QuoteDisplay MoreI keep seeing people who want to be pirates wondering why traders are in open when they are not interested in pvp.
Ask yourself this: If this was a trading only game and there was no possibility of attacking another player do you think traders would travel in open or in solo? open right - because they see other people rather than NPCs in the universe as they truck around.
Being in open means you see other traders trucking around, and perhaps even race them to the docking port. I race a few other traders (who work the same route) all the time. I chat to them too. So far none of us has decided to blast the others out of the sky, though I am keeping a close eye on the one trading in a python
Being in open does not mean you want to engage in pvp where a combat ship attacks you and you are essentially defenceless in a T6 or whatever. It means you want to be part of a universe that is not empty of other people.
I have always played in open. I have never been attacked by a CMDR in my trader so I have never even faced the choice of whether to ALT-F4 if some teenager in a viper attacks my T9. However - if someone did decide to attack me and burst through my shields before i could FSD away would I stay and lose hours of progress just so i didn't spoil some brats "kick" out of pointlessly killing me? Not on your nelly.
I can't realistically fight back in a T9. I don't owe the attacker any obligation to lose hours of progress to ...
Rest of this is here: Why do traders play in open if they don't want to PVP? answer is inside.
Interesting, it imo shows few more actual ED issues as only player(s) behaviour.