I sure wish a dev would explain what they think Ody threat levels mean?

[photomankc]

Running a scav mission the other night and ran into a threat level 1 mission/site. I arrive to 6 NPCs on the ground 3 of which are sharpshooters. The scond I engage those there is a drop-ship unloading 4 more with 2 more sharpshooters. I now have have 5 purple tennis balls coming at me from every direction. I'm not a noob at it anymore so, yeah, they all died eventually. Hell it was even a little fun to be pressured pretty hard. My point is that this is a terrible 'threat' level ranking system for anyone starting out. The advise is always, don't bite off more than you can handle but these missions are impossible to gauge. Level 8 missions go off without even a hitch and if trouble does land it's a small group. Level 1 missions send you up against a platoon of grenade spamming machines. That's got to be a poor experiance to people that are just starting out. I'd like to take harder ones that might press me more too where maybe they go after the ships with a CAP as well, no parking and just playing bowling.

It's just odd to me that its been like this for years.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Odyssey POI/settlement threat levels correspond to the equipment level of the troops there - so a Threat 1 POI will have scavengers with G1 weapons and armour, whereas at Threat 3 they'll be upgraded to G3. Of course, their grenades are just as powerful anywhere, and even a G1 sharpshooter's rifle does a lot of damage if you let them hit, even if they can't take all that much fire themselves.

The regular guards at a settlement are I think one equipment grade higher than the corresponding scavengers.

Odyssey Missions will roughly match that threat level, so far as I can tell, maybe with a +1 if a settlement mission is particularly difficult. But of course none of this tells you how many enemies there are likely to be.



Horizons missions, of course, use a completely different threat level scheme, where Threat 0 to 8 replace the old "Harmless/Aimless/Penniless" => "Elite" nine-step rank scale. For Horizons missions without the possibility of enemy intervention (some of the data scan ones) this isn't in any way a threat level; for the others it does roughly reflect the difficulty of opposition, though anything below a 7 is going to be pretty small.

Meanwhile, space POIs also use a 0-8 scale, but on that an 8 is a major Thargoid fleet (and a 7 implies heavily-engineered ships if not Thargoids) ... while a 1 is a mostly harmless Eagle, and most human POIs don't get above a 4.



As with a space CZ containing the toughest (or at least spongiest) human NPCs you're likely to find, while even a High ground CZ is probably one of Odyssey's easier combat challenges, (and neither have a threat level number under any scheme...) it's definitely something where Frontier could be a lot more consistent.

 

[HRDiagram]

I've stopped caring about threat level on day 2, I just take everything as it comes.
It never made much sense to me, so I go in blind, and everything is a surprise, which makes things more interesting, in the end.

 

[photomankc]

Odyssey POI/settlement threat levels correspond to the equipment level of the troops there - so a Threat 1 POI will have scavengers with G1 weapons and armour, whereas at Threat 3 they'll be upgraded to G3. Of course, their grenades are just as powerful anywhere, and even a G1 sharpshooter's rifle does a lot of damage if you let them hit, even if they can't take all that much fire themselves.

Ahhh..... well at least there is some kind of logic then I guess and I had not noticed that. My connection was that it seemed to be the limit of the number of reinforcements they get but I was not sure. And yes... Getting penta-teamed by sharpshooters is fairly dangerous even if they are G1s. I was regularly running with broken shields each time I took down another infantry guy and even G1's hurt pretty good if they land once broken.

The regular guards at a settlement are I think one equipment grade higher than the corresponding scavengers.

Odyssey Missions will roughly match that threat level, so far as I can tell, maybe with a +1 if a settlement mission is particularly difficult. But of course none of this tells you how many enemies there are likely to be.

I would not expect that, just that if you are to say whack a settlement of bad-asses that's tiny that feels like it should factor in and lower the difficulty. They have a lot fewer guards and people in general to deal with than a large settlement. Poke a large high security hornet's nest and get cornered and it a lot harder fight than any CZ, I can end up smoked if it goes really wrong. Not really expecting the number to be a count but just a reasonable 'difficulty' measuring scale and more often than not it seems it isn't

Horizons missions, of course, use a completely different threat level scheme, where Threat 0 to 8 replace the old "Harmless/Aimless/Penniless" => "Elite" nine-step rank scale. For Horizons missions without the possibility of enemy intervention (some of the data scan ones) this isn't in any way a threat level; for the others it does roughly reflect the difficulty of opposition, though anything below a 7 is going to be pretty small.

Meanwhile, space POIs also use a 0-8 scale, but on that an 8 is a major Thargoid fleet (and a 7 implies heavily-engineered ships if not Thargoids) ... while a 1 is a mostly harmless Eagle, and most human POIs don't get above a 4.


As with a space CZ containing the toughest (or at least spongiest) human NPCs you're likely to find, while even a High ground CZ is probably one of Odyssey's easier combat challenges, (and neither have a threat level number under any scheme...) it's definitely something where Frontier could be a lot more consistent.

Yeah. I guess that's the thing. It's all over the place so it's really hard to judge between contexts. It would be nice if they would take a pass at lining it up a bit more.

 

[photomankc]

I've stopped caring about threat level on day 2, I just take everything as it comes.
It never made much sense to me, so I go in blind, and everything is a surprise, which makes things more interesting, in the end.

Heh, it was just one of those 'good grief' moments where something the game interface seemed to saying was very out-of-whack with the results. 10 v 1 and 'threat 1' seemed to be at odds a bit to me.

Now I also admit I mostly don't care now because I know it is all over the place. The ones where I have to steal something with no alarms at a hostile settlement are by far the most entertaining ones to me! That really tests your stealth play and patience a lot. Very fun to pull off.

 

[Weps]

Meanwhile, space POIs also use a 0-8 scale, but on that an 8 is a major Thargoid fleet (and a 7 implies heavily-engineered ships if not Thargoids) ... while a 1 is a mostly harmless Eagle, and most human POIs don't get above a 4.

I want to believe, but at the same time I remember really weird AX Threat POIs in Alert systems, back when the war started. Interceptors in some, scouts in others, in some cases the human NPCs would stay and fight the interceptor, in other cases they would wake out before it spawned in... all in all the difficulty really not matching the threat level. It felt as if different threat levels would all draw from the same pool of AX scenarios and the threat itself didn't mean anything. But I could be wrong, I don't really remember the details so well anymore.

Even today in AX CZs I get inconsistent experiences, sometimes in a low intensity I get the Medusa Basilisk combo, which mops the floor with all human NPCs, and the whole CZ becomes way harder than a medium intensity one.

 

[metatheurgist]

Odyssey POI/settlement threat levels correspond to the equipment level of the troops there - so a Threat 1 POI will have scavengers with G1 weapons and armour, whereas at Threat 3 they'll be upgraded to G3.

Is that actually true? If so Bravo Frontier, bravo.

 

[Shurimal]

Is that actually true? If so Bravo Frontier, bravo.

From my observations, it is true. And IMO a very good system that tells the quality of opforce, but not the quantity. You know—things that you know; things that you know that you don't know and things you don't know that you don't know. Stuff that makes warfare interesting Leaves plenty of room for operational surprises, for things to go smooth and by the numbers or completely sideways if the local lowlife all decide to show up for a party

"All we know is that a xenomorph may be involved"—famous last words before a spectacular fiasco of a mission

 

[photomankc]

From my observations, it is true. And IMO a very good system that tells the quality of opforce, but not the quantity. You know—things that you know; things that you know that you don't know and things you don't know that you don't know. Stuff that makes warfare interesting Leaves plenty of room for operational surprises, for things to go smooth and by the numbers or completely sideways if the local lowlife all decide to show up for a party

"All we know is that a xenomorph may be involved"—famous last words before a spectacular fiasco of a mission

I'm sorry but I completely disagree. It's not possible to gauge your readiness in a sandbox video game to take on certain scenarios unless the relative difficulty of the objective is known. For sure there can be scenarios where there is more ambiguity about the mission but that would raise, not lower, it's risk rating.

Ultimately players are somewhat fickle beings. Too predictable in later game is boring so sometimes getting a big surprise is welcome. Randomly being squashed in the early game is not fun at all when you have very limited situations you are ready to take on. It's possible to serve both objectives. Missions and locations with higher likelyhood to be overwhelming get higher risk rating. Milk runs get low risk rating but don't yield a lot either nor will there be many surprises. Then the player has information that helps them advance and get better rather than trying once and deciding they can't handle even the lowest scenario and not bothering again.

Having a scale but having the bottom of it be everything from no threat at all to "you should have stayed in the ship" seems kinda pointless and not really useful.

I will say that new players I have guided around a bit are all terrified of trying the foot CZs. I suspect that comes from trying the space CZs early on like I did in a low only to find that my guns were like BB's and then getting smoked rather rapidly. I didn't venture back into one of those for a long long time there after. Where as a low foot CZ is a great place for a G1/2 commander to get some consequence-free trigger time to get more familiar with combat actually.

The game seems to have this problem communicating what's really risky in a lot of places.



I will add that settlement threat levels are not bad though. Once you learn that system you have a pretty good idea what you are taking on if you plan to make it mad.

 

[AdhaiGrey]

Running a scav mission the other night and ran into a threat level 1 mission/site. I arrive to 6 NPCs on the ground 3 of which are sharpshooters. The scond I engage those there is a drop-ship unloading 4 more with 2 more sharpshooters. I now have have 5 purple tennis balls coming at me from every direction. I'm not a noob at it anymore so, yeah, they all died eventually. Hell it was even a little fun to be pressured pretty hard. My point is that this is a terrible 'threat' level ranking system for anyone starting out. The advise is always, don't bite off more than you can handle but these missions are impossible to gauge. Level 8 missions go off without even a hitch and if trouble does land it's a small group. Level 1 missions send you up against a platoon of grenade spamming machines. That's got to be a poor experiance to people that are just starting out. I'd like to take harder ones that might press me more too where maybe they go after the ships with a CAP as well, no parking and just playing bowling.

It's just odd to me that its been like this for years.

You may always assume, that your clients intel was REALLY BAD xD like in a movie

 

[photomankc]

ETA: True. I always laugh now in movies where the big plan is drawn up. May as well not bother. The writer says that critical thing you needed to know or go right must not.

 

[Nowski]

ETA: True. I always laugh now in movies where the big plan is drawn up. May as well not bother. The writer says that critical thing you needed to know or go right must not.

I think the rule is: if they don't tell you the plan, it's entertaining to see what the plan turns out to be, so it may go well. But if they do tell you the plan, it's only interesting to find out how it fails, so it has to go wrong.

 

[aRJay]

I am reminded of Belesarius and Maurice discussing the First Law of Battle

Basically no plan survives contact with the enemy.

 

[photomankc]

I think the rule is: if they don't tell you the plan, it's entertaining to see what the plan turns out to be, so it may go well. But if they do tell you the plan, it's only interesting to find out how it fails, so it has to go wrong.

Oh yeah. People are funny. If they explain the plan and then just execute it well and prevail that’s boring. If we can’t see how they will overcome this only to learn later they had a plan for it, this is dramatic! I get it.

 

[metatheurgist]

You can't plan without accurate info. That's just guessing. You can make a plan to known info but if it's so bad that it's worthless you're back to guessing again.

 

[Shurimal]

You can't plan without accurate info.

Information in warfare is never accurate. The art of war is based on deception, after all. That's why you plan contingencies, and contingencies for your contingencies.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

You can't plan without accurate info. That's just guessing. You can make a plan to known info but if it's so bad that it's worthless you're back to guessing again.

Information in warfare is never accurate. The art of war is based on deception, after all. That's why you plan contingencies, and contingencies for your contingencies.

Very much this, and applies to regular life on a frequent basis as well.

 

[metatheurgist]

It's more accurate than "We're sure the opposition is packing handguns. What the layout of the land is, whether it's one guy or one thousand, we don't know. Good luck".

With intelligence like that you'd assume everything was threat 9.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi All

Threat levels....the main enemy 'threat' can actually be oneself. Just yesterday I was playing the game and was attempting to leave a star port.
The doorbell rang and the gas engineers arrived to service our boiler. I quickly selected the auto launch ...and went downstairs to let them in...and promptly forgot about the game.
After they'd gone I went back to the game and...."Your ship has been destroyed by the station".

Cutter buy back insurance 42,221,149
Lost Cargo 512 t of Tritium. .
To be fair, whilst I'm playing the game (and I'm at the computer) the auto launch usually works okay these days.

Jack

 

[AceMcKool]

Hi All

Threat levels....the main enemy 'threat' can actually be oneself. Just yesterday I was playing the game and was attempting to leave a star port.
The doorbell rang and the gas engineers arrived to service our boiler. I quickly selected the auto launch ...and went downstairs to let them in...and promptly forgot about the game.
After they'd gone I went back to the game and...."Your ship has been destroyed by the station".

Cutter buy back insurance 42,221,149
Lost Cargo 512 t of Tritium. .
To be fair, whilst I'm playing the game (and I'm at the computer) the auto launch usually works okay these days.

My Golden Rule: never EVER leave my Cutter unattended on auto-launch. The one time I do is almost guaranteed to be the 1 in 10 times that it will not work.

Lately I've been undocking my Cutter manually. Less waiting in queue and no scratching my paint against the station walls.