Well, I suddenly came up with this wonderful idea that would actually makes banks a little more appealing if they were to be added to Vendetta.

What is the pirates has a s-port module that allowed them to hack into a players credit account as long as they were within, say, 400 to 600 meters of the players ship. This would more effectively give the current, floundering pirates of VO a living. As well as encouraging players to pull some crazy stunts to avoid the hacking devices. And, if bank accounts were added, the pirates wouldn't be able to hack into those.

(Accept maybe with a capital class Super L Port hacking device used on a station. Which would be really cool.)

^--- SUggestions Forum

So, taking a good long look at the way that today's technology is going, you're suggesting that in the year 4xxx hackers are going to require a piece of equipment similair in size to a anti-fighter weapon in order to hack into people's credit banks? When today, one merely needs a box the size of a small microwave?

Don't get me wrong, I like the concept. I just think you're going the wrong direction with it. Especially with the suggestion pertaining to needing a Capital Class vessel to hack a nation's bank's database.

Sounds downright 1980's to me....

I don't really see a scenario where something like this would work in a manner that is fun, equitable (in terms of gameplay) or reconcilable with the game's setting (which are, in order, probably the top criteria for anything you want to put into any game). Given that Vendetta's monetary system is not detailed beyond a number and the word "credits", here are some possibilities:

1. Credits are a physical currency consisting of bills, coins, chips and/or cards in specific denominations. So how is one to steal credits off another ship? Beaming them out of the other character's wallet or glove compartment? This mode of currency seems antiquated for the time period, and clumsy for large purchases.

2. Credits are an electronic currency with no physical equivalent, tied to an "account" in the player's name through a galactic financial agency that is equally represented in every faction's space. Any transaction requires authorization from the sender and presence of both parties to be valid (assume for the moment that you could send someone a sort of "electronic check" in a chip or card which can be accepted only by the intended recipient in person if you want a "physical" form for this currency which takes the place of the sender's presence). ID/account authentication could be a contact or contactless card/chip, biometric, password/PIN, or some combination of the above.

Since #2 is a more likely scenario, then how does something like this work in an RP sense? A drive-by read of a contactless card (much like potential problems with RFID-based cards today) seems to be the only possible way that could actually work, and assumes that there is no other required authentication factor in order to authorize a transaction.

And from a player's standpoint, it's a bit of a poor gameplay mechanic. Anyone who comes within some distance of your ship is potentially mugging you? Identity theft may be in the news quite a bit these days, but it's hardly instantaneous, and not nearly as impossible to prevent.

So pirates have a tough time of it? I agree (in part because it's my character's job to make it so), though I don't see too many people complaining about the ease or profit-potential of stealing cargo from NPC convoys lately. However, I'd like to think that there are better ways to make things more fun and interesting, for players on both sides, than a magic money ray.

Money means nothing currently, anyway.

ugh why not make traders lifes even more tedious... its already so frigging annoying with all those darned wannabe pierats.

Why don't you just hack their credits the real way?
Lazy... -_-

The requirements of the device would obviously up to the developers, but the point is being able to hack into someone's credits while in combat or on a chase. To do that, especially with the day's advanced computer systems, you need an advaned AI system to do the hacking for you. An AI of this complexity could easily take up an S-port space, as long as we still don't have any utility spaces.

The idea behind the capital ship version is that a much larger station would have a far superior security system, and would therefor require a much more complex AI to hack into the system, thus the size and complexity of the machinery.

And shut up Renegade. I don't give a damn what you say, the frequency of running into another player at any given system is 40 to 1 odds. The only thing annoying about wannabe pirates is that they won't shut up. You very well that any pirates that DOES happen to find you and DOES happen to chase you has about 5% odds of catching you, and slimmer odds still of blowing you up. So stop whining about your precious, trader favoring game balance. If you don't want to get hacked by pirates in the future, trade in safe space instead of in the grey.

Hacking has already been proposed and pretty much shot down. If I remember right the devs said something about the players accounts being sacred and untouchable. Quite frankly you need either an untouchable bank account that carries over systems or unhackable player's treasuries.

It haqs alrady happened to me to forget to log off, or that my system crashed but that the server didn't register it. As a result my ship was hanging in space for quite a while. Would that mean that I would come vack and see that some n00b stole 10 millions?

I would like to spin this idea off slightly. While taking money from people's accounts is abusive and dumb, in my opinion, what if...

...we had a shield hacker. A way to somehow disable the shields of a capship for a minute or so before whatever happened to them was bypassed...?

Nah, that'd bug out with the capital ships downtime code.

Basically, as soon as you hacked the shields, we'd be left with an extremely vulnerable target, which has no chance in hell of living, or raising its shields again. This would effectively make the Lev an easy target all over.

make the heckingtool have to stand still for 5 mins before its able to take it out. or manouver at a hellish speed through some predetermined maze or some pc generated maze. Maybe by using the racetubes as the maze. And you'll have to beat a certain time to succeed. the bigger/more important the ship the faster you gotta be.

but meh, might be to diffcult.

LoB, no, I said it only drops them for a while, like one minute. Make the range something like 100meters and the time to hack into like the mining beam. Maybe five to ten seconds.

I lol'd at Kix's comment...

Well, me too. Kix is right.
The entire purpose of being a pirate is to be feared enough that most pilots who you come up against know that they're gonna lose, and will pay you. And you, being the gentleman (or gentle-lady) pirate, honorably allow your quarry to proceed unscathed after payment, perhaps even escorting them thru the sector.

Introducing a lame "hacking" tool that requires no more skill than flying close to your opponent would just be annoying. Especially for a guild of 50 "lame pirate hackers", following you through sector by sector, constantly stealing from you in each new sector.

Bad idea as it stands. Make the hacking attempt based on some kind of twitch skill, with a similar twitch-skill defense.

Bad idea altogether. This feature is not needed at all. Open to horrible abuse, specially if you time out in front of a lame pirate hacker.