Combat Logging
Combat Logging is the act of logging off or exiting the game during ship-to-ship combat without gracefully exiting the game (Alt+F4, Task Kill, or other methods). Often times, players will generally terminate a game session when they feel discontent with their current situation in the hopes of restarting in a safer position. Intentionally quitting during a tough situation is fairly common in gaming, though it is widely frowned upon and considered unfair. Many online games take measures to prevent this behavior, such as possible penalties on the player's account or simply setting a delay countdown until the player is actually logged out.
Combat logging is officially a banable action and will have consequences if done a significant amount of times.
Frontier Developements have also claimed that they are working on a way to solve the issue, however, there hasn't been any kind of success or progress in the past years.
Statement by Frontier Developements regarding combat logging:
☀https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/105778-%E2%80%9CCombat-Logging%E2%80%9D-Update
To quote part of Sandro Sammarco's post in the above thread:
"For clarity’s sake, “combat logging” is when a Commander ungracefully exits the game (e.g. using ALT + F4 then shutting down the game process) to avoid defeat, destruction and damage."
About combat logging in Elite: Dangerous
In Elite: Dangerous, combat logging is most often done to avoid death (usually last-minute) during combat. Unfortunately, there is no safeguard to this exploit as of yet other than reporting the combat logger (if the attacker is not an NPC).
- The most common instance of combat logging is likely when a commander is transporting valuable cargo and confronted by a better-armed pirate.
- Similar acts of logging can also include non-combat situations, such as being scanned when smuggling without a means of stopping the scan.
- Bounties that were on a wanted pilot will remain since the target will not be destroyed if they had disconnected in time.