The death of the fighter pilot.

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

OP you forgot to add a Poll to your post....

 

[DukeIronHand]

Escape pods are a myth. Both you *and* the NPC crew member are killed when your ship is blown up. There are no escape pods for anyone. YOU respawn because it's a Videogame and you're a paying customer. NPCs die because they can't complain on forums.

Obviously I try to avoid getting blown up, and it's been a while, but isn't there a "Eject, eject" audio that plays as it happens?

 

[Kizbot]

AI Crew (or the CMDR) pilot the ship launched fighters remotely so they survive if the fighter is destroyed. They'll die if your ship is destroyed.

This doesn't seem odd to you? Since when were pilots so expendable when escape pods would be so cheap..

Anaconda has 3 seats in the cockpit but only one escape pod? I don't buy it.

Yet neither the CMDR nor any NPC passengers would - as they all have escape pods.

Exactly, what makes passengers more important than npc pilots?

There are two reasons I can think of for FD's position on this.

1) Death is pretty painless in this game once you have any kind of time invested in this game. This will keep you a little careful - and less likely to do dumb things - if you lose the combined experience of your NPC on destruction.

2) In a few short months, and assuming you don't die, space will (would be?) filled with Elite level NPC's flying these fighters all over. NPC death on destruction will keep the overall NPC skill level down.

Or so go my thoughts - otherwise they become like an autocannon (permanent fixture of your ship that gets better with time) that you just buy ammo (fighters) for.

I see what you are getting at, but not sure I completely agree that permanent fixture is a bad thing. The curve for them to reach elite would definitely need to be a shallow one though.

Escape pods are a myth. Both you *and* the NPC crew member are killed when your ship is blown up. There are no escape pods for anyone. YOU respawn because it's a Videogame and you're a paying customer. NPCs die because they can't complain on forums.

This made me chuckle, but as a serious argument I'm not sure I can accept this. We know escape pods are in the Lore, we have picked them up in missions and such.

I brought this issue months ago...... the death of a npc crew member via ship destruction is only going to make the combat logging issue worse. I may be more understanding for perma npc death if there were not so many mechanics for players to troll in open with or bugs that result in ship destruction beyond their control.

Sorry I didn't see you make that original post, You got a link? I would quite like to read it for the comments.

OP you forgot to add a Poll to your post....

I resisted, despite it being really fashionable right now.

 

[Oldric]

There should perhaps be a chance of the NPC crew being hit once the shields are down and the players ship is taking hull damage. Some people are gonna log anyway, but it would to some extent negate the benefit of high level crew if they were to log earlier.

 

[Kizbot]

It'll be interesting to find out if enemies will be able to target your fighter module in their subsystem targeting. No reason they couldn't I guess. Is the npc supposed to piloting the drone from the cockpit or from inside the fighter module? If this module is destroyed then shouldn't the npc pilot be killed as well if that's where he is working from?

 

[Siranui]

There should perhaps be a chance of the NPC crew being hit once the shields are down and the players ship is taking hull damage. Some people are gonna log anyway, but it would to some extent negate the benefit of high level crew if they were to log earlier.

That's massively negative thinking... but actually viable in many ways. If crew could literally be shot in the head with a railgun round as a damageable component once shields are down, it would indeed randomly kill off crewmen in a way that combat loggers could only avoid by logging the moment their shields are down.

It's a harsh price for every member of the community to pay for the actions of the cheats, though. For that reason, I don't see it as practical, nor a move that would be embraced by many.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Wait so you pilot AI fighters from the cockpit but AI crew have to man them.....whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa???

 

[Robert Maynard]

Wait so you pilot AI fighters from the cockpit but AI crew have to man them.....whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa???

Nope. The NPC also uses tele-presence to pilot the Fighter.

 

[Ericlas]

Yet neither the CMDR nor any NPC passengers would - as they all have escape pods.

And exactly this fact makes the dying NPC-crew-member-mechanic so lunatic.
EVERYONE on board...except those fine three (?) gentlemen(-women) has an escape pod...because...well...reasons.

Give them a pod, make them re-hirable exclusively for this CMDR and make it truly expensive.
CMDR: 'Hey there, remember me? Ready for another ride?'.
Pilot: 'Oh hell no! You better have some solid arguments to get me onboard your ship again! And by solid I mean loads of credits!'

CMDR has no creds? Start over with a freshman.
CMDR wants his Elite(?) fighter pilot back? Better make sure he can afford it.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The way I see is that fighter pilots don't really die, they just decide your a bad captain/risk who almost got them killed, and they don't want to play with you anymore. Once their pod gets rescued, they change their name and move to a distant system.

Although it would make no appreciable difference to the outcome, that explanation sits better with me - as opposed to the NPC being the only one in the ship not to be provided with an escape pod.

 

[Siranui]

And exactly this fact makes the dying NPC-crew-member-mechanic so lunatic.
EVERYONE on board...except those fine three (?) gentlemen(-women) has an escape pod...because...well...reasons.

CMDR has no creds? Start over with a freshman.
CMDR wants his Elite(?) fighter pilot back? Better make sure he can afford it.

Credits are meaningless for experienced players, though. They are no barrier. A rebuyable NPC is for all intents and purposes immortal. And that is an issue, because they become simply another thing that can be ground for and then kept as a permanent resource.

I'm good with the idea that pilots are very lucky to manage to eject and/or not get sold into slavery if picked up. We never see ejected NPCs from anything we shoot down, after all. We get to buck the odds because we are the player, and that privilege does not automatically extend to all NPCs.

 

[Truesilver]

There should be a random "npc skill" based chance of them dying/surviving.

Maybe a random chance that the pilot wants to re-sign on with you

Maybe have a spinning wheel of fortune in the rebuy screen with little blue and red, 'alive' or 'dead' markers on it? And a 9% chance that your NPC comes back not just alive but with bionic eyes??

Cmdr Huros mate, while I give you full credit for making constructive proposals, any more praying to RNGeezus would for some us be a fate worse than (NPC) death.

 

[Jex =TE=]

And exactly this fact makes the dying NPC-crew-member-mechanic so lunatic.
EVERYONE on board...except those fine three (?) gentlemen(-women) has an escape pod...because...well...reasons.

Give them a pod, make them re-hirable exclusively for this CMDR and make it truly expensive.
CMDR: 'Hey there, remember me? Ready for another ride?'.
Pilot: 'Oh hell no! You better have some solid arguments to get me onboard your ship again! And by solid I mean loads of credits!'

CMDR has no creds? Start over with a freshman.
CMDR wants his Elite(?) fighter pilot back? Better make sure he can afford it.

So presumably, in the ED universe we're meant to believe that having crew members that have skilled all the way up aren't worth giving a lifeboat to? Who's going to take these jobs? Who at FD is writing this absolute nonsense? Why wouldn't I spend the money to keep my well trained crew alive and as we know, death in ED is the most trivial thing ever.

 

[Kayweg]

Escape pods are a myth. Both you *and* the NPC crew member are killed when your ship is blown up. There are no escape pods for anyone. YOU respawn because it's a Videogame and you're a paying customer. NPCs die because they can't complain on forums.

That will do just fine for me, well said.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Originally Posted by Kaocraft View Post (Source)
Escape pods are a myth. Both you *and* the NPC crew member are killed when your ship is blown up. There are no escape pods for anyone. YOU respawn because it's a Videogame and you're a paying customer. NPCs die because they can't complain on forums.

That will do just fine for me, well said.

That's not the game however - you get revived, it's nothing to do with a video game - they clone you and you come back to life.

 

[Cosmos]

So a guy who interdicts and fights yet loses, also loses his trained-up NPC buddies, whereas a guy who interdicts and fights, then logs, gets to keep them?

Any excuse to justify a combat log (including: for the LOL's, "griefing the griefer", "I'm time poor", "I don't fight OP heat builds", "I have the sniffles) can and will be used by the cheaters in question.

The scum should all be shadowbanned.

Frontier need to do something about the level of cheating thats going on in game. Combat logging is so ubiquitous now you've got folks boldly saying they do it and encouraging others to do so even on the forums. This and all the credit exploits that went un tackled is making the game into a ratship of cheaters and exploiters.

As for the NPCs.. if they didn't die it wouldnt be long before everyone had an Elite wingmen all the time. Believe it or not, not losing ones ship in this game isn't that hard and there really isn't any need to cheat either.

Edit: What FD need to do at this point is gather data on folks who are combat logging and at a point in the near future give them all a three week ban (putting them in solo), and make a very public notice of how many people have been caught... Repeated offences after which should see an escalating system of punishment, the most severe being to remove their access to pg and open permamently.

I think we'd see an end to combat logging over night after that.

 

[Truesilver]

Frontier need to do something about the level of cheating thats going on in game. Combat logging is so ubiquitous now

What really worries me about the NPC fighters development is that it risks creating / encouraging a fresh tranche of cheats.

At present we have those who don't want the rebuy and those (far more common in my experience) who couldn't give a rats about the creds but perceive a death as defeat and a cheat as a draw. The billionaire sidey-slaughterer loggers, in short.

However, this mechanic introduces a new siren call: mah NPC's man, whut about mah NPC's!

 

[Cosmos]

What really worries me about the NPC fighters development is that it risks creating / encouraging a fresh tranche of cheats.

At present we have those who don't want the rebuy and those (far more common in my experience) who couldn't give a rats about the creds but perceive a death as defeat and a cheat as a draw. The billionaire sidey-slaughterer loggers, in short.

However, this mechanic introduces a new siren call: mah NPC's man, whut about mah NPC's!

Well Sandro did suggest that raising the NPCs rating would be quicker than what it takes for us, since we are likely to lose them from time to time.

You're right though it will be another reason for cheaters to cheat. As I said, FD need to sort this out, its getting ridiculous.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Repeated offences after which should see an escalating system of punishment, the most severe being to remove their access to pg and open permamently.

What you are touching on could also tie in with the hell mode that FD discussed in the KSer/Dev Diaries... for what ever reason FD have since chosen not to go through with it, however such a hell mode could also have serial CLers dumped in it as well.

As ever tho, I know some refuse to distinguish "Dirty" CLers from "Clean" Menu Loggers. Now, I am not going to give my opinion on that, but just say that, agree or not FD have stated Menu logging is an acceptable action at any time, so, with this in mind, it is not reasonable imo to expect those people to get punished in any way.

the Dirty ones however, you may get your wish one day... .... who knows tho?

actual defacto cheaters, modifying the game to give them advantages, either with maxed crew, or any other cheats which may have been used in the past... personally i do not understand why there is any tolerence of this. So long as FD can be sure, then imo it should be CMDR wipe/account ban, and if that player wants back then they can buy the game again.... More cash for FD

 

[Kizbot]

Nope. The NPC also uses tele-presence to pilot the Fighter.

Now this.. in all the pictures I have seen of the fighters, they all have cockpits. With pilots in them.

The best part about real life drones is that they don't need to have these fragile canopies when some external cameras do the job.

Are we sure they are drones? Was there any official statement on that? I missed it if there was.