Are they showing up much faster for you?
They're showing pretty fast. Sometimes after battles there will be stragglers from enemy fleets which will prevent us from salvaging with the usual "an enemy fleet is tracking you" scenario, even if it's nothing but a dram and a frigate or two. This can mean that sometimes, we can't scavenge a single time before the vultures lock you out of your loot. And since you usually have to scavenge 3-5 times before the debris stops yielding anything worthwhile, it's a pretty raw deal.
From a balancing perspective, is there really a need for the reputation loss? From what I could grasp, the vultures were introduced as a way to prevent very early game players from just following invasion fleets around and salvaging all the capital ships they could want, an addition which in my opinion is pretty good and welcome. If this is the case, they're already doing their job pretty well. But the truth is on the vast majority of starts, reputation with the independents is generally not a concern when at that point. Rather, it's something that only becomes valuable as you grow well beyond the size at which vultures would be a deterrent, so doesn't this reputation loss mainly penalize players which are already far past the starting point which vultures are meant to affect?
The main issue is definitely the reputation loss from debris which originated from player actions. Those are actually rightfully ours, and they're no better than pirates at that point. At the same time, it would still be a bit annoying to lose reputation in other situations, because it's not as straightforward as "we're blowing them up for scraps". Rather, they're choosing to fight others to the death (their death or ours) instead of allowing equal access to scraps which aren't theirs in the first place.
Like, if we attack an independent trading fleet, sure, we're basically pirates and are indeed blowing them up for scraps. But regular scavengers are happy to do their business and share the spoils with others, unlike the vultures which are going around strong-arming others and laying claim to things which aren't theirs to begin with. They hold no special rights over random debris fields any more than anyone else, so why would playing their own game be frowned upon by the independent community at large? Surely they don't think this heavily armed group who do nothing but go around intimidating people is a shining pillar of their community and any actions against them should be reprimanded?
The size of the reputation loss itself is very much manageable, for sure. In fact, a level 5 agent ordered to raise relations once would probably be enough to make up for blowing up four whole vulture fleets. It's not about the size though, it's the added annoyance. It feels like getting cheated out of your hard-earned perfect reputation over and over, and having to bother fixing it, with no added upside to compensate for that. Or rather, either getting cheated out of your reputation or cheated out of the spoils which you came across. It might be only my personal opinion, but losing reputation in that situation feels like it adds nothing to the game and actually makes it less enjoyable.
I didn't expect the post to get so big, so sorry for that. Ultimately, I am very much not trying to tell you how to make your own mod, that decision is obviously yours alone, I'm just posting this to try and defend this point of view. And of course, I also don't know how many people there are on the opposite side of the argument, who actually appreciate the vulture fleets as they are, and would dislike any changes to them. As it stands, however, if the reputation loss remains in the future, and if there is a setting to disable vulture fleets, they'll likely be turned off permanently on all my future playthroughs; personally, I can't help but feel like they're an added chore with no clear upside, in their current state.
Author
Topic: [0.97a] Nexerelin v0.11.3b "Planet Tales" (fixes 2024-12-25) (Read 3458156 times)