NPC Superpower: Teleportation!

[WeavingBird1917]

I was fighting an NPC Anaconda that was sent after me. I got his hull down to 41% but was unfortunately forced to run away into supercruise because my canopy got breached. As soon as I exited supercruise, the SAME NPC, in the SAME SHIP, with his hull AT 41% made the usual threatening speech in the comms. The thing is: He was 50 Ly in front of me!

When I engaged supercruise, I was still targeting him, and up to the point when i escaped he did not engage his frame shift drive. However, right after I popped out, he was 50 Ly in front of me! I wish I could do that to NPCs who try to escape. NPCs should not have supernatural abilities!

 

[rrobes]

This goes hand-in-hand with the Corvette I was hunting in an assassination mission, He hi-waked out, trailing debris and fire at less than 20% hull.

A minute or so later he is reincarnated fully revived, 100%. No hi-wake this time, I kept more pips to engine and space-dusted him.

The magic of NPC's!

They do still need help.

 

[krylite]

I liked how in Frontier & FFE , certain pirate henchpeople ships would keep spawning and attacking/interrupting autopilot & speedup-cruise while messaging "You'll pay for double crossing <some name>!!".

 

[Aashenfox]

I guess you're new (or new to combat) then. No offense. Get used to this.

 

[Morbad]

NPCs have no persistence from one instance to another, outside the small amount provided by using a wake scanner, or following a low wake (which currently seems to be broken).

This has been a major issue for a very long time, and while I'm hoping things improve, I wouldn't get my hopes up for a quick fix.

 

[Jack Schitt]

The "sent after me" bit is key. Regular random pirate NPCs won't do this, but the mission-spawned hunters will. They re-spawn until destroyed and will spawn wherever is most convenient for the game. I've had instances where I've been jumped near the arrival point, forced the pursuer to fly into the star's exclusion zone, flown on to the destination and had them waiting for me when I got there. Neat trick.

Whether you see this as a cheat or just a limitation of the game's code is a matter of perspective, but it's an annoyance either way.

 

[_trent_]

The one that irritates me is when you evaded an interdiction which should mean the NPC is in the middle of nowhere waiting for his FSD to cool down. Then ten to fifteen seconds later when you drop into a USS or your destination and Mr Pirate is already there waiting for you.

 

[WeavingBird1917]

I guess you're new (or new to combat) then. No offense. Get used to this.

Haha yes, to combat missions. I'm only at a Master rank and looking to go to Dangerous to unlock Lori Jameson. But I'm accustomed to getting interdicted by NPCs on cargo missions then crashing into planets because I can't turn away or submit in time. The speed suddenly boosts and doesn't slow down near planets - mass lock seem to have no effect, an interdiction superpower?

Are there any upcoming plans to improve the "existence" or spawning of NPCs? For example, making the spawning of NPCs less noticeable when coming out or going into supercruise/hyperspace. Or the teleporting of NPCs above. I think NPC behaviour and comms should be improved, as they are the only "players" we see on a daily basis.

 

[WeavingBird1917]

Another weird NPC encounter happened again. I was in my Anaconda, heading to an engineers workshop with a bunch of cargo. I remembered checking if there were any ships in the area - there were none, so I concluded that it must have been non-controlled. I looked at my nav panel and found out it was controlled, but then I accidently crashed into the sun while doing so (I was fuel scooping).

Anyways, roughly 20 seconds after crashing into the sun, an NPC vulture appears. He immediately said "Give me 7000 Cr of cargo" or something on that line. I wasn't taking any missions at that time. Firstly, WHERE THE HECK DID HE COME FROM? There was no one else in the system! Then shortly after, 2-3 authority ships warped out, where did they come from? Secondly, he seemed to know that I was hauling cargo almost immediately, I don't recall him even scanning me.

I boosted away from him, but he managed to get my shields down. At 69% my FSD which was charging suddenly mulfunctioned. The powerplant started to malfunction too at 60-70%. I have no idea how the powerplant got down to that percentage if he was directly behind me on the scanner. All in all, I had to charge up the FSD 4 TIMES because it kept mulfunctioning each time, even though it was only around 70% (It was the 6A FSD). I also had to reboot a few times becauase the powerplant kept saying low power. Weirdly though, the shields did not activate after rebooting, as they always do usually.

I was looking at the modules panel, and for some reason the cargo hatch suddenly dropped to 3% and started mulfunctioning. Gosh I lost some of my liquooor! He did not deploy hatch breaker limpets or anything (as I would have heard the warning), and he was right behind me.

Eventually, I jumped away into another system. The second I jumped in, another NPC said on the comms something like, "I knew I'd find you here, all that tasty cargo!". Like seriously? Even a real player playing a pirate cannot do that! The NPCs in this game are more annoying than the unrealistic cops in GTA V!

 

[EDanaII]

Yea, this is one of the more laughable things about Elite. I even had one NPC chase me so hard I felt like I was being chased by Pepe Le Pew. Many the times I would deliberately lead him into the sun or some other large body only to have him appear several dozens of light seconds ahead of me...

 

[Falcon_D]

Another weird NPC encounter happened again. I was in my Anaconda, heading to an engineers workshop with a bunch of cargo. I remembered checking if there were any ships in the area - there were none, so I concluded that it must have been non-controlled. I looked at my nav panel and found out it was controlled, but then I accidently crashed into the sun while doing so (I was fuel scooping).

Anyways, roughly 20 seconds after crashing into the sun, an NPC vulture appears. He immediately said "Give me 7000 Cr of cargo" or something on that line. I wasn't taking any missions at that time. Firstly, WHERE THE HECK DID HE COME FROM? There was no one else in the system! Then shortly after, 2-3 authority ships warped out, where did they come from? Secondly, he seemed to know that I was hauling cargo almost immediately, I don't recall him even scanning me.

I boosted away from him, but he managed to get my shields down. At 69% my FSD which was charging suddenly mulfunctioned. The powerplant started to malfunction too at 60-70%. I have no idea how the powerplant got down to that percentage if he was directly behind me on the scanner. All in all, I had to charge up the FSD 4 TIMES because it kept mulfunctioning each time, even though it was only around 70% (It was the 6A FSD). I also had to reboot a few times becauase the powerplant kept saying low power. Weirdly though, the shields did not activate after rebooting, as they always do usually.

I was looking at the modules panel, and for some reason the cargo hatch suddenly dropped to 3% and started mulfunctioning. Gosh I lost some of my liquooor! He did not deploy hatch breaker limpets or anything (as I would have heard the warning), and he was right behind me.

Eventually, I jumped away into another system. The second I jumped in, another NPC said on the comms something like, "I knew I'd find you here, all that tasty cargo!". Like seriously? Even a real player playing a pirate cannot do that! The NPCs in this game are more annoying than the unrealistic cops in GTA V!

Yup. NPCs have this ability to spawn at weird places even if you don’t have them on scanner during SC. I’ve had NPCs spawn on me way out nowhere in an undiscovered system.
As for your PP and FSD, they both probably got damaged when you ran into the sun. This can cause them to malfunction. It’s not really necessary for them to be at 0% before they start to malfunction. Same goes for the cargo hatch.

Remember to set priorities to your subsystems. So even if the PP can’t pump out enough power, you still have power to essential systems. Although from what you described about your shields, you did set the priorities but the PP was not pumping out enough power for them to activate.