Would you like to have npc wingmates?

[Itaki]

You have to realize that a wing of 4 players cannot deploy additional NPC wing members.
If you have your 3 NPCs deployed and you're being invited to a full player wing, your NPCs should despawn.

We are talking about wing members, not NPC pets. A wing is limited to 4 slots.

This makes sense. Join a player wing, NPCs despawn. That would prevent overloading an instance with ships and prevent uber-gank squads.

As far as NPCs becoming combat slaves while the player parks 10km away and gets a sammich, if the player becomes inactive (doesn't fire his guns at something or mining laser at a rock or make some sort of mission progress) then NPC wingmates stop what theyre doing....

NPC wingmates shouldn't fight to the death for some idiot player commander sitting behind his desk being lazy.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I don't know much about instancing, but players who aren't in the same wing can still drop into the same instance, I've seen it happen.

Oh, they can - but they can't use the Wing beacon or "follow the leader" dropping method - they have to follow the wake in the same way as any other player, i.e. < 1000 km; < 1000 km/s.

 

[Arkantes]

Never understood when wings came out that you couldnt have npc wings, its already coded in the tutorial. So why can't we have it in main game. It is stupid for solo players to be left alone but can be ganked by 5 wing npc pirates with no chance of help.

I just realized, but this is probably yet another side effect of the awful multiplayer model used. Since your NPC wing is basically made of persistent NPCs, it got to be able to navigate the galaxy on itw own, independently from the instancing system.

For instance, let's say you're in an instance hosted by another player, and you jump out of the system while your wing is still stuck at the station, and that other player disconnects, what happens? Due to the instancing system those NPCs should disappear, but you have no way of knowing that as you left the instance.

The only efficient way to get around this given the current system is to have the NPCs of your wing be simulated players hosted on FD servers, but they definitely don't want to spend that kind of money on CPU time and bandwidth for a game that doesn't require a subscription.

 

[tawittle]

Didn't vote in the poll because from my point of view there already are NPC wingmates in the game.

In a CZ, you have ships in the instance that fight on your side. Isn't that the same thing as having wingmates? The only different is that in your hypothetical "NPC wing", you would ALWAYS have friendly AI ships helping you 100% of the time. Isn't that a little much?

You already have allied ships helping you in CZ and RES, in USS you can get allied ships helping you as well, the cops can help you occasionally too. From my point of view there already ARE allied ships in game.

It just doesn't make sense to add frivalous stuff like NPC wingmates when there are way more important things that need fixing: fixing the BGS and missions being the most important by far IMO.

 

[tagos]

Yes. But for the record, NPC wingmen will in no way protect traders against cmdr-gankers...

In the late eighties I was playing flight sims where the AI was good enough to be used as USAF training aids. They flew classic ACM, used weapons efficiently and generally was very challenging.

Unfortunately no one who develops space sims bothers with AI. Hell, this game can't even give shields to NPCs.

It should be easily possible to beef up escorts, program them to use weapons properly etc, particularly if the player can set tactics and issue commands. Adding heavy weapon turrets with an AI that actually works would help.

Nothing will make people play as traders in Open so long as they are helpless victims. For me, the ineffectual AI and the still broken random npc generation are huge issues.

I'm certainly sick to death of my A class Assault ship being interdicted and trash talked by shield less Eagles.

Or shield less Anacondas for that matter. A problem that could be solved by a simple If Then Else statement at the end of the Npc generation sub routine.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Yes if they are really intelligent

 

[Bokugo]

It just doesn't make sense to add frivalous stuff like NPC wingmates when there are way more important things that need fixing: fixing the BGS and missions being the most important by far IMO.

What you wish was a priority may not be what others wish. I don't give 2 hoots about the BGS and missions are a mixed bag of good ones with bad ones. I don't really mind if those go on the back burner for a while. But I would love having NPC wingmen with me. I would be able to fly smaller ships without worrying about taking 5 years to kill a bigger one. I wouldn't have to worry about always be the focus for enemy wings and I can actually go do things 1 ship couldn't do alone before because it's damn near impossible to group up (or even find) random people in game. Giving me NPC wings actually increases how much game there is for me.

 

[Itaki]

Concord eats player gankers for breakfast in that other game.

AI can be programmed to any level you like. But what would be fair to all parties? Maybe a highly aggressive A rated NPC wingmate charges 50% of whatever income you make? While an E rated wingmate is rather lazy but only charges 10%.

There should be a tradeoff between cost and advantage.

 

[XarKavier]

As someone who doesn't regularly play with others, it would be nice to have AI companions as an option.

 

[dxm55]

Yes to NPC wingmates....
And hell yeah to NPC crew too...


Can't rely on you hoonams to always be there for me....

 

[Nick75]

Absolutely YES.

 

[GTwannabe]

And what's to stop the PvP crowd taking NPC wings to a fight with them?

Normal NPC escorts refuse to attack clean targets. Pirate escorts will (cost more to hire), but risk of them turning on you if you have bounty or cargo.

 

[valbarr]

I would just like to look over my shoulder
In the rift and see people sitting i the empty seats i can oretend when i do stuff im giving them orders

 

[[VR] Bac Ho]

This is a no-brainer, YES.

Just look at the percentage it speaks volumes, 92% of people who voted want this feature. So come on Frontier, you are always saying you are listening to the community.

 

[PiLhEaD]

This may already have been said, but with ship-launched fighters, we are (soon to be) kind-of getting this. Kind-of.

So it's not a huge leap to see NPC piloted wings at some point in the future.

 

[Ian Skippy]

This may already have been said, but with ship-launched fighters, we are (soon to be) kind-of getting this. Kind-of.

So it's not a huge leap to see NPC piloted wings at some point in the future.

I am afraid it might be. Here's the difference: pretty sure ship-launched fighters will be limited to the instance of the mothership. You cant leave that instance with the fighter if you're in it, and jumping in the mothership destroys the fighter if you didn't let it dock before jumping. The first can be explained by having the fighters not have an FSD, the 2nd is a sci-fi trope thing.

Why? Because this game is p2p. If you leave a fighter in a system you hosted with no cmdr around, that instance is gone. Its gonna be a lot harder to figure out how to make NPC wingman work while keeping them in your instance no matter what.

 

[dxm55]

This is a no-brainer, YES.

Just look at the percentage it speaks volumes, 92% of people who voted want this feature. So come on Frontier, you are always saying you are listening to the community.

Maybe they only hear the stuff they wanna hear.

 

[Mai Azuka]

Sure why not. It would be nice to have a wing of ships buying me time to high wake in my Type 7 every now and then. Rather have NPC crews first but that's a different matter.

 

[JacoTheBad]

I would like to have some. I'd make them wear red shirts, and say things to them like .. "Go check out that noise coming from the cargo hold"