One of the more recent major updates (I think it was either 2.1 or 2.2) upgraded the combat AI of NPCs. We all immediately noticed how they behaved more aggressively, but only now has it become clear to me what has actually changed under the hood. For a long time I though my observations were just the result of high level NPCs in large ships having to fight me in also a large ship (Python), but after flying my Eagle again after so long I realized the same happens regardless.
NPCs will attempt to bring their forward guns to bear at all cost. No matter the opponent, no matter the difference in ship sizes or firepower, all they are concerned with is facing you head on and firing. Where formerly they would switch between different modes, e.g. jousting attack, evasive maneuvres, getting behind the opponent etc, it now seems these have all been replaced with a single maneuvre: ignore positioning entirely and care only about turning the nose towards the enemy.
This leads to various odd, sometimes hilarious, sometimes annoying situations:
* You will see small ships exchange fire head-on against much larger, more powerful ships, while they eat a lot of damage, too.
* They will utilize vertical, lateral and reverse thrust very proficiently, but only in order to turn around as quickly as possible with as little actual movement as possible.
* Since they do not attempt to avoid being in your line of fire, to the player it sometimes looks like the NPC is not moving at all (relative to the player's view).
* Remember when MOM announced that she had a solution against reverski? Well that solution turned out to be that NPCs now do the reverski maneuvre as well.
* When you are in a big ship, you can often literally sit there in a standstill and just fire away. Even a smaller NPC will not try to evade and fly around you primarily, they will stay in your sights, turning around to fire back.
* Agility and speed seems to have become less important, raw firepower and durability primarily determine the course of a fight most of the time.
While all of this makes the NPCs seem more aggressive, it also makes them seem much less intelligent and, more importantly, varied and flexible than before. I remember the old times when I had chases through asteroid fields, flying an Eagle or a Cobra, staying on a Cobra's 6. Now the Cobra might just reverski and not even attempt to get away or fly a loop around me.
NPCs will attempt to bring their forward guns to bear at all cost. No matter the opponent, no matter the difference in ship sizes or firepower, all they are concerned with is facing you head on and firing. Where formerly they would switch between different modes, e.g. jousting attack, evasive maneuvres, getting behind the opponent etc, it now seems these have all been replaced with a single maneuvre: ignore positioning entirely and care only about turning the nose towards the enemy.
This leads to various odd, sometimes hilarious, sometimes annoying situations:
* You will see small ships exchange fire head-on against much larger, more powerful ships, while they eat a lot of damage, too.
* They will utilize vertical, lateral and reverse thrust very proficiently, but only in order to turn around as quickly as possible with as little actual movement as possible.
* Since they do not attempt to avoid being in your line of fire, to the player it sometimes looks like the NPC is not moving at all (relative to the player's view).
* Remember when MOM announced that she had a solution against reverski? Well that solution turned out to be that NPCs now do the reverski maneuvre as well.
* When you are in a big ship, you can often literally sit there in a standstill and just fire away. Even a smaller NPC will not try to evade and fly around you primarily, they will stay in your sights, turning around to fire back.
* Agility and speed seems to have become less important, raw firepower and durability primarily determine the course of a fight most of the time.
While all of this makes the NPCs seem more aggressive, it also makes them seem much less intelligent and, more importantly, varied and flexible than before. I remember the old times when I had chases through asteroid fields, flying an Eagle or a Cobra, staying on a Cobra's 6. Now the Cobra might just reverski and not even attempt to get away or fly a loop around me.
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