It's a little bit annoying how "meaningless" death can be, when respawning is such a menial thing. That being said, I'm suggesting that a timer be attached to death, to add a little more sting. This might help to keep people away from /explode teleporting.

I think something like this was discussed before, lemme try and dig it up.

In the meantime, this would be a nice idea. Base it on the distance between where you lost your ship and where you're homed. Say, 15 seconds of wait time per system; a death in the same system as you were homed would start out with a 15-second wait time.

It might get frustrating for some new players, but if they're frequently reminded to set a home station when they travel long distances the problem might not be so bad.

Additionally, the timer could change based on other parameters, such as whether the player died/is homed in nation or grey space.

If an Itani (let's call her Sara) is homed in Eo, and flies all the way to Pherona on an escort mission, but is obliterated in an ion storm, the wait per-system could be reduced. If she were in UIT space when she died, it might take longer per-system until. Serco space, even longer. Greyspace? Again, a bit longer.

I'll try and come up with some better example times for this second idea on my ride up to Maine.

better suggestion than timers have been brought before to solve the free-homing that /asplode gives.

though, they require a bit more work than a simple timer.

the problem with timers is that it doesn't solve a thing. it takes about 15mins to go halfway around the galaxy with a good ship and moderate navigation skills.

how long do you suggest such a timer be? any delay above 30secs would be too much aggravating and hinder gameplay. anything bellow 15 minutes would still give you an advantage. so, it's not really a solution.

it's my opinion and i respect it :-)

as for other solutions brought forward, i'm a bit lazy to dig up urls but look for "escape pods" and the like.

To stop /explode teleporting, simply disable it.

Make the person re-home to the nearest friendly station and re-spawn her or him there.

A new point to home stations would have to be found. Perhaps make missions taken from there and completed there have +5% xp?

I think it would be a good idea to make it so that a player who is killed has the option of respawning at either their home station OR the nearest station where they are 'respected' or higher on the faction standing scale.

Also, /explode is very not cool and should be removed from the game. Why is it in there, anyways?

For situations where you somehow got stuck and can't get out of otherwise. Say you went afk with turbo lock and when you come back you're in an ion storm 1000km out or a bug or some crap.

What's wrong with a suicide option, anyway? If explode was removed people would just run into stuff or blow themselves up with rockets.

Using /explode as a method of travel can be eliminated a few ways. Imagine if the game did not let you choose a new home but enforced a rule:

1. Player always respawns at closest station he could dock with
2. Player always respawns at last station docked with
3. Player always respawns at closest station of their highest faction rating

Just a few examples. Each has it's problems. I don't see any of them replacing what we have currently.

Something needs to be changed. Variatons of a lot of these idea would do the trick.

Instead of punishing death with arbitrary timers and conditions, we could rework the economy and give death meaning. Y'know, like the devs have been doing.

I'd like to remind the readers that this thread is about Timer Death, not /explode'a'porting. To be perfectly honest, this thread is an outlet for people to try and turn their frustrations into something more productive.

the problem with timers is that it doesn't solve a thing

o rly?

yeah. really (with more letters).

anyone who got killed by an ass can respawn as quickly locally (if he was wise about homing) and grief the offender.

it works for everyone.

it sucks to have an offender but really i dont see what you people are bitchcrying about. don't make a paris of yourselves and cry mommy on your way top the hangar.

blasting peeps off is what this game supposed to be all about. there are party goers and party poopers. it's always been like that.

What about standings? It would really suck if you got killed on an important mission and wanted to get back as quickly as possible, only to find you can't get any good ships or weapons at the station.

it's called vendetta.

Hm, didn't think of that upper case. So, considering that killing someone without a respawn timer doesn't have *any* meaning, and killing someone so that they have a, say, 2 minute respawn timer doesn't have *any* meaning, then I suppose the next step would be to make death permament, so that there's an infinate respawn timer. Chances are at this rate that wouldn't add *any* meaning to death either though, since the one dying could just create a new character and be back to harassing *just* as quickly locally.

Satire aside, dig this quote from Dune: The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy."

If ever there existed a quote that applied more to a video game. I think the key then is to think up new ways to ultimately waste on your victim's energy. Time, credits obviously, faction... most of the thoughts I keep thinking up are already in-game, or planned (in my mind) to be. So, here's one that jumps the gun and simulates something that I envision in the not so near future; ship building time; because even ready to go models require some custimization for the pilot. Itani can't handle G force like they're cyborgs after all. Now of course you could have an order for multiple ships carried out in advance. If I were a Serco who engaged in BP alot, for example, I'd order a hundred SCP to be built throughout the week. This way you have to prepare ahead of time where your fights are going to be. It makes it more sensible to keep a few "bases of operation" if you will in certain strategic locations.

I have no idea how the building time system would work necessarily, but I suppose that as you have your order from the shipyard carried out increase in size, the slower it'd take for the factories to pump them all out, in a diminishing return kind of fashion. Maybe if you're faction is too low, they won't rush to get your ship prepped. Maybe if it's higher, they'll go ahead and give you the window model right off the bat. For that matter, perhaps repairs too should take time. Anywho, it's an idea up for discussion. Thoughts?

I kinda agree with mynt and his idea of building time.
But i Dont agree at all with the death timer. It would really suck and you cant deny access to a player whos paying to play the game.That would just drive off new players away.
After all, VO is about pure action. It would really screw up the fun if your having a great time fighting, then you die and have to wait until you can go out again.
Unless of course, players could do other stuff while waiting. You all know how freaking annoying and desperating it is when you warp to another sector, and sometimes due to lag, you have to wait in loading screen watching the same picture.
It would really suck to wait when you die, without being able to do anything more than just staring at the loading screen and chatting...
So, if a death timer is implemented, at least, plz...give us something else to do while we wait. Cool different new pictures could be a good start...

Hmm, my major objection to any sort of respawn timer is the difficulty it would pose for event hosts. How would the dead Ecka get back to pay out the prizes at the nation war ?............

Ecka