Cool!! Also any chance for that link to Mark Allen's post?
I think with this it might be complicated due to the peer 2 peer networking.
But to put it in a simple scenario, if you NPC is chasing YOU, like the scenario behind the scenes being a NPC has been paid to hunt you down, it definitely should persist hull damage, shields, shouldn't it. (of course shields will recharge over time, or it may actually be possible the NPC has shield cells but that she behave "correctly".
I think in the image support pretty much say what I said above, that they believe this issue is fixed with 2.1? So clearly there is an admission that was broken and health should persist and they've sorted it all out?
Actually then again Mark Allen's post might be talking about something else?
It's kinda hard to see what support are replying to there :
"More of a feature, the NPCs will be respawned at the new location."
But my reading of that and given their comment above, I suspect support are just being honest about the implementation....
NPC's don't persist, they spawn and respawn, is just how the game is. In that respect NPCs spawning "fresh" is just a "feature", but it's also it's clearly a bug (or at least something that should be fixed).
support is confused because this has been such a long standing bug. Not quite sure how far back but ever since I started back just before 1.3, this issue existed - it is just more obvious and magnified with 2.1
the difference is back then it was acknowledged as a bug, or perhaps this one support person is new or made a mistake calling it a feature.
The issues are a bit separate:
1. NPC full heal - long standing bug due to the way game creates instances. All player states are preserved between moving from one instance to another, but all NPCs are respawned.
what does respawned mean? It means NPC state - damaged, shield down, whatever - is reset to a 'new' copy of that NPC being created in the new instance, and this NPC has default state which is full hp, shields, etc
fpr example - as far back as my start at 1.3, if you fought an NPC in a system, but then you jumped away or NPC escaped / jumped away, then you were no longer in same instance as NPC. You could "see" his wake trail, you could give chase and find him deeper in system somewhere, but he would now be a respawned fresh version with full heal.
they never fixed this,,and I am guessing it has been so long this way that by now support mistakenly thinks it is a feature
2. Spawn at me - this is where 2.1 magnifies it but it also existed long before 2.1
when an NPC "chases" you, other than the time you are in name instance with him, the NPC doesn't actually travel,,use fuel, spend time, etc all the things a player does.
He simply teleports and spawns at your location, hence called spawn at me ability. The magnified issue with 2.1 is that asked on RNG an NPC has chance of spawning to interdict you if not doing missions but carrying cargo, or a chance if doing delivery or sourcing missions
the problem is that assigned NPCs like these mission related NPCs, do not travel to find you, they just use the spawnet at me ability. So whenever the game RNG says they should have found you - e.g, the 'hey there's the ship with the loot we heard about' speech we hear so much - it spawns the NPC at your location
the problem with 2.1 is this NPC will spawn in current system, interdict you, maybe you fight and some damage to him - a little or a lot, doesn't matter. Because if he lives, when you escape or jump out to next system to get away - surprise, there is a chance that the RNG says assigned mission NPC intercepts you again - and now the bizarreness begins-
you just jumped away from a system behind you, where NPC Bob was damaged and behind you - but when you exit your hyper jump, you see NPC Bob already there in front of you, saying 'oh look, there's the ship with the loot we heard about'. Because he was spawned at your location, and of course now full healed as well.
until they allow for persistent damage to stick with NPCs across instances and respawns, you get the current meta: one rule for players, another for NPCs ( other prime examples like NPCs that can jump farther than max LY distance of the ship they are in, never need to stop to refuel or scoop, etc)
before 2.1 when NPCs were so dumb, all of these advantages were needed just so NPCs could barely be half even. But now that NPCs are so much more competitive, it's why these old bugs are now much more relevant
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