Assembly Hall

There's some danger with removing self destruct entirely is that it would become a very effective griefing tool - tackle something (but don't kill it), and simply hold them there for as long as you wish. Less of a worry with ships themselves (since the pilot can at least eject), but with pods there's really nothing that they can do. While I admit it would be pretty funny, it probably wouldn't be good from a fun perspective. That isn't to say that the idea wouldn't work, but it's probably something that should be considered.

That said, I completely support the generation of killmails for combat involving a self destruct, or any mechanic which prevents self destructing simply for the purpose of denying killmails.

The current state of affairs makes combat involving capitals less exciting, and has a particularly large effect on newer players and smaller groups. Getting on a capital (or even supercapital) killmail is something that newer PVPers can get really excited about, particularly for smaller groups where a capital kill is a real rarity. Getting a kill like this is a really big achievement for these guys, and giving them something to show for it would, in my opinion, increase the quality of their experience.

This and only this. Denying me my sandbox choice of self destructing instead of letting you kill me is unacceptable. Self destructing should be like driving your car into the lake and getting caught. No insurance for you! Self destructing is controlled and therefor should be a total destruction of all modules and possible loot with the exception of salvage. A kill mail should still be generated for the last person to land a hit before the self destruct for those who even care for killmails but the killmail should clearly state that it was a self destruct.

I agree... no self destruct while in combat. I think it would be great for pirates among others. Pin down a ship and order them to eject. It would be sort of like a new form of ransoming.

i'm for this but the modules should still have a chance to drop, once your in self destruct mode modules should not be removable, you risk moving it in space you risk someone taking it away on your death

no insurance payout at all.

killmail yes

To be fair there should be module that renders self destruction impossible.

Dont make it to easy for the wolf.

Keep all self-destruct mechanics the same, just make it generate a killmail. Give the killmail to the last person who got the last shot off on the victim before he explodes.

Boost SD!

Make it take out all the attacking ships within range!

I support this initiative. Self-destruct should void insurance, destroy all loot, and generate a kill-mail.

I'd like to propose a small change: the kill-mail should be 'earned' by the self-destructor (because they just killed themselves), everyone else involved would show up via damage done or EWAR modules.

Then the kill would show up on both the loss and the kill side of the self-destructor, preserving the holy killboard stats of their corp, and on the kill side of the tackling corps killboard, adding to the tacklers ISK-destroyed, generating e-peen, lols, and more interest in small gang pvp.

Thanks to all for wonderful responses. Some really great ideas have been brought forth in this discussion and it is apparent that all are in agreement that at a minimum, a ship that self-destructs during combat should generate a killmail to those responsible for his cowardly action.

I never thought about the loot or the area of effect damage from the self-destruct. So thanks for bringing that up. Would love to see some more discussion on those.

now that I've pondered the Loot dropping some more.

A pilot self-destructing his ship would mean his attempt to deny loot for his opponent. However, this attempt should not be 100% effective. A small chance of some module drops is more realistic.

Take for instance, the real-life use of incendiary devices to deny enemy equipment, intelligence or technology. When the US Navy Seal Team VI executed its raid on Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, a stealth helicopter crashed. Before extracting, the Seal Team used incendiary explosives to destroy the remaining parts of the helicopter, however the tail section remained in tact thereby providing the opportunity for reverse engineering of parts of that stealth helicopter.

So its seems to me that loot denial in-game should be chance based, although less chance than normal kills.