After a little while carrying cargo around I have to say the ability of pirates to be aware you have cargo while still in SC really is rather spectacular and obvious. Very happy with the varied excitement that's happening when I do get pulled out, but it is happening a wee bit too much to feel like anything other than the game going "right - let's get you"
Discuss the AI here!
- Thread starter Agony_Aunt
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Certainly, frequency is an issue. Pretty much it's a 100% rate right now on cargo missions. But also the quality of the enemy. In my case it's pretty much an decked out Anaconda every single time. I expect that on a high paying bounty hunter mission. But for a 5K deliver 4 med mission it's absurd. Give me a range of enemies from weak to strong. Also consider the value of the mission. I.E. an Elite Anaconda attacking you over a 5K data delivery should occur maybe 1 in a 100 not the 99 in a hundred that it is now.
The one I gave like 5 pages ago and another commander confirmed like 4 pages ago.
Turn ship's butt to sun, wait for interdictors to suicide into the sun, resume your merry journey.
NPCs did not get smarter.
im so tempted to try that but i can wait
I agree. I played all day yesterday, got blown up five times. Instakilled, and if that didn't hurt enough the battles I did win didn't cover the repairs needed. I'm in an a rated Python.
I went down that road five times yesterday. The game is virtually unplayable at the moment. That was in an a rated Python.
Managed to get quite a long stint without anything weird happening, but then a wing of ridiculous powerplay NPCs dropped in just after I arrived at the Nav Beacon. Luckily, I had just long enough to realise and wait out the 15 second quit time before going pop, so they weren't as broken as others have found. Going to wait until the next patch before venturing out again, I think; not made back the last insurance payout yet.
I did notice some seemingly incorrect AI behaviour, though - the NPC/NPC interaction doesn't seem to occur when it should. At compromised nav point all the NPCs decided to target me, but not each other, which doesn't make much sense. After being interdicted, police arrived, scanned me, then waked out of there without bothering to scan the pirate I was fighting. So while the AI (scripts for fighting) seems a bit better than it was (it still seems to love running in mutual orbit around you, even when the exchange of fire isn't in its favour, though), the AI (scripts for behaviour) still seem to have some rough edges and the AI (ships) have some obvious bug issues.
I did notice some seemingly incorrect AI behaviour, though - the NPC/NPC interaction doesn't seem to occur when it should. At compromised nav point all the NPCs decided to target me, but not each other, which doesn't make much sense. After being interdicted, police arrived, scanned me, then waked out of there without bothering to scan the pirate I was fighting. So while the AI (scripts for fighting) seems a bit better than it was (it still seems to love running in mutual orbit around you, even when the exchange of fire isn't in its favour, though), the AI (scripts for behaviour) still seem to have some rough edges and the AI (ships) have some obvious bug issues.
Level specific areas and/or compensating equipment - ie a less skilled player can use a more relaxed challenge curve and simply progresses at a slower rate. This is well established in rpgs.
Well, standing still with 1-2 pips in shields is not the counter, that is quite clear.
Does look pretty OP, though - like nonstop pew pew pew, where it should work like the imperial hammer? 3 shots with less damage per shot but more overall?
Average human time from realization of event to action is about 1.5 seconds (i.e. braking when seeing an obstacle). 4 pips in shield versus 1.5 might have given 50% more shield strength, sure. He would have been dead in 3 seconds instead of 2. No difference.
There are none and since there is no concept of "level", how does that work?
Precisely. Ergo catering for skilled players by raising general difficulty is a bad idea. Content for long term players has to be thought of very carefully and with newer players in mind. Gating off certain areas (such as the recent permit locked nebulas) is a pretty equivalent idea.
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They haven't.
Please - this has been gone over many many times by them
The AI at lower levels is meant to be the same as it was. The people experiencing a difference will be everyone past 'harmless'/'novice' - it's not been made harder for them - and if it is then it's not intentional and they will try and rebalance it.
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NPCs of all ratings now have vastly better equipment than I or other new/vanilla players can get. Furthermore combat ranking doesn't take into account your current status and ship - say someone (not me!) got elite doing their combat orientated career but now is a miner/trader - why should they face elite NPCs?
edit for more: The concept of having NPCs spawn based on an individuals ranking is very 'meta' - instead it would be nice if certain areas of space were clearly known to be more dangerous than others - this could be in flux as events progress of course, but having the ability for a player to make a choice about what kind of challenge they give themselves is one of the biggest things you can do to improve enjoyment and a sense of 'fairness'. Skilled players can go to more dangerous areas relative to their experience and equipment. Less skilled can go to safer ones.
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That is not practical advice for ships that only have two or three utility mounts, just saying....
You remember all the fuss around NPC's fleeing when shields were down? It was a bug as you well know that was fixed. NPC's with OTT firepower? A bug. NPC's spawning with a disproportionate combat rank to the affected player? A bug. I can see that the principle of "treating the cause, not the symptom" is utterly lost on you and many others here. Now, personally speaking, regarding those players that artificially inflated their combat ratings by AFK turret camping with big ships, I'm just going to point and laugh.
Well, I never argued that the PA multicannon is OP and should be re-evaluated. Regardless if bug or not, as long as they don't offer Horizons on Mac, they have to keep stuff backwards compatible. ^^
It's just that every bug video I've seen so far also contains blantant, glaring pilot errors.
That Python's speed was 0. Zero! He was standing still, catching an antire volley of fixed weapon fire.
The other Python shooting 2 minutes at a clipper had all turrets installed. Should be known by now how little damage turrets do. You might as well throw sand and very small rocks. And that's a bountyhunt config? How is he expecting to ever kill anything?
And lazy pip management all around. I'm not the king of pip management myself, and prefer the 1-1-4 setup most of the time - unless forced to adapt. ^^
I'm only ranked 'mostly harmless' I think so I'm not in danger of that one any time soon, but I still disagree with the fact NPCs can have modded weapons but my commander can't.
As for treating the cause - I believe I suggested that - the root problem is improving the experience for more skilled commanders. That should be addressed without making the game other people bought less fun, and I suggested how other games and how E: D could.
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Even in a multi-player game, you can adjust the NPC difficulty. However, less risk should come with less reward. This could be done in several ways. Impact of your battle wins on combat and faction rank could be adjusted, you might receive a trade/ bounty/ exploration credit bonus if playing at higher difficulty etc. This would not affect the multi-player aspect in any way.
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