please, PLEASE do something about this soon... as an Itani, I would like to be able to actively resist the Akanese insurgents and promote universal peace... having them invulnerable to me is not helping.

I understand that the noobs need protection, but could we please go with something other than friendly fire? or only have friendly fire effective for noobs?

SInce this is Suggestions: What would that "something other" be? Define a "noob" for this purpose.

How about you can't hurt your nation's members and they can't hurt you until, lets say, combat level 4

i'd rather see FF removed entierly, and have a warning in the tutorial that there are no restrictions on PVP.

Before that happens the SF needs to be made un-stoopid

I'm also for removing the friendly fire protection.

Is the friendly fire protection actually intended as a "noob protection" feature? If it is, it doesn't work very well. Sure, they can't be attacked by (supposed) friendlies, but (real) friendlies wouldn't be attacking them, anyway. Friendly fire protection doesn't protect noobs from enemy fire, which should be the real threat, to noobs as well as anyone else. A 0/1/0/0/0 Itani deep in Itani space isn't going to gain any protection from friendly fire if a 10/10/10/10/10 Serco invades Itani space & finds the Itani noob. So I'm for completely removing friendly fire protection, regardless of levels.

IMO the friendly fire protection has one very small positive controbution to the game, in that it encourages teamwork between players of the same nation to some extent, as they don't have to worry about accidentally destroying each other. But it has more and larger negative impacts - it limits roleplaying, like Aequitas' Talon mentioned, and is easily exploitable in CtC and several other situations, and is one of the harder aspects of the game to suspend disbelief of (AFAIK, I'm the only one who's even suggested a pseudo-science-babble explanation for it, and mine was a really lame explanation). It really does detract far more than it adds to the game.

Anyway, I personally see "noob protection" and "friendly fire protection" as completely seperate issues, as friendly fire protection doesn't really work as noob protection. But even if that wasn't the case, I'm not convinced noobs should have any special protection in the first place. Rather than special protection, give them worthwhile information in the tutorials: warn them that space is VERY dangerous, that they can be attacked and destroyed by anyone at anytime with no warning. Suggest that if they don't want to run as large risks, that they make friends and alliances, and form lines of trust - but even then, the best way to promote their safety is to increase their licenses and improve their piloting skill.

But, while I don't think noobs should have special protection, I could see the game removing any incentive to attack lower level players. Already there's no license XP incentive, but killing lower level players DOES still count towards the PK badges. I'd be OK with that being removed, say if you kill a noob (which for this purpose I would define as someone below 3/4/4/-/- AND below 1/2 the your license levels) it doesn't count towards your PK badge - So players above 6/8/8/-/- wouldn't get any PK credit for killing players below 3/4/4/-/-, while a 4/4/4/-/- player would increase their PK count by killing players of 2/2/2/-/- or higher.

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My main reason for being against special noob protection is that it has to be mutual (if noobs are protected from non-noobs, then non-noobs need to have the same level of protection from noobs), or else it's exploitable. But if there's a mutual noob/non-noob protection, then that puts a huge limitation on the amount of interaction players can have with each other. Noobs can only do noob activities: even if they think their ready for more dangerous stuff, and willing to take the risk, they can't because of the mutual noob/non-noob protection.
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noob (nūb) n.
See Also: newb, newbie, n00b

1. An amateur or inexperienced player, typically new to a specific game.
2. someone with low levels who is likely to need protection from jerks with high levels and overinflated egos.

I guess I couldn't see any other real use for the Friendly Fire restrictions... and indeed they are not particularily effective at protecting noobs from hostile players (though they do prevent them from bombing their own nation standing early in the game when they discover a plasma cannon and decide to try it out on a station guard in an NFZ, thereby dooming them to a really rough beginning) This is the only real reason I can think of to keep it in place for noobs (perhaps we could define that as all people with <ll3-4 combat? - this would give them ample time to learn the ins and outs of the game, and what to NOT shoot)

additionally, there could maybe be a high bounty placed on anyone destroying a nation-loved player below that level in nation space - this could serve as some level of noob protection, meanwhile nbot limit interaction outside of their own nation space (in grey, all bets are off - etc.) though since some people seem to like farming bounties... meh.

I really like Beolach's PK credit idea... it would work well to encourage people to find other prey, and reduce intentional noob-slaughtering.

Yes, un-stoopifying (yae! new word!) the SF would help...

I agree...
1. Eliminate Friendly Fire restrictions.
2. Make SF (and NPCs in general) "smarter."
3. Make IFF assignable/settable so YOU determine who is hostile and who is not.

indeed, adjusting the PK counter to not count players below 1/2 your level and not above level 3 combat would solve the noob protection issue.

i don't know if the SF needs to be smarter or not, i mean they do a decent job, and shouldn't be unbetable (as they basicly represent the local poliece depo, not the actual military). i'd say a better solution would be to have NPC miliotary units (inlucluding cap. ships) make periodic patroles of all nation space. These miltary units would act in conjunction with the normal SF if the target's faction is low enough, otherwise they leave it to the local athorities unless they are directly involver (you shoot at them).

and we DEFINATELY need personalisable IFF

I've suggested already that a player should be able to disable FF-protection, but it announces it on sector chat and there is a countdown.

I have been all for removing friendly fire ever since beta. Not only is it unrealistic, but it was the main reason why I switched from UIT to Itani. How was I supposed to CtC for one side or the other when I couldnt protect convoys from other UIT's attacking them?

Also, removing friendly fire would do wonders for balancing rockets. I think it's generally accepted that if you turn your back on someone with rockets in a group fight, you're dead. They can just spam rockets into the fight and only worry about hitting the enemy. If there was no friendly fire restriction, rockets would require an entirely new strategy in group combat. If two pilots are in a dogfight, a third would need to wait till his ally got clear before he could fire.

This would eliminate many of the current complaints about rockets as well as making the game more realistic anyhow.

I'm all for nuking FF. Let me get the new UI out there, with a new user signup bit that informs them of what they're getting into, and I'll be a bit more ready to do this.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm interested in the idea of keeping newbies in their capital-system until they reach a certain level, and then saying "well, you're fair game now, be careful". I just need to work up all the framework necessary to do that (UI stuff, etc). It's.. in process, what can I say.

... you could say...

Soon™

Errr... ff is great and all, but my biggest problem with ff... is rockets/missiles... Sure, it makes sense that a friendly could still be harmed by an explosive, but the big pain is stuff like mines ('specially lightning mines), and rocket's detonation radius. Could these kinds of things possibly be 'tweaked' for groups and guilds? At least let the rockets and mines recognize friend from foe, so they don't explode so close to an ally when it is another target that is intended.

yeah, I think that l-mines wont attack same nation unless you tell em' to, and missles wont 'splod either.......

it'd be cool to select who you want your stuff to explode on.

if/when an accurate, personal IFF system is in place, I think mines/rockets should only detonate when within the proximity radius of a hostile target (but there needs then to be a way of marking someone as hostile manually prior to firing, and if you have them targeted when you release the ordinance, they're automatically marked hostile)

Until then, please don't make any adjustments to who can/can't detonate an explosive/electric ordinance weapon - it wouldn't know the differnce between the -REAL- enemy, and would be counter-intuitive in combat.

The FF needs to go before that however... if an ordinance weapon detonates and you're within its blast radius, you need to be damaged. Flares wouldn't be overpowered if they couldn't be used to exclusive advantage in group combat, and really, its completely unrealistic... nobody's immune to a blast.

I like FF and prefer to not see it removed. I don't have any huge stories to back it up. But ff can be undone by going to the dark side although its not that easy...

and as long as you are part of the light side, it is a cool feature to not accidentally damage each other. Even if it is at times annoying to not assist if a problem occurs.

"it is a cool feature to not accidentally damage each other"

not from the point of view of the person in a fight who then gets CREAMED by one of his enemies buddies randomly firing flares into the fray. the blast should damage everyone, even if the prox trigger doesnt go off for a friendly. I've had neumerous X on 1 and group fights where the flares have gone off closer to my opponent than to me, and its annoying for them to be unscathed.

don't care, still like it even if it decreases the chances in an x vs 1.

Me agrees with spellcast, and inc in fact.

Rene, you're going to have to come up with a better argument than "don't care, I still like it"