How about allowing the player to adjust the escort navigation before launching? The game could verify that the destination is correct, does it really matter how we get there? There could be other thresholds for deviation but too strict would make any custom route pointless.

I ask because it seems silly that we have no control to navigate convoys around obviously troublesome areas like storms, etc.

I would like to see a dialog appear, or maybe a button in the mission window, that prompts the user whether or not to generate a route for the escort. The player could launch without specifying the route, but none of the convoy ships will launch until a valid route is established. Or perhaps they do launch and just wait. Those scenarios aren't so much important to me.

Always wanted to do this, always. I'm thinking it might have been suggested before, and it may come around with player ordered NPC's (which is contradictory, but you get my point).

Huge thumbs up to this.

I have mixed feelings about this. I understand that convoys in storms is annoying, but we're going to reduce the number of storms once we step up with more "perma-fogged" sectors.

Additionally, it gives the player the ability to direct the convoy into the hands of pirates, or whomever. One could theoretically do this already, just by knowing the destination and telling friends to wait at some obvious hop point, but this could add an even larger advantage. There would really not be any way for the game to detect this sort of behaviour, since it would be no different than if the pirates were there "by accident" or whatever (without prior knowledge).

Plus, you're being hired as a fighter escort, not to actually run or command these convoys (if it was actually your convoy, and we do intend to add that sort of thing, then that'd be different). The fact that they may choose to go through dangerous territory is actually supposed to be part of the point. The triviality of the current escort missions is, in my view, a problem. Escort missions rarely have any sort of combative challenge. While I don't want to annoy people with arbitrary boring stuff (like flying through empty storms), I have some reservations about making the whole escort process even easier, and potentially less dangerous, than it is currently.

So, anyway, I welcome more feedback on the subject.

it gives the player the ability to direct the convoy into the hands of pirates

Damn, he's on to me.

Suitcase. Cash , used notes . The usual deal Dr L .....

If the devs are planning player commanded convoys that would permit navigation routing, then that is the logical place for this functionality. Granted it would be nice to have in the fighter escort missions, incarnate makes a good point that you're hired as a fighter, that's all.

Nevertheless I'll continue the discussion.

Regardless of whether navigational routes could be customized, it isn't possible for the game to gauge a player's future intent. This is true now, and would still be true after exposing a convoy to a player's custom navigation. Currently it is possible to schedule in secret to have the convoy ambushed. Ambushing the convoy at an obvious hop point versus a preselected one... I don't see much of a distinction. It's the same result, with one requiring perhaps a little more coordination.

Regardless, assume that we don't implement this functionality into the fighter escorts but instead create a player commanded escort mission. Wouldn't that mission type be susceptible to the same exploitation?

Perhaps to get some perspective on this, we could examine how such an escort system might be handled in real life. There would be some kind of evaluation system based on past performance. There's really nothing to prevent a fighter from going rogue, and being successful at hiding it. We've got dirty cops, but they get caught eventually. VO needs to reduce the incentives to turn these convoys over to the pirates, or conversely, increase incentives to NOT turn the convoys over. Maybe instead of simply receiving a partial profit, if the convoy is totally lost or almost completely lost, the fighter actually gets a demerit point, or has to pay a fine, or retake some flight/combat test. So many demerit points may reduce the number of missions that show up. A station may even elect to refuse if you ask! Perhaps the fighter pays a "deposit" which would be refunded when the convoy arrives. This deposit could exist only for the first few escort missions. After 5, maybe 10, there could be an "escort badge" of some kind when the deposit is either eliminated or reduced. It could also require good standing with the faction as well.

Yes I agree that the triviality of the missions is a problem. Especially for the pay out. Half a mill credits for maybe 10 minutes of work. This is not to say that they couldn't be trivial, but not have the same massive payout. Perhaps the changes to the economy will resolve this because the profits would be normalized to a reasonable level.

Ambushing the convoy at an obvious hop point versus a preselected one... I don't see much of a distinction.

Trust me, I'd much sooner have multiple roid sectors to take down a convoy than a bunch of monitored WH/storm sectors.

Regardless, assume that we don't implement this functionality into the fighter escorts but instead create a player commanded escort mission. Wouldn't that mission type be susceptible to the same exploitation?

No, the "player-commanded" mission would be the player's own trade goods. They would effectively be hiring NPCs to help them move cargo in some way. So, losing their own goods to pirates would probably be undesirable.

For our current missions, penalizing fighter escorts for losses to piracy just results in a lot of crappy situations for the poor unfortunates who are genuinely doing their best, but still losing their convoys to pirates or hive or whomever else. Any sort of penalization just results in more harm than good, which is why the whole "fighter escorts determining routes" is probably not worth the overhead. I mean, the best we could probably do is create a statistical model to try and determine if, over time, someone is "selling out their escorted convoys", and that could be defeated by smart players getting the convoys through periodically and staying above a certain percentage of loss. Building complex statistical models for relatively minor features doesn't sound like a good use of time.

Anyway, I welcome continued discussion, but this isn't looking very compelling to me, so far.

This is why I say we bring back npc rats! You can't always rely on players alone to give convoy guard missions 24/7 dangers other than the occasional dreadfully dull ion storm.

This is only kinda on topic, but since we're talking about voys:
I hate it when you hit a storm and the voy does not go to the marked exit point, instead they head for some secret exit that only they can use, get shot at, die, I chase them down, defend, then fly 6K to MY exit point and try to play catch up.

try to play catch up

They're slow. You'll cope.

Don't even get me started on convoy jump bugs. Sometimes a convoy going from say... Latos to Sedina would jump into B-8 on the other side of the sector from the wormhole so that they can just turn around and jump. It's impossible to catch them if you're camping on the wormhole and most often than not their next destination is a minor corporation's station.

great idea. vo might as well just hand you credits for doing nothing. there is barely any resistance to trade as it is right now. if you want to escort a voy as a "fighter pilot" then be a fighter pilot. i have seen threads on this before, it makes me angry. i would like to hear 1 good reason why you should be able to get to point a to point b without seeing any enemies.

i would like to hear 1 good reason why you should be able to get to point a to point b without seeing any enemies.

Because that's the first goal of any convoy?

you can't be serious.

so, you honestly think you should be able to plot the course of your convoy and dodge any kind of threat? you should be able to make a nice profit for doing nothing? wow. i wish life worked that way.

i would like to hear 1 good reason why . . .

is not the same question as

you honestly think you should be able to . . .

Also, you cannot "plot the course of your convoy and dodge any kind of threat"--you still have to pass through WHs, places where threats of the most serious kind are often found. You might say "but not always!" but of course then you'd be missing the point that storms and bots don't happen "always" either.

The sole problem with this idea is the potential for people like me to start farming convoys, which outweighs the perfectly reasonable idea that convoys would like to plot around potential storms.

Try to keep up.

P.S. you should be able to make a nice profit for doing nothing? wow. i wish life worked that way. If by "doing nothing" you in fact mean "sitting on your ass, analyzing a situation and clicking a few times on your computer screen based on your conclusions" I'm happy to inform you that the world DOES work that way. It's called trading, look it up. And please, since we need all the idiots we can get to take the other side of our trades, by all means join in.

huh? you can already farm convoys incase none of you morons have noticed most sectors in vo only have one entrance and one exit so you just keep picking voys that go to the right side of the map and then aborting them and shooting the damn things.

sorry tosh but all you people are.



pants on head retarded