Voy farming has a level of skill attached. I wouldn't say you need to be really great or need a lot of practice, but your random newb can't do it efficiently without someone guiding them. If you can do it efficiently, then yeah it's pretty lucrative. For someone without a capship or who can't trade in addons due to crystal, it is definitely more profitable than trading on any of the commodity routes. It is definitely more hands-on than trading, where you can multi-box your way to double, triple or greater profits depending on your PC.

And I don't see why that should change. You have one way to make a decent amount of credits where sheer mass of capships or clients doesn't make much of a difference. If that's nerfed too, it just makes the game even more lopsided towards multi-boxers or capship owners. I don't know if that's really desirable.

It is definitely more hands-on than trading, where you can multi-box your way to double, triple or greater profits depending on your PC.

Are players really making 2-3 times the profit trading with three android devices? Maybe, but that is a lot effort. But to what end? After a 100 million credits, most players have no need for additional credits.

if that's nerfed too

There is no request to nerf things here. As long as you leave no survivors, everything is the same. If you are going to be a rat, might as well be ruthless or face some consequences.

It is a nerf. When you make something harder to do or use, you're nerfing it.
If such a change is accompanied by lone voys then it would balance it out a bit. Otherwise, I just see it as an unnecessary nerf of a working system.

A nerf is a downgrade. Nothing is getting downgraded here.

How about just make so convoy escorts don't leave the damn convoy alone? Isn't it also a bad thing on the escorts part that they just leave the behemoth alone at a wh?

Or just make pcb count as act of aggression.

Why pair it with standings so it's more so discouraging to do unless you just don't care about standings.

^ he's got a point. Make them agro at PCB, that makes farming harder, but don't link it to standings.

Why pair it with standings so it's more so discouraging to do unless you just don't care about standings.

Because it makes things interesting and fun. Not discouraging. Pilots will need to work as a team to make sure nothing slips by. It brings a certain amount of uncertainty into an otherwise boring kind of piracy. As it currently is, this kind of piracy has been made almost automatic; almost a money printer. The OP's suggestion will mean everyone will have some skin in the game.

There are plenty of other ways to make credits in the game that don't involve piracy. This does not detract from those.

>How about just make so convoy escorts don't leave the damn convoy alone? Isn't it also a bad thing on the escorts part that they just leave the behemoth alone at a wh?

This is a different suggestion. I do want this, too.

If the escort were to stick around and agro on PCB, it won't be "automatic" or a "money-printer". Linking it to standings just increases the potential for griefing.

Linking it to standings just increases the potential for griefing.

It really isn't. Don't kill voys, and nothing happens. The members of the voy could even warn an accidental attacker with a message "Hey you, stop shooting us, we are innocent traders. If you continue, we'll run home and tell our mum".

And there I get another exploitative use. If I'm hauling, and get myself an escort mission while hauling, I not only get the credits when I complete the escort, I also get safety against pirates. They now have to suffer additional standing loss by killing me, or extra work hunting the convoy down. No fair, is it?

They might be pre-warned by the system that I'm in an escort and not kill me, but hey, I got off free where I otherwise would've been killed.

And there I get another exploitative use.

You really don't. That wouldn't be an exploit.

No fair, is it?

Sounds fair to me. Since the pirates would need to kill you and all the npcs. Leaving no survivors.

So that's a justified use? To use an escort mission to save yourself from aggressors?

So that's a justified use? To use an escort mission to save yourself from aggressors?

If you think it would save you, sure. Most people fly ahead of the voy though, so if you died in another sector (away from the voy), it would be like you never existed, unless you went along at the same slow speed as the voy.

If it gives aggressors a harder time killing me, sure I'd go with the voy. If I am, however, traveling with a big capship voy, the aggressors would have a seriously hard time killing the rest of the voy, while it's moving all the while and attacking them. Should that be allowed?

You're offering me a chance to not only earn while hauling, but also to get a free escort and a chance to hurt the standings of my aggressors or give them a hard time. All at the cost of traveling a little slower. For me, it's a no brainer.

1) Have PCBs count as aggression
2) As an escort, dying to someone will not lead them(aggressor/s) to lose standings. This excludes any penalties due to shooting in faction space.

The reason being you are contracted to escort ships, you aren't carrying valuables or are a part of the faction or the government. The transaction is a safe escort in return for money and standings, the faction is not concerned about any other beefs you might have.

This should solve concerns with the suggestion?

I still think standings should be left out of it. The escort agroing on PCB is enough.

>I still think standings should be left out of it

Why? As far as the game world is concerned, you are murdering innocent crews by the dozen when you farm convoys. What’s more, their friends can see you do it, and can theoretically survive to trek their employers/government about it (and why they lost their expensive shipments of weapons/cargo). For both gameplay and lore reasons it makes perfect sense that you need to make damn sure no one knows what you did.

Since when a player taking the escort considered as a member of the escort? For me he's just in the group and has a mission active.
I've never seen the other npc escort ships participating defense when a fighter from the escort groupt gets shot (NPC of player). You have to damage the trade ships.
it seems to me that killing the player from the escort would not lead to any facion repercussion for the attacker from the convoy reaching its destination, and it should stay this way.
Only damaging the trade ships carrying the loot should lead to faction repercussion if any npc (npc trade ship and npc fighter) reaches the final destination.

Greyspace is lawless space. The moment you attach responsibility for murdering npc convoys to the player it's suddenly "wow, this is just a monitored system" why not make it so every time you killed a player if any other player is in that system they can report you to a nation and have you lose standing? Every time you brought weapons you can't equipped into nations pace you lose standing. Pointless