Engineered superweapons/shileds are the problem, not the AI's tactics/skills.

[Karl Marx]

No. I'm on 1.6

That's your own problem then. You want the content? You have to buy it. Welcome to the standard model of online gaming.

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Engineer upgrades need to be removed from NPC ships in 1.6. Because at the moment, 1.6 is pretty much unplayable.

I disagree. I have 2.1 but I have no engineer mods on my FDL and I can hold my own without any major problems. It's piloting skill that'll save you... and a good ship with good modules. Make sure you have point defense and a shield cell.

 

[Tikigod]

Players in solo are alone in thier own world. If they want to feel safe and godly then let them. That is perhaps why they play the game. Others may want a heavier risk. Let them have that as well. Life contains all sorts of personality types. The 21st century is supposed to be an accomodating time. Thus fd should make a difficulty selector to allow us all to get what we want from the product we pay for.

Actually there aren't alone in their own world.

Everything feeds back into the same persistent universe state. What you do in solo influences the same universe as people who play open... that's why it's called Solo not Offline.


Everyone needs the same experience, difficulty sliders and other such nonsense will never be a solution.

 

[Pumabear8]

Actually there aren't alone in their own world.

Everything feeds back into the same persistent universe state. What you do in solo influences the same universe as people who play open... that's why it's called Solo not Offline.


Everyone needs the same experience, difficulty sliders and other such nonsense will never be a solution.

This is why solo and multiplayer should have been separate from the beginning.

 

[DaveB]

...Outside of the bugs which will get fixed providing people actually report them instead of just recording footage of the bugs to bring into whine threads to 'prove AI needs nerfing', Frontier perhaps have a decision on their hands:

* Keep high ranked AI performance as it stands. Then either hope people adapt and make adjustments to better counteract the advantages of heavily modified opponents, or reduce the existence of high ranked NPCs.

* Reduce AI performance, but as a consequence end up with a situation where players with any modifications become untouchable gods with no equal outside of PvP.

* Universal blanket nerf of all Engineer modification values. Making low ranked modifications absolutely pointless and useless, and having the highest grade modifications the only time you'll see any kind of real gain.


The problem with reducing the existence of high ranked NPCs and keeping their performance is that it makes modification heavy players 'gods'.

The problem with reducing AI performance as already mentioned is again it makes modification heavy players 'gods'.

And the problem with the 3rd option is it'll cause lots of whining and complaints over how the much awaited for Engineers offer absolutely nothing of value and Frontier conned people into buying Horizons for chunks of update that offer nothing..... well... more than certain individuals are already screaming that Frontier conned people into buying Horizons and that 2.0 and 2.1 both offer nothing of value.

There is a fourth option, which is the one I would advocate for.

Keep the AI flying skills substantially as they are (we do know FD are planning a quick balance pass on how this scales with their rank) Keep the effects of engineer modifications substantially as they are. Reduce the frequency with which NPCs spawn with engineer mods. Now, the "balance point" for that reduction is going to be a moving target. It's overwhelming right now because most high-ranked NPCs seem to have one or more mods installed, but relatively few players do. It's doubly so because the prevalence of mods in lower ranked NPCs is not AS high but is still TOO high for both good gameplay and immersion. There's a solution to that though, cap the percentage of Elite NPCs that spawn with engineer mods at a number derived from the percentage of player ships that have them. (this need not be realtime, it could be a number updated by a single database query during each BGS tick and provided to the client once, on session startup) Then make that percentage fall off at a steep rate for NPCs ranked lower than Elite such that the lowest ranks of NPCs, the ones that new players are most likely to be taking on, will NEVER have them. Get that right once and FD are freed from the need to keep revisiting this balance, it doesn't give an unbalanced advantage to players with mods and it doesn't totally squish new players.

 

[LoreLSR]

That's your own problem then. You want the content? You have to buy it. Welcome to the standard model of online gaming.

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I disagree. I have 2.1 but I have no engineer mods on my FDL and I can hold my own without any major problems. It's piloting skill that'll save you... and a good ship with good modules. Make sure you have point defense and a shield cell.

Dude i'm on Xbox One. I would be happy to buy the new content, and i certainly will, but it's not yet avalaible for me. Only for the NPCs chasing me.

 

[Karl Marx]

Dude i'm on Xbox One. I would be happy to buy the new content, and i certainly will, but it's not yet avalaible for me. Only for the NPCs chasing me.

Ahhh. Consoles. Well there's your problem.

I'll just leave this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/wiki/guide

 

[Ximrats]

Dude i'm on Xbox One. I would be happy to buy the new content, and i certainly will, but it's not yet avalaible for me. Only for the NPCs chasing me.

Can't remember off the top of my head, what's the ETA on you guys getting Horizons/2.1?


Be interesting to see what a load of CMDRs with newly given access to planetary landings are gonna do first

 

[Lheim]

So the NPCs are indeed subject to heat, but are perfectly willing to engulf themselves in a pyroclasmic cataclysm and burn their ship to ashes to take out a single commander.

Well, that explains things. Us puny mortals actually care about keeping our ships vaguely functional through multiple combats, and so we have an ersatz dps "leash". Woooonderful game design.

Oh, and they can probably adjust pips perfectly multiple times a second, so that they would seem to a mortal human to have 12 pips but that's not technically true so it isn't cheating OR cheap.

 

[RoninCahill]

I would think a slider or similar chooser would simple alter the code of the difficulty of npcs you run into..seems easy. I am a programmer as well, done similar with other types of things. This likey would take more code but doable.

 

[souprmage]

I'm sure many of you that have higher rankings will have a different view of things as you're likely to come across more skilled NPC classes and thus should expect better AI.

Being only a Novice at combat, and flying a not fully equipped Cobra Mk III, I've had some pretty odd encounters now that I've done some space combat. Not just of the 'OMG what just happened' variety where the other ship was clearly very skilled with their fixed lasers. But against ships I should have had some possibility of standing some chance against. It's not like I'm flying a cargo ship that can't turn. But I came across a 'Competant' Sidewinder pilot, that I tried like hell to get somewhere in front of me, and I simply couldn't do it. He didn't have uber weapons or anything, but clearly he had flight skills that were nearly perfect. I didn't have much fear of him killing me, so I figured I'd at least try to see what I could do to fight him.

I spent 10 minutes trying every possible manouver I could think of and not once did I actually see the Sidewinder. No matter what I tried, he was always behind me. I managed to see one of the triangles of the HUD across the very top of my screen, for about half a second. That was it. I never did fire a shot at him.

Now if he were an Elite Sidewinder pilot, then sure. I would expect it to be very hard to get him in front of me. But even then, I would expect to get him somewhere I could see him even if I couldn't get a good aim on him. Him being Competent, only one level above where I am, it shouldn't have been a futile fight. He should have still made flight errors that resulted in me being able to get behind him. I may not be the best around, but I should be able to at least get lucky every now and again.

And yeah, being Interdicted within 2 seconds of getting to every new system is a bit much.

I like the new UI and missions and a number of the new changes. The AI is not one of those things. I also wish it was more clear on whether a mission was planetary or space. Some people may have every icon memorized and know what/where each one means, but a tool tip or something obvious would be much simpler for us new players.

 

[DaveB]

...
I spent 10 minutes trying every possible manouver I could think of and not once did I actually see the Sidewinder. No matter what I tried, he was always behind me. I managed to see one of the triangles of the HUD across the very top of my screen, for about half a second. That was it. I never did fire a shot at him.
...

I'm far from the guy you should be taking combat instruction from but a few things spring to mind.

None of these questions are intended to be in any way condescending, trust me I've no right be, even if I were so inclined

Were you using FA-off at all? Cutting flight assist and chopping the throttle lets you turn faster.

Were you using vertical thrusters to adjust your turn radius?

Did the opportunity present itself to use the Cobra's superior speed to extend the range? At longer ranges, you can turn inside him easier - although you said your Cobra wasnt "fully fitted" - if it still had the stock thrusters on it that might not be so easy.

 

[LKx]

Engineer upgrades need to be removed from NPC ships in 1.6. Because at the moment, 1.6 is pretty much unplayable.

Well, i think that they should remove ista-gib npcs mods and then see what remains.

However, in general, yeah, i'm worried about too powerful mods.

 

[Zandil]

Maybe this might be the issue

[video=youtube_share;s_6HjebZFYs]https://youtu.be/s_6HjebZFYs[/video]

The purple laser is a NPC firing a PA, seems to be affecting NPC's with rail guns to.

 

[Han Brannigan]

There is a fourth option, which is the one I would advocate for.

Keep the AI flying skills substantially as they are (we do know FD are planning a quick balance pass on how this scales with their rank) Keep the effects of engineer modifications substantially as they are. Reduce the frequency with which NPCs spawn with engineer mods. Now, the "balance point" for that reduction is going to be a moving target. It's overwhelming right now because most high-ranked NPCs seem to have one or more mods installed, but relatively few players do. It's doubly so because the prevalence of mods in lower ranked NPCs is not AS high but is still TOO high for both good gameplay and immersion. There's a solution to that though, cap the percentage of Elite NPCs that spawn with engineer mods at a number derived from the percentage of player ships that have them. (this need not be realtime, it could be a number updated by a single database query during each BGS tick and provided to the client once, on session startup) Then make that percentage fall off at a steep rate for NPCs ranked lower than Elite such that the lowest ranks of NPCs, the ones that new players are most likely to be taking on, will NEVER have them. Get that right once and FD are freed from the need to keep revisiting this balance, it doesn't give an unbalanced advantage to players with mods and it doesn't totally squish new players.

+1000

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I spent 10 minutes trying every possible manouver I could think of and not once did I actually see the Sidewinder. No matter what I tried, he was always behind me. I managed to see one of the triangles of the HUD across the very top of my screen, for about half a second. That was it. I never did fire a shot at him.

A sidewinder is much more maneuverable then a Cobra. Try to force him into a jousting match using your higher speed. (Boost away, turn, come back at him)

 

[souprmage]

I'm far from the guy you should be taking combat instruction from but a few things spring to mind.

None of these questions are intended to be in any way condescending, trust me I've no right be, even if I were so inclined

Were you using FA-off at all? Cutting flight assist and chopping the throttle lets you turn faster.

Were you using vertical thrusters to adjust your turn radius?

Did the opportunity present itself to use the Cobra's superior speed to extend the range? At longer ranges, you can turn inside him easier - although you said your Cobra wasnt "fully fitted" - if it still had the stock thrusters on it that might not be so easy.

I've not tried the flight assist trick. I'll have to see what disables flight assist using an XBox controller, perhaps I have to use a special key. I did try vert thrusters both directions to no avail. I also tried blasting away from him to get more distance, but he wasn't having any of it. Maybe the Flight Assist will be the trick though, I'll have to play with that. Although hopefully with the update a Competant pilot won't be quite so difficult.

Thanks for the tips though, appreciated.

 

[Darrett]

I've not tried the flight assist trick. I'll have to see what disables flight assist using an XBox controller, perhaps I have to use a special key. I did try vert thrusters both directions to no avail. I also tried blasting away from him to get more distance, but he wasn't having any of it. Maybe the Flight Assist will be the trick though, I'll have to play with that. Although hopefully with the update a Competant pilot won't be quite so difficult.

Thanks for the tips though, appreciated.

Flight assist will allow you to force a head to head. This is good if you have better weapons and shields, but not if he has the better ship, as he gets to fire on you as well. Just keep that in mind.