I have noticed more and more now people self-destructing to void the indignity of being killed by a player. Reminds me too much of “combat logging” in Elite. Should self-destructing be allowed while in combat?
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That’s a fair point. Either disallow it, or do what lots of other games do and reward the player that did the damage anyway, even if it was technically suicide.
So even if you eject, it still says “You were killed by …”
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What about the other form of suicide-to-avoid-death-by-player: crashing into a planet or station?
I kinda wish we were rewarded credits on a damage basis, not on a killed\destroyed basis. I mean, something like earning 1 CR for each point of damage we cause regardless of whether the target gets destroyed or not. Something like that.
Last time I did a suicide to switch ships it showed “You were killed by …” … so maybe that’s already the case?
If that is so … it should be ok except for the unohorable aspect of it.
You also get rewarded for assists. Not sure how exactly but there is a quite robust system in place I think. It sometimes has bugs, so if you don’t get rewarden when you feel like it …
Also. It only counts hull. Not shields.
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I can confirm that if you eject you get the ‘You were killed by’ message, although I don’t know if the player that ‘killed’ me got any cash. I do believe that I once got credit for killing Hutch because he ejected to switch classes back in early beta, but I don’t know if I got any credits for it, because I was on the same team (it was a a completely unavoidable accident, I swear!).
Perhaps once you can swap ships at a station, statistics could be logged on the number of ejects you have under that pilot name? 
That’s data head office might be interested in hearing about, ya’know,
Kills and assists are hull damage based, so even if your opponent ejects before dying you’ll still get the rewards for the kill ( assuming you’re the person that did the most hull damage to him ).
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Ok, sounds good. I haven’t noticed “kill assist” messages in these cases (let alone credits) but I will keep an eye out for them in the future.
One problem is you can eject right before you enter combat in a fight you know you are going to lose. For example a bomber who just fired all his torps getting swarmed by interceptors right can just hit eject and get an instant reload AND deny the enemy any cash.
There really needs to be some form of reward for surviving an attack run. Maybe all or part of the credits you earn for killing stuff has to be redeemed by docking at a station? That way if I blow up a destroyer in a bomber its better for me to go dock and get a reward than it is for me to just suicide and insta-reload.
Maybe also reward players a bit for the damage they do (in credits per % of targets health instead of in raw hitpoints so smaller ships don’t get shafted) after they dock so if I bomb a cruiser near a spawnpoint and it survives, I have an incentive to go reload instead of just suiciding,
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A suicide delay that give some time for enemies to get you anyway would mitigate the “instant reload” and “deny enemy cash” parts.
Torpedoes should probably cost credits when ship fittings get implemented to stop ship death counting as a free instant re-arm. Maybe 40 credits each and the first one free with the ship?
That would mean you’d need a system to quickly buy torpedoes off corvette players/NPCs in flight, and a system for them to buy supplies from stations.
(That’d be a way for support players to make a few extra credits too, have there be a profit margin where it’s cheaper for a corvette pilot to buy a torpedo than a bomber, but the bomber pilot paying the same price wherever they get it from.)
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How would that help? I still have to pay 40 credits for the torps die or not. Might as well die.
maybe more effective death penalty would mitigate suicides? like, say, 5 minute delay when trying to spawn ship of the same type?
another possibility - more positive reinforcement for survival - bonus money for surviving a battle without dying?
The point is it’s a credit sinc. Having less money to buy new bombers means you’ll be less likely to waste them.
I really dislike the idea of time restricting things. It only ends in additional frustration for a loss.
If the economy is set up to value the ships themselves (especially when buying and losing ship fittings gets introduced) then this won’t end up being a problem in future.
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But if its a sink that applies to both reloading and new bombers than its not really effective. I get 1 free torpedo with a 30 credit ship and then 5 more at 40 each, or I reload that 30 credit ship with 6 torpedos for 40 credits each. Actually makes sense to self destruct in that situation.
The ships are going to cost more when the equipment system is in.