2.1 My First Impressions (in an A rated Python, an all-rounder, perfect for mission running)
The trouble with change is that you can immediately see what you have lost but you can't straight away see what you have gained. In other words, you can very quickly see, oh no I cannot do that any more, and it was such an easy OR high paying thing. BUT, it is harder to see what the new ways are to have fun or make those high value gains, quickly or easily or in a way that you enjoy.
My first finding was that missions tend to give a lot more money now, especially the fetch so many of commodity X. To me, before, it always seemed stupid that a haulage mission, where you don't have to pay for the goods, and is a simple one way trip, paid far more than the buy and then return with n tons of commodity X type missions where you have to buy the goods yourself and then return with them, a lot more hassle for a lot less money, I used to love stacking these up in previous releases but then at some point they became the poor mans cousin of the haulage mission and they just weren't worth it anymore (except to play the BGS and increase a particular factions influence). Also it seems you get 24 hours by default to do the mission although this is a little misleading, you sometimes get a message that requires you to finish the mission faster or deliver to a different place (sometimes with a nice big bonus). Its possible that some of these mission rewards will get buffed so probably best to make hay whilst the sun shines.
I don't seem to get as interdicted as often as before, only once so far, by a DBE. I fumbled and he got me down to one ring before running away. Previously, I wouldn't have lost any rings but I fumbled when re-directing power to weapons, on selecting a sub-target, and generally being ready when the encounter started so it was my fault. Normally when interdicted, I will target the FSD or drives on the target so they cannot escape but this time I fumbled, targeted the wrong sub-system, and so he got away.
I don't consider myself to be an expert at combat but I do FA off/FA on to get my turning circle (bloody hell, there isn't any choice in a python!) and thrust with FA off in up to 2 axes simultaneously to either get the target in sight or dodge their fire. I went into a CNB to see how the increased AI had changed combat, but I was very cautious. Virtually all the ships were ranked Elite, the few that weren't were ranked Deadly or Dangerous, there weren't any pirates below these ranks.
I noticed some PP ships around, a Duval one and an Archon Delaine Elite Anaconda who buzzed my ship now and then. I wasn't sure if attacking him would some how get me entangled in the PP side of things so I left him well alone.
I noticed a pirate Elite Anaconda in a fight with a smaller ship that was zooming around it and thought OK I'll give it a try, I can always run away if things go pair shaped (or so I hoped). I warrant scanned him, got up close and let rip with all my weapons, he blew up very quickly, much faster than I expected. That gave me a 320000 CR bounty, far more than I would have expected, normally only pirate lords (from assassination missions) dish up that kind of bounty. I took on several other ships of varying sizes and ranks (but never a whole wing in one go). I won each fight losing more shield than I would have previously. Also after every fight was a whole load of materials from the debris that could be collected. I was not sure if they were useful so I just picked them up anyway.
As for the difficult of the NPC AI, I think Frontier can satisfy everyone here by having interdictions mainly by low ranking lower ability NPCs especially in hi-security systems on the main trade routes and have the more deadlier NPCs in the more dangerous areas: HAZ RESs, HI RESs, and in particular, combat zones. I am not sure about CNBs. I don't think Anarchy systems should particularly have higher ranked NPC pirates, just more of the stupid ones. However, this is all in Frontiers hands, but don't despair. I believe that Frontier have some re-balancing to do, I believe they will get down to it very quickly. Whenever they release something, it seems like their priority is to make sure there are no fatal flaws in the software and then they can subsequently fix issues and re-balance the game after the main release with updates and this was a big release so expect lots of bugs and re-balancing.
