Now to the silly statements of cheating NPCs... NPCs don't have infinite anything except MC ammo and point defense ammo. They have limited chaff, SCBs, heatsinks, and DO take heat damage. They DO have to manage their pips, they CANNOT fly FA off and do not have super thrusters allowing them to turn faster than us, or 'flip on a dime' as people so frequently contend.
I confess, I make silly statements about cheating NPCs. I purposefully try to make them "silly" so people don't take them too seriously. HOWEVER... While NPCs might not cheat in the traditional way, they have inherent advantages over average human players. The main advantage is they have infinite hands and fingers with no mechanical lag. So for example, they can instantly and perfectly coordinate pip management while flying, boosting, and shooting. On my platform with my controller, I have to take a thumb off one of the sticks to change pips, a process with inherent delays, both mental and mechanical. A computer AI that can instantly switch pips around has an effective "all pips to everything" compared to their human counterparts.
This can also be applied to their precise turning and flipping - they can set throttle for optimum turning, apply the appropriate lateral thrusters, all pips to engines, perform their flip, and then rebalance for combat all in an instance. Doing this on a DS4 (especially the throttling part) is anything but "instant."
And of course there's the NPC's perfect aim with fixed weapons, surprisingly good with things like railguns and PAs, regardless of rank...
Finally, I question your claims. You say that NPCs cannot fly FA-off, but I've seen others claim the contrary. Are you citing facts, and are they
current facts? My personal complaints are against the 3.3 version of NPCs. I'm seeing NPC cargo ships and Belugas pulling flips that just feel impossible without FA-off. Granted, I cannot definitively declare that they are indeed using FA-off to make these flips, unless perhaps I record a video and time them...
I think maybe the speed of combat is causing time to pass more quickly for those people, relativity and all that.
That's an interesting theory.... If I'm fighting for my life in a Viper, perhaps, but when I'm just sitting in my turret-covered BattleConda calmly observing NPC behavior, not only against me but watching NPC battle NPC, well there's no "stress-based time dilation" during these scenarios.
Also, I engage in PvP, which is way more "stressful" than PvE. Humans are usually much
better more realistic pilots, but I'm not seeing them do the "impossible" things I see NPCs doing since 3.3 dropped,
unless they are in heavily-engineered ships. IMO engineering gives large ships too much of a manuevering buff - a Cutter, Conda, and even Corvette should not be able to "whip around" like a Courier, but that's a debate for another thread.
TL;DR - I really don't enjoy PvE combat like I used to, largely because of the "impossible things" mid-tier NPCs are doing since 3.3 dropped, at least on PS4. This has nothing to do with win or lose, I always win, but "cheating" NPCs spoil the fun of the actual combat, IMO of course.
