Horizons balanced NPCs?

[Abadd]

I am a relatively new player, so please take that into account.

A few minutes ago my python got interdicted by a cobra mkIV. I set 4 pips to shields, and started blasting away.

The cobra was armed with some kind of fast traveling explosive weapon, which would make my ship spin around on hit. Within the first few hits my chaff was disabled. Since I run with 2 shieldboosters, I was surprised to see my chaff go down so fast.

No problem, 2 large multicanons and 3 medium lasers would surely wear his ship down. Our shields went down at the same time. By the time I was 50% hull, most of my weapons had malfunctioned. My opponent, at 6% hull, seemed to have full operation of all his weapons.

So I gained an 8 mil rebuy and lost my carefully farmed and hoarded exploration data, foolishly thiking an expert cobra mkIV would be doable.

Feels very bad, had intended for a binge today but think I'll just pass on the game for now.

 

[Lightspeed]

It's a complaint that many of us have. The NPCs are fitted with very fancy weapons that do too much damage too quickly.

The intention has been that if you are relatively low rank, you won't get set upon by high ranking and highly armed NPCs, but that appears not always to be the case. What rank are you?

If you are in a Python, did you buy it too soon, before you gained combat skills in a lesser ship, such as a Cobra III or Viper? Sounds like 4 pips to shields is not a good way to go into battle - you have to vary your pips according to what you are doing and you need some for WEPs to keep the firing damage going.

Practice in a less expensive ship that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg to replace

 

[zimms]

Yeah, "new player" and Python looks a bit odd to me. Then again, times have changed.

 

[Gerrard Adkinson]

The point of Engineers was to give us an extra "edge" against NPCs and other enemies. But what is the point of engineering your ship for WEEKS when all the NPCs above midrank have fully engineered ships, no malfunctions, 100% hit ratio on fixed weapons, unlimited ammo for guns/scb/chaff/etc and physics bending flying skills. And for all this they didn't grind...

Basically we have to play Casino RNGROYAL for a month so that we have a chance against a line of code. Splendid! [wacko]

 

[RobLocksley]

I don't want 'balanced' NPCs since that is a gamemechanic that I quickly grew blasé about; and modded away in games that let me.

But I do want NPCs to have a good reason to intercept you and somekind of justification that they know what you got in your hold. This is an area of the game that has been implemented very simply, in terms of 'life' and 'belivability'.

But it sucks that you didn't get away this time - don't let it get you down though

 

[goemon]

The point of Engineers was to give us an extra "edge" against NPCs and other enemies. But what is the point of engineering your ship for WEEKS when all the NPCs above midrank have fully engineered ships, no malfunctions, 100% hit ratio on fixed weapons, unlimited ammo for guns/scb/chaff/etc and physics bending flying skills. And for all this they didn't grind...

Basically we have to play Casino RNGROYAL for a month so that we have a chance against a line of code. Splendid! [wacko]

you might want to check your facts:

"Reduced the number of engineer mods on AI ships substantially, now only Deadly & Elite rank ships are guaranteed to have mods and any below Master are guaranteed to have none"

here are the last notes from FDEV on this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/267702-NPC-AI-Update-2-1-03-and-beyond, https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/267701


... also, as somebody running scramble spectrum, i can tell you, that NPC have malfunctions (most visible from cargo hatch and thrusters malfunction).

the hitrate with railguns is very impressive, and unfortunately addressed in a future update (i love my npc crew with double railguns on a keelback).

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Excellent stuff OP. Nice to see smaller ships giving players a challenge.

And sounds like they had canons with Force Shells... man, i love that special effect. Use it myself sometimes.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

One of the core issues with NPCs is, that they retain nearly 100% offensive combat capability even when down to 1% hull.
(can easily be confirmed by checking their SubSystem status)

So while a Player Ship down to 25% Hull is extremely likely to suffer from a wide array of Module malfunctions (crippling both offensive and defensive capabilities) and maybe already have one Module dead at 0% - that same NPC will be found happily blasting away at full galore.

Another issue is, that NPCs don't suffer from the 70% Power Plant initial malfunction at all. The same Power Plant on a Player Ship will cause temporary loss of all Systems for a ~10sec duration.

Essentially, the NPCs use very coarse approximations of the many effects the Player encounter when receving the same Damage, some side-effects however are either extremely muted or actually don't have any effect at all on NPCs.
(easily visible i.e. when an Anaconda NPC under attack using Thermal Shock Weapons fires off it's CapShip-class Super-SCBs while not even using any Heat Sink... the resulting Module Damage witnessed on such NPCs is absolutely minimal. A Player even in a cold Ship trying to fire a similar-sized SCB (requires a stack, since we can't fit a Class 10 SCB some NPCs apparently carry) will cook off that same Ship massively )

Finally, we don't have a Sandbox - but we run on Scripts instead.
Apart from allowing above "NPC flexibility", that's what allows i.e. a persistent Interdictor NPC which' Powerplant AND FSD you fired down to 0% and leave that NPC behind to appear back in SuperCruise - where it will re-interdict the Player. All while having a 0% PowerPlant and a 0% FSD

PS.
Haven't rechecked so far, but I wonder if my favorite "Super-NPC" is still around : NPCs able to repeatedly fire potent SCBs - despite not even carrying one

Anyway, we all know how the NPCs work and their "invisible tweaks" permitting them to pull off quite a few impossible stunts are common knowlege by now.
Plan and fly accordingly - and don't ever underestimate any NPC. That's the best one can do.
If anything, it >does< make them more challenging - and within reasonable limits I accept & welcome that.

 

[Joe Benotts]

I generally don't engage NPCs that interdict me these days because of the number of times I was pasted by them. Especially if they are rated above Master.

 

[Abadd]

Yeah, "new player" and Python looks a bit odd to me. Then again, times have changed.

By new I mean 220 hours in. I used to be an avid Everquest (MMO) player, so I understand things are supposed to take time.

Also by new I mean 'actively avoided exploits', meaning I am pretty poor, which is why this is such a severe hit to me. Had I done CEOS / SOTHIS runs, this would not have been an issue, but it would also have taken away from the experience of the game ..

Basically I have about 150 mil in total assets (131 mil in the python, about 8 mil in an ASP and a cheap cobra, small savings account), averaging about .75 mil an hour, I'd have to grind 10 hours to recover my loss.

I don't think an NPC flying a cobra at 6% should remain in battle unless its an extreme psychopath and its ship really shouldn't function as if at 100%. This combination makes the death feel undeserved, and in a game where design attempts to balance risk - reward so that it has a serious impact, undeserved deaths make me very unhappy.

Its not unreasonable to believe that a lot of players would just have combat logged, which avoids these kind of situations and makes the issue under-reported.

 

[Abadd]

The intention has been that if you are relatively low rank, you won't get set upon by high ranking and highly armed NPCs, but that appears not always to be the case. What rank are you?

If you are in a Python, did you buy it too soon, before you gained combat skills in a lesser ship, such as a Cobra III or Viper? Sounds like 4 pips to shields is not a good way to go into battle - you have to vary your pips according to what you are doing and you need some for WEPs to keep the firing damage going.

My combat rank is novice, trader is broker, explorer is at trailblazer.

As stated above, well over 200 hours ingame.

4 pips to shields is a standard for me while I kill-warrant scan smaller ships. I do have a grade 3 engineered 6A shield generator along with 2 shield boosters, this gives a respectable amount of shields, considering my limited options. Chaff further helps.

This is my current build, its missing my engineered shields, but I think with around 600 base shields, putting 4 to pips against smaller ships should be a reasonably decent strategy. (While I get my scan off that is, after that initial phase it changes of course)

- - - Updated - - -

Excellent stuff OP. Nice to see smaller ships giving players a challenge.

If you think this kind of stuff is "excellent", that is an opinion you are entitled to, but I don't think many will share it.

 

[NMS]

If you think this kind of stuff is "excellent", that is an opinion you are entitled to, but I don't think many will share it.

FD is lost in this. Since the launch of the game and with each new update they adjust this and continue always incorrect. Maybe one day they can implement this correctly.

 

[Tosan James]

I have stopped playing for now because I have lost too many credits for ship rebuys since the 2.2 launch. I am expert at combat and have about 800 + hours of play. I am not very good at combat, but didn't have any problems with 2.1. Since the update I have been interdicted while running missions by super OP anacondas at least 6 times. I thought that it was because of me flying a python, so I went back to flying the asp x. It didn't make any difference. These super anacondas destroy my ship with about 6 to 8 hits from their weapons. Literally in seconds with no time to run or even fight back. Something is very wrong with the balance. Since most things in the game now seem to be broken, I am considering doing some exploring. It is one of the things I have not tried. I love this game and want to be playing, so I wish they would fix all these known issues before introducing any more new content. Fly safely and Have Fun.

 

[goemon]

interdicted while running missions.

mission rank spawns npc accordingly; for risk management don't pick up missions above your rank, e.g. don't pick up elite missions or deadly or dangerous missions ... there is a red warbning in mission description if the mission is above your rank.

anyway, i always leave the bubble if i'm fed up with the state of game - so, i can really recommend that. my personal tip for a first trip is the eskimo nebula. it is below 1000 ly, and it is visually stunning.

 

[Tosan James]

Thanks GOEMON. I haven't actually payed much attention to the mission rank, because it didn't seem to matter much in 2.1, and because there were so few missions, but that probably is the problem. A trip to eskimo nebula sounds like a good exploration trip. I really had no idea where I was going to go for exploration. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Moonax IRL]

I have stopped playing for now because I have lost too many credits for ship rebuys since the 2.2 launch. I am expert at combat and have about 800 + hours of play. I am not very good at combat, but didn't have any problems with 2.1. Since the update I have been interdicted while running missions by super OP anacondas at least 6 times. I thought that it was because of me flying a python, so I went back to flying the asp x. It didn't make any difference. These super anacondas destroy my ship with about 6 to 8 hits from their weapons. Literally in seconds with no time to run or even fight back. Something is very wrong with the balance. Since most things in the game now seem to be broken, I am considering doing some exploring. It is one of the things I have not tried. I love this game and want to be playing, so I wish they would fix all these known issues before introducing any more new content. Fly safely and Have Fun.

I have never seen any SUPER anaconda`s, if you`re expert rank they should be expert or less, unless you picked up an Elite ranked mission. Regardless with 800 hrs in game, you'd think you would have learnt to look after yourself at this stage and survive interdiction's by npc`s, never mind Cmdr`s. With SLF`s there is even less excuse as you can hire an expert pilot to make up for your lack of piloting skills and give you even more time to escape unscathed.

 

[Tosan James]

I probably was picking elite ranked missions. I didn't pay much attention to the mission rank because in 2.1 I never had a problem with any npc sent after me. Maybe 2.1 was broken and this has been fixed with the new update. As for the anacondas, they were fully engineered at the least. They could out fly my ship in every way and the weapons were deadly. I have not done the engineer thing much because of the grind and the unknown outcome of the dice roll type application of your hard won commodities. I am just having a difficult time adjusting to the new update, and from reading the forums, I am not the only one.

 

[goemon]

I probably was picking elite ranked missions. I didn't pay much attention to the mission rank because in 2.1 I never had a problem with any npc sent after me.

actually you can only take mission above your rank since 2.1. - which many of us had a problem to adapt to.

and - from having a secondary non horizons (e.g. no engineering for me) account, i can tell you, while engineering your ships makes things easier, it is mainly about adapting. for exampel the first thing i did on both accounts was fitting a class 5 shield generator on my AspEs, and getting point defence. i had no problem with a class 3 from 1.2.-1.6. ... so yes, adaption is necessary.

what i really found usefull was taking a cheap ship to nav beacons to learn the new AI.

and then i left a bit for exploring

 

[Moonax IRL]

I probably was picking elite ranked missions. I didn't pay much attention to the mission rank because in 2.1 I never had a problem with any npc sent after me. Maybe 2.1 was broken and this has been fixed with the new update. As for the anacondas, they were fully engineered at the least. They could out fly my ship in every way and the weapons were deadly. I have not done the engineer thing much because of the grind and the unknown outcome of the dice roll type application of your hard won commodities. I am just having a difficult time adjusting to the new update, and from reading the forums, I am not the only one.

I have fought and destroyed numerous Elite npc`s, annies amongst them. You do need to engineer your ship for better survivability and weapons but in fairness Engineers are well worth the effort. Also the Grade 1 mods are very good for next to no effort so there is very little excuse, you can spam G1 weapon mods for special abilities. Since the revisit on Engs a lot of the grind has been taken out of the process and you can level up very quickly. Commodity storage is the big pain but It seems commodities could be done away with in the next revision.

So I would recommend a look.

 

[Tosan James]

Thanks Moonax IRL. I think I will give the engineers another go. After thinking about it, it probably would make the game more fun to have your ship updated. Also, if I am going to do exploration, I need to update the FSD on the ship that will be used anyway. Thanks.