Sarah, it may be time to tone it down a bit.

[Faded Glory]

It would just destroy any sense of personal choice and diversity if players could just climb to the most expensive ship and be, not just feel, safe from the lower cost ships. The fact that almost any ship is a threat one on one allows people to stay competitive out there.

The larger ships offer many advantages over smaller ships. More power, more module slots, more armor ect. Being effectively invulnerable to cheaper ships would be a step way too far.

To be honest, while the larger ship shouldn't be invulnerable to smaller ones (some aspect of piloting skill and weapons use should come into play), the fact is that increasing the skill of the AI should necessitate a change of tactics, by which I mean that multiple smaller ships should indeed be able to be a threat to a larger, more powerful one.

Most of the time when we farm, at RES, nav beacons or CZ, it's not just 1 on 1, and we end up getting not insignificant help from other NPCs. When you take an assassination mission, that becomes a different thing, as it is often 1 on 1 for a significant portion of the fight, if the authorities turn up at all to help and the larger ship's turrets can do a lot of damage to a smaller ship in that time.

Hopefully, with the implementation of these killer NPCs, we will also get the option to hire NPC wingmen ourselves, and this may even be a necessity in general play. At the moment, in my combat ships, I can generally manage a wing of three or perhaps four attacking if they are smaller ships, and can just about manage a Python or Anaconda if it has one (again smaller) wing mate. I don't reckon that will continue to be the case when SJA has finished her current buffing.

 

[Stigbob]

There is a counter argument for every argument. My thoughts will not change. 1 eagle or 1 viper or 1 cobra shouldn't be able to take out 1 Conda. Multiples of any of those ships I am fine with. The purpose of improving the A.I is to make it more human like in reactions and ability. That has always been the goal. The Dangerous in Elite: Dangerous. I think they should have more care for their mortality as well. If 4 cobras pull over a Conda it should try to fight them and should be able to take out 1 or 2 (if not all of them) but if it starts to loose it should try to leave, just like a CMDR would, and the CMDR's attacking it should be trying to disable it, just like they do when they fight other CMDRs. You know how many CMDR's I have "beat" without killing them? Sure my skill has increased because of it but because I didn't get the kill my rank did not. I need to improve my skills to start making "beat" = "kills" and I am okay with that.

It was never intended to be a FPS were they throw a bunch of stupid NPC's at the player and the player can have a blood bath of killing ships. If that what you expected from the game you purchased the wrong game.

No ship should be invulnerable, they don't need to be every ship has the option of a high wake escape in only 15 seconds and an eagle (competently flown) can do that under fire from an anaconda. In order for a player anaconda to die he has to make a series of mistakes.

Pick a fight he can't win
Lose his shields
Stay in the fight after losing his shields
Stay in the fight with a damaged hull
Not watch subsystems
Not make the decision to jump away when it's become apparent he's outmatched

I've defeated player pythons in a small ships, not often, not quickly and not because of my limited skills. It happened because my opponents were rubbish. (I've also run away a lot, but I'm OK with that it's part of flying small ships). In a hard fight I begin the process of jumping away (max range high wake) when I activate my last shield cell, even in a small ship like my DBS it's enough to cover me until I jump. Taking hull damage really is a mugs game.

Death is optional, no-one needs to be protected from it even if their ship cost a lot of credits.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Standard military procurement technique is to get three bids and go with the lowest. You'd be surprised just how broken and jury rigged military gear is.

Edward McCullen one of Englands premier WW1 flying aces died when his brand new issue plane's engines failed, cheap parts, cheap labour, dead hero.

General Dynamics. GD, they bring bad things to life.

The McDonnell Douglas F-4D I had before was a monster to maintain, but it had two engines, and readable manuals...

- - - Updated - - -

it's become apparent he's outmatched

I've defeated player pythons in a small ships, not often, not quickly and not because of my limited skills. It happened because my opponents were rubbish.

The AI's in Solo say I'm rubbish, too.

 

[Darrett]

There is a counter argument for every argument. My thoughts will not change. 1 eagle or 1 viper or 1 cobra shouldn't be able to take out 1 Conda. Multiples of any of those ships I am fine with. The purpose of improving the A.I is to make it more human like in reactions and ability. That has always been the goal. The Dangerous in Elite: Dangerous. I think they should have more care for their mortality as well. If 4 cobras pull over a Conda it should try to fight them and should be able to take out 1 or 2 (if not all of them) but if it starts to loose it should try to leave, just like a CMDR would, and the CMDR's attacking it should be trying to disable it, just like they do when they fight other CMDRs. You know how many CMDR's I have "beat" without killing them? Sure my skill has increased because of it but because I didn't get the kill my rank did not. I need to improve my skills to start making "beat" = "kills" and I am okay with that.

It was never intended to be a FPS were they throw a bunch of stupid NPC's at the player and the player can have a blood bath of killing ships. If that what you expected from the game you purchased the wrong game.

I'd say making larger ships invulnerable to smaller ships would remove the dangerous from Elite.

If you fly an Anaconda, fail to fit turrets and point defense, and stick around fighting a Cobra who brought torpedoes after your shields fall, you should get hammered for your failure to plan. With skill, he should be able to stay out of your firing arc pretty effectively. Your advantage is the room to fit your craft to counter his maneuverability and your ability to run without mass lock and long before he can bring down your shields.

My argument is that each fight should matter more and be more difficult at higher skill levels, but also reward more in order to reduce the requirement to farm NPCs to be able to afford larger ships if they so choose.

That said, I can see the Risk/Reward ratio being tweaked based on metrics in testing, and also tweaked as mid range ships are added to fill the void above Vulture, but telling players to kill Eagles that give 3-4k a kill or Cobras at 8-10k when multiple millions are needed to upgrade will just drive people away.

 

[Galactic Midden]

Late to the party (as always) and I'd just like to say, Sarah and the rest of Team Sadistico you don't need to tone it down until the entire forum melts down in fires of blood!

Just my happy suggestion for the evening

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Late to the party (as always) and I'd just like to say, Sarah and the rest of Team Sadistico you don't need to tone it down until the entire forum melts down in fires of blood!

Just my happy suggestion for the evening

I +1'd a mod...

 

[Cmdr Lassan]

Why don't you all go into open mode?

It's safer there.

Ok, that is funny...
Thank you!

 

[Chaodiurn]

#shrekt
The minimum character count should be lowered. What do you even with a forum where you're not allowed to throw in a simple #shrekt?

 

[Kancro Vantas]

This thread is a bad idea...I'm sure she collects our tears, put them in little jars that she then places on shelves above the chimney...

she then serves a scotch, straight...sits in her throne made of pilots bones...and laugh evilly for hours to not end replaying all the deaths NPC caused that day...

 

[QziQza]

Late to the party (as always) and I'd just like to say, Sarah and the rest of Team Sadistico you don't need to tone it down until the entire forum melts down in fires of blood!

Just my happy suggestion for the evening

the tweaks to the AI are really providing a consistent combat education lol, i'm starting to get into it a lot more, and you do start to get a handle on what different ships can do. so aside from the skill progression, the buzz and the credits, it also works as a good measure of what we should be able attempt with the same ships. the AI is great for group mode and solo, it does challenged me, and with CQC coming soon, hopefully i'll be able to put those skills to use in a less predictive manner.. that will be all the bases covered for me. so yeah +rep on that couldn't agree more

 

[Deleted member 94277]

Nice! I hope they ramp up the difficulty even more: there's no fun in eating elite Annies for lunch in my Vulture.

It's nice that we can go all Luke Skywalker and have a place as a small fighter in big skirmishes, but it will be nice when we need full wings to take out fully decked Annies. Of course, this needs to come with a serious rebalance of bounty rewards so we actually have a reason to risk so much.

 

[Stigbob]

General Dynamics. GD, they bring bad things to life.

The McDonnell Douglas F-4D I had before was a monster to maintain, but it had two engines, and readable manuals...

Well met Sir, I was down in the mud. The L8SA1 rifle (SA80) is the worst thing the stores ever inflicted on me bits of it used to fall off, melt, snap, seize up and the paint was so cheap it got rusty overnight (this is a toned down short version, honest). Great design budgeted into uselessness, current serving soldiers say it's fixed, but I remember being told that (incorrectly) at least three times during my service when they all got withdrawn for ineffective upgrades.

 

[Mohrgan]

I bet he wasnt the only plane out there though.

So, just substitute an Exoset (sp) for the dive bomber and it's all good. Look into the Falklands conflict, you'll see a demo.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Well met Sir, I was down in the mud. The L8SA1 rifle (SA80) is the worst thing the stores ever inflicted on me bits of it used to fall off, melt, snap, seize up and the paint was so cheap it got rusty overnight (this is a toned down short version, honest). Great design budgeted into uselessness, current serving soldiers say it's fixed, but I remember being told that (incorrectly) at least three times during my service when they all got withdrawn for ineffective upgrades.

Look at the early history of the M-16 rifle (now the M-4), and you will see the same.

Our AIM-7 Sparrow missiles had a historic combat record of 33% effectiveness over their entire service lives.

The list goes on, I think, for every warrior, in every time.

 

[Soopyyy]

Honestly, I don't find the AI any harder. Getting ganged up on isn't difficult it's impossible. Even with a Python that had maxed out shielding as far as KJ's goes I still got killed in about 30seconds when 8 NPC's jumped me as I entered a combat zone. So, now I don't bother with combat zones if its a 5 million credit lotto as to whether or not I get annihilated on entry.

Individual AI pilots are still pants on head for the most part.

 

[QziQza]

Well met Sir, I was down in the mud. The L8SA1 rifle (SA80) is the worst thing the stores ever inflicted on me bits of it used to fall off, melt, snap, seize up and the paint was so cheap it got rusty overnight (this is a toned down short version, honest). Great design budgeted into uselessness, current serving soldiers say it's fixed, but I remember being told that (incorrectly) at least three times during my service when they all got withdrawn for ineffective upgrades.

was never a fan of the SA80, the SLR may have been longer and heavier, but damn, it was a true multi-purpose weapon.. it made a great a bat'leth, club, spear, cricket bat, bivi pole, spade, hammer, back prop, belay, deadman, swing mount, probably missing a ton of other good uses it had been put up to over the years, and it was still a good shot.

edit* with an SLR and a few rolls of gaffa tape.. there was probably nothing you couldn't do

 

[Stigbob]

Look at the early history of the M-16 rifle (now the M-4), and you will see the same.

Our AIM-7 Sparrow missiles had a historic combat record of 33% effectiveness over their entire service lives.

The list goes on, I think, for every warrior, in every time.

Too true the time to worry about a fighting man is when he stops whining, it usually means he's dead.

was never a fan of the SA80, the SLR may have been longer and heavier, but damn, it was a true multi-purpose weapon.. it made a great a bat'leth, club, spear, cricket bat, bivi pole, spade, hammer, back prop, belay, deadman, swing mount, probably missing a ton of other good uses it had been put up to over the years, and it was still a good shot.

edit* with an SLR and a few rolls of gaffa tape.. there was probably nothing you couldn't do

I loved my LMG, re-bored from a 303 bren to 7.62 butt-stamped 1949. Accurate, robust, reliable and a very hard hitter heavy though. It was replaced with a 5.56 LSW a glorified toy.

With an understanding (read totally shot away) range officer you could unload mags of tracers from the hip with the carrying handle out to the side.

 

[Renegade Roach]

Well met Sir, I was down in the mud. The L8SA1 rifle (SA80) is the worst thing the stores ever inflicted on me bits of it used to fall off, melt, snap, seize up and the paint was so cheap it got rusty overnight (this is a toned down short version, honest). Great design budgeted into uselessness, current serving soldiers say it's fixed, but I remember being told that (incorrectly) at least three times during my service when they all got withdrawn for ineffective upgrades.

Hmm I was (briefly) in the cadets when the SA80 was introduced. We used to break them on a regular basis. Still remember the pained look on a regular army guy's face when two broke on me in 5 minutes trying to strip and reassemble them. You'd think that if a bunch of 13 year old kids could destroy them so easily it might have rung warning bells =-I

 

[Stigbob]

Hmm I was (briefly) in the cadets when the SA80 was introduced. We used to break them on a regular basis. Still remember the pained look on a regular army guy's face when two broke on me in 5 minutes trying to strip and reassemble them. You'd think that if a bunch of 13 year old kids could destroy them so easily it might have rung warning bells =-I

The first time I saw one demonstrated the instructor had an ND and put a round into the floor 6 inches from my foot (faulty sear but the idiot should have had his safety on). The first time I cocked one with live rounds it fed two at once (the cheap mags used to bend open) the only reason it didn't breach explode and take half my head off was that the second round was misaligned (thanks to the shoddy breach face). On active service I lost count of the number of lads who lost full mags (sloppy release catch), when every single solder ties his mag on with a bootlace people should listen to the warnings.

Unfortunately nobody listens to ranker's and only rankers get to carry the damn things 24/7 and see just how broken they are. The only people who would be listened to are senior officers and saying "the issue rifle is a liability" is a guaranteed career stopper for a senior officer and a disciplinary offense for a ranker when said to a senior officer.

Join the Army be the best*

*the armed forces retain the right to issue you with cheap and faulty gear

 

[Sarah Jane Avory]

To answer the question, yes I am gonna tone it down a bit. But just the low ranks. The high ranks (hopefully) are gonna kick your...