ok well the def bots are alright and all around the sector stations but the thing is to vets they're pretty much worthless. Ive been noticing that "average players" are attacking newbies around the stations with no fear of the def bots. I started to wonder why and decided to try it out for myself. And to be frank I dont think they could hit the broad side of a capital ship. I honestly think they could use a difficulty upgrade. Newbies are dying around stations because the def bots cant hit the players who are attacking them.

My suggestion is to upgrade the level of diffculty of the def bots. This is purely to help the newbies of Vendetta and in the hopes that they will have fun in VO and not get killed in there low levels.

OR.......

How about station-mounted laser turrets (and I mean laser, so light speed weapon travel).... Any attack on a newbie could be dealt with swiftly and suddenly....

I propose this...

Just shooting a player in a no-fire zone gets you a single "warning" low-intensity hit on your ship.... maybe doing about 500 hull damage. (just in case you shot another player by accident)...
A second attack on a player, or killing a player perhaps with your first shot, will get you a swift and sudden "full-intensity" 20,000 hull ripping laser burn up your butt.

While the station guards are a pathetic joke at the moment(I've been f*ing shot by mistake by them when someone who'd attacked me flew behind me - they just kept shooting and took me out), your idea has one fatal flaw: what is to keep someone from abusing this attack, by simply flying so that another player is between them and the station laser, then shooting them a couple of times?

well... the devs could just add the line of code <aggressive player gets 20,000 damage> using the "excuse" that you were killed by a station turret. Line of sight I think is a moot point here.

But if we're going for realism... you can't stay shielded from the stations line of sight behind noob for very long even if you are ace combat pilot. then... BOOM... Especially if you are evading the Station assault force, which I never suggested getting rid of.

I know that. If the station AI had the smarts not to shoot unless it had LoS to the intended target, that's one thing. However, as my other post demonstrates, the current AI isn't quite up to that yet.

I don't like the idea of players just magically exploding, though, since there are a number of places that could lead to that I just don't think would be healthy for this sort of a game - especially if later on actual assaults on stations ever became part of the game.

The defenses shouldn't be uber-nasty. People should be able to get around them, past them, through them, be able to destroy or ignore them; that is, if they are a good enough player. The universe is a dangerous place.

Look, once the full racewar gets underway and there are incursions into Serco/Itani space, the station defenses can't automatically destroy whoever is KOSed. I like the way the guards are.

Lets get rid of the Def bots all together in grey space. It should be a lawless region where only the folks who can defend themselves should fly.

I think defbots should look like little fuzzy bunnies in space suits.

I know, that sounds ridiculus, but if they weren't wearing space suits, they'd explode in the vacuum of space.

Good defense bots are important, but perhaps their strength should be relative to the threat. A couple guards should be capable of disabling a single fighter, but multiple threats should cause some stations to launch more fighters to match.

If you really want to prevent n00b killing, the devs should watch kill logs for grossly out of range kills and warn the players, with threat of account booting, that'll be more effective than any in game weapon.

Well, they would suffocate, and freeze to death... I don't think one atmosphere of presure is enough to make a creature explode... Flesh, and skin is much more resilient than that...

However the fuzzy bunny idea is great... but if they were wearing space suits, we would not be able to see their fuzziness (unless of course it's a fuzzy suit)... I never have trusted bunnies.. they look all cute and cuddly, but look what they did to King Arthurs men.

I agree with the idea of making grey space a dangerous place. Look, what's the point of Corvus having advantages to licenses if they're easy to get.

I can't keep grey space dangerous on my own, and its really hard when they can just run to a station and be safe

Luckily I can kill them and run from the guards, but I take a faction hit. Which is frustrating for someone who spends nearly all their time in grey space.

Give grey space mystique. Make it a place that newbs fear to enter. And that brave/foolish ones get to explore (via fog of war, whatever)