"Because VO isn't an RPG, there's no RP reason to do or not to do anything. What you're trying to say is "what's the FPS reason to not shoot people?"

I said exactly what I meant although you rephrased it into something slightly different. I was pointing out that, like you mentioned, there's no RP reason to do anything. So while you can say, as you did, there's no RP reason to tolerate a certain behavior, I can say there's no RP reason not to do it. As a result, that argument is irrelevant.

"everyone enjoys the combat they do have a lot more when some fairly simple rules are understood and adhered to by all pilots present."

This is not factual and is the flaw in your argument. Your fairly simple rules are exactly what decreases the enjoyment for some players. I can't speak for everyone, but I have a hell of a lot more fun when I'm not sure if my enemy is going to conform to a set of predetermined rules. I wish people would gank me more. It's more exciting.

Again, maybe we're just looking for two different games here. Vendetta is not a true FPS. Its a MMOFPS. Even if it were a true FPS, I've never seen a FPS where the players stand around twiddling their thumbs until someone politely asks, "Would you mind if I shoot you?" If this is the direction this game is headed, then they should just create a matchmaking service so that every fight is even and be done with it. Then it would be a true FPS. But as long as it's an MMOFPS, or at least striving to be, not all fights will be fair.

Re-routing back to the topic, if nice and even combat in B8 with rules is what you want, good luck finding that if unrats are thrown back into the mix. Do people not remember how impossible it was to have a fight in B8 with unrats constantly ganking?

If it wasn't broadly correct, you wouldn't see the behavior in the absence of any formal rules about consensual PvP. That things are generally as I've described them is clear from observing how the game is played in B-8, and from your apparent need to draft lengthy, butt-hurt screeds about it being a problem.

For the record, I could give a fuck how my enemies fight - if they're managable, I'll manage; if not, I'll disengage and take a different approach. Unlike a number of people, I try to play it less like a FPS and more like an RPG, meaning I place a significant premium on not dying, even if it cuts back on my own PKs. That said, sometimes you want to have a gauss vult fight without dodging swarms.

A lot of people play the way they do in B8 because that's what they've been taught to do and they're under the impression it's "correct". A lot of them haven't seen it any other way.

Nothing butt-hurt about it man. The thread is about unrats returning to gray as a solution to a problem. I voiced my opinion about why I don't think it would be a good solution and offered up an alternate solution. Add the bots back if that's what people want. I just don't think it's going to give people what they're looking for.

"That said, sometimes you want to have a gauss vult fight without dodging swarms."

Good luck having that uninterrupted fight with unrat hordes roaming grey.

The Doc has a valid point about the FPS aspect of VO. That said, I am inclined to agree with Ghost to an extent as well. When I first started playing... Gray was exhilarating! As a wee lil' newblet I recall approaching Gray space with trepidation. Who was in the next sector? Was I going to be blasted to bits exiting a WH? Where were the Un-rats? Were there pirates? Would I have to pay, run or fight? Which option was best? About half, maybe even three quarters of the time... I died.

Hell my first PK was a pilot from PA over in Edras who caught me on a bad day. By the time I got to Sedina, they rallied the troops and I led five of them on a high speed chase from Sedina to Deneb before Mecha got ahead of me and blasted me!

Gray used to be dangerous. Most of my time in Gray these days, the most common ships I see are XCs, unescorted flying gear to what ever station they or their allies have conquered.

Granted, there are the occasional furballs over stations or random acts of piracy... but it does seem pretty rare these days.

Bringing back the un-rats would help a bit but... what would help more would be more players and more logical (even RP based) aggression.

ITAN does its part in Deneb and fights ONE where ever they can be found.
And VPR sometimes fights CHRN and CLM.
HAWK (all me of them), attacks any enemy of HAWK which is pretty much everyone except ORE and EMS.

We need more guild based aggression, which in turn would cause more danger. We need more vets to come back. Vets who remember the hostilities and dangers that used to be rampant.

I don't know for certain what the cure for the problem is but... fixing the faction system would go a long way towards it. If we can't have Serco PoS without being Itani KoS and Corvus PoS without being UIT KoS (as well as the minor factions), we'll see a lot less people worried about their ridiculously illogical "gold wall" which would lead to less general carebearism... which could lead to some good old fashioned hostilities.

Fixing the economy would even help a lot. If the economy ran as it should, you'd even see trade wars between guilds trying to maintain the highest profits.

The un-rats were great and should be brought back as a temporary fix to what I hope is a temporary problem. They should be kept just because they were fun.

I never minded having to leave B-8 for my duels, Ghost. The un-rats served the valuable purpose of making Gray Space WHs dangerous 100% of the time for unescorted moths of all stripes - and gave those of us who don't give a damn about the hive some sort of PvE. They should return, except the damn gat/flare hogs need to be replaced by posi Hounds with UCs.

Players being more aggressive, throwing out the notion of consensual PvP and actually fighting for their factions would serve the exact same purpose short of the PvE aspect you mentioned. If you don't mind leaving B8 for your duels to avoid unrats, can't you do the same thing to avoid being ganked by players?

Maybe I'm over simplifying the issue, but this more or less seems to be, "Players aren't shooting each other enough, so we need to add bots to shoot the players more." Couldn't the players just start shooting each other more?

That being said, seeing how Vendetta isn't the most populated game at the moment, several patrolling groups of unrats might not be a bad addition to add to the danger as long as they're not in the horde quantities that used to be in game. It's the certainty that's boring. The possibility of being hit by unrats is much more exciting than knowing you'll be chased by unrats at every wh in grey.

VO does in fact have an rpg aspect to the game. Some of the older players got use to playing space quake in the early days of VO and have never adapted well as the game has taken on a much larger role.

At any rate - I have a few other bots that might be added for interest.

Rioters - a group of bots the invades a station sector and remain there attacking anything that enters. News articles concerning a protest at the station and crowd control missions to clear the bots could also be added. Killing these bots would cause no standing loss as well.

Looter bots - These run around at random and grab any loose cargo they can get and try to escape with it to a nearby station. they should be programmed to hang around in areas that they tend to be successful in.

+1 To the rioters and the corresponding news posts.
+1 to looters, that would also make it easier for the devs to up the cargo time outs and not worry bout the verse getting cluttered.

The addition of lone traders, smugglers, national patrols/border patrols wouldn't be bad either. Also... for all the EV:N players out there... the occasional crippled trader offering us payment to complete their runs would be kinda cool.

What a heated discussion... TL:DR

Anyway, back to OP, how to fix unrats stated problems? Simple, make them more 'pirate-collector' interested primarily in cargo ships!

So, unrats would attack any lone trader and any small convoys in grayspace, while ignore/avoid fighters (so duels). And for bigger voys, spawn a series of unrats on its way!

Basic logic for unrats would be:
-Warp in, scan present ships.
-If any cargo/hauler/convoy is found, engage it.
-If any fighter attacks it, declare it temp KoS and fight back. Or else ignore fighters
-After Xmin without contact, jump to next sector in its route.

Routes can be Edras--Helios, and another exploring every sector where the hive is not present!

Improving: Make an Observer Bot visit every sector in gray systems, and call in the unrats/hivepack when they meet any player not in a fighter!

*Fighter: Any ships not tipically used for cargo hauling OR any ship with more than 20cu storage. TBD.

How can you not love sunflare/agt WTDs to bits. They are one of the only bots with credible combat AI. But having posi greyhound unrats makes sense too. Maybe wandering unrats could work in groups of 2-5 with at least one WTD and one greyhound. I agree that their inevitability was just as annoying as their mobishness before. So maybe something that worked out to about a 10% chance of encountering them at any given wormhole would be good. Looters would be cool.

The mob behavior could be fixed by limiting the number of unrats in a sector to a max of 4 or 5.

And the Un-rats interrupting consensual PvP could be handled by having the fights elsewhere. A while back, Peytros suggested a large hollow sphere that pilots could fight in.

Another way would be the implementation of Gray space factions as playable characters. The Un-rats have to home some where so with their re-implementation, each "pack" could be assigned Corvus or XX as a faction and decline to attack players with that faction who had a high enough standing, probably PoS... as they are pirates and would likely only be swayed by a very high standing. RP wise it could be assumed that the Un-rats would only be dissuaded from attacking members of their own faction who held a higher societal position than they are.

Some good ideas.

I like the limits of 4-5 an random encounters.
+1 to the Rioters an Looters.
+1 to Ryan's idea on the faction part.

Although I would like to see the bots ignore ppl with say, two of the three major factions as hate or kos.

"the bots ignore ppl with say, two of the three major factions as hate or kos."

+1

I'm liking some of the suggestions I'm hearing, improvements on the original idea. I was aware of the original "unrats" but unaware of why they were removed or why players did/didn't like them. And the problem isn't only "players don't want to shoot each other" (although I have noticed it's far too peaceful for a supposed no-holds-barred war) but also "I want to shoot players but I can't find them to". At this stage I'm between cancelling my sub, resigning myself to Deneb/Hive, or pirating (as much as [ITAN] will allow me to). Wasn't the point of Grey not changing faction standings so "Goldwall"/tri-PoS players could still get some action? Or am I misinterpreting something? Also, I never intended for more than 4/5 per sector, I would consider myself screwed in a 3/1 botfight, and thus run away. That highlights another issue - from my experience, bot FIGHTING is fine, especially when they Flare and/or AGT, it's bots' CHASING abilities that makes fighting them practically consensual. I like Alloh's AI plans, but I wasn't sure it was possible/worth it to code something like that. Maybe more like Ion Storms - W/H sectors may have unrats or may not. Observers is also a good idea.

There is no reason that unrats should curtail their aggressiveness toward those who are hated by others. It's not like they could expect the favor to be returned. Corvus is not a pirate faction. Unrats are unaligned.

But it makes sense that unrats, interested in cargo looting or ransom, do ignore small fighters and pursue voys/haulers. Simple business options.

Then, when players are duelling or furballing in B8 and unrats arrive, anyone on valk/hog/vult/... , would be "safe", while anyone on a Centaur would be a target. And buses are cargo ships!

Even better, make them prefer to attack ships by its cargo bay size. First engage any moth, then centaurs...

-1 to relate unrats AI to standing. They should be like the hive. Any player pirate on a moth is a target, while is ignored if he is on a grayhound.

Also, relate the number of unrats per sector to convoys' size, or number of players+NPCs present in sector.

"make them prefer to attack ships by its cargo bay size. First engage any moth, then centaurs..."

Agreed, unless they have cargo scanners, in which case they should be inclined to go after the ship with the most total value in its hold (rough estimation). Even though they presumably won't actually snatch up the booty (but I would love it if they did). That way they're attacking the person they can do the most harm to.

Distance should also be a factor - if there is a moth 4 km away, and a centaur 400 m away, they should attack the centaur.

As for faction standings, if we want to make them ignore "fellow pirates", respecting negative nation standings as Vskye suggested would be most reliable, because any hippy trader could build up his Corvus and XX. But I think I agree with Maalik and Alloh that they shouldn't discriminate - make 'em unaligned and rat everybody evenly.

....or you could balance the unrats out by adding faction based police patrols that attack anyone with a hated or KOS standing with their own faction.

you could balance the unrats out by adding faction based police patrols that attack anyone with a hated or KOS standing with their own faction

Those exist within nation space. They're called strike forces.

They have, however, no place in Gray.