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Author Topic: Convicted of having too many friends  (Read 10829 times)

Megas

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2015, 06:15:14 AM »

Probably not intended, but you can sink your rep quickly by letting yourself get "caught" with the transponder off by patrol fleets. This has happened to me more times than I'd like to admit trying to sneak into places and use the black market unknown...
That works too.  Probably the best option for factions that do not fight enemies enough.  I do not like to sink my rep with individuals, but then again, if I plan to fight the factions eventually, it should not matter in the long run.

Next game, I plan to control reputation until I reach 10/10 in skills (i.e., level 36+).  Level 20 is too early to deal with faction ties.
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Surge

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2015, 06:19:06 AM »

Careful with that though, patrols will only warm you to turn your transponder on once before they start shooting.
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Megas

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2015, 06:29:30 AM »

They will attack if you refuse to turn your transponder on.

That is the idea.  You need to lower reputation, and you do it by getting into a fight with a patrol (while they are not aware of your identity), if you cannot arrange a friendly-fire accident elsewhere.  You want to do it if they are not aware who you are, so that reputation does not drop to hostile.
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Surge

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #18 on: November 21, 2015, 07:01:13 AM »

If you turn it on as asked, turn it back off, and then get caught by the same patrol they will attack, easy way to lose a LOT of rep :P
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Megas

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #19 on: November 21, 2015, 07:15:38 AM »

If I want to attack them (or goad them into attacking me) while they are not aware of my identity, the last thing I want to do is reveal myself (i.e., turn on transponder).  I do not want to lower reputation down to hostile or else that defeats the purpose of defeating faction ties.  If I want to do that, I would... let the faction ties investigations run their course.
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Carcer

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #20 on: November 21, 2015, 07:34:21 AM »

Using the transponder to lower your rep on purpose (And this bieng intended on alex's part) is incredibly gamey and makes no sense within the game world.

If in real life you had a person who was friendly with two nations who were otherwise in a cold war with each other, the person wouldn't use what amounts to parking and moving violations to declare he is only wants to be friends with nation A and not nation B.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #21 on: November 21, 2015, 08:10:37 AM »

I'm pretty sure your Transponder is a lot more important than parking violations.  You're not putting a regular car out of place - you're putting a heavily-armed and armored fleet with all sorts of weapons, escorts, and possible illegal items out of the eyes of a faction.  And to them, that's pretty distressing.  It seems reasonable if you ask me.
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Carcer

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #22 on: November 21, 2015, 08:52:57 AM »

Except the way its intended to be used to lower reputation you're doing it in full sight of that nations military, in fact the only reliable way to lower reputation that way is to do it right in front of a detachment or patrol.

To modify my original analogy, the way Alex intends the switched off transponder to be used is like if I illegally parked a tank I am legally allowed to own stuffed with guns and ammunition I am allowed to own directly opposite a police station, and used this as a way to *** them off on purpose.  Sure they'll be angry and question me of my intent and search my vehicle, but that’s hardly a way to reassure a rival nation of my allegiance to them.

A secondary problem is that factions treat you having your transponder off the same no matter where you are. Switching it off within sight of a planet or starbase should lead to being questioned and maybe fined, being found with your transponder off near a trade lane or within a known ambush area should lead to the reputation damage and a far heavier fine or worse.


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Alex

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #23 on: November 21, 2015, 09:41:00 AM »

Makes good sense to me. If you've got it off, there's a good chance you're a smuggler or a pirate, even if they can't prove it at the moment and you agree to turn it on. The "parking violation" analogy isn't quite analogous; imo that's the danger with analogies.

A secondary problem is that factions treat you having your transponder off the same no matter where you are. Switching it off within sight of a planet or starbase should lead to being questioned and maybe fined, being found with your transponder off near a trade lane or within a known ambush area should lead to the reputation damage and a far heavier fine or worse.

That's a fair point and something on my list of things to look at.
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Carcer

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #24 on: November 21, 2015, 09:53:23 AM »

I understand this system is only meant to be a place holder, but if you've got the missions in place why not have the investigating faction give you a mission to prove your alliegence, like attack one of other factions fleets within X time or else you get the reputation hit?

The point I'm getting at is that using your transponder is gamey and in no way made clear as the intended method of reducing reutation without attacking someone.
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Tomn

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #25 on: November 21, 2015, 12:48:08 PM »

Yeah, leaving aside the question of how logical using the transponder is, I feel like the big issue is really that the game currently doesn't actually tell the player that that's what you're supposed to do.  If you're rolling with a large battle fleet there's a good chance that you won't bother trying to do the whole bribery schtick because it's too big and unwieldy to slip past patrols, so all you know is that sometimes you get investigated for having high faction relations, and you can get away with it sometimes.  There's little warning that it's a hard-locked three strikes system, and not much information suggesting that you ought to go attacking fleet patrols or fiddling with your transponder to fix it.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #26 on: November 21, 2015, 02:02:41 PM »

A secondary problem is that factions treat you having your transponder off the same no matter where you are. Switching it off within sight of a planet or starbase should lead to being questioned and maybe fined, being found with your transponder off near a trade lane or within a known ambush area should lead to the reputation damage and a far heavier fine or worse.
That's a fair point and something on my list of things to look at.
I feel like this would make things worse for those just trying to hide from the enemy Panthers/ Pirates, especially if they are an honest trader
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Alex

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #27 on: November 21, 2015, 02:16:05 PM »

I feel like this would make things worse for those just trying to hide from the enemy Panthers/ Pirates, especially if they are an honest trader

I'm looking more at something like "don't bother if it's really far from a friendly market". Not entirely decided, though.
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Carcer

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #28 on: November 21, 2015, 03:38:51 PM »

Have it scale on the size of the detected fleet. If its a really small fleet they should probably ignore it, since its not worth the hassle and the merchents should be able to defend themselves.
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DeMatt

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Re: Convicted of having too many friends
« Reply #29 on: November 21, 2015, 04:19:34 PM »

I have to say that I feel the "ties with enemy" investigations trigger too early.  "Welcoming", that is +30 rep, is not where they should be happening.

I also don't like the conceit that you CANnot play "The Great Peacemaker" or "The Great Unifier".
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