Forums » Suggestions

/selfdefensetime

Feb 07, 2023 Sid123 link
Currently there's a command to see how long and what faction you have a Temp-KoS from (/tkostime). Similarly, there could be a /selfdefensetime command to see who you have self defense timers against, who have self defense timers against you and how long these timers will last. Chat logs often get extremely spammed during combat, and it's not really feasible to check your errors.log to see this information.

So it could be like
/selfdefensetime

*** "A" can kill you without factional repurcussions for another 8 minutes and 53 seconds.
*** You can kill "B" without factional repurcussions for another 5 minutes and 24 seconds.
Feb 08, 2023 Aryko link
+1
Feb 08, 2023 abortretryfail link
+1
There definitely should be more clarity about how this stuff works in-game. Right now it's confusing even for experienced players if they aren't actively toying with the faction standing system on a regular basis.

Honestly, I think it should be more integrated into the game UI than via text commands like this. The PDA page that shows faction standings should reflect TempKOS, and the radar and target info on the HUD should display if someone is/was hostile to you and if you're able to defend yourself.
Feb 08, 2023 We all float link
+1

Similar (in a very general sense of the word) suggestion:

Improve how pilots are informed about various factional rules and regulations. (2021)
Feb 11, 2023 Hawkfeather link
+1
Feb 14, 2023 incarnate link
Soo.. there are challenges around this.

Self-defense timers are counted down in game-time by the person who has the timer set against them.

As a result, for someone to constantly be able to see their timer status on everyone they would be allowed to kill.. would be an inherent information leak on who was online. Because you would only see the timer counting-down on people who were online.

Thus, we're looking at making that side of the feature only support players within radar range, in the current sector. At that point, their game-status is "known".

I recognize, this is not the solution you were looking for, in terms of who you could go hunting after on a longer-range basis. But, this is what I have for the moment.
Feb 14, 2023 Sid123 link
That sounds alright, but I just had an argument.

If someone has attacked you and you have a self defense timer against them, wouldn't it justify you being able to see if they're online or not, until the timer expires? It's not like it could be abused much. Even if they log off with their timer running, login again later and the timer restarts, you might know they're on but less than 15 minutes isn't really much time to find someone's location. So the find-if-someone-is-online-to-hunt-them-down thing won't really be too effective. And even if it is, it's justified considering they attacked you and then just logged off to essentially escape punishment.
Feb 14, 2023 draugath link
Why would you be able to know they're online? The police give you permission to defend yourself for a period of time, fine. The aggressor runs away. Why now should you have any idea that they even still exist, unless you see them again?
Feb 15, 2023 Sid123 link
It doesn't make sense from an RP perspective perhaps, because when they log off the faction basically forgets that they ever existed until they log back in again.
But from a gameplay perspective, it makes sense. They attacked you, you have every right to get back at them, but they just logged off and escaped punishment. You should atleast be able to see when they're online again (if you're logged in at the time) and try to mete out your punishment in the given time frame.
Feb 15, 2023 incarnate link
I'm not leaking the information, because generally there's too much potential for it to be used in some orthogonal way that results in community drama. Like: People "instantly" discover that someone they hate has returned to the game. Or.. any number of other related cases.

Leaking this kind of information is never about the gameplay sensibility of it, it's about the side-channel usage of the data to create havoc in other parts of the community.

15 minutes is a relatively small window, but again, I'd rather not have to worry about the information leaks, if there was some future reason to increase self-defense times or add some other feature on top of that.