Good Morning HWS Community @everyone
I would like to share an important update regarding PvP and Rule #7 (Tackling) and our upcoming HWS Rust expansion.
PvP and “the” Rule #7
As many of you have noticed, PvP activity has increased again recently. As has often been the case over the years, increased PvP activity also led to accusations, rule disputes, tickets, and overall community friction. Mistakes can happen on all sides (me included), and while individual incidents can usually be resolved, they often trigger a chain reaction of “they did it too” arguments, with older incidents being brought up again and discussions escalating unnecessarily.
Over the past week, more than 10 tickets were created around these disputes. A significant portion of them revolved around Rule #7 (Tackling), which has repeatedly been a source of disagreement and different interpretations. In some cases, the rule itself was even used as a weapon against other players, which is not acceptable.
After reviewing the reports and discussions, it became clear to me that the rule was not sufficiently clear. Because of that, I have rewritten Rule #7 to better define when staff will actually intervene and when a situation should simply be considered part of normal PvP gameplay.
You can review the updated rule and its history here:
https://forum.empyrion-homeworld.net/t/2-fairplay-gameplay/4361
Summary of the update:
• PvP is designed to be dynamic, unpredictable, and player-driven.
• Being slowed down, taking damage during pursuit, or suffering repair costs are not considered rule violations by themselves.
• Staff will only intervene in clear cases where collision mechanics are intentionally used to trap a ship in a way that directly leads to its destruction or pilot death.
In short:
PvP is not meant to be perfectly fair in real time engagements. Players are expected to prepare, pilot effectively, adapt, and engage with the risks of combat.
If you manage to escape, even if the fight was messy or costly, it is generally considered part of PvP and not something for tickets.
The goal of this change is to reduce unnecessary reports & ensure that staff only step in when there is clear and provable abuse of collision mechanics leading to a ship loss.
Especially if PvP moves to new levels with the upcoming merge of HWS+ into HWS RE.
HWS Rust Expansion in 3 days, 4th June, Thursday
A little reminder, that we start our first HWS expansion into the game Rust. <@303105378856730644> will be your contact person everything Rust related. Like I am your contact person everything Empyrion related. Equally, I help him out there, as he helps me out here.
Also, make sure to give yourself the new Rust role to stay up to date (see screenshot)
In our test play sessions it looked very cool and fun, even for me, who did not play Rust that much. Dark translated our whole HWS spirit into Rust very good. Make sure to check out the website he made for it here: https://rust-homeworld.net/dashboard (HWS Connect equivalent - the full experience unlocks on Thursday)
While it is PvP centric, the Events, the PvE zones, the use of OCD, Elemental Bank, Quests and Co. seamlessly makes it stand out from the rest in my opinion - I tried out all the big ones to see why.
The balancing will help you out to not get this non stop helpless naked embarrassment. Be it through our CGR feature (Cross Game Rewards, see screenshot), or playtime reward to get some tools to help you out starting.
All of this was triggered by the decision to consolidate HWS+ into HWS RE, which I’m currently working on.
It will be a big relieve for me, reducing overhead a lot & especially for you a bunch of new content to play.
I try to share more insights and teasers about it in the following weeks.
Thank you all for your attention and for being with us on this exciting journey after 10 years HWS!
RexXxuS
(Link to this Discord Channel message: Discord)