[Request/discussion] Reputation loss - Ship stealing

[Ruahka]

Currently, hostile action reputation loss is a bit too lenient on a few things. This is mostly visible from a pirate style of play, but I'm sure it would impact others as well. I will preface that all of what I'm writing below is from personal experience, and if I'm mistaken about anything please let me know.

The focus of my discussion for today is the lack of consequences for stealing ships:

Ship capture with marines: Currently, so long as nothing is destroyed on a target, there is no reputation loss for stealing ships with marines. Reputation loss appears to be only generated through destroyed turrets/components.
Ship bailing: So long as you do not destroy the ship, you may open fire and cause the bailing of any ship that can bail with no reputation loss.

Examples of how these work:
Marine cap: Any ship with a higher marine capacity than your target ship will do as your Capture ship. Park one in the path of your target (friendly faction so that they don't open fire on you) ship to reduce their speed (you want to be as close as possible), deploy marines - using the 'most dangerous' deployment method of ignoring turrets/hull values. Marines float over to target and start capture process. You fly away, ship captures in 5-10 minutes. No rep loss.
The target can shoot at marines, but nearly never destroys any significant number of them except with very specific weapon combinations/movement patterns.
At no point does the target shoot at your transport, unless its returning fire from your turrets because you forgot to turn them off

Ship bail: Using a ship with low hull value seems to have higher chance of causing bailout. Not going to discuss that at this time, that should probably (and likely does) have its own thread. Basically, pick the smallest ship you are comfortable with for these activities. Any ship will do here, criteria being sufficient guns + speed while considering hull value.
Choose a friendly target ship: Shoot at it until it bails out, no reputation loss. Some of the sector patrol might temporarily turn red, but they should be easy enough to avoid (or give you targets for your next ships to steal)
Not going over the specific mechanics of how to make something bail, but this does not take long should you be using a sufficiently small ship. Causing a whole sector of M/S ships to bail over a play session should probably have some consequences.

The obvious solution to both of these issues would be something to the effect of - if player is the cause of loss of ship ownership, reputation loss with previous owner = x I figure the penalty for stealing a ship should be at least as harsh as destroying it (which is already pretty lenient).


A few random only slightly related notes to go with the topic.... much lesser of note:
Being able to claim empty ships from any sector is a bit silly. Whichever ship you are in control of, if sufficient marines are present, can be used to claim bailed ships in any sector. Those boarding pods warp to their target eventually, little travel time involved. That feels unintended.
Not being able to bulk move Marines is annoying, not that Marine skill actually seems to matter much vs what it did in previous installations of the series (that might be the temp fix now that I think of it... there does not appear to be any sort of defender advantage as was the case in X3 specifically, making boarding skill unnecessary - only numbers seem to matter)


I'm curious what others think of the above. The best part about X games is that you can do whatever you'd like in them - so I can avoid what I see as exploiting by not playing that style if I so choose, or correcting it by altering it myself or through mods. This just feels more like an oversight, or something that should be in the game if that part of it was fully fleshed out.

[Imperial Good]

Using a ship with low hull value seems to have higher chance of causing bailout. Not going to discuss that at this time, that should probably (and likely does) have its own thread. Basically, pick the smallest ship you are comfortable with for these activities. Any ship will do here, criteria being sufficient guns + speed while considering hull value.

Bailing factors in both maximum hull and toughness. As such ideally you want a ship with equal maximum hull to the target. Any maximum hull amount equal to or less than the target gives optimum bail rolls. However one needs a toughness equal to or greater than the target for optimum bail rolls as well. This means an S ship sucks at making M, L or XL crew bail at high hull amounts because it has a huge penalty due to lower toughness than the target.

Choose a friendly target ship: Shoot at it until it bails out, no reputation loss. Some of the sector patrol might temporarily turn red, but they should be easy enough to avoid (or give you targets for your next ships to steal)
Not going over the specific mechanics of how to make something bail, but this does not take long should you be using a sufficiently small ship. Causing a whole sector of M/S ships to bail over a play session should probably have some consequences.

Why bother with any of this. You can just ask S and M NPC ships who are fighting Xenon or other NPC factions to surrender without reputation loss. For example I got a free Gorgon Sentinel from HOP because I asked it to surrender while it was under fire from ANT and PAR forces.

As long as the ship can be subject to bail rolls (<75% hull, <10% shield) you can keep asking it to surrender until it does. Same toughness and maximum hull mechanics apply so ideally you want to match ship types. You can do this easily from 10+km away, as long as the ship can be commed.

The exploit is that forcing a ship to bail or boarding a ship does not have a reputation penalty associated with it. Forcing a ship to bail should have a lower reputation penalty than destroying a ship since you showed them mercy (theft not murder). Boarding a ship should have the same penalty as destroying it, surface elements and all, since you murder everyone onboard. Maybe the penalty could be associated with the number of crew killed by the action, so a half empty L ship or one where you made most people bail being board is less of a reputation penalty than one completely filled with crew.

[photomankc]

I partially handle this with play style:

I don't board until I have immobilized the ship and removed enough surface elements to weaken it substantially. This means I'm taking some rep hit to do it but not very much as mentioned. I decided builder ships were too expensive to purchase early in so they were pirated from ANT who I more rarely deal with. I was up over 24 rep with them and I took two of those expensive beasts from them. I was a little shocked to find that this didn't really even scratch my rep at all. That seems odd, I would certainly expect to drop precipitously when stealing something like a capitol ship.

Most of my other scores have been opportunistic. I steal any SCA Behemoth I lay eyes on. While I was at war with the HOP they were a great source of destroyers too. I can tell you that killing stations is certainly a no-s*%t way to start a war in a hurry. You are not going to frag too many of them before you are "shoot on sight".

I actually think the S/M bail handling is reasonable, though so far they all beg for mercy and then decide to die with their ship for me. I've gotten VERY few bails other than occasional pirate fighters and one or two Frigates/Corvettes. I think if they get a distress call out to other ships you should probably take a race-wide hit, sort of like attacking one near a friendly station but a small loss seems appropriate. if they are out in the middle of nowhere with no help then you get a free ship on the down-low. Same for the L/XL. If they are not in range of other ships they are S-O-L, if they get assistance from others then you are reported and the theft of a capitol should be pretty heavy rep loss.