AI Attacking During Explosion Animation

[philngraves]

I realize this may seem like a rant, but it is a tad troublesome. Anyone who bounty hunts experiences this at some point or another. You kill the enemy, feeling triumphant, and are about to hit the contact panel for your next victim... when you notice the dead ship, in the process of exploding, is still pummel f'ing your ship. Gunships are my arch nemesis in this, as they seem to get a good 5 full seconds of constant firing after they 'die' but before they 'die to death'. I even lose fighters to these jokers.

Now I'm not saying they are too hard... honestly, with a fully engineered ship even a wing of elite pythons is a snack. But the sheer annoyance of this constant, unavoidable damage is highly aggravating. It makes bounty hunting a bit of a battle of attrition on my shields. Often I take more damage from the death animation firing than I do during the fight.

So, in conclusion, I would enjoy seeing the npcs balanced a bit more (buff the elites, tone down anything <master) and make them stop firing so damn much after they are already dead. If you wonder why I say tone down those less than master, a great deal of these clowns are packing dumbfires and rails, which make some of the newbs I train squooshy debris in space until they can get some engineering up and running.

Also, space pets... maybe a ferret tube set that takes up a bunch of bobblehead slots... have a few weasels and whatnot running around while I fly.

 

[Irie 3030]

+1 for everything you said. except for space pets, maybe.. i don't train space pets!

EDIT: also it's usually Condas doing the zombie assault for me

 

[CMDR Crumpeteer]

Eh I always thought it was a pretty cool feature. The ship might be in the process of exploding, but as long as the weapons are still in one piece, why shouldn't they keep firing for a few seconds?

 

[Morbad]

Since NPCs don't eject from doomed vessels, I don't really have any problem with this.

If you decline to have your CMDR eject from a stricken vessel, you should have the same extra few seconds to attack before you have to make a new CMDR.

 

[thirstyfish]

Eh I always thought it was a pretty cool feature. The ship might be in the process of exploding, but as long as the weapons are still in one piece, why shouldn't they keep firing for a few seconds?

Sounds like guys calling the constipation you get after eating an MRE a "feature."

 

[Valorin]

No space pets please. The cats we have at home give a perfect example of why that is a bad idea by stumbling across the keyboard hitting boost while docking or standing in front of the screen, looking at screaming me pretending they don't know what's happening while I am flying into a sun... Space pets are dangerous!

 

[philngraves]

Eh I always thought it was a pretty cool feature. The ship might be in the process of exploding, but as long as the weapons are still in one piece, why shouldn't they keep firing for a few seconds?

While I do partially agree, that they can maintain control enough to get a bead on me and pound the hell out of my fighter/wing mates/shields for up to 5 seconds (thats half the duration of chaff btw) is a bit of a crapshute. It is usually not enough to care about, but with a Gunship/Conda and the myriad of hardpoints, I find it less 'murshun' and more PITA. After writing this earlier, I nearly had a wing trainee in a cobra III get wrecked as the dying gunship trained all his hardpoints on the barely B rated ship. I have no idea why he prioritized shooting him, and watched as he hit 0% and yawed a good 40 degrees to attack him.

Your post is on point though... I would be fine with the systems 'cooking off' and just firing forward until death. Night of the living gunships, however...

 

[thirstyfish]

No space pets please. The cats we have at home give a perfect example of why that is a bad idea by stumbling across the keyboard hitting boost while docking or standing in front of the screen, looking at screaming me pretending they don't know what's happening while I am flying into a sun... Space pets are dangerous!

What about a fish tank? A la Mass effect?

 

[mp4x]

Even dying and dead bodies twitch and move as the last broken signals attempt to reach limbs.

If the ship is exploding and the relevant modules(power distributor and hard-point) are still above 1%, than I'm fine with shots fired.

 

[Slayer Jesse]

its also annoying that your crew pilots will continue to attack a dying ship. Especially if they're flying your main ship and wasting your ammo.

 

[Aashenfox]

I don't mind this 'thing'. As others have said, if hard points and distributor are not dead, why not? I also find it morbidly satisfying to pummel an already dead opponent until they finally do explode, so I guess I can't really have any complaints if they try to fire back. lol.

Also, no artificial gravity in the cockpit means no space animals.

 

[Skyjack]

Xihe robotic pets with magnetic paws

 

[Crank Larson]

Eh I always thought it was a pretty cool feature. The ship might be in the process of exploding, but as long as the weapons are still in one piece, why shouldn't they keep firing for a few seconds?

I tend to agree here. Until the ship is in pieces, it should be considered a threat.

 

[CMDR Crumpeteer]

While I do partially agree, that they can maintain control enough to get a bead on me and pound the hell out of my fighter/wing mates/shields for up to 5 seconds (thats half the duration of chaff btw) is a bit of a crapshute.

Wait, does that actually happen? In my experience NPCs always go into a spin when they hit 0% hull, the weapons only track you if they are gimballed and within their arc, or turreted. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The way I always imagined it, the pilot's chair is the escape pod, so he can keep his finger on the trigger until it's disconnected. While he would have no thruster control, anything within the firing arc of non-fixed weapons would still be tracking until the big kaboom.

 

[Stigbob]

Sounds like guys calling the constipation you get after eating an MRE a "feature."

That is a feature, it's just not intended to benefit you. Soldiers who don't poo for a few days have less hygiene issues in the field, need less support, need less food and are harder to track by smell and "leavings".

As long as you rotate them back from the field before everyone starts "moving" again it's a great idea. From the viewpoint of the higher ups who don't have to eat MRE's, and appreciate the simplifying effect on troop management.

 

[philngraves]

Honestly, calling it a feature is rather pretentious... Why then does a Gunship sometimes take up to 5 seconds to explode? Anacondas take a bit longer for dramatic effect, and always have. They also tend to tumble and stop firing for the most part. Those damn gunships though... They frequently 'tumble' in the perfect arc to keep a firing solution on your ship during their obnoxiously long death. Why, then, do they not just give them a free 5% hull? Why have to watch them pummel my fighter and shields/hull knowing there isn't a damn thing a player can do but eat seven hardpoints until the game feels like the npc can finally die?

And there is no point arguing that we eject... If we couldn't then elite wouldn't be a game. Arguing realism in a futuristic space simulator under the premise that the distributor is still functional disregards the fact that the AI don't suffer from malfunctions short of temporary disabling of modules at 0% or scramble spectrum. If you really want realism, dying in the game would call someone to come to your house to set it on fire with you in it... Realism is something that can be argued indefinately as it is largely subjective and, short of actually living, will never fully be 'real'.

I just feel that if you successfully defeat an opponent, that opponent should not get a free grace period to try to murder you post-mortem based on what ship they fly.

Also, space pets, especially space weasels, sound awesome. Keep them zero-G and have them freak out and run around all panicky when your canopy blows out.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I had a pretty epic battle with an Anaconda I'd decided to take on, with just 1/2 a ring on my own Anaconda.

After an oddly difficult time trying to kill him. I finally got his hull down to 0%, and sat smug as I watched the fireworks, with my shields likely at 0.1%.

Then just before the explosion, he fires off 1 more PA and knocks my shields offline. Lol

 

[philngraves]

I had a pretty epic battle with an Anaconda I'd decided to take on, with just 1/2 a ring on my own Anaconda.

After an oddly difficult time trying to kill him. I finally got his hull down to 0%, and sat smug as I watched the fireworks, with my shields likely at 0.1%.

Then just before the explosion, he fires off 1 more PA and knocks my shields offline. Lol

Had this a week ago with a gunship (prompting this discussion) with 4 dumbfire racks, one PA, and 2 beams. After hitting 0% and still taking shots, he managed to mag dump his missiles and PA into my conda without a miss.

On the plus side, If you run 8 point defense on a conda, and pan out while they fire, you can pretend you are a star destroyer... made me quite giggly.

 

[StiTch]

Eh I always thought it was a pretty cool feature. The ship might be in the process of exploding, but as long as the weapons are still in one piece, why shouldn't they keep firing for a few seconds?

Yeah, exactly this.

I like the natural feel of ships still trying to nail you in their dying throes.

 

[Dale Emasiri]

I've always seen this as a feature of being a last-ditch effort from the NPCs as they explode with their ship. I'll speak with some of the designers and make sure that this is indeed intended, but I believe it to be so. If you're going to be little bits in space, you're likely to going to do everything you can to make someone else little bits in space too.

Xihe robotic pets with magnetic paws

But then if they say "What is my purpose?" what will you tell them? "You sit on the dash!" perhaps? Cruel!

I had a pretty epic battle with an Anaconda I'd decided to take on, with just 1/2 a ring on my own Anaconda.

After an oddly difficult time trying to kill him. I finally got his hull down to 0%, and sat smug as I watched the fireworks, with my shields likely at 0.1%.

Then just before the explosion, he fires off 1 more PA and knocks my shields offline. Lol

You really shouldn't have been so complacent after the fight was 'over' right!? "Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite."