NPC combat ranking distribution

[thirstyfish]

I kinda wish the distribution of wanted/hostile NPC ships would follow a bell-curve, with the majority of encounters being mid-ranked NPCs, and fewer and fewer of the exceedingly high or low rank ones. From a numbers standpoint, this makes sense. The harmless NPCs would die quickly or "learn" quickly. Most NPCs would be of average rank, as they have been able to "learn." And there would be fewer high-rank NPCs because the law of large numbers would dictate that they have an increased chance of someone killing them at some point in their career.

During WWII, figher pilots would have an extremly high chance of dying in their first 5 missions. After that, the rate dropped substantially. However, after 20 - 25 missions, this rate would start to spike again. Why wouldn't NPC pilots here follow that pattern? The new pilots (harmless, mostly harmless) would be very likely to die, the mid-ranks would be the most common, and the high-ranks (deadly, dangerous, elite) would be fewer because they have had more chances to be killed.

I get that this is more of a general thing, and that it might need to be tweaked depending on the security rating of the system, missions and the like. However, a bell-curve distribution would make a lot of sense. For whatever reason, I haven't seen any NPCs below master rating (My own rating is expert) since 2.1 dropped. I haven't played 2.103 yet, but this idea is still worth a thought.

 

[Lestat]

What about players like me who have two accounts. One high rank. While the other one low rank? Both with max out Vultures.

 

[thirstyfish]

Like I said, this distribution would be for more general purposes. Naturally a compromised nav beacon or a hazres would be different. So would NPCs for things like assassination missions. Beyond that, you would see what is known as a normal distribution. It looks like this:

Let's say that the median (the peak of the bell curve) is somewhere between competent and expert rank. half of the ships you would face would be above this line, and half would be below it. However, most of the ships you would face would be within one or two standard deviations. So, to approximate, most of the ships you would face would be somewhere between novice and dangerous. The other ranks would make up a comparatively small portion of the ships you would face. some 2% would be mostly harmless or harmless, and 2% would be deadly and elite. Because these encounters (in general) wouldn't be overly common, you could choose to ignore the small fry, and run from the sharks.

Naturally, missions and location would modify this some. Maybe a high security system would see overall less wanted ship traffic than a low security system. Missions would probably modify this based on their difficulty rating. Higher difficulty missions would alter where the median line is. A mission that is ranked novice would lower the median below where it normally would be, and a mission ranked deadly would raise it. This way, the combat rating of a player wouldn't really matter. The combat rank is usually just an indicator of how many wanted NPCs you have taken down, and doesn't really reflect actual skill.

This scheme would only determine the rank/difficulty of the AI, not their ship. I took down a mostly harmless anaconda way back when I was in an adder, a bad ship flown by a good pilot will always shoot down a good ship flown by a bad pilot. I suppose that the actual loadout and types of ships faced could be determined based on what the player is flying, but I don't see that as totally necessary, a loadout based on the NPC ship and the AI difficulty would work too. For example, the anaconda I mentioned, It was a big ship, but it had no weapons and tried to ram me. In fact, it clipped me once, but I lived. So a big ship flown by a low-rank AI would have fewer weapons and worse modules than a small ship flown by an AI of the same rank.

@Lestat: since you have two accounts, that technically means two separate commanders. And this system would kind of remove that concern anyway. Besides, I was taking on expert and master rank NPCs in my loaner sidey. They aren't that bad.

 

[Altmer45]

Agreed. I think that the spawns are even more important than the AI at the moment. Once we are able to have consistent experiences, then we'll have an easier time figuring out how the AI needs to be tweaked.

2.103 is going in the wrong direction with its quick fix. Spawns need to be unrelated to combat rank since it does not translate to skill level. The bell curve is a good alternative. It would be much easier for people to find opponents they can manage.

It's also important to mention that to satisfy the more hardcore players, it has to be easy and convenient to find the most difficult opponents.

 

[thirstyfish]

With this, it would be. Going to a hazres, compromised nav beacon or taking high-ranking combat-based missions would cause more difficult ships to spawn more often because those areas would tweak the bell-curve. going to a low-security system would help because that would bump up the spawn rate.