NPC "infinite" chaff issue?

SirRawThunder · May 28, 2016

Okay, first time posting here (after a while of lurking), Hi ED Forum world!

I'm unsure if this is a bug or not, so advanced apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place.

This isn't a "1.6 AI BROKEN" type complaint, I promise. I'm partial to the new AI, although that comes with the caveat that I'm 20% Deadly and flying either a Corvette or an Anaconda. I get how the AI could be unfair on newer pilots. my problem is this: I'm frequently seeing ships just spam chaff, specifically, firing more chaff than a ship can mount. The last fight I fought got me so annoyed I joined this forum to complain. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but an Imperial Eagle can only mount one Utility slot, right? which means one launcher, so, what, 10-11 bursts of chaff?

Try 38. and those were just the ones I counted. How does that work? Do AI ships get infinite ammo with their engineer weapons now, or should I go post a bug?

Took me 20 minutes to kill the little devil, by which time he'd gotten through my Corvette's C7 bi-weaves with four shield boosters, almost every hardpoint a hull reinforcement package and Military grade composites, doing over 30% damage, disabling my AFM and taking out half my FSD. and that was the first ship I encountered in the HazRes. I've seen similar with Fed Gunships and Pythons since 1.6 launched, but I didn't try counting. I'm all in favour of rebalancing the AI, they were a little easy before, but making them untouchable like this is going a bit to far. and you can't really run a big ship with fixed weapons to counter this.

Cheers

deathbykarma · May 28, 2016

Couldn't agree more, all we can do is throw it on the pile and hope they can fix there mistakes.

Judge M · May 28, 2016

NPC's have infinite everything, as far as i can tell.
Had them firing Rail Guns at me endlessly. No heat issues. No running out of ammo issues.

As for chaff, when they fire it off, stop targeting them and then you can fire at them with basically fixed weapons. It's a bit fiddly, but it works. If you can
use fixed. i can't.
You may already klnow that, but just in case...)

Abigor · May 28, 2016

+100000000000000

LostLegend · May 28, 2016

To be fair, I have noticed this myself on rare occasions.
Fought a Python in a RES that spammed chaff constantly for the entire battle.
I have no problem with stronger AI as long as they are kept to the same outfitting restraints as we are.

Abigor · Jul 16, 2016

I been bounty hunting all day today and this is still a problem.....it's amazing how much chaff small ships has

AttackedDesert · Jul 16, 2016

I've noticed the infinite chaff on smaller ships, which is very annoying because it turns what should be a short fight into a long drawn out battle. I have also noticed that some npc ships have infinite shield cell banks. I was fighting an npc conda and i couldn't even get his shields down because of the infinite cell banks, and when i checked his models he only had one!

MottledOrange59 · Jul 16, 2016

I haven't seen this but I've had them spam SCB. The only way to take down larger ships with strong shields was for my wingman to draw his fire while I rammed my vulture into him. Even with us both constantly firing on them for minutes (a Viper Mk3 and my vulture), some single ships could easily tank our shots with SCB constantly firing.

Eros Rend · Jul 17, 2016

What about shield cells? I was fighting a Clipper in a CZ, two other ships and I kept on firing on him and he kept on recharging his shields. The Clipper was basically invincible. I gave up and went after another ship.

planting42 · Jul 17, 2016

Do yourself a favor and screw HazRez. I only have bad nights of gameplay there.

I only farm Compromised Nav Beacons now. Too much going on with the AI to want to make it a bigger fight.

Jason Trask · Jul 17, 2016

I farm high intensity RES haven't had any issues yet

B Wald · Jul 17, 2016

ED is one of the greatest sandbox games ever made, in many respects.

That being said, I've been playing a lot of GTA and Fallout 4 since 2.1 dropped, if you catch my drift.

Xaevryn · Jul 17, 2016

I've noticed some NPC ships fit multiple chaff launchers. Not sure if this would cause the "infinite chaff" thing here.

If you fit two chaff launchers and kept switching between them could you keep a constant state of chaff as a player?

Kyennamo · Jul 17, 2016

They definitely have infinite chaff.

Pretty sure they have infinite ammo and SCBs also. Honestly, the same mechanic probably governs all of the above. So, its all pretty broken.

What bothers me most though, is the NPCs don't seem to be subject to capacitor drain or heat.

I have seen ships fire more PAs and rail guns than their weapons capacitor could ever be capable of without recharging. THAT made me a little mad.

I am all for pushing the limits of AI skill. But making them more "skilled"by allowing them to break the rules is lazy programming

Zerakue · Jul 17, 2016

Infinite shield cells are my issues, seems they never over heat from back to back usage.

Greyza Badger · Jul 17, 2016

Seen a few examples of the dice being loaded in favour of the NPCs. This is totally out of order. I don't care what FD come up with for excusing it, the NPCs must play by the same rules as we do, even if it means they bug out when out of ammo etc. We need a level field for all.

Bond00789lol · Jul 17, 2016

Kyennamo said:
They definitely have infinite chaff.

Pretty sure they have infinite ammo and SCBs also. Honestly, the same mechanic probably governs all of the above. So, its all pretty broken.

What bothers me most though, is the NPCs don't seem to be subject to capacitor drain or heat.

I have seen ships fire more PAs and rail guns than their weapons capacitor could ever be capable of without recharging. THAT made me a little mad.

I am all for pushing the limits of AI skill. But making them more "skilled"by allowing them to break the rules is lazy programming

This. +1

I have seen them take module damage from doing what I call "the full burn" -being SCB, Chaff, boost, weps, all burning at the same time for the duration of the fight, but I've never seen the capabilities be diminished by module malfunction. Nor have I seen them fry to hull, as would be the case for a human player. As I've posted several times, better have some serious skill and burst dps. Not impossible, just very tough.

Kerrash · Jul 17, 2016

Please do not spread false informatiom.
I have evidence to the contrary that this is not possible.

If you have proof please provide your evidence along with your support ticket.

Thank you

Bond00789lol · Jul 17, 2016

Kerrash said:
Please do not spread false informatiom.
I have evidence to the contrary that this is not possible.

If you have proof please provide your evidence along with your support ticket.

Thank you

You literally have at least a thread a day about this issue with multiple responses reporting the same issue, and that's all false info?

YinYin · Jul 17, 2016

BFD Slayer said:
If you fit two chaff launchers and kept switching between them could you keep a constant state of chaff as a player?

Yes, it's a very common tactic to pack at least two launchers for constant coverage.

Same as Kerrash.

I have managed to make NPCs run out of SCBs, chaff, missiles and rail gun ammo (all of that takes a long time - you are more likely to win, lose or flee).

The only thing they are officially supposed to have infinite ammo of are multi cannons, however similar to players I suspect they currently also have infinite cannon and plasma accelerator ammo.

Additionally elite NPCs may have modified modules (only modified weapons were removed from them post 2.1). Which can give them higher wep capacity/recharge and other things.

Also, while they do not seem to care about their heat levels at all (firing lots of weapons and banks without heat sinks), their modules do take heat damage (check all sub targets - the more they have the more it gets spread out).

Bond00789lol said:
You literally have at least a thread a day about this issue with multiple responses reporting the same issue, and that's all false info?

They usually fail to provide proof. (apart from someone recently correctly counting too many cannon shots after rail guns ran out - which is true for players as well right now)

Just because a huge stack feels infinite to you doesn't mean it is if you don't count it. And even then all you can manage is discovering that they used more than a normal clip should have, which still technically isn't infinite