That sounds like a great way to use the NPC's own advantages against them. I've found that SLF pilots can't generally hit anything until at least Master rank but what you've described sounds like a good use of "temporary" Expert NPC pilots, i.e., hire them from the mission board at Expert rank since they will still have aimbot accuracy with railguns even though they couldn't hit the broad side of an Anaconda with fixed weapons. Then you can fire them before turning in mission rewards so that they aren't even paid properly for their time. Double win since you can use two of the game's annoying NPC mechanics to your advantage.
That sounds like a great way to use the NPC's own advantages against them. I've found that SLF pilots can't generally hit anything until at least Master rank but what you've described sounds like a good use of "temporary" Expert NPC pilots, i.e., hire them from the mission board at Expert rank since they will still have aimbot accuracy with railguns even though they couldn't hit the broad side of an Anaconda with fixed weapons. Then you can fire them before turning in mission rewards so that they aren't even paid properly for their time. Double win since you can use two of the game's annoying NPC mechanics to your advantage.
Without taking sides:
1) you cant just say the evidence exists without showing it. "I am right cause proof is somewhere on the internet." really doesn't cut it, I am afraid.
2) Its a bit weak to start with an authority fallacy ("Its been said by well-respected players!") and then accuse the other of a different fallacy. Not that his attack on you was needed, but lets keep this clear of all fallacies while we're pointing them out.
Asking for "proof" isn't always easy for players to obtain because we have received very inconsistent information from FD in terms of what NPCs can and cannot actually do and many players (including myself) have observed otherwise impossible behavior based on what we were told by the devs. Some of this can be directly proven with a screen shot, i.e., NPCs with access to Engineering weapons when FD claimed they had all been removed. Other behavior, however, is something that you can only really experience in-game and is based on hundreds or thousands of hours of playing the game and learning what NPCs should and should not be able to do. Even a video example doesn't always show this very well because when trying to outmaneuver an NPC you need to know what control inputs you are using and a video does not capture that information. A good example of this was the impossible Anaconda agility that was seen for several months after they patched the Skynet NPC bug. Many players were consistently reporting that NPC Anacondas and other large ships were impossibly agile to the point that they should not have been able to make certain maneuvers, even with FA-Off, and that this was a bug. They were dismissed by certain individuals who were claiming that the players were "mistaken" somehow but there was no actual explanation given for how the NPCs should be capable of doing those maneuvers. Then eventually several months later FD realized there was in fact still a bug causing NPCs to have impossible agility, it had nothing to do with NPCs using Engineering or FA-Off, and they not only fixed the bug they also submitted another round of insurance reimbursements to players who lost their ships in combat against those NPCs.
The point here is that to dismiss something that many players have reported on the forums is never a good idea when the players have literally hundreds of thousands of hours of playtime that the devs quite simply cannot test themselves. Yes, in some cases claims of NPC "bugs" are due to a player not understanding how the game works but the reality is that NPCs cheat in various ways and we have had several game-breaking NPC bugs exist for several months before being recognized by FD. That should generally give a lot of credibility when players make claims of what should be impossible NPC behavior and they shouldn't be dismissed or held to an unreasonable standard of "proof" which in many cases is not really possible for a player to obtain.
Last edited:
Except that players have often noticed behavior which NPCs should not have been able to do and reported it multiple times, for several months, before FD in fact realized that there was a bug responsible for the issue. Obviously a brand-new player who doesn't have much in-game time would not know the difference but players such as myself who have literally thousands of hours can tell the difference between a NPC that is flying at the limit of their ship's performance vs. one that is doing something their ship should not be capable of doing. It's nowhere near "99% of NPC combat behavior" that is "perfectly normal", if you understand how the game works and spend enough time fighting NPCs you will find many different ways in which they cheat.
How can it be "cheating" when players are simply using game mechanics where they have to follow all of the game rules when NPCs only have to follow some of them? That is literally the opposite of cheating because players have to follow many rules which NPCs do need to do, such as NPCs having infinite ammo for multicannons, aimbot-level accuracy with railguns and many other advantages that they should not have.
Last edited:
One thing that bugs me of opponent npc's particularly cutters in CZ's is that they often recharge their almost gone shields to their max with longer lasting SCB recharging than seemingly possible. While I'm not sure if they have unlimited SCB's, I once played along with a cutter which had about 15 scb charges before I gave up counting.
That said, some of the NPC "cheats" are understandable to create more of a challenge as long as they're not overly unreasonable to the lore, and I'd think it's possible that after a dev's timestamped quotes on the AI coding and outfitting, that NPC's could have changed since 2016.
I'd done that few times with my cutter and my slf pilot. It could be more of an advantage using a smaller slf-capable ship. Eventually I found myself doing it less so out of habit, because piloting the cutter myself with the slf supporting is still faster at defeating the npc's, and probably because I don't use rails that much and it's frustrating seeing my crew still over-drifting and not maneuvering well in the cutter. Maybe it'll be different with the slf pilot in a krait..
That said, some of the NPC "cheats" are understandable to create more of a challenge as long as they're not overly unreasonable to the lore, and I'd think it's possible that after a dev's timestamped quotes on the AI coding and outfitting, that NPC's could have changed since 2016.
I've used this to my advantage in the past. When I want to fly an SLF in combat, I take my Keelback which has a combo of turrets and rails. The turrets take care of themselves, and my NPC pilot can hit the mark with those rail guns like I could never hope to do with my DS4 controller.
ps - I think all NPCs on consoles should have to use a controller
I'd done that few times with my cutter and my slf pilot. It could be more of an advantage using a smaller slf-capable ship. Eventually I found myself doing it less so out of habit, because piloting the cutter myself with the slf supporting is still faster at defeating the npc's, and probably because I don't use rails that much and it's frustrating seeing my crew still over-drifting and not maneuvering well in the cutter. Maybe it'll be different with the slf pilot in a krait..
Last edited:
Not quite. They can and do miss, even at high ranks, and probably more often than the best CMDRs.
That is a thing NPCs do that we cannot, though it might be a bug.
This is not.
Have never once seen an NPC pull off a maneuver I could not do and I've fought a lot more of them than most (including recently).
They very rarely "miss" unless you are boosting out of their field of fire. Even if you are maneuvering evasively this doesn't seem to affect their aim unless you are boosting. Their accuracy is generally much higher than any player I've encountered, with the possible exception of someone using a specialized mouse setup for precise railgun aiming with long-range rails. Even in that case however the player is not going to be anywhere near as consistent as NPCs and their aim is going to be affected much more significantly by evasive maneuvers. The issue here is that while a player needs to time their shots and has to deal with the railgun charging delay the NPCs don't seem to have this limitation and can "snap-fire" them with remarkable accuracy, suggesting that they either don't have a charge time or the charge time doesn't affect them for some reason. There have been multiple reports on the forums of SLF fighters being insta-killed almost immediately after deployment by NPCs armed with railguns and I have never seen a player manage to do that even with a mouse setup. There was even a mention in the patch notes at some point that recognized that NPCs were more accurate with railguns than they should be an the issue was supposed to be "fixed" but it still remains a problem.
Last edited:
Then you apparently weren't around when the Skynet NPC bug was a problem and NPCs had both impossible weapons (like plasma accelerators with mutlicanon ROF) and were making impossible maneuvers (like an NPC Anaconda outmaneuvering much smaller and faster ships). The maneuvering bug wasn't recognized by FD for several months after they fixed the Skynet NPC bug and many players (including myself) were seeing clear evidence of large NPC ships like Anacondas doing maneuvers which should not have been possible regardless of any type of Engineering or FA-Off maneuvering (which apparently wouldn't apply to NPCs since they apparently are never supposed to use FA-Off).
Last edited:
I believe the NPC railgun accuracy is due to the way railguns work. For most intents and purposes, they're basically a hitscan weapon. Is reticule over target upon full charge y/n? If Y, hit. If N, miss then check for objects in path of reticule out to maximum range. Rails have basically no travel time, thus NPC targeting is terrifyingly simple and deadly reliable. It's impossible to dodge something that leaves its weapon and impacts instantly; if they're on target, the shot hits. Compared to any other projectile which has to actually REACH its target, railguns are easily the scariest weapon for NPC's to have. While it may be possible to throw off an NPC rail shot with some resourceful methods, the bottom line is that, barring such unusual circumstances, it's safe to assume that NPC's are going to hit you with rails. I'm not too scared when I see NPC's with missiles, beams or PA's, but if a whole wing of NPC's starts opening up with rails, I am OUT.
As to the general topic, I can confirm there are things NPC's do that directly break the rules that players follow. For example, "Surge detected" on the criminal I'm fighting should mean he's hit his SC and should NO LONGER BE FIRING AT ME...and yet he keeps shooting. I'm flying a python and he's in an asp, still circling me at less than a KM away...but less than ten seconds later, "THWIP" and he's gone. Reverse the roles and supercruise would've taken at LEAST twice at long AND I'd have to stop shooting.
That's cheating. Convince me otherwise.
Exactly, that's most likely why NPCs have both aimbot-like accuracy and can "snap fire" the railguns. It's difficult to "reduce" their accuracy to properly reflect the challenges an actual player faces using the weapons given that the NPC can use them as hitscan weapons all day long without any fatigue or timing issues. The best that can be done is to program certain "limitations" which try to mimic what a player would actually find challenging about using railguns but even this is not really the same thing and they have yet to find an appropriate balance for NPC railgun accuracy.
We see these types of issues all the time, especially with NPCs having amazing "vision" and are able to track a ship consistently even when they are in silent running and have a black paintjob that would be extremely difficult for a player to track visually. Much like the issue with railgun accuracy FD was supposed to have "fixed" this issue but it's still a major problem and silent running is still basically useless against NPCs in combat. It has some uses for smuggling if an NPC hasn't detected you visually but once they see you it doesn't make any real difference if you enter silent running at that point or not.
There are frequent examples that many players have noted where NPCs either have situations where they flat-out break the "rules" (such as not actually needing an FSD to jump) or they are programmed to do things that a player wouldn't be able to accomplish because they are more precise or accurate than a person would be (such as railgun accuracy and exceptional visual tracking of targets).
This is likely also why NPCs aren't supposed to use FA-Off, they could outmaneuver any player simply because they have an unlimited number of "control inputs" to control 6DOF in ways that even the best HOTAS setup can't accomplish. In fact I usually fly using keyboard only (with WASD for throttle/yaw and numpad for pitch/roll) and I can routinely achieve more simultaneous full-deflection control inputs than I can with my HOTAS but I run into key rollover issues where my keyboard stops responding to that many inputs. It's a gaming keyboard but it doesn't have n-key rollover so I often have to release certain keys when it doesn't respond properly. An NPC not only has no problems with n-key rollover they can also press n keys simultaneously to achieve maneuvers that players couldn't properly match with any actual control setup. If they were allowed to use FA-Off it wouldn't be "fair" unless it were severely limited in some manner that approximated the difficulty that players experience using that control setup.
Last edited:
Achilles7
Banned
Ahhh I haven't seen this particular recurring thread for a while.
Yes they cheat...but not always in the ways some cmdrs claim.
Multi-cannon ammo, waking just after firing, impossible jump ranges & firing while dead & spinning. A few others but most of the highlighted examples are apocryphal!
& Let's not mention our engineered shields, weps.....oh & thrusters of course, that enable even fairly slow ships in std spec to get out of range in 2 or 3 boosts when things go south. *Cough* imagine if NPCs could do that to us? The toys would be raining down on these forums like a monsoon!
Yes they cheat...but not always in the ways some cmdrs claim.
Multi-cannon ammo, waking just after firing, impossible jump ranges & firing while dead & spinning. A few others but most of the highlighted examples are apocryphal!
& Let's not mention our engineered shields, weps.....oh & thrusters of course, that enable even fairly slow ships in std spec to get out of range in 2 or 3 boosts when things go south. *Cough* imagine if NPCs could do that to us? The toys would be raining down on these forums like a monsoon!
Last edited:
Old Duck, you started this thread knowing what you were doing. You wanted to complain about something, and since this has now been refuted you move the topic to other known bugs.
I feel sad we have to fight against 'easy-mode' npcs because the last version we got to test was too hard for a lot of people.
That's why subsystem targeting has become largely irrelevant.
When the game came out, the would explode when the PP was at 0%.
Probably they buffed the NPCs to balance the TTK when Engineers came out.
But yeah, they cheat a lot. On the other hand, the game design requires them to be canon fodder.
With the Multi-Crew Update, it's now around 8000 NPCs on average you have to grind from Deadly to Elite?
And of course, many ships are not combat vessels, so for them the NPCs can provide a challenge.
Last edited:
Craith
Volunteer Moderator
Just empiric evidence, but I never encountered an NPC with more than 8 (4+4) SCBs, and most of the time the second set is weaker than the first one. When I'm in the eagle and don't have my SCB-breaker rails with me, I need to outlast them, so I have a lot of time to count (no chance to out-DPS them).
Similar for chaff, although I don't really count (usually fixed), they stop using it after a while - usually they are long dear before they run out though, even if they only sport one launcher, but big ships vs. eagle definitely don't chaff at the end.
Concerning heat, I've seen the PP drop a few % while the shields were up and SCB ran - so they do take heat damage, but most of the time they drop a heatsink along with the SCB, and they are not engineered to the limit like player ships, so more room for heat I guess.
I easily outshoot Rail-Eagles in my Rail-Eagle, and I am far from the best. If you fly in a straight vector, it
They do miss, though rarely, most of the time they just stop firing instead of missing, so it looks like they hit nearly all the time. They are just conserving ammunition though. Shooting a SLF is not that hard with rails, unless the fighter is focused on you (which it isn't during launch).
They do cheat (or are bugged) concerning damage to their PP - they don't seem to suffer from reduced power output with their PP at 0%, regenerating shields while firing beams and plasmas. They also always start at 100% hull/ammo when you get into the instance, and are able to follow you way further than their jump range and fuel would allow.
Similar for chaff, although I don't really count (usually fixed), they stop using it after a while - usually they are long dear before they run out though, even if they only sport one launcher, but big ships vs. eagle definitely don't chaff at the end.
Concerning heat, I've seen the PP drop a few % while the shields were up and SCB ran - so they do take heat damage, but most of the time they drop a heatsink along with the SCB, and they are not engineered to the limit like player ships, so more room for heat I guess.
I easily outshoot Rail-Eagles in my Rail-Eagle, and I am far from the best. If you fly in a straight vector, it
They do miss, though rarely, most of the time they just stop firing instead of missing, so it looks like they hit nearly all the time. They are just conserving ammunition though. Shooting a SLF is not that hard with rails, unless the fighter is focused on you (which it isn't during launch).
They do cheat (or are bugged) concerning damage to their PP - they don't seem to suffer from reduced power output with their PP at 0%, regenerating shields while firing beams and plasmas. They also always start at 100% hull/ammo when you get into the instance, and are able to follow you way further than their jump range and fuel would allow.
NPCs now are just cannon fodder, is just a shoot-fest where people rarely dies and not because they avoid the fight or chickens out when losing, just because it is relatively easy, where some combat-only people is actually asking to remove the chaff from game because it just delays a certain kill.
The only known "cheat" for AI is multicannon ammo. At some time FD confirmed that NPCs have unlimited MC ammo, as them running out of ammo resulted in some really weird AI behavior. But that was several years ago, I wouldn't know if this workaround by now is still in place. That being said, I think if you fight an NPC for long enough that the NPC runs out of MC ammo, there's something else going badly wrong.
.
On all the other ammo, they do run out. The "problem" is, when we players head to a RES, we plan for a longer playing session. The NPC can use all ammo in one fight, no need to hold back. That's why it seems unlimited and spammy when fighting them.
.
.
On all the other ammo, they do run out. The "problem" is, when we players head to a RES, we plan for a longer playing session. The NPC can use all ammo in one fight, no need to hold back. That's why it seems unlimited and spammy when fighting them.
.
This is nonsense. They [fdev] employ multiple mechanics that are impossible for a player to perform. These mechanics are 'cheats', because simply put, whomever codes the AI is stuffed.
Endless chaff, endless ammo, ability to use target break while firing and boosting, 2 sets of thrusters, Able to dodge hits if they're smaller, Able to wake while weapons deployed and being fired, endless boost, able to have 100% efficiency when PP at 0%, coded to not explode when at 0%, coded to select a dumfire missile as having a higher threat level, negating the 'select next/highest threat', and a whole lot more.
The longer I play this game the more I realise they just can't code AI, and cheat to be cheap.
I disagree with everyone bashing the AI coder(s). Creating an AI to actually fly our ships in space and engage in combat and other maneuvers is no trivial task, and I'm actually pretty impressed with the results. If NPCs are programmed to "cheat" (and the verdict is still out on that), then it's probably because players demand that NPCs scale with them and offer a challenge to your engineered Corvette 'god-ship'. IMO, an Elite CMDR with a crazy OP ship should find most NPCs to be easy - their challenge should come in numbers, not because all of the sudden every individual in the galaxy is Elite just because you are. This is one of the reasons I wish ATR didn't exist. I'd much rather a dozen normal ships respond to "armed and extremely dangerous" criminals instead of two magic ATR ships. But I digress..
totally agree, maybe adapt actions to security state for the sake of lesser skilled pilots, but yes
and i use them to train my pilot
For me it's not the combat AI that is the most irritating in terms of 'cheating', it's the spawn mechanics for NPCs.
Since the game just spawns in any enemy NPCs it feels you should have to face, based on missions or other factors, they can perform amazing feats.
An FDL can follow you all the way to Colonia, and drop in to attack you at every stop you make. Huh? They should be left far behind, considering their jump range.
You can almost kill an NPC during an interdiction, but it wakes out. You go back to supercruise, and there it is, that same NPC, all healed up to full, interdicting you immediately. Ugh, ridiculous. State isn't even retained. I've even seen them change combat ranks.
They can see my cargo without scanning me! I wonder how?!
Stuff like that, the list goes on. Without ever getting into combat, the NPC behavior is already 'cheat' enabled.
It's just something you have to try to overlook, else you'll go mad
Since the game just spawns in any enemy NPCs it feels you should have to face, based on missions or other factors, they can perform amazing feats.
An FDL can follow you all the way to Colonia, and drop in to attack you at every stop you make. Huh? They should be left far behind, considering their jump range.
You can almost kill an NPC during an interdiction, but it wakes out. You go back to supercruise, and there it is, that same NPC, all healed up to full, interdicting you immediately. Ugh, ridiculous. State isn't even retained. I've even seen them change combat ranks.
They can see my cargo without scanning me! I wonder how?!
Stuff like that, the list goes on. Without ever getting into combat, the NPC behavior is already 'cheat' enabled.
It's just something you have to try to overlook, else you'll go mad
Last edited: