Get Rid of the Magic NPCs While Mining

[[VR] Enexemander]

I'm beyond tired of ALWAYS seeing an NPC 30 seconds after I drop into any random area of ANY RING. Today, I thought I would just do some relaxing mining but two pirates are standing right there as soon as I jump in. They scan and I go about my way, and then as I'm clear of them, I get another unresolved blip on the radar.

So I spend maybe 3 minutes boosting away to no avail. Turn around and low and behold it's pirate #3 that wants to scan my still empty cargo hold.

This is ridiculous. Not only implausible- it's frankly impossible for every planetary ring to be this populated. 100% of the Elite Universe could live in rings just joyriding around and we wouldn't see this many NPCs. They are there EVERY TIME.

What?

And why would I want to jump in and see an NPC every time I go to a ring? What is the GAMEPLAY improvement to having this happen? I'm in a mining vessel. I'm not here to bounty hunt. If I wanted to do that, I WOULD GO TO THE RES SITES, WOULDN'T I?

If it were even an occasional thing, I could maybe make up some head canon about how the NPC tracked me from supercruise. Fine. But that's not what this is. This is EVERY TIME. When there ARE NO NPCS in supercruise. But dare to zone into a ring, and BAM magic NPCs up the cornhole.

Just stop this. It's stupid. It serves no purpose other than annoyance.

 

[DukeIronHand]

It's the same mechanism as when I log out and come back later I never deploy mining lasers or anything waiting for the inevitable NPC's to show up on my scanner so I can boost away.
Annoying indeed.

 

[Gunnet]

It's not too bad in practical terms if you mine in a fast ship. But I still dislike it from an immersion point of view.

 

[Wylie28]

The idea is to give mining some risk. Piracy, besides its perfectly liable that they follow your wake with the wake scanners that we have access to ourselves in the game.

 

[Fire70]

It's not too bad in practical terms if you mine in a fast ship. But I still dislike it from an immersion point of view.

Sorry FD don't really do immersion all that well..

 

[Gunnet]

The idea is to give mining some risk. Piracy, besides its perfectly liable that they follow your wake with the wake scanners that we have access to ourselves in the game.

It's not believable at all. They don't give the illusion of having followed you, since they appear impossibly soon after your drop for you to not have seen them in SC. It obviously wouldn't be reasonable to expect NPCs to be persistent in such a huge game. But nothing else looks as much like the GM rolling up an encounter as the mining pirates do.

At the very least, pirates specifically targetting mining ships should be waiting to ambush ships leaving with a full load. Not endlessly scanning empty ships before they have a chance to mine anything. A X% chance to be interdicted by pirates shortly after leaving a ring would be far less grating than "boost away from pirates" being a step on your standard mining checklist.

They don't add risk either. You're more likely to die because you accidentally hit silent running and boost at the same time while down in the rocks than because of the pirates.

 

[Roasted1982]

Why do you even need to boost? If you just got there you have an empty hold. I just let them scan me and I leave. I agree though it's stupid. At least if they want to add risk to mining have them pop in randomly while you're mining so you have to check the radar constantly. This way is just stupid. They pop in, scan and leave every time. Like clockwork.

 

[Sapyx]

These magic pirates certainly do "add risk" if you happen to get a disconnect, for whatever reason (either server glitch or real-life intrusion) when you're halfway through mining. Log back in and lo and behold, the pirates are back and they're scanning you, only this time, your hold's not empty.

It seems to be in place purely and only to force us to abandon the "pure mining" ship layout. New mining meta: never mine in a ship that can't either run from or fight against a typical NPC pirate.

 

[Starstrydur]

Why? Because the ED universe is comprised of NPCs of which 90% want to steal your stuff rather than earn their own. Me thinks galaxy is full of crazys and killerz. [yesnod]

 

[Gunnet]

These magic pirates certainly do "add risk" if you happen to get a disconnect, for whatever reason (either server glitch or real-life intrusion) when you're halfway through mining. Log back in and lo and behold, the pirates are back and they're scanning you, only this time, your hold's not empty.

It seems to be in place purely and only to force us to abandon the "pure mining" ship layout. New mining meta: never mine in a ship that can't either run from or fight against a typical NPC pirate.

Good point. I guess my view is skewed from having done most of my mining in a Clipper.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

It's the same mechanism as when I log out and come back later I never deploy mining lasers or anything waiting for the inevitable NPC's to show up on my scanner so I can boost away.
Annoying indeed.

This is beyond annoying. It can be fatal when mining in a slow ship if your game crashes when you are in the middle of the ring and have some mined cargo in your hold.

Also, running away doesn't always work. I was once chased for 20 minutes by an Anaconda that I had earlier avioded in supercruise by slamming him into another part of the ring. I'd run for several minutes, my Orca boosts at 500 so I can run quite a distance. But the Conda kept turning up again. I gave up eventually and went back to the station.
The Conda followed me there too. I wrote a thread about this a while back: Look what I mined!

 

[Jack Schitt]

If it were even an occasional thing, I could maybe make up some head canon about how the NPC tracked me from supercruise. Fine. But that's not what this is. This is EVERY TIME. When there ARE NO NPCS in supercruise. But dare to zone into a ring, and BAM magic NPCs up the cornhole.

The spawn is triggered by an instance change, normally from supercruise to normal space but also on logout/login. It also used to happen if you fell victim to the "ring exit bug", where you'd start to supercruise away from the ring but then hit an immediate mass lock and drop back down again. And there would be a bunch of NPCs waiting for you. FD got rid of the exit bug, but the spawn-on-instance-change is still there.

Someone will try to justify this, because someone always does. But it's a complete crock. As you've seen, this mechanism is basically "IF {new normal space instance} THEN {spawn_NPCs}" every time, with no attempt to tie it into the state of the system or any previous NPC behaviour. Sometimes you get authority ships or miners instead of pirates, depending on the security level. That's about as complex as it gets.

I said my piece in an earlier thread, quoted below. FD should really be working on tweaking this stuff so it gives a better illusion of continuity and context. Sometimes playing this game is like looking at the Matrix through one of Cypher's screens. You can almost see the code.

Spoiler

I will admit that back in the DDF days I naively believed that FD could one day produce a fully realtime simulation populated by NPCs with their own agendas and motivations, some acting as individuals and interacting with player characters on occasion, the bulk modelled using mathematical shortcuts ("10,000 NPCs all have this agenda, current sociopolitical states suggest a 90% success rate, make these changes in the background").

Some of this, in the broadest of contexts, does happen within the BGS and PP. But having seen the way the ED galaxy is maintained server-side, with a lot of non-realtime "ticks" an other on-demand JIT stuff, I now realise that original vision was far beyond what the game can actually handle.

So what FD needs to do is to fake all that stuff as best as possible, to give the impression of consistency and logic where none exists. And it's here that they often seem to have either lost their way, or just given up altogether.

Take the mining spawns as an example. We all know that the reason NPCs spawn when the player drops into a planetary ring is because the player has dropped into a planetary ring. That's a problem, because it's a game mechanic imposing itself unrealistically on the simulated galaxy. It needs to be dealt with, and you can approach what to do about that in one of three broad ways:

• Ignore it and/or live with it.
  
  I get the feeling this is what most of us are doing, but it's less than ideal.
  
  
• Remove it from the game.
  
  A simple check based on location should be enough to say "the player is a bazillion miles from nowhere, don't call the spawn routine." But maybe that will leave the galaxy too empty, or maybe there are technical reasons why this isn't practical. Which leaves:
  
  
• Fake the logic using existing features i.e. the text messaging system.
  
  This is where FD could have a lot of fun if they wanted to, viz:
  
  • The NPCs spawn on player drop and are randomly assigned as Authority, Pirate or Miner. To the best of my understanding, this is what happens already.
    
    
  • If they're Authority, send a message to the player along the lines of, "Unusual to find someone operating this far out, Commander. Take care and good luck," before jumping out.
    
    
  • If they're Miners, send a message along the lines of, "We saw your low wake, Commander. Do you know something about resources here that we don't? We're going to mine a few nearby rocks too if that's OK. We won't get in your way."
    
    
  • If they're Pirates, perform the usual vague threats and cargo scan routine and then, assuming the player's hold is empty, have them say something like:
    
    • "Looks like the rumours were a big fat lie. All this way for an empty mark. That informant at {last_docked_station} will regret this."
      
      
    • "Not again! I scour these remote systems looking for lone miners and always get the ones who haven't mined anything yet!"
      
      
    • "Damn! We follow you all the way from {last_system} and it turns out you're carrying nothing? Maybe we'll catch you on your return when your hold isn't empty, Commander..." before jumping out.
    For proper immersion, that last one could store the name, ship and loadout of the NPC on the local client then, if the player is interdicted later with a full hold of palladium, have the pirate mock the player. "Ha! Everything comes to him who waits, Commander!"

None of this is particularly difficult conceptually, and once implemented it would be relatively easy to expand upon it. The only reasons I can think of why it's not been tried are either because FD don't consider it important enough, or because the actual code is so convoluted that adding even relatively simple contextual interactions is technically difficult.

I really hope it's not the latter. If it's the former, maybe we need a concerted effort on the part of the player base to convince FD that this stuff is important?

 

[SirAdelaide]

Pity you can't get away from them by changing to solo

 

[veryinky]

1. Have a cheap and easy to destroy ship, a sidewinder or eagle with a pirate paintjob, fly by and radio on local "Found something. Coordinates X.XX Y.YY Z.ZZ, a [ship class]. Going to check it out."
2. Have the pirate scout look towards the player but not scan and not get within 1km, presumably checking to see what modules are on the ship, if mining laser is detected then it immediately jumps out. "Got a live one." if none is found "Negative, possible hunter." and he runs away. If player shoots down the scout, no pirate ambush.
Presuming the player let the scout go away:
3a. Player highwakes to next system, there's the pirate ambush at the star "We were waiting."
3b. Player lowwakes to supercruise and there's a pirate trying to interdict, "There it is!"

Interdiction would have actual piracy. As in they wouldn't fire unless the player tried to run or opened fire. They would scan the ship's cargo and demand a percentage. Not opening fire within seconds of arrival.

 

[Apos]

The idea is to give mining some risk. Piracy, besides its perfectly liable that they follow your wake with the wake scanners that we have access to ourselves in the game.

There is no risk around it, it just prevents you from being able to drop a second time into a ring of a completely unpopulated system.

No wake scanners involved either.

 

[kofeyh]

Sorry FD don't really do immersion all that well..

You mean logic and consistency. "Immersion" is what has lead to these outcomes and nonsense. Which is why I am irritable at the endless demands to nerf this/ change that because someone's "headcanon" or "feels" around the immersion require time from Frontier they can ill-afford to offer, frankly.

Instead of, you know, fixing bugs, balancing based on logic and improving content based around a consistent progression.

- - - Updated - - -

Just stop this. It's stupid. It serves no purpose other than annoyance.

Leave the bubble and mine completely in peace; an unoccupied region should not see AI spawn in, period. Alternatively, the GalMap can filter on non-occupied systems (remove all government types) even within the bubble, for that matter. If the region is not populated, you should not see AI. As long as you have no missions active. If you elect to accept mining missions before you leave, then expect spawned in AI.

This is a bit like saying "I don't want any risk" as far as mining goes. Which can be achieved by not being in a populated system. Yes, it's a little effort. But then what is peace of mind, worth? You tell me.

 

[Madrax573]

But you do realise that your sensors don't pick u[ everything in the system yes?

Afterall how many USS do you see where a full convoy is they yet you don't see six ships flying around.

It's a bit annoying when you are in an unpopulated system but if I was going to shoot miners I'd actually have a look there. slightly annoying but game breaking? Nah.

 

[lokvette]

Have to agree with the OP, I dont mine that often and when I do its often to relax, which then turns in a stress fess due to X number of npc's jumping in after I have entered a ring no where near a rez site, even had them in unpolluted systems. I know its a game mechanic but one that really needs to be looked at.

The reason I gone mining in a out of the way systems is to make sure I dont get jumped and as mentioned there were no NPC on entering the system, there are no stations or planet base's, there were none in cruise to the rings, but drop into the rings ...."oh really...."

Sort of puts me off mining which is not that hard as it is.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Immersion aside, this is easy to deal with.

Drop into the ring. Ship immediately appears on scanner and will approach.

Let him scan you.

You will get a message like: "Damn, another dud"

He will fly off, wait until he drops off your scanner.

Now start mining in peace.

Sure, i don't see the point of it, and yes, FD should get rid of it, but its not exactly a problem to deal with. Just don't start mining until they have scanned you.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Spoiler

I'm beyond tired of ALWAYS seeing an NPC 30 seconds after I drop into any random area of ANY RING. Today, I thought I would just do some relaxing mining but two pirates are standing right there as soon as I jump in. They scan and I go about my way, and then as I'm clear of them, I get another unresolved blip on the radar.

So I spend maybe 3 minutes boosting away to no avail. Turn around and low and behold it's pirate #3 that wants to scan my still empty cargo hold.

This is ridiculous. Not only implausible- it's frankly impossible for every planetary ring to be this populated. 100% of the Elite Universe could live in rings just joyriding around and we wouldn't see this many NPCs. They are there EVERY TIME.

What?

And why would I want to jump in and see an NPC every time I go to a ring? What is the GAMEPLAY improvement to having this happen? I'm in a mining vessel. I'm not here to bounty hunt. If I wanted to do that, I WOULD GO TO THE RES SITES, WOULDN'T I?

If it were even an occasional thing, I could maybe make up some head canon about how the NPC tracked me from supercruise. Fine. But that's not what this is. This is EVERY TIME. When there ARE NO NPCS in supercruise. But dare to zone into a ring, and BAM magic NPCs up the cornhole.

Just stop this. It's stupid. It serves no purpose other than annoyance.

Uuuh dear, you're speaking out of my soul. What really annoyes me is the fact, that this behavior happens in in unpopulated systems 2k ls away from entry point.
I have a nice pristine ring there and go mining there. At the edge of the bubble in an unpopulated system and everytime there spawn 2-5 NPC pirates scanning my limpets [wacko]
I'm glad that frontier fixed it, that pirates were going numb for limpets but it is still weird.

- - - Updated - - -

Why do you even need to boost? If you just got there you have an empty hold. I just let them scan me and I leave. I agree though it's stupid. At least if they want to add risk to mining have them pop in randomly while you're mining so you have to check the radar constantly. This way is just stupid. They pop in, scan and leave every time. Like clockwork.

Popping in pirates? Hmm let me think about it.
-in high res? Yes! Frequently please.
-in res /low res? Yes sometimes please.
-in random point of the ring in inhabited systems? Yes very rare please.
-in unpopulated systems? NO?!? no please.....i didn't traveled to the blue to meet them anyways :/ this makes clear that skill has again no reward. Just RNG