Split: Assassins

[Cody]

Please split this assassin stuff out of this thread.

[Neelix]

So what you really want to do is add a second kind of bounty to the game, So you can have a GalCop bounty, which affects your legal status, and a 3rd party bounty which doesn't affect status but will attract bounty hunters... to make things interesting as each bounty hunter is populated, they could get a random personality setting, which sets a probability on how willing they'll be to attack a clean ship, and how much that probability increases with the bounty...

If a passenger or parcel is marked dangerous carrying it should slowly increase the bounty the longer you carry it. Once you deliver one, most of the bounty they attracted should be removed, and the rest should bleed off the same way a regular bounty does.

Then you'd only need one role, and it would fulfill both functions.

- Neelix

[Zireael]

I like Neelix's ideas. And yeah, some stuff could be split from this thread.
BH/Assasins discussion to one thread, the masslock discussion to the thread in the suggestions forum..

[another_commander]

Assassins discussion split to own thread

[Smivs]

Ha, I haven't played the game for years, so have not encountered these assassins myself, but from what I've read it does sound a bit silly in some ways. However the concept is fine, so my guess is a bit of tweaking might be the solution. Just my 2Cr-worth, but if assassins are around I do feel that they should be distinct from bounty hunters - I personally see these as different 'jobs', although the end result is often the same.

[mossfoot]

I like Neelix's ideas. And yeah, some stuff could be split from this thread.
BH/Assasins discussion to one thread, the masslock discussion to the thread in the suggestions forum..

Agreed. Granted for strictly aesthetic reasons I like to keep Assassins and Bounty Hunters separate (BHs are more or less good guys... chaotic good anyway), but that's got nothing to do with how we'd see them behave in the game.

In terms of how your choices impact whether you're attacked or not by someone this seems to fit the bill. I'm sure some bounty hunters are more than willing to turn assassin if the price is right, and some assassins are too honorable to attack people who have done no wrong

It's an option, anyway.

[Cody]

I haven't played the game for years...

Yeah, the OXPers curse - but you really ought to actually play sometimes.

I can see no connection between assassins and hunters - but I'm wasting my breath, methinks.

[Disembodied]

Agreed. Granted for strictly aesthetic reasons I like to keep Assassins and Bounty Hunters separate (BHs are more or less good guys... chaotic good anyway), but that's got nothing to do with how we'd see them behave in the game.

In terms of how your choices impact whether you're attacked or not by someone this seems to fit the bill. I'm sure some bounty hunters are more than willing to turn assassin if the price is right, and some assassins are too honorable to attack people who have done no wrong

It's an option, anyway.

Absolutely. People can be a whole complex mass of things: trading, earning GalCop bounties from killing Offenders and Fugitives, and taking their stuff, being a pirate, being a courier. But in programming terms, the Bounty Hunter AI will only attack people with an official GalCop bounty on their heads (Offender of Fugitive). An Assassin AI will target whoever they've been told to target, regardless of their legal status. The bounty in this case is unofficial, and illegal.

In-game, the Assassins know that what they're doing is illegal, and will refrain from firing on a Clean player if there are Vipers in the area. As soon as the Vipers are out of range, though, they'll attack.

[Falcon777]

I haven't played the game for years...

Yeah, the OXPers curse - but you really ought to actually play sometimes.

I can see no connection between assassins and hunters - but I'm wasting my breath, methinks.

There's a tenuous connection, but it's slim at best. I think the problem mostly comes in from the mixing of the two jobs in the Random Hits oxp. There, you honestly can be an assassin, killing people for doing nothing more than committing a bit of property damage (even something as small as humiliation). Or, you can be a bounty hunter, going after those people that have actually done heinous crimes. But because the targets all have an actual bounty on their head from being an offender or fugitive of GalCop law, the lines have been blurred.

However, I agree that there is definitely room to improve the assassins system. I have, for example, had to defend myself from assassins after having completely finished all of my runs and then traveled halfway around galactic chart 5 with nothing on my ship. That seems far too long lasting for a hit to still be out on someone's head. On top of that, the assassins can't even get their facts straight. My supercobra is decked out in just about every piece of equipment that can be considered to be overpowered, and yet the assassins whine after I put up half of a fight, stating that my ship is supposed to be broken down or that an adder with a pulse laser should have been able to take me out. That's just insulting.

So yeah, some of the ideas presented here could definitely improve how assassins work. But by golly, please, don't remove them.

[Zireael]

However, I agree that there is definitely room to improve the assassins system. I have, for example, had to defend myself from assassins after having completely finished all of my runs and then traveled halfway around galactic chart 5 with nothing on my ship. That seems far too long lasting for a hit to still be out on someone's head. On top of that, the assassins can't even get their facts straight. My supercobra is decked out in just about every piece of equipment that can be considered to be overpowered, and yet the assassins whine after I put up half of a fight, stating that my ship is supposed to be broken down or that an adder with a pulse laser should have been able to take me out. That's just insulting.

Those are some good points.

[cim]

My supercobra is decked out in just about every piece of equipment that can be considered to be overpowered, and yet the assassins whine after I put up half of a fight, stating that my ship is supposed to be broken down or that an adder with a pulse laser should have been able to take me out. That's just insulting.

The whining is Comms Pack A, so should reduce once other people have also written some comms packs.

Assassins certainly need a bit more work on how/where they show up, though.

BHs are more or less good guys... chaotic good anyway

Hah! I'd see at least some bounty hunters as lawful evil, under that classification.

So what you really want to do is add a second kind of bounty to the game

Yes. Effectively there is, but it's very abstracted and indirect at the moment.

Adding the possibility for multiple agencies to award bounties, some more official than others ... is also on the long list of previous suggestions. I might have a look to see if there's something usable in there, or maybe not.

[Switeck]

Perhaps, too, there could be some low-volume bulk haulage available - someone needs a small number of TCs (1-5, say) of furniture shipped from A to B. If the base price was something like C*15 per canister per jump,

Many cargo contracts (in base game) have you travel >8 jumps...or more like 20 shorter-ranged jumps. Even 150 credits "profit" for 10 short-ranged jumps per canister is actually pretty horrible. And the question becomes: What's worth that much? And will assassins be attacking you along the way? Or just run-of-the-mill pirates through all the low government systems you'll have to pass through?

I was envisaging this as a much more small-scale enterprise than the large bulk haulage contracts: 1-5 canisters, to a destination within (say) 30 LY. Contracts to take a cargo to a system within 7 LY would be common. And I wouldn't envisage them attracting assassins, no: this is more like someone moving their household effects from one system to another.

This is probably better done via OXP, but I'd like to see what happens if the actual trading aspect gets dialled back (possibly just by greatly reducing the amounts of high-profit items available: <5TCs of Computers, Luxuries, Furs; <10TCs of Liquor and Machinery), and adding in short-range, low-volume contracts, so that the player becomes more of a cargo-ship-for-hire than someone who buys and sells goods independently, in bulk. You could still be an independent bulk trader, but it might take you four or five trips to various Industrial worlds to put together a full cargo hold of Computers, say, before taking them to a Poor Agricultural. I find I quite enjoy the first few low-budget trips, choosing between 3TCs of liquor or 2TCs of Furs, wondering if it's better to take 4TCs of Food or 3 TCs of Textiles ... but once the cash is there, it's "full load of Computers/full load of Furs (unless Furs are unusually expensive, in which case Liquor & Wines)". Once you're on that track, it's ~C*1000-profit runs each time, and a lot of the colour goes out of the trading.

Such small specialty cargo contracts sounds like it needs lots of nuance to be interesting and would be best suited to being an OXP/OXZ, since its author/s could devote more time to that cause. Like you said, they shouldn't be attracting assassins or much attention or fame -- maybe preventing cargo contract reputation from decaying away but not really adding to it. Or letting you quickly reach a middle-level of reputation but not the highest levels.

The main station's commodity market is pretty much a Spot Market.
Main stations don't offer huge amounts of a particular type of cargo, to prevent trade/shipping companies from drying up and cornering the market. Prices are kept within a particular range to prevent panic buying and selling.
Buying and selling from it is effectively Tramp Trade rather than scheduled freight hauls, even if only going between the same 2 systems over-and-over again.

So only up to about Cobra 3 (35 TC capacity) can the player max out their hold with computers, which is when the player is likely "most desperate" for fast-and-easy profits. That has been "game-balanced" by post v1.77 changes which make low government (anarchy/feudal) systems far less safe for a starting-out player, which ironically are heavily poor agricultural systems. Even Rich Industrial systems are often something other than Corporate States, so safety there for a new Jameson armed with only a pulse laser is limited.

While cargo contracts are a form of Chartering, even they are not "proper" scheduled freight hauls with predictable routes or times -- you likely will not get the same contract twice.

This means there is little point in assassins trying to make a hit on the player while doing these random trades, because only the destination system of a cargo contract is certain.

Likewise, the same is true of parcel delivery and passenger contracts.
Unless a low security (anarchy and similar) system is an extreme choke-point along the possible delivery routes, it is a terrible place for an ambush by player-targeting assassins and the probability of such should be very low.

Revenge-hits after delivery should be even lower odds and reserved for obviously extremely-dangerous-and-controversial deliveries.

Only the most extreme deliveries should have a chance of assassins. Make it a special event, not like "oh, Thargoids in this random patch of interstellar space also."

[cim]

Unless a low security (anarchy and similar) system is an extreme choke-point along the possible delivery routes, it is a terrible place for an ambush by player-targeting assassins and the probability of such should be very low.

This is how it works - assassins are much more common (approximately twice as common) in bottleneck systems and have their numbers (and strengths) extremely restricted anywhere safer than multi-government.

There's also a very low cap on the number of assassins that appear in general, which is only raised (sometimes) if the player is carrying the highest-risk clients through an insecure system.

[Cody]

... assassins are much more common (approximately twice as common) in bottleneck systems...

<nods> Systems such as Beritere - a nice place, which attracts the more discerning assassins! I pass through there often.

[Venator Dha]

There's also a very low cap on the number of assassins that appear in general, which is only raised (sometimes) if the player is carrying the highest-risk clients through an insecure system.

Is this per package? As I have on several ovations encountered 3 or 4 groups of 4 assassins at a witch point in high risk systems.
Not complaining about it though