Could we fix NPC pirates killing you no matter what?

[Agony_Aunt]

Yup, you want to raise it as an issue OP.

Meanwhile, assuming FD won't fix it for a long time, if ever, learn how to deal with it.

Learn how to evade interdictions, or if for some reason you can't evade them, do the submit, boost, and jump thing.

Really though, you should be able to beat any NPC in an interdiction as long as you are not flying a type 9 or similar, and even then, interdictions are beatable.

Some people will tell you to put your throttle in the blue zone when being interdicted. I find this advice pretty bad and find it a lot easier using full throttle.

 

[fidens]

No, that's the game being broken, and you entirely know the difference and your just nitpicking here. AI NPC's acting like real players is entirely different, you want realistic AI, you have it, the fact that many players do this...ie: gankers, should be a learning experience. I never give anything to anyone, player or NPC. Once you stop to release goods the player or NPC demands then you are as good as dead if they decide to attack anyway, you are effectively dead already. If the moment they jump in you immediately run and take evasive action you have an almost certain chance of escaping an NPC and a fair chance of getting away from a player. The fact that you had been waiting for your FSD to cool down means you already had an advantage and just needed to avoid being destroyed for a few seconds before you were ready to jump.

My advice is, and always has been, interdicted or attacked, never give in, never surrender, give them nothing, don't give them goods, don't give them satisfaction.

You are simply incorrect here. It's a broken mechanic that hasn't always been broken. It became broken after an update. NPCs are not players. NPCs give you an ultimatum and you either follow it for a reward or you don't for a repercussion. It really is that simple, expecially in an MMO environment. The players are the unpredictable variable, not the NPCs. What the NPCs are doing is called a minigame in dev terms. The minigame is broken and it has been (from what I can gather in about 10 minutes of searching) since 2018. Before that, it behaved as would be expected.

You can keep commenting if you like, but your assertions are categorically false. Strawman an arguement other than the thing I'm addressing, but it's still not applicable to what I'm saying and is categorically false. My statement stands.

I've submitted to 7 pirates since starting the game, not a single one has killed me after giving them what they asked for (which is usually nothing compared to what I have on me). Hell, 2 of them gave me tips for how to avoid getting interdicted.

Thank you to @Marklar_ though for offering something constructive I can work with. I'd seen multiple threads and videos about people saying that if running in Solo for the express purpose of grinding mining, don't bother with shields or weaps and just bounce. But obviously I need to at least stack some form of def in order to survive long enough to bounce. I guess having an exit vector plotted just in case would be wise. If you are in an exclusion zone (be it planet or star), can you still jump to another system before doing the whole align for exit vector thing?

 

[fidens]

Yup, you want to raise it as an issue OP.

Meanwhile, assuming FD won't fix it for a long time, if ever, learn how to deal with it.

Learn how to evade interdictions, or if for some reason you can't evade them, do the submit, boost, and jump thing.

Really though, you should be able to beat any NPC in an interdiction as long as you are not flying a type 9 or similar, and even then, interdictions are beatable.

Some people will tell you to put your throttle in the blue zone when being interdicted. I find this advice pretty bad and find it a lot easier using full throttle.

Same here, every NPC interdiction I've full thrust through and had no issues. I've only been sucsessfully interdicted by players. The only time I've had to deal with NPCs is when I'm in the middle of an astroid field, or I do something stupid like get too close to something. With astroids it's easy because with my Krait mk2 I just evade and bounce. That's why I'm using the Krait mk2 for mining right now, I like to be able to be a moving target until I bounce.

 

[Spacerschoice-00]

You are simply incorrect here. It's a broken mechanic that hasn't always been broken. It became broken after an update. NPCs are not players. NPCs give you an ultimatum and you either follow it for a reward or you don't for a repercussion. It really is that simple, expecially in an MMO environment. The players are the unpredictable variable, not the NPCs. What the NPCs are doing is called a minigame in dev terms. The minigame is broken and it has been (from what I can gather in about 10 minutes of searching) since 2018. Before that, it behaved as would be expected.

You can keep commenting if you like, but your assertions are categorically false. Strawman an arguement other than the thing I'm addressing, but it's still not applicable to what I'm saying and is categorically false. My statement stands.

I've submitted to 7 pirates since starting the game, not a single one has killed me after giving them what they asked for (which is usually nothing compared to what I have on me). Hell, 2 of them gave me tips for how to avoid getting interdicted.

Thank you to @Marklar_ though for offering something constructive I can work with. I'd seen multiple threads and videos about people saying that if running in Solo for the express purpose of grinding mining, don't bother with shields or weaps and just bounce. But obviously I need to at least stack some form of def in order to survive long enough to bounce. I guess having an exit vector plotted just in case would be wise. If you are in an exclusion zone (be it planet or star), can you still jump to another system before doing the whole align for exit vector thing?

Q: "can you still jump to another system before doing the whole align for exit vector thing?"
A: As long as you have line of sight with target system, Yes. (Still have the normal rules for jumping to different system though.) That's if I understood the question
For planets have to be at a high enough altitude to jump, usually 2km+.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

 

[metatheurgist]

The NPCs do have a list of things they consider "offensive" but they don't list them in Comms like a highwayman. Could be you deployed hardpoints, that seems to be a trigger. You tried to run, jump away, anything could've set them off if they hadn't hit the part of the script where they're satisfied. I may have even seen some ask for more (not 100%) so yeah, if you run before that, boom.

 

[MickyG1982]

Never mind, already covered (hot glowy things are bad)

 

[MickyG1982]

OP, in case you don't know already, the best way to get out of combat when you don't want to fight is to boost away and high wake out.

Submit to the interdiction, and then immediately boost away while targeting a nearby star to jump to in the nav menu. Don't low wake to SC, you need to target another system and then jump to it. You can avoid combat that way easily no matter what you are flying or being chased by, mass inhibition doesn't apply to high wake jumps.

Why on earth would you submit? Fighting the interdiction isn't exactly difficult in any ship, against any npc and is far more effective if the station you want to get to is in the same system.

Fight the interdiction, win and enemy Npc's don't constantly reappear. They are effectively gone for the entire time you are there.

 

[MickyG1982]

Same here, every NPC interdiction I've full thrust through and had no issues.moving target until I bounce.

Now there is your problem, most pirates expect you to power down, drop the kit and wait for them to leave. If I recall some may even ask for more, others (as you found out) will take your stuff and decide they don't want to leave witnesses, others still will just attack you for the crack.

In any case, you want to set up your ship so it can survive at least some shots rather than just lightweight everything, it doesn't have to be combat ready, it just needs to keep going til you can jump.

 

[Bantha]

I feel for you OP.

As a new player, it must be very confusing when this kind of nonsense happens.
Unfortunately, this won’t be the last time you read something in game that simply isn’t true, and it will not get fixed, ever.

The NPC chatter is just awful - there’s loads of posts about this. I’ve been reading the same mindless, cringeworthy and lazily written NPC lines for 6 years now...

• You scratched my paint
• How is this happening?
• I’m gonna boil you up
• Remember this is in the top 1% of all liners out there

NPC interaction is non-existent. You can’t say you’re complying, you can’t surrender, you can’t demand they drop their cargo, you can’t converse in any way. There is literally nothing, other than shoot or run.

And unfortunately, that lack of interaction is a running theme throughout the entire game, across all areas. It would seem that Frontier doesn’t care about narrative or interaction at all. This is their blind spot, a quality of life improvement that is easy to implement, and yet would make the game feel much more alive.

Its not going to get any better, so you have two choices:-
1. Tell this poorly written, lazy and empty game to go F itself and play something else that understands how important interaction with the game actually is (any other game at all from the late 80s onwards would do!).
2. Accept it, understand that space is empty and dead and that you are so unimportant that you can’t even converse with an NPC, you have to make reference to third party websites for almost everything, and that you make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the on-going “storyline” that no-one cares about.

I chose option 2, and I’ve been here since 2014.
The flight mechanics, the sounds, actually sitting in a cockpit in VR (wow! Just, wow!), the community, the 1-2-1 galaxy, the visuals, incredible combat.

What a truly wonderful, beautiful and mesmerising game this is. I love it!

But, my god, so frustrating, in so many ways...

 

[varonica]

Thank you to @Marklar_ though for offering something constructive I can work with.

A lot of people have given useful advice, you just don't agree with it because it doesn't fit with your preconceived idea of what useful advice is. It's a dangerous galaxy out there, sometimes NPC's don't do what you expect them to do. There has been no strawmanning on my part, in fact I'm not sure you even understand what that means.

 

[rrobes]

Look, I don't want to pile on, but are you placing your "trust" in NPC pirates and take them at their word?

For criminy's sake, they're criminals in an armed ship.

Better ships, armament/shields, tactics. Get a fast ship to run or rig one to fight. I got tired of being the taker, acquired a Corvette quite a while ago, now I'm the giver of destruction.

TBH, when I was in less capable ships and being shot to pieces, I had some tense and memorable runs and re-buys (back then I didn't have the resources I now have). Killing everything in sight doesn't give you the same thrill as pulling into port with the canopy gone, single digit hull and life support counting down.

 

[M00ka]

I feel for you OP.

As a new player, it must be very confusing when this kind of nonsense happens.
Unfortunately, this won’t be the last time you read something in game that simply isn’t true, and it will not get fixed, ever.

The NPC chatter is just awful - there’s loads of posts about this. I’ve been reading the same mindless, cringeworthy and lazily written NPC lines for 6 years now...

• You scratched my paint
• How is this happening?
• I’m gonna boil you up
• Remember this is in the top 1% of all liners out there

NPC interaction is non-existent. You can’t say you’re complying, you can’t surrender, you can’t demand they drop their cargo, you can’t converse in any way. There is literally nothing, other than shoot or run.

And unfortunately, that lack of interaction is a running theme throughout the entire game, across all areas. It would seem that Frontier doesn’t care about narrative or interaction at all. This is their blind spot, a quality of life improvement that is easy to implement, and yet would make the game feel much more alive.

Its not going to get any better, so you have two choices:-
1. Tell this poorly written, lazy and empty game to go F itself and play something else that understands how important interaction with the game actually is (any other game at all from the late 80s onwards would do!).
2. Accept it, understand that space is empty and dead and that you are so unimportant that you can’t even converse with an NPC, you have to make reference to third party websites for almost everything, and that you make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the on-going “storyline” that no-one cares about.

I chose option 2, and I’ve been here since 2014.
The flight mechanics, the sounds, actually sitting in a cockpit in VR (wow! Just, wow!), the community, the 1-2-1 galaxy, the visuals, incredible combat.

What a truly wonderful, beautiful and mesmerising game this is. I love it!

But, my god, so frustrating, in so many ways...

Just a question, how would the interaction with NPCs work? Lets set the scenario: You are cruising along in SC, NPC Yar Pegleg drops in behind you and states "There is that tasty cargo I have been after". So how do you tell the NPC that you aren't in fact carrying cargo, or that in fact your G5 engineered Corvette is more than a match for his stock standard Cobra Mk 3. Will it be a dialog box that pops up and you have to type in the right response? Will it be a dialog box popping up in the middle of the screen giving you 5 options to respond?

You have said it is easy to implement and I am genuinely curious to see how player/NPC interaction would work in the game, looking forward to hearing your solutions.

 

[Morbad]

No survivors, no witnesses.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Seriously. This is the second time I've had a cargo hold full of diamonds and I'm heading to sell it and some NPC pirate comes along, demands 4T (I mean whatever I have over 100T on me) and then after I drop it they open fire and destroy me. I've lost about 9m in rebuy and at least another 45-50m in diamonds because of this broken rubbish.

Don't have pirates ask for poopoo if all they are going to do is kill you anyway. I've flushed 4 hours of my time (which is rare to get with 2 kids under 2 in the house) and 60m in credits because of some crap mechanic that some developer forgot to add a simicolon to at the end of a drunken high coding binder that no one bothered to QA before adding it to the game. This game is grinding enough as it is, completely wasting time for nothing with nothing you can do about it is a completely different level.

I certainly sympathize with your real life circumstances, but without that element of danger the game would be so boring: do you fight the interdiction? Against NPCs it is very winnable, even for newer players. You should also sacrifice some cargo space in exchange for some peace of mind: A rated shields with a couple of boosters should give you enough time to jump out of there.

 

[Ashnak]

As a direct answer to the title question: I usually do . But that requires the right ship and loadout. A SLF with a decent pilot also helps.

Slightly more helpful to the OP maybe: please post your ship's loadout, e.g. as a Coriolis link, and your currently available Engineers and Guardian goodies. Some of the experts here will be able to help you to improve the build to a point where you have a decent chance at surviving long enough to jump out. If a random (i.e. levelled to your current combat rank) NPC can kill your ship in 5 seconds, there's a lot of potential for improvement. A mission NPC (elite level mission, levelled to the mission rating) might be a different kettle of fish.

And finally: learn to fly. Seriously. There's no reason to run into a star.

 

[Crank Larson]

Run or kill, they are the better options.

I do like how NPCs these days exhibit behaviour that when players do it they are accused of ganking... Was playing in PG last night to offload stuff for the CG, and I got interdicted several times by single NPCs and wings. All opened fire immediately (and all but one exploded a short time later ).

So, I'd reckon that sociopathic NPCs aren't broken. Just a mirror of human nature...

 

[avow555]

This npc pirate mechanism has been in game for a long time and is of course broken.
You can ticket it, learn to avoid it or kill the bad guys.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Seriously. This is the second time I've had a cargo hold full of diamonds and I'm heading to sell it and some NPC pirate comes along, demands 4T (I mean whatever I have over 100T on me) and then after I drop it they open fire and destroy me. I've lost about 9m in rebuy and at least another 45-50m in diamonds because of this broken rubbish.

Don't have pirates ask for poopoo if all they are going to do is kill you anyway. I've flushed 4 hours of my time (which is rare to get with 2 kids under 2 in the house) and 60m in credits because of some crap mechanic that some developer forgot to add a simicolon to at the end of a drunken high coding binder that no one bothered to QA before adding it to the game. This game is grinding enough as it is, completely wasting time for nothing with nothing you can do about it is a completely different level.

Is this a recent thing? The last few times I dropped cargo it worked ok (I was in a hauler mind you) this was 12 months or so sgo.

In the combat CG I had 1 ton of gold in my hold just to generate some interest. The cheeky begger limpetted me, stole my cargo then brave sir robined as I was pounding him. I actually thought he did me quite well.

TLDR it does sound like a bug but I doubt it will be fixed.before ED:O now.

 

[bootsam]

If I feel vulnerable due to cargo, then I will submit, drop into normal space then boost boost boost and spool up the fsd. Works 100% of the time. I got good at this during the Robigo Imp slave run. Oh how I miss that. That was great fun.

Sometimes I will simply blast them to smithereens. Depends on how urgent I feel (read that as dinner is ready and I need to dock).

Mostly though I win the interdiction battle. That has become relatively straightforward for me after all this time.