Enough of the NPC Aimbot railguns.

[Jukelo]

It's not something limited to NPCs, players can do that as well and it's just the way fixed hitscan weapons work. They have half a degree-ish of no-jitter gimballing going on, which means that at 3 km your weapon will snap to a target even 26 m off-center.
If you want to defeat railguns, fly closer to your target.

 

[Gimi]

The trick here is to call MoM and ask for mercy.

So dear MoM, Mistress of Minions (SJA)
Could you please look at the concerns brought forward in this thread and then see if any balancing and adjustments are warranted for NPC's using Rail Guns.

Now we wait and hope that MoM will have mercy on our in-game souls.

 

[Sooden]

I'm certainly no railgun master, but I've had a lot more success with them by getting used to their timing and hitting the trigger when "I will be on target when the charge cycle completes" rather than "get on target, hit trigger, stay on target til it fires" and it seems to me that the NPC behavior is designed to mimic this. Certainly, if I have changed my ships vector during the charge time before they fire they seem to be much more likely to miss. On the other hand, if I maintain a constant vector for longer than a rails charge time they are very likely to nail me... This isn't instafiring, it's just that being computer programs they are VERY good at predicting the right moment to press the trigger so that the gun fires just as the reticle crosses the target.

i don't know... I been doing some pretty erratic moves in a condor (fighter) and they get a hit , To the point that, if they where tracking me, or predicting where i may be, it would seem impossible, as they can't maneuver as well.

Still, i cant be sure, we don't know how it works, so you could be right

A beam laser is a weapon that needs to stay on target. A rail gun does not: You just need to be on-target when they fire. There's a big difference.

And yes: computer are aimbots. By definition. Although given the limited ammunition, I don't fire rails unless I have an 80%+ chance of hitting, either.

i know this maybe my wording was wrong

yes, they only need to be on target when the shot is fired... staying on target meant being in the right location when it fires... this is a skill. Yes you dont have to be on the target all the time like with beam laser.

I fly fighters a lot (my main ship for combat,most fun), and the accuracy NPC seem to have to track me, and get on target at the point of firing seem a bit to good... to the point that if they had chosen to charge up their weapons, by the time they fire, there is no way the ship could have maneuver to the correct position. (unless i'm getting it wrong because of the heat of battle, normally more that one ship)

Thus, why i think NPC have a cool down per shot and not a charge up.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

i don't know... I been doing some pretty erratic moves in a condor (fighter) and they get a hit , To the point that, if they where tracking me, or predicting where i may be, it would seem impossible, as they can't maneuver as well.

Still, i cant be sure, we don't know how it works, so you could be right

I've watched a Python rail gun my SLF with 100% accuracy.
Unlike us, NPC's don't oversteer, and can quite happily face us the entire time, providing their thrusters allow them to keep on target.

Maybe making Railguns non-hitscan weapons, but just extremely fast might work.

 

[Starbreaker]

I am a bit rubbish with the rails, so I put 2 small ones on my Gunship, it's a ship I use when I want to fly fighters for most of the time so why not take advantage of the AI railgun accuracy.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

maybe adding a maneouvring error based on their combat rank would also help. if they occasionally overcook the thrusters or steering because they are not as good a pilot that would be good. i think from reading the thread thats where the issue is not the more simple predicting the intersect - the npcs handle their shipps too perfectly at lower ranks.

 

[Sooden]

maybe adding a maneouvring error based on their combat rank would also help. if they occasionally overcook the thrusters or steering because they are not as good a pilot that would be good. i think from reading the thread thats where the issue is not the more simple predicting the intersect - the npcs handle their shipps too perfectly at lower ranks.

i'm Elite and i suck with rails.. give them my skills

(not tried to get better, don't like them).

 

[DaveB]

...Maybe making Railguns non-hitscan weapons, but just extremely fast might work.

At the (supposedly) relativistic speed of a railgun projectile, there is no point in doing anything except approximating it by hitscan. Even assuming that the game was up to tracking projectiles up to those speeds then it would still look like hitscan anyway. Once you get a couple of orders of magnitude faster than a MC round you won't see any noticeable aim-off up to the railguns maximum range and it will still hit in the same frame as when it was fired, so effectively it's still hitscan so why bother making all those unnecessary calculations?

 

[GG7]

You wanted harder AI - you got harder AI.

I don't think this is what anyone had in mind.

While my engineered ships all have enough shield and armor buffs to more or less nullify the effects of these particular NPC ships, I agree that their behavior and accuracy is hardly realistic.

The fact that ALL of the NPC ships also appear to have UNLIMITED AMMO strikes me as a bit unfair to the human players who don't. Especially for new players, like the thousands that will soon descend on the PS4 version.

I'm really hoping that Sarah is already working on another AI balance pass to fix this issue while at the same time giving us a more human like AI that provides a REAL CHALLENGE in PvE combat, instead of the artificially created one we currently have.

 

[Chrystoph]

NPC Aimbot, arnt all NPC aimbot...anyways.. yeah, agree

When i use rail guns, there is a charge up time, so you have to stay on target. It seems like there is no charge up time for npcs, just a cool down timer. So when the cool down has cleared, they shoot as soon as they are on target.

If we had our rail guns charge all the time, then pressed a button when we wish to fire. That would make it too easy, to over powered, less skills needed. The amount of times i've lost my target while charging up a shot ><

if it was done correctly this means, if they started to charge up for a shot, and you got out of their target, they would miss...

This! Unfortunately, this is nothing new. I have had a Rail equipped NPC fly past me, flip a 180 and one shot my canopy. A player would have had to start charging while still completely off bore, but the NPC made it seem like a routine operation.

 

[Drelthar]

Seems like they could solve this problem using RNG. They are good at that right?

 

[GG7]

Seems like they could solve this problem using RNG. They are good at that right?

[haha]

Good one!

+1

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

This! Unfortunately, this is nothing new. I have had a Rail equipped NPC fly past me, flip a 180 and one shot my canopy. A player would have had to start charging while still completely off bore, but the NPC made it seem like a routine operation.

i am pretty confident, that a PLAYER can keep the railguns charged with micromanegement and fire them right away too.
and if not, i am pretty sure someone can macro up analoge button (like the shoulder buttons on some gamepads) to allow him doing that without micromanagement

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

A bit of engineering and you'll be fine. I hear there's lots of engineers still in the drawer and once they are upon us you can god roll you stuff to invincibility again.

 

[Space Dandy]

Seems like they could solve this problem using RNG. They are good at that right?

Only when it comes to the players, rng on NPC heavens forbid!

 

[[VR] Enexemander]

They miss. It just doesn't give the hit feedback so it's harder to notice.

I don't know, guys. Sometimes I think forumers are playing a hard mode of the game that I don't have access to.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

You can't boost all the time, there is a cooldown.

Interestingly, there's also a cooldown on railgun shots. What's your point?

Dodging NPC railgun fire is very much doable.

I would, however, support some amount on AI jitter depending on rank, to better simulate a human pilot.

/waits for a player to juke into what would have been off-target NPC jitter, and call for further nerfs

 

[Devari]

You wanted harder AI - you got harder AI.

Aimbot is not AI. It is an aimbot.

Better AI involves programming NPC behavior that uses better tactics, situational awareness, manuvering and prioritizing targets during combat.

What players want is a challenge against a better pilot, not just being hit repeatedly by an impossibly accurate aimbot script.

 

[Devari]

They miss. It just doesn't give the hit feedback so it's harder to notice.

I don't know, guys. Sometimes I think forumers are playing a hard mode of the game that I don't have access to.

When you're flying in a High-Intensity CZ and a half-dozen NPC railgun Eagles suddenly swarm you because you happen to be doing the most dps? And almost immediately they are all instahitting your ship with their aimbot rails? That is a problem.

It's not an issue of it being difficult when a single NPC is firing rails at your ship. It is however very frustrating when their aimbot rails and limited aggro mechanics come into play where the NPCs instantly "know" who is doing the most dps in the instance and will suddenly swarm your ship.

If they are going to implement arbitrary game mechanics designed to affect weapon accuracy, like railgun charging times, they have to do something to approximate this issue with NPCs or is just doesn't provide balanced gameplay. As it currently stands NPCs have significant benefits with fixed and rail weapons because they don't need to "aim" or "charge" or "lead" with any of their weapons, they just follow scripts that do that for them. It's amusing that FD has been trying really hard to force players to do everything "manually" with their misguided attempt to nerf gimbals into the ground and somehow forget that they've given NPCs impossibly accurate weapon accuracy instead of developing more complex and challenging AI.

 

[fus roh potato]

Sick and tired of these AI with 57 MJ shields and 232 armor completely destroying my sip with railguns. You are liderally ruining my life fontier.