Discuss the AI here!

[scorpyon]

Whelp!
Looks like I'm switching to be a trader from now on (which sucks, cos I find trading so dull!)

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the new AI - a challenge is great; and combat needed some spicing up. So, yay I guess!
But it does mean that going and harvesting RES sites is now much less of a viable option for making decent money since you spend a lot of time trawling back to base to replenish Cell Banks, repair, etc.
(And that costs both time AND money)

Not a "complaint", since this is what combat is about. So, again... yay, I guess!
More a bit of a nostalgic sigh and disappointment that it looks like it's back to trading again for now... :-/
I was enjoying reaping RES sites while it lasted.

I'm not going to even mention CZ's... lol

 

[KG_Jedi]

New NPCs are quite a challenge. I have mostly C rated Corvette, and almost got my ass handed to me by Expert Anaconda. Same goes to wing of Vulture + 2xImp.Eagle. Smaller NPCs now are perfect at staying out of your firing arc, while larger NPCs go full attack mode, unleashing every gun and just pushing like a tank. I like that.

 

[Rinzler o7o7o7]

I would like to thank Frontier for this patch. Combat has actually become challenging for most people (everything I'd ever wished for in a combat space sim), and the community's dummy-spit outcry is more beautiful than anything I've ever witnessed in this game (well BYOI AIN WE-R E4-913 comes close though). The SDC TS has never been more full of giggling than it currently is

Where is your safespace now?

 

[hunvagy]

New NPCs are quite a challenge. I have mostly C rated Corvette, and almost got my ass handed to me by Expert Anaconda. Same goes to wing of Vulture + 2xImp.Eagle. Smaller NPCs now are perfect at staying out of your firing arc, while larger NPCs go full attack mode, unleashing every gun and just pushing like a tank. I like that.

Not to mention that as said on the launch stream, large and huge weapons do less damage to small ships, so that might also be a problem in the Conda vs. eagle fight.

 

[Euphrat]

It depends how often the new player really gets jumped by elite rank enemies. Also might have to do something with the mission board, really. If I recall, missions are not rank locked anymore, so anyone can pick a juicy mission, that might or might not spawn overwhelming enemies. If that is the case, the culprit might actually not be your everyday flight, but taking missions that might not be meant for you.

Same thing with bounty hunting and combat zones. The high ranking enemies should be hard and menacing, because honestly I think that döner spin FDL that flies into asteroids yet it somehow made deadly was just silly. If there's only them though, then that is silly too.

So what must be gauged is how often these ace pilots show up to rain on your parade. If the number is too high, then tweak their numbers, not their difficulty. An Elite is an Elite, whether player or not.

I won't argue with that my friend ^^ My only concern was about new players not feeling like hitting a difficulty wall they ll feel like unbreakable. I m just hoping those new players will have the same pleasure I have playing this awsome game ^^

 

[xaisis]

Ughh could we behaps behave like adults??

I like the new ai, but this game needs to fit many types of players with varius levels of skill.

So we need both hard and easy ai's and in between.

Zones of dificulity should be easy to spot, so players do not end op in situations they where not aware of.

Or so i think it should be.

 

[scorpyon]

I suppose this is like any modification / adjustment to things like AI difficulty.
Sometimes you have to ramp it up way beyond what you would normally expect, to then allow you to ease it back a bit to settle into a more normal level.

I do think that we are going to start to see newbie players finding it a bit more difficult to survive in their starter ships now.
And perhaps even a greater divide in skill gaps between those with decent joystick setups and those stuck with gamepads or even mouse / keyboard.
We'll see, I guess!

 

[WhiteStar101]

I personally think the new A.I. is 1 big joke, it should be adaptable to the ship you are flying, i am not a big player in this game, only have a type 9 ship, its kitted out to run cargo hauls from hip 53719 running the imperial slaves, at the moment i have 16 mil credits and my assets is worth 116 mil, to jump to my target destination is about 13.45 so this means i run with out any weapons on my ships as i dont want to do the combat yet, as i want to get the credits built up to do this, logged onto the game this morning, with my imperial slaves on, dropped out jump, and got interdicted straight away, couldnt avoid interdiction as it was jerking all over the screen, when it failed and dropped out, i was hit by 1 missile and no more shields, then after 1 shot no more fsd, then 4-5 shots later i was dead, this is 1 big joke, how do you defend against this crap, now if i was in a python, anaconda, corvette, i would agree with this, but no i was in a type 9 with no weapons, my point here is, if you're going to make the A.I. so much harder, then make it more even to the ships that people are flying.

 

[Euphrat]

Ughh could we behaps behave like adults??

I like the new ai, but this game needs to fit many types of players with varius levels of skill.

So we need both hard and easy ai's and in between.

Zones of dificulity should be easy to spot, so players do not end op in situations they where not aware of.

Or so i think it should be.

Yep ^^ good meat for everyone ^^ (sry vegetarians, I didn't meen to hurt u ;p )

 

[kofeyh]

This might not be a popular observation, but it would explain a lot. Folks may be at a higher combat ranking due to endless NPC farming, than straight experience would account for.

This means, plough enough potatoes and you'll continue to gain rank; even if the potatoes are hopeless and spin and throw themselves at you to die in endless waves, you still inexorably gain rank. I do wonder if I'd be at 90% Deadly now, if the AI was actually a challenge the entire way through. Like it is now.

Arguably, no. I'd probably be a rank below. I'd like to think I'd be nearly at elite, but I doubt it. I suspect the simplicity of AI has lead to people basically power-leveling, rather than the rank actually being indicative of prowess.

I'm not knocking holes in people here; it's just an observation.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

and the community's dummy-spit outcry is more beautiful than anything I've ever witnessed in this game (well BYOI AIN WE-R E4-913 comes close though). The SDC TS has never been more full of giggling than it currently is

Would you say you got more smiles per gallon out of this, or out of the "menu timer exit no fair" crybabies?

Where is your safespace now?

Just 15 seconds away

 

[RoninCahill]

I would really love a difficulty slider for Solo play. I am so sucky at combat and need to feel safe flying around. right now after 6 hours of testing, all I have managed to do successfully is Run. Im using my smaller faster ships and parked my bigger ships as I lost my fed corvette to a very small ship earlier today. im very nervous leaving my base now. but I do see if you are a hot pilot how you would like this. like computer chess I guess. I use the level before 1..yes novice and some use level 10.

 

[hunvagy]

I personally think the new A.I. is 1 big joke, it should be adaptable to the ship you are flying, i am not a big player in this game, only have a type 9 ship, its kitted out to run cargo hauls from hip 53719 running the imperial slaves, at the moment i have 16 mil credits and my assets is worth 116 mil, to jump to my target destination is about 13.45 so this means i run with out any weapons on my ships as i dont want to do the combat yet, as i want to get the credits built up to do this, logged onto the game this morning, with my imperial slaves on, dropped out jump, and got interdicted straight away, couldnt avoid interdiction as it was jerking all over the screen, when it failed and dropped out, i was hit by 1 missile and no more shields, then after 1 shot no more fsd, then 4-5 shots later i was dead, this is 1 big joke, how do you defend against this crap, now if i was in a python, anaconda, corvette, i would agree with this, but no i was in a type 9 with no weapons, my point here is, if you're going to make the A.I. so much harder, then make it more even to the ships that people are flying.

If you post your ship setup depicted in something like coriolis.io, we might be able to spot why your T9 lost shields from a single missile. Generally traders will need to adapt to a new situation. No shield, no chaff and point defence is a major no-no starting with this patch. And so is running undersized shields.

 

[biohazard15]

1- ok , but not much, we still need elite Npcs to get to Elite rank!
2 - agreed , not every battlefield is formed on colonels , they are mostly soldiers and recruits
3 - one or 2 , make it rare.
4- no, HAZ and HIGH are DANGEROUS zones.
5 -yes, but crazy pirate? no this is natural, if a pirate don't know if you have cargo(or don't have a scaner) they will take the more interesting (AND EASIER) target to roll with , call it and if you don't give it to him(or don't have) it will open fire.. it's natural pirate behaviour.
6- yes, i hate to see mostly harmeless supply ships
7- i love the new Police, and it fits even better with the new USS...

Also the new AI is great, just people that are to confort with the old one that have to get on shape for this...
cmon you're not GOD, you CANT take 4-5 ships even with a Corvette... it's tatics...

1 - as I said, you're provided with places where to get them, like HazRES and assassination missions. They probably should give more rank points to compensate for being rare. After all, it's just a rank with only useful perk being able to get into Shinrarta. You can get the same by trading or exploring.
3 - LowRES should be a perfectly safe space, so no. Nav beacons - I'll probably agree with that.
4 - HazRES should be "hard" mode, HiRES should be "medium" mode.
5 - EVERY pirate that interdicts you will NEVER scan you for cargo, he'll just open fire after couple of seconds. This is simply ridiculous. This behavior is fine when you're interdicted by bounty hunter or enemy power's agent, but not by pirate. It's against any logic. If pirate kills an empty trader, he would lose chance to rob him later.
6 - don't know anything about that since I don't participate in PP, but you're probably right.

 

[Pir8pete]

Keep saying "git gud" because the game will not bring in more casual players if the AI keeps getting harder and harder. So you hardcore players think "oh well?
Haven't you notice there is no subscription to the game? This game needs new players if it wants to see the end of the 10 year plan. There is a reason why games have end game content and most of the time it's insanely hard, but hardcore gamers love that and get there fill. And casual gamers stay away from that. But if the base AI is ridiculously hard then casual gamers will go away.

Look I'm all for adding a little more difficulty but this is asinine. I don't know if the whole game is like this now or what just happened was not intended.
Checking out the update and notice there's now a large gimbaled beam. So I'm like heck yeah let's check this baby out! Installed it and headed out to a Nav Beacon. As soon as I dropped into the Nav Beacon I get attacked by THREE ships, they are all wanted and all but ? I'm alleged to Empire, it's an Empire system and I'm not wanted or anything. But yet right when I drop in I get attacked? I'm in a Conda and these are Cobras and I can't even get them in front of me anymore. They knock out my shields and start ripping into my hull in matter of seconds.
If this is intended then I feel sorry for new players because this is really off putting. Not all of us are God's at combat or good at using FA off. In my opinion I do not like this change. I could see it like this at a HAZRES but a g Nav Beacon? In a system I'm alleged to?

Being 65% deadly and pretty much a solo player now means that there is no way I can do the single thing I wanted to do in this game which was get to Elite to repeat my feat of 84. Unless this changes I won't be coming back.

 

[Maahes]

I don't have an issue with having a harder AI at higher ranks, but I do have an issue with the distribution and quantity of the higher ranked ships as it is at the moment, i think this could be tweaked a touch.
Also there seem to be too many AI ships with Engineer mod'ed equipment in my view.

Whilst I haven't died yet, I'm only just breaking even with my bounty collection to repair bill ratio. I'm also spending about 50% of my time in SC limping back to a station to repair.
This might seem exiting initially with the thrill and all, but it'll get old for me very quickly.

 

[biohazard15]

Not to mention that as said on the launch stream, large and huge weapons do less damage to small ships, so that might also be a problem in the Conda vs. eagle fight.

Since I haven't watched it - is there any reasonable explanation for this?

 

[Ziljan]

I would like to thank Frontier for this patch. Combat has actually become challenging for most people (everything I'd ever wished for in a combat space sim)

On this single point we agree.

...and the community's dummy-spit outcry is more beautiful than anything I've ever witnessed in this game (well BYOI AIN WE-R E4-913 comes close though). The SDC TS has never been more full of giggling than it currently is

What small and sad dreams the SDC possesses.

Where is your safespace now?

If you think there is no "safespace" then you haven't been paying attention to the security update. I am guessing many in the community will be smiling and giggling when SDC encounters them in full force in ALD space.

 

[wulfson]

I have erased my account just because of the new AI, which should bring more challenge. With previous AI, I just farmed too much in RES sites. With the new AI, I am much happier, as I progress more slowly, I have to pick fights and know when to run when outgunned or damaged even more so in a Sidewinder. I also play IRONMAN (DiD) style and still like the new AI, the challenge, the thrill of loosing it all. In my opinion people earn good money in the virtual world of elite being traders, explorers, bounty hunters or other professions, because space is a dangerous place and being a commander is a dangerous profession. I say - great job FD in this regard.

 

[joshman72nd]

while i like the new ai i have noticed they tend to stop spinning after interdiction not even 3 seconds while im still out of controle even boosting and fa on with all three moving directions going against the force.

they tend to pick the player above all other hostiles even when the player has his/her weapons stowed and shows no threat even if they are being pounded on by other npc they will still be hellbent on killing the player. they also tend to jump in right on top of the player in cz's

and then they are ungodly good with rail guns and lazes now even when i put their face into the sun and zig zag in a eagle they will still hit.

last one is a bug i found when they form super wings (5+ ships) there wont be ships that say they are in the wing untill you shoot them then they all swarm you. already reported i think butit hasn't been squashed yet.

and huge weapons against small ships ( im looking at you class 4 pa/cannon) shouldn't take more than 2 shots if that ships shields are down. if a corvett manages to hit a small ship with two cannons shells while shields are down it deserves the kill.