Fix PVE ships consistant ablity to high wake all the time. PVE module high damage absorption.

[Cugastratos]

This has been a serious issue since I've been started playing this title. The AI ships in PVE ALWAYS uses high wake jumps and never, ever tries to go into supercruise. I can understand allowing the AI to flee when their hull goes below a certain percentage. But the issue here is that the AI enemies are NEVER affected by certain things like mass lock/interference (I've used my anaconda and federal corvette and have been mass locked during FSD/boosts/etc. I've been in fast engineered ships that are constantly being outran by over zealous AI abilities to both high wake FSD initiate distant boosts in one try that puts them completely out of range of ship(and wing) weapons.

Another issue that arises with this is if a PVE ship is a mission target, having them jump outside of the system causes them to lose mission target status, which makes the only reason to chase them down pointless. This affects PVE ships that jump outside of systems from Combat Zones, and massacre bounty missions.

Just recently I was hunting down xx/54 targets when I get interdicted by a Fer-de-lance mission target. Being in my Anaconda at the time, I yield and attack said mission target and get it down to 60%. I try to take out it's drives to slow it down, but I can't because attacking the modules (such as FSD,Drivers) of a ship to prevent jumping is pretty useless due to the fact that the majority of the time their modules are ridiculously hard to deal enough damage to disable them. It FSD's high wake. I follow it not because I would get credit for it, but out of annoyed aggravation. I follow it to the next system it jumped to in supercruise... and it starts pulling away so fast in supercruise I literally travel over 10,000ls before it finally slows down close enough for me to interdict it. Now here comes another problem. When I come out of interdiction my ship ALWAYS spins out. When a PVE ship interdicts a player... NO CONSEQUENCES and they always interdict the player hot with hardpoints active. The amount of time the player has to take to get their bearings after successfully interdicting an opponent should be affecting PVE ships as well, because it always creates an unfair advantage of precious seconds for attack and defense.

When I finally interdict the Fer-de-lance in the new system, I attack again, and it returns fire until about 28% hull. I don't get a surge detect warning, I try to take out at least on drive but can only manage to take a drive down to 73% which the PVE ship mostly ignores. Boosts super far and FSD's to ANOTHER system (I'm using Dirty Drive engineering lvl 3). I'm only being driven to destroy my target due to aggravation. I am going to kill this [expletive] . I follow it to the next system.... 5,000ls of chasing it down to be able to interdict it AGAIN and finish it off. The hull ALWAYS goes out before any module targets do....

Suggestions to resolve these annoyances are to decrease the amount of damage certain PVE modules can take (weapons, drives/thrusters, FSD, shield charges, chaff etc...) so it starts affecting the PVE ship systems so if a player/wing wants to dismantle/disable a ship, players can do so. As it stands currently, PVE ships will blow up well before a module is disabled/destroyed.
Also to force the mission target AI to restrict itself to supercruise FSD use only depending on where the mission target is originating.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

What's really annoying me right now while doing trade missions is how quickly the pirates that the mission sends against me wake away...only to immidiately be back to interdict me again once I go into supercruise, with their shields back to 100%. Cheaters.

 

[Cugastratos]

Yes, that is another issue that is caused by their constant high waking. "Incoming Enemy Alerts" become a mess because they interdict you, then run away. If you try to go back into supercruise, they come back full strength in seconds while your ammo, and hull are permanently affected until you can get to a station.

 

[Faded Glory]

It would certainly make it more interesting if NPC damage were retained, and in so far as missions are concerned if you could chase them to another system to finish the job off (it might make a wake scanner actually worth having).

Unfortunately, since there is no NPC persistence, it's unlikely to happen.

Worth noting that FD implemented this type of behavior because players complained that NPC's were dumb and should care about their mortality. Daft IMO, NPC's are our content, not other players and if their purpose is to fight us, they should stay until they either beat us, or blow up.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I don't think it's likely to happen. The best thing we can hope for I suspect is that if an NPC is mission generated they just don't wake out, and that if it is a random NPC then they can, as they stay gone anyway so it's a 'win' for the player. Anyway, it's been this way for a while now, I made a suggestion regarding mission spawned NPC's a while ago.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Another issue that arises with this is if a PVE ship is a mission target, having them jump outside of the system causes them to lose mission target status, which makes the only reason to chase them down pointless. This affects PVE ships that jump outside of systems from Combat Zones, and massacre bounty missions.

That certainly should be fixed. Either mission target status should be preserved across systems (preferably), or mission targets should only low-wake.

Just recently I was hunting down xx/54 targets when I get interdicted by a Fer-de-lance mission target. Being in my Anaconda at the time, I yield and attack said mission target and get it down to 60%. I try to take out it's drives to slow it down, but I can't because attacking the modules (such as FSD,Drivers) of a ship to prevent jumping is pretty useless due to the fact that the majority of the time their modules are ridiculously hard to deal enough damage to disable them.

What weapons are you using? I have a pair of medium railguns on my Krait Phantom, which are sufficient to take out the FSD of any NPC before it jumps, and often trash a few other modules on the way.

Seeker missiles are excellent for taking out drives and weapons quickly, except versus the NPCs large enough to have multiple point defence

Now here comes another problem. When I come out of interdiction my ship ALWAYS spins out. When a PVE ship interdicts a player... NO CONSEQUENCES and they always interdict the player hot with hardpoints active. The amount of time the player has to take to get their bearings after successfully interdicting an opponent should be affecting PVE ships as well, because it always creates an unfair advantage of precious seconds for attack and defense.

Are you submitted to the NPC interdictions versus you, or fighting them? If your interdiction target submits - NPCs never submit, of course - then the spin for the attacker is considerably reduced and can largely be ignored. (Of course if you fought them and failed you'd also spin out, and probably wouldn't notice the NPC doing the same while you got your own ship back under control, so I'm not recommending that)

Suggestions to resolve these annoyances are to decrease the amount of damage certain PVE modules can take (weapons, drives/thrusters, FSD, shield charges, chaff etc...) so it starts affecting the PVE ship systems so if a player/wing wants to dismantle/disable a ship, players can do so. As it stands currently, PVE ships will blow up well before a module is disabled/destroyed.

NPC modules are already pretty weak if you use anti-module weapons on them.

 

[Troopi]

I agree with this. NPCs should follow the same rules as players in what regards escaping. Mission targets should only low wake. NPCs should be affected by damaged modules. damage thrusters should reduce their speed and ability to boost (like max pips assigned. 3 pips max at 75%, 2 pips max at 50%, 1 pip max at 25%, 0 pips at 5% or below)
FSD module should also delay or even malfunction if damaged, and be affected by mass lock.

 

[Vasious]

Yes, that is another issue that is caused by their constant high waking. "Incoming Enemy Alerts" become a mess because they interdict you, then run away. If you try to go back into supercruise, they come back full strength in seconds while your ammo, and hull are permanently affected until you can get to a station.

If you follow their high wake to the next system, it saves their damage state, so it is possible for the game to remember an NPC state
Almost seems like
When you take a mission, it generates in the background the number of and the names of NPC adversary
Mission checks to see if there is an NPC adversary that needs to be activated
If so it generates one
After you fight and they flee
If you follow them, it saves their state as it is a NPC you are showing interest in so are put in the Persistent NPC box and you can chase them down and tick them off the NPC adversary list
If you dont follow them, it wipes their state, as they are put in the disposable NPC box and deletes them, then once you are back in SC Mission checks to see if there is an NPC adversary that needs to be activated and creates a new one.

What needs to happen is if an NPC flees and you dont follow, the mission needs to cross them off the list, so the next NPC will be the next one on the NPC adversary.

 

[Faded Glory]

If you follow their high wake to the next system, it saves their damage state, so it is possible for the game to remember an NPC state
Almost seems like
When you take a mission, it generates in the background the number of and the names of NPC adversary
Mission checks to see if there is an NPC adversary that needs to be activated
If so it generates one
After you fight and they flee
If you follow them, it saves their state as it is a NPC you are showing interest in so are put in the Persistent NPC box and you can chase them down and tick them off the NPC adversary list
If you dont follow them, it wipes their state, as they are put in the disposable NPC box and deletes them, then once you are back in SC Mission checks to see if there is an NPC adversary that needs to be activated and creates a new one.

What needs to happen is if an NPC flees and you dont follow, the mission needs to cross them off the list, so the next NPC will be the next one on the NPC adversary.

I have to say, I always understood this to be the case, that if you followed an NPC to a different system using a wake scanner then its (damage) state was preserved. However, since a mission target destroyed in a system other than that stated in the mission does not count against the mission, I never bothered.

Recently, after another thread on this subject I decided, just for the lols, to try it and see what would happen.

Unfortunately, when I followed a mission target (pirate lord assassination mission) to the different system when it high waked out (they always high wake), it was not present in the new system at all and despite waiting for a minute or so for it to turn up it didn't. So I went back to the original mission system and the mission target NPC re-spawned.

So I am no longer convinced that you can follow NPC's, certainly for me it didn't work.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I've never seen an NPC retain damage, and they even instantly regenerate while in the same system.

 

[Faded Glory]

I've never seen an NPC retain damage, and they even instantly regenerate while in the same system.

They never retain damage in the same system, as they are just a re-spawn of the same NPC name (usually ship name, and sometimes rank and ship type are different). There is an obvious disconnect if you bother to think about it, as NPC's always high wake out, yet as soon as the player goes back to SC they will spawn again, usually right behind the player.

It has been suggested on the forums that if you scan their high wake and follow them to the system that they jump to they will be there with the same damage as they had when they jumped out, my experience did not support that as the NPC I followed wasn't there at all.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

They never retain damage in the same system, as they are just a re-spawn of the same NPC name (usually ship name, and sometimes rank and ship type are different). There is an obvious disconnect if you bother to think about it, as NPC's always high wake out, yet as soon as the player goes back to SC they will spawn again, usually right behind the player.

It has been suggested on the forums that if you scan their high wake and follow them to the system that they jump to they will be there with the same damage as they had when they jumped out, my experience did not support that as the NPC I followed wasn't there at all.

Agreed, I've even seen multiples of my supposed mission target; one in the distance as a mission POI, one on the scanner in front of me, and a third trying to interdict me; all from a single mission, lol...
They even change ships sometimes.



But I find it hard to imagine they'd be any more persistent via hiwake.
Quite the contrary.

 

[Stealthie]

I have to wonder what sort of weapons people are fitting to their ships for this to be a problem, TBH.
I mean, I'm pretty dull when it comes to weapon choice; it's all efficient lasers and long-range MCs for me (mostly) and I've never really had a problem exploding anything if required.

Also, I find it a bit ironic that half the time, on here, people are moaning that they "don't have a chance" against overpowered NPCs and the rest of the time they're moaning that NPCs run away at the first sign of taking damage.

Seems pretty reasonable that, when a Bounty Hunter engages a goup of pirates, they might attempt to fight but then run away when they realise they aren't going to win.
Surely it's up to the BHer to ensure they've got weapons fitted which are capable of destroying targets before they can escape?

Sure, it'd be nice if FDev sorted out the issues with persistence and it'd be nice if mission-targets were persistent too but it's perfectly possible to deal with these scenarios using the tools we have available to us.

 

[Deaf Space]

npcs have cheated for years, with out even been mentioned by Fdev, i doubt it will ever be looked at

 

[Screemonster]

all that's happened is that NPCs are now starting to get sorta as bulletspongey as player ships are and people are realising that bulletsponge slugging matches followed by a high-wake aren't actually fun

 

[Shadowed]

The only problem with NPC's running I have are the threat level 7 pirates. They love running away, and their super hull makes destroying them a pain. I usually try to take out their drives but their health is amazing.

They are so dumb though.

 

[GJ51]

Target FSD

 

[Schmack]

I've been sniping modules lately. It takes a lot of time and the enemy can escape if you get to lazy with them. I just ram them a few times before ever opening fire. That strips shields and if you smack the rear, they lose some drive as well. Then immediately dump a couple heat seekers at their drives. If you're close they don't see to be able to get point defense to intercept, and the angle (keeping your missiles on the opposite side of the ship as the PD) is important.

You can tie a couple seeker pylons to one fire button, launch multiples.

 

[Schmack]

Target FSD

I dumped 70 heat seekers into an anaconda yesterday with FSD targeted. The anaconda exploded. The FSD was at 100%.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

I dumped 70 heat seekers into an anaconda yesterday with FSD targeted. The anaconda exploded. The FSD was at 100%.

If you release seekers after passing, they will loop around and hit in the back. You can also tilt your nose down before passing and get the shots to loop up into their underside. I've personally found taking out drives to be more effective than FSD.

 

[Shadowed]

If you release seekers after passing, they will loop around and hit in the back. You can also tilt your nose down before passing and get the shots to loop up into their underside. I've personally found taking out drives to be more effective than FSD.

Against the level 7 pirate anaconda's, taking out their drives is way faster than going after the FSD in my experience anyways.