The AI can be a real challenge now. I just had an encounter with a deadly Viper intercepting me in my trading Asp. The freaking thing had beam *turrets* mounted, and despite all maneuvering and chaff use my poor A3 trading shields failed 3 times in the fight, while at the same time my C1 beams alone just couldn't bring it's shield down. With the combined firepower of beams and multis I finally took the shield down and started making hull damage. Around 40% the Viper FSD'd out, leaving me with 30k in costs for repair and ammo and no bounty, my hull was at 87%. Time to move to an A5 shield and switching the C1 Beams to C2, I guess.
Gz to the devs for the AI update
- Thread starter Cmdr. Numa
- Start date
Exactly the same config of a Viper interdicted me not 2 days ago. I, at first, found it quite amusing to see those beam turrets on the Viper. I wasn't much laughing though when I received a 150K repair bill and no bounty to soften the blow.
I know that in randomness of ED's space it's not exactly safe to conclude, well, anything, but the AI seem to have upped their ante a tad. And I applaud that.
Seems to be quite depending on their Elite ranking. The next intercept was a competent Viper that died without much fuss. The third was a novice Viper without shields. First thing it does is ramming me, reducing itself to 16% with hardly a dent in my shield, so just needing a gentle tap to die. It's really hit or miss right now.
I wish that all AI interdictions gave some kind of payout to the player though.
Most of the time they have no bounty so it's tempting just to ignore them and run than fight,
as without any credits they become just an annoyance.
But they do improve your combat skills.
Most of the time they have no bounty so it's tempting just to ignore them and run than fight,
as without any credits they become just an annoyance.
But they do improve your combat skills.
Wait for 1.2, when ED AI guru Sarah will have new fire avoidance system in place. It will be just a nice side effect of actual fixing bug of NPCs running into your fire accidentally 
Just to throw my 2 cents in here, in my experience deadly and dangerous NPC's are far harder than elite ones, that might be because of loadout, settings or their general attack pattern being simple but they are the hardest encounters i've had pretty much and as soon as you start seeing them you occasionally get a real challenge out of an npc just because they are so aggressive lol.
I find hanging out at Nav Beacons the Eagle and Viper NPC's die fairly quickly with my two class 2 Beam Lasers even the Dangerous and Elite ones, but I recently tried fighting in a Conflict Zone and that was a different matter entirely, I really struggled even taking down an Eagle - are these ships made of superior materials ?
Yes - I found myself against a Python today, later against an elite Asp... I finished them both off, but the Asp left me with a repair bill larger than the bounty. I loved it nevertheless, having great fun of it. All this in a pretty much maxed out Asp on a rare trade run for the change.
Deleted member 38366
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