Oh my...Elite Dangerous:Horizons

[Jarhead0331]

Thanks for this tip, SirAndrew. I'm now making between 8 and 15 million per run. Not sure how long I'll have the patience to make these 400 to 500 light year hauls. Sitting there jumping from system to system for over an hour just isn't fun, and then, of course, there is always the flight back to Sothis/Creos.

Anyway, still the most I've been able to make in a single haul. Thanks again.

[sandman2575]

May have to give Sothis/Ceos a try as well. Those kinds of profits are way beyond anything I can currently get, even if it means a couple very long-distance, boring runs.

Gave mining a try for the first time last night. Found a pristine metallic system and headed over. Everything went without incident but in the end, was just too time consuming. I think the only way this can be worthwhile is with a large ship -- maybe a Type-7 -- where you have enough slots to add a bunch of collector limpet modules.  I just had one class 3 collector module on my AspX, which means only 2 collectors operable at a time -- not nearly enough if you want to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time!

May trade out my mining gear for pure cargo and jump-range capacity. I'm intrigued by Sir Andrew D's suggestion of an Asp with no weaponry. I have a couple of turrets and mine launchers currently. But the other night I got interdicted by a Fed. Gunship and the thing just wasted me in less than a minute (... was really not happy about that). Maybe no weapons is as good as a couple piddling weapons that can't fend off the big bad boys anyway...

[SirAndrewD]

Thanks for this tip, SirAndrew. I'm now making between 8 and 15 million per run. Not sure how long I'll have the patience to make these 400 to 500 light year hauls. Sitting there jumping from system to system for over an hour just isn't fun, and then, of course, there is always the flight back to Sothis/Creos.

Anyway, still the most I've been able to make in a single haul. Thanks again.

No problem, happy to help. 

The run can be a grind, no doubt. 

In the last few days it got more grindy since Sothis and Ceos both got pushed to a war state after the minor factions were in boom for so long.  This has removed most of the "Boom Time" long range delivery missions, which were the most profitable and spawned the most often. 

Clearly it's still very easy to achieve 15-30 million a run, it just takes longer doing the Sothis to Ceos bounce to stack those missions.

Commanders are working around/exploiting the system by mode switching between Open/Private/Solo to get the boards to refresh, so that's an option if you want to speed things up.  It's frowned upon by other players, but it's not against the rules.

Also, just a word of advice.  I know most of you guys play in Solo or Mobius PvE, but if you do like do dabble in Open, don't do it around Sothis/Ceos.  The Sothis run is one of the main areas that the Smiling Dog Crew like to camp, wing up and randomly kill any player they see, and when they're not camping the starting areas or a major trading community event, they like to keep Sothis, Ceos, Robigo, Maia and Merope under blockade.  They even occasionally raid into Mobius and kill as many unsuspecting players as they can before they're kicked by an admin, which sadly sometimes takes a while.  So do this run in the open at your own risk.

[mikeck]

I hate grieving but it's really not against the rules...why did they get kicked?
Secondly, if they were kicked, how do they keep coming back?

Once again, an open world that would be amazing to experience and immerse yourself in ruined by a bunch of 15-25 year olds living in their Parent's basement. They think it's HI-LARIOUS to just camp out and blow people up for no reason...even if they drop cargo. Same type of people who- in the beta before orbital defenses, would hide up in a corner inside a station and blast the crap out of you when you flew in. Sounds fun. Same crap in the Naval Action PvP although mitigated because you cannot attack your own nationality.

I would LOVE to play Elite in Open world and be a part of that living universe. But I can't because people are a-holes and I have enough stress caused by others already.  Oh well

[SirAndrewD]

I hate grieving but it's really not against the rules...why did they get kicked?
Secondly, if they were kicked, how do they keep coming back?

Once again, an open world that would be amazing to experience and immerse yourself in ruined by a bunch of 15-25 year olds living in their Parent's basement. They think it's HI-LARIOUS to just camp out and blow people up for no reason...even if they drop cargo. Same type of people who- in the beta before orbital defenses, would hide up in a corner inside a station and blast the crap out of you when you flew in. Sounds fun. Same crap in the Naval Action PvP although mitigated because you cannot attack your own nationality.

I would LOVE to play Elite in Open world and be a part of that living universe. But I can't because people are a-holes and I have enough stress caused by others already.  Oh well

Attacking other players is against the rules on the Mobius private server.  It's a pure PVE server.  The only time player on player fighting is allowed is in a conflict zone. 

Mobius is open to everyone who asks, so Smiling Dog Crew has occasionally joined in groups in order to hit large numbers of unsuspecting players, primarily trying to operate in Community Events.  They were kicked from Mobius, but not from Open since they break no rules in Open.   Since FD very unwisely did a community focus on the SDC, their ranks have grown to the point to which they can just send groups of players a few dozen at a time into Mobius.

And I agree, Open has become pretty much a no go zone, especially since the griefers are now getting organized under the SDC banner.  The real issue isn't how they've begun to systematically shut down open play, especially for new players, it's that their actions in pushing the Persistent Universe have had adverse effects on Solo and Private as well.   

Organized anomaly bombing of stations prevents people from running any missions out of them, across all servers.  Pushing systems like Maia into lockdown prevents new players from accessing Meta Alloys that are needed for Engineer intros.  Somehow even the Founders World was locked down yesterday, which wasn't even supposed to be possible.

[jomni]

Shouldn't there be a concerted in-game effort to shut them down?
Player anti-SDC group and Federation AI Police?

[SirAndrewD]

Shouldn't there be a concerted in-game effort to shut them down?
Player anti-SDC group and Federation AI Police?

There's Adles Armada, that tries to hunt them down in the Eravate system.  Their objective is to defend new players primarily.  They don't really have the numbers to fight them but they do try.   

However, at this point the SDC is just bigger, and very stacked with in game rich and good players.  Since FD did the community spotlight on them they've become even larger.  PvP is also a really unbalanced affair, with silent running and heat generating weapons being able to kill anyone with a realistic kit in seconds. 

It's actually kind of interesting what's happened in Open in regards to their growing dominance.  I wouldn't really be much concerned about them if they left Solo and Mobius alone, but their stated objective is to "mine salt" (ie tears) from all players across all servers.

Honestly, the more people actually try to fight them, and the more people complain about them on the FD message boards, the happier they are.  If you want to get ticked, watch some of their livestreams on youtube.  They really make an effort to push people's buttons.

[mikeck]

That's ridiculous. Eventually FD has to step in and do something. I'm not very familiar with Open play so I don't have a solution; possibly "wiping" any Smiling Dog members cash and ships or locking them out. That is temporary though as there are always people who will do things in MOOs that no one would do in reality. What group of space pilots -in real life inasmuch as sci-fi can be real- would just blow up ships for no reason and no money? Don't know. Maybe a system where if you attack a player first and end up destroying his ship if he has no cargo and no bounty or if he has dropped cargo, you are booted for 48 hours.

Such a shame. Seriously...who has that much fun ruining other people's fun?

[jomni]

Frontier can just create super police space ships and weaponry run by the AI that specifically target these troublemakers.

[SirAndrewD]

Frontier can just create super police space ships and weaponry run by the AI that specifically target these troublemakers.

Frontier has been decidedly quiet on the concept of any kind of punishment, or even slowing down of the SDC, even after the SDC targeted and hijacked an attempt by FD to raise money for charity via some Elite Dangerous streaming events.

In their own streams they tend to use Jihadist rhetoric, and sometimes even make their own videos look like ISIS propaganda.

A lot of what they're doing is directly against the EULA and constitutes harassment, especially the Mobius raid, but they haven't been touched. 

Anyway, Eurogamer did a pretty long in depth look on their activities, and the length to which they had done damage to the community back in January. 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-01-griefers-or-saviours-the-elite-dangerous-players-causing-a-rift-in-space

[Yskonyn]

The problem with these kinds of groups is that they can roam free wreaking havoc wherever they go without punishment or risk to themselves.

One solution would be dedicated groups of players playing cops and robbers with them on a similar scale, another option would be to institute a system like EVE uses; civilized space is defended by AI police (concord in EVE) which will *always* Hunt down an offender. The further you are from civilized space the more lawless it gets.

To that effect ED should get rid of the solo/private group feature as well and just have open.
The game would greatly benefit from it IMO with a system in place like mentioned above.

[Jarhead0331]

I'm curious...is there a way to identify who these people are in game? Is there a tag marking them as a member of this group?

I have not played in Open World in a very long time.

[undercovergeek]

Reading the article that sir Andrew posted was a massive eye opener - I didn't realise it was that bad, shooting down a poor sod who was running a feed for charity then posting on you tube with a jihadi/Isis themed music accompaniment of the incident whilst juvenile colleagues snigger and cheer in the background

BUT

As the leader of the opposition group hunting them down as stated, it's the game, and they make it an interesting one. I have to say the only reason I play in open is because there is the inherent danger of coming across assholes like this and trying to escape them, you can abuse the interdiction mechanic against the AI and escape every time but a human player? There's a challenge and a risk that makes seeing humans pop up on your radar terrifying and whilst I don't condone the griefing it makes the open game that bit more thrilling

[Yskonyn]

I agree on every account with UG. I normally play in open as well. I like seeing others going about their business, getting the occassional chat thrown at me, etc. But I do catch myself going to private group mode if I want to be sure I make a mission without any hassle if high stakes are involved.
This is because there is absolutely nothing a trader can do to defend himself against a combat kitted griefer. Sure, high waking is an option, but that works only against 1v1.

As long as there isn't some system in place to balance out the risk vs reward for pvp-ers, people will continue to play in solo / private mode. Which is a shame because the game really shines in open play mode.

[mikeck]

The problem with these kinds of groups is that they can roam free wreaking havoc wherever they go without punishment or risk to themselves.

One solution would be dedicated groups of players playing cops and robbers with them on a similar scale, another option would be to institute a system like EVE uses; civilized space is defended by AI police (concord in EVE) which will *always* Hunt down an offender. The further you are from civilized space the more lawless it gets.

To that effect ED should get rid of the solo/private group feature as well and just have open.
The game would greatly benefit from it IMO with a system in place like mentioned above.

I don't see how getting rid of solo would help the open world. This is the same thing discussed on the Naval action forums. Open world loses members because of A-hole grieving and such. Because there aren't enough people, open world players want the solo world shut down to force those players into open world.

I can't speak for anyone but me but I KNOW I'm not alone: if I can't play Solo mode in Elite, I won't play at all. If it didn't have a Solo mode I wouldn't have bought it. There are a lot of players who don't want to deal with Open word MMO B.S. They won't just switch over....they just won't play.

If the devs would fix these issues in Open world, maybe more players would come back.  I'm not spending all that time and work to afford a big trade run only to have someone camping by a station to blow my ship up for no reason.