Farming NPC's for combat Elite

Decksmeck

D
Like this maybe.

You get points for beating ships equal to or greater than your own rank. Yet, you don't have to defeat as many.

Second, the computer does a good job at performing its combat rank.

Base comparison is one on one dogfight. Modifiers apply when the sides are unequal in numbers.

One on one:
If you defeat a particular rank 10 times from its full strength, it's no fluke, you are equal to it.

Defeat it 5 times and you are a serious challenger, so you earn the rank just below it.

So if a new pilot, rated harmless, manages to kill an elite ship 10 times in a fair fight, that player is Elite.

Design the Elite AI appropriately. It should take a great ship and great skill. The Elite ship should be very accurate and track its target extremely well. It uses the right weapons and utilities when it should and calculates the odds of victory well. It escapes smartly, thus killing one probably involves a multisystem engagement with a wake scanner.

Harmless on the other hand are very inaccurate, track poorly, and have bad judgment. They don't use their tools well.

In multiple vs one scenarios, the effective rank of the opponent is reduced based on the percentage of time it targets you and the percentage of damage you do to it.

If an elite ship is ~96% accurate and a harmless opponent is 4% accurate, and it targets you brief enough to make it as dangerous as a harmless pilot that targets you 100% of the time, it was harmless if you survived.

If it targeted you the entire time but say you only dealt 4% of the damage then you effectively killed an elite pilot with 4% strength. If you lived then it was effectively harmless.

Maybe something along these lines but worked out better.
 
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NCFCpaul

N
From reading the posts I think the idea which appeals to me is some sort of ranking mission, much like naval/ fed progression?

So at the higher levels it might involving catching the ubiquitous Criminal Mastermind (when he's not on holiday sightseeing at Sirius Atmospheric) but he might have a few Corvette flying bodyguards or something?

At lower levels the missions are obviously correspondingly easier. Given these processes are already in the game it seems possible to include it?

Getting trade Elite did involve a little mining at the end but I feel I did my bit taking my Type 9 all over the place, making good use of third party sites to help me find the best routes.

For exploration it was my first Elite and I got that early, I visited Sag A* and a few other places with my unengineered Asp, it felt like real achievement. I think to get that same achievement for combat would involve more than just farming NPC's, but the fact is I want to get triple Elite, because, well, yay me!
 

Maymo

Maymo
Looking at how much easier it is to rank up in exploration and trade it would be more balanced if:-

Combat missions awarded chunks of exp towards combat ranking.

And/or

Bounties/combat bonds awarded exp by their actual value. Destroying an elite sidey for 9000c simply shouldn’t award more combat experience than a deadly FDL for 300,000c.

Another neat way to do it would be to award combat exp by total damage done to other vessels, not sure there’s currently a code for that though.

The only major irritation with the current system for me is SLF crew leaching your combat experience by 50%. That’s cold...
 
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