The Mining discussion thread.
I was mining a pristine metal rich belt(500Ly from SOL), thousands of nice juicy asteroids all around.....3 NPC's show up and start mining....all of a sudden laser bolts start slamming into the asteroid i was mining! Turns out they were pirates! I slam all pips to engines, stow my scoop, while i'm taking a good bit of damage.... jump into SC and escape!
I scan all NPC's in the belt from now on!
Mining is no longer tedious and boring for me!
Think I like it? Have to watch my backside all the time.
I scan all NPC's in the belt from now on!
Mining is no longer tedious and boring for me!
Think I like it? Have to watch my backside all the time.
If NPC's where persistent, encounters would be so rare we would see threads about how there is no risk to mining, no risk to trade, and nobody to blow up for the pirates and bounty hunters. If you had the population of the whole game mining in a planetary ring evenly spread out you probably would not see anybody. NPC spawning is triggered by player presence, otherwise the server would be processing 99% useless information.
lol same as I said in my post - if I went into the middle of the Sahara I wouldn't expect to find someone suddenly standing right next to me. I have no problems with someone being on the same beach as me, but them picking up the same grain of sand seems very far fetched.
I guess I'm in the minority then. One of the reason I like space is the isolation, it's also the same reason I love long hikes up mountains and into deep forests.
But oh well...
Again - I have no issue with pirates turning up, or with NPC's being present in the same system as me. I do have issue with NPC's being in every random location I stop off at...
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I don't mind pirates turning up. I'm pretty sure they would have the tech to find me. What I don't like is dropping off in a completely random point, in an area that is vastly larger than Earth and finding myself standing next to someone the instant I am there.
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tedious and exciting with a huge touch of statistical unbelievably...
Well I wouldn't count on being the minority unless you did a poll. Maybe you should. I mean last time a poll was done, the majority of people wanted less interdictions. I'm saving that poll again until after release though.
I would agree that populated NPCs in all places regardless of where they are diminished the exploration part of the game.
Imagine you think you are the first explorer to a system and yet you get interdicted by a crazy man who wants to blow up your ship. How long was that guy waiting in the middle of deep space for you to come along. Sort of makes exploration pointless if NPCs beat you there are the time.
I really don't understand Frontier's logic on any of this. Sure from a certain style of game play it makes sense...those who like excitement and combat, and wondering where the next trap is.
But then there are many other people that like the unknown emptiness of space. A lot of the charm of the Elite series for me, has always been the vast empty isolation...the scenery and environments...all of that is completely taken away by the presence of NPC's.
The crazy thing is that the galaxy is big enough to please both styles of play. So I go back to my original point - I don't understand why Frontier are choosing one playstyle over the other - when they can easily cater to both...
You're out there.
Why should you be the first?
There are other things happening in the galaxy that what you happen to be doing.
If you want to be first somewhere then you'll have to go a long way dude.
But honestly I'd expect to find a smattering, at least, of others even on the other side of the galactic core.
Given technology capable of such feats of travel and expecting people to not use it seems a little strange to me.
Why should you be the first?
There are other things happening in the galaxy that what you happen to be doing.
If you want to be first somewhere then you'll have to go a long way dude.
But honestly I'd expect to find a smattering, at least, of others even on the other side of the galactic core.
Given technology capable of such feats of travel and expecting people to not use it seems a little strange to me.
That's not what my post is about. My post is about dropping off in a ring system that has literally billions of rocks, and finding someone on the rock almost right next door to mine every single time...
It's nothing to do with being the first, and everything to do with being statistically impossible as well as 'spoiling' an aspect of the game I once very much enjoyed...
You only went there in 3300AD, The NPCs could have been around for 100s of years, they have had time to go everywhere by the time we enter the game.
Maybe that place you went to was his find and he was wondering the same thing, whats this human doing here maybe he was born near that place and thats his hometown.
Or maybe NPCs just spawn anywhere and everywhere we go. Whichever
Maybe that place you went to was his find and he was wondering the same thing, whats this human doing here
maybe he was born near that place and thats his hometown.Or maybe NPCs just spawn anywhere and everywhere we go. Whichever
Oppenheimer
Banned
Like the centre of the galaxy?....oh wait!!!
You are absolutely correct. There *should* be such a thing as off the beaten path and no shortage of places where you can keep you head down. I understand NPCs spawn near players but at the moment there's no intelligence to the system it seems.
And if we can't find people mining then pirates shouldn't be able to either.
I'm sure this is just temporary situation. A guy who travelled all the way to the galactic centre found himself circled by NPCs too - absurd!
It seems that FD opened up the galaxy for Gamma but didn't bother adjusting the NPC spawning mechanism to make it believable.
If this is how FD intended it to be, it would be incredibly stupid. But I'm pretty confident that isn't the case.
It seems that FD opened up the galaxy for Gamma but didn't bother adjusting the NPC spawning mechanism to make it believable.
If this is how FD intended it to be, it would be incredibly stupid. But I'm pretty confident that isn't the case.
I agree with the original poster; Frontier had something of the same issue, but NPCs (while never absent) did seem to become rarer the further you got from human space. NPCs should be spawned according to rules more sophisticated than 'players are nearby' (and yes, I'd love the idea of persistent NPCs that act with concern for their own survival and can conceivably be encountered repeatedly - for example if they're pirates focusing on a particular asteroid belt, or traders who've established a specific route that you can track).
NPCs of different types should usually only spawn in plausible situations - pirates don't make any sense in areas nobody visits or passes through (as even if they run across explorers they aren't going to be carrying cargo worth seizing), traders make no sense too far from trade routes etc. Leave danger in the great unknown to occasional explorers competing for your discoveries, NPC aliens or the much more occasional outcast. And almost all of those are stretching it when you're looking at spawns around black holes or the like.
For all that we've only seen Thargoids as aggressive aliens in past incarnations, Elite established a whole host of alien races in its setting. If you read the backstory, apparently they all mysteriously left the galaxy shortly before the events of Frontier, but perhaps some could return as fortune-hunters?
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Why?
You did.
Why not them?
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Point taken.
That's an issue to be addressed.
That does not mean that, as many people seem, to expect to see no one, or demanding the removal of NPCs in the far reaches of the galaxy are not unreasonable, illogical, and somewhat callow remarks betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanics of the game universe.
Mining in a Sidewinder
Figured I'd broaden my experience a bit before the wipe if it comes, and if it doesn't I don't lose anything but a few credits, so I got a couple of NPC kills for combat practice and switched out my loaned lasers for a couple of mining lasers (do you need two, does it help having two?) and a refinery and headed off to a metal belt I'd discovered.
40 minutes later (yes, I am that crap) I'd got 100% in my hopper, flew back to the station to sell it and discovered I didn't have any cargo to sell.
What have I done wrong? Is it even possible to mine in a sidewinder?
Figured I'd broaden my experience a bit before the wipe if it comes, and if it doesn't I don't lose anything but a few credits, so I got a couple of NPC kills for combat practice and switched out my loaned lasers for a couple of mining lasers (do you need two, does it help having two?) and a refinery and headed off to a metal belt I'd discovered.
40 minutes later (yes, I am that crap) I'd got 100% in my hopper, flew back to the station to sell it and discovered I didn't have any cargo to sell.
What have I done wrong? Is it even possible to mine in a sidewinder?