Dangerous, Deadly and Elite - the new fun prevention officers?

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Yup, there is definitely a middle ground solution, and I think you hit the nail on the head.

The higher ranked NPCs probably shouldn't be the most common things interdicting players.

I tend to go after the top ranked NPCs in high-res sites because they have the largest bounties on their heads.

I'm ok with taking those guys on sometimes depending on what ship I'm in and where my brain is at the time. But, yeah... Not EVERY encounter needs to be a white-knuckled battle to the death against the galaxy's most blood-thirsty top pilots.

Sometimes it's nice to just go from point A to B without fighting anything at all. Sometimes it's nice to have what I call a "lazy" fight, where I'm not worried about strategy or dying, I'm just enjoying the spectacle of it all.

This. So much this.

I do NOT want the new AI removed because I know it has brought more fun to the combat oriented players. And when I'm bounty hunting, it's nice to feel the need of caution again instead of just blasting everything in site. Also, I have only taken out the PP on an enemy ship once or twice (both Anacondas) in 2.1, though I try on nearly every ship; this is definitely an improvement. Also, no spinning Python/Imperial Clippers (other ships did it too, but these two were the most comical) that just let you blast the hell out of them. So for the 100th time, please don't take away the improvements that make combat fun.

But that aside, yes, it is nice to go unmolested most of the time. It's also nice to have the occasional lazy fight.

When I wanted white knuckle excitement in 2.0, I would stack courier (and some smuggling, NO shadow deliveries) missions. Then it was 17-24 jump race back to the bubble/target area with a bunch of ships in pursuit; not only was their serious threats (FAS or Vultures vs. my Cobra Mk 3 or DBS), but also the race against the clock. I remember one "gang bang" interdiction where a Vulture pulled me down, then a Clipper, a FAS, and something else joined; they all wanted me for different reasons (not a wing) and just dog piled on at once. My DBS only made out alive because I kept popping chaff, rigged for silent running, and popped heat sinks as I boosted away furiously. That was fun. It was also danger that I signed up for.

So yes, please keep the good AI so everyone is challenged. However, not every fight needs be against these high ranking opponents/ships and repeated interdictions are just dumb. Or, as what happened to me last night, a large group of small ships attacking me... for 1 ton of crap cargo I forgot I picked up with the SRV.

 

[DaveB]

If the op was making the same complaint while flying a combat build, I'd be right there with the folks expressing a certain "lack of both sympathy and tact" since yes, it's a decent challenge but not really that hard to take on even Elite NPCs in a ship that's fitted to fight unless they gang up on you.

But if your primary path isn't combat, no matter how good a pilot you are, you're going to be flying something that isn't a 100% combat build. Look at all the thread comments from combat folks griping about having to ditch some piece of their combat loadout in favor of cargo racks to haul commodities to an engineer. They wouldn't gripe if doing that didn't make their ship less combat effective. As soon as you take any ship and put a cargo hold on it, no matter how good you are, a higher percentage of npc encounters will be ones you need to run from. Having all the NPCs you meet being matched to your effective rank while flying a combat beast will still send you running from a lot of them if you're flying something with softer skin and smaller teeth.

The updated ai skill is great. The balance of encounters is ALMOST right. With just a tiny tweak to relax the encounter scaling a tad, the ops problems would be much reduced and there would be no harm to anyone elses enjoyment of the game. Theres just too much in ED that depends on builds other than a full on combat beast to balance the difficukty of the encounters the game throws at you to that level.

I can kill high ranked NPCs just fine, but not so much in a ship with enough hold space to finance the running costs of my others that use those internals for combat gear instead. I suspect the op is in a similar position

 

[Ziljan]

...solution - relegate Dangerous, Deadly and Elite NPC's to High and Hazardous Res sites and Hi Intensity CZ's,

This is an anti-solution. Make 99.9999999 % game a predictable and boring slog just to appease a minority of people who can't find their boost button?

Bad Arasmus! Bad, bad, CMDR.

Go back to the drawing board and think about what you did.

 

[GODofDUTY83]

I feel your frustration but I'm not experiencing it and for the life of me I can't explain why we are having such different experiences.

I aint experiencing this either. Need vids up on youtube guys. I need to see this. Dont sound good.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

If you can't beat elite, deadly then run, there no shame in running. I can't beat elite in most ships above a cobra, so I run against anything bigger.

An no to elite being restricted, NPCs need to be as much alike humans that is possible.

Instead they should be modified so that they don't show much interest in taking on lower ranks pilots because they consider it beneath them. But if lower ranks decide to take them on they should be very hard to beat.

1. Yes, there is no shame in running. It's the amount of running we're having to do that is making this tiresome. As for elites, I killed one in ASP Scout that ambushed me (for no apparent reason) back in 2.0 while I was traveling in my A-rated AspX. Even back then, an Elite AI was some fun - god, he kept avoiding my firing arcs and popping SCBs like Candy. The fight took 5 to 10 minutes. I don't think I've had an Elite interdict me in 2.1... at least successfully. Most of mine were Deadly and Dangerous.

2. I agree that all levels should be available everywhere. Right now, it just seems like the scale isn't properly weighted. Every hostile that comes after me is Master to Deadly (again, maybe some Elites, I don't recall). And they were always coming after me in the top end combat ships - FDL, FAS. Last encounter was with a swarm of Cobra Mk 3s.

3. Actually they should be modified to show up when it's relevant. If I took a big contract, yes, I expect them to show. If I'm on a popular trade route with a LOT of cargo, it would make sense to see one once in awhile. But when they always show up when you're carrying a few tons of crap cargo (value wise) needed for engineer mods? Or just junk you picked up the planet?

A. Corollary - I'm sure the players combat rank is used to determine the combat rank distribution in a RES site; however, some wider distribution would be an improvement. I'm not just talking about the hostiles, but the also the friendly/neutral miners! Do you know how ridiculous it is to see every miner (at least 8 ships on my last foray) be an Elite? And these combat Elites are flying Type 7, Type 6, and AspX (a Type 9 would be understandable) mining ships? Wth? These are combat GODs and they've turned to a life of suicide mining in these under powered ships in HAZ RES site? Is this a ritual suicide thing or something? This doesn't cause me any stress like the other issues, but is laughably immersion breaking at it's worst. Or maybe I was just lucky and the Haz RES site I usually go to (HIP 20227, near Fabian city) is where "combat legends go to die."

B. If we're going to allow them to keep interdicting you over and over after low wake escapes, either limit it 2 or 3 times OR give us a 1 to 2 minute head start. The speed with which they are spinning up their drives, back in cruise, and interdicting is way too short.

 

[Arasmus]

This is an anti-solution. Make 99.9999999 % game a predictable and boring slog just to appease a minority of people who can't find their boost button?

Bad Arasmus! Bad, bad, CMDR.

Go back to the drawing board and think about what you did.

I am not taking any guff from someone who allowed the Annihilation of Caprica.

Obviously I didn't get my point across properly so, I'll briefly summarise.

1) No issue with the new AI - NPC's are brilliant now, a challenge, I relish the challenge, WHEN I go to a Haz Rez or CZ. Combat - has always been in RES and CZ, no one wants to be goosed everywhere they fly, I simply can't accept that. Why would anyone complain about that?
2) Being chased by something that has a high chance of killing you unless you are step perfect in your evasion techniques is not fun it's stressful. I am trading in heavily defended ships, too slow sometimes to outrun the high NPC's with boost (and I oddly do remember where it is btw) But you know sometimes it would be nice to be able to make a choice between fight or flight, not hear Monty Python's Brave Sir Robin music every Interdiction.
3) I am struggling, and please note, I said struggling not dying when not in optimised combat ships, and I am not a noob with and utilise well advised techniques from both the forums and video's. My request is to make the game more enjoyable again by toning things down in normal none combat related activities, and leave the terminator levels for the RES and CZ's for us all to enjoy as and when we wish.
4) Stress does not equal fun - I know that's a difficult one to grasp, but there you are.

Safe flights...

 

[Bacalao]

For the love of everything holy.... please FD, implement the widely called for solution - relegate Dangerous, Deadly and Elite NPC's to High and Hazardous Res sites and Hi Intensity CZ's, it's been said a million times on here, but I have to add my voice as this game is very important to me.

I hope they aren't all stored away there, the distribution just needs a nudge. Not even a very big one, just a little one. I, personally, don't have that hard a time with Elite NPCs. They provide a really good fight, but I don't worry about dying at all, plenty of time to wake out if I make a really stupid mistake (like I did last night going into a RES, forgetting I had a few tons on board and then happily opening up on some clippers and then....a few pirates in the instance scanned my cargo hold....switch the pips around real quick, boost boost, chaff. 4 Dangerous+ clippers trying to take out my already damaged and shieldless FAS, bonked one of them on the face...and I'm away with half my hull intact.)

 

[Argus Leadhead]

I tried some hauling Ina T6 last night. After 3 or 4 runs, I was interdicted by a dangerous Python. I only had E rated thrusters so I couldn't run that fast to escape. I did have mine launchers equipped; one shock mine, one regular. Hahahaha is all I need to say. What a blast! I didn't outright kill the python, but between the explosive damage and shock mines pushing him all over the place, I managed to put major distance between myself and the interdictor, at the break necks speed of 218m/s. The Python took a hell of a beating in the process.

Mines. They work great!

 

[Arasmus]

I tried some hauling Ina T6 last night. After 3 or 4 runs, I was interdicted by a dangerous Python. I only had E rated thrusters so I couldn't run that fast to escape. I did have mine launchers equipped; one shock mine, one regular. Hahahaha is all I need to say. What a blast! I didn't outright kill the python, but between the explosive damage and shock mines pushing him all over the place, I managed to put major distance between myself and the interdictor, at the break necks speed of 218m/s. The Python took a hell of a beating in the process.

Mines. They work great!

Sounds good fun - but my point is that you have to run - mines can help - but you're still running..... I would occasionally like to blow the hell out of them without risking 10-15 mil insurance every time

 

[Argus Leadhead]

Sounds good fun - but my point is that you have to run - mines can help - but you're still running..... I would occasionally like to blow the hell out of them without risking 10-15 mil insurance every time

I'm sure it would've been the end for that Python had I not jumped to super cruise after watching how beat up it was getting from a comfortable distance for a short while; I had a mission to finish.

Unless one is in a ship optimized for combat, why would one expect to be able to constantly fight effectively and risk free against ships that are optimized for combat? Trading ships =\= combat effective on their best days. I was just amazed at how effective the one defensive weapon we have is.

I think it goes without saying that if someone is focused on trading, there are steps they usually have to take to make that ship effective for that role. Had I been in any other ship, I'd have a much smaller cargo hold, better speed, better manoeuvreability, and definitely better weapons. Instead, I just made a point that even a fully loaded trade ship with 100T of cargo, slow AF thrusters, D rated shields, and mine launchers proved to be quite capable at defending its self from a dangerous rated pirate in a bigger, stronger, meaner ship. Would I have been able to win in a toe to toe fight? Nope! But it's not something I expect from a ship built for trading anyways.

I don't know why anyone in their right mind would expect to win fights in any ships that are equipped for mining or trading. Even multi-role ships suited up for trading sacrifice combat ability.

 

[Arasmus]

Unless one is in a ship optimized for combat, why would one expect to be able to constantly fight effectively and risk free against ships that are optimized for combat? Trading ships =\= combat effective on their best days. I was just amazed at how effective the one defensive weapon we have is.


I don't know why anyone in their right mind would expect to win fights in any ships that are equipped for mining or trading. Even multi-role ships suited up for trading sacrifice combat ability.

I and am sure others don't expect to win all fights and there comes a point where bugging out is the sensible option, but when every ship that interdicts you (for me at any rate) is a deadly or Elite, it makes the choice for you if you are in a trade balanced ship. It needs toning down thats all.

 

[Argus Leadhead]

I and am sure others don't expect to win all fights and there comes a point where bugging out is the sensible option, but when every ship that interdicts you (for me at any rate) is a deadly or Elite, it makes the choice for you if you are in a trade balanced ship. It needs toning down thats all.

As someone who was flying a trade ship, with only 2 small hard points, I'm saying a dangerous rated combat ship was absolutely thrashed by mines. I was in a ship optimized pretty much only for running and in the end, I really didn't need to run at all. The game made no choices for me. The tools are there to take advantage of. I imagine even if it was a wing of smaller ships, I would've been fine. Even considering the fact that I was only moving at 218m/s

This right here is a valid in-game solution to being interdicted by deadly, dangerous, and elite ships. Personally, I find I'm rarely interdicted by high ranks NPCS where as others say they're only interdicted by high ranks ships.


Either way, I'm sure FD has the info on what ranks are interdicting people the most. If they find it out of whack, I'm sure they'll change it too. Until then, don't expect to go toe to toe with these ranks, instead use the current tools we have to deal with it. They work, and work well.

 

[Arasmus]

As someone who was flying a trade ship, with only 2 small hard points, I'm saying a dangerous rated combat ship was absolutely thrashed by mines. I was in a ship optimized pretty much only for running and in the end, I really didn't need to run at all. The game made no choices for me. The tools are there to take advantage of. I imagine even if it was a wing of smaller ships, I would've been fine. Even considering the fact that I was only moving at 218m/s

This right here is a valid in-game solution to being interdicted by deadly, dangerous, and elite ships. Personally, I find I'm rarely interdicted by high ranks NPCS where as others say they're only interdicted by high ranks ships.


Either way, I'm sure FD has the info on what ranks are interdicting people the most. If they find it out of whack, I'm sure they'll change it too. Until then, don't expect to go toe to toe with these ranks, instead use the current tools we have to deal with it. They work, and work well.

I take your point. Moreover, if FD come back to any of these threads and say "Actually it's working as intended, trading = running" then I will accept it with a very depressed sigh. If that's the case, it's kind of pointless having anything else but small hardpoints then in trade ships, a fact that they don't just have those, gives me hope there will be a re balance.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

I hope you do try. If you come out here where I seem to be fine and you are still hounded then we can say with a level of certainty the issue does not change with the region. That would mean it seems to follow the player. So why does it follow the player. Arbitrary? That's possible, but we could then start compare Ranks and ship builds and mission choices. Maybe we can spot a common element as to why it hits some folks and not others. Just trying to use some standard problem solving to dig into this.

One common element I'm seeing from other posts/threads is engineer related commodities - mined, mission rewarded, or bought from a station. It seems if you have any in your cargo hold, your chance of interdiction shoots through the roof. So one test I'll do in your region is fly around with 1-5 tons of one of these and see how many sharks the chum brings in. Then I can jettison/sell that crap and do an equal # of jumps and see what the rate is then. I may log between the two steps too, just to make sure there is no carry over.

Believe me, I'm aware of standard problem solving... it's all I do at work. On the bright side, FDevs definitely seem to care ... unlike Microsoft, which I think has sworn a vendetta on sysadmins for some reason with all <censored> problems they've cause for Windows 10 deployment management.[mad]

And I can personally attest to how good Frontier's support is. I had 12 e-mail exchange with one of their techs after filing a ticket on Xbox controller bindings (being used on a PC). Together, we deduced all the pros and cons for the different xml codes they used for various button binds. I really should post the results of that on the forum sometime (I wasn't registered back then).

 

[Argus Leadhead]

I take your point. Moreover, if FD come back to any of these threads and say "Actually it's working as intended, trading = running" then I will accept it with a very depressed sigh. If that's the case, it's kind of pointless having anything else but small hardpoints then in trade ships, a fact that they don't just have those, gives me hope there will be a re balance.

It very well might be working as intended in their eyes. Or it might be something they're working on balancing further right now. It is, after all included in 2.1.02s patch notes under NPCS.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=259444

I guess time will tell. There's hope for traders currently though, as the mine launchers        g rock! Which is not what I expected when I put them on there. Pleasantly surprised, to say the least!

Maybe they'll just make medium/large mine launchers too. I'd imagine them being like cluster mines. That would be pretty cool.

Then again, it is FD, they're pretty quite about most issues until they're released and even then, they stay hush hush on issues after as well sometimes.

 

[Tikigod]

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -



You haven't traded since 2.1, right?

Fill up your FDL with 8t Palladium and go for ride. You will not make it to the 3rd station without getting at least one Deadly behind you. I promise.

Regards,
Miklos

Read the post, it's all post 2.1.

Post 2.1.2 to be more clearer.

Unarmed T6 with no shields, mining various systems. 85 tons of goods ranging from 16-20 tons of engineer commodities, and high value refined metals, multiple runs spread across 2 days... no massive interdiction threat, no hassle. Oh and that's with an outstanding 25k+ in dormant bounties on my head.


Once I'm in my Vulture and running missions and getting wanted, THEN I get a fair bit of hassle. But for the 2 days I was in the T6 mining and hauling loads of precious metals and engineer commodities I didn't have any problems. And there threads out there of people reporting the same thing and even documenting 50-60 minutes of video footage to back it up.

So there seems to be certain traders and non-combat players reporting unique personalised threat experiences that others that then look into seeing how bad it is don't experience at all in any way... that or it's grossly exaggerated.

 

[Arasmus]

It very well might be working as intended in their eyes. Or it might be something they're working on balancing further right now. It is, after all included in 2.1.02s patch notes under NPCS.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=259444

I guess time will tell. There's hope for traders currently though, as the mine launchers g rock! Which is not what I expected when I put them on there. Pleasantly surprised, to say the least!

Maybe they'll just make medium/large mine launchers too. I'd imagine them being like cluster mines. That would be pretty cool.

Then again, it is FD, they're pretty quite about most issues until they're released and even then, they stay hush hush on issues after as well sometimes.

Do you know what I just fitted out a conda - with a full rack of them which I think is probably overkill but I made short order of the Elite FAS that interdicted me soon after - you very well may have saved my game. I need it to work in my Python and I'm golden - if this is the case as well, then I will be changing my mind rapidly and altering my original post. FD never made much fanfare about mines, i tried them once but they seemed to do little but i did only have one fitted, but it was, as you say amusing to watch it bounce around and quickly die to the onslaught in my conda.

 

[Arasmus]

Earlier today I posted this thread.... well after some good advice given in this thread (Argus Leadhead to be exact) I am overjoyed to tell Traders (both mission based and normal) and for that matter anyone whom is struggling with Interdictions that there is hope.

That hope comes in the form of Mines (Proximity damage and Shock varieties)

Tonight, I have tested this with both a well shielded and equipped Conda and a Python, and all that I can say is happiness is mine shaped

Please try them out for yourselves. It would take me ages to upload videos of what they do but I can personally confirm that an Elite FAS was given a rude death by a swarm of the mines released easily behind me as I gave him the gesture of good will to all men.

Rejoice CMDR's, it does indeed look like FD have given us a balance to the Elite, Deadly and Dangerous foes, which as in my original post was driving me away from the game.

I'm always happy to learn and I am so glad I posted for the first time today and wish FD had publicised this more as it might have mitigated the depression its caused to me and others. Thanks again to Argus Leadhead

 

[relayer]

I did have mine launchers equipped; one shock mine, one regular.
Mines. They work great!

I'm having a hard time finding shock mines. Are they an Engineer thing? I've been looking all over, including Shinrarta Dezhra...

 

[Arasmus]

I'm having a hard time finding shock mines. Are they an Engineer thing? I've been looking all over, including Shinrarta Dezhra...

They are definitely at Shinatra - its where I got them - they only come in size 1 - the proximity damage mines come in size 1 and 2 - if u can fit a size 2 that is.