NPCs have Unlimited SCBs?

[Schmack]

Was fighing a conda tonight (deadly) in my Vulture, and I swear it popped a dozen SCBs or more before it finally turned and left. I dropped it's shields once, but they were back at full strength in an instance, no timer, nothing. Every time I would get it to one ring, up they would come. I checked the loadout and saw only one SCB. It was odd because the prior 2 I killed were deadly as well and the shields dropped like normal, and took a while to recharge. Not this one.

Also, a Clipper chased me for about 25k, I circled back and so did he. Then he just turned into a "!" and when I went back after him he was headed out with hard points stored. I lit him up, and he turned and for the rest of the fight he never redeployed his HPs. He just tried to ram me to death. Reminded me of that old game Galaga where you could withstand wave after wave of attacks, then shoot the specific two ships before they were able to make it down to the bottom (first pass), and the rest of the time the ships wouldn't shoot at you. 256 levels that game had

So limitless SCB and it seems missiles on NPCs? Never noticed before.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

They don't have limitless SCB's. Either you found a bug, or in the heat and excitement of battle, you miscounted.

 

[Hadarmil]

It feels like it sometimes... had a couple of times in CZ that a cutter had a presumably endless supply of SCBs. After a while I just had enough and went killing something else, then when I returned it's shields were already down.

Couldn't make up my mind if it was endless SCBs fixed by NPC fire or they just had a whole lot of them. Expect furious "git gud" comments coming though.

 

[rrobes]

The SCB's aren't as bad as the chaff.

Some those NPC's must have 99% of their total weight in chaff charges, and they are smalls, so how many can they carry?

 

[Stealthie]

So limitless SCB and it seems missiles on NPCs? Never noticed before.

Unlimited? debatable.
Implausible? Almost certainly.

Said the same thing myself a few days ago.
I was sent after a Pirate Lord who turned out to be flying a Cobra 3 so I figured I'd let my SLF pilot space him.
After a little while, I noticed the Cobra was spamming SCBs.
I let the fight continue and I counted him using SCBs fifteen times before I got bored and finished the job.

With 6 slots, the Cobra must have had shields in one slot, which leaves 5.
Conveniently, both 2B and 4B SCBs provide 4 recharges each so 5 slots would make for a maximum of twenty recharges (of different values, of course).
Taking into account that he probably used 3 or 4 recharges before I noticed he was spamming SCBs another 15 would have meant he used 18 or 19 in total.
Which just about manages to scrape under the wire as being feasible.

Course, whether it's plausible that anybody (especially an alleged pirate) would fly a ship that's so crammed with SCBs that it has no internal space for anything else is debatable.
Maybe it's something that a bounty-hunter would do?

Similar thing with missiles.
When you're doing Palin's missions, you sometimes get attacked by groups of 3 pirates in FGSs.
One of those pirates will probably be spamming missiles.
In my Anaconda, fitted with a pair of PDs, I'm pretty-much immune to regular missiles but, even so, the "fight" with those pirates can seem to become a "battle of wills" where I start off determined to see just how many missiles he's going to shoot at me before he runs out but, after a couple of minutes, I lose interest and finish him off because there's no sign of him running out of ammo.
Again, though, missiles can be synthesized so, theoretically, this FGS jockey might have a huge heap of mat's so he can synthesize a heap of reloads so you'd probably have to wait a long while before you could say, categorically, that he was "cheating".

Mentioned this before, as well, but the closest I've seen to a definite "cheat" was the Anaconda I found which could restore his broken shields to full in about 10 seconds.
I was flying my Cutter which had, at the time, a C4 beam laser and 2 C3 beam lasers and it took me a fair bit of effort to break his shields.
That would seem to suggest the Anaconda's shields were pretty strong - which should, in turn, suggest that once broken they'd take a considerable time to reboot.
I suppose, theoretically, the ship might've been fitted with, say, a C5 bi-weave shield which was supported by spamming SCBs, which'd explain why it took so much effort to break and might help explain why it came back on line so fast.
Again, it's theoretically possible but it's not terribly plausible that somebody would equip a ship that way.

Even so, it's shields came back up so fast that I'm pretty sure that was a "cheat" of some kind.
At best, I'd say he was able to reboot his shields while still retaining control of his ship rather than being dead in the water like we are while rebooting.

 

[YinYin]

Mentioned this before, as well, but the closest I've seen to a definite "cheat" was the Anaconda I found which could restore his broken shields to full in about 10 seconds.
I was flying my Cutter which had, at the time, a C4 beam laser and 2 C3 beam lasers and it took me a fair bit of effort to break his shields.
That would seem to suggest the Anaconda's shields were pretty strong - which should, in turn, suggest that once broken they'd take a considerable time to reboot.
I suppose, theoretically, the ship might've been fitted with, say, a C5 bi-weave shield which was supported by spamming SCBs, which'd explain why it took so much effort to break and might help explain why it came back on line so fast.
Again, it's theoretically possible but it's not terribly plausible that somebody would equip a ship that way.

Even so, it's shields came back up so fast that I'm pretty sure that was a "cheat" of some kind.
At best, I'd say he was able to reboot his shields while still retaining control of his ship rather than being dead in the water like we are while rebooting.

A bi-weave would be recognisable by colour and name inside the module list. I've never seen an NPC use one.

What's more likely and possible is that his SCBs were engineered for faster recharge and he was double banking on top of that (using two at the same time).
(yes - high rank NPCs have modifications)



edit: for the topic itself - I've seen NPCs obviously run out of cells multiple times (banking ~10 times, always when the shield dropped to one ring and then hanging on forever on less than one ring)

 

[Stealthie]

A bi-weave would be recognisable by colour and name inside the module list. I've never seen an NPC use one.

Fair comment.

I'm really just trying to think of ways to give these ships the benefit of the doubt.
My Cutter was, at the time, fitted with an un-modified C6 shield and it took a helluva long time to reboot after being broken.
There's no way in hell this Anaconda's shield was taking that long to reboot so it was either cheating or, hopefully, had a smaller shield that it was supporting with SCBs.

I was jousting with this ship, I'd break his shields, we'd pass and his shields would reboot and be back up to full strength in the time it took me to do an FA-off half-loop.

If I was being critical, I'm pretty sure that it shouldn't be possible for enough SCB charges to be completed in that time to top-up a C5(?) shield to full - much less for the shield to reboot and then be topped-up by SCBs.

It's not really a big deal for me.
I kind of like that there are ships out there which you simply can't always best in combat, depending on what you're flying yourself.
I just wish they'd find more subtle ways of doing it.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I was jousting with this ship, I'd break his shields, we'd pass and his shields would reboot and be back up to full strength in the time it took me to do an FA-off half-loop.

That sounds like the bug/feature (not sure which) where if the SCB is in the recharging phase (as opposed to the preparing phase), you can't break their shields until it's done, but any surplus damage you deal over the SCB recharge bleeds through to the hull.

 

[tagos]

It’s always seemed to me that some npc ships were basically chaff launchers and SCB’s with an engine strapped on the back.

 

[Cmdr Lucca1985]

Wasn't there a mr burns style sinister email recently from fdev that this was going to be the case. Npcs being defaulted with heavily engineered loadouts and more clever AI

 

[YinYin]

It’s always seemed to me that some npc ships were basically chaff launchers and SCB’s with an engine strapped on the back.

Some definitely are if you peek at their sub targets. A feedback cascade will allow you to ignore all of it.

 

[Deareim]

They have as much SCB's than chaff's...

 

[Arthur Shappey]

I've notice NPCs running out of Chaffs and SCBs regularly. HOWEVER, I have also noticed that they don't seem to use their chaff or SCBs in NPC to NPC battles, which means that when I engage them they always appear to be fully loaded...

Is this cheating? Actually I think it is good tactics on the NPCs part. I am clearly a tougher opponent than any other NPC in the HazRez, so the NPC is saving its best stuff for me. A player might do the same.

Isn't this whole debate a bit moot anyway? The NPCs AI is still far too easy to beat. There are far too few situations where a player really needs to run away.

 

[Stealthie]

Isn't this whole debate a bit moot anyway? The NPCs AI is still far too easy to beat. There are far too few situations where a player really needs to run away.

Trouble is, that tends to exacerbate the problem.

If an NPC was a tougher opponent you might not have opportunity to consider whether or not they're "cheating".
As things are, you can sit there in a half-decent ship and watch as your target dispenses more chaff than a firework display, fires dozens of missiles at you or spams the SCBs.

If the NPCs are going to be easy meat, they might as well get rid of these wacky loadouts so we can, at least, dust them without cringing at these shenanigans.
Conversely, if the NPCs are going to be tougher to kill, they might as well get rid of these wacky loadouts because the NPCs shouldn't need them any more.

 

[Qohen Leth]

I like how the only distinctive character of Elite NPCs is the amount of chaff they throw at me. Yes, staring at you, """""""Elite""""""" Vipers.

 

[Arthur Shappey]

...
Conversely, if the NPCs are going to be tougher to kill, they might as well get rid of these wacky loadouts because the NPCs shouldn't need them any more.

I don't see why these are seen as "wacky" loadouts - in fact, they seem unusually effective against typical player loadouts. The only thing missing is that the NPC isn't quickly realising they our outclassed and running away.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

NPCs only have infinite multicannons ammo I think. (And maybe a few other ammo based weapons)

They all have limited chaff, heat sinks, and SCBs, etc.

People just tend to forget that a chaff launcher will hold 11 chaffs. And most NPC's don't last that long. Lol
So when they say "endless chaff spam" they actually mean, "I killed them before they ran out".

If NPC chaffs are bugging you, fit a missile launcher and target their chaff launcher.
No more chaff.

If an NPC is spamming SCBs, check their modules, chances are they have more than 1 of them fitted.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Apos]

NPCs would never cheat, except when they do.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

Was fighing a conda tonight (deadly) in my Vulture, and I swear it popped a dozen SCBs or more before it finally turned and left. I dropped it's shields once, but they were back at full strength in an instance, no timer, nothing. Every time I would get it to one ring, up they would come. I checked the loadout and saw only one SCB. It was odd because the prior 2 I killed were deadly as well and the shields dropped like normal, and took a while to recharge. Not this one.

Also, a Clipper chased me for about 25k, I circled back and so did he. Then he just turned into a "!" and when I went back after him he was headed out with hard points stored. I lit him up, and he turned and for the rest of the fight he never redeployed his HPs. He just tried to ram me to death. Reminded me of that old game Galaga where you could withstand wave after wave of attacks, then shoot the specific two ships before they were able to make it down to the bottom (first pass), and the rest of the time the ships wouldn't shoot at you. 256 levels that game had

So limitless SCB and it seems missiles on NPCs? Never noticed before.

That's why Vulture's only 2 hardpoint is a somewhat of a pain.
On other ships you just need 1 railgun with Feedback Cascade - and done, no more SCB spamming, or rather to say, no SCBs at all.

 

[d8veh]

I've seen a lot of NPCs using SCBs in the RES, but never noticed one with more than three. The trick is to give them everything you've got when they get down to one thin ring. Put 4 pips to shields and ram them at that time if you want to shorten the battle.