Suicide ganking (CSM)

Stats

Raised by: Ankhesentapemkah
Submission Date: 31-05-2008
Issue ID: 0026

Summary

There are concerns with players that fit fully insured ships with high-damage modules, to attack and destroy other players in high-security space, either for looted cargo or modules or as grief tactic.

There are numerous problems with the system:

• There is no defense against such tactics, besides attempting to suicidge-gank the criminals first or by pre-summoning CONCORD ships, which is a questionable tactic.
• The attacker is not at any risk, as he can patiently scan each ship to see if it is a profitable target
• There are not enough consequences for the attacker, standing loss can easily be raised back up, financial impact is offset by insurance
• There is no way to get revenge against the attacker, as he can be in an NPC corp to avoid wardecs and usually has gangmates to assist him
• Fundemental issues with the amount of financial damage between attacking and attacked parties, attacker can inflict hundreds of time more damage than it costs him

Potential Solutions

• Tradable Kill Rights
  • Pros
    • Puts bounty hunting back on the chart
    • Allows for characters without a large corp backing them as well as non-combat characters to get their revenge more easily
    • Some insecurity and unpredictability to high-sec crime
    • Allows players to provide their own security
  • Cons
    • Suicide gankers and other criminals might just be alts that are not hindered by losing their ship, booty gets laundered to other characters
    • Might deter, but does not prevent the crime

• Increased Security Status Penalty for High-Sec Crime
  • Pros
    • More meaningful consequence to crime
    • Criminals have to pick their targets more thoroughly, cannot kill as much without having to grind their standing back up
    • Punishment and inconvenience might convince some to pick up a different career
    • Longer removal of criminals from high-sec
  • Cons
    • Character might be recycled
    • Accidents might be punished too harshly
    • Mechanic artificially discourages certain player behaviour

• Exponential Security Status Penalty for High-Sec Crime
  • Pros
    • Accidents will no longer be harshly punished
    • Longer removal of criminal elements from high-sec
  • Cons
    • Character might be recycled
    • Use of alts while ‘cooling down’
    • Mechanic artificially discourages certain player behavior

• Known, Repeated offenders can (either temporarily or not) no longer raise their security status through ratting, etc
  • Pros
    • Hard consequences to repeated offenders
    • Longer removal of criminal elements from high-sec
  • Cons
    • Character might be recycled
    • Use of alts while ‘cooling down’
    • Mechanic artificially discourages certain player behavior

• No insurance when involved in crime
  • Pros
    • Crime costs more for criminals thus…
      • likely to result in a drop in random grief suicide ganking
      • Criminal actually punished and suffering meaningful consequences
      • haulders can carry some more cargo before being economically profitable to suicide gank
      • threshold for attacking mission runners is lowered
    • Realistic, why should insurance pay for criminals that directly damage the insurance company, which has to pay for both criminal and victim
    • Suicide ganking is still on the table for destroying and plundering ‘dumb haulers ships’
  • Cons
    • Accidents get punished harder
    • Mechanic artificially discourages certain player behavior

• Criminal pays for victim's insurance
  • Pros
    • Happens in real life
    • More consequences for crime
    • Could stop some griefing, as the victim suffers less and the criminal pays for it too
    • Direct consequence, not avoidable by alts
  • Cons
    • Insurance may not cover a huge part of the loss
    • Mechanic artificially discourages certain player behavior

• No insurance for people with negative standing
  • Pros
    • Direct punishment for immoral behavior, like Ultima Online’s statloss
  • Cons
    • Directly upsets balance between pirates and vigilantes
    • Harms activity in low-sec and 0.0
    • Mechanic artificially discourages lots of player behavior

• Known, repeated offenders eventually become outlaws and attackable by all, even in high-sec
  • Pros
    • Players responsible for enacting justice
    • Realistic, why would CONCORD protect criminals?
    • Harsh consequences for criminal behavour
  • Cons
    • One-sided
    • Alts, char recycling, etc

• Players can side with CONCORD and attack any player with negative standing / Criminal activity in past X days
  • Pros
    • Players responsible for enacting justice
    • Pre-emptively remove known criminals camping high-sec gates, no longer a massive initiative advantage
    • Consequence for criminal behavior
  • Cons
    • Alt recycling
    • If there is a direct ISK reward, it’s an ISK faucet
    • Might be exploitable by using alts

• Characters in NPC corps can no longer commit criminal acts
  • Pros
    • Players can wardec criminals and attack pre-emptively
    • Less anonymity for criminals
    • Slightly discourages alt recycling
  • Cons
    • Might limit new player experience
    • Corp hopping

• No criminal acts allowed for characters under 15 days old
  • Pros
    • Stops trial account and alt abuse
  • Cons
    • Limits New Player Experience

• Prevent scanners from operating in high-sec
  • Pros
    • Criminals can no longer calculate if their target is profitable, more risk
  • Cons
    •  ?

Relevant Forum Threads

• http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=777704

Votes

• Ankhesentapemkah - Yes
• Bane Glorious - Yes
• Darius Johnson - Yes
• Dierdra Vaal - Yes
• Hardin - Yes
• Inanna Zuni - Yes
• Jade Constantine - Yes
• LaVista Vista - Yes
• Serenity Steele - Yes

Resolution

• CSM-CCP_Meeting_1-1#0026_Suicide_Ganking
• http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=577