No varying NPC attack pattern.

[Gamel0rd1]

When in combat with an NPC, they always face you and try to boost over, under or to the side of you to get behind. This almost always leads to the commander constantly pulling back on the joystick in large ships. It isn't fun. It is realistic that the NPC is trying to get behind you, but if it isn't fun, it isn't good. I'm not saying it is hard, but the combat is incredibly boring. Why? I am always looking at the scanner at that red triangle and waiting for him to come into view, only to boost over my head again.

We need varyation. High, and I mean high, ranked NPCs should do this "on your six" attack pattern, but lower level NPCs should move around in non coordinated moves and generally just shooting at you. More variation = good. It isn't fun when you need to shift your anaconda into reverse, turn flight assist off and fire at them whilst floating backwards at high speeds.

What do you think? And no, I'm not whining. I have simply observed the NPCs and their attacks are generally the same.

 

[Cynaqq]

I have this concern too, this new behavior makes it a little too easy for the fight to become a jousting match. You are correct it can get a bit tedious and boring especially in the cases where you are sure you can win and it's only a matter of time.

That being said, the issue is infinitely complex and I don't know how a programmer can come up with a solution without making compromises.

Let's get the issue spread out in front of us as much as we can and look at individual parts:

1- It's logical an NPC should try to get behind you since you are also constantly trying to get behind it. Breaking this pattern can mean instant death for one party so how do you break it without being illogical?

2- Players will always be better than the NPC at recognizing patterns but an NPC will always be better at spatial awareness because the computer knows exactly where everything is at all times and also has a complete mathematical knowledge of how things are moving at any given time. So, how do you break patterns to make it look like more natural but at the same time make it so that AI doesn't look intentionally made dumb, because let's get real, with that spatial information, a programmer can easily make it so a person can't ever face an enemy.

3- There are different ranks and they are certainly different in difficulty but how do you differentiate between their flight prowess in a way that looks natural?

The only solution I can think of as being feasible in the short term is to keep everything as is but buff the survival instincts of higher level NPCs a little bit so they are not so hell bent on placing hits on you all the time but alternate between trying to survive one day longer and trying to kill you at all costs. If you make these 'fight and flight' modes alternate in a pseudo random pattern, it should make things a little more interesting in the short term. On top of this, lower level NPCs can be more unpredictable, more greedy and have less of a survival instinct so they make mistakes like suiciding into your line of fire, boosting into asteroids or even more human mistakes like hitting wrong buttons. They should make mistakes like misclicking so they retract weapons when in perfect position to shoot or maybe fry themselves by an unintentional silent running.

These are just some random ideas from the top of my head. I'm sure we can come up with a lot of more interesting features.

The only way for these to be taken seriously is to make sure they are not entirely new behavior but some randomizations of the existing behavior which can be implemented in the short term.

 

[Queex]

I made a post in the suggestions thread concerning this, the take away was much the smae as your point - that these tactics might be better, and might make the AI ships more challenging, ceteris paribus, but makes the combat less fun.

My proposed suggestion was for the AI ships to be able to be able to get impatient - so they start behaving rashly as they think their kill is taking too long. That extra unpredictability, as well as the uncertainy as to how long it will take for them to become impatient, might be enough to make combat pop again.

 

[MickyG1982]

Well, I've seen them charge at me, fly backwards, keep just out of your effective range whilst hammering you with weapons, run away, make mistakes or simply stalk me for the hell of it.

Quite good fun in my opinion.