Space ships karma should be changed.

Currently we have pirates occasionally flying around in quads with a "fair" or "good" karma and i can fly around with a "rude" or even a worse titled quad as a pirate hunter if i want. But that simply does not make real sense to me. If you are a pirate and shoot down "fair" or "good" titled quads your avatar should gain negative karma. And your vehicle should present a negative title, relative to the amount of negative karma points the avatar has.
(I do understand that it also could be used for tactical reasons.)

For as far i´ve noticed, players that have played pvp on planet have a avatar related karma which also influences a ships karma. But with karma gained in space pvp it only seems to affect the ships karma.


Personally, i think the current space karma stats should be changed from ship to avatar. When you gain negative karma in space, it should be added to your avatars karma and not the ships karma. In order to get rid of your negative karma you need to work your way back up towards a positive karma. Just changing quads is kinda stupid.

I see the difference between good or bad more as factions. So either you are on one side or the other. You cannot be at both sides at the same time.

Johnysnake said:

Personally, i think the current space karma stats should be changed from ship to avatar. When you gain negative karma in space, it should be added to your avatars karma and not the ships karma. In order to get rid of your negative karma you need to work your way back up towards a positive karma. Just changing quads is kinda stupid.

I see the difference between good or bad more as factions. So either you are on one side or the other. You cannot be at both sides at the same time.

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Your right, I agree with you. Good idea.

I think the karma system as it is.. is very poorly done, any pirate could fly a 'good' ship if they want to trick people. I just ignore karma completely and treat every potential ship in space as a threat.

Cheers for the support Carito.


Here a example of what very recently happened.

A pirate got shot down in his "rude" titled quad. He goes back to the space station and leaves the space station again in a "good" titled quad. He moves just out of the safe zone and waits for new targets.

The pirate hunter who just shot the pirate, saw that the pirate changed his quad and now the pirate hunter switches his 'good" titled quad for a " rude" tiltled quad. So he does not loses karma points on his "good" titled quad.

A space traveler enters space and sees a "rude" titled quad hanging at the space station (thinking that this quad belongs to a pirate). He moves on and just out side the safe zone he got shot down by a "good" titled quad (which is the actual pirate).

Where is the logic?

Although I agree that there should be an update with the karma system, (not sure how it should be done) even if they have a good rating, I wouldn't trust them as far as I can through them. Space is a free for all zone where the rules are kill or be killed, and if you follow that motto, you may just survive the journey!

Nor Alien said:

Although I agree that there should be an update with the karma system, (not sure how it should be done) even if they have a good rating, I wouldn't trust them as far as I can through them. Space is a free for all zone where the rules are kill or be killed, and if you follow that motto, you may just survive the journey!

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So you would rather support getting rid of the whole karma system than changing it as suggested?

Johnysnake said:

So you would rather support getting rid of the whole karma system than changing it as suggested?

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Oh no, I think it needs to be changed. I just wouldn't trust them even if it was changed the way you suggested.

PvP is PvP so anything goes. There is nothing to say once it is changed, the good wouldn't sip a little of the dark sides sider!

Nor Alien said:

Oh no, I think it needs to be changed. I just wouldn't trust them even if it was changed the way you suggested.

PvP is PvP so anything goes. There is nothing to say once it is changed, the good wouldn't sip a little of the dark sides sider!

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You are right. But MA should be able to create a decent and quite trust-able system.

For example:

To gain title "fair" you need to gain 10 karma points.
To gain title "good" you need to gain 1000 karma points.

If you kill another avatar with also a positive karma (like yourself) you will lose 50% of the karma points of your title. So if you kill 2, you will lose your current title.

In that case i would take the risk to trust someone with a high ranked title.

<removed123>

Johnysnake said:

You are right. But MA should be able to create a decent and quite trust-able system.

For example:

To gain title "fair" you need to gain 10 karma points.
To gain title "good" you need to gain 1000 karma points.

If you kill another avatar with also a positive karma (like yourself) you will lose 50% of the karma points of your title. So if you kill 2, you will lose your current title.

In that case i would take the risk to trust someone with a high ranked title.

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Yep thats sound fair, but try this, you go into space with some hard earned loot and you notice a ship with a karma of good or above. On this you decide, I don't need to take a mother ship. Once on the way you notice the good ship is right behind you. No problem you think, until your dead with no stackables on you. Now you or I wouldn't even bother to trust it in the first place, but some new player, thinking that the karma system has been fixed, well, they are the ones on the forum crying.

In the end, I know that the karma system needs an overhaul and your idea sounds good in practice. The best way in the end, is to not trust anyone, whether their Karma is good or otherwise. This is the basic idea of what space is. MA developed it (so far) to reflect that. I don't see them making it easier for us to trasport loot off of one world to another without the risk and excitement that the lawless zone of space is.

This is of course just my oppinion, and I think if it is changed, there wouldn't be much of a change in how space works..

Just to add, in the end, even if someone has a good karma, there is nothing to prevent him/her from changing his colors, especially when they think they will gain a winfall. I think if we decided to rely too much on karma, it may just come back and bite us in the ass. Still not saying that this shouldn't be implemented in the way you suggest, I would just rather tell everyone, that entering space is done at your own risk and you do so knowing full well that you will be shot by the next player that sees you.

Better safe the sorry.

@Kenny (Stone)

First, thanks for your comments.

Second,

Wow, dude. Have i ever said that i have issues with tactics or pirates?

I just started a discussion about a subject that doesn´t seem to work as it should in my opinion.
Don´t start personal attacks. Keep those outside this thread. Feel free to flame me ingame or by PM.

There is just no way that an automatic system could fairly distribute good or bad karma to players as long as its about behaviour and not about npc factions.
The best way to do it would be to have an indicator that shows experience - aka how many kills that ship or avatar has in space pvp combined with certain skills who have been aquired in space and provide a good indication of that avatars danger potential.
The good or bad karma should be awarded like during events the reputation, maybe even replace the karma with reputation and use it as general indicator. If you get killed and have good rep you can plus or neg rep the other avatar - but you can only do it once per day. If you have bad karma getting killed gives plusrep to the one who killed you but also only once per day (that way pirates cant cheat themself back to good rep as they most likely will kill more different unique non-pirates per day then pirates).
Over time this will build up karma/reputation levels which can not be reversed that easily anymore.




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Look at this if you want to know how karma currently works - https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?215242-Karma-comes-back-around

The best solution maybe would be both a "pilot karma" and a ship reputation. A "pilot karma" connected to the pilot and not the ship could be a solution. The karma should decay of time, for example each two weeks one killing of a "good" pilot is forgiven, and each week you also lose some good karma.

With the ship reputation still in place alongside with the pilot reputation, you can get a warning both if the ship and/or the pilot have been involved recently in some pirate activity. The pilot can't change ships to avoid the red tagging, and teams can't come around the tagging by constantly changing the pilot of the ship.

Johnysnake said:

For as far i´ve noticed, players that have played pvp on planet have a avatar related karma which also influences a ships karma. But with karma gained in space pvp it only seems to affect the ships karma.

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KennyRS said:

Can anyone explain that planetside karma please? My guess is that on planetside while you destroy other vehicles with your own vehicle the karma goes to whatever vehicle you used. I know that in space the karma ALWAYS is altered by shooting other vehicles NOT AVATARS, maybe some gunners can confirm that? Maybe Johny can explain what he is talking about, what exactly have you noticed so far?

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See the thread "karma comes back around" we did alot of testing of Karma back in the early days. PvP kills on planet are not what effects it, as far as our tests have concluded it is Pilot proffession ( or one of the very closely related professions)
This will strengthen someones ability to influence a tag. A more skilled pilot will turn a rude quad to an even greater negative status, and turn a fair quad to a even greater positive status.

We also thought that it might be planetside pvp kills at the start, however we tested it very early on when Karma was just new so could get nice clean results without having to take into account all space professions. An avatar with less than 10 pvp kills could strengthen the tag greater than I could ( I had around 7.5k pvp kills). He could do this as even though space was new - his higher total skills meant he did have some in the way of captain. We also Tested promoter rating and other ideas waaay back at the start

We continued the testing and the pilot proffesion pattern emerged. Even just last week we tested a very high level Captain in a quad which had its own strong karma - and the effect was quite dramatic. We then used Pilots of stages less than the origional test, and watched as the displayed karma reduced




It does however have its limitations, above a certain pilot profession the differences do not come so fast.


I kinda like how the system currently works, In the bad ole days im sure pirates didnt always fly thier jolly roger I can imagine pirates sneaking up on un suspecting ships by displaying a nice friendly flag

I just hope everyone who goes into space should know - do not trust any tags - red blues or greens.... a tag will only tell you one thing - how experienced the pilot is - regardless if he is a good guy or a bad guy.



I can see why it would be frustrating though as a Pirate hunter, as unless its the usual suspects, or have witnessed a chase - its hard to tell who is a pirate and who is just a traveller.

Gl out there


edit - oops just seen JBK linked the Karma thread

Reputation vs Karma.. There's a big differnece..

I personally think MA does not know the definitions of the words of either Karma and or Repuation... and I'm going to put these two words into the context of the game..

Now what is Karma? Karma according to Webster's English Dictionary, is really described as thus:

Karma: the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence

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Now since we die and come back as the same person, ergo we really can't use the word Karma in essences as a means to determine a person's good or bad intentions... Because in a way when we die in game we come back again and again as the same person unless some people use Alternatives as a way to gain favoritism with people).


Now if you look at the word Reputation, this actually more close to the truth of what this game is supposed to be about...

Here's what Webster's Says about Reputation:

Reputation: a place in public esteem or regard : good name <trying to protect his/her reputation>

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This is perhaps the more realistic meaning that should be used rather than Karma..

And of course this is where MA could make a few simple programming changes and really make Karma more of Repuation...

and it would be all based on Reputation.. (Event Promoter would give you Positive reputation but you'd get a skill as an Event Promoter, which would work towards the profession. ,

but Pirating would make you get Negative reputation..and thus it would detract from a players reputation score. I mean if you killed a quad, then yes you get positive reputation.. but if you killed and looted another player the negative reputation would precede you.. and if you killed two players in a quad, or a bunch of players in a mother ship or privateeer your reputation would go down..

The point is, This section shouldn't be based on Karma but rather reputation as if you want to keep your nose clean and be looked on as a respected person, you don't shoot and loot, want to be the bad by, then by all means kill and burn those weapons of yours...

After all Karma may be a bitch, but keeping an upstanding reputation as a player is much harder to do when you are pirating..

Of course some pirates are looked up to.. but then that's the thing about good and eveil.. it's a fine line of who you respect.. and whom you hate..

Benjamin 'Ben' Coyote
a.k.a. "The Blind Sniper"