You misread it. I don't play VO at work, I /logoff so that I can go to work. But if /logoff is evil, then I shouldn't do that, so I shouldn't go to work. Although, I guess I could leave VO running, even when I'm not there....

Oh boy, where to begin...
Running from a fight, be it by jumping out, or by /exploding is way too easy at present.
I've had a chance to play the new border patrol mission over the last few days, and assuming the huge amount of money/xp it hands out is going to be fixed, I think the major problem is the running, as it always has been.

Never before have we had a true PvP mission, and now that people are getting into it, these problems are becoming more noticeable.
I lost count of the amount of people who warped out because they were a) out of ammo, or b) near death, and I don't consider either a valid excuse.
I see /exploding as an extension of that tactic, it's an instant warp, and it doesn't require the 3k distance, I'm actually quite surprised that it's not being used more often.
I would say: "Give death a penalty!" but that would just lead to more players running away when facing death, so I think the only way of fixing it in regards to the border patrol mission is to set unique rules for PvP missions.

I will admit the /exploding as a kamikaze tactic is valid, even if I don't like it, and because of that I wouldn't want to add a counter, and lack of motion like /logoff.
Counting a /explode as a kill for either the last player that did damage, or the player who did the most damage would work fine, and if the explosion kills a player the kamikaze guy should also get a kill point.
So basically, if you're out of ammo, or low on health the only way to avoid giving your enemy a point is to run, and since that's way too easy, I'd suggest that the border patrol mission take place in an eternal storm.
Also, If you do chase your enemy to another sector and kill him, the point should count towards the mission.

For fighter ships, there's really no effective way to stop them running from a fight if they want to. You could make damaged ships perform less well, so if they're damaged they have a harder time running, but usually both sides of a fight are damaged, so the pursuer would also be performing less, and still wouldn't be able to catch them. And there's other arguments against having damage affect performance. Or you can make some ships faster than others, so that if the slower ships run, the faster ones can catch them, but then nothing can catch the faster ships when they run.

So, there's no effective solution for this "problem". And, is it even a "problem" in the first place? You say "I lost count of the amount of people who warped out because they were a) out of ammo, or b) near death, and I don't consider either a valid excuse." So, running for your life, or because you're out of ammo & can't fight effectively, isn't a valid reason to run? What is a valid reason to run then? Here's where the FPS mentality clashes with the RPG mentality. In a FPS, everyone is all about "Never run from a fight, die facing your enemy." In a RPG, some people might be like that, but not everyone, and there's no reason everyone should be.

I think we really need to get over this "running is bad" mentality. Even if it was bad, there's no way to solve it, and in a RPG there's no reason for it to be considered bad. If you want, you can go ahead & roleplay a character that considers it cowardly, and calls runners names, but you can't really stop them from running.

Okay, I will try to justify my position of running being "bad" with situations that I have been in and what I have chosen to do.

If I'm trading and a pirate attacks me, I will run.
I might try to fight the pirate first, and then run when i realize it's hopeless, but I still think in the pirate/trader dynamic, running is a valid tactic.

If I'm flying around not really paying attention, far from home, I may or may not run of I get ambushed, just depends on how damaged I am, If i don't see any chance of winning the fight I will usually repair and come back for a fight.

If a group of people attack me I will probably stay to fight at first, but If I kill one of the attackers I consider that a 1v1 victory, and may choose to leave if I'm badly damaged. If a group attacks me, and an attacker runs away when he is badly damaged, and rejoins the fight I will leave right away, because a group already has an advantage over a single player, and I don't think I should just sit by and let them kill me just because they keep repairing and coming back.

Now, if I attacked someone, I wouldn't run, unless I attacked them in an NFZ and had bots chasing me :D and even then I would try VERY hard to get the kill before running.

The border patrol missions, I repair between waves of players, so if there are 2 serco players in the sector when I jump in, I'll repair (if necessary) when those 2 are dead.

It's not really the act of running that bothers me so much as returning to the fight, if someone gets in over their head and runs away I'm fine with it, but those people shouldn't continue to come back.

I get what you're saying about RPing and all that, but I think people need to learn that death is not a big deal in vendetta.
As we've discussed in this thread, it's actually faster to die, than it is to run and come back, and if your ship is so expensive that you can't afford to lose it, then you shouldn't be fighting in the first place.

And I think we REALLY need to get over this "running is okay" mentality, because if everyone ran from fights we wouldn't have any PvP and that's a big part of this game.

We used to have fights in station sectors and people would dock and repair/rearm in the middle of fights, but it was okay because it took skill to dock without losing your last bit of health, the problem is with this instant jump system players can literally disappear as soon as they're in danger.
I can't think of any game that lets you instantly get out of danger at the push of a button. So how can you justify that feature being present in Vendetta?

I still disagree with you about running being a problem, but even if it was a problem, can you come up with any effective way to stop it? Everything I can think of for solutions to this "problem" have big holes, and would not be 100% effective, or even 50% effective at stopping people from running.

The best I can come up with are ways to make it more difficult to run - something that I actually think should happen, as it is much too easy to get away. But more difficult != impossible, and we will no doubt continue to have runners, and I'm fine with that.

[edit]
So far in Vendetta, I haven't role-played a coward yet, but in the more typical fantasy D&D style RPG, I usually play a cowardly wizard, who only goes into battle w/ a group, and often leaves battle running & screaming in terror. Even if his group was winning.
[/edit]

The only time I run away from fights is when I run out of ammunition, and at that, only if it's in the border patrol mission, or some other free-for-all furball. Never in a duel, cuz that's just wimpy.

If I initiate the fight, I will not run if I find I'm over my head, or if I run out of ammo. If I didn't know what I was getting myself into, or didn't plan my shots better, then that's my own damn fault, and I deserve whatever's coming to me.

However, in a situation like the Border Patrol Mission, I will run if I run out of ammunition if I know I can get away, but only because I know that's what everyone else is doing, so I don't want to give away free kills in that situation.

Maybe I generated this mentality from always flying slow ships that just can't run away anyway, but the ability to run away tends to cause players to lose their offensive edge. Instead of thinking about how they can cause their last points of armor to last in the hope that they could do fatal damage to their enemy before they themselves get killed, they think about how long they can wait before they should run away, often robbing them of the chance for a last-minute kill.

I know a lot of players who behave similar to what both of you describe for when you will run. In fact, I myself usually do the same (although I don't run when I'm out of ammo, 'cause I rarely use ammo weapons ;-). And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.

But I wish more of you'd look at it more from a role-playing perspective. You're playing more of a "Noble Warrior" character, who's too honorable to run from a fight (especially one they started), even if it's going badly for them. But why should everyone role-play exactly the same behaviour? Personally, I think that would make for a boring RPG. If someone feels like playing a sneaking, conniving, rather cowardly fighter pilot, who runs away from half their fights, why is that such a bad thing? The "Noble Warrior" should spurn them as a dishonorable coward, not curse them for not letting the "Noble Warrior" raise up his kill count.

It's a bad thing when you're doing BP and someone warps in, empties their swarm / gem Ragnarok at you as you're fighting two other people and then boost for 3K.

I'll run once I'm not involved in combat anymore. If I'm using only ammo, doing BP, I might try to run when I'm out, but I avoid that by making damn sure I don't run out or packing something as a backup. If four people attack me, I try to bring someone with me on my way down. But this constant spam and run stuff is getting old.

This isn't bad since it might kill me. It's bad since it means I'll stop doing BP.

Everyone does BP to fight players. If we don't think about how we fight, people will leave. Then we won't have anyone to fight, and we'll all be bored. We're all responsible for making the game fun to play. I can RPG someone who kills the fun for everyone but come on people, we want to enjoy the game, right? Maybe I should start playing a character that station camps random people n00bs.
Destructive playing styles are possible! That doesn't mean we all find them acceptable!

Ack, when did this thread turn to a "honorable combat" thread?!

I tought we had all agreed eveyrthing goes in War!

Besides, no one's doing BP anymore because it got "borked" LOL

I don't care about honorable combat as much as combat being fun for the people doing it. Constantly getting spammed and having people run isn't fun.

Imho one full day of so called "dishonorable tactics" do not spoil the fun as much as 10 minutes' nasty words on channel 100 or here ;-).

Beolach, I think you have to re-evaluate your position here, I agree that running should be "possible" but as I stated (and you agreed), it's too easy.
This has nothing to do with roleplaying.
If someone is a coward, or RPs a coward, fine, I accept that they are cowards, I call them that every chance I get.
Also... I really doubt more than 1% of the people running are RPing a coward, they're either noobs who are still worried about their death count, or just jerks denying someone an earned PK.

The problem is the coward always "wins" in their eyes, why should they stay and fight when they can hit a button and escape with ease? It should be harder to run away.

I think it's generally up to the players to control this tactic.
I left a border patrol group the other day because they invited someone who was fighting in a rag, spamming and running.
I would encourage anyone else to do the same, if you keep justifying these actions they wont go away.
Eventually my hope is that a group will realize I make more kills than a noob spammer, and they will be shunned.

I'm sorry, when did "retreat" suddenly become a bad battle tactic?

As for "rocket spamming", how is that any different to the "carpet bombing" that was used recently in Afghanistan? Bombers take-off, drop their load and return to base. Generally they accomplish their goal in one run but obviously, that's not possible here (seeing as missile weapons don't actually hit most of the time). As for hanging around when you're out of ammo, that's just bloody daft.

Cam: "The problem is the coward always "wins" in their eyes, why should they stay and fight when they can hit a button and escape with ease? It should be harder to run away."

If you were a better fighter, maybe they wouldn't be getting away so easily? ;) Besides, what's with this "earned PK" business? If you can't kill them without them getting away, you don't deserve to "earn" anything. I can understand you "looking down" on these things but seriously, people are generally dis-inclined to dieing.

... and finally, how on EARTH do you plan on making it harder to run away anyway? What, prevent people from flying in straight lines at high speeds for extended times? Also, how is this going to affect bot-hunting? All of a sudden a bunch of bots on your tail and you may as well give up and go home. Oh wait, you can't... You just have to sit there and die like a man. I'm sure that's going to be FUN FUN FUN!!

DarkUnderlord : I think a good battle tactic is to camp the stations : shoot them before they even have a chance to shoot you back.

DarkUnderlord: welcome to vendetta noob.
Obviously running away from bots is perfectly fine, as i stated... running away from a group is fine too, If you have to run away from a single bot, you should just quit now.
As for me being a better fighter, that's the whole point, even the best fighters in the game can't catch a fleeing target, you push a button and you're home free.
Again I will state, Although I personally do not like the tactic, my issue with it is the mechanics, I'm perfectly willing to chase down a coward, but there is no chase, they just disappear.
If you would like to test my fighting skill, or my running skill, I will gladly oblige, you can find me ingame as Aon.

/explode is a feature of the game. Using it for whatever purpose is "legal". It also
has parallels in "real life" warfare. Military personel have been supplied with a means of suicide when undertaking dangerous missions to avoid capture, torture
and revealing critical information. This option may also be available to astronauts
who run the risk of being marooned in space to avoid a slow lingering death by
starvation, dehydration etc. This thread reminds me of the equally lame discussion
of "backrolling"...

You tell them, Rattmann!

Dehydration in space... ahem...

This "lame discussion" is about /exploding to avoid being killed in a mission that is based on the destruction of enemy ships. The issue that was brought is not about honour or any other ego-driven consideration (although the discussion somehow drifted to that point); it is about a trick that is unsportsmanlike in that particular situation.

All /explosions in C10 for whatever reasons should be counted as kills for the other team(s).

"...ahem..." Sun Tzu? What is so unlikely about dehydration in space? Drifting in
space in your powerless ship, all supplies exhausted (Including water) unable to
recycle even saliva, sweat and urine? What would be the result? A new diet?

/explode is a valid tactic. "Unsportsmanlike"? Well perhaps. How do you feel about
ambushes? How do you feel about wormhole camping? Can you remember World
War II? What about the Kamikaze? What about Viet Nam? Do you recall the so-called "human wave" attacks? These are all "real world" examples of "/explode".
Need I mention "suicide bombers"? We are playing a game that simulates war in
space. WAR. Get it? Perhaps you should think more like your name-sake.

I still think that a kill system like this would solve the problem nicely:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10374