With 3.18 in my opinion being the biggest patch ever, PES/Soft Death have completely changed the game as we know it. With a few small changes I believe this could be an incredible special feature that changes the game forever. Keep in mind I do realize Soft Death is not a final destination for physicalized damage, but until we get there these changes will help create epic gameplay. | Soft Death | Soft Death feature paired with PES is probably the most impactful feature for combat and game play we've ever added to the game, BUT the fact you can accidentally Hard Death a ship is wild to me. Putting a ship from full health > Soft Death should be a intentional decision, so should Soft Death > Hard Death. This generates an insane amount of game play game play such as 1) Crash landing on low grav moons (high gravity results in death most likely) 2) Getting to escape pods/abandon ship 3) Rescue Beacons/Calling for backup 4) Boarding 5) Capturing bounties alive 6) Pirating & 7) Rail gunning Pirates trying to take your stuff. However none of this happens with the current values. I purpose a "invulnerability period" for 5 seconds after the ship Soft Deaths like we have for downed states AND health should be increase by 5x easily, maybe even more. Once your target is SD they are sitting ducks. So a few more volleys if your goal is hard death isn't the end of the world. Soft Death should be the final destination for a lot of ships. Hard death should be intentional and come with consequences. | Hard Death | With 3.18 looking like the biggest piracy patch we've ever had I think it's important to look at risk vs reward. Pirates should have to do the hard thing and board ships if they want cargo. The fact you can Hard Death a ship and get up to 90% of the cargo is WAY too high. As it stands there's no reason for a pirate to board you, creating almost no risk for them. I believe if you Hard Death a ship you should walk away with max 10-15% cargo. Stolen cargo for pirates should be a reward for those who risk boarding to acquire the cargo. And if the trader has a Railgun and an FS9 waiting for them, then that's something they're just gonna have to be ready for. Likewise the reason why pirate/bounty hunter who know what they're doing would never distort trader/bounty target is because they could self destruct without the pirate/bounty hunter even knowing. My final idea is that your IR should skyrocket when activating self destructing similar to EM skyrocketing when charging QT AND a fully disabled ship should not be able to self destruct. This again extends fun game play, which should always be the goal. Thanks, amazing work CIG, and I hope to see you all in the verse o7