Have NPCs lost the ability to reboot/repair?

Or is it that they only do so for PP damage?

I was positive NPCs were rebooting themselves to fix damaged modules, but a few recent encounters suggest this is no longer the case. I dismissed a few examples as being too low rank, but just yesterday I was exploring and came across an Elite NPC T-7, so I decided to practice my dumbfire aim. After I had shot out it's drives it never made an attempt to fix them; even after it's hull had fallen to the point it retracted hardpoints and seemed to want to escape, it did not reboot/repair to try to get it's thrusters back.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dguk1mTNy7Y


I'll do some more testing myself when I'm able, but I was wondering if anyone else has noticed a change in this behavior, or if I'm grossly misremembering something.
 
I've noticed this with npcs in CZs: after a lot of damage they fly away very fast then target lock lost, and they become wobbling target on the sensor. I suspect that is the reboot you're talking about. Happens not very often. Usually they die faster.🙃
 
I've noticed this with npcs in CZs: after a lot of damage they fly away very fast then target lock lost, and they become wobbling target on the sensor. I suspect that is the reboot you're talking about. Happens not very often. Usually they die faster.🙃

That's what happens when you knock out their thrusters and they fail to use reboot/repair to fix them. They just drift forever.

I was under the impression that at least the higher ranks were supposed to reboot and attempt to get underway again.
 
I don’t waste my time or ammo hobbling NPC’s. If the guns come out, someone’s going home in at least 1 bag, usually more.
They are not mutually exclusive; I prefer the more sadistic method - a few days ago I knocked out a NPCs FSD followed by its life support, with rails (I'm a bit better at aiming with my Hotas X now) & boosted off keeping it just out of range until it blew up 25 mins later. & yes I did laugh like Sideshow Bob.

...then step on a rake!
 
That's what happens when you knock out their thrusters and they fail to use reboot/repair to fix them. They just drift forever.

I was under the impression that at least the higher ranks were supposed to reboot and attempt to get underway again.
I've seen this before as well. I killed the drives on a Challenger straight after it boosted and had to chase it down since it was just spinning off at 400 m/s. I was in my Corvette so there would have been plenty of time for it to reboot by the time the SLF finished it off.

Can't remember the rank though, but I'm guessing fairly high since I killed the drives accidentally and there was a good amount of hull left.
 
It's not just you, I've had a number of instances in the last few weeks/months(?) of NPCs losing their drives and drifting off forever rather than repairing.

I knocked out a NPCs FSD followed by its life support, with rails (I'm a bit better at aiming with my Hotas X now) & boosted off keeping it just out of range until it blew up 25 mins later

And that might be the first solid confirmation I've ever seen that NPCs actually make use of life support. Hardly an efficient way of finishing them off though!
 
And that might be the first solid confirmation I've ever seen that NPCs actually make use of life support. Hardly an efficient way of finishing them off though!
Really?? Someone from THIS community must have done that experiment before - I only wanted to confirm this for myself as an afterthought while I was on a call & I nearly died when I left the room for a couple of mins!

I have a vid of the event - not handbraked or uploaded - somewhere on my D drive, but it will be a while before I'm home; I'm busy living the glamorous dolce vita, viewing prospective rental properties in Barnsley for the next few days.

Aye, put t' wood int t' ole! - that's "Shut the door" according to my 'Northerner' phrasebook...should come in handy!
 
I don’t waste my time or ammo hobbling NPC’s. If the guns come out, someone’s going home in at least 1 bag, usually more.

I don’t eat my toys, and I don’t play with my food.
What if your toys are edible though, for example? Just as a hypothetical.
 
I don’t waste my time or ammo hobbling NPC’s. If the guns come out, someone’s going home in at least 1 bag, usually more.

I don’t eat my toys, and I don’t play with my food.
It's no waste at all if you fight one of the three Alliance Cs. Their drives go so fast, then their powerplant once they're disabled. Death at 80% hull, and a lot less ammo used than when simply trying to grind that hull down or get the plant while they're still evading.
 
It's no waste at all if you fight one of the three Alliance Cs. Their drives go so fast, then their powerplant once they're disabled. Death at 80% hull, and a lot less ammo used than when simply trying to grind that hull down or get the plant while they're still evading.

I have a habit of using Plasma Accelerators, Plasma-slugged, and in multiples. Not many things take that much damage at once and survive. But when I don't, such as with a multi-cannon Python, I find the hull goes away a lot sooner than a sub-targeted module. Power plant at 60%, hull at 0% - happens more often than not, especially when you've got 5 MC's blazing away.
 
I can only partly confirm that they do not reboot. As far as I'm aware they have been capable of rebooting drive damage in the past and I had recent instances of NPCs flying again after being disabled. But those instances were always when I was in a wing. As long as I'm alone, they don't seem to reboot.
 
They are not mutually exclusive; I prefer the more sadistic method - a few days ago I knocked out a NPCs FSD followed by its life support, with rails (I'm a bit better at aiming with my Hotas X now) & boosted off keeping it just out of range until it blew up 25 mins later. & yes I did laugh like Sideshow Bob.

...then step on a rake!
oh, so NPCs do blow up from blown life support. Good to know. I took a pirate corvette's life support out with my courier a while ago and was curious whether it'd actually finish them off.
Naturally I got bored waiting and magdumped their power plant instead.
 
I've seen this before as well. I killed the drives on a Challenger straight after it boosted and had to chase it down since it was just spinning off at 400 m/s. I was in my Corvette so there would have been plenty of time for it to reboot by the time the SLF finished it off.

Can't remember the rank though, but I'm guessing fairly high since I killed the drives accidentally and there was a good amount of hull left.
I had a weird one from a mission target conda - I shot their drives out and they started tumbling, but from that point on any further fire I poured in their direction didn't seem to have any effect. I ended up having to boost past them and shoot out their powerplant to finish them off.
I'm talking like 50 PA shots directly into their stern and it wasn't having any effect - except for when their shields came back up, those got dropped easily enough.
 
It's not just you, I've had a number of instances in the last few weeks/months(?) of NPCs losing their drives and drifting off forever rather than repairing.

I seen NPCs lose their drives all the time and usually destroy them shortly after. Even in the cases where they've gone a protracted period of time before being destroyed, I put it down to their rank, because I'm nearly certain I've seen NPCs reboot PP and drives before.

Maybe I mistook a PP reboot for a drive reboot, maybe they had the ability to reboot drives at some point and lost it, or maybe I'm just misremembering.

And that might be the first solid confirmation I've ever seen that NPCs actually make use of life support. Hardly an efficient way of finishing them off though!

I've got a video from 2016, IRC, that shows an NPC eventually being destroyed by knocking out it's life support.

I'll see if I can find it.


This isn't what's going on here. The spinning is irrelevant and not broken if the drives are destroyed.

The issue that even high-rank NPC are never rebooting drives after they've been shot out.

Someone from THIS community must have done that experiment before

Yes.
 
Reuploaded the NPC life support video I originally recorded on March 7th, 2016:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaFckn7eI4Q


Looks like I knocked out the PP there first to get it to hold still then took out the life support. Since the NPC dies from running out of oxygen and never rebooted either, something was clearly up with their lack of reboot/repair then as well (and reboot/repair has been a thing since 1.1 or 1.2). I seem to recall that them not rebooting was an acknowledged bug at some point, or maybe I'm confusing that with them not suffering from PP malfunctions.

I'll have to dig though the old patch notes, not that they are always complete or accurate...
 
Maybe they're set like that for pirate players to actually be able to do their stuff easily. AI only simulate the player flight model, and it was definately tweaked last patch for escape strategies.
 
Aren't we all creepy :D
I too have at one time first shot out the plant of a Conda (when that still stopped them cold), then killed the life support and then just waited, canopy to canopy.
 
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