I can't help it, i have to rant... This games cheats so shamelessly

captainhelmet

C
I took some mission to deliver x to Y and I have this fer de lance at master rank that keeps interdicting me. Here is what happens and how many times it cheated:

  • Of course the game, only spawns it on the last jump and as usual it waits until I am right near the station before it interdicts (just make it that bit more annoying).
  • I submit, boost and jump out. But by now I've taken heavy damage. It appears again in SC and instantly interdicts me, even when facing the opposite way. It spawns out of nowhere in SC right behind you and instantly interdicts.
  • It wins EVERY single interdiction, the game is obviously programmed this way (for other reasons you will see next). I have tried submitting and boosting, I have tried playing the mini game and failing waiting for FSD failure cooldown to reset then jump to SC again however yet again it instantly appears behind me in SC.
  • After submitting I have even jumped out the system and then come back but the whole process above starts again, EXACTLY when I'm a few seconds out of the final SC drop on the station...hmm.
  • Simply put the game is making sure there is no way I am going to run from it. I even tried getting out of the shipping lanes and coming in from roundabout way but yet again it spawns right behind him.
  • Now to me, that sounds terribly like cheating but I have saved the best for last...
  • Since there is no way I can fight the FDL in my ASP I resorted to logging out the game when it interdicts me. I load the game back up and as soon as I enter SC it appears again. So I can't use this...
  • Since an interdiction pulls you back to to the FDL location I decided that now each time I see it spawn I will drop out SC myself before it interdicts me. This way I can make some ground towards to the station with each jump/drop from SC - it is insane I have to resort to this and so tedious! But even this won't work! As soon as I see the FDL spawn I drop the throttle but as I'm sure you know you have to drop your speed to a certain speed before you can safely drop out. But low and behold, what a surprise, JUST as my speed drops to the safe level I have my finger over the button and I'm interdicted....which pulls me back again.
  • Eventually after about 10 log outs and back in I make it to the station and as the message pops up to drop out safely at the station I press it. As the animation is playing where it transitions from SC to normal space this take about 2-3 secs, on about the 3 second mark it interdicts me again! How is this possible?!?! Cheating. You can clearly see a pattern here - The game is not going to let me get to that station no matter what. It is like the game knows you haven't been blown up for a while and decides you are due a set back and it will do everything to make sure it happens.
  • Eventually I dropped out successfully and was flying to the station and the FDL jumped in. The station killed him for me. I did what I needed to in the station then left. Jumped back in to SC and it spawned again! So yet another cheat. It wasn't a different FDL btw, he had the same name...

Honestly, FDEV really need to sort themselves out. It is beyond frustrating what I had to go through and the things I had to resort to to get there, which still didn't work. It is lazy programming and simply cheating. I will now go back to the game and log in and out another 20 times and hopefully I'll get there...
 

captainhelmet

C
It gets better.... I just went to a new system. He followed me of course and did the same thing. Anyway I was in SC and so was he but he hadn't interdicted me yet and behind me I might add. I dropped out at a NAV beacon and he was there! Just sat there doing nothing. God, there was be thousands of him all over the galaxy!
 

Robbie84

Robbie84
Did you ever stopped to think that it is actually a she and simply cant resist you? Space is cold...

Anyway, it happens. And almost every point you made has happened to me multiple times. I guess FDev implemented this way because making it more diverse would require more coding in a few aspects of the game. Maybe 2.2 fixes atleast 30% of the main issues.
 
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Miko_Stargazer

Miko_Stargazer
A dedicated pirate that is specifically targeting you is a feature of some cargo missions. What rank was the mission? If you accept missions that are higher difficulty than your rank you often will run into ships outside your class.
 

wenkman

wenkman
Npc behavior is bugged, but so is their combat AI.

if you don't want to play their (npcs) game equip mine launchers, but I'm not sure they work in an ASP with the HP placement.

boost away after submitting, the npc always follows in a straight line. Harass him with mines.

i think in 2.2 the combat AI will change, but I also think the interdiction behavior will change too. FD is aware of the issues.
 

Zebaoth

Zebaoth
This game started out as something wonderful.

In early beta you'd really have to consider your actions,
missions that paid out 6 digit numbers were rare,
hull repair costs could reach rebuy value.

Now with community goals dishing out up to 9 digit numbers,
missions paying out well above 3mil and the recently introduced RNG^RNG engineers they might as well rename it to Elite: Ridiculous.

On top of that it's hilarious how they reduced the wonderful combat AI we had in horizons beta,
add the hilarious scripted interdictions that ONLY take place when you're on a mission/carrying cargo or engineer goods like the OP said,
and having certain ships (like eagles, cobras) follow my 50ly jumping anaconda just to spawn behind me after every jump...
This just can't be excused as a feature.

The AI doesn't follow the same rules as the player, which makes for an odd experience.

In terms of authenticity this game arrived at the level of a corridor shooter.
 
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JynxTheMerc

JynxTheMerc
Had this happen to me rather recently, when I was running data missions and earning the 25 modular terminals for marco.

Needless to say I wasn't too pleased when the same duo of Annie's chaining the interdictions, and eventually costing me the 18 terminals I had saved.

It's kinda a pain in the butt when you have high value cargo getting chased by npcs
 

Crimson Kaim

Crimson Kaim
Here are ways to work around the NPCs but then i had the case that upon dropping in a degraded emission (threat 0) all those NPCs spawned at once with ine Anaconda two FASs and one Python. This is because they spawn and have a Spawn-Shift-Drive which are inaccessable for players. No need to drop in and follow a wake, they can simply select coordinates and spawn-jump there.

"Design".
 

rrobes

R
The chain interdictions are tied in to the mission. You can't avoid them. The only way you will survive is with a hardened modded ship. The way to get there is by bounty hunting to accumulate CR to get better ships, avoid cargo, it's a sure NPC magnet.

Farseer first for dirty drive and fsd then Tod for some modded MC's with experimental effects. If you don't, you will be at a disadvantage ALL THE TIME.

I got a Vulture, then an FAS, then a Python. The Python is the one that will start you getting the economies of scale on your side. And you will need to unlock the Engineers.

Once you get that modded Python, you will look forward to interdictions or run away cleanly.
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
I agree with op that the mechanic of certain scripted mission related spawns should be changed.
The inescapable spawning of interdicting enemies on your tail should be changed. It is too gamey, too annoying and unrealistic too. If it happens one in a million times it would be fine, but the chances of it happening all the time should be near zero.

Another problem are the mission related ships that follow you over hundreds of light years. If you have over a dozen long range missions it is impossible to know what mission is spawning the attacker. So you cannot react to the threat by delivering that cargo first.
Furthermore the attacker keeps spawning endlessly if you cannot destroy it. I have had the same pirate spawn at least a 30 times. He was in an FDL. I was in a trade fitted Cutter with light shields and hull. There was no way I could destroy him and there was no way he could catch and destroy me.
I think FD should stop these kinds of repeated attacks after 5 or 6 interdictions or so. I think a real pirate would understand after 6 consecutive failures that he can't do it, that there is no chance in hell he will ever catch his target. To keep interdicting 25 more useless times is just absurd and incredibly annoying.

I also would like a bit more clarity about the interdiction mechanic. It happens often that I think I have clearly won an interdiction fight and then suddenly I still lose it. I have no idea what is going on, what influences this. Is it a bug? It might be fun to fight interdictions once in a while, but because of this I never do anymore. I just submit and boost. That works fine, but I would like to get the feeling that I understood the interdiction mini game. Currently I don't seem to.

I also would like the game to recognize that when you have taken a lot of missions, that it might be better not to let them all spawn scripted attackers.
Some mission spawn 4 attackers each. If you have 10 missions and half of them spawn attackers then you will be attacked 20 times. And that is not even taking into account the random non-mission related attacks that will happen too.
The game should be able to recognize this and tune down the attacks somewhat.


The station killed him for me. I did what I needed to in the station then left. Jumped back in to SC and it spawned again! So yet another cheat. It wasn't a different FDL btw, he had the same name...
Click to expand...

This is surprising. Having been in the same situation many times I noticed the opposite. My attackers never respawn if they are destroyed.
I also noticed that FD build in a random delay of the enemy re-emerging into supercruise after you ran from him in normal space. I think this works quite well. Most of the time I can reach my station before he gets to me.
 
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Grumpy181155

Grumpy181155
I had something similar happen to me that sent me to the rebuy screen.
Firstly I was interdicted within 2 seconds of entering the system by an Elite mission generated NPC in an Anaconda while I was carrying mission cargo. So I immediately submitted and then high waked out to another system and I waited there until my shields recharged and just before they did I saw that he had followed me so I dropped down out of supercruise and selected my mission system and waited for him. As soon as he dropped down I high waked out to my target system but he caught up with me and interdicted me again but this time I was really close to the station I wanted so again I submitted and this time I attacked him and I won the battle because when he jumped out as the police arrived he was down to 37% hull while I was down to 90%. Because I was so close I decided to not wait for my shields to recharge and jumped back to supercruise. I was immediately interdicted again by the same NPC only now he is back to 100% hull and full shields so I submit BUT the computer does not recognise I have submitted and so I have the long wait before I can then high wake out to a different system. By the time I jump I am down to 75% hull. The second I arrive in the new system I am interdicted again by a random NPC for my cargo and again I try to submit but again the system does not recognise it and this time I can't jump because of a malfunctioning FSD. So I dump all my cargo and the NPC replies with a statement something like 'good choice' but then he continues to destroy me before I can reset my FSD.

I actually like the mission generated NPCs as they add a touch of drama to the missions; what I don't like is they are generated by the instance you are in. They need to be persistent, so if you leave him in a different system he needs to wait for his FSD to cool down before he can jump; if he runs from combat with his shields shredded and his hull at 37% he should keep that hull damage and his shields should not magically repair themselves as soon as you jump back to supercruise. I would suggest that if FD staff were playing their own game they would know this.
 

Lenin

Lenin
After numerous times of being killed by Gareth Edwards in his FDL (and all his clones) for trying to carry 21 tonnes of washing machines, I had the bright idea of buying double the quantity. I was pulled out of Super Cruise near my destination by yet another Gareth Edwards clone, gave him the cargo, he stopped shooting, took the cargo and hyperspaced away!
Success!
Get back into supercruise and... 1 second later, pulled out by Mr Edwards again and destroyed.

A lame game mechanic but I AM SURE FD will fix this in the next update - I guess getting the AI to work is harder than it seems.
 
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fransoos

fransoos
Y5Vzhkx.png


there are more npc's with the same name :eek:
 

Parmo

Parmo
fransoos said:
http://i.imgur.com/Y5Vzhkx.png

there are more npc's with the same name :eek:
Click to expand...
The Random Name Generator must have used a range of [0.5, 1.5) for this instance.
This thread is a good argument for having and seeing ship IDs. It would help players to identify, describe and produce evidence for this 'spamming interdictions by same NPC' behaviour on missions.
Has FDev acknowledged there is a problem here?
 

Stupid_hippy

Stupid_hippy
Not one mention of system security here.. Use them.

They'll either kill it outright for you or at least get it into a fight while you jump away.

Or mines? another very easy way to run yet still get an attacker off your back.

Or you could just rant on here some more, whatever works for you. :)
 

Luponator

L
Lenin said:
A lame game mechanic but I AM SURE FD will fix this in the next update - I guess getting the AI to work is harder than it seems.
Click to expand...
I am SURE, too. If I had a dollar for every time someone says 'I am SURE FD will fix this in the next update' and nothing happens I'd book a nice holiday in the Caribbean...
 

Cosmo

Cosmo
Can we get an official response from Fdev?

The NPCs need more depth that we can respond to interdictions with multiple options.
 
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