As far as I can tell that "Public" core is the single biggest asset a starting player has; I'm curious if others use it the same as me, or if this is WAI / WAD? Of course, it is perfectly functional with just a new gen and tank (something I never realized about those T0 hover pods, repulsers or whatever they are being called), but not as performant as with proper T1 hover pods, RCS and thrusters. Find that thing and get it back to your porto. Build a cockpit, proper hover pods, RCS, some thrusters (4 is enough, more is obviously better). Build a few cargo crates or container controller + extensions if you have that tech. Strip the "Damaged Hoverbike" down to nothing but the core (be CAREFUL and do not damage it! it is precious!). Now rebuild it with the T1 hover craft parts you crafted. You now own what I call the "HV_Stealth_Sedan" (I always make it a closed cockpit for harsh environments, so sedan instead of "bike"). Hostiles outside of their own territory ignore you as long as you are in the driver's seat. This means that: assuming you haven't grinded to be neutral with Zirax, you can go exploit all the ore sites guarded by Zirax drones by simply putting the Harvest Controller and some drills on the Stealth Sedan. Zirax bases (and Legacy) still shoot at you, so it isn't a true 'exploit' I guess.
And another thought that occurs to me . . . I think that cores for HV/SV might be interchangeable? If so, one could conceivably reconfigure the Stealth Sedan to be a "Stealth Ship" and fly to the moon/asteroids for some rare Earths!
They are not. Once an entity is created it will always be that entity - HV, SV, CV or BA. There is nothing that I know you can do to change the class. That is part of the problem with trying to recover any damaged CVs you find on the surface. They are all actually classed as BA and so you can never take one over, repair it and fly away. Also, you can change any core on any object you own to public - this is not unique to the ones you find. You do not need to tear apart the one you find to make it a public ship. There was a bug that did not allow entities you found or took over (unless they were made by another player) to have working shields but I do not know if they have fixed that yet. Been awhile since I reported that one and have not checked back.
Not from a certain Point: It was exploited, excessively by PvP-Player, so this 'forgotten' (from the side of the Devs) function was finally removed.
It is nice that the OP shows what possibilities are there for the damaged Hoverbike but its still an Exploit in my Book. And if he insists to make too much noise about it...well...I would not wonder when some day in the future the Hoverbike will have its Core removed and it sits there as an empty Husk so a activation could make it private only.
Another game ruined by pvp tryhards and devs catering to them... Why not just disable it on pvp servers, then?
The use of Exploits must be denied to everyone. Not only to parts of a community. At least does the PvE'ers know whom to thank for
For Example: Using a SV or CV to transport several HV to an enemy Base and, by changing in flight the faction from faction to public, dropping off the attached HV - onto the Base of the "Enemy" faction.
I agree that the "public" core in the damaged hoverbike is a bit on the 'exploity' side of things, though not brazenly so. We're not talking Aimbot levels of exploit Just a little sliver of exploit. After all: we now have a social ecology in which complex relationships exist between multiple factions. At the risk of some very mild spoilers read on . . . Mild spoilers, really just information in the Empyrionopedia, not something you have to play through to learn: Zirax are apparently overstretched from a recent period of rapid interplanetary expansion of their Empire. Polaris are omnipresent in the known and inhabited portions of Andromeda and they seem to be the proverbial Swedes or Swiss: they are sitting back in their strong positions playing the role of neutral and, even though they LIKE it when you harm the Zirax, they are not openly hostile to them. As such, an "identity" that more-or-less matches this "neutral" status that is reflected by the "public" core DOES make sense. There would be non-aligned or Polaris aligned individuals and groups presumably roaming around these planets and the Zirax patrols and guards (both clone and AI) would be instructed not to fire at them unless fired upon. With all this said: there is virtually no reason in terms of gameplay or "balance" that a player character would NOT have access to something like a "disguise." Sitting inside of a vessel that has a CPU/transponder that the Zirax have registered as "Neutral" is precisely the sort of "disguise" that would be readily accessible to such a player character in such an imaginary game world. In fact, it may be that this dynamic is very specifically INTENDED by the developers. Changing your cores' identities in PVP is a totally different matter, but even there, there are conditions and eventualities where such crypsis may be perfectly legitimate fair play. To make reference to EVE Online: that game is famous for players spending months or even years infiltrating Corporations and Alliances, gaining progressively more power, influence and access to restricted property within the organization, and then one day: turning rogue (generally at the most strategically clever moment, such as, when everyone else in the whole org is logged off), resetting all the codes and passwords and effectively stealing all the organizations wealth! In the case of EVE Online, the developers are totally aware of these ruthless PVP dynamics and they condone them. They don't condone "cheating," but they do condone "black ops" shall we say . . .
Now with respect to this specific public core you gain with the damaged hoverbike, here is what I have observed. As long as you have a closed cockpit, drones at ore sites or other POIs outside of Zirax territory do not see you as hostile. Obviously if you get out of the cockpit and they see you then they engage. I don't know if they disengage if you then get back in the cockpit or not. I have multiple times flown through Zirax territory in this very same HV_Stealth_Sedan and something (most likely the base turrets) DOES shoot! Whether that is because a non-friendly is inside of their territory or because those base turret entities can "see" that you are inside the public vessel I don't know. That part of it seems a bit weird, and it could be buggy or it could be quite intentional on the developers part: Dev 1: So lets give a single public core configured for HV in every start. Clever ones will figure out how to use that to their advantage . . . Dev 2: Good idea, but then, won't they be able to get close to hostile facilities, tunnel under them more readily and take them out, even using the guns on the vessel? Dev 1: True. So lets do this: set the bases to recognize the identity of the player, but drones that guard POIs outside Zirax territory don't . . .
Does not really change the fact that entities intended to engage with the player are prevent from doing so because of the faction of the vehicle you are in. Still an exploit - game mechanics not really working as they are intended to.
Not really. You do not want drones randomly shooting every neutral POI out there. Finding all the neutral POIs reduced to rubble because random drones kept firing at them is not a good thing. Public cores fixes that. Having player access to public cores abuses this function.
Deceiving the enemy is a key element in a keen warrior's tool kit, so there is nothing "inherently wrong" with using a disguised vehicle to dupe the Zirax drones. As far as it being an "exploit," well that is up to the devs to say: if they intended it to be used to this effect, then it is not an exploit, and salute to them! If they did not anticipate it being used this way, else it is not working as intended, then c'est la vie, we shall eventually bid farewell to the stealth sedan . . .
