Hacking feature discussion

HWS General Discussion
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1

Howdy all. This is the ONE-shop-stop where we can constructively discuss and come up with some additional ideas in terms of the hacking feature.

Right now there has been a large number of knee-jerk reactions; and yes in the current form I have some issues too, but throwing the ‘baby out with the bathwater’ or basically ‘blowing up’ over it is not the way to change or improve it.

If all we do is make threads like ‘worst idea ever’ or just diss Rexxus’ ideas then he will stop sharing them with us; and we will lose our ability to have a say in the implementation of features (and if you folks have been paying attention then you KNOW i LOVE to have my voice heard :wink: )

So…onto the topic at hand: Hacking, here is the info we have as of this moment:

Right now I have two main issues with the hacking idea.

A: The potential for a player to be ‘hacked’ multiple times. This is something that there needs to be a limitation for in order to prevent one player from being targeted by big factions and basically having their bank shrunk or OCD cleared.

B: The amounts concerned with hacking are too steep. For instance 10 percent of someones bank at 70mil is 7 mil and with the OCD a single slot could be upto 70,000 Res (OCD 7) which raises a practical question of how the player could receive such a significant amount of resources.

However I believe this idea is an early idea in the concept phase; so I have no doubt Rexxus has already thought of these things. However maybe we can help guide the idea along also! :slight_smile:

So here are my solutions to these problems that I have so far:

A: Make it so that it is impossible for a single player to have their OCD or Bank hacked more than once per two weeks i’d say to make it fair.

B. Change the amount hacked instead of a fixed amount on the OCD to a percentage of a single slot. So say 5-10%. Maybe increasing per the level of someones bank? So if someone has OCD1 then only 5% but OCD5 maybe 10-15% of that slot. This would balance it out; i mean imagine someone landing on an OCD7 slot with 70,000 gold ingots…that would be 17.5 Million gone! (maybe limit this with the bank also so Bank 1 you can only hack 2% and then it goes up as the bank level goes up).

Those are my two main issues and solutions. FINALLY for my ‘additional’ feature suggestion:

Make it so that depending on where you are in space you are more or less vulnerable. Maybe somehow on crowded PVE playfields your Bank/OCD is more vulnerable to hacks due to overpopulation; whereas if you spread out on PVP planets and in PVP space then you’re harder to reach and so is your OCD/BANK. Just an idea.

Thanks for all the brilliant work you do @RexXxuS and please don’t be afraid to share your ideas with us; it just may be best to do it here so you get proper feedback and not just knee-jerk reactions from panicked individuals that dont understand this idea is still an early idea.

Best regards
Wise :slight_smile:

2

Well i have no problem with hacking structures or ships.

the problems i see with hacking bank or ocd is simple.

Hacking of ocd protection is to move everything in to base so thats simple.

Hacking of bank protection will be not playing.

Bank hacking of 1-2 mill / week is ofc nothing i care about. But 10% is to much. And also all hacks can only happend once per week.

Simple answers

3

Here’s a more mathmatical answer in terms of my solutions to the problem:

With the hacking of the Bank and OCD it would depend on a random-number generated between two fixed integers [whole numbers]. For example:

EB Bank level 1: 1-2% of bank hacked. 25% chance of failure
EB Bank level 2: 1-3% of bank hacked 35% chance of failure
EB Bank level 3: 1-4% of bank hacked 45% chance of failure
EB Bank level 4: 1-5% of bank hacked 55% chance of failure
EB Bank level 5: 1-6% of bank hacked 65% chance of failure.

Similar for OCD, maybe make it so a random slot would be picked from the OCD. If that is impossible then instead this:

OCD Lvl 1: 3-8% hacked of slot. 10% chance of failure
OCD Lvl 2: 3-12% hacked slot. 20% chance of failure
OCD Lvl 3: 3-15% hacked slot. 30% chance of failure
OCD Lvl 4: 3-18% hacked slot. 35% chance of failure
OCD Lvl 5: 3-20% hacked slot. 50% chance of failure
OCD Lvl 6: 3-25% hacked slot. 60% chance of failure
OCD Lvl 7: 3-35% of hacked slot. 70% chance of failure (can’t decide on this final value,

Maybe you could have a ‘hacking’ skill tree that lowers the failure values also:
'Hacker lvl 1: 10% less chance of failure.
'Hacker lvl 2 15% less chance of failure
’Hacker lvl 3 20% less chance of failure
’Hacker lvl 4 25% less chance of failure
’Hacker lvl 5 30% less chance of failure.

With the failure chances you could even link it to the bounty board and have those who fail ending up with a bounty that reveals their location; sort of acting as a slight deterrance also. But upto you guys, i’m curious to see what others think!

Just some ideas, tell me what you guys think.
Best regards
Wise.

EDIT: NUMBER CHANGE: OCD 5, 6, 7 FAILURES RATE INCREASED.

4

One.last.post on this from me until someone else posts on this.

I don’t think people realise what the stakes are. We either have this kind of dynamic limitating feature in regards to bank or OCD or we will probably just end up with a hard nerf to slots/capacity interest. In a previous post Rexxus already mentioned that he was considering ways of changing ocd/bank in the future and i doubt it will make it to be even more powerful.

Therefore please seriously consider an idea like this before just shooting it down as otherwise the shape of the OCD/Bank feature may change irreversibly.

5

Hacking Bank Accounts and OCD

I don’t like this because some of us have WAY more to lose in our OCD than others, and while it is cool because it introduces an element of risk, it also introduces an element of losing hundreds of hours of playtime.

Hacking Structures

I’m with Supreme Admiral on this. Let players hack HV/SV/Base, as long as said structure fulfills certain conditions first.

This would 100% take care of the anti-griefing issue, where people place decoy bases down and we spend hours digging them up. Now, we could walk along, find this unarmed base, hack it and then recycle.

This would allow people to make complex base designs, where people might have to actually spend time breaking into them in order to hack it. If you combine it with making people have to manually access constructors and such, you would introduce a whole new element of players on foot pvp. We shoot off all of your turrets, break into your base, hunt you down, get within XXX of the core and then finally hack it.

1 Like
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Cheers for carrying this over Ranzeth :slight_smile:

What do you think about the hacking success chance and the drawback of being ‘guilty’ or on the bounty board as a result? Or of the values above?

7

I’m with others above on the bank/OCD hacking. Re, structure hacking - There needs to be balance and a counter. Some way of building that protects against hacking, reduces chance or even an anti-hack device like an OLP device (may not be possible).

Maybe a time delay since the base owner was last online before a hack is possible too. 24 hours? Just putting that out there.

1 Like
8

Yeah good points! Also what’s to stop someone from ‘hacking’ a structure and powering it off disabling its OLP. I’d only really be happy with something like that being possible if it had a high chance of falure (55%+) and serious consequences on the bounty board or something for ‘underhanded’ tactics :slight_smile: maybe each origin could have hacker specific bonuses/issues.

Like this:

Lawless: ‘Natural black-hat hackers’ +20% chance of success in all hacking actions BUT 20% more vulnerable to offensive hacks. (So lawless facs could easily hack eachother in a clandestine manner)

Alliance: Corporate security measures +30% defence against hacking, -40% offensive hacking chance.

Freelancer: Corporation wars: +25% chance of bank/ocd hacks. -30% structure hacking defence.

The problem is that my idea may make it too complex to implement, but it could be fun! :slight_smile:
Best regards
Wise.

9

Guilty

It’s way too easy to pay off being guilty, and the only drawback is you can’t enter PvE space. People could easy use alt/family share accounts to hack and this suddenly doesn’t become an issue at all.

Bounty Board

This has never really been a penalty or a bad thing.

Now, if you combine the two together. Where someone becomes guilty and the bounty board shows their exact location. Implement a minimum playtime before you can hack, and increase the cost of being forgiven from guilty status… and now you have a feature that has a lot of risk tied to it.

1 Like
10

Yes exactly! You’ve hit the nail on the head! Some sort of automatic bounty board location tracker without having some obscene exploitable bounty attached to it :slight_smile:

11

Remove the % value of the “hacked slot” or bank account value entirely. A % based system for taking peoples goods will never create a fair system. This is due to the fact that 10% of my 700k Iron Slot is 70k in iron! Or 10% of some people’s bank would be 5 million credits!

The result needs to be a fixed number based on the average player.

12

To be fair 10% of 700k is going to be the exception that proves the rule there. Especially now that slots are capped at about 70k I think this hacking feature would FINALLY provide some people cough "RANZETH :wink: cough (i mean this in a friendly way ofc :slight_smile: ) to use those top-heavy slots!

Whereas with bank i’m wondering if it would be more successful to hack their interest rate instead. So if they have 2.5mil interest at bank 5 ya could get like 50% of that IF they claim it.
Best regards
Wise.

13

To be fair, I also invested hundreds of hours to get those slots filled up to 700K :slight_smile: . And other than spawning cap ship after cap ship and plopping them on an enemy base, it will be next to impossible for me to use those mats in an efficient manner.

Empyrion by nature is a sandbox game, I don’t think we should be forcing players to empty out their 700k slots if they don’t want too.

Interest Hack

Yeah, that is an interesting idea. Though it would make it so that some players would be getting hacked constantly, and that would not be fun. I think there would have to be a rule of some sort, where you need to be within XXX distance to use the hack. Or at a very minimum on the same playfield.

14

Nobody is forcing you to empty it out :slight_smile: But if one of those slots get hacked then it will hurt :slight_smile: It’d be the equivalent of losing one ‘normal’ ocd 7 slot :slight_smile: Alas i have to consider the majority of players. Although maybe we could have another EGS feature that would be EGS on-site security that you could pick to protect ONE thing. Bank-OCD or Structures. And you could level it up to stack the failure chance of enemy hacks :slight_smile:

Once again another feature! But i think this hacking idea has TONS of potential.

Yeah with the interest hack it would have to be so that one person can only be hacked once per week i’d say and maybe (not sure if possiblle) they only get that interest from the drone if the ‘interest drone’ has been activated.

Best regards :slight_smile:
Wise :slight_smile:

PS: I have an idea for your 700k iron:

15

That’s the problem. If you end up not putting a cap or using a fixed value you are indeed forcing vet players to use those slots, or they risk losing the materials in them.

The potential loss for vets who donated and supported early is staggering compared to newer players who have not. Not to mention, if you hack someone’s ‘gold ingot’ slot and they lose 10k in gold ingots… well that hurts.

If hacking is to be implemented fairly and properly, it needs to have caps and limitations.

**, For Example, **

No more than 999 of a rare resource.
No more than 1 million in credits stolen
Etc etc

3 Likes
16

Yeah categorising items is a good idea, and i’m fully behind this as i see few issues with it other than us distinguishing what counts as what, but we can do that on another discussion :slight_smile:

@Ranzeth what do you think of the EGS security feature?

Best regards
Wise.

17

Depends, if it is something paid with in-game credits/RP/real money. If it is something that is activated and has a per usage RP cost that could be interesting.

If we start going RP heavy though, the RP gaining system will have to be balanced out.

18

I’m sorry, but hacking Banks or OCD’s is fucking ridiculous!

I’ve put a LOT of time into getting to where I can have OCD 6. Storing gold in OCD is the only way we possibly have of saving up for OCD 7. If someone is allowed to hack my OCD (you know the thing that we were told was safe) and take any of my gold at all, I’ll be done forever.

I’m a single man faction and I’ve worked very hard to get to where I am today.

I see this as a sure way to drive of lots of people if it’s implemented at all.

1 Like
19

Personally i’m inclined towards in-game credits +rp. Maybe some sort of RP upkeep to keep it running tho (like 1 rp cost a day or something)

20

Hi TwitchyJ! Welcome to the discussion dude :slight_smile:

I understand your worries about OCD; especially as I too have started that long lonely road towards stocking up for OCD 7. However I have several ideas to prevent your OCD from being hacked or at the very least reducing the chance.

First of all by having OCD6 you will have a high chance of protection (currently the hackers will have a 60% chance of failure.) Furthermore if I had it my way you could boost this with another EGS service that could provide up-to a 40% security buff (making OCD6 plus impossible to hack!)

What do you think about another EGS feature? I think it would be good as it would be another milestone between ocd6 and 7 and a good way to help defend against potential hackers!

I think we have to give Rexxus some room to manouver on this idea as it is a really fun feature; and i think sometimes we forget that before OCD nothing was safe. This would return an element of risk without necessarily destroying everything you’ve worked very hard for :slight_smile: It’s also why i’d randomize the slot choice when it comes to an OCD hack, meaning that OCDs with higher slot-counts are less likely to have a landing on a rare bit. Or what Ranzeth said by making rares unable to be hacked.

Best regards and tell me what you think :slight_smile:
Wiseman738