So fed up with interdiction spam

[avow555]

Hmm, last night it was : Take off. 7 interdictions. Land. Take off. 8 Interdictions. Land. Take off. 7 interdictions. Land. Take off. 2 interdictions. Land. Logout.

This was seemingly from a large number of missions taken at once as I don't normally get anywhere near this amount. And almost all by the same NPC's. I even dropped from SC once to try and avoid them and, magically, two of the inerdictors were already there waiting for me when they were a few 100Ls away the last time I looked! It's wizardry I tells ye!

Yep, logout.
Problem is I can't be       to login again.

Was enjoying things till 2.1 /sigh

 

[Faded Glory]

I'm talking about players. You can't change the interdiction mechanic for the aggressor without taking into consideration how it would impact players who want to use it. If you make a failed interdiction attempt highly punishing, it'll just put players off doing it.

There's no reason to make interdiction more punishing (essentially, making any emergency stop more punishing, that's all it is).

Yes, I agree. And at the moment it is so bugged and punishing to lose an interdiction that many players prefer to submit and then do whatever they choose to do from there...

Make it work properly, give players reliable ways to minimise their risk if they choose to limit their routes, back that risk up with real safety, allow them to easily choose those routes, make the alternatives scale down in safety but give reasons for players to opt for the risky routes (ie missions to a low security destination always pay more, make very high rewarding missions demand that you avoid high security systems to remain discrete, etc).

You do all that and then you have the freedom to make submitting to an interdiction an absolute act of submission. Then, and only then, will fighting interdiction be desirable. And fun.

Obviously, if you lose the interdiction mini game, as the target, the current rules still apply (both emergency stop, the aggressor cannot use the FSD inhibitor).

Again yes, all your suggestions are sound. But as I said above, for me, the only time fighting (or indeed performing) an interdiction will be fun (again) is when the mini game is reliable. I went from above a 90% success rate when I interdicted, to about a 10% success rate. I don't think I got that bad. So I simply stopped engaging in that part of the game. None of my ships have an FSDI module, and if I am interdicted I never try to evade, simply submit, and I'd say about 90% of the time I stay and fight whatever interdicted me.

This anyway is slightly off topic from the main thread, which is regarding constant, unrealistic interdictions. Although I don't suffer from them overly much, I agree that when they do happen they become an annoyance or at least an irritation rather than a challenge. I particularly like how my interdictor only appears on my scanner after it has interdicted me.

 

[Mephane]

Yes, of course an average T6 hauler cannot hope to kill a pirate, a T6 is almost always going to be reliant on, either carrying cargo that nobody would want to steal, operating routes that do not pose pirate threats, or failing that being able to hold out until the police show up. There is nothing wrong with that, if the game gives the player the proper tools to be able to effectively manage their risk level. That is where the idea optional combat should come in, not the current B/LW/repeat mechanism we have at the minute. This is all totally do-able with rules in game.

Take for example, requiring police intervention. Once a pirate has been engaged by the police that should be the end of his threat to the player, the pirate should be left with exactly the same options the player has when the odds are that far against them. High-Wake or Die. Attempting to Low-Wake and interdict the player again should no longer be on the cards, the police should just do to him exactly what is happening to players at the minute, chain interdict, or in the case of my earlier suggestion, rip the guy out of super cruise and blow him to pieces.

But the hauler should need to be equipped to be able to survive this sort of encounter, they should at least have a shield, preferably one with sufficient mass coverage that it doesn't immediately collapse. They defiantly need a turret, and the skill to be able to keep an aggressor making evasive maneuvers and not just sitting there with a firing solution, wrecking the player before the police arrive.

But we saw during the AI buff at 2.1, a subset of players will not do that, they feel entitled to take Elite level missions, or haul Palladium through Anarchy systems, and I paraphrase "I'm not fitting a Shield Booster, I'm a hauler not a combat ship!". Just as we see here, with complaints about chain interdiction's, despite the multitude of exiting ways they can stop them happening, they wont, they will just complain about it until F-Dev does something about it. And as such the players who fly sensible builds are left with a rather mediocre game experience, just to cater to the min-maxers.

I think the proper solution should be in the security levels. Fly a T6? Stick to high and maybe medium security. Fly a fast light Cobra? Survive by your sheer speed in low security. Fully armed ship: try to take on anarchy systems.

This also means that you shouldn't get interdicted by elite NPCs in high security, that police response helps you immediately (as opposed to lazily scanning the player for contraband before even considering the actual pirate they were called for), and also that interdiction frequency and NPC type abundance in general should scale with security level: the higher, the fewer pirates (and the more police if you yourself are wanted).

 

[Ralph Vargr]

But we saw during the AI buff at 2.1, a subset of players will not do that, they feel entitled to take Elite level missions, or haul Palladium through Anarchy systems, and I paraphrase "I'm not fitting a Shield Booster, I'm a hauler not a combat ship!". Just as we see here, with complaints about chain interdiction's, despite the multitude of exiting ways they can stop them happening, they wont, they will just complain about it until F-Dev does something about it. And as such the players who fly sensible builds are left with a rather mediocre game experience, just to cater to the min-maxers.

Every trade ship I've ever built has had shields, point defense, boosters, and a hardened hull. Same for my explorers.

It's *is* bad game mechanics that are the problem. That, and the need for the testosterone rush so many players want.

 

[Queebatron]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but I used to be able to escape interdictions (follow the movements of the escape vector pip) easily 80% of the time before, and now 1) the NPC interdictor isn't even on the radar and hey presto! he suddenly is and 2) the pip now disappears and reappears randomly all over the screen, making it pointless to try to evade. It's nonsense.

And BTW, I don't run around sans shields or weapons, and I have fought off a few aggressors. The interdiction-evading minigame is broken now (I can't speak to the other end of it because I've always wanted the module space for other things).

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Once, when grinding for engineers, I tried fitting an interdictor to hunt pirates.

I found out interdictors only work for NPC's.

NPC's have the TPK 3302 Indterdictor module, modified to level 23 by Yaskoydray. It's marketed by Killer DM Enterprises.

+1 to knows who Yaskoydray is, and where Elite may have gotten a few pieces of intellectual property from...

 

[Cmdr Chaos]

+1 to knows who Yaskoydray is, and where Elite may have gotten a few pieces of intellectual property from...

My one time employer ...

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

I was wondering if the solution to this is to have no interdictions at all.

It would require more work on the missions to insert NPC's into normal space at specific mission points to spice things up but I don't think the game would suffer much. You want fights with NPC's? You have nav beacons, res sites and CZ's. The only thing that would suffer is piracy but that could perhaps be solved in normal space near space stations anyway.

Miners could mine, traders could trade, explorers could explore and combateers could combat. Perhaps you could have a few evil NPC's at USS's and near space stations. In the main I think everyone would be happier.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I've just fitted a bunch of lvl4 engineered mine launchers, all with experimental effects, on my Asp. I experimented a bit last night with NPCs after the commodities I had left.

- NPC destroyed. They didn't come back.
- NPC shields down and hull damaged. They came back but with the shields still down and hull still damaged.
- NPC with drives disabled when I low waked. They didn't come back, even when checking out some USS in the system.

These were random NPCs just after my engineer cargo. No missions or bounties.

I suspect that the repairing, or zombie, NPCs are due to stacking missions, as this is when I get these.

 

[CrushBug]

Hey, with all the defense talk here about interdictions, what is the best Utility mount to try and fend off attackers?

I have an Asp Explorer that I explore with (duh), and I have a few Heat Sink Launchers, but room for more. I mostly have been shot by lasers, nothing else.

What should I mount to help?

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Hey, with all the defense talk here about interdictions, what is the best Utility mount to try and fend off attackers?

I have an Asp Explorer that I explore with (duh), and I have a few Heat Sink Launchers, but room for more. I mostly have been shot by lasers, nothing else.

What should I mount to help?

Resistance augmented shield boosters, along with thermal resistant shields.

I've currently got four lvl5 augmented E-rated shield boosters and lvl5 thermal resistant 3D shields on my Asp. The shield strenth is low, but the resistance is high, plus the weight and power usage is low.
These shields have lasted OK so far, including when I accidentally disabled my drives with my own mines last night

 

[Queebatron]

Hey, with all the defense talk here about interdictions, what is the best Utility mount to try and fend off attackers?

I have an Asp Explorer that I explore with (duh), and I have a few Heat Sink Launchers, but room for more. I mostly have been shot by lasers, nothing else.

What should I mount to help?

I think that in theory, chaff works against lasers (gimbaled ones anyway). In practice, who knows. Everyone seems to swear that dropping mines is the way to go against NPCs because they're too dumb to avoid flying into them.

 

[Achuta]

The worst part about Interdictions is that I can't seem to escape them anymore. Sometimes I'll be doing really well following the vector and the ship will just suddenly flip to the wrong direction and I can't realign in enough time to get the blue bar back up. I don't know if this is a bug or "feature."

 

[Ozzie F Isaacs]

I think the proper solution should be in the security levels. Fly a T6? Stick to high and maybe medium security. Fly a fast light Cobra? Survive by your sheer speed in low security. Fully armed ship: try to take on anarchy systems.

This also means that you shouldn't get interdicted by elite NPCs in high security, that police response helps you immediately (as opposed to lazily scanning the player for contraband before even considering the actual pirate they were called for), and also that interdiction frequency and NPC type abundance in general should scale with security level: the higher, the fewer pirates (and the more police if you yourself are wanted).

Mostly agree, however I still think the skill level of the NPC scaling to the player is probably the fairest way to do things, I prefer that NPC's in high sec are just a rarity and those that are there tend to use different tactics, such as limpet attacks. In high sec, they need to be in and out quick, in an Anarchy, they can kill you and pick over your corpse later.

I was wondering if the solution to this is to have no interdictions at all.

It would require more work on the missions to insert NPC's into normal space at specific mission points to spice things up but I don't think the game would suffer much. You want fights with NPC's? You have nav beacons, res sites and CZ's. The only thing that would suffer is piracy but that could perhaps be solved in normal space near space stations anyway.

Miners could mine, traders could trade, explorers could explore and combateers could combat. Perhaps you could have a few evil NPC's at USS's and near space stations. In the main I think everyone would be happier.

Oh god no! I'm a trader, I just happen to be a trader who wants the game to be a challenge not a monotonous grind. This would just finish the game for me! I shouldn't have divert my trader into combat zones, or res sites (ridiculous concept that they are) just get a bit of action.... that incidentally I can just press J and leave as soon as I feel challenged. It's a terrible idea and even if I went along with it, it still doesn't add any risk or excitement. Of course if they made it so that you jumped into the Nav beacons, or the combat zones were round space stations and you had to run the blockade, then we might be talking... but without risk, why play a space game with lasers, why not truck simulator?

I suspect that the repairing, or zombie, NPCs are due to stacking missions, as this is when I get these.

I suspect you are onto something there. I think I have seen them repair like that was when I had two after me at the same time.... actually thinking about it, if you have two mission generated after you, you don't tend to see them at the same time do you? You may get a mission gen and a random NPC at the same time, but the mission generated ones sometimes alternate if you lose them. .. The other time I'm sure I seen them repair themselves is when it was the police who damaged them, not me.

 

[Blackcompany]

-take up mission
-travel to target system and approach
-mission massage 'you get hunted'
-insta spawn behind you and getting interdicted
-submit and low wake because you have higher MLF
-repeat 20 times the last step until you approach the station

Why the hell should i leave the system of target after approaching? Why does the NPC don't realize,that he CAN NOT MASSLOCK ME and so never will get the cargo? Why does he continue the interdiction without any cooldown until i destroy him myself or highwake out just to return where i was?

This is a broken mechanic that needs to get fixed ASAP

OP is totally right to bring this point up. This can't brought up too often until it get fixed asap.

Not only is this a problem...its the main reason I left the game. Came back just tonight to the forums to see if, just perhaps, its been fixed yet. Seeing it hasnt...I will continue to just play other, far better games instead.

 

[Mindphaser]

Just got interdicted by Federal Navy Vessel (carrying Limpets for mining) when I was only a few seconds from dropping into the ring. I throttle down but of course I get FSD Failure. Quit the game. Good job FDev.

 

[Queebatron]

@Mindphaser, were you carrying contraband or something, or wanted by the Feds, or did they stop you just because they could?

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Just got interdicted by Federal Navy Vessel (carrying Limpets for mining) when I was only a few seconds from dropping into the ring. I throttle down but of course I get FSD Failure. Quit the game. Good job FDev.

my guess is the system is in lockdown. When this happens, the authority ships will sometimes interdict ships.

Throttling down doesn't happen instantly. Sometimes the interdiction still happens and you fail. If you are right next to a ring, you could end up hitting the ring and failing the interdiction. If you fight an interdiction just next to a ring, if you do it right you can make your opponent hit the ring and fail.

 

[CMDR Endincite]

Not much for complaint threads, but yes. For essentially every player beyond a fairly low level, interdictions are no threat at all. Just a constant, pointless annoyance and waste of time.

If they were rarer but actually remotely threatening - i.e. a wing of pirates who are actually capable of getting within firing distance? Alright, maybe that could be built into something mildly entertaining.

I'd settle for just plain rarer.

 

[veryinky]

I'm a combat elite in an engineered up iCourier with no cargo, just got interdicted by 2 pirates, one in a novice shieldless sidewinder and the other a harmless shieldless eagle. They still interdict me and demand my cargo. It was just nonsensical.

When I do carry cargo, any cargo, even just 1 ton of magnetic emitter coil like last night, I get repeatedly interdicted by elite fer-de-lance AND an elite federal assault ship. That 1 magnetic emitter coil costs about 50 credits, running a fer de lance for a minute costs more than in wear on the ship's "integrity" counter.