Automatic Jack
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Posted - 2003.11.02 03:13:00 -
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The best answer most of these people have for "why they do it" is that PVP mechanics in the game have forced them to resort to this
"tactic" since there's nothing else they can do.
The statement that pvp mechanics have severely limited what pirates can do is very credible, and I really want there to be viable options for piracy. But, there's still no excuse for gate drop lagging. Despite arguments to the contrary, in 99% of all cases, the lag *IS* deliberate. Carebears may be fuzzy and adorable, but they're not complete morons...
I highly recommend hunting down a recent post in the General Discussion forum by Jade Constantine. It at least helps explain how we got to this point in the game.
(sorry but at the moment I cant seem to track it down... i keep looking for a *********FORUM***SEARCH********!!! button but there is none to be found)
Jade's article explains alot about "what's so tough about piracy" in the current state of the game.
While its definitely not *as* easy as it used to be to terrorize and plunder, there's plenty of opportunities out there still. As an example my main's corp mines heavily in 0.4 and below usually without any kind of protection aside from a few turrets swapped in instead of mining lasers and some combat drones floating around. I'm posting under my alt to protect the guilty (aka... stupid  ) Every minute I'm out there the only thing running through my head is, my god arent we a tasty target for a band of pirates. Attacks on us to date while sitting there completely vulnerable: zero... WHY???
Anyone justifying their camping and greifing by saying it's "impossible" to pirate any other way should get off their lazy bum and go looking around a little. Just as the map functions are crucial to avoiding blockades, they are an invaluable tool for tracking your prey! You amuse yourselves constantly with older-than-time jokes about "harming no asteroid" and "protecting the roids". Well go back it up. The people you kill at gate drops arent mining, they're waiting for their damn screen to load.
That said, CCP needs to fix several things:
1. The so called "random" drop points need to be fixed once and for all. This is getting rediculous guys. To any one using this "tactic" that actually complains about this statement, I suggest you do a little research and you will learn that people dropping into the same "random" location in space every time is actually a *BUG*. Similar to the "remembered stations" *BUG*.
2. The logoff ship/pod disappearance timer needs to be greatly extended to prevent people from simply logging out when they face some one attacking them. This is the central reason there are so few "pirates" that actually *act* like pirates instead of mass-murderers. Chances are slim to nil that if you manage to successfully web/scramble someone and open with demands that they are actually going to be there by the time the pirate says "so how much is your life worth to you?". Why bother with a failing tactic, just smoke 'em and hope they drop something decent. This is sad... If and when i ever get into piracy myself I'd really like to not have to kill everybody I meet. As it stands, that's not the way it works.
3. The built-in scanner should allow you to warp to anything it discovers. This is one of the coolest (in theory) aspects of the UI, but it is way under-implemented. It takes a significant amount of time to run a long range solarsystem scan. As a tradeoff, it should actually serve some purpose to the user. This could be an invaluable tool for pirates to actually "hunt" their prey instead of sitting around shooting them helplessly like ducks in a barrel while they "tune in on subspace frequency". And as with most things "pirate" related, the benefits directly relate to bounty hunting, an all-but-dead enterprise in the current game for the same reason pirates have become little more than sociopathic killers.
Ok I admit... that last one i kinda added as an afterthought, but it strikes me as a reasonable idea (ofcourse, i did think of it heheh)
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