Discuss AI here (After Engineer mods removal)

[Teravoc]

Well my experience,

Recently got a whole bunch of friends to buy the game just before 2.1 Engineers. We played for 2 weeks in our own little private group. All very much enjoying the experience (I've been playing since launch). I took the time while they where leveling to take a look at the power play stuff. Enjoyed the perks and the story. Currently in my Third week with Zach.

I am not amazing at combat, often leave flight assist on. I'm an older gamer along with my friends. Liked the idea of the Engineers mostly because it would give people somthing to aim for, and in particular i thought it would be good for those that wanted to explore.

Everything is going fine until 2.1.

Out of 6 friends regularly playing, only one of us has had little to no problems (he is doing data runs off mission boards)
2 of my friends who where able to trade enough to get into Cobra III, and are now struggling, with 1 friend now having to pay of an insurance loan. He has stopped playing until further updates reduce the sillyness. My other friend Upgraded for the first time to a type 6.. Saved enough extra to make insurance. Filled his cargo on his maiden voyage and was instantly killed within about 5 seconds.

For me its been a much much worse experience. Using my Fer-de-lance. After the patch made the mistake of doing my usual Hi-res.. First ship I attacked returned fire and killed my ship that was fitted with A grade Shields, and Nothing but Additional Bulkheads (No cargo) Pure fighting build, was a vulture and killed me within about 10 seconds.

Thought it was fair enough went into a normal res, and attacked an anaconda. Which pretty much spun around and within a second had killed me.

OK i must obviously be a lot more careful.. Went to a Nav (being the easiest) and faired a bit better made 500,000 k before i had to leave with low hull. Decided i needed to make up loses and went to join my friends in Hauling wing. First Run, Interdicted and destroyed. (No weapons on my T7, but only lived 5 seconds (A Grade Level 4 Shields) ) OK... Tried again, made a couple of runs, Interdicted, Killed within 5 seconds. About to try and make up for that loss, but Killed outside of the station trying to leave because of powerplay. (Fair enough) Waited about half an hour.. Left the station again and again was chased and killed leaving the station.

Friends had equal problems all the way through. I baught a smaller ship, an Asp.. Did missions, but some of them where broken, and did not appear on the stations (I had enough cargo space) had to delete them.. One of the missions had me look in USS... Threat level 0 where the only ones i went for... Imperial Clipper appeared in one and Evaporated me (and my Military grade hull) in about 4 seconds. (2 mill insurance)

The only time ive been safe trying to play. I unlocked a bunch of engineers, Did some long runs in the Asp Explorer. Planet missions where fine.

Overall: out of 6 of us.. We have all decided to give it a rest and hope that it gets toned down. Everyone was really loving it and we are all sad we have had to put it down until patches go into place. Fingers crossed it becomes playable for us all again.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

On a lighter note, I may be surviving more because I'm running with a cobra 3 which I'm told is one the fastest ships in the game...and cheap...though you guys definition of cheap will be different than mine. Now got the bug so bad, I bought a paint...cyas in the black ^^

Careful though... the times of the Cobra Mk.III being the fastest Ship in the Game are over.
My Mil-Grade "too heavy" Hauler is now doing >480m/sec... and that's far from the being as fast as the fastest Ships can go now, when proper Upgrades and Mods are applied
(I only gave it Enhanced Performance Thrusters and a Level 1 Clean Engine Mod so far)

 

[Han Brannigan]

Honestly, I saw a difference but really didn't like it so turned it off which is why I ask what it's supposed to do.

Its turning it off that is supposed to make you better in a fight. I find it almost impossible to aim with FA/off so you might be much better at it then I am. I somehow doubt that you actually have turned it off - but maybe you are just a natural.
With FA on your ship flies like a plane with FA off it flies like a spinning top (imo).
I like to turn it off to make quick turns ( not so much if I want to stay close ) and turn it back on to wrest back control from this bucking bronco...

 

[Marino1981]

Ai is still a challenge I've found, but now I'm being interdicted a lot more, don't mind tho, extra from bounties is cool with me if I don't get killed first

 

[verminstar]

Careful though... the times of the Cobra Mk.III being the fastest Ship in the Game are over.
My Mil-Grade "too heavy" Hauler is now doing >480m/sec... and that's far from the being as fast as the fastest Ships can go now, when proper Upgrades and Mods are applied
(I only gave it Enhanced Performance Thrusters and a Level 1 Clean Engine Mod so far)

I was saying to me m8 last night I was looking into trade runs in and around empire space...I've always been a player of space based sim games of this genre, but not since the days of running a drom in freelancer and taking perishable goods through clan held systems would I have been seriously into trading. My interest is usually only in pvp only games but this game intrigues me...you guys see a game which has been developed because ye been here a lot longer than me...I see a damned fine foundation to something else. I'm especially interested in smuggling and illegal goods for now even though I'm about a hundred ly from the closest empire held system, I'm just more drawn to the idea of an empire...mixture of being half irish and half british perhaps ^^

 

[Garbarrage]

I think the AI is just about right now. I took on an Elite assassination mission last night. The target was an Anaconda (Elite), and he had 2 wingman, a Vulture and a Viper mk3 (Dangerous and Deadly). I was in an A-rates FAS.

My first attempt saw me just manage to kill the 2 wingman, which left me at about 40% hull. Would probably have managed the Conda, except the fuzz turned up and my Beam Lasers were failing. I escaped with about 30% hull.

My second attempt involved a change in tactics. I decided to bull straight into the target in the hope that I could get him before the cops arrived. Managed to get him to 0% Power Plant and 7% hull, when his buddies and the cops swarmed me..... eject... eject... eject. 4 million rebuy.

I think killing his power plant was my mistake. He was stationary, therefore I was moving a lot less, making me an easier tgt for all of the attackers.

It was tough. It requires more thought than just turn fast, point and shoot... Collect reward. It was fun.

My second rebuy screen of the evening occurred in a CZ, when I failed to notice that none of my allies had spawned. Tut tut. Will be paying more attention to my radar in future.

I would like to see some small changes though. I'm rated Dangerous in combat. The only missions available to me seem to be Dangerous and above. While I like the added challenge, I would like to be able to take the occasional easy mission for a quick but handy pay day. I'm not concerned with random spawns and interdictions being high rated opponents. I just think that the rebuys might add up if the only missions available to me are at the upper end of my skill level.

I should point out here that I wasn't using PD or missiles during the first mission as my home station is out of the way and poorly stocked. For the second mission I was equipped with both, and despite the larger number of small targets, I was certainly a lot more durable, even having dropped a shield booster and chaff for 2 PDs.

I'm using Bi-weaves on my FAS, and I actually think they work better with only one shield booster. They go down faster, but seem to recharge a bit quicker. This could be just in my head though.

On the whole, the combat feels a lot more intense. I feel like I have to be on it the whole time. Whereas before, I could almost nap in a CZ. Learning to combine FA-off/on with boosts in turns and not really noticing too much of a pattern with the AI has made it a real challenge. Not being able to kill everything with impunity has made flying my FAS fun again. I had pretty much abandoned it in favour of a Cobra Mk3 for combat, because of the gimped AI.

I haven't fought many low ranked NPCs so all of this only applies to Dangerous or Higher.

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I'm just more drawn to the idea of an empire...mixture of being half irish and half british perhaps ^^

Any plans to give it back any time soon? Flippin immigrant!

 

[DaedalusCres]

I was able to survive more than 10 min in a conflict zone with my poorly fitted DBX, so yeah AI is still challenging, but a non-meta-player can absolutely handle it.
For me it seems interdictions happen less often, i was interdicted only once yesterday...

 

[who?]

I'm using Bi-weaves on my FAS, and I actually think they work better with only one shield booster. They go down faster, but seem to recharge a bit quicker. This could be just in my head though.

When your shields go down, disable the boosters; your shields will come back online quicker.

 

[Garbarrage]

When your shields go down, disable the boosters; your shields will come back online quicker.

Good thinking. Sounds like something a hotkey would be useful for. Yet another thing to remember.

 

[V'larr]

I've had a go with a few Elite pirate NPCs (thanks to the unrelated Aggro bugs), and while it did require me fully A-rating my ship (bi-weaves on a Python aren't the best idea after all, at least for multi-role) & changing from a "railgun" loadout to the mainstream "pulses and multicannons" sort of setup, I was able - with effort and one or two expended SCBs/chaff each - to defend myself without unfair consequences.

So I'm ranking this AI-sans-Engineer-upgrades as "just right" for now, though I'm still quite leery...the largest ship I dealt with was a Vulture, after all.

Once I finish mapping out all the systems I earmarked for the 2.1 nav beacon changes & get some more Federal rank I reckon I will try some pure combat to get an alternate perspective. My suspicion at the moment, though, is that RES/beacon hunting is still considerably easier than dealing with NPC pirate interdictions, as you get to choose your target (and when to engage your target) however you please in those situations...and obviously you do *not* get that grace when it comes to NPC interdictions.

 

[who?]

Good thinking. Sounds like something a hotkey would be useful for. Yet another thing to remember.

Yeah, I'm planning on having a few extra fingers grafted on too.

 

[Seonid]

Yes, but at least the base shield comes up faster.

 

[Sharky]

Really getting frustrated now. lost my 4th python just trying to get somewhere with engineers.
Im ready to quit soon and come back in a month or so when they get the balance right.
I take my now obsolete python to get soontill relics takes me 40 mins to get there.. half way from there to engineer a random elite npc jumps me and shoots me. I lose the ship and the bloody relics.
Then just rage quit.
Cant even just take my asp to the engineers because i dont want to upgrade them. It seems the only people having fun are those that already have all the best ships etc. loads of cash and time to grind engineers all day.
I only get an hour or two a day and I just wasted most of that because the game just wants to grief us.

 

[RoLnD79]

It seems that they aren't as Hulked out as they were this weekend, but they definitely aren't as gravy as they were before the update. I still notice a lot of modded weapons, but they aren't on almost every ship like they were. I also noticed the larger ships are more likely to have them, and the smaller ships aren't such a pain like they were this weekend. I like it how it is now.

Has anyone noticed ships running away more? Twice yesterday evening I was a python, and had 2 dangerous Anacondas run. The first time i was interdicted by one. It wasn't like I was mopping the floor with him, I had just dropped his shields and his hull was 90% when it said "surge detected" and he ran away. The second time I had one that was trying to interdict follow me to a station, he was dangerous too. I open fired and he didn't even fight back. Same thing once his shields dropped and his hull was at about 90% he ran away. I've never had high ranked anacondas run from me, in my python or FDL. I've really never had any anacondas run.

 

[babelfisch]

Really getting frustrated now. lost my 4th python just trying to get somewhere with engineers.
Im ready to quit soon and come back in a month or so when they get the balance right.
I take my now obsolete python to get soontill relics takes me 40 mins to get there.. half way from there to engineer a random elite npc jumps me and shoots me. I lose the ship and the bloody relics.
Then just rage quit.
Cant even just take my asp to the engineers because i dont want to upgrade them. It seems the only people having fun are those that already have all the best ships etc. loads of cash and time to grind engineers all day.
I only get an hour or two a day and I just wasted most of that because the game just wants to grief us.

Is it possible that you have a bounty somewhere? It doesn't necessarily show on your transactions tab if you have one. Buy a Sidewinder and initiate self destruction. Respawn at the station and get back in your Python.

 

[tomalus]

the new ai is bad, its marginaly better then 2.0. We went from challenging in 2.1. to dumb easy again with hotfix. When people get modded weapons its gonna be easier then before 2.1. and the ai ships pose no threat.

For 3 days the galaxy was dangerous, now its again a kindergarten

 

[Sharky]

Is it possible that you have a bounty somewhere? It doesn't necessarily show on your transactions tab if you have one. Buy a Sidewinder and initiate self destruction. Respawn at the station and get back in your Python.

Well considering I have lost about 6 pythons since update I am pretty sure any bounty on me would be gone by now. Have done nothing except grind materials (even though I dont know what the crap I am collecting is used for).

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the new ai is bad, its marginaly better then 2.0. We went from challenging in 2.1. to dumb easy again with hotfix. When people get modded weapons its gonna be easier then before 2.1. and the ai ships pose no threat.

For 3 days the galaxy was dangerous, now its again a kindergarten

I think you are playing a different game to the one I was playing.

Or you are one of those with the best ship fully kitted out. Or you are in a wing.

 

[Rob_the_Sparky]

I admit to not being the best combat pilot but the lower to mid-rank NPCs I find quite easy to take on. Tried an Elite pilot last night and died after a lengthy battle (death was my fault, I had the opportunity to bug out). I suspect that with practice that will change but I'm happy for now that I can't kill an Elite pilot as I don't believe I'm that good in combat. Happy that it is this way, I prefer the higher ranking AI to be a challenge. Not sure how I will handle that in a trade ship though, my Courier can run should I need it to. So far though I'm happy with it.

 

[who?]

But does it make sense? Aren't your shields un-boosted then and you'd still have to enable your boosters plus the additional loading time to gain the full capacity of your shields *with* booster?

My point is that if you disable shield boosters you'll effectively shrink the size of your shields and of course smaller shields reload faster than bigger ones.

I think so. As is, you don't get any shields back until you reach the 'normal' capacity plus the additional capacity for all of the boosters. By turning the boosters off, your shields come back sooner, when they reach the 'normal' capacity. They're weaker, but weak shields are better than none at all.

And obviously as soon as the shield comes back online, you can reactivate the shield boosters and they'll continue recharging back up to full capacity.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

I spend most of my time in 2.1 with a python, its shields should hold up well long enough to get out of any encounter, if you put good ones in there. If you can go higher on the shields, do it. I have A6 Shields without boosters and it takes a very long for them to get down.