I posted about this problem back in 2023 and debated myself if I should just necro that thread instead of making a new one but that discussion was over a hundred posts long in the end. You can find it HERE.
Quick recap: After returning to the game from a relatively short hiatus I noticed my elite rank SLF pilot did suddenly very poorly in combat. Flying a Taipan Gelid F fixed beam laser fighter, my NPC pilot had almost no time on target anymore, always missing enemy ships by shooting just a hair past them. Most noticeable with small and medium ships but even barn sized targets like Type-9 and Anaconda were now a challenge.
In the old thread many people confirmed having this experience and there was some interesting discussion about it. What also became pretty obvious is that actually having a NPC pilot is more of a niche thing. CMDR's don't seem to appreciate the passive income reduction coming with NPC crew.
Anyway. Since making that thread I decided to train a new pilot. In 2023, before I made my post, there was a change to the ranking system (if you have Odyssey) which introduced the roman numeral elite ranks, so we could now climb all the way up to Elite V. There was some speculation in the old thread that this might have fudged up existing SLF pilots.
So I hired another harmless pilot and took her bounty hunting to raise her rank. With the whole Thargoid shenanigans and whatnot this actually took me until very recently. Almost three years.
The reason I decided to post about this again is that I cannot seem to get my new pilot, her name is Jada, to become Elite. She is stuck at 100% Deadly and doesn't promote any further. And she is indeed “deadly.” This pilot has good time on target and does decent damage. I don't think she is as good as Allegra (my old Elite rank pilot) used to be but that might just be nostalgia talking. She is right now a much, much better pilot than Allegra is.
It is now my belief that with the introduction of the Elite I-V expansion ranks, handling of whatever makes NPC pilots AI better or worse got messed up. Nobody really noticed because nobody really uses those pilots. I believe that my old Allegra is bugged because she is actually Elite I rank now and the AI doesn't know what that means, lobotomizing her. Jada is actually already “Elite” but doesn't promote because those extra elite ranks are not for NPCs that didn't buy Odyssey.
Please fix my girls?
Quick recap: After returning to the game from a relatively short hiatus I noticed my elite rank SLF pilot did suddenly very poorly in combat. Flying a Taipan Gelid F fixed beam laser fighter, my NPC pilot had almost no time on target anymore, always missing enemy ships by shooting just a hair past them. Most noticeable with small and medium ships but even barn sized targets like Type-9 and Anaconda were now a challenge.
In the old thread many people confirmed having this experience and there was some interesting discussion about it. What also became pretty obvious is that actually having a NPC pilot is more of a niche thing. CMDR's don't seem to appreciate the passive income reduction coming with NPC crew.
Anyway. Since making that thread I decided to train a new pilot. In 2023, before I made my post, there was a change to the ranking system (if you have Odyssey) which introduced the roman numeral elite ranks, so we could now climb all the way up to Elite V. There was some speculation in the old thread that this might have fudged up existing SLF pilots.
So I hired another harmless pilot and took her bounty hunting to raise her rank. With the whole Thargoid shenanigans and whatnot this actually took me until very recently. Almost three years.
The reason I decided to post about this again is that I cannot seem to get my new pilot, her name is Jada, to become Elite. She is stuck at 100% Deadly and doesn't promote any further. And she is indeed “deadly.” This pilot has good time on target and does decent damage. I don't think she is as good as Allegra (my old Elite rank pilot) used to be but that might just be nostalgia talking. She is right now a much, much better pilot than Allegra is.
It is now my belief that with the introduction of the Elite I-V expansion ranks, handling of whatever makes NPC pilots AI better or worse got messed up. Nobody really noticed because nobody really uses those pilots. I believe that my old Allegra is bugged because she is actually Elite I rank now and the AI doesn't know what that means, lobotomizing her. Jada is actually already “Elite” but doesn't promote because those extra elite ranks are not for NPCs that didn't buy Odyssey.
Please fix my girls?
