NPC pirate outside the bubble detected

[Ashnak]

Ok, just as a hint to all the (returning) explorers out there:

I am parked on one of those breadcrumbs in

Col 285 Sector MO-P c6-15 , outside the bubble, three jumps north of Varati. I keep the ship idling while scanning the forums, when I hear the dreaded "Scan detected". Switching back to the game, I see I've been scanned by a pirate Eagle, complaining that I didn't have anything in my cargo rack. Fly careful out there!

 

[Kaybe]

Hasn't this always been the case, mind you? NPC pirates can be found anywhere up to around 500 LY from the edge of the bubble. Never let your guard down as an explorer until you've gotten a solid 1000LY away from inhabited space. While NPC interdictions are very rare that far out, they can still happen.

 

[Allitnil]

It's over a year since I've seen a free ranging NPC (ie not in a signal source) outside of a populated system so it's either very rare or something new.

 

[Duckfat]

It's over a year since I've seen a free ranging NPC (ie not in a signal source) outside of a populated system so it's either very rare or something new.

If you saw one over a year ago then it's not new, just rare.

 

[Reido]

There is currently no place within the NPC bubble where you can get away from them.

I was sitting in my ship landed on an ICY world >400,000ls from the jump-in point in an uninhabited system in the bubble and was being scanned every 5-10 minutes by roving wings of NPC Pirates.

I've also dropped out of SC in uninhabited systems in the bubble and have had NPC Pirates drop into my instance and scan me.

Every asteroid cluster I drop into will immediately spawn NPC Pirates whether the system is inhabited or not.

It's more like harassment than game-play for non-combat oriented players to be interdicted and/or scanned by Pirates every 5 minutes while we're trying to "Blaze our own trail" by playing OUR way.

My point is, is that there are any number of places a player can go to engage in combat, if they choose to do so, but now there's nowhere to go to get away from it other than deep space exploration, and that's had very little development in the range of activities available since release, at least in comparison to the range of things to do in the bubble.

If I had had any legitimate cargo in my ship during any of the above encounters I would have been looking at the re-buy screen.


CMDR Andrew Reid

 

[Traveller_GG]

Apparently (according to 'some') you're supposed to "git gud"

Siiiiigh.


I think someone missed a decimal point when they were tweaking the AI and aggressiveness settings prior to going live.

 

[fieval]

Yeah, I've decided to disappear into the black until sanity prevails (Hopefully!!)
I have a new ExplorerConda and 2 SRV's (Never driven one yet!!)
So I shall explore, practise landing the Annie and driving the SRV...should tide me over for a few months at least.

Of course coming back (one day) could be interesting.

 

[newman1702]

Apparently (according to 'some') you're supposed to "git gud"

Siiiiigh.


I think someone missed a decimal point when they were tweaking the AI and aggressiveness settings prior to going live.

I wonder how many of the "git gud, carebear" crowd actually get blown to smithereens by NPC's on a daily basis and secretly curse the new AI, but want to sound like super awesome l33t playaz on the forums. Some of the threads on the AI read more to me like a bunch of teenagers bragging by blowing hot air rather than actual adult conversations.

Plus, it seems to me that the AI isn't actually smarter at all, but FD took the much easier route of making them harder by giving them super specced up ships and certain unfair advantages (no heat for NPC's, unlimited capacitors, some really weird refire times leading to terms like "rail beam", these could ofc be bugs). That doesn't sound challenging in a good way but rather in an annoying one to me. I do hope FD do see that there is some balance to yet be achieved in this area.

 

[fieval]

I think some of it has to do with their approach to the game.
I treat my commander as a precious thing, I will do everything I can to protect him.
I will run if needed, I will not self destruct because it is convenient.
Some of the "Get Gud" gang don't understand running to preserve your commander (why bother dude? you get respawned!!)
So you will see commanders with 100 - 120 respawns goading others to "Get Gud".
I have 2 insurance claims, none from combat.
Do I feel special ? No, I run if the odds are against me.
And that seems to bother some of the pew pew brigade.

 

[Jackie Silver]

Apparently (according to 'some') you're supposed to "git gud"

I prefer to think of it as "being one of the Elite" - but combat should be in places where it makes sense, and pirates dropping in to some remote iceball every few minutes as Andrew describes doesn't make much sense to me. It would be cool if some sneaky NPC deliberately tailed you to find out what you were up to, but of course that's not what's happening - a random "let's have some pirates!" counter is ticking away.

 

[Chrystoph]

Kinda funny, it reminds me of the old D&D random encounter charts.

Roll 1 sided die, on a 1 roll on the chart...

Except all the encounters are pirates.