Mess around in a high intensity conflict zone. Seems like every other NPC in a densely-packed HICZ area is a Python or a railgun Asp that wants to kill you, and they're much, much tougher to kill (in terms of being bullet sponges) than anything you'll find in RES sites and such. Oddly enough, they're often labeled as "mostly harmless," even though they're using shield boosters, military composites, plasma accelerators, and so on and so forth.
Oh, and they *will* fire back. Every time.
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people in the beta forum were reporting it took them ten minutes to kill a mostly harmless eagle. I think there is a discrepancy between how hard the new AI is and what people make of it. Maybe it is because 95% of enemies are Novice or weaker, so yyou dont run into the supposedly terrifying AI much if at all.
Here's the thing. For some reason, there's a huge discrepancy between low-ranking ships in conflict zones and similarly-ranked ships elsewhere (RES sites or Nav Beacons, for example). I'm facing mostly harmless Pythons in high intensity conflict zones that feel deadlier and tougher than some of the highest-ranking NPCs I've had to deal with. RES sites are a joke for my Courier / Clipper, and yet I actually have a little trouble keeping my shields up in high intensity conflict zones. When a Python or two and one or two other miscellaneous ships using shield boosters and military composites are constantly stripping your shields down, it's tough to survive.
