NPC explorers

Caramel Clown · Feb 10, 2020

I wouldn't mind seeing NPC explorers. Maybe they could be rare to encounter. 1 in 100 jumps, maybe you could meet an NPC ASP, or DBX surveying a system. Perhaps they could give you a tip off of a nearby system with some interesting features, or something. I don't know. Just an idea. Thoughts?

Edit. Maybe they should only be encountered in systems already scanned by another commander. For example, they were sent there by Pilot's Federation or Galactic Cartographics to further survey the system.

rekurzion · Feb 10, 2020

already in the game but they are hidden in USS'. you sometimes come across them in uninhabited systems within and close to the bubble

Layne Vakarian · Feb 10, 2020

rekurzion said:
already in the game but they are hidden in USS'. you sometimes come across from them in uninhabited systems within and close to the bubble

Yeah, little groups of ships with appallingly cheesy dialogue like "here we go, on our way to find strange new adventures" (not actual dialogue, it's been so long since I encountered them I forget, but you get the gist).
Bless 'em. On their way to strange new adventures 6Ly from home (Sometimes not even that!).

Lightweights.

Cmdr DRAGONHEART · Feb 10, 2020

Yeah but wen you in a not yet discovered system and go to a planet to use srv then 9 out off 10 there is a npc sitting doing nothing.

Friedenreich Xante · Feb 10, 2020

You never ever encounter real players out in the black if not voluntarily, because of the mind-boggling immensity of the galaxy. So I'd be rather surprised to encounter NPCs. I already find it rather immersion breaking to find crashed nav beacons on planets 5kly from the bubble.

Nasc · Feb 10, 2020

Saw one on some planet a few hundred jumps ago.
Really odd experience. Just appeared behind me and was hovering there a few hundred meters up from a planet, no thrusters on or anything.
Killed him for good measure. No need for antigrav silence and no response in my presence.

askavir · Feb 10, 2020

Better not...

FD sucks at everything related with NPCs, most likely outcome you would get an explorer NPC in an Asp Explorer in every single system, and another in DBX flying over you every single time you landed on a planet.

nik_a777 · Feb 10, 2020

I met an npc fuel rat yesterday. I was on 25% fuel and started getting buzzed by a search and rescue in SC telling me to follow their low wake for help, so I did. Unfortunately he must have forgotten his limpets because he flew around me but didn't transfer fuel.