Ship Theft

[albert]

Interesting but I can see the potential for abuse if not controlled. Although Escape from Tarkov have managed to do hardcore items loss pretty fine so far. I think this is to satisfy pledgers who would be annoyed if theives stole their paid for ship:

http://www.pcgamer.com/if-you-steal-a-ship-in-star-citizen-it-will-disappear-when-you-log-out-of-the-game/?utm_content=buffer13981&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer-pcgamertw

[Galatoni]

I think they've taken the safe bet. This will reduce pirate numbers to a more sensible number of pirates who really invest their ability and skill. The alternative will be a bunch of guys who want to sway around and pretend to be drunk while trying to steal everything in sight. Its just not going to be fun for people that are trying to be legit.

I've tried to look at this from pirates perspective but irl there are consequences to living outside of the law, and those just can't be integrated to their simulation. The easiest way to handle it is what they've done. Those that are left will be hardcore and dangerous, much like you'd expect from the real deal. And much like those we've seen throughout history.

Sent from my Swift 2 using Tapatalk

[Jamoe]

Perpetual theft, pass on the stolen goods eh, I wonder how long a chain would be possible

[Obsydian]

PC Gamer...hmmm...click bait article based on hysterical rantings on Reddit resulting from a single post from a lowly dev about an insurance mechanic that he doesn't even understand the history of.

Let me explain...the insurance mechanic as originally put forward involved theft being permanent, but if you steal a ship then the ship is "hot" and woe betide anybody aboard should it jump into a UEE system, as they will be pursued by law enforcers and barred from landing on any planet or space station.  The only place you would be able to use the ship will be in lawless space and you can't sell it.

The dev who made the comment that started this all was not even aware of the above!

Lando has since commented that the original idea for insurance and the handling of stolen goods may still be a thing, but I'm inclined to defer to a comment that Chris once made, which was that unless you hear it from him, take it with a pinch of salt.

The proposed mechanic is, in my opinion, ludicrous, and if they do implement it as suggested then that may be the last straw for me.  What is the point of stealing a ship and/or its cargo, if it simply disappears when you log off? Stupid, stupid, stupid idea.

[smilodon]

From the mouth of the horse.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/insurance-and-cheating-the-system/915947

[TeaLeaf]

But, the other thing to remember (from the same horse's mouth) is:

As insurance is still in-development I can't say what we're settling on

There's a ways to go and a ton more debate to be had yet.

[Obsydian]

Yeah, this is the bit that has everybody up in arms:

Stolen ships, no matter how well the theft, will not be a long-term thing. You get to enjoy them for the session, but those ships will not be returning when you log back in. Stealing ships should be a short-term goal. Joyriding, piracy or selling them for scrap, not for growing your own fleet.

I sincerely hope that they don't go with that.

Also, when it was pointed out to the dev that it had been originally proposed that stolen ships could possibly be "legitimised" somewhat through the use of black market IDs, his reply was:

If that was a thing, it isn't currently being discussed.

quite a shocking response in my view, which leads me to suspect that he has spoken out of turn.

[albert]

I agree with you Obsydian. If an asset simply disappears from the PU after it is taken by another player then the PU part of things goes to pot.

There should be the correct level of crime and punishment system implemented to deal with any theft. Also some very very difficult options for pirates to process stolen goods, like selling at a low price due to their hotness, or complexity in fake registration that isn't 100% guaranteed especially in larger less abundant ships but also a chance that a re-registered ship will still be identifiable if stopped at a suitable secure station or scanned by a detail scanner. In other words, if you take someone else's ship, you should expect to be under pressure to offload it or mask that ID in the current session as logging off in PU space in a bed will lead to the inevitable action of authorities finding that ship floating in space.

Likewise if you buy a stolen ship you should expect it to be hot from the get go. Risk and reward have to balance.

[TeaLeaf]

I agree with the theory of what is being said (by Obs & Alb), but I think the comment was how do you provide some kind of long-term mitigation or control of the piracy lifestyle within game.  Within game there is no real 'cost' to being a pirate.  We currently don't know if we can sentence a player's character to imprisonment (how many players would pay to play being locked up?) so the piracy side has a far higher number of people involved than you ordinarily might expect to find.   I think that's probably more of what they are trying to discuss, how to moderate the impact of the piracy imbalance whilst at the same time not having to resort to 2 year prison sentences for the player's character.

[albert]

Death! Make them create a new character if they get caught and take the cost of their crime from the assets of their previous character! If they have nothing, the mines are beckoning! It's an FPS after all, make a challenge where they have to escape from detention each time they get caught and find themselves light years from their base and smuggle themselves back home to resume their lives, either within the law or as a criminal!

[Obsydian]

Haha, nice one Albert!

Prison has been discussed in the past.  In fact, I posted a lengthy-ish outline of how I saw it working several years ago on the old forum in response to the dev's suggestion that criminals that are captured are shown a cut scene and then released back into the game - and CR later outlined how he saw prison working...and it matched what I'd written almost word for word!  I'd like to think that I influenced the direction, but it's probably just great minds thinking alike :lmfao:.

Anyway, the idea is that a criminal is thrown in jail and will be able to either pay a hefty fine to be released immediately, wait out a time penalty and face a reduced fine before being released, or attempt to bribe their way out of the prism (which may fail) or try to get their buddies to break them out.  Basically, turn the whole thing into more gameplay rather than just watching your character sit and stare at four walls.

It remains to be seen exactly how it plays out for real, but I'm encouraged that they're thinking about making all aspects of the game have some element of fun.

Regarding stolen ships despawning when you log off, Lando has gone on to say that the original insurance mechanic is still their plan, but, as you say Tealeaf, they're trying to find ways to minimise the abuse that stealing ships can result in.  He mentioned that ships INSIDE other ships will NOT despawn when you log off.  Currently ships inside other ships don't respawn when you log back on (it's a bug and needs more work to get it working) and the only 'ships' that can fit inside others are the bikes, but I'm hoping that the term 'ship' could extend to player owned structures such as hangars, in which case we could well see stolen ships still being there when logging back in (although we have a way to go yet, seeing as persistence across servers still isn't fully implemented yet).

The upshot is that I'm encouraged that we will end up with something nearer to what we all want.

[Obsydian]

By way of a brief update on ship theft...

CIG have confirmed that stolen ships will not persist beyond the player's session...for 3.0 and 3.1.

The long-term plan though IS to keep to the original Insurance system previously described, and stolen ships should persist and be added to the thief's fleet from 3.2 or 3.3.  They are intending for theft to be high risk/high reward, complete with the ability to replace the ship's hull ID with a fake one, etc.

[TeaLeaf]

Thanks for the update. Development continues!

[Gorliath]

This would be a good opportunity to introduce bounty hunting. Insurance companies put up a bounty for recovery of the ship. A player can run to avoid detection but can be hunted for 7 days. During that time they can continue to run or scrap the ship, on day 7 they are forced to scrap it and return to a UEE system. Rinse repeat if you like being the hunted. Not sure what penalty you could introduce to prevent account hopping especially if they have no funds but its something. Would make good time for small groups looking for some fun. Also could become competitive between rivals.

[TeaLeaf]

I like that idea! :thumbsup: