hello! been playing for about a week now and am totally engrossed! i was wondering how hostile NPCs work- i play in solo mode and have been unsuccessfully interdicted twice while running data in my starter sidewinder. that's all the action i've seen in about a week of steady play. now i am loading down my cobra with all sorts of freight and haven't seen one unfriendly blip. are some areas more dangerous than others? does it depend on my rank/ship/cargo? don't have capabilities for open play so i'll be sticking with solo and hoping maybe tonight someone wants to test me
encounter rate for hostile NPCs in solo?
- Thread starter Beefthoven
- Start date
Hi, npc's will interdict your ship if you are carrying anything or have accepted a mission where it says there may be hostile ships in pursuit. Indeed, they can interdict you at random regardless. Just remember that for you to attack a hostile npc and not be attacked by the law, the npc must be flagged as WANTED, which you can discover by targeting them (screen bottom-left).
From experience I would say yes, that your rank, ship and cargo will indeed affect the type of foes you encounter and also the reward you receive should you triumph.
Also, in the chaos of battle, accidentally shooting a police ship will instantly flag you as wanted and you will need to leave the area to survive.
Best place to start and test out combat is at your local Nav beacon (found close to Sun and listed in the Navigation window). Following this, you can try resource extraction zones and combat zones when you become more confident (read: richer).
Want to earn additional bounties by shooting WANTED npc's, then outfit a Kill Warrant Scanner, and scan a wanted ship prior to destroying it.
Playing in Solo can certainly be safer (and less laggy) than playing in Open but nothing beats the thrill of seeing and interactiving with others and even being part of a Wing!
From experience I would say yes, that your rank, ship and cargo will indeed affect the type of foes you encounter and also the reward you receive should you triumph.
Also, in the chaos of battle, accidentally shooting a police ship will instantly flag you as wanted and you will need to leave the area to survive.
Best place to start and test out combat is at your local Nav beacon (found close to Sun and listed in the Navigation window). Following this, you can try resource extraction zones and combat zones when you become more confident (read: richer).
Want to earn additional bounties by shooting WANTED npc's, then outfit a Kill Warrant Scanner, and scan a wanted ship prior to destroying it.
Playing in Solo can certainly be safer (and less laggy) than playing in Open but nothing beats the thrill of seeing and interactiving with others and even being part of a Wing!
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thanks all
thanks for the info! i am hoping that it will get a little harder. almost all my runs warn that hostiles may be sent. i've been landing at stations with glowing red skulls projected from towers. hopefully as i progress in rank and mission payouts i'll start facing some more threats.
thanks for the info! i am hoping that it will get a little harder. almost all my runs warn that hostiles may be sent. i've been landing at stations with glowing red skulls projected from towers. hopefully as i progress in rank and mission payouts i'll start facing some more threats.
I'll just add that it's also very much randomly generated.
Missions will increase your chance of being interdicted by NPCs, and the rank of the NPC will be influenced by the rank of the mission (higher ranked missions should equal higher ranked NPCs), but this ranking is also weighted by your own rank, so may be toned down just a bit (I'm assuming that your own rank is still low if you've been playing only a week).
It is not guaranteed that missions will spawn opponents, you can go for ages with no interruptions, then a bunch will come along in short order. The more missions you stack, or are running that have the warning of hostile ships being sent against you, the better the chances of interdictions actually occurring.
Just carrying cargo or doing your own thing will still have the possibility to be interdicted or attacked, but it's all RNG, so no real guarantee. If you really, really want to be interdicted, rather than go and find wanted NPCs to shoot at by going to a nav beacon or RES, then if you take a mission with cargo rewards, and keep those four tons of cargo in your hold, they tend to be magnets for NPCs.