Smuggler flag

[Rigge1988]

10 minutes ago, Jef said:

I'm sorry you got attacked/killed by a trade ship, and now feel the need to change an entire game feature

I was camping the port he was hiding inside for 2 hours. 2 hours of my life I spent. Instead of 5 minutes if this nonesense had not been possible.

[Rigge1988]

1 minute ago, rediii said:

I think we should aim for a fix that noobs are safe in their waters.

Battles in safezones should instaclose (pve fleettags, only in safezones tho) Also maybe deactivate pvp tagging as a whole? Noobs will be noobs. They tag a player thinking its a pve target. They tag players in small ships thinking its a easy victory.

 

I dont see why this has anything to do with smugglerflag. Its true that you arensafe with smuggler tho and I dont like it either.

Deactivating smuggler after a pvp battle sounds good to me. Perfect solution

Im not asking for a removal of the smuggler flag. Im asking for a redesign.

If you have smuggler enabled and attack something you lose your smuggler flag and thus cannot enter an enemy harbour, you'd have to sail back to a neutral/national/free port to re-enable it to go out and do your trading.

[Lz3]

I definitely want to leave it as it is and would be disappointed if it changed. Removing the smuggler flag from LGVs and Indiamen would cripple an already flaw full economy. 

In the advanced solution: After the battle, how would anyone realisticalily know that you are a smuggler if you sank the enemy ship? News would spread about a ship not returning but not about you sinking it. I like the idea of being a fake trader behind enemy lines, it's a great way for piracy 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Lz3

[Lz3]

Just now, rediii said:

He is talking about changing the mechanic so people use it for trading and not for pvp

edited post before you finished typing that, in that original  I only answered the basic solution

[PG Monkey]

Leave it as it is.. I like it and want an LGV refit!

 

[Rigge1988]

Edited first post as I fear some didn't fully understand. What this discussion is all about.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Rigge1988

[Hodo]

23 minutes ago, Rigge1988 said:

An LGV using smuggler flag is pretty much untouchable as the LGV has a different sailing profile than most square rigs. Only ships that COULD have a chance would be another LGV, the refit, pirfrig or surp. You'd be pretty much chanceless if you face a boarding fitted lgv refit unless you get lucky and get a mast or two. The swivels are insane against crew.

Now Im not saying they are faster cause they have smuggler flag enabled. But that enables them to jump into any harbour where they can hide.

How people can't see any issues with that is beyond me. Tell a new player about this issue once he has been jumped by one and he will probably rethink his choice of game.

I certainly would. "Sorry we couldn't get him cause he is now hiding in our national port, probably logged off by now" - Great.

 

That kind of make me ashamed. To be wanting to see good things coming out of this game, explaining possible thoughts from the devs, defending poor mechanics with "it will be better" yet losing players to grief and abuse of game mechanics.

You are thinking all wrong on how to counter this.

If you are dealing with a ship that can out sail your ship at most points, get at a point where he cant.  I have yet to have an LGV out run my Renomee, or my Prince.   Both of which do in excess of 14.5knts and I dont even have good mods on them. 

 

[Rigge1988]

17 minutes ago, Lz3 said:

I definitely want to leave it as it is and would be disappointed if it changed. Removing the smuggler flag from LGVs and Indiamen would cripple an already flaw full economy. 

In the advanced solution: After the battle, how would anyone realisticalily know that you are a smuggler if you sank the enemy ship? News would spread about a ship not returning but not about you sinking it. I like the idea of being a fake trader behind enemy lines, it's a great way for piracy 

There's always a way to angle realism.. Okay.

You sail around national ports.  How many ships, fleets and other player under the same national flag don't you see on a single trip?

Judging by the simple fact that anything you can see, can also see you. You should not even be able to sail in as a smuggler in the first place.

And those who remember a name or even take notes of other players could tell in a moments notice who is a pirate and who is not.

As of today, the people who do actions like this are well known. Notoriety is probably a pirate or privateer's worst enemy.

 

No. We should for future reference skip the hassle about realism this'n'that, this includes me. It's never an apology for poor game mechanics.

[Rigge1988]

10 minutes ago, Hodo said:

You are thinking all wrong on how to counter this.

If you are dealing with a ship that can out sail your ship at most points, get at a point where he cant.  I have yet to have an LGV out run my Renomee, or my Prince.   Both of which do in excess of 14.5knts and I dont even have good mods on them. 

 

Doesn't matter if you do 500 knots direct headwind. You still have a 15 second timer to tag someone for battle. During this time they have sailed back and forth between philipsburg and gustavia a half a dozen times. They even have time to PM you a smiley before they jump into harbour. - for christ sake.

 

If you catch speed fitted LGV's on a regular basis with a renommee Im curious to what upgrades you have.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Rigge1988

[Lz3]

6 minutes ago, Rigge1988 said:

There's always a way to angle realism.. Okay.

You sail around national ports.  How many ships, fleets and other player under the same national flag don't you see on a single trip?

Judging by the simple fact that anything you can see, can also see you. You should not even be able to sail in as a smuggler in the first place.

And those who remember a name or even take notes of other players could tell in a moments notice who is a pirate and who is not.

As of today, the people who do actions like this are well known. Notoriety is probably a pirate or privateer's worst enemy.

 

No. We should for future reference skip the hassle about realism this'n'that, this includes me. It's never an apology for poor game mechanics.

You wouldn't have, realistically, a god damn pirate flag raised as a smuggler. in fact you wouldn't have any colours raised on the open ocean. You'd look like any other trader

[Rigge1988]

Just now, Lz3 said:

You wouldn't have, realistically, a god damn pirate flag raised as a smuggler. in fact you wouldn't have any colours raised on the open ocean. You'd look like any other trader

Here come's Lz3 again, bring out the cavalry!

[Hodo]

Just now, Rigge1988 said:

Doesn't matter if you do 500 knots direct headwind. You still have a 15 second timer to tag someone for battle. During this time they have sailed back and forth between philipsburg and gustavia a half a dozen times. They even have time to PM you a smiley before they jump into harbour. - for christ sake.

 

If you catch speed fitted LGV's on a regular basis with a renommee Im curious to what upgrades you have.

My hunting Renomee does currently, 15.2knts at its best point of sail and 10.4knts at 60deg into the wind.   With Area Control I can keep most ships from escaping while I just run them down.  In OW I just get as good a tag as possible the first time and they wont get away.  

The problem you are having is trying to catch this ship in the windward isles.  Which is a tight packed area easy to escape in.  Try laying a trap for the person... sometimes it works.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Thank you for clarification on the opening post.

 

[Lz3]

3 minutes ago, Rigge1988 said:

Here come's Lz3 again, bring out the cavalry!

?

[Rigge1988]

Just now, Hodo said:

My hunting Renomee does currently, 15.2knts at its best point of sail and 10.4knts at 60deg into the wind.   With Area Control I can keep most ships from escaping while I just run them down.  In OW I just get as good a tag as possible the first time and they wont get away.  

The problem you are having is trying to catch this ship in the windward isles.  Which is a tight packed area easy to escape in.  Try laying a trap for the person... sometimes it works.

Well guess why? That's where they are!

[Rigge1988]

1 minute ago, Lz3 said:

?

People would remember your name despite which flag you had.

And lets not even touch which problems we'd run into if we had no names showing in OW.

[Macjimm]

14 hours ago, Macjimm said:

Can someone explain how a current smuggler flag works?  Within reinforcement zones and outside them?

 didn't completely understand the explanations here on the forums, so I asked in chat in game.  Are the following statements true?

• If you get attacked in a friendly reinforcement zone you can call reinforcements.  
• You may not call reinforcements if there is an attack of a friendly NPC fleet next to you and you get pulled into the combat.
• Smuggler flag allows you to enter enemy ports (in trader ships only) but will not allow friendlies to attack you. 

and thanks Duke,

• You can call reinforcement by - releasing mouse pointer with pressing the CTRL key and then clicking the Call reinforcement button.

[Demsity]

42 minutes ago, Lz3 said:

I definitely want to leave it as it is and would be disappointed if it changed. Removing the smuggler flag from LGVs and Indiamen would cripple an already flaw full economy. 

In the advanced solution: After the battle, how would anyone realisticalily know that you are a smuggler if you sank the enemy ship? News would spread about a ship not returning but not about you sinking it. I like the idea of being a fake trader behind enemy lines, it's a great way for piracy 

Oh okay, lets make the game realistic shall we?

Combat news? Gone
Traders tool? Gone
Instantiated battles? Gone
Ships doing 30 kn OW? Gone
Ship teleports? Gone
Basic communication? Gone
etc etc etc...

Realism must be balanced with game design, otherwise it just doesn't work.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

I wouldn't mind Law Enforcement system like in E:D. But I guess it would be too much even if the smugglers could outrun the security forces ( like many do in ED )

There are a lot of solutions to the same problem.

[Rigge1988]

Okay, lets steer this back ontopic for a while.

Today smuggler flag is not entirely being used for trading, which was the original purpose of this feature.

It is being used to be able to dock up in a port even in locations where there are no dockable ports. Just to get rid of other people chasing you. Preferrably after you have per definition ganked someone.

[Hodo]

40 minutes ago, Rigge1988 said:

Okay, lets steer this back ontopic for a while.

Today smuggler flag is not entirely being used for trading, which was the original purpose of this feature.

It is being used to be able to dock up in a port even in locations where there are no dockable ports. Just to get rid of other people chasing you. Preferrably after you have per definition ganked someone.

I think what would help is if they had an aggression timer.  Any ship involved in combat can not enter port for at least 30seconds.  

[Anne Wildcat]

Some people will find whatever way they can to cheat the system (using alts to hide from battle, etc), happens in many games.  But why not remove smuggler flag but allow all trade ships (even indianmans & LGVs) enter any port (allowing that size ship)?

I really hope Devs don't just remove smuggler & trade missions to halt exploits. 

[Capn Rocko]

Yesterday we scored 115 PvP marks on the US coast (2x LGV and 1x Prince) and I can confidently say that 0 of them came from hiding in port. The only way the smuggler flag helped us was to buy rig/hull repairs inside the enemy port (which is exactly what the smuggler flag is designed to do). Yes, its embarrassing to lose a ship to LGV but do not blame it on the smuggler flag. The ganking is 100 times worse at free towns without any use of the smuggler flag... 

[Rigge1988]

2 hours ago, Capn Rocko said:

Yesterday we scored 115 PvP marks on the US coast (2x LGV and 1x Prince) and I can confidently say that 0 of them came from hiding in port. The only way the smuggler flag helped us was to buy rig/hull repairs inside the enemy port (which is exactly what the smuggler flag is designed to do). Yes, its embarrassing to lose a ship to LGV but do not blame it on the smuggler flag. The ganking is 100 times worse at free towns without any use of the smuggler flag... 

How active were they in protecting their waters?

I understand you feel it's a good feature for your purposes. Yet an LGV isn't really intended for engaging in PVP. However I wish you could understand that because it's not a problem in one silent corner of the map the situation doesn't have to be the same in another. But I guess this is a problem that everyone has to experience to feel the need for a redesign.

[Rigge1988]

3 hours ago, Anne Wildcat said:

Some people will find whatever way they can to cheat the system (using alts to hide from battle, etc), happens in many games.  But why not remove smuggler flag but allow all trade ships (even indianmans & LGVs) enter any port (allowing that size ship)?

I really hope Devs don't just remove smuggler & trade missions to halt exploits. 

That will make no difference. The problem at hand is LGV & LGV refit are good gankships and when they get chased they simply hide in your own ports.