Horizons Interdiction madness ruining my game

[gizmo6023]

Interdiction is part of the game but it has been abused to a level that goes beyond reason.

System KATO, Independent, Anarchy, I expect a bit more harassment but what I got is ridiculous.
In a thirty minute span I received 6 direct messages (tasty cargo, I've come a long way, ect) from pirates that do not show up on the scanner but magically appear within interdiction range directly behind me just before I hit the drop distance on a USS.
5 interdictions while in cruise one second there is nothing there the next NPC spawns on my six and locks on.
6 interdictions when jumping out of USS, 3 announced intent to have cargo, 2 just spawn behind and lock on.
The two USS I was allowed to drop into were listed as Degraded emissions 0 threat, I guess that means cloked condas and FAS are no threat[sour]

Why am I playing in Anarchy systems you ask..... well intelligence reports indicate you can find Chemical Manipulators in USS in these systems and I just happen to have a need for some. Yes I have read that they are handed out as mission rewards, I believe that to be less than accurate intel as I have never seen them offered.

 

[Col Blair]

I think it tuned up too high also. I've even got interdicted with no cargo. If I want combat I'll go looking for trouble but I get trouble when I'm not looking for it. I just recently got interdicted by 2 NPC almost at the same time. Avoided one got tethered by the other and that wasn't an anarchy system. I'll get interdicted just scanning unknowns. I don't mind getting chased once in a while but I feel like I have a bounty on my head when I don't I don't know if it's because I'm friendly with some factions and unfriendly with others. I'm friendly with the feds, and cordial with the other 2. Anyway its more forced engagements than I would like also.

 

[d8veh]

Certain missions have attached NPCs that will chase you when you have the mission cargo on board. if you don't want interdictions, avoid those types of missions. Smuggling and ordinary delivery missions are relatively free from interdictions, but any mission that involves going to fetch stuff will have persistent interdicting NPCs attached to them.

 

[Commander Makro]

Certain missions have attached NPCs that will chase you when you have the mission cargo on board. if you don't want interdictions, avoid those types of missions. Smuggling and ordinary delivery missions are relatively free from interdictions, but any mission that involves going to fetch stuff will have persistent interdicting NPCs attached to them.

That's true, but I ran an information delivery mission the other day that didn't mention anything other than the standard "You may be attacked by NPC's" in the mission brief. When I arrived in my destination system, the mission was updated with a "By the way, kill this dude, will you?" message. This dude then proceeded to inderdict me at every opportunity (I'm in a fast cargo/info runner config - no weapons). After 5 inderdictions and little hull plating left, I go to the station.

So, even missions that don't tell you about attached NPC's sometimes have them!

 

[Otherwhere]

Yeah, mission NPC interdictions are broken. I had one of those who immediately interdicted me the moment I arrived near the star at the destination system. I submitted and escaped. He interdicted me again, so I turned to try and fight. Fortunately, he wasn't as bad ass as most NPCs I get interdicted by, but when I got him down to 38% hull, he wakes out. I let my shields replenish, then jump back into SC. BAM! Immediately interdicted again, and he's back at 100% hull! Screw this, I put 4 pips to SYS, boosted away, and low-waked. Bam! Immediately interdicted and attacked. I low-wake out, knowing this is a mission-generated NPC who will hound me no matter what, so I dropped out of SC before he could interdict me, jumped back in a little closer to my goal station, drop, jump back on, 5 times before I am in the station zone. Then I waited outside the No Fire Zone. When he showed up, me and 4 System Security took him out.

The mechanic is broken. It doesn't work the way it should, and Frontier really needs to fix this before I'll invest in any more additions.

 

[x76]

I was surprised to be running a mission for a certain faction only to be interdicted not once but twice by members of that same faction. Figured it was not going to help my rep by trying to bag them. Hit boost a few times while I charged up and escaped.

Last week I got wiped out four times, boom, boom, boom, boom so fast I couldn't identify the attackers. Glad I had credits for insurance.

 

[gizmo6023]

No mission, only cargo is required for engineer upgrades, not hostile to anyone . I guess being elite adds to the madness as most interdiction are from elite NPC driving combat ships, my stripped down Asp explorer is no match for these hotrod ed ships. Finally got the manipulators and a 44.3 Ly jump range headed back to the nutron fields to become filthy rich...er.

 

[Krezan]

The interdictions in this game are lol. Like fruity german pilots, tail gunners were there for a reason.

 

[SirDavros]

There are a lot of interdiction, you're right. I suppose they're there mainly to keep things interesting. Definitely attached to certain missions types. If you don't want so much combat though, maybe there should be an option to turn them off or down if you're playing in solo..

 

[d8veh]

One other point I forgot to mention: If at any time you get the message about tasty cargo or similar and the pirate doesn't interdict you, you will meet him as soon as you drop out of supercruise - at the station, USS or wherever. That means that to avoid having to deal with him when you need to pick up something for the mission, you can either jump to another system and back again, or you can make it easy for him to interdict you and fight him on your own terms.

 

[Zoran Voloshin]

I log out and then log back in...

 

[gizmo6023]

Just to see what that method produced I logged out as soon as I received the threat and restarted, seven of ten times within 20 seconds of low wake I received the same or similar threat, just a bit over the top for my liking.

 

[gizmo6023]

There are a lot of interdiction, you're right. I suppose they're there mainly to keep things interesting. Definitely attached to certain missions types. If you don't want so much combat though, maybe there should be an option to turn them off or down if you're playing in solo..

I wouldn't mind the madness as much if there was a snowballs chance in Hades of evading them on a reasonable basis, not the case in an anaconda or any other ship I have messed with, could just be that in the eleven plus weeks of time spent on this game I have not yet learned to fly.

 

[gizmo6023]

One other point I forgot to mention: If at any time you get the message about tasty cargo or similar and the pirate doesn't interdict you, you will meet him as soon as you drop out of supercruise - at the station, USS or wherever. That means that to avoid having to deal with him when you need to pick up something for the mission, you can either jump to another system and back again, or you can make it easy for him to interdict you and fight him on your own terms.

I have been issued a wanted status on more than one occasion for scanning the pirate issuing the threat, that is if they are visible on the scanner, then dropping to force the fight only to have his status change to unscanned as soon as he dropped in and got wasted. Screwed up mechanics don't help you can't attack a known wanted NPC because he changed instances in the game and wiped the wanted status, just like the pirate that low wakes out then re interdicts you with full health seconds after you pummeled him to near oblivion.
Gotta love the deep dark loneliness of exploration no stinking NPC to interrupt your game, last signs of civilization are the extremely rare USS or POI on some deserted planet.

 

[Mike Reacher]

Gotta feel for you all. I had a helluva time in the first 6 months of play. (All solo) And FD making the NPC's super powerful had me running poor for a long time.
ATMO I am having a reasonable time and slowly working towards a Python.
I think the programmers are a bit air-headed at times. When I complained in the past, I kept getting "That's the way it's meant to be played" rubbish.
I like playing slow and steady in any game. I hate it when when some .... tells me to play his way!

Tail gunners? Want some ... want some ...

Only just thought of it! If you can't see an NPC on your radar, then they can't see you either. Another stupid anomaly from FD.

 

[Danieljoe1]

Try getting interdicted INTO a planet! Almost to orbital cruise when the interdiction happened, I "failed" the escape, when I stopped spinning, INSIDE the planet. Ship blew up when the surface textures rendered as I tried to exit. Logging did no good, I was still deep in the planet core........ $130k lesson to give in when that close to a planet, but make sure Im facing open space (at least, I hope thats what I would need to do)

 

[Ozzie F Isaacs]

Danieljoe, that happened to me once. Quit the game and reload into standard Elite without Horizons and it will teleport you back to orbit.

Only just thought of it! If you can't see an NPC on your radar, then they can't see you either. Another stupid anomaly from FD.

AFAIK we don't detect ships with Radar, it works of thermal signatures.

 

[Blackcompany]

Certain missions have attached NPCs that will chase you when you have the mission cargo on board. if you don't want interdictions, avoid those types of missions. Smuggling and ordinary delivery missions are relatively free from interdictions, but any mission that involves going to fetch stuff will have persistent interdicting NPCs attached to them.

Which is a hopelessly stupid and immersion breaking system. Especially when they just magically appear from nowhere behind you.

The flight engineering group did a great job on the flight model. Now please make them turn the product over to a proper GAME development team before the finish ruining it...

 

[Mike Reacher]

Danieljoe,

AFAIK we don't detect ships with Radar, it works of thermal signatures.

Okay, but our thermals stuff should be equal. Not fudged in favour of the interdicter.

 

[Atzumo]

Since the last update, I have heard the typical threats from NPC but there's no one on the radar. One time, I was interdicted shortly after by no-one (no-one on the radar, no-one on the contact screen), and I submitted to see what was up. To absolutely no-one surprise, no NPC showed up no matter how long I waited, so yeah, pretty         broken since last update.
I haven't had this happen to me since 2.1, but sometimes, while scooping a star during a smuggling or cargo mission, I would get an NPC threat, so I'll haul ass to the next system. But, for who knows what reason, less than a second after I get to the system, I would get interdicted by the very same NPC, which would get canceled as we were too close to the star (then I would have to use a heatsink to manage a high-jump without exploding from the heat). I assume that the interdiction process started by the NPC would not get canceled by something silly like jumping 20 light years away.