Best Of

You can't really complain about the losses at a Cosmpiercer when the content is entirely optional. Plus, just from reading this, you made a ton of mistakes. If you've got junk in your cargo and you go to a Cosmpiercer, you deserve to lose it. If you've got far too many supplies aboard, be prepared to lose it all, you need to learn to moderate how much you're carrying and store some on stations. It isn't stealing, you're a willing participant in a conflict and taking you out and taking your supplies means you're less likely to join the fight in the next one while you have to resupply. It is a simple battle tactic, nothing more.

The only thing I do agree on that sounds terrible, is ships getting undocked and destroyed once a Cosmpiercer battle ends.

That brings up another good idea! If the decay is stopped for players who don't log in for 2 weeks (or some other threshold), have the non-decay effect only apply to genelocked items. This is so that there aren't players who suddenly pop up carrying loads of good gear that they can then sell off.

Kirin said:

Possibly stop decay of items if person doesn’t log in for more than 2 weeks. Of course seconds abuse becomes a thing 

It shouldn’t affect seconds as it would only apply to equipped items and those are genelocked.

I guess one of the good things about cosmpiercers only giving out a few thousand marks is that losing them doesn't actually make that big of a dent in a faction's overall strength. It's, what, 6000 marks at maximum? That's 90k marks per in-game year. I can bash* up that much in 2 RL days; 1 if I'm really trying.

In other words, losing a cosmpiercer is mostly psychological, and it's possible to spin it in a positive way in-game. Propoganda it into something that still encourages your faction.

One thing I will not feel bad about about, though, is our players being engaged with objectives. Participation is a positive thing. And while Song does have a large part of the active combatants right now, things always change. Jumping factions is easy here. New recruits are always possible. Off the top of my head, for example, Vianou is a convert and Steve and Keanu are fresh recruits. All three have increased Song's capability by a notable margin.

There will be ups and downs for every faction. Just a few months ago, Scatterhome was King, then it was Song, then Celestine, then Song now again. It can be frustrating when your org is on the downswing, but in general, things do improve.

* bashing being a catch-all term for traditional bashing, questing, and incursioning

I agreed with the above posts because I'm genuinely going to miss Ren the character. Ren was always very kind and helpful, and I enjoyed basically every interaction I had with them.

Forgive me if I won't miss the torrent of paranoia and finger-pointing every time people try to make honest suggestions for improving the game and they're addressed.

If you really are leaving the game, I hope you find something that you don't feel wastes your time. If you're staying, then I look forward to getting wrecked! You've proven you're quite capable of it, and you can probably train other willing CA people just the same. I don't remember ever declaring war on you as a person, and I don't intend to start now.

Either way, good luck. 

Perhaps ICly at times I have to act as a pragmatical old Jin but even within that mindset and out of it, your contributions were greatly appreciated and you can be assured that was not limited to easy cosmpiercer captures. It is never pleasant to see a player depart but good luck on finding the enjoyment you desire. 

I'm honestly at a loss for words. I'm sorry your experience didn't work out. Your work IC was always greatly appreciated. Best of luck with whatever you choose to do next.

To be honest I found the previous version with guards always better because it provided a natural resistance. That natural resistance was a combination of mark losses, time consumed and defensive dangers. Rate of cosmpiercers changing hands was less then the current version as well.  In my opinion that was quite balanced. Lack of Scatterhome participation of course will always make things appear imbalanced to a degree. 

And I must say cosmpiercers might take a bit of time to cover their expenses but CA held a good portion for a long while and I would say it covered the expenses and more over the time. Right now we have systems in place to cover any cost so I would say at least from the side of marks it does not have much cost for those who would like to contribute. It is just willingness to do it. Possibly if factions had their cut on player credit purchases (retroactively valid perhaps), that could alleviate some of the perceived financial burden too. But after a level it is really immensely easier to gain marks to throw around. 

While timers might make things fair over time with the participation of Scatterhome, I find the lack of PvE and reduction of hacking terminals counter-productive. If people were not interested in PvP it was a group PvE activity after all. And when the defenders appeared they could use guards to their advantage provided the attackers did not place a naval blockade. More strategy was involved then a hacking rush. 

Right now we see people employ naval blockades still. It was possible to do so back then too and prevent most of the guard related hazards. So what changed? Nothing. Difference is that numbers are more important then ever though. Some people even argued that sitting outside with a ship is not fun, but people do it anyways while capturing things in the cosmpiercer far easier without resistance. 

Furthermore losing high rank cosmpiercers that you spent hours to capture back then can be taken in 20-30 minutes due to your absence right now makes it a bit disappointing.