Alright, so what happens if I'm a UIT escorting a convoy and another UIT decides to come and attack the convoy. Because I can't harm other units of my nation, how am I supposed to defend the convoy???

Hehehe, I was just a part of the same situation.

Personally, I think friendly fire should be on for all nations... with severe repercussions if you are found attacking members of your own nation in guarded space. I know this was tested beforehand, but with the cargo wars Ghost gives an example in which having friendly fire turned off can be very awkward.

Misdirected fire so silly to call it friendly fire nothing friendly about it.

Yea. I think that friendly-fire protection should be only reserved for groups, mentors, and guilds, and even then, they can be manually bypassed (such as in the case of the [VET] guild, where we're just a guild for the "elitism," but fight each other all the time).

On a slightly related note. I think bringing back the bounty system might be fun. I took a break from Vendetta when it was removed, so I don't know the reasons, but it'd add another dimension to PvP. Of course, if you put up a bounty, if someone kills that player, then the amount bounty will be automatically removed from your account whether you're on or not. If you aren't on when the bounty is fulfilled, then you'll get a message on logon informing you of the change. And when a bounty is fulfilled, a message gets posted on Channel 100 stating something like, "At 20:00:53 VDT, yodaofborg fulfilled CrippledPidgeon's bounty of 3000cr by killing Aon in Sedina B-8."

I think friendly fire should be off in all cases, its totally bogus that a missile slams into a ship and does nothing...

yeah perhaps with the bounty system, players might actually stick around to fight someone with a high bounty, although they'll prolly just seeker spam them to death...

i agree with icarus

BountyBot was not a game feature, ya know...

The problem with a bounty system is the same problem that the had with Ultima Online a few years ago.

Let's say, JoePirate decides to kill a bunch of merchants and gains himself a hefty bounty. What's to stop JoePirate from asking one of his pirate buddies to destroy him in order to collect the bounty?

They could split the money 50/50 and the bounty ends up making to pirates richer.

so what? a little bounty never hurt anyone. :). I remember when bounty bot was around and it was great. Id throw a bounty up and someone would do my dirty work and id reep the benifits. But Friendly fire seems like a must in this game. To make it as realistic as possible FF NEEDS to be on. I say try it for a little bit. and if trators sky rocket then turn it back off but still give it a shot.

"They could split the money 50/50 and the bounty ends up making to pirates richer."

Perhaps there ought to be a small xp hit for dying. Say, 2% of your overall xp in each category. Nothing big, but something to prevent people from exploiting a bounty system (if one is ever implemented).

I agree that a bounty situation could be too easily abused. Just get a free bus, get killed, split the loot. Instant profit.

If you add an XP penalty, then a determined guild could knock a player back to the propeller ages. There is already a money penalty (unless you're in a free bus) for rebuying your ship, and I think that's enough.

Regarding friendly fire, I think weapons should damage whomever they come into contact with. The situation of a UIT pirate attacking a convoy guarded by UIT players is a perfect example of why damage should apply to all.

If you are sloppy and shoot your friend, then your friend should get damaged. Perhaps there could be a way for someone to "/forgive" a player for accidental kills so that standing decreases are undone or at least reduced.

Hey I kinda like that /forgive idea. If your in good standing with a faction maybe you should be able to do that. The defense AI wouldn't have to be quite as smart if a player could let them know things are ok, it was just an accident.

It might encourage a player to make reparations in some situations with someone they killed.

It could cancel temporary KOS and maybe cut the standing loss in half. I'm not sure if it should remove all standing loss either.

To be clear, the "/forgive" command should only work for the player killed and only to forgive the killer. Otherwise it could be subject to abuse.

There would probably also need to be a time limit, say 15 minutes, after which the forgive option is invalid. This would give time for negotiation of payment, etc. and help reduce the abuse potential.

As to whether or not all or a portion of the penalty should be forgiven, I would imagine that /forgive would reduce the penalty to about 10% of normal.

you could hire trustworthy bounty hunters to do the task, so the system couldn't make the pirates richer.

There used to be an intrinsic bounty system, and it was abused in all ways described in this thread. It also had a nasty habit of bringing newbies up to the highest bounty while they were botting, so they became prime targets for no good reason.

We do want to have bounties again, though.

make bounty based on the number of PK's you have, say, start it at 100 and add 50 for every PK.

Dont reset it when you die, just remove 50 if you are killed by another player.
A pirate with a large number of PK's would have a high bounty after awhile. lots of people would be interested in blowing him up. :)

Make the bounties issued from the Governments and payable if you dock at a government station within so many hours of the kill.

more complicated, but more interesting for RP sake.

come to think of it I am not sure I like this idea, hmmm

If you're going to have government bounties, I think there should be a certain number of non-duel PKs before the first level of bounties is placed against a player.

this thread is not about bounties but about friendly-fire.
i say noone saying i want friendly-fire to stay, and i also second the "no friendly-fire" ideea, so that subject is also settled from our point-of-view.

oh, arguments ?
- the above example of UIT vs UIT (as in: what if i really do want to damage a member of my nation and i know and i can deal with all the consequences -> remember ! it's RP and i may want that role)
- increase realism - if it's energy or a missile, it makes boom and it makes damage. friendly-fire is a anti-real concept by default, in war friendly-fire means when you shoot (and damage) friendly units.
- increase chances for role-playing (if a player becomes a traitor it's easy: one nation-guild should kill him until he gives it up, the decrease in standings for each death is also a good ideea and would compensate for the standings having an upper limit.
- increase player responsibility - if you press fire make sure you know what you are doing.

i'll be back :)