Oh, that's unfortunate. Was support able to help out at all?
" I want more people to play in open." - Get rid of all those ships then.
- Thread starter TomP
- Start date
Oh, that's unfortunate. Was support able to help out at all?
No they have them all the mods and special effects back now. They just cant have all of them on one gun. It wasnt a nerf to the AI but it did make them follow the same rules that the player has to when they engineer stuff.
You've been playing a different version of the game then me, it sounds like. In my version there are only moderately aggressive NPC's who hardly prosecute the fight, fly half heartedly and use no mods that I can detect. Where can I pick up a copy where the NPC's use mod's?
Deleted member 115407
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Seriously. If you have some secret to finding these NPCs, please let me know.
Because the multi billionares are bored and all they did when engineers came out was buff the crap out of all of their existing ships. A fully modded Anaconda or Cutter could live in a fight against an NPC that had a beam weapon that did every single special effect for beam weapons as well as multicannons that had drag rounds and super penetrator rounds of rail guns all in one mounted weapon.
They actually died in fights which was the most fun they had had for the last year. Having billions upon billions of dollars takes the risk out of everything. So to puff up their ego once they NPCs weapons were realigned, they tried to say that the AI had been dumbed down. It has not. I am unable to find the patch notes because its archived now and their search function for archived stuff is terrible. All I can find is the base patch notes but not the hotfixes. its all lost in the mess.
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Dont know barron. Perhaps flying in an over engineered multibillion dollar cutter may make it easy on anyone.
Vindelanos, Dont know what your combat rating is but if its anything less than master, you wont be seeing many modded NPCs. Either that or you are also Elite level flying in an over engineered mess of a ship as well. Either way the NPCs have never been tuned to deal with Min Max built ships because only a tiny portion of the community use them. AI will get better over time, but they didnt dumb them down, they just made them follow the Engineering rules as the players.
Deleted member 115407
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It's master, and I fly small stuff. Sometimes with L1 mods, sometimes without. I do recall there being some mention that higher level NPCs can have mods, though I can't recall meeting any NPCs in the past six months that gave me any kind of noticeable challenge.
*edit*
And I'm not a billionaire... only a seven hundred millionaire
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I don't see any modded NPC's in the game because they only exist in your imagination. Not flying around in a Cutter, btw; I dropped out of that race early as I couldn't hack the climb. I'm flying around in my FdL...and definitely not seeing any modded NPC's. Or NPC's who fly aggressively either; all the complaining about them after 2.1 dropped and suddenly people like (insert names here) needing to learn how to fly and properly outfit their ships put paid to that little ray of sunshine
If there were an option to not be a hollow square, then players in open could blend in and be less likely to be ganked, when travelling to dangerous places. Maybe have 'camouflage as npc' work only with hardpoints in, for balance.
Traders would be happier if they weren't being singled out.
Traders would be happier if they weren't being singled out.
It depends on what ship you fly and what rank you are and against what type of NPC you are fighting - the key is fighting. If you don't fight any NPC is just decoration.
From what I've read in the various patch notes:
Elite and Deadly NPCs always have mods.
Low ranked NPCs never have mods.
NPCs don't have weapon special effects (not sure about modded weapons, I think they don't have them)
The low ranked NPCs have been adjusted since 2.1, they got "easier".
The high ranked NPCs didn't change.
NPCs that interdict you are made for you based on your rank and ship you use (unless it's a mission NPC)
From my experience:
NPCs in RES have different loadouts than NPCs that randomly interdict you and NPCs in CZs have different loadouts than non-CZ NPCs. The loadout affects the "difficulty" of the NPCs.
Since 2.1 NPCs use their agility and their advantage in PIP management much more. More pronounced if the NPCs is Dangerous or higher ranked. Add modded thrusters and things can get ugly very fast if you are not in a ship with good agility and modded thrusters.
Deadly and Elite NPCs LOVE reverse thrusters U-turn face tanking circle strafing.
NPCs below Dangerous are not dangerous.
Getting interdicted by an Elite FdL, FAS or Vulture while flying a Diamondback Explorer or Keelback and then trying to fight that NPC is a "noticeable challenge" for me.
Getting interdicted by whatever Elite in my Corvette is not noticeable at all.
Getting interdicted by an Elite Python while flying my FAS is fun, but not really challenging.
Fighting an Elite Clipper in a RES who has two rails and two PAs while flying a DBS is hilarious - they never hit as they keep shooting left and right unable to hit me.
Unfortunately, I'm not seeing any of these modded NPCs either. If they exist, they must have only the lowest grade mods.
Perhaps modded NPCs could spawn based on how heavily modded your own ship is. It's no more immersion breaking than the current system with spawns being based on your ship and rank, and it would allow players with heavily modded ships to face challenging NPCs without disrupting combat for players who choose to avoid engineers.
Perhaps modded NPCs could spawn based on how heavily modded your own ship is. It's no more immersion breaking than the current system with spawns being based on your ship and rank, and it would allow players with heavily modded ships to face challenging NPCs without disrupting combat for players who choose to avoid engineers.
And in the imagination of FD since they mention them in their patch notes since 2.1.
Deleted member 115407
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This is certainly true. NPCs in CZs are often so armored up that they're a pain to kill.
And in the imagination of FD since they mention them in their patch notes since 2.1.
I spend the entirety of my time farming RES and High Intensity CZ's, and am Deadly ranked for combat, Elite in Trade & Exploration, and I'm here to tell you that if the NPC's have mod's they're literally unnoticeable. Some people are pushing this idea that the NPC's are modded as if that somehow makes them dangerous or formidable, but the difference between going PvP with even an inexperienced player with G1/G2 mods and a top NPC is striking; against the human your screen is lighting up like a Christmas tree, but an Elite NPC? Nope. Nada. I could care less what the patch notes say; I'm delivering the news from the front lines
I spend the entirety of my time farming RES and High Intensity CZ's, and am Deadly ranked for combat, Elite in Trade & Exploration, and I'm here to tell you that if the NPC's have mod's they're literally unnoticeable. Some people are pushing this idea that the NPC's are modded as if that somehow makes them dangerous or formidable, but the difference between going PvP with even an inexperienced player with G1/G2 mods and a top NPC is striking; against the human your screen is lighting up like a Christmas tree, but an Elite NPC? Nope. Nada. I could care less what the patch notes say; I'm delivering the news from the front lines
What is misleading is that special weapons also are registered by the ship computer
as modded weapons like "trajectory disruption" for rails, or heat gain for plasmas.
NPCs in sites are not engineered, but the stateful spawns (bounty/cargo/mission) that interdict you in SC
very well can be.
As I wrote NPCs don't have weapon special effect and I think I read in a patch note that they don't have weapon mods.
From my experience high ranked NPCs have mods - thrusters are obvious in my opinion - some might have armor or shield mods (not so sure about that).
NPCs don't use our flightmodel.
They don't bleed speed when engines are out,
and they turn too quick.
Test it yourself by deactivating your engines.
With FA: On you bleed speed till full stop,
with FA: Off you bleed boost until you reach maximum
unboosted speed tied to the pips you have in eng.
Deleted member 115407
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That is until you mod up your MCs to be short range blasters with corrosive shells, incendiary rounds, and emissive munitions. These things cut through armored-up NPCs like warm butter!
Or you mod your large MC to be fire rate g5 and have an autoloader,
to snipe the plants up close.
Deleted member 115407
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Or you mod your large MC to be fire rate g5 and have an autoloader,
to snipe the plants up close.
I'll work on it
All I know is that they were briefly lethal. Sometimes. It was fun.
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