'Attack of the AI' III

[Ian Skippy]

I can only apologise if I ever did - this bug's nature has taken a while to come out as it's a bit variable and intermittent so for a long time it hasn't been at all clear if it existed.

People seem in general agreement now though, and I'm sure they've noticed that

Part of the problem is that people have different ideas about what is OP:

"Hey, I was flying my empty cobra mk4, ranked novice, when I was engaged and killed by two elite fdls!"

"Yeah, same here! I tried to kill a wing of five condas in my vulture, in hazres, but I died!"

"Me too! I was flying my tradecutter and this insanely good Eagle killed me in 27 minutes! I never got him in sight!"

"Thats nothing! My corvette was attacked by two sideys and litetally killed in two seconds flat!"

Obviously the first and fourth need to be investigated, the 2nd and 3rd should not. Its partly why I give far more weight to reports with vids: too often "infinite chaff" turned out to be "4x chaff".

 

[Codger]

You know, the only conclusion I can come to is that we are looking for a pattern where none exists.

Let me explain what I mean. In my own tests, I did the same trading run between 2 High Security systems, using 3 different ships, FAS, Python, and iEagle, filling each one with as many Imp Slaves as it could hold. My interdiction rate was 66%, out of 12 runs I was interdicted 8 times. Every one was higher than my combat level (Expert). I had one master, a couple Dangerous, and the rest Deadly. Ship size did not appear to matter. High Security did not appear to matter. Combat rank did not appear to matter.

Yet others who have posted here have had completely different experiences, getting interdicted by low-levels only, or not being interdicted at all.

So I think that it's ALL just another RNG fest. There is no pattern. It's just random.

I'd LOVE to think there was a pattern so we could figure it out and act accordingly to increase/decrease risk, but it really looks to me like there isn't one.

RNG all the way, that must be FD's motto.

 

[myrr mac]

friend of mine has theory that pirate level is tied to your accumulated assets, and that pirate ship is tied to your ship. At first I dimissed it as its obviously a nonsensical way to balance, but it fits our small sample size perfectly.

He has almost 5billion assets, and meets exclusively elites. Their ship sizes vary based on what hes flying. hes elite combat.

I fly an annaconda worth about 700mil, and am at 1.2b assets and meet mid-sized ships with the occasional annaconda, all deadly/elite (with a few outliers at master). I v been dangerous, harmless and mostly harmless and not seen a difference.

@artigan99

if it was random, you d think I d meet something other than deadly/elite, no?

 

[frostypaw]

Ah I dunno, i'm a novice with 47million in the bank flying an asp (with a cobra in storage) and all I saw for days and days was expert and up.

 

[Maxmilian Czhilli]

I had support reset my combat rank on friday.

Before friday: exclusively deadly/elite ranked pirates in dropships, FASes, FDLs.
after friday: exclusively deadly/elite ranked pirates in dropships, FASes, FDLs, and also anacondas now.

mission or not made no difference. Not subbed to a PP power. Location might effect frequency, I have no idea tbh. It however has no effect on the rank of the npc pirates.

A-rated conda the whole time, with refitting based on what I was doing at the time, but value of ship fairly constant since the bulk of the cost is the armor, and core internals, which remained constant.

I had 3 master ranked pirates on friday afternoon, but no other deviations from what I stated.

To be extra clear: I m talking about non-mission npc pirates. If I pick up a low ranked mission, the quest npcs will also be low rank.

Thanks for the information, that's really interesting. It's not the behaviour I would expect. I understand your frustration much better now.

It looks as if the NPC matchmaking is based on and aggregate score based on a number of factors and simply reducing your combat rank does little to reduce this.

I wonder whether NPC matchmaking is looking at the value of your ship and sending you pirates based on that. The easiest way to test this would be to fly around in a Sidewinder for a bit and see what happens. I'm sure it would be useful feedback for FDev.

If you are still getting high level interdictions in a cheap ship then the matchmaking may be based on other factors.

I assume you still have fairly high ranks in trade and exploration. Maybe that is is being factored in.

I urge everyone in this thread who is having problems with higher than expected NPC interdictions to be calm when others ask for details. It's much easier to work out what might be going on when the circumstances are clearer. I don't doubt that some people are having the problems they describe. Maybe we can work out why.

 

[myrr mac]

I m not gonna be testing out a small ship, since I cant store my engineering mats.

I m also kinda sulking / on break due to this result of 20 hours of farming. http://imgur.com/7xLRiux

Lots of things wrong at the moment

 

[Maxmilian Czhilli]

friend of mine has theory that pirate level is tied to your accumulated assets, and that pirate ship is tied to your ship. At first I dimissed it as its obviously a nonsensical way to balance, but it fits our small sample size perfectly.

He has almost 5billion assets, and meets exclusively elites. Their ship sizes vary based on what hes flying. hes elite combat.

I fly an annaconda worth about 700mil, and am at 1.2b assets and meet mid-sized ships with the occasional annaconda, all deadly/elite (with a few outliers at master). I v been dangerous, harmless and mostly harmless and not seen a difference.

@artigan99

if it was random, you d think I d meet something other than deadly/elite, no?

Yeah assets could definitely be a factor. Kind of hard to test that one without loosing many months of progress. I did just that with my clear save, but that resets all my stats. I'm getting the level of NPCs I would expect. The only anomaly I've encountered was the being interdicted by an Elite NPC pirate, which was why I posted in this thread in the first place. I assume there is some RNG involved to stop things becoming too predictable and spice things up. An occasional really scary ship is fine, but if it happens all the time it must get pretty annoying.

 

[CMDR_TheBS]

I'm starting to think the best strategy might be to take a low-level mining mission that is open for 3+ days. Then again, I was on one (just 4t of Osmium) when I was interdicted by a Deadly FGS that I couldn't run from and hit my FSD just as it was almost full. So I honestly don't know.

My net worth is under 150M, and all I do is fly Vipers, Vultures and, until I reverted shortly after 2.1.02, Pythons.

 

[Codger]

@artigan99

if it was random, you d think I d meet something other than deadly/elite, no?

If truly random, yeah, but of course it uses pseudo-random number generator, so it just depends on what seed you get for the RNG. I dunno. I'm just perplexed because people's experiences are so wildly different. There doesn't seem to be any connection to anything, hence my conclusion that there really ISN'T a connection, and we're all spinning our wheels trying to figure out a pattern.

 

[Carmaki]

If I'm gonna be honest, I still dislike the AI immensely, and this update has been nothing but a giant PITA for me over all.

The AIs are a lot harder to take down, they don't pay more when you kill them, and taking on anything bigger than an Asp is ill advised unless you're flying with backup. It just seems that every fight is a white-knuckle confrontation that leaves me more mentally exhausted and frustrated than fulfilled or accomplished. I get it, really I do, some people like that sort of hardcore difficulty that makes you stay on your toes all the time and you never get a chance to relax... But that ain't me, at least not anymore. I got a full time job, a stressful life, and enough frustration to deal with without my 'entertainment' trying to make me contemplate putting a screw driver through my frontal lobe.

Other people may enjoy it, but I don't... Which is a shame, because I was actually having fun before the patch.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

If I'm gonna be honest, I still dislike the AI immensely, and this update has been nothing but a giant PITA for me over all.
...snip...
Other people may enjoy it, but I don't... Which is a shame, because I was actually having fun before the patch.

One thing to think about that might work for you is to clear your save. The game seems much better balanced if you start from scratch again. I understand that this can be very difficult for some, but it might help you find what you enjoy doing.

 

[frostypaw]

Not so obvious IMO. Unless someone can clearly disprove the thesis I still have big ships under suspicion.

Novice, asp, 45Mcr..... anything in the hold and i see a lot of expert and up in bigger ships and that's it.

I wasn't really bothered until i was in high-sec without cargo and i've been flying around for countless hours doing data runs and bits without a single interdiction and finally seeing ranks under competent. quite like a fight but it doesn't make sense like this

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

*Mod hat off

For me the increased difficulty is around just right.

But given the increased difficulty I also believe the pay outs would also need to increase commensurately.

Otherwise player activity will simply and naturally flow to other non combat based game styles... Unless that is precisely what the game designers want to achieve!

how do you do anything non combat focused like me (armed trading and missions, some exploration, occasionally out of the bubble is what i built my ship to do) when you get higher level than you npcs interdicting you 3 or 4 times on way to a station if you have any cargo? miners cant - because mining gives you cargo. traders cant carry cargo, so they cant do anything but sit in dock. explorers are scared to come back to the bubble because they could lose millions in data to a pirate who CANNOT EARN MONEY BY KILLING THEM BECAUSE HE CANNOT SCOOP LOST DATA! its nuts!


on another note the ship that last killed me in rapid quick time was an imperial clipper. maybe there is a clipper related loadout bug.

i could probably do missions - i dont seem to get many interdictions that way at all.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

Part of the problem is that people have different ideas about what is OP: Its partly why I give far more weight to reports with vids: too often "infinite chaff" turned out to be "4x chaff".

first thats a legitimate point but needs to be put as diplomatically as you have. 'give far more weight' is how you put it rather than the open accusation or snide implicatory styles some have used who are knee-jerking against any "nerf" to the AI at all. that gets peoples backs up.

i personally saw one viper mk iv chaffing itself to blazes. 12 or 13 was my count. but i put that down to it being possible to fit more than one chaff launcher and keep all but one offline until needed. i have seen 11 from a clipper who seemed to have nothing else to throw at me after he interdicted me! i am unsure if it ran out or not since it died not long after. maybe if i had some missiles fitted the fight would have been shorter lol.

so far the current issues seem to be:

some enemies who either circle or try to rub shields and ram but who dont fire or dont have weapons to fire (not sure which it is)

some players constantly getting opponents of a particular level under slightly different circumstances;
1)lower level opponents for high combat rank players
2)some players get many interdictions by higher ranked npcs when they have cargo, and few interdictions by random levels without
3) some npcs seem to still be able to take down shields and kill ships in alarmingly short time spans. (this could be solved if they are pirates by once the player ship is disabled shooting out the cargo hatch to cause the cargo to drop - since thats what the pirate wanted in the first place, for the least extra bounty accrued. they dont want to add more bounty than they have to. pirates motives need to be rational and pirate AI needs to take that into account in behaviour).

this isnt an exclusive list just trying to put the biggest ones out there to see what we think.

oh and forgot psychopathically homicidal vindictive npcs like griefers who multiple interdict you and wait outside stations for you.

 

[blaze591]

I got a full time job, a stressful life, and enough frustration to deal with without my 'entertainment' trying to make me contemplate putting a screw driver through my frontal lobe.

Other people may enjoy it, but I don't... Which is a shame, because I was actually having fun before the patch.

I hear you, Brother. The gentle fun of a twice weekly session of Bounty Hunting at a compromised Nav Beacon is gone, replaced by the dull grind of looking for Sulphur....

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

did i add to the list the limited material storage you have? and no way to store commodities until you need them? or store anything which is now ESSENTIAL.


in fact thats not emphasised enough. FD somewhere to store things other than ships is now ESSENTIAL

 

[howardtay]

Just did a trip in my A rated Python empty cargo except for 20 collector limpets, from my home station to Maia (Darniell's Progress) to get 1T of Meta Alloy for Felicity Farseer the trip there was 33 hyper jumps and when I got the Meta Alloys, it was 32 Hyper Jumps to Farseer Inc. I wasn't interdicted once. I'm expert, warrant officer, baron with 120M cr's in the bank I'm allied to Federation and also to Empire, not wanted, before todays trip I was interdicted nearly all the time, what the hell is going on!

 

[two quiet suns]

I am deadly in and a rated anaconda and I have been mining in haz Rez and recovering black boxes, dropping in to all uss I see.

Npc are way more of a challenge and I am using fa off for the first time but it's not unplayable.

I have sir robin'd a fair few times though!

 

[Carmaki]

One thing to think about that might work for you is to clear your save. The game seems much better balanced if you start from scratch again. I understand that this can be very difficult for some, but it might help you find what you enjoy doing.

I have well over 1.5 billion in assets, an elite combat ranking, Admiral and Baron, and a ton of other stuff I can't remember... If I have to erase my save file to make the game fun again, then I feel the game has done something horribly wrong.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

I have well over 1.5 billion in assets, an elite combat ranking, Admiral and Baron, and a ton of other stuff I can't remember... If I have to erase my save file to make the game fun again, then I feel the game has done something horribly wrong.

And that is a very valid position to have, I was simply providing an alternative that could be taken. There has to be a way to make it fun for all types of players, I know I don't have the solution however.