Yet another look at dying in VO.

Working from this premise:

- Docking at a station automatically updates your mind-state and that
- When you die, you are revived from your last recorded mind-state.

(Also associated with docking would be the transfer of funds from your ship to your bank account and an update of your official record.)

Consequences of this are that when you die:

- You will loose any license points gained since your last station visit,
- As well as any credits transferred to you and
- Any record of kills or other accomplishments.

While this does penalize dying, the actual penalty is only as great as you are willing to risk. In few cases do you end up worse than when you started (minus the cost to replace ship/weapons, of course) so it is a rather mild death penalty overall.

A few scenarios illustrating how this could make VO more interesting:

Do you go after that last bot and risk an hour's worth of work or do you play it safe and head for a station to record your progress?

As a pirate you've managed to extort a few credits from your latest victim; do you stick around for another victim or find a station to transfer those credits from your ship to your bank?

You are in the middle of a session of policing the space lanes with your wingman when you are informed by your ship's computer that you just qualified for your next PvP badge; do you disrupt the session and find a station to make this achievement official or stay on station?

A possible expansion of the above idea [probably better discussed in a new thread though]:

- Mind-state updates are free at Capital stations but
- a fee is charged from other stations
- with the fee being proportional to the distance from your Nation's capital.
- Working for a Corporation may give you free access to their facilities.

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I'm not sure if there is a consensus explanation of how the death system in VO works but I'm assuming some kind of quick cloning facilitated by a copy of a pilot's mind state.

Working from this scenario:

- Serco medical advances in nanite augmented human-machine interfaces
(the quick clone and recording technology) and
- Itani research into the relationship between consciousness and the body
(allowing the transfer of consciousness upon death)
- Combined with UIT engineering expertise synthesizing the above leads to
- A practicable revivification technology.

I would start from the premise that this is a relatively new and expensive technology for the VO 'verse and is confined to National/Corporate use. [Revivification fees for those who aren't working for a Nation or Corporation is possible but that idea deserves its own thread as well.]

Interesting theory. It would make dying more troublesome.

Oh yes, please yes.

Reminds me of the Escape Velocity death system. I like it, but it would certainly change the gameplay a lot. This would require a lot of thought and testing.

Interesting. I'm not against it, but I am fearful it would increase grinding.
though I am interested.

I am just about to say anything that puts a price on dying is good.... Removes us a bit further from Space Quake (which has its charms..)

Cool idea. Not flawless, but very cool.

I really like this idea.

I like space quake. I also like thinking of VO as an interactive IRC server.

However this is the least disruptive version of death penalty I have ever seen and it makes sense so even I don't mind this suggestion.

What happens if you give money away and then die before docking? The idea of a save state would imply that you would get that money back, which is very bad. So would only credits you earn not be recorded, but credits you gave away would still be recorded?

FatStrat85: Short answer would be yes (I think). It would therefore be possible for credits to actually just cease to exist in the VO 'verse (a good thing, I think). But there would have to be a change to the way credits are handled in-game for this to work; some form of electronic cash.

- From stations, financial transactions as usual.
- From a ship, however, you only have access to as many credits as you've transferred to your ship.

Something like (perhaps exactly like) the concept of a "ship's bank" in the novel _Armor_ by Steakley. I'd give a page reference but I can't find my copy at the moment.

Don't really want to over-complicate things but I'm glad you brought this up since it is something that bears closer examination as this would impact other aspects of gameplay.

Eh. This sounds OK. Just don't make us *pay* for the backup. I can imagine what you'd lose anyway would be frustrating enough.

Just don't make us *pay* for the backup.

Why not though? You wouldn't necessarily have to pay if you didn't want to. If money was a concern, then you could ensure that you were always homed at a capitol station. Or to that effect, the cost associated with "updating" could be tied to faction standing. Once a proper faction system is in place, it would make it even more relevant to choose your sides carefully.

What happens if you give money away and then die before docking?

As Daare said, simply "yes". If you transfer money to someone, then they dock, then you could just say that the "update" logs that as a transaction in your backup. If said person dies before docking, then they would lose their credits anyway, so it wouldn't show up in the records. This would also apply to any pvp stats. If you kill someone, they die, and it is "recorded" as a death on their side, and a kill on your side (and vice-versa). You wouldn't have to dock as it is recorded when they update.

this ruins my ability to /explode and get half way across the universe when I don't wanna jump through 11 wormholes...

i also don't want to be working towards something and BOOM all that work lost.

my $0.02

kp

this ruins my ability to /explode and get half way across the universe when I don't wanna jump through 11 wormholes

Another excellent reason to implement this--it's the only effective way of dealing with /explode as a means of travel.

i also don't want to be working towards something and BOOM all that work lost

Duh. That's the point.

usually i have only a short time to play which is why i stopped playing a few years ago. i've always liked this game, and still do. but I just don't have the time to fly all the way to deneb for BS and all the way back to b8 when i feel like doing ctc, or by some small chance there's some other activity there.

if someone set up a wormhole from grey to deneb than fine. i just don't have all day to jump through system after system.

No, no...its not that /exploding across the universe that I'd miss. Its the fact that I'd have to be shelling out a lot of cash just to renew my pilot. That seems needlessly EvE-like.

Between the price of replacing the ship, and the loss of any of the experience gained, I think its a fair trade-off.

You can technically still do that and keep all your current stats. You would just need to land at a station before you /explode. Only really stops the spontaneous /exploders. This would require a bit of thought and action.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might start paying again if this were implemented...

It would make my previous profession (pirating) much more profitable, and would make me pick my targets more carefully.

@ vIsitor: There has been no mention of how expensive this would be. I would not expect it to be more than 300-500c. It needs to be accessible to newbs, but in a gray sector where you are not specifically loved, it could cost as much as 1000/1500c.

I want it.

I see no good reason to charge money for respawning. The point is to implement a limited form of perma-death.

The credits/inventory issue, however, is very thorny -- because those are transferable. I think the right approach is to make the non-transferrable things (kills, XP, flags, mission completion, etc) subject to the death-penalty between last save and death, but not worry about what happened to your inventory or credit count.