New NPC Behaviour

[d8veh]

Something to watch out for. Anybody else experienced this?

I was doing regular surface scan missions. I was on my way back to the ship in the SRV taking minimal fire from a skimmer, like normal. Just as I got to the ship, I noticed three ships appear on the radar. I pressed the "board ship" button, then, while I was rising into the ship I heard a couple of dull thuds. By the time I was in the pilot's seat, the shields had gone and my hull was going down fast. I tried to lift off, but the ship was glued to the ground, so all I could do was sit there for a couple of seconds until the ship exploded. Here's the log. No dialogue at all, just instant attack during the time I couldn't do anything about it. If they had opened fire before I arrived at the ship, I would have dismissed it, but they didn't start until I was in the elevator.

From the log, less than one second to get down my level 5 reinforced class 4A prismatic shields with two level 5 engineered boosters, and 13 seconds to finish my hull. That's 15 seconds from when I pressed the "board ship" button to dead, and it must take something like 12 seconds before you have control of the ship thereafter. Bear in mind that the attack didn't start until after I had started to board the ship.

Basically, that was just an instant execution with no chance to fight back - not even a warning to say that they were after something.

{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:38:44Z", "event":"Music", "MusicTrack":"Exploration" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:19Z", "event":"DockSRV" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:20Z", "event":"UnderAttack", "Target":"Mothership" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:20Z", "event":"ShieldState", "ShieldsUp":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:20Z", "event":"Music", "MusicTrack":"Combat_Dogfight" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:23Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.762658, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:28Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.582320, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:31Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.364842, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:33Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.159979, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:34Z", "event":"Died" }

 

[ShimEnki]

Something to watch out for. Anybody else experienced this?

I was doing regular surface scan missions. I was on my way back to the ship in the SRV taking minimal fire from a skimmer, like normal. Just as I got to the ship, I noticed three ships appear on the radar. I pressed the "board ship" button, then, while I was rising into the ship I heard a couple of dull thuds. By the time I was in the pilot's seat, the shields had gone and my hull was going down fast. I tried to lift off, but the ship was glued to the ground, so all I could do was sit there for a couple of seconds until the ship exploded. Here's the log. No dialogue at all, just instant attack during the time I couldn't do anything about it. If they had opened fire before I arrived at the ship, I would have dismissed it, but they didn't start until I was in the elevator.

From the log, less than one second to get down my level 5 reinforced class 4A prismatic shields with two level 5 engineered boosters, and 13 seconds to finish my hull. That's 15 seconds from when I pressed the "board ship" button to dead, and it must take something like 12 seconds before you have control of the ship thereafter. Bear in mind that the attack didn't start until after I had started to board the ship.

Basically, that was just an instant execution with no chance to fight back - not even a warning to say that they were after something.

{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:38:44Z", "event":"Music", "MusicTrack":"Exploration" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:19Z", "event":"DockSRV" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:20Z", "event":"UnderAttack", "Target":"Mothership" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:20Z", "event":"ShieldState", "ShieldsUp":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:20Z", "event":"Music", "MusicTrack":"Combat_Dogfight" }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:23Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.762658, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:28Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.582320, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:31Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.364842, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:33Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.159979, "PlayerPilot":true, "Fighter":false }
{ "timestamp":"2018-03-16T21:39:34Z", "event":"Died" }

and I thought I had enough reason from all those trespassing issues to avoid scanning missions.

These used to be something I enjoyed, kinda like fishing in eso--you know, that relaxing atmosphere.

Used to is the key though.

Cherrio

Thanks cmdr

 

[Eloy]

Sorry for your loss. On the other hand, I like the idea of the base calling for backup.

 

[d8veh]

Sorry for your loss. On the other hand, I like the idea of the base calling for backup.

So do I. We all like a challenge, but what's the point if you don't get a chance to fight back?

Conspiracy theory: Do you think that FD can program in such events to your account when you've upset them for some reason?

 

[2ndBad]

I have noticed that sometimes the game just wants to kill you and there are pretty much no stopping it. I had the interdicted by npc, no messages, dead in 2 seconds (it must have been the minirailgun bug because FD did give the funds back). Few times when in a asteroid field, no enemies, heat at about 30% then all of sudden heat rising and taking heat damage out of nowhere. I have myself escaped few of those situations OP described.

Funniest one was a NPC Clipper that simply stopped taking in any damage at about 30% and killed me while I was laughing and shootin it with frags.

 

[Canoe]

Yep. Had this happen too. NPCs can attack skimmers. Players can't. The NPCs attacking your landed unmanned ship, - it's a little underhanded.. but SJA cares not for a level playing field, - quite devious in that respect..

 

[ilo]

Lesson learned, next time:
- dismiss ship
- die in the SRV

d8veh, you have to git gud mate!

 

[Eloy]

So do I. We all like a challenge, but what's the point if you don't get a chance to fight back?

Conspiracy theory: Do you think that FD can program in such events to your account when you've upset them for some reason?

Haha, did you bother them?
In this case an ASP Explorer is not really famous for heavily resisting shields ... in a different ship this could have been a classic Millenium Falcon escape run in laserfire.

 

[d8veh]

Lesson learned, next time:
- dismiss ship
- die in the SRV

d8veh, you have to git gud mate!

I've learnt something, but I'm not sure what. You have to put your SRV in the ship at some point. Don't forget, I wasn't under attack before I started to dock the SRV. It came afterwards without warning, and happened mainly during the time I was stuck in the elevator.. The only lesson I can think of is never dock your SRV. Instead, you logout and login back to basic ED so that you always arrive back safely in your ship. Do you have another suggestion that might help me to reach the nirvana of gitting gud?

 

[PiggyPiggyPig]

Is this not normal? Most of my time over the past few years has been taken up with exploration, so I'm not aware of any changes to NPC behavior.
I was recently undertaking a planetary scan job in the SRV. I saw the NPC on my radar as I was returning to my T9. I could see missiles raining down on it from a distance. The missiles came in 3s. Boom Boom Boom. This continued until I managed to get aboard. I was expecting the worst but the unprovoked attack only managed to deplete one ring of shields. I had left the ship alone with all pips to shields just in the event of such an attack. Glad they were beefed up with shield boosters in every slot.

 

[the100thmonkey]

That sounds like just an unlucky spawn - three ships of the faction whose asset you just attacked spawned in at exactly the wrong time. I've done loads of suface scan missions since 3.0, and that hasn't happened to me, although I've noticed now that the faction of the ship that occasionally spawns next to the surface asset is sometimes different from that of the asset. Just yesterday, I saw a ship that was both of a different faction and wanted in the jurisdiction. The outpost atacked when I fired, despite there being no coherent reason for it to do so. I killed the ship, took out the emplacements in my SRV, killed the skimmers, scanned the beacon (private), got a 500cr bounty, handed in the mission, then cleaned my ship at the friendly local IF.

As Mr. Piggy says above, I too always leave my ship on 4 pips to shields.

Depending on the ship, even a 5A prismatic shield won't actually put up much resistance - on an Asp Explorer, a vanilla prismatic will be about 277Mj without boosters, and just shy of 500Mj with 4x0A. Depending on the aggressor ships' loadouts and your pip distribution, that might not last very long at all with three of them going at a stationary target.

 

[Codger]

I've not had this happen to me yet, but I appreciated the heads up.


However, I have noticed that if I dismiss my ship, when it comes back it always has 2 pips to shields, rather than the 4 I left it with. It annoys me

 

[Faded Glory]

Hmmm.. I wonder if this is related to the 'new' behavior that NPC pirates in the space salvage missions are demonstrating? They too are dropping in, deploying hardpoints, sending one short comms message then opening up, rather than the previous drop in, scan, send a message or two and then get around to attacking (or not if your cargo hold is empty).

Maybe FD feel that NPC's are too much being used as canon fodder, and have decided to imbue them with a bit of ATR aggression...

Personally I'd file a bug report or raise a support ticket. While I'm all for NPC's being a challenge, being destroyed while you're having to endure a loading screen seems a bit much. Up to now, even if you were under attack by NPC's while in your SRV, there was a dignified pause in the attack while you got back into your ship but you'd still be under attack once the transition was complete, meaning that you had at least a chance to fight back or escape.

 

[d8veh]

That sounds like just an unlucky spawn - three ships of the faction whose asset you just attacked spawned in at exactly the wrong time. I've done loads of suface scan missions since 3.0, and that hasn't happened to me, although I've noticed now that the faction of the ship that occasionally spawns next to the surface asset is sometimes different from that of the asset. Just yesterday, I saw a ship that was both of a different faction and wanted in the jurisdiction. The outpost atacked when I fired, despite there being no coherent reason for it to do so. I killed the ship, took out the emplacements in my SRV, killed the skimmers, scanned the beacon (private), got a 500cr bounty, handed in the mission, then cleaned my ship at the friendly local IF.

As Mr. Piggy says above, I too always leave my ship on 4 pips to shields.

Depending on the ship, even a 5A prismatic shield won't actually put up much resistance - on an Asp Explorer, a vanilla prismatic will be about 277Mj without boosters, and just shy of 500Mj with 4x0A. Depending on the aggressor ships' loadouts and your pip distribution, that might not last very long at all with three of them going at a stationary target.

Just to clarify a few points. It was a DBX. The prismatic shields and boosters are all level 5 engineered. They went down in less than a second according to the log. That means that the NPCs must have been using reverberating cascade torpedos, which isn't normal. I thought only ATRs had weapons like that. I had no notoriety and hadn't even fired upon a skimmer. All I had was 1000cr bounty for scanning the beacon and a 500cr fine for the previous one.

Put that together with the timing and lack of announcement, and it looks a lot like a scripted assassination. Nothing stacks up with normal NPC behaviour. Have a look at your own logs of when you were attacked by NPCs and compare them with the brevity of mine. They always announce their presence and what they want. I've never seen one fire a torpedo, let alone one with reverberating cascade.

 

[nosleepdemon]

The spawn mechanics at bases are strange, and as my pilot rank increased I started seeing really odd things. At this point some base scan missions for me are impossible in that there will always be at least one npc hovering above my SRV waiting to attack. You may well have had an npc wing spawn atop your ship the moment you were docking the SRV. Unfortunately the only solution is to dismiss your ship the moment you land.

 

[ilo]

Do you have another suggestion?

Recall ship, die in the SRV is not a suggestion? I mean, I'd have died the same way you did, it is easier to say when this doesn't happen to you, but I think if there are ships flying around in red I'm not docking at all

 

[the100thmonkey]

Just to clarify a few points. It was a DBX. The prismatic shields and boosters are all level 5 engineered. They went down in less than a second according to the log. That means that the NPCs must have been using reverberating cascade torpedos, which isn't normal. I thought only ATRs had weapons like that. I had no notoriety and hadn't even fired upon a skimmer. All I had was 1000cr bounty for scanning the beacon and a 500cr fine for the previous one.

Put that together with the timing and lack of announcement, and it looks a lot like a scripted assassination. Nothing stacks up with normal NPC behaviour. Have a look at your own logs of when you were attacked by NPCs and compare them with the brevity of mine. They always announce their presence and what they want. I've never seen one fire a torpedo, let alone one with reverberating cascade.

Thanks for the clarification.

What were the three ships that attacked you?

I can't comment on whether NPCs always announce their intentions. I would suggest that they were probably of the same faction whose assets you just attacked. "Scripted assassinations" sounds a little paranoid to my ears (although it would be nice if FD reintroduced factions sending ships to specifically target you - many moons ago, if you spent too long in a RES killing pirates, assassins would spawn (usually elite Sidewinders with dual railguns) and attack you unannounced. It was cool), so I'd prefer to exhaust all other possible explanations before going there. For instance, plasma accelerators basically ignore resistances, so if your G5 engineering was all thermal-resist, it would make little difference.

 

[d8veh]

Recall ship, die in the SRV is not a suggestion? I mean, I'd have died the same way you did, it is easier to say when this doesn't happen to you, but I think if there are ships flying around in red I'm not docking at all

The ships were yellow, not red, when I boarded the ship.

Thanks for the clarification.

What were the three ships that attacked you?

I can't comment on whether NPCs always announce their intentions. I would suggest that they were probably of the same faction whose assets you just attacked. "Scripted assassinations" sounds a little paranoid to my ears (although it would be nice if FD reintroduced factions sending ships to specifically target you - many moons ago, if you spent too long in a RES killing pirates, assassins would spawn (usually elite Sidewinders with dual railguns) and attack you unannounced. It was cool), so I'd prefer to exhaust all other possible explanations before going there. For instance, plasma accelerators basically ignore resistances, so if your G5 engineering was all thermal-resist, it would make little difference.

I've no idea what ships they were because I didn't get a chance to see them. Shields are reinforced, one booster is heavy duty and the other resistance augmented (IIRC). Looking at the log, I'd say that the shields were one-shotted, like you get in the station or when you try and land at an engineer's base uninvited. I wouldn't say I'm paranoid. I'm just trying to make a scenario that fits the facts. I have over 5000 hours in the game, and I've never experience anything like this before, especially when you consider the timing. FD said that PK commanders can expect a visit from ATRs. I could imagine something like this would be fitting, but I didn't kill anything. The last wanted NPC I killed was about two weeks ago.

 

[Vardaugas]

It seems to me a group of system security or aligned to the outpost faction spawned when you landed your ship and then responded to the crime report when you trespassed on the scan. While they may not have been in range to attack immediately they were there just in time to blast you when you entered the elevator. And depending on the ships you encountered the shields of a DBX wouldn't last long when it's a sitting duck. Unlucky circumstances. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Guyperson]

Were there any turrets on the ground? I haven't been shot at by a ground installation since they "beefed up" their anti-ship defenses. It wouldn't surprise me if they put reverberating cascade effects on all the anti-air turrets like they do with everything else they want to have kill players quickly.