Offline ships can be pushed through gates (in neutral sectors)

[Devious]

Title says enough, players can still kill another player in neutral sectors by pushing him through a gate while he is offline. This makes the neutral sectors quite useless as they still can be used to grief.

It happens quite often on our server and is very hard to control due to the absence of death/pvp logs.

[bowenq]

Haven't played multiplayer yet, but player ship will remain in the space even when the player goes offline? That doesn't make sense at all.

[Devious]

Yeah they do..

 

We've luckily developed a mod that protects players ships against PvP damage or on logoff to stop the griefer but either way it's a nasty mechanic because the griefer doesn't even earn anything from it besides being able to salvage the ship.

[DoorsMonster]

I had the same problem before (and posted about it before, too). I lost 3 freighters, 2 cruisers, 1 battleship and 3 stations because of this crap. What I usually do now is build asteroid like ships and block gates.

If I had access to the server, I'd mod the neutral sector generator script and remove the gates spawning script.

 

[Shrooblord]

Haha you block the Gates with asteroids? That sounds hilarious. What if you warp into the Sector through a Gate? Do you get crushed by asteroids instantly? lol

 

But in all seriousness, yes, griefing is terrible and should be preventable, especially when it's this kind of thing. I agree that player ships should not be able to be pushed through Gates while offline. Even if you have a no-damage mod on your server like you mentioned, Devious, it still means players can grief others by disorienting them and putting their ships in different places than they're supposed to be.

 

I like the persistence of player ships while they're offline: ships are not ghosts - it makes no sense that they'd just disappear when the players log off; this is a persistent universe and stuff happens while you're not around. In RP / canon: your ship's Captain (you, the player) goes to sleep / hibernation and leaves the ship dormant.

 

But perhaps something else can be done: offline player ships could be hidden in or near asteroids, or somehow disguised or safe-guarded with a no-touch Upgrade or something to counteract the griefing.

 

That, and, as you also mentioned, Devious, there should be death / pvp logs available.

[Pyrax]

I do agree this should be fixed, however in the meantime just find yourself a neutral zone with no gates. I usually find a couple on my way to the center without even looking...

[Thundercraft]

Can anyone tell me if this is still an issue? Or, has it been resolved in a recent update?

 

...I like the persistence of player ships while they're offline: ships are not ghosts - it makes no sense that they'd just disappear when the players log off; this is a persistent universe and stuff happens while you're not around. In RP / canon: your ship's Captain (you, the player) goes to sleep / hibernation and leaves the ship dormant.

 

Respectfully, I disagree. For a different perspective: Let's say we're talking about an MMO RPG. There's nothing wrong with player characters vanishing when players log off. Indeed, that is the norm. Though, for the sake of a "persistent universe" or role-playing or suspension of disbelief, they may add a little something, like having the character disappear with a teleportation or magic summoning FX.

 

Players log off to do real-world stuff. What the player does in real life is completely separate from the in-game universe and, as such, there is no 'nice' way of resolving this separation. Having an RPG or FPS character just sitting idle and totally unresponsive to what goes on around them while the player is logged off (or AFK) is every bit as unrealistic as having the character teleport away. Indeed, I'd argue it's even more unrealistic, especially if they're invulnerable while the player is away. Why should this be different if the game is a space sim and we're talking about ships instead of characters?

 

For the sake of argument, let's say that Avorion was real. Let's say that we're now millennia into the future and many people earn their living aboard such ships. If the ship's captain is taking a much-needed nap, some R&R, a bathroom break or grabbing a bite to eat, obviously there would be procedures to follow. During such periods, a commander or someone lower in rank would be in charge. And, obviously, if they come under attack they'd try to wake the captain or ask him/her to put down their eating utensil long enough to tell them what to do. They would not just sit there idle without even trying to inform the captain.

 

Besides, even if it was more realistic to have ships persist while players are logged off, realism sometimes has to be sacrificed for game balance. (There are certain sectors where ships are invulnerable to damage. Is that realistic?) Having a ship disappear after the player logs off would be a very easy fix for this issue. If nothing else, this could be made an option or server setting for those who want it.

[Burnthalo]

is it possible this is somehow related to keeping our stations/trade persistent? maybe there isn't a way to separate the player and these functions yet?  I'm not saying its not a problem.  I can see where it would cause issues, especially as one who hates pvp in all forms anyway, but it may be that its just one more unfinished bit of coding they still need to work out.

 

I ask because I'm trying to figure out some of the modding stuff.  not so much as me doing a full mod or anything but just to understand whats going into the mods I use and what I can tweak in settings.  so far I managed to adjust a few things not in current mods and am testing those out to see how they work before trying to publish a list of 'how-tos' but we'll see.  I know the trade and such requires something to be in the universe to allow the persistence so we can keep making money but not sure if it can be set up to allow a capt to take over the ship controls when the player logs off or not. maybe this would allow the capt to defend the ship...  lol I wish I understood coding better... ugh :P