JeeF

Just to be clear, your instance spawn location should be determined when the tag timer ends. You are then presented with a join/ignore dialog window for 20 seconds, but still spawn where you were when the tag timer ended, not where you got when clicking join (obvious exploit). Can't join if you're outside the big circle when the tag happens, but the outer circle could extend all the way to the horizon. That yes/no window should probably include things like tag initiator and tag target name to prevent abuse. And about the battle results screen, you can both use it to hide inside and gank people outside or wait outside and gank them as they come out. A 2 minutes or more invulnerability would help but could still be worked around with a bit of coordination. Kicking people off the battle results screen after x minutes would mean you would pretty much always be ganked after a battle in enemy territory. This is why I think the only viable solution is to force you back to the nearest friendly/neutral port after a battle. Maybe it would still be abused but it wouldn't be nearly as harmful, especially if you can't defensive tag outside of guns range. If the average battle lasts 30 minutes or more, that should be more than enough compressed OW time to be back in dock. As a bonus, it explains how you got all your crew back!

I totally love Niels Terkildsen's idea. It could still work with a 1.5 br rule, if that's absolutely necessary, but I think this system would fix most of what the 1.5 br rule is trying to fix - and more. While we're at it make the inner circle smaller to disallow defensive tags. If this system is implemented - with a 0 second reinforcement timer - I would be ok with not being able to use defensive tags because I would either still have a chance to flee inside the instance or would have been outplayed in the OW and would thus accept the gank. Also, getting defensive tagged out of a fair fight is so frustrating. A simple and effective transition from ow to instances that make sense. PLEASE, DO IT.

I like it as it is now, the issue wasn't only with SOLs. If availability really is a problem, I say adjust player production rates instead. But my guess is it will resolve itself once the initial demand is met.

It would be nice to be able to send to chat, like we currently can for modules, a ship, so that other players can get all the details in a tooltip. The tooltip you get of your own ships in the Home screen made available to other players by right clicking a ship in the Ship Selection window, in the Home screen, and selecting the suggested function "Send to Chat", just like we can for items in the Equipment screen. This would facilitate trading and possibly even bragging.

i meant no AI traders obviously... and also this server could have negative XP when loosing a ship.

I would very much like to play on a server that has no bots in it whatsoever, no missions, traders or anything. All ships would be players. XP would come only from pvp.

It has to be players driven. I was assuming it would be. Votes for war, votes for leaders, highest xp player made king, i don't care how it's done. 3 sided battles should not happen because it doesn't make sense to engage in it, not because it is forced off by the game mechanics. The on the spot politics that could happen in these battles, if wars are player driven, is what will make them interesting. But my issue here is stopping people from avoiding pvp by tagging AIs. Spawning players further away from the center the more time spent seems to have some support in other threads as well. I would like to point out battles are rarely fought at the center of the instance. If this ends up being implemented, the center should move along as the battle progress. Average of every ships positions, possibly weighted by their battle rating.

This would make me very paranoid of sailing around if a battle could be ending anywhere without warnings. Locking doesn't really changes much anyway. If they have reinforcements and want to kill you, they will just wait outside. There is no way to change that. From the perspective of players in the open world, realism would be being able to join any instance at any point. Spawning reinforcements at a good range, giving the players inside it time to react, would be the realism middle ground imho.

spawning reinforcements right on top of the ongoing battle is the problem here, this happens right now with 2 way battles.

why any restrictions at all? I'd say make it free for all to join and if complexity arise sort it out in chat.

+1 no public stats

You're right, in duels we don't care as much about hull damage and pop repairs whenever, preferably as soon as none of it is wasted due to being full hp. Early survival mode is usually game over and water in the hold is worst. I was thinking of the run of the mill pvp matches; I find it's rather annoying to see focused fire wasted on a ship with depleted armor, as its pulling away from the line to repair behind teammates. Switch to survival, delay the repair, and you're almost impervious to damage. That kind of stuff. The logical thing to do on a real ship would be to repair everything as it gets damaged, maintain 100% condition, but we end up doing the opposite.

Smart use of repairs can be a major factor in a fight and the repair "tactics" don't make any sense. It's just too much abstraction. I'm hoping for a revemp in dm4.

That was my brig! 20 something crew were left on the brig after capturing the schooner because it was maxed at 55 (new feature afaik) idk if that caused it to sail on its own or not, neat if so. There's always logical explanation to ghost stories, sorry to disappoint.

Couldn't agree more, it's very awkward. The forced delay between shots could be reduced too. As for pursuing to close the distance, as Mr Doran wrote in the very last paragraph, kiting has to be nerfed somehow. Turning to shoot back can't be a solution because you will never catch up and they have a range advantage.