If a pirate is going after cargo, they really need to disable the ship instead of destroy it.

Hulls should be almost impossible to destroy. Like 5 minutes of constant hits on a single hull. The higher a bounty, the shorter time this is. Call it unrepairable damage of battle.

However, disabling a ship should be as easy as it is to destroy a ship today.

Once a ship is disabled, the pirate must get close and use the return key to board the ship and steal cargo.

An invulnerable bot of the same nation is immediately dispatched to the disabled ship, and tows the disabled ship to the station for repair.

This means that the farther the player is from the home sector, the longer it will take for the ship to get there, and to get back.

This also means that ships are no longer as expensive, and a jerk cannot ruin the day of a newbie with a ship powerful enough to survive the s8 bots.

This also creates an amount of time that a pirate must use to get cargo, so others can slip by.

Gee. I've been disabled. Now let me wait here in space helpless for 15 minutes while I wait for a tow truck.

Is that fun?

Let me think about that for a second.

No.

PS: phayd, the mechanism you describe sounds suspiciously like that of EVE online. Are you familiar with that game?

XWA has subsystem damage. It also has an autorepair timer.
Perhaps something similar to this should be explored.

Ions could come back as disabling weapons (like they do in XWA)

Nothing seems to take more than 1.5 min to repair (but in a typical XWA fight, you're dead anyway if the system is critical enough).

I've never heard of EVE online.

It dosen't take 15 minutes to get to the nearest starbase of your nation.

Also, and I missed this, another player should be able to tow as well. Players could opt to tow for free, or a price.

And as for fun of sitting in a ship for a bit...

I would consider this more fun than buying a ship, going to test it out and immediately getting slaughtered by pirates/ai and losing it and the cash.

"It dosen't take 15 minutes to get to the nearest starbase of your nation."

It doesn't now. In a game with 10,000 systems, 15 minutes may be a conservative estimate.

"I would consider this more fun than buying a ship, going to test it out and immediately getting slaughtered by pirates/ai and losing it and the cash."

That will stop happening as you get more experienced.

A player could also choose to abandon the ship. This would result in a floating derelict in space.

If anyone gets to it before the NPCs finish it off, you can then replace your ship with it. (setting a self-destruct sequence, or a return home auto-pilot, on your ship in the process)

This could result in a new form of pirate. However, it would be impossible to _force_ someone out of their ship, so they would have to convince the prey to _give_ the ship away, or have the ship destroyed. Not a very lucrative option, as the net loss to the prey is the same.

Maybe you can purchase tow service at space stations.

For 20c, if the station is closest, they will dispatch the tow ship. When you visit a station, you purchase the service, and the wait becomes the nearest station.

If you opt not to purchase the service, your nation's home base will dispatch.

hmmm how about instead of a tow ship.. a repair ship gets dispatched.. brings your engine and battery online to the same effectiveness as the free batt/engine" and you can fly yourself wherever you want to go, and get further repairs when you get there. The repair ships could be neutral AI's.. they could be launched from the nearest station so that wait time would be minimized.

I like it. Your weapons are still disabled though.

I have often wondered why the merchants don't bribe the pirates, or why the pirates, if they really are pirates don't try to blackmail the merchants.

Pirates should bind a key to 'Jettison your cargo or face the fire!'

Merchants should bind a key to 'I'll jettison my cargo if you let me go!' For that matter, just jettison and I bet the pirate will stop chasing you and go for the cargo.

Of course, this would be even better if we had a command /msg_my_target to bind to.

It would also be helpful if we could just jettison part of the cargo.

I seem to get killed before I know that a pirate is around.

Then may I suggest that that is your problem.

Check 'u'. Check 'x'. Be cautious. Try to figure out where everyone is before charging into the middle of things.

put x on the rolling button of your mouse, use it alot ;)

use u repeatedly, has shaved my ass a lot :D

cheers

I check x, but I don't know what u is. Often, it seems that I don't have time for that even.

Hostile detection should be automatic, but that is a different thread.

u = gives a list of every person present in the sector

x= alternates between enemies "don't know if they added human oponers only know"

cheers

PS: I always hit u at the moment I was loading a new sector, so I new who was in it and who I could fear. Was very intresting to now if Icarus was in this sector, if so I just didn't dock and went somewhere else ;)

cheers

"Hostile detection should be automatic, but that is a different thread."

Now there is something we can agree on.

Either all ships should automatically detect someone locking on to them, or else all ships should be able to equip a gizmo for a nominal cost that does that.

a modification...

the long amount of armor between disabling and destruction is also unrepairable.

Quote: "use u repeatedly, has shaved my ass a lot :D"
Ummm... Yeah... :P Actually, the ability to disable ships (including NPCs) would be nice... In EVN, if you board a ship, you can choose to steal creds (NOT for Vendetta, unless it's a small percentage), cargo, ammo, or the ship itself. However, there's a good chance that you won't be successful in taking whatever it is you want to take (it's based on a comparison of you and your target's ship type and crew size, I believe), in which case you'll be kicked off the ship, and there's also a chance that the ship will self-destruct.

Pyro: In a single player game it is perfectly fine for the game to have behaviors and attacks for which there is no defence. The game doesn't worry about enjoying itself and you can abuse the NPC's however you like. But a MMORPG has to design itself such that it is fun for every mook in the game. Think about that for a while. Imagine you are playing the average first person space shooter, and that the game has to be fun even for those enemies in the first few missions which are always mysteriously a push over for a rookie pilot.

Celebrim, you wondered why no trader bribed the pirates.

The truth is: I do. I have deals struck with Scorpius and Phoenix. They dont kill me and they get some money for not kiling me and stealing my cargo.

I also Jettison if I realise there is no way I can reach the wormhole in time, and I am followed by a pirate whom I have not paid.

And I agree that we need hotkeys. We really need hotkeys, and that would not be so hard to add, or at least I think so.

Customizable hotkeys.

I need:

1-Mercy, Mercy!!
2-Taste my missiles, scumbag
3-Please, dont kill me, I will jettison my cargo!
4-Die or face the consequences!!
5-I will pay you if you do not kill me, I promise.
6-You have been ambushed by Vauk, have a nice day. I will put your cargo to good use.