Are NPC's cheating after being interdicted?

[Arthur Shappey]

Jukelo is just wrong though. The AI can and does start charging its FSD immediately after being interdicted (it does not submit). It happens pretty much every time. This shouldn't be possible, due to the extended post-interdiction cooldown. If the AI following different rules to the player is cheating, this is cheating.

It's a clear bug that doesn't appear to be listed in the 'bug reporting' forum, so I'll report it. If someone with a recording setup could get a video and attach it I'd be much obliged.

Revenge of the NPCs for all the relogging cheating players? Sounds fair to me.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

It's a failure of the p2p system, the ship you interdicted is not "the same" ship that appeared in your normal space instance and thus has no cooldowns, it was just spawned by the engine according to it. Same reason why they instantly heal any damage you inflicted once they escape back into supercruise. It's not "the same" ship.

Doubt P2P has anything to do with it. They still have servers which could be used for temp storage of ship info, or trust the client (with some verification) to hold the info. NPCs do have some persistence in that the game remembers the ship you have interdicted, or if you follow a wake, you will see the "same" ship in a new instance. When i say same, it remembers the ship type, loadout, name, cargo. Not sure about hull damange, but that's just another variable to store. Information is being stored and transferred to new instances.

Even disregarding that, FD could i'm sure make it have a cooldown. The game knows which ship has been pulled out and when. A simple calculation forcing a delay on the recharge based off a timestamp.

Hate on P2P all you want, but in this case, its misplaced.

 

[Jukelo]

Jukelo is just wrong though. The AI can and does start charging its FSD immediately after being interdicted (it does not submit). It happens pretty much every time. This shouldn't be possible, due to the extended post-interdiction cooldown. If the AI following different rules to the player is cheating, this is cheating.

I am not wrong. This isn't the AI cheating, this is (as I said in my first post) a bug (which has been reported before, although those encountering it should report it again), which only affects some NPCs, specifically those using mining builds (from what I read some powerplay NPCs might have been affected as well, dunno if that's still the case or the thing FD fixed with 2.3). They are not supposed to start spooling up their FSD immediatly after losing the interdiction. The vast majority of NPCs don't (my main trade is piracy).

It's a failure of the p2p system, the ship you interdicted is not "the same" ship that appeared in your normal space instance and thus has no cooldowns, it was just spawned by the engine according to it. Same reason why they instantly heal any damage you inflicted once they escape back into supercruise. It's not "the same" ship.

Your client can and does remember information about NPCs you've encountered, P2P or not. More accurately your client keeps some NPCs in memory with which you've interacted in certain ways. If you interdict an NPC and they run away and you follow them through their wake (which from a technical pov is one explicit way of telling your client you want to keep interacting with that NPC on the other side), your client will remember the previous state of that NPC. Same with NPCs pursuing you after an interdiction. Now as the transition isn't seamless and NPCs are indeed just respawned copies, I guess there are possible edge cases where the spawn system is bugged or just wasn't told to carry over information from the previous encounter. That isn't "a failure of the P2P system", that's just somebody at Frontier making a mistake/oversight.
By the way, NPCs never escape to supercruise, they always jump into hyperspace.

Seriously there are more than enough issues (yes, some stemming from the use of P2P) with ED, without the need for mis-informed hysteria.

 

[Nazdakka]

I am not wrong. This isn't the AI cheating, this is (as I said in my first post) a bug (which has been reported before, although those encountering it should report it again), which only affects some NPCs, specifically those using mining builds (from what I read some powerplay NPCs might have been affected as well, dunno if that's still the case or the thing FD fixed with 2.3). They are not supposed to start spooling up their FSD immediatly after losing the interdiction. The vast majority of NPCs don't (my main trade is piracy).

Fine, I think we actually agree, but are using different terminology to get there. There's no point in haggling over the difference between "bugged in such a way that they are able to violate the usual game rules" and "cheating".

Also, if you have more information, could you add it to the bug report in my previous post please?

 

[Jack Schitt]

Fine, I think we actually agree, but are using different terminology to get there. There's no point in haggling over the difference between "bugged in such a way that they are able to violate the usual game rules" and "cheating".

I would interpret "cheating" as a deliberate alteration of code to give NPCs an advantage, while "bugged" is an accident that results in the same behaviour. Objectively different, subjectively the same.

The problem with ED is that it often takes FD so long to fix, or even acknowledge, these things that sometimes it's almost impossible to tell a bug from a "working as intended" feature.

 

[timbero]

They do indeed cheat, they can jump out while being mass locked by asteroids for instance.

Also they don't have to align with trajectory to jump out, they can jump away while spinning wildly out of control.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

which only affects some NPCs, specifically those using mining builds

Thank you! I remember someone telling me that was what was happening. It might even have been you. But you know, the old memory.