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
"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"
- in most cases you will find, that somebody claiming AI attacked with engineered weapons was in fact referring to the warning of "thermal atack" (plasma, railguns) and that other one, which is triggered by cannons...
Yes, the ship's warnings concerning 'thermal attack' or 'impulse attack' just refer to tiny heat generation or impulse caused by unmodded plasma or rails respectively.
They really should be removed as they cause confusion.
I have met Elite NPCs with engineered weapons. This is pretty easy to tell. Per example there is a thread around here now about a guy that got wrecked by an Elite Cobra which was blasting him with canons and making his ship fly off by the blast. How does that sound to you? Force Shell or not? It's 100% clear that NPCs at high rank are using HIGH RANK of engineered weapons and fits in general. About the low rank ones who knows. It's hared to tell there because they might be sneaking grade 1-2 upgrades and no specials on weapons to tell if they are packing engineered stuff.
But Force Shell on a Cobra can't make a ship fly off because Force Shell on c1 or c2 cannons does next to nothing.
Unfortunately most PvE players do not use recording software but I am unaware of any video post 2.1.0 that shows an NPC using a special effect.
Yes the higher ranked ones sometimes have modded weapons because you hear a signature voice attack. It is harder to determine whether they have modded shields etc. by their nature.
No, see above, as Goemon already said. You will get 'thermal attack' and 'impulse attack' warnings because plasma imparts a tiny amount of heat to your ship and rails impart a tiny amount of force.
This is a constant source of confusion and really should be removed.
I do sometimes encounter deadly or elite npc's that give me a "warning! thermal attack. gaining heat" thing. Not really a problem and I never actually even had to pop a sink because of it, but it does seem to indicate at least some engineered weapons - you should only get that warning if being hit by thermal shock.
See above. Don't pop the heat sink, it's just stock plasma raising your temperature by some unnoticeably small amount.
If NPC's had specials we would see phasing damage v hull, we would see dispersal cannons disrupting our gimbals, we would see target lock breaker on plasma, our shields would go down to reverberating cascade torps or mines, we would see corossive and emissive, we would see our SCB's blocked by feedback cascade .... no.
Until someone somewhere posts a vid with bug report, NPC's don't have specials since FDev purposefully removed them in 2.1.1.
