Horizons Excessively Delayed Delivery of Hard-Coded NPC Interdictions are Back Again

Mundo54

M
Look, I get it, it's new game time and as a first-time ever beta player, I want to love the full Guardians to bits just as much as the next Cmdr, at least once the wrinkles get ironed out that is.

But I was in Orbital Cruise, very close to dropping into a Glide, and I get Interdicted so I submit to be on the safe side, hoping that the whole universe doesn't crash and burn around me, and then I find myself back out in space again, about .29-ls something-or-others away from the planet. The planet was about the size of a grape on my computer screen, a very small grape, the kind that you might leave on the plate for someone else to eat.

Q: What did the grape do when the elephant sat on it.??
A: Not much, it just made a little whine. (wine)

Okay, I guess you had to be there, for my lame joke. And I know that the servers are probably working overtime trying to handle all the new IO and whatnot, but you gotta try and set some flags or write in some check-loops for stuff like this. Like if Cmdr-A is about to dock at a Planet Settlement-B, hmm, maybe it's just a teensie weensie bit late to deliver that overdo NPC Interdiction.

I'm flying a Python so Interdictions are kind of like dealing with a mosquito in the tent late at night. Not a big problem, even if you want to chain them like you did today, I'm okay with that. Put the pedal to the metal. I know that you need to do it. You won't sleep well at night if you don't. :cool:

But, and this is a big butt, the NPC Interdictions have to be delivered in something resembling a reasonable time-frame. We don't want to go back in time with the game again, in more ways than one in this case.

P.S. I once wrote a very short Fortran program, back in 1975 at Uni, an era that I sometimes refer to as The Dark Ages.. but it had a double bubble-sort algorithm built into it, it sorted on the way up and it sorted on the way down. I was quite proud of that. [cool]
 
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GG7

G
I've honestly never been interdicted in Orbital Cruise. I didn't think it was possible. ???

I've often used OC as a manner of escape when I see one of those pirate messages pop up, and see that the contact is an Anaconda and I am in a Python with combat damage! I duck down into OC at the nearest planet and that always seem to thwart the pirate. I've had them try to get me a few times when I leave orbit, but not too often.
 

Mundo54

M
GG7 said:
I've honestly never been interdicted in Orbital Cruise. I didn't think it was possible. ???

I've often used OC as a manner of escape when I see one of those pirate messages pop up, and see that the contact is an Anaconda and I am in a Python with combat damage! I duck down into OC at the nearest planet and that always seem to thwart the pirate. I've had them try to get me a few times when I leave orbit, but not too often.
Click to expand...

You haven't lived until you've been Interdicted in Orbital Cruise. To say it's hairy would be an understatement. :cool:

I was running the most basic "Seeking Transport" passenger missions in the Open game. I refer to these as the first-tier of the passenger missions. And for one reason or another, 2 of the 3 missions that I picked up before my afternoon nap today, had Mission Critical updates to say that baddies had been sent out to hunt down these passengers.

And typically these Interdictions are pretty watered down, tame for the most part. Although one of them today was chained, the NPC pirate tried 3-4 times in a row before I got far enough down into OC that the game finally gave up, thankfully.

And I don't even have any guns on my Python, and no defensive modules either. I also don't even bother playing the escape-vector mini-game, it's just not worth the extra effort, not to mention the real-world wear and tear on the joystick.

So I just submit, toggle flight assist off, boost once and then when the FSD has charged again, it's straight back into SC. These are probably not big ships like the Conda coming after me too. I had a Conda in the beta along with 11 other ships, but I had a hard time seeing over the hood and getting out of the mail-slot stations cleanly. The Python is like a poor man's Conda. It's also much easier to fly.

But the point being that the Python with its fairly high Mass Lock Factor of 17, according to Coriolis, is a dream when it comes to Interdictions. I'm so much more relaxed now. I sometimes even wear my pink bunny slippers in the pilot's cabin.

And speaking of Coriolis, are people starting to use the 'new' Coriolis - Shipyard EDCD Edition.?? - (https://coriolis.edcd.io/)

But anyway, Frontier is kind of a little bit obsessed about delivering the hard-coded interdictions for certain low-level missions types, and this takes precedence over everything, including but not solely excluded to, trying to bring back the Hostess Twinkie in all its former glory. So any untoward delays like interdicting the player in OC, get swept under the wall-to-wall broadloom carpet in the pilot's cabin. :cool:
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
According to original Horizons feature notes, you can't get interdicted in the Orbital Cruise and I don't remember reading that it would change.
Bug report.
 

Mundo54

M
GG7 said:
I've honestly never been interdicted in Orbital Cruise. I didn't think it was possible. ???

I've often used OC as a manner of escape when I see one of those pirate messages pop up, and see that the contact is an Anaconda and I am in a Python with combat damage! I duck down into OC at the nearest planet and that always seem to thwart the pirate. I've had them try to get me a few times when I leave orbit, but not too often.
Click to expand...

I should set the record straight here with a clarification. Technically speaking, I'm not really being interdicted in orbital cruise.

So you're probably safe, for the most part, to continue using OC as an evasive and effective flight tactic. You may want to take out a patent on this too.

I'm actually being interdicted 2-3 minutes late, it's queued up on their server with a High Priority Flag.

But you see from my in-game perspective, I'm already in OC and I'm setting up a nice approach, thinking I've got it made in the shade. I'm home free. I can almost smell the bacon sizzling on the grill.

But then my dream of freedom is shattered, along with my illusions, and I'm pulled back in space and time, to where I was 2-3 minutes prior to that. And that, my friend, is how that cookie crumbled. :cool:
 
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Mundo54

M
Chris Simon said:
According to original Horizons feature notes, you can't get interdicted in the Orbital Cruise and I don't remember reading that it would change.
Bug report.
Click to expand...

I get the willies every time I look at the complex Bug Report requirements, and then I need a little lie-down until I feel better. I'm a retired Gov techie and I hate paper work with a passion. :cool:

This isn't a bug as much as it is a malaise that resurfaces from time to time. Kind of like that awful period a few updates ago, when they ramped up the NPC aggressiveness and the combat people were complaining left, right, and left of center, about having their Conda shields melted away in mere nanoseconds, stuff like that. Although that may have been fixed a little bit. I wouldn't know, I don't do combat, per se. Although I do have a Federal Gunship now, with a fighter hangar, as a new post-beta toy.

It's also a philosophy issue and the ball is pretty much in Frontier's court. They really need more adaptive coding, so they can dial back some of this stuff, when they're going through a growing pains period with server overload issues like they are now, with Guardians having just gone live.

On a side note vis a vis my 12 ships from the beta, I kind of miss some of them. I'd like to get an Orca. I can afford it although it has a limited role and usefulness. But it's like having a big old Caddy to drive around the block on Sunday, to show off to the neighbours kind of thing. [cool]
 

Mike Reacher

Mike Reacher
The interdiction machine, whatever it is called pulls you back according to some forum comments.
I have not found out the range of the machine but it must be huge.
I have been pulled away from closing on a starport anything from 6LS to 17LS.

17 light seconds should be way out of the machines range. (But this is FD and ED after all.)
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Mike Reacher said:
The interdiction machine, whatever it is called pulls you back according to some forum comments.
I have not found out the range of the machine but it must be huge.
I have been pulled away from closing on a starport anything from 6LS to 17LS.

17 light seconds should be way out of the machines range. (But this is FD and ED after all.)
Click to expand...

I suspect the interdiction may actually throw you out at where ever your attacker was when they started the interdiction.
 

Mundo54

M
Mike Reacher said:
The interdiction machine, whatever it is called pulls you back according to some forum comments.
I have not found out the range of the machine but it must be huge.
I have been pulled away from closing on a starport anything from 6LS to 17LS.

17 light seconds should be way out of the machines range. (But this is FD and ED after all.)
Click to expand...

I'd like to get me one of those Interdiction Time Machines for reals, the 54 in Mundo54 is for the year I was born. And I ain't gettin' any younger. :cool:

The thing is, before we rolled over to Guardians, the NPC interdictions were really good. I watched them pretty closely and when you got pulled out of SC, any difference in your location compared to where you were, was negligible, not worth talking about. They were doing a good job of it. In other words, they were delivering the interdictions on time. No yank back.

But now with the extra server load and whatnot, we seem to have regressed. I don't mind all that much about the interdictions any more, the whole mojo thing that I have going on with the Python, my new mainstay ship. But it's a little annoying when you have to setup a planetary approach again, when you were that close to transiting into Glide mode from Orbital Cruise.
 

Mike Reacher

Mike Reacher
I think your interdiction was a glitch. Not a time thing.
My comments related to 2.1 not 2.2
I have been interdicted a number of times as I press J to drop into a starport. It seems that the target disappears and I'm able to dock.
I would not say this will happen everytime. In 2.2 it has happened twice. In 2.1 a couple of strange things happened. I was trying to get ready to hit J when I was interdicted three times in a row. Each time I was pulled away from the port by about 6 or 7 LS.

Which reminds me! Take note people! I have been pulled away from the port before, and the interdicter was actually at the starport.
So pulling me back to his position is not necessary happening. Weird stuff.
 

Mundo54

M
Mike Reacher said:
I think your interdiction was a glitch. Not a time thing.
My comments related to 2.1 not 2.2
I have been interdicted a number of times as I press J to drop into a starport. It seems that the target disappears and I'm able to dock.
I would not say this will happen everytime. In 2.2 it has happened twice. In 2.1 a couple of strange things happened. I was trying to get ready to hit J when I was interdicted three times in a row. Each time I was pulled away from the port by about 6 or 7 LS.

Which reminds me! Take note people! I have been pulled away from the port before, and the interdicter was actually at the starport.
So pulling me back to his position is not necessary happening. Weird stuff.
Click to expand...

I'm 'old-school' Interdiction paranoid and many moons ago in the early days of dealing with interdictions, I saw one fellow recommend that you always come in from behind a space port, so the space port is between you and the planet, and any ships that may be waiting on the mail-slot side, to interdict people.

I've stuck to that even if it is a little laborious and not all that necessary at times. But in the beta I was doing a test flight with a Beluga and I wanted to make a short video from the mail-slot side, requesting docking using the docking computer.

So the one time I break my rule and I come in from the mail-slot side in SC, me and my co-pilot get interdicted in the Beluga. :cool: But it worked out okay, I launched the fighter and then I managed to get the Beluga into firing position so I could light up the NPC pirate with my five chain-guns. He didn't last long after that.
 
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