the trip but also to use next missions if needed. I was not even allowed to accept this mission remotely. For the mission itself that is ridiculous given that there was supposed to be no knowledge of my association with the agent.
I come to the conclusion that CCP purposely created this mission to offer up mission runners to gankers with more expensive gear. CCP has an option of weighting their universe for or against PVP. I do not mind it is weighted toward the pvp player. I know this when I decide to play the game. My expectation is that it will be a logical weighting. It will make since within the universe they created. This does not. In no way, shape or form does this mission make since other than to give pvp a chance to make money. I do not think PVP players need this type of advantage.
I liken it to insurance and Concord. I assume the companies insuring ships would have some type of pull with Concord and would make more Isk if they did not keep losing ships. Concord could make minor policy changes that would drastically increase ship safety. This could happen and still give PVP players good opportunities for profit. In fact maybe more profit because people might be more willing to travel in more expensive ships.
Rather than requiring people to lose their ships before getting insurance, how about making insurance an ‘Oh poop’ button. When people are facing destruction from pvp, they can instantly spend their insurance to call in a Concord patrol.
- Insurance company makes more Isk (many payoffs from same ship)
- Concord makes money (insurance companies pay Concord for responding )
- Level of Concord response based on insurance paid
- PVP players rewarded. No more guaranteed death by Concord. They will still attack but not as strong. Unless Concord ships attacked.
- Mind numbing stupid practice of Freighter bumping made more difficult. So getting ship to location to attack harder but it is also less needed.
- Allow for the practice of convoy freighter hauling.
- The best part may be that you could get rid of NPC insurance company and allow player companies provide this service. This would extend to make insurance possible in low sec and null sec space.