So I spent some time post patch yesterday, performing a number of interdictions.
Before I begin, I would ask those who leap in to offer helpful advice based on what they did pre 1.4, actually go spend a bit of time interdicting some wanted elite and deadly ships before proffering their considered opinion.
If you are about to start a sentence with "I think.." then I thank you and ask you politely to put your suggestions into practice first.
In fact. Go do that anyway. Being the agressor isn't actuall quite the same as being the tether target. It changed a lot in 1.4 and I'd encourage people to give it a shot.
Observed changes:
- progress meter moves slightly slower, but perhaps 10% less than 1.4
- merely touching yaw doesn't now effectively auto-fail an interdiction
- progress bar can exceed 50% progress in a single jump, leading to instant win/ fail
- teleportation is happening less, but movements seem even more erratic
- throttle control now has a less dramatic effect but is still a required element to increase win chance
- power to engines or systems doesn't seem to have a substantial effect
- A3 and below interdictors are virtually useless compared to even a C4
The not so good:
- teleportation is still happening
- ship agility still has no bearing on the minigame
- what is the go on yaw? it is DRAMATICALLY stronger in minigame
- module class below 4 is still inordinately less effective
- deadly/ elite NPCs still pinball around the screen far more than simply chasing a target would suggest
- the 'witchspace' lag is still present in the minigame, causing the retical to teleport
- submitting at zero throttle still has a 3+ second lag, leading to submit+fail chaining
Based on what has been suggested, it appears a class 4/5 for medium and large ships, and a 2/3 for small ships should effectively balance out be about the same experience; with rating help improve the odds (no idea if it's also supposed to reduce damage, but I am going to go with no).
Only this isn't the case. I still don't have a proper handle on how class/ rating affects the mini-game. If this is designed to nerf undermining, then it's been highly effective. I would love to see this balanced better so it's possible to have a similar experience in something like a cobra (small) with a class 2A or 3 versus something like a FAS (medium) with a high class 3 or 4; and being pretty much making a class 4 a requirement for a large (clipper, anaconda, etc).
There do seem to be some improvements. Notably being able to escape an NPC interdiction is a little easier. So perhaps this is what the release notes refer to. Being the aggressor is still a highly variable experience, system damage is still considerable even if you zero the throttle shortly before the game ends.
Also if you decide to submit, you have to allow for upwards of 5 seconds of delay. Not doing so means you can both submit and fail. This really needs to be sorted out. So if you are space trucking and try to fight, definately allow about 5 seconds for submission to kick in.
Even so, there are still a few instant loss/ wins happening that suggest the minigame has lost track of progress.
Interdictions are, overall a little easier. i could probably improve the outcome considerably by RPing the pirate life for a while, but not being aligned to a suitable PP faction means this is impractical.
Thank you FD for at least taking a look. But I do ask that this is focused on during horizon's beta testing. And I really do encourage everyone to give it a shot; particularly when the test builds start appearing. That's when this can probably be sorted out a little better.
I managed to acrue 1k in bonds over the course of about 3 hours. Extrapolating that out to 10k in bonds means around 30+ hours for me. I don't doubt I would improve over that time, but the time sink and costs mean it still isn't very practical.
50 mil is a big payout, but spending over a mil on repairs and accruing another mil or 2 in bounties really doesn't make it viable.
I do not want to see the super simple mechanics that existed pre 1.4 though. But there is a little way to go yet.
Edit: All testing was in open; I will try private group this evening as I know witchspace lag is reduced; this may have a non-trivial affect on the minigame; I'm not entirely sure - so time to experiment!
Before I begin, I would ask those who leap in to offer helpful advice based on what they did pre 1.4, actually go spend a bit of time interdicting some wanted elite and deadly ships before proffering their considered opinion.
If you are about to start a sentence with "I think.." then I thank you and ask you politely to put your suggestions into practice first.
In fact. Go do that anyway. Being the agressor isn't actuall quite the same as being the tether target. It changed a lot in 1.4 and I'd encourage people to give it a shot.
Observed changes:
- progress meter moves slightly slower, but perhaps 10% less than 1.4
- merely touching yaw doesn't now effectively auto-fail an interdiction
- progress bar can exceed 50% progress in a single jump, leading to instant win/ fail
- teleportation is happening less, but movements seem even more erratic
- throttle control now has a less dramatic effect but is still a required element to increase win chance
- power to engines or systems doesn't seem to have a substantial effect
- A3 and below interdictors are virtually useless compared to even a C4
The not so good:
- teleportation is still happening
- ship agility still has no bearing on the minigame
- what is the go on yaw? it is DRAMATICALLY stronger in minigame
- module class below 4 is still inordinately less effective
- deadly/ elite NPCs still pinball around the screen far more than simply chasing a target would suggest
- the 'witchspace' lag is still present in the minigame, causing the retical to teleport
- submitting at zero throttle still has a 3+ second lag, leading to submit+fail chaining
Based on what has been suggested, it appears a class 4/5 for medium and large ships, and a 2/3 for small ships should effectively balance out be about the same experience; with rating help improve the odds (no idea if it's also supposed to reduce damage, but I am going to go with no).
Only this isn't the case. I still don't have a proper handle on how class/ rating affects the mini-game. If this is designed to nerf undermining, then it's been highly effective. I would love to see this balanced better so it's possible to have a similar experience in something like a cobra (small) with a class 2A or 3 versus something like a FAS (medium) with a high class 3 or 4; and being pretty much making a class 4 a requirement for a large (clipper, anaconda, etc).
There do seem to be some improvements. Notably being able to escape an NPC interdiction is a little easier. So perhaps this is what the release notes refer to. Being the aggressor is still a highly variable experience, system damage is still considerable even if you zero the throttle shortly before the game ends.
Also if you decide to submit, you have to allow for upwards of 5 seconds of delay. Not doing so means you can both submit and fail. This really needs to be sorted out. So if you are space trucking and try to fight, definately allow about 5 seconds for submission to kick in.
Even so, there are still a few instant loss/ wins happening that suggest the minigame has lost track of progress.
Interdictions are, overall a little easier. i could probably improve the outcome considerably by RPing the pirate life for a while, but not being aligned to a suitable PP faction means this is impractical.
Thank you FD for at least taking a look. But I do ask that this is focused on during horizon's beta testing. And I really do encourage everyone to give it a shot; particularly when the test builds start appearing. That's when this can probably be sorted out a little better.
I managed to acrue 1k in bonds over the course of about 3 hours. Extrapolating that out to 10k in bonds means around 30+ hours for me. I don't doubt I would improve over that time, but the time sink and costs mean it still isn't very practical.
50 mil is a big payout, but spending over a mil on repairs and accruing another mil or 2 in bounties really doesn't make it viable.
I do not want to see the super simple mechanics that existed pre 1.4 though. But there is a little way to go yet.
Edit: All testing was in open; I will try private group this evening as I know witchspace lag is reduced; this may have a non-trivial affect on the minigame; I'm not entirely sure - so time to experiment!
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