Less gamey...

[Magic Man]

How about, when I've got someone on my tail and I drop out, boost boost boost etc. , he doesn't still manage to drop exactly on me.
How about, when I drop and then return to supercruise, he isn't immediately where I left off.
How about, when I wake out and then back in, he isn't almost immediately back on me.

Even when I drop out and jump back in and travel the opposite direction, yep, there he is, always managing to just appear behind me out of nowhere.

How about giving the npc at least some randomness so they are not 100% perfect trackers, occasionally give up, don't quite seem to be able to read your mind etc. etc.

Came back after several weeks away to a session totally ruined by constant jump and run gameplay against an NPC who is obviously playing as an NPC.

No fun, logged off.

 

[lenna]

As far as NPCs are concerned I do not find the things you are complaining about a real issue.

I have been interdicted by NPCs, chased by the occasional one, escaped or defeated many more.

Interdicting NPCs can be a threat when you first start playing or have not got your ship configured to suit your flying style but overall they are not as bad normally as you are painting them.

 

[Magic Man]

But they don't play the same rules as a human player. If I drop out and travel away, can continual boost until they drop in, doesn't matter - they drop almost on top of me rather that back at the point I dropped in.

They same bh will magically be able to find me if I wake out and then back in, no matter how far away from the star I was when I jumped, he'll seemingly transport across the entire system and re-appear on my tail very soon after I jump back into the system.

Gets tedious.

 

[lenna]

But they don't play the same rules as a human player. If I drop out and travel away, can continual boost until they drop in, doesn't matter - they drop almost on top of me rather that back at the point I dropped in.

They same bh will magically be able to find me if I wake out and then back in, no matter how far away from the star I was when I jumped, he'll seemingly transport across the entire system and re-appear on my tail very soon after I jump back into the system.

Gets tedious.

The way it works currently is probably the same as the way an optimal PC interdictor would work, at the point of interdiction you and the interdictor are probably flying at over well over 100km/s while once the interdiction has dropped out you would be travelling at ~500m/s at best (with most ships) - it is not "that" unreasonable for the interdicting ship to be able to find you with relative ease at the end of a successful/submitted interdiction.

Also if you can wake out, and wake back in then so can the opposition.

It is no point complaining about interdictions in general, they have already been tweaked to the apocalypse and back and currently are not that hard to evade with a bit of practice. The only time I typically submit is when I intend to fight the interdictor or the interdiction occurs close to a body and I plan to escape by boosting out of scanner range and low-waking back on course. I rarely use high wakes to escape and that is normally only after an unintentional friendly fire incident or an assassination of an NPC that is not wanted locally.

I have found NPC interdictors to be rarely that persistent, but if you continually high wake away and back again then it is not that unreasonable to expect them to be able to find you quickly.

 

[Misty_Dark]

The way it works currently is probably the same as the way an optimal PC interdictor would work, at the point of interdiction you and the interdictor are probably flying at over well over 100km/s while once the interdiction has dropped out you would be travelling at ~500m/s at best (with most ships) - it is not "that" unreasonable for the interdicting ship to be able to find you with relative ease at the end of a successful/submitted interdiction.

Also if you can wake out, and wake back in then so can the opposition.

It is no point complaining about interdictions in general, they have already been tweaked to the apocalypse and back and currently are not that hard to evade with a bit of practice. The only time I typically submit is when I intend to fight the interdictor or the interdiction occurs close to a body and I plan to escape by boosting out of scanner range and low-waking back on course. I rarely use high wakes to escape and that is normally only after an unintentional friendly fire incident or an assassination of an NPC that is not wanted locally.

I have found NPC interdictors to be rarely that persistent, but if you continually high wake away and back again then it is not that unreasonable to expect them to be able to find you quickly.

Well if they can track you when you have dropped out of super cruise to drop ontop of you, then why can't we track "any" ship that is in normal space then?

 

[lenna]

Well if they can track you when you have dropped out of super cruise to drop ontop of you, then why can't we track "any" ship that is in normal space then?

We can to a degree, at least where NPCs are concerned. That is what many of the unknown signal sources were/are, one or more NPCs that are in a specific locale in normal space. If you target a ship in super cruise and they drop-out to normal space you can follow them in at least some cases.

For PCs, it becomes more complicated because of instancing and match making logic.

...

I think the expectations of gamers in general in matters such as this is at least a bit ridiculous overall. There is always going to be an element of NPC spawning seemingly coming out of nowhere in some cases and that is on the most part unavoidable in a game like ED with a wide area of space to cover and relatively fast travel times. ED is not the only product to be targeted by similar complaints.

As for believability, that is down to the individual and pure opinion - IMO the current situation with NPC spawning and tracking is fair, reasonable, and balanced.

 

[Magic Man]

If the npc follows my wake then he should drop out where I did, not get to magically guess which direction I travelled away from that point and manage to instantly catch me up jumping out virtually on top of me.

 

[space voyager]

As far as I know this mechanics is the same for NPCs and players. When you drop out of SC, you leave the wake. If anyone follows you, he'll drop on top of you no matter how far you've boosted. I don't like the gameyness either, but I guess otherwise it would be impossible to catch anyone after half a minute has passed.

After your wake is gone, it is practially impossible to get to you. Unless you sign out and back in, then the NPCs just so happen to come by every damn time.

 

[lenna]

you know from now on there's no point in planning or trying to outsmart a chasing npc, it'll just spawn on top of you anyway.

This is complete and utter bull IME, it is possible to lose a chasing NPC - I have done so on many occasion. However, there are circumstances where it is realistic for them to be able to find you repetitively and very quickly with a high likelyhood (e.g. when on missions). When off-mission there are circumstances when specific NPCs will try to chase and follow you and you can lose them but it is also possible to have one or more others pick up your scent in the process.

 

[lenna]

There you go, good to hear it's the same for both npcs and players at least.

I feel the should allow for a little buffer so that it's not so pin-point exact everytime, based on how much time passed etc, but if it's a universal rule for all, then that's better news than I expected already.

IME they do not always spawn that close to you but on the flipside it is not that hard to win the interdiction process. When you win an interdiction, the NPCs are typically waylaid till at least you next high wake out the system.

 

[lenna]

I think you’re immersing yourself hard and that’s commendable since it enriches your gameplay experience, but other than outrunning or outcircling NPCs In SC there’s no strategy, no way to evade or avoid, not even jumping it’s of their range. On the mechanical level its pretty binary, with a super simple RNG.

Not entirely true, I have had the odd NPC chase me across several systems (out of mission IIRC too) but I eventually lost them through a sequence of successive jumps. I have also submitted, boosted, and then low waked when out of radar range - I normally opt for range increased engineering for scanners so that might be a factor in why that tactic works for me. Further more, actually winning the interdiction will lose them for quite a long time if not till you log out or jump to another system.

To claim there is no way to evade or avoid or no strategy is pretty fallacious in nature. The overall situation is anything but simple binary, though there are some general rules of thumb regarding whether any given ship build is likely to survive/defeat/outrun any given NPC piloted vessel (disregarding pilot ability modifiers). As for the RNG aspect, that is inevitably going to be a factor with any game like ED - it is not an MMO on rails, and the universe is too big and on complex to expect the vast majority of NPCs to be persistent (in the general non-single-objective restricted sense) and pursuing consistent and on-going agendas. Especially given the fact that it is not a client-server based MMO in the sense that most MMOs are.

Overall, this takes us back to the expectations of modern gamers in general being unrealistic where both AI and level of content are concerned.

 

[Rubbernuke]

NPCs are predictable. When you jump in, the first blip is normally a BH if you are wanted, or a mission pirate. The only way to stop a BH dropping in front of you (and collide) is to FAO and push diagonally down or up. My real annoyance which hammers home the disjointed bubble nature of NPCs is that the ship names change every time they pop up. If FD can't give us persistence, the very least they could do is provide consistency.

The other is that no NPC takes a chance trying to get you- the very second you enter a NFZ they give up. Very occasionally I'd love a desperate / crazy NPC, or one that has LR lasers, or that they ambush you as you emerge from stations (or that they circle for revenge before they leave).

Pirate lords (either wing or alone) fly the same loadouts, and wings are never mixed (unlike the V 1.0 wing assassin missions). Its always the same Corvette, FdL and 3 Vultures).

The only interesting NPCs are ATR who actually behave like security would- its just a shame they have reverb lasers. If you flee long enough they drop more and more wings all around you.

 

[lenna]

As I mentioned before @rlsg, you seem to be ascribing more depth to those behaviours that there actually is, because you're immersed in the game.

Nope, I would argue that you seem to be missing what is implemented and clear as day. You are not the first to do so, and probably will not be the last. ED is not unique in regards to this unreasonable type of critique.

 

[Rubbernuke]

First radar contact in system (visible as you jump in) BH or mission pirate
On drop, NPC drops at the exact same time, each time.
On dropping from interdicting another victim, instant (simultaneous, no delay) drop in of BH / pirate along with target- this is totally different to sec ships and ATR who drop away from you / scene of crime
Predictable loadouts of ships
No variety in wings
Name / HP not fixed / regenerate
Limited NPC responses
Generic responses (that don't fit any context of what you are doing, or NPC loadouts- example miner text on non miner NPC)
NPC encounters limited to each instance (little cohesion between encounters)
No variety in encounters (few wrinkles)
Outside of rep, little repercussions for actions

I can go on and on with how lifeless and mechanical missions are- the biggest problem to me is that NPCs are reactive and not proactive enough. Even if NPCs had more context aware radio chatter it would add a lot.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

How about, when I drop into rings in a populated system, I don't have a 100%-guaranteed pop-up "pirate scenario" triggered. As if other ships just happen to be hanging around right there.

How about, when WANTED npc ships are flying around in supercruise as general traffic, they do more than just fly aimlessly from A to B. These days, they rarely seem to react to my presence, or to the presence of other potential npc targets.

How about making LOW security systems feel notably more risky than MED, which should feel notably more risky than HIGH security systems... so I should feel inclined to check the sec level before jumping?