NPC pilots clogging and queing at station slots

[Argyria]

I imagine this may have been a problem for a while, but new to me! I got involved in hauling for the current CG (first time for a long time), mostly in Open. NPCs seem to have had their AI nerfed! Almost every trip to Springer Station involved squeezing past an NPC gently glicthing in the entrance slot, often with a whole queue of infinitely patient NPCs behind them. One to fix please: doesn't look good, and often means a fine for "dangerous flying" as you squeeze pass the hopless NPC ships.

 

[SteveWW57]

Not having any problems auto docking/launching with a T9 or Cutter. Doing runs in solo for the past 3 hours?

Steve.

 

[Argyria]

I think it may be just an Open thing. Maybe the NPCs can't cope with all the high speed cmdr traffic?

 

[Kira Goto]

It’s definitely an issue in Open and private groups. Whatever latency does to the game at one end or the other(when other players are present), it seems to screw with NPC pathing around the mail slot and they get stuck there fumbling. Not strictly the game itself, as they don’t tend to clog the slot in solo play.

Sometimes they ‘untangle’ themselves. Other times, not so much…

 

[William J Smith]

And why is'nt the station blowing them to hell for loitering?

we get 1 min in the slot before ATC goes all Ivanova on us

Bill

 

[Argyria]

And why is'nt the station blowing them to hell for loitering?

we get 1 min in the slot before ATC goes all Ivanova on us

Bill

Good point!

 

[SteveWW57]

On the other hand, no issues the past couple of days with the cutter crashing into the inside of the station!

Steve

 

[aRJay]

In the past it was claimed that when a commander arrived in an instance that would trigger NPCs to appear that would mostly go when that commander left the instance.
But if that commander didn’t leave the NPCs would remain and the numbers would increase when more commanders arrived leading to massive fleets of NPCs queuing in columns waiting to enter the station.

 

[Darrack]

What's more surprising is folks actually do CGs in Open? Why put yourself through the stress

O7

 

[Morbad]

It’s definitely an issue in Open and private groups. Whatever latency does to the game at one end or the other(when other players are present), it seems to screw with NPC pathing around the mail slot and they get stuck there fumbling. Not strictly the game itself, as they don’t tend to clog the slot in solo play.

Sometimes they ‘untangle’ themselves. Other times, not so much…

I suspect it's more likely to be an issue with instances being held for protracted periods of time, compounded by the additional spawns generated by additional CMDRs, rather than client latency.

What's more surprising is folks actually do CGs in Open? Why put yourself through the stress

For a lot of people, there isn't much of a game without that 'stress'.

 

[Argyria]

What's more surprising is folks actually do CGs in Open? Why put yourself through the stress

O7

It has it's drawbacks: I lost a loaded Cutter to a ganker. But it's only pretend credits lost, and as a long-ish toothed player I have more of those than I know what to do with. I have usually flown CGs in Solo or PGs in the past, but there is a frisson of excitment in trying to meet the challenges of a dangerous environment. And it's always good to see other cmdrs at work (well, the non-criminal ones, anyway).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I got involved in hauling for the current CG (first time for a long time), mostly in Open. NPCs seem to have had their AI nerfed!

It's been like this at busy stations for years - the problem is that the mailslot is a terrible piece of design, so if you're running (as the NPCs do) a fairly cautious traffic pattern where either one large ship is traversing the slot, or two small ships are going through one each way, you get about 1 ship/minute as your rate.

Once it gets higher than that, ships will queue and build up indefinitely even if everything is going well; if you get a player interrupting the traffic pattern and causing an NPC to crash into the side of the dock to avoid them, or if the station decides that one of the NPCs waiting to depart is loitering and blows them up and then the wreckage from that drifts into the slot, it gets progressively worse.

Obviously this is more likely in Open because the chances are the instance has existed for longer, whereas in Solo (or Open, away from a CG) at least it starts off empty, but you can get it in Solo in the right places with a little patience.

There isn't really a good solution:
- NPCs use the same flight routines as our docking computers, so making them less cautious to speed up throughput will just end up in more "my docking computer killed me again" threads.
- keeping the NPCs on the pads until they have a departure slot will eventually just clog up all the pads so no-one can dock. Then let everyone launch, and then start issuing clearance for docking again. Unfortunate if, as a player, you arrive just as the pads are getting full and you have to wait (immersively) for about 20 ships to launch.
- tightening up traffic control for players so that even if you're not using a docking computer you have to fly the pattern by the book will just be frustrating
- the stations rotate too fast for external landing pads to be viable, and redesigning them is of course completely out of the question
- reducing the number of NPCs substantially for the busy instances would make "normal" instances completely dead - imposing a general (very low) cap on NPCs per instance if there's a station about might be an option

 

[Argyria]

It's been like this at busy stations for years - the problem is that the mailslot is a terrible piece of design, so if you're running (as the NPCs do) a fairly cautious traffic pattern where either one large ship is traversing the slot, or two small ships are going through one each way, you get about 1 ship/minute as your rate.

Once it gets higher than that, ships will queue and build up indefinitely even if everything is going well; if you get a player interrupting the traffic pattern and causing an NPC to crash into the side of the dock to avoid them, or if the station decides that one of the NPCs waiting to depart is loitering and blows them up and then the wreckage from that drifts into the slot, it gets progressively worse.

You may well be right. But each times I've seen this recently, then the ship causing the trouble is stuck as if behind some invisible barrier, and that glitch seems to be the cause of the bottleneck. On occasions when a frustrated or clumsy cmdr rams them out of the way, then normal flow resumes quite quickly.

 

[Pigletslastand]

Stations used to blow them up after loitering for a number of seconds, no idea why they don't nowadays. If you've got an issue tracker open I'll add to it though.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Nothing to contribute other than: I was very confused when I glossed over the thread title - I thought: People are now complaining about NPCs combat logging???

 

[Northpin]

It's been like this at busy stations for years - the problem is that the mailslot is a terrible piece of design

I think the main issue is the game seems to be prioritizing Entering of the ships inside, instead of prioritizing ships leaving the station.
So you get this situation where there are lots of ships inside the station, where the space is really tight, instead of letting the NPC pile outside where there is much more space available

 

[Pigletslastand]

I think the main issue is the game seems to be prioritizing Entering of the ships inside, instead of prioritizing ships leaving the station.
So you get this situation where there are lots of ships inside the station, where the space is really tight, instead of letting the NPC pile outside where there is much more space available

No the issue is NPC ships bugging out and literally getting stuck in the mailsloot and not being removed by the game.. so if you are using an apex or frontline solutions you may have to wait there indefinitely or until a kind soul dislodges them.

They used to get gunned to death which solved the problem in a round about way. This no longer happens. So it's really two bugs in one.

 

[Northpin]

getting stuck in the mailsloot and not being removed by the game

so, they don't get shut down by the station for blocking the mailslot? or you didn't wait for the timer needed for the station to actually start firing?
(i really didn't encountered this yet, because even when flying my cutter, i don't wait in queue and take the ship out manually - and no, i dont do trade cg in open - so it never actually gets that crowded)

disregarding this, they still prioritize ship entering the station

 

[Pigletslastand]

so, they don't get shut down by the station for blocking the mailslot? or you didn't wait for the timer needed for the station to actually start firing?
(i really didn't encountered this yet, because even when flying my cutter, i don't wait in queue and take the ship out manually - and no, i dont do trade cg in open - so it never actually gets that crowded)

disregarding this, they still prioritize ship entering the station

I sat in a frontline solutions vulture for over 10 minutes to see if the station would shift them, they didn't and only was able to get out when a player barged them out of the way. They used to get shot by the station guns after 1 minute. This no longer happens.

 

[Argyria]

So there is already something similar on the Issue Tracker: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/61482

Jump in and add your votes, please!