Combat can be challenging in ED with no engineered anything on your ship.
I recently fought pretty hard to wear down an NPC interdictor. I have to say that I felt prety good about that accomplishment.
I got him down to 7% hull before he managed to jump away (yes, that was frustrating).
I entered supercruise to continue on my way only to be tethered by the same NPC again in under 10 seconds! I thought: "Great, let's party!" so I submitted to the interdiction immediately and found that he had 100% shields and 100% hull.
I can understand that maybe you can pop a shield cell boost real quick, but hull? I can't do that! I have to return to a station to repair.
This was one of the MOST frustrating and idtiotic experiences I've had in Elite in a loooooong time. Though it's hard to believe, this was the first time it happend to me in almost 3000 hours in the game. Probably because I've only done a few assassination missions before.
I was testing a new FDL build and decided to do some wing assassination missions solo. Lo and behold, "Assassinate known pirate Braben" (no kidding!). OK then, challenge accepted!
Mr Braben (NPC of course) was an Elite pilot flying a Corvette (pretty sure it was engineered, as it was almost as agile as my FDL - also fully engineered). I managed to get it down to I think 9% and it
high waked out. I immediately go back to Super Cruise and... he's there,
in SC and with 100% hull.
I mean... I'm sorry, but I can't call it anythig else, but the most idiotic game mechanic I came across in Elite so far I think.
HOW?
(Well, I know how - it's a generic NPC. But weren't we supposed to get semi-persistant NPC's some time ago? Or am I imagining this?)
Totally nonsensical and stupid. I swore not to do any other assassination missions until this aspect it improved, because as I said, it's simply the most stupid thing in Elite for me, hands down.
Let's have a think how it would work in NPCs
were persistent:
1) You fight the NPC - it runs away with 7% hull.
2) You are
still in normal space, so the NPC goes off and attacks someone else in SC
3) The other person kills the NPC almost instantly, as its shields are down and it only has 7% hull
4) NPC respawns (as we do after death) with 100% shields and 100% hull
5) By now you are back in SC and get interdicted by the NPC .... and complain it has 100% hull
So basically just the same as now as far as you are concerned
Wrong. If this was done properly, number 2 would never happen, because NPC would go to the nearest station to repair, allowing you to pursue if you happen to have a wake scanner installed (also, this thing would FINALLY come useful for something else that data farming).
If you fail and NPC manages to dock, you'd get a mission update message "Commander! We have a report that iDreaded Pirate Roberts has now fully repaired and rearmed. He's been last seen in X system. Please continue your pursuit!"
The scenario where someone else kills "your" NPC would get you the followinng message "Dreaded Pirate Roberts' ship was just destroyed, but he's manage to escape in a pod! He's been last seen in a new ship in X system. Please continue your pursuit!"
This would make for a much more interesting game than just "Aaaaand I'm magically back in SC with 100% hull, even though I've just high waked out with 7% hull, literally 5 seconds ago!"
