Lamby26

Also happy to hear about disabled by default, I think that's a step in the right direction. In addition, I think being able to somehow disable offline grinding / safe hacking is a great idea, and works well in conjunction with an xm8 notification for an online raid. The only exploit I could possibly see to this is a player using a grinding on a door to determine if his or her mark is online. If they are on, they can probably narrow down who the base owner is and then determine if the raid is worth going forward on based on clan members on, etc. If they are off, they could then use that info to breach using charges with impunity. I do want to circle back to this comment, as it's disingenuous in even the simplest "best case" grinding scenario. First, lets look past the fact that you need to determine when your target has used a door; this usually involves hiding and observing a base for some time (which sometimes takes an entire server cycle, or more.) But for the sake of the argument, lets assume that a scanner raid actually begins when you get a scan on an outer door code. You have 3 guesses to guess the first digit correctly. Don't get it? Locked out for 5 minutes for each subsequent guess- that's 40 minutes per door at a bare minimum if you guess wrong all the way through the remaining numbers. Sweet, the door popped open! Uh oh, there is another door behind it with a new code(like in every base worth raiding, ever). But in the time it took me to crack the outer door, the inner door went cold. So now the process resets, and I need to camp the base again until I know the owner is on, watch him go in his outer door, hope he used the inner door, and scan that. Then I have to cycle through numbers again trying to get that (while not getting caught in the process.) Uh oh, his safes use a different code; lets start the process again. And so on. In all of that time, I need to hope that the target doesn't change his codes on a rotation, doesn't catch me in the act and change his codes because he's spooked, or doesn't kill me, steal my scanner, and change his codes because he figured out what I was up to. This process can, and has, taken months to complete on some larger bases. And it should! It takes serious work to get a large, well-stocked base up and running, and it follows that it should take serious work to take it out. Grinding has none of that. There are no windows of time that need to be adhered to, no challenging organization that needs to happen to stay covert, and instant reward with little to no need to actually take risk to earn it.

That's true, perhaps I should have worded as the scanner / victim need to be on either simultaneously or in very close proximity to one another. That's as opposed to specifically trying to time a grinder raid when you know your target will be offline and unable to defend his or her base without the ability to take precautionary steps (i.e. rotating codes) to prevent it.

The current two methods of breaching seem well-balanced. Breaching charges require a large amount of resources, a group to provide cover, and generally draw in players from the surrounding area, resulting in large firefights. This is a risk/reward that needs to be weighed before undertaking; not only are you putting yourself at risk in carrying a large amount of charges that are expensive and costly to build, you run the risk of finally breaching a wall only to be sniped by a curious nearby player to lose all of your effort and spoils. This type of raiding influences player interaction, which is one of the key focal points to Exile. Thermal scanners go the opposite direction, and favor smaller, covert groups who can use finesse and patience to figure out codes. The risk involved here is alerting your mark, at which point you are either shot and lose your valuable thermal scanner, or your target figures out what you are up to and changes his or her codes, resulting in starting over from scratch. Because your target needs to be on for the scanner to work, this method also creates real interaction and tension; this type of gameplay is unique to Exile and has been unmatched in anything else I have played. Grinders, at least in the way they have been implemented as add-ons on servers, don't influence any player interaction. This type of gameplay actually encourages offline raiding with little to no risk for the raiders. The only real way to prevent a grinder raid is to stack up loads of doors, or not use doors entirely, which to me is outside of the spirit of the game. Given that two completely different yet equally effective methods of raiding exist, I'm not sure what a third (easy) default method brings.