3.0: Please get rid of ATR's "magic modules" - there are better solutions

Elethiomel Zakalwe

E
There are other ways to make cops tough without giving them modules that don't actually exist. You don't need to artificially inflate their stats. You have other tools already at your disposal that would make them just as effective.

I know some people will say, "was expecting CONCORD, got CONCORD," but honestly I do not think it is the right solution for Elite. I've always liked that Elite didn't really make a distinction between the players in the universe and the NPCs. You're just some random pilot flying your ship. Every tool that was available to an NPC, was also available to you, and vice versa (although they did tone down NPC engineering because people didn't like it for some reason.) Suddenly throwing in super-cops with artificially inflated stats breaks that. Really, all they'd have to do to achieve the same effect would be 1) increase the numbers and 2) give them real engineered weapons that actually already exist in the game, not magic pulse lasers and nigh-invincible shields.


For example, send in eight wings of fully engineered FDLs based on current PvP builds, backed up by a few wings of engineered Corvettes/Cutters/Anacondas and a few wings of speed-vipers equipped with reverberating cascade torps that maneuver in front of you and bomb you. Then give them half the current response time for good measure.


So really, it's not the fact that ATR are super tough that I take issue with; it's that they achieved that by giving them magic modules when there are more creative solutions that do not destroy immersion that I take issue with.
 
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NecasekO

N
That would be nice, but unfortunately it's not possible.

1. There are technical limits (both processing power and networking) to how many ships there can be in one instance. If a busy instance already has 20 NPCs and 10 CMDRs it's simply not possible to add another 20 ATR ships without the game becoming a slideshow or introduce serious network lag.

2. More ships will just get in one another's way and become less effective beyond some point.

3. No weapon in game can reliably take out 5000+ MJ shields in a reasonable time. And since FDEV gave up on balancing ship hitpoints, magic is required to destroy top-end ships quickly enough for ATR to be relevant.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Elethiomel Zakalwe said:
I've always liked that Elite didn't really make a distinction between the players in the universe and the NPCs. You're just some random pilot flying your ship. Every tool that was available to an NPC, was also available to you, and vice versa (although they did tone down NPC engineering because people didn't like it for some reason.)
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Well, I'd object to that statement, on three fronts.

First, it's not true. Ever since FD made the decision to allow the "hollow squares" radar distinction and the special CMDR ID tag, there has always been the distinction between CMDRs and NPCs.

Second, NPCs already have access to things we can't access. Capital ships, for example. I, personally, would have preferred the ATR responders to have been a wing of capital ships, each armed with Class 20A shields and class 20A turreted railguns. But that's just me. NPCs can also access space stations with batteries of super-powerful, never-miss, kill-ships-quick weaponry.

Finally, I think it's entirely reasonable and expectable that the military have weaponry that's vastly more powerful than the civilian population. They're the military, for pity's sake, the actual military, not some snivelling ragtag mercenary "auxiliary navy" they let us affiliate ourselves with. It seems to me that they'd have some secret military-only weapons to be deployed against particularly nasty targets when the regular military gets overwhelmed, be they enemy military units or rogue civilians. If the "general public" on 21st century Earth drove around in horribly beweaponed personal battleships, I would expect my country's military to have advanced weaponry with enough firepower to be able to bring any psycho or criminal driving one into line. Else, what's the point in paying tax dollars and having a military at all?
 

Ambroza

Ambroza
NPCs have been able to do things that we can't and use modules that we can't since the very beginning. Gimbaled railguns, for example. Also, I don't think your proposed solution of simply sending in 40+ ships is particularly creative...
 
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ForeverN00b

ForeverN00b
I'm with the OP, why can't they just be a wing of G5 engineered ships? Maybe not FDLs since NPCs cannot FDL at all, but vettes, vultures and vipers might make a good mix. I like the idea of reverb cascade torps (or mines, but I don't think the AI can mine).
 

Karunamon

Karunamon
Meh, more AI cheating on top of other AI cheating. They can also jump with no powerplant, drop from supercruise to their destination from full speed, gimbal their railguns, and so forth. That ship long since sailed.
 
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Falcon_D

Falcon_D
ATR have to be effective against a god modded CMDR or even a wing of god modded CMDRs, else they will be just another farming tool or CMDRs would just ignore them like they do the current security ships.
Even if ATR have new gen G5 modules, some of the legacy stuff can still beat them.
I’m with those that say ATR is a military arm, and unlike the pilots federation have access to mil-spec weapons and modules.

Also, I believe I read somewhere that in beta the Mistress of Minions made them uber powerful. But only for beta.
 

Mohrgan

Mohrgan
I think the ATR is designed for a purpose, not as flavor. Sending 4 engineered NPC FdL's after 4 engineered player FdL's, is the same as sending naked NPC's against naked players. That is to say: No threat at all. For the ATR to be anything more than incidental, it needs to be effective. Or, why bother?
 

Riverside

Riverside
I think modules more powerful than the engineers can produce is fine. The engineers are hacking off the shelf components, not the R&D departments of the manufacturers.
 

Azamo

Azamo
They are not meant to be content for people. Your not suppose to have a chance against them. They are meant to punish or change a way a person plays the game. Play nice and and you will never seem them. Play like everyone is your entertainment and you can do what you want... meet the ATR.
 

Adhock

A
Okay smart guy what's your answer?

You have one but your thread title implies multiple solutions.

I expect five diverse different answers. Otherwise you're no better then anyone else complaining about the game's 'shortcomings' and offering no solutions other then generalized "I have no idea what solutions I want but hopefully someone else will come up with something while I post a controversial topic where no one with an ounce of critical thinking would agree with me" text.

The people demanded more effective policing. Welcome to the age of 2.1 reborn.

Now they just need to undo the interdiction change of 2.2 or somewhereabouts so people can't break free without trying and we're good.
 

Tilmitt

Tilmitt
The care bears will eventually whine everything good about this game out of existence. Nonsense like these god police is a good example.
 

Elethiomel Zakalwe

E
Ambroza said:
NPCs have been able to do things that we can't and use modules that we can't since the very beginning. Gimbaled railguns, for example. Also, I don't think your proposed solution of simply sending in 40+ ships is particularly creative...
Click to expand...

Evidence, please? I don't know that I've ever seen any such thing as a gimbaled railgun before.
 

Elethiomel Zakalwe

E
Sapyx said:
Well, I'd object to that statement, on three fronts.

First, it's not true. Ever since FD made the decision to allow the "hollow squares" radar distinction and the special CMDR ID tag, there has always been the distinction between CMDRs and NPCs.

Second, NPCs already have access to things we can't access. Capital ships, for example. I, personally, would have preferred the ATR responders to have been a wing of capital ships, each armed with Class 20A shields and class 20A turreted railguns. But that's just me. NPCs can also access space stations with batteries of super-powerful, never-miss, kill-ships-quick weaponry.

Finally, I think it's entirely reasonable and expectable that the military have weaponry that's vastly more powerful than the civilian population. They're the military, for pity's sake, the actual military, not some snivelling ragtag mercenary "auxiliary navy" they let us affiliate ourselves with. It seems to me that they'd have some secret military-only weapons to be deployed against particularly nasty targets when the regular military gets overwhelmed, be they enemy military units or rogue civilians. If the "general public" on 21st century Earth drove around in horribly beweaponed personal battleships, I would expect my country's military to have advanced weaponry with enough firepower to be able to bring any psycho or criminal driving one into line. Else, what's the point in paying tax dollars and having a military at all?
Click to expand...

I think you know what I meant. Yes, we need to be able to identify other players, but within the context of the universe the game doesn't really distinguish between players and NPCs. Capital ships are quite different - that's something that no one individual would have access to; only a powerful nation would.

With regards to it being reasonable to expect the military to have weaponry that's vastly more powerful than the civilian population, I'll just repost my comment from reddit:

If they're on military vessels then how come we never see them on military vessels in conflict zones? Surely they'd at least use them on capital ships (which would actually make sense seeing as they're more similar in size to stations). The bottom line is that it really doesn't make sense for the ATR to have them and this is just rationalization for a lazy game mechanic. Give them a lot of plasma, feedback cascade rails, and reverberating cascade torps if you want tough cops that are justifiable in-universe, not magic pulse lasers.


To be quite honest though, I always thought that it was silly even when they added reverberating cascade effect to stations themselves. It is fundamentally an admission that health pools have become so stupidly inflated that they had no other recourse without nerfing booster stacking and upsetting the carebears.
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Elethiomel Zakalwe

E
Mohrgan said:
I think the ATR is designed for a purpose, not as flavor. Sending 4 engineered NPC FdL's after 4 engineered player FdL's, is the same as sending naked NPC's against naked players. That is to say: No threat at all. For the ATR to be anything more than incidental, it needs to be effective. Or, why bother?
Click to expand...

Because it can be effective without resorting to cheating modules. Or did you not actually read my post?
 

Elethiomel Zakalwe

E
Falcon_D said:
ATR have to be effective against a god modded CMDR or even a wing of god modded CMDRs, else they will be just another farming tool or CMDRs would just ignore them like they do the current security ships.
Even if ATR have new gen G5 modules, some of the legacy stuff can still beat them.
I’m with those that say ATR is a military arm, and unlike the pilots federation have access to mil-spec weapons and modules.

Also, I believe I read somewhere that in beta the Mistress of Minions made them uber powerful. But only for beta.
Click to expand...

Then how come the actual military does not use such weapons in conflict zones? Surely they'd at least use them on capital ships? Don't buy it. With regards to effectiveness, it is simply unnecessary. It has always been true that even against the toughest PvP ship, there is a magic number of ships that will be able to crack it. It is only a matter of how many. Furthermore, there are existing engineer mods and other modules such as grom missiles to augment their abilities. You don't need to give them god-modded ships.
Also, they can use something like reverberating cascade torps. Most players don't use them because each player has only one ship, and once they've used them that's half their loadout gone. However, NPCs have no such limitation. They can cycle vipers into the fight with reverberating cascade torps and just dump more ships as soon as they've spent their payload.

CMDR_Cosmicspacehead said:
I think the noob murderers are just having a hissy fit because they can no longer murder noobs. :p

It's going to be hilarious.

Overpowered ATR FTW!

I'm personally looking forward to it, mainly for the mountains of salt that it will generate. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
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Did you not actually read my post?

Also, this won't help with seal-clubbing at all because the response times are still far too long. The seal clubbers will carry on just as they always have.
 

Elethiomel Zakalwe

E
Bortas said:
As much as I despise NPCs with magic weapons, I sadly have to admit ATR would be pointless without them.
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It's simply not true though. It has always been the case that there is a magic number of ships that will crack any ship. Throw in more beyond that number and you will crack them faster. Throw in better AI and you will crack them faster. Throw in some engineer mods like feedback cascades, reverberating cascades... you get the picture. That and faster response time are what's really needed.
 
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