So, just wondering... is it normal to drop into a Military Strike zone, have all of the NPCs immediately ignore all other Fed craft, focus you, and wipe you out in ~30 seconds? If so, what's the point of these zones? It doesn't seem to matter what ship I'm in... Vulture, FDL, etc... The second I drop in, my shields are down within seconds.... literally (even with 4 pips to a 5A shield, evasive maneuvers, and a shield booster), then I inevitably get blown up trying to beat feet out. Basically dumped 32mil in ins costs losing ships trying to get a mere 10 kills to get to rank 2. So far participating in this whole PP thing has proven to be a big waste of time and a colossal waste of credits.[mad]
Powerplay Faction: Zachary Hudson Insta-destroyed in Military Strike zone?
- Thread starter Bipper
- Start date
Had a similar if far less expensive experience myself this week , well other than the fact I lost a fair amount of merits and whilst having my final 40 merits couldn't get back to a control station in time before the reset. I found a chaff launcher n then a shield booster will evading furiously got me into the fight and had to be on the look out for getting focussed as you mention before bailing out - made it with 1% health at one point. I am not sure if this is a bug or just the level of the NPC's either - seemed to get hit a lot with impulse attacks from them. There is definitely far more lucrative ways to make and not spend cash in the game now so as annoying as it was this week its not getting me too upset as PP is slowly becoming less important a task to do in game.
[FONT="]Combat zones can turn on you quickly if you are unlucky, I think the PP ones can be even a bit more dangerous as you are automatically pledged to the Hudson side when jumping in. No point in trying to stay if you are focused by many NPCs imo, usually the best way to survive is a c̶o̶w̶a̶r̶d̶l̶y̶ strategic retreat to respawn the strike zone. You can also get combat merits from undermining, although if not in anarchy systems you'll have cops and bounty hunters interfering. Also both activities are much easier when done in wings really.
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I decided to take one more crack at it last night with a Vulture, jumped in and immediately noticed that the Hudson PMCs vastly outnumbered (and outweighed) the corrupt system security ships. There must have been two or three corvettes, three fed anacondas, a couple of vultures and of course a bunch of other smaller ships. Turned into a laughable turkey shoot which netted me an easy 500 merits. The spawning for these zones must be a little wonky because when I dropped in earlier I would only see a few fed ships... which of course meant there were 7+ NPCs available to focus me the second I arrived. The only thing I remember doing different is when I went in the last time I had logged in under open play instead of solo. The only time things got hairy on my last attempt was when packs of 5 enemies would spawn and immediately focus me. Since the battle was so one-sided a couple of boosts would drop their aggro because the even larger pack of fed ships would descend on them. So it seems to me that the spawn code for these locations is screwed up because instead of spawning a fairly balanced battle... it seems to spawn a massively one-sided battle... and if you jump in on the wrong side of that... you'll be lucky to get out with your ship intact. Which is what was obviously what was happening to me before. I would drop in, the feds would be massively outnumbered so there would be 6 or 7 unoccupied NPCs which would immediately focus me. I'll check out the reddit.
I did Military Strike Zones for a good couple of months earlier this year to maintain my Hudson rating and yes they can get ugly rapidly.
Entering the strike zone safely can be tricky. I would immediately boost out of the main action and leave the main fighting behind then do a 180 and come back in in a more controlled fashion.
But every now and then you become 'it' and have multiple attackers. One of the ways I dealt with this was to boost into a pack of your green allies and they will take up the fight with you against your attackers.
Entering the strike zone safely can be tricky. I would immediately boost out of the main action and leave the main fighting behind then do a 180 and come back in in a more controlled fashion.
But every now and then you become 'it' and have multiple attackers. One of the ways I dealt with this was to boost into a pack of your green allies and they will take up the fight with you against your attackers.