@Wylfing
You say that it will be abusesd, how is it any different then botting or doing trade runs solo. You can do as many as you like and don't have to stop till you fall asleep, this is just another way of doing the same thing. I'm not saying that the amount of xp you get should be uber by any means, actually, I think it should be very small, but could be more depending on the given situation (ie. # of Jumps, etc.). I'm actually less for xp/money at all, though the pilot escorts should make some money, but more for a "Escort Badge/Award". Plus you never know if it will or won't be abused till you try it out. Personally, I'm still shipping my stuff solo and do not have a problem doing so but I'm very interested in giving the devs ideas for ways to implement more group oriented game play that does not involve them having to create tons of "missions". This is a player iniciated idea with a simple group style command that would allow those that like to fight and those who would like to trade to work together and still get something that they both will like, and also making the universe seem less empty.

It's a given that if a system is abusable by the players, it will be abused. Severely.

Here's the scenario Spellcast brought up: trader launches from station, joins with escort, and immediately lands again. Escort gains a point toward his badge. Rinse and repeat. Your solution to this is to add a mission-like structure, counting jumps, etc. How is that better than having a mission?

ananzi: Yes, we know it's possible for these situations to develop. But -- this is important! -- they are not an integral part of the game. They are isolated incidents. It is not an ongoing activity that can engage players over long perids of time.

A mission requires going through the mission structure. This is supposed to add a more spontaneous player interaction than going to a station, posting a mission and waiting for someone to take it.

>A mission requires going through the mission structure. This is supposed to add a more spontaneous player interaction than going to a station, posting a mission and waiting for someone to take it.<

Exactly, I'm in total agreement as well that if a pilot joins and then docks that he should not get xp, simple fix, no docking while in "escort" mode, your simply dropped as an escort. If it's due to life, maybe another escort could be aquired that is a "medic" of sorts, there are guilds like that. The system can work if it was something that the devs would like to implement.

The trader has to have a trade mission for this to work. Otherwise you are asking the devs to create a new, special mission-like functionality that tracks the activities of a special kind of group, except it's not a mission and it's not a group. In other words, reinvent a ton of code for the sole purpose of letting miners hire escorts on an ad hoc basis -- a feat which ananzi pointed out is already possible. So it would add no new functionality and would add a serious XP exploit, or at best a way to earn a medal without doing anything.

Without doing anything???? They are flying escort on a convoy, and people are grouping together providing group activity in the game. If that alone is not enough to add this to the game I don't know what else is. Adding Code is a bad think, NOT! Like I've said before, more content is good content, once it's in it can be tweaked to make better. Ad hoc basis, why not, it's just another way to take on missions that does not rely on the stations, and adds a level of pvp/missions.

It just seems to me that any time a suggestion involves more then 2 minutes of Dev time that it's immediately shot down as a waist of time. If this is the case then why have a suggestions board in the first place. This is a good idea, it may be rough around the edges, since I'm not a programer (thank god) and can not provide them with specific loop holes does not mean that this in not valid and worth discussing and implementing.

How would it add a serious XP exploit? How would it require the creation of a totally new structure? You presume to understand or even have an inkling how they designed their code, which I know you do not. It is entirely possible that one can start a mission while sitting in empty space - in fact, in the late days of the Alpha I think it WAS possible, but I don't remember clearly if it was so. If it is, all they would have to add is the trigger: "/escort trader".

When I say "mission structure" I mean the system of going to a station, opening the mission tab, selecting and accepting a mission. I don't mean the underlying code, I apologize for giving that impression.

I'm the one who brought up the exploit, and I also pointed out how to fix it. Just in case you missed it:

"Perhaps make the xp tied to number of jumps(wormhole, not intersystem) and profit. So (example only): Combat XP = (Num Jumps * 50) + (.01 * Profit). I escort someone through two systems, where they make a profit of 10000c. I get (100) + (100) = 200xp. Since you're never going to get a profit from selling to the same station and won't be jumping, you'll get negligible XP from it.

The escort must remain within the same sector of the trader at all times, with maybe a ten second buffer to cover load times and to allow the escort to go first through wormholes. This eliminates the case where someone just sits in a station as an "escort" while AFK and gets XP."

So what the devs would have to do is make a new mission called "trader escort" with something like the above parameters and let it be triggerable by a trader or escort using the /escort command. It would add the functionality of another more interesting combat mission, which is desperately needed, while not appearing to need weeks of effort or introducing any easily visible exploits.

as i said before; I like the escort idea; as long as it is tied to a miner or trader taking a mission.

Here is why it will not work ad-hoc IMO.

MIner and Escort decide they want to earn some XP without doing anything.
Miner sets up a mission, and hires escort.
Miner undocks.
Escort undocks.
Miner goes 20 meters, mines a single ferric ore.
Miner docks, sells cargo, ends mission.
Miner and escort get XP.

Same thing can be done by a trader.

True it can be solved by making an equation to keep track of how far the goods have traveled, but I would rathar see it just tied to missions.

Add a "Mining Contract" mission where you have to bring so many units of ORE X to a station. (always a rare ore, never one you can just buy)

Then a player can take a trade or mining mission and use the /escort function to split the XP with up to 2 other people.
All players would have to start in the sector the mission was taken in, and remain in the same sector as each other for the duration. (if you end up in another sector you have, hmm 45 seconds to get back to the person you are escorting or you are no longer that persons escort) Probably accepting the job as an escort would need to count as a mission in and of itself, just to prevent some other interesting exploits.
(all parties being both miner and escort comes to mind)

I think the reward for taking an "escort" mission could be figured on a sliding scale of some sort. Maybe a 15/10/10 X half the level of the person doing the hiring , or a minumum of 30/20/20. (everyone who hires escorts gives the same XP as a 4th level miner/trader)

For traders who wish escorts while trading on their own, the only compensation would have to be cash. I dont see any way around it without making it exploitable. For instance if i wanted to exploit it if it were based on the number of jumps, i would just go to a wormhole and wormhole hop for 10 minutes (i'd start in, hmm say edras B-11) then dock somewhere.

Basing it on how far the origin station is from the destination station might work, but it doesnt give any incentive to gaurd miners.

Base it on time spent and the exploit is really obvious, you just set up the escort, walk away from your computer, and return several hours later.

All in all, i think tying it to missions is the only way to prevent exploits.

> You presume to understand or even have an inkling how they
> designed their code, which I know you do not.

That's just silly. It isn't required to know the details of the source code to spot obvious reimplementations.

> Combat XP = (Num Jumps * 50) + (.01 * Profit)

This is still an exploit, because this equation doesn't handle making 30 unnecessary jumps. I know what you mean by it, though. The mission will decide how many jumps there are. (*glare*) Having this formula is good because it requires the trader to actually make some money. But it rankles me to not have any consideration for how good the escort pilot is.

> The escort must remain within the same sector of the trader at
> all times, with maybe a ten second buffer to cover load times
> and to allow the escort to go first through wormholes.

This (a) is a lot of cycle/ping overhead, and (b) imposes a lot of difficulty on escorting. What if an escort engages a pirate and the trader flees the sector, and it takes 3 or 4 minutes for the escort to rejoin the trader? The code would assume he's not doing his job, which would be false. Maybe such "laziness" checks can happen at event points (e.g., sector warps, system jumps, docking), like missions are done now (*glare*).

> So what the devs would have to do is make a new mission called
> "trader escort" with something like the above parameters and
> let it be triggerable by a trader or escort using the /escort
> command.

Hmmm, a mission. Why didn't I think of that? OK, sarcasm aside, I wasn't talking about the mission tab either -- just the using the existing mission functionality. You stated exactly what I was getting at.

[edit] Spellcast you are spot on as usual. [/edit]

Well I completely disagree with a lot of what you all have said, and since I don't have any control of an idea once I've posted it, I am just going to resign from posting about it any more, you all make it the way you all feel, but I think you are weakening the ability of the function that I originally thought of, which is fine, because you do that with all suggestions. Do as you all please…

wylfing... sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought I corrected it with: "When I say "mission structure" I mean the system of going to a station, opening the mission tab, selecting and accepting a mission. I don't mean the underlying code, I apologize for giving that impression."

Of course you have to know what their code looks like. This isn't a massive reimplementation of the mission structures, it's at most a new adapter with some special methods/functions to be plugged into whatever their enabler is. If they're using that design pattern. Who knows, maybe you can piece this whole thing together with existing code - you don't know and I don't know. Only the devs know, and they're not talking.

It's not a jump counter. The game is already capable of calculating the distance between two stations. If I go around the universe to get to a station that's in the same system as my start station, my number of jumps = 0.

If an escort is left behind, he isn't doing his job. When the trader jumps to the next sector and is destroyed by the pirate waiting THERE, you'll see my meaning. Escorting isn't being cannon fodder or a distraction, it's remaining close to who you are protecting.

This would have a side benefit I didn't see until last night. Traders would actually FIGHT BACK instead of running. Last night I fought side by side with a Prom against some Valks. I was in a Serco Guardian Vult. The tactic was remarkably simple here. If a Valk tried to kill the Prom, I shot it with my weapons and it had to disengage. If it tried to engage me, the Prom would have a free shot with its AGT - something you can't ignore at close quarters. Extend this to a trader escort scenario - the heavier ship carries heavier weapons - swarms or an AGT as above, while the light ship harrasses or gets the kill. One is the base of fire while the other is the flanker.

You answered your own criticism. There's little overhead at all - whenever someone jumps, you start a timer. That thread runs in the background. When the timer runs out you check the toplist to see if the trader is in the sector with you. If he's not, then you have failed the mission.

Please don't construct strawmen out of my example equations. Obviously the times and numbers would need tweaking. No one is ever 100% correct the first time they put an idea to paper, or in this case a forum.

I believe I have answered all the criticisms satisfactorily so far.

At present, the only exploit I see is the case where someone buys goods at a station then jumps through the wormhole in that sector, sells it at the station and repeats. Even that case is unlikely, as you won't be able to make a profit most of the time.. hence ending up with negative XP from the profit end of the equation. Maybe 50 combat xp per jump is too much - what is the average time, would you say, for a player to get the combat xp bonus from a combat mission? five minutes? How many jumps is that? Three? Four? So the number would have to be lowered to be brought in line with the other ways of gaining combat xp. So even this exploit is addressable with the right tweaks, and could even be a special check in the escort code.

Anything else?