Thoughts about danger, NPC behaviour and these pirate factions

Vingtetun

Vingtetun
This is simply musing on how things work, and how they could work.

Last night, was out at a RES with a couple of the forum regulars from here, one in a Clipper, one in a Vulture and me in the Asp (complete with kill warrant scanner to increase our cash rewards and keep them below power limits, long range scanner to spot rogue Anacondas and a tough setup to soak the damage)

We had visited a few Strong Signal sources and USS en route and encountered the local pirate faction on more than one occasion.


So - we're aware that the police presence jumps up once crimes are reported - the area was swarming with cops after half an hour or so of RES combat. We also know that now, if you attack a wing, the whole wing turn on you.

HOWEVER - one would think that if - like with with police response - you attacked someone from a particular faction - the local Yaaargh pirate lot, you'd become "wanted" by them pretty quickly. I'm not talking about hull damage, but the killing of 20 or 30 of their Anacondas and Clippers.

I would also expect them to send a little backup to help wipe you off the face of the Milky Way - proper nasty pirate behaviour.

If the level of police response is relative to how much damage you do - hurt someone, get a wanted status and small bounty. Kill the cops and get a larger bounty and a bigger response. Kill those cops and police Anacondas start turning up (or at least that is how it appears some times)

To help increase the danger at RES for those of us "farming" them for kills in wings, wouldn't a pirate response of the same kind of order be nice?


Now - many people will say that the 1.3 update will introduce and element of this, when you are anti a particular one of the new 20 factions, they will kill on sight. There also appear to be multiple levels of RES forthcoming. Wonder what everyone else's thoughts are on pirates calling in support if you kill their friends, and even hunting you down should you flee the RES? Imagine being wanted by the "Gold Brothers" and having them send a lot of ships after you.....
 

Vingtetun

Vingtetun
Oh - and whilst I'm at it..... I'm putting in more votes for SJA to make the AI a little more dangerous at high rankings. Deadly clippers should melt my little Asp into little piles of space wreckage then stop to take a selfie with the carnage.....
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
Good idea, I support your idea of "retaliation" by pirate brothers! Especially the part of being hunted down by NPC killer wings could be exciting! Hope we get something like that in the future.

Vingtetun said:
Oh - and whilst I'm at it..... I'm putting in more votes for SJA to make the AI a little more dangerous at high rankings. Deadly clippers should melt my little Asp into little piles of space wreckage then stop to take a selfie with the carnage.....
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Did you play to much with Cassie Cage in the new Mortal Kombat X by any chance? :D
 

Mephane

Mephane
Vingtetun said:
I would also expect them to send a little backup to help wipe you off the face of the Milky Way - proper nasty pirate behaviour.
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I am hostile with pirate gangs in various systems, and occasionally they do send in a wing that directly flies toward you, then attacks no questions asked. Unlike those regular pirate wings, the leader doesn't even attempt a scan but directly opens fire. It's usually some Viper/Cobra combination, sometimes Eagles/Sidewinders.
 

I and I Redeye

I
I don't see pirates being like that. Plunderers and chancers more than an aggressive fighting force.

However there is MAFIA factions in Elite and that does sound like the sort of thing they would do. Would fit the scenario you describe well.
You might even find a horse head in your cargo next time you dock.
 

Sayne

Sayne
Arrrgh again with the "AI is pants-on-head stupid."

Again, I ask you to take the complaining of a few tip-top Pilots wih a grain of salt. The AI should make combat challenging and rewarding, but not impossible. People asking for insurmountable AI need to think of players who primarily solo (not just the mode, I mean doing an RES by yourself way off in the sticks in Open too) for whom getting blown out of the sky by clairvoyant AI that never miss is not fun.

Also, too the Clipper should not turn like a fighter. It's huge. Same thing for Anacondas. Huge, but can flip around in FA-off like a dervish.

/rant off
 

Tinman

Tinman
Sarah Jane Avory said:
I'll just say v1.3... ;)
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I think you're suppose to call it "Powerplay" now...stay on message! :p

Good to know though...better take this oppurtunity to take on as many assassination missions as possible before the update. Will probably be running the other way afterwards! :D
 

Vingtetun

Vingtetun
Sarah Jane Avory said:
I'll just say v1.3... ;)
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I might just be out of my Asp by then.....

Cracking news. As Michael B said at Lavecon last year...... 'bring it on!'.

- - - Updated - - -

Sayne said:
Arrrgh again with the "AI is pants-on-head stupid."

Again, I ask you to take the complaining of a few tip-top Pilots wih a grain of salt. The AI should make combat challenging and rewarding, but not impossible. People asking for insurmountable AI need to think of players who primarily solo (not just the mode, I mean doing an RES by yourself way off in the sticks in Open too) for whom getting blown out of the sky by clairvoyant AI that never miss is not fun.

Also, too the Clipper should not turn like a fighter. It's huge. Same thing for Anacondas. Huge, but can flip around in FA-off like a dervish.

/rant off
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Cheers for the compliment! My flying is pants though. The only thing I am good at is speed docking....

For what it is worth.... the suggestion above would make the danger scalable if done right. Only if you are doing well would it get more dangerous at RES....

Elite and Deadly ranked npcs should be rare. Competent and Novice ones should still be easily out flown. Not for a minute suggesting making them all harder, just the tough ones. Then, good pilots could take on good npc's and rewards would scale accordingly.
 
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excalibus

excalibus
I and I Redeye said:
I don't see pirates being like that. Plunderers and chancers more than an aggressive fighting force.

However there is MAFIA factions in Elite and that does sound like the sort of thing they would do. Would fit the scenario you describe well.
You might even find a horse head in your cargo next time you dock.
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I have a local MOB faction often interdict me and try to kill me when I enter my home system, although they are often wanted as well so I tend to target them a lot for easy bounties in res's etc :D
 

DidierDrbois

DidierDrbois
Agreed. Whilst it is possible to hack these guys off up to a point where they shoot on sight (just ask Jen Elabog Mafia about the purple Python :D), it takes far too long (took me a good few days of uninterrupted carnage) and thier aggression is far too inconsistent. At times it's an absolute mayhem as wing after wing is trying to fry me, at others it's a few scattered big boys who scan me, then sit and wait until my beams say "and how are YOU this fine bright day"?
 

soma

soma
Sayne said:
Arrrgh again with the "AI is pants-on-head stupid."

Again, I ask you to take the complaining of a few tip-top Pilots wih a grain of salt. The AI should make combat challenging and rewarding, but not impossible. People asking for insurmountable AI need to think of players who primarily solo (not just the mode, I mean doing an RES by yourself way off in the sticks in Open too) for whom getting blown out of the sky by clairvoyant AI that never miss is not fun.

Also, too the Clipper should not turn like a fighter. It's huge. Same thing for Anacondas. Huge, but can flip around in FA-off like a dervish.

/rant off
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I totally agree that the AI should remain plausible and not be made more difficult by adding impossible abilities.

However, I would really expect Dangerous/Deadly/Elite AI pilots to drive reasonable ship builds and to be able to use their ship to its full potential. If you read ship discussion threads on the forums you will quickly come to the conclusion that people currently use completely different ship loadouts for PvE and PvP. I, like many others, initially was under the impression that a loadout that works well against AI cant be completely bad for fighting players. After all the ship, maneuverability, shield strength, weapons, etc. are all the same, right? Boy was I wrong.

Back in January I had a lot of fun with my 4 MC Viper. Taking down Elite Pythons was not a big deal. Their shields died quickly enough from a good multicannon barrage, and destroying hull is what the MCs are made for. So it seemed like a pretty effective and energy efficient loadout... until I tried to fight a player Python. The difference was huge. Not only did I not manage to make a DENT in their shields (players seem to have way better pip management and are good with shield cells), Players also use their weapons a lot more effectively.. for example they throw extreme amounts of burst-damage your way in order to quickly collapse your shields. It is completely different to fighting Elite AI opponents. Needless to say, I had to rethink my combat strategy quite a bit.

In a perfect world the same loadouts that work well against high-level AI should also work against human players. I am not saying AI should be as good as the best human dogfighters, but it sure would be nice if fighting a high level AI Python would give me some indication if my current loadout / tactics would actually be viable against a player Python.


That said, I understand that the AI is work in progress and I am really looking forward to the AI updates in 1.3. Go Sarah Jane! I cant wait to receive a good beating from an AI opponent :)
 
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xyphic

X
Sayne said:
The AI should make combat challenging and rewarding, but not impossible.
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Agreed, though it should scale according to rank. An Elite NPC should be *very* difficult to get the better of, as they should be able to use pretty much every trick in the book (and then some). It saddens me to see how easily players are able to take down Elite Anacondas in the assassination missions; this is the sort of thing that should be 'endgame' for ED, not just an everyday mission.

Your point about solo is incredibly salient: at the moment people see solo as a haven from PvP, somewhere they can go to farm bounties. Frontier would do well to rebalance this. There's nothing wrong with making bounties at a RES harder, as long as there are other RESes around with NPCs of lower rank (and equivalently lower bounty). Solo shouldn't be 'easy mode'. I think there's a long way to go before we reach the right balance, because as soon as Frontier make any significant change here, it would reduce combat income and provoke the inevitable slew of comments that traders are favoured. If trade were to also be rebalanced, both camps would complain.

Hoping that 1.3/Powerplay will go some way towards addressing this. It's sounding like some good work has been done on NPC AI.
 

Dash

Dash
You're not trying hard enough. I'm already unfriendly after some time in a RES and the person I'm playing with keeps having to run away as they send wings after him as he's killed so many pirates.
 

Riedquat

Riedquat
One thing I always loved about the old games was that no matter how good you got, you knew that there were ships out there that would blow you to smithereens within seconds.

The more dangerous the better I say and this is coming from someone who is still at 'novice' ranking, I'm no combat expert.
 

CMDRKNac

C
Sarah Jane Avory said:
I'll just say v1.3... ;)
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Will the improvements be applied to System Authority ships?

Also, maybe this is not up to you, but the response times in high security systems for the authority are pathetic (2 min receiving fire from 4 players, Allied with the authority, high sec, and report on: no freaking authority shows up), is this going to change?
 
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uncle bulgaria

uncle bulgaria
Has the AI been tweaked recently? I found NPCs tougher than usual in the current community goal and more of them seemed to have hull upgrades as they certainly took more punishment than before....or maybe I was tired and just being a bit crap?
 
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