Recently started messing around with my first stealth build. Got it in a really good place - testing with a friend showed that it was almost invisible to radar in most scenarios. I knew that NPCs would be effected less, but I didn't realize that stealth would be 100% ineffective against them. Frontier, this is a basic game mechanic you've had in the game since launch. It's disappointing that I can make a silent running stealth bomber and then do almost nothing with it. I love Elite and would only love it more if the NPC stealth/targeting behavior was fixed to at least more closely match the way it works with players.
NPCS and Stealth Mechanics
- Thread starter Tidings
- Start date
Silent running does affect NPCs, I use it to smuggle in big ships at planetary ports.
Sandro explained how it works with NPC in a stream at the start of the year:
[video=youtube;t1UHx5MbejE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1UHx5MbejE#t=28m20s[/video]
(at 28 minutes 20 seconds if the timestamp doesn't work)
Sandro explained how it works with NPC in a stream at the start of the year:
[video=youtube;t1UHx5MbejE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1UHx5MbejE#t=28m20s[/video]
(at 28 minutes 20 seconds if the timestamp doesn't work)
Thanks for the timestamp, that is good info. I guess I should have been more clear - I'm talking about silent running in combat. Right now, You can effectively remain untargetable (or very hard to target) from a player outside of 1km. In combat with an NPC, however, they never have any trouble keeping you targeted. I'll be 5 km away and fleeing and they will still have me targeted and will be chasing me. Against a player, I can become untargetable and re-engage without issue. Against NPCs, once combat has started, they always know my location. Smuggling and "hide and seek" gameplay is working fine, possibly too easily if anything!
Their accuracy goes down if you haven't fired a weapon in the last few seconds, even if they have fixed weapons. Cold running does not make you invisible. Once they know you're there, they will see you and track you just like a real human bing.
Only if you aren't shooting them or they are stupid.
The last time I played, NPCs who had noticed you would not act differently toward you if you were in SR vs not. I know Sandro said LOS affects it but that is quite patently incorrect. An NPC will happily chase you through an asteroid field whilst you are in SR until you travel far enough for them to engage their FSD and leave. This is exactly the same behaviour as if you had simply fled venting heat. Occasionally, NPCs will break off and attack someone else when you have SR up, but that's not significantly different behaviour compared to having SR off. Basically, it would appear that SR does not affect NPCs in any way except to prevent attention from scans.
Why would they spontaneously lose interest in you simply because you passed out of sight behind a rock for a moment? If my CMDR shot your CMDR then turned into an unresolved contact and flew into a ring, would you be fooled?
Once you have an NPC's attention, shaking them should be very difficult.
Yeah this is exactly what I have observed as well, including your example of breaking LoS with asteroids.
@fus roh potato - I know you are targetable while firing weapons. But NPCs don't seem to care how long it's been since I have fired, or how far away I am. That's what I'm bringing up.
I was getting on a CG board in a cheap Eagle once, just plinking stuff. Worked fine until it didn't. It went a little poorly once it didn't. So, I was rather unsurprisingly running away. Engines sputter and die. Rebuy?
Nope! Dead engines apparently dropped me down in heat enough to go semi-silent. NPC gets distracted (not sure why, not exactly a good view), and I make my escape using inertia. Reboot/repair and fly back to a station.
SR is primarily useful to avoid INITIAL attention, though. If you're cold, they have to be on top of you before they notice you, and if they never see anything but a vague contact, you can make it into station before they do. If they're actively annoyed with you, AND they have no other targets, they might make a better showing.
Try following a player who moves beyond your radar range in SR and then changes trajectory.
Yes, and it generally works to a fair degree here. People expecting to be able to shoot something or otherwise attract it's attention and then have it forget them because their sensor contact unresolves are being silly, IMO.
Been there, done that, hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
You have to be ~8km away to not show up as an unresolved contact and the simple act of changing trajectory will leave an exhaust trail that can be seen 30-40km off. Even if I happen to be facing away from them when this happens, and they are full FA off to avoid leaving constant exhaust, the moment they come within ~8km they are an unresolved contact which I will point at and almost certainly see. Only in areas of absolutely massive sensor clutter is it likely for a SR ship to be able to sneak up on me at all, and the moment they attract my attention, only being involved in a fight with someone else will likely cause me to lose them before they leave the instance.
Any upper rank NPC should have similar capabilities.
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Nah, I'm not at all suggesting they go full skyrim and just forget they were shot at. I AM suggesting they at least make an appearance of looking for me. A small, blacked out SR FA off Cobra is damn near impossible to find. NPCs however just full throttle exactly to my location guns blazing the whole time. I want them to at least struggle to find me again. If I do everything to drop off their sensors, I should be able to re-engage on my terms, as long as I am playing everything right. If I don't play it right, then yeah, a high ranking NPC should absolutely hunt me down.
Right now there's no room to outplay an NPC of any rank and disappear, even momentarily, when in combat. They just know where you are at all times in a way that a real person can't.
He's a master though. He's done this hundreds, if not thousands of times.
For the rest of us who aren't full of bull sheet, your point is well made. NPCs cannot be outplayed, as the SR mechanic itself does not exist in the game for NPCs. It's like so many other features where the game fakes or approximates it, like NPC persistence or ships following your wake that clearly cannot jump as far. Eventually an aggro'd NPC will stop making a beeline for your ship, but only because their disengage behaviour kicks in which would have magically happened anyway once the distance between you and them reaches a predetermined value.
Yeah that's totally true, but unless they add more difficult PvE encounters to the game, most combat against NPCs is already trivialized by just having an engineered ship. I'm working my way backwards through the ships now because there's not enough challenge atm.
If SR/stealth gameplay was actually something that worked, it would at least be more rewarding to do. Doing it well requires management of distance, ship temps, position, better build planning, etc. If you make some combat trivial for doing all that, instead of just holding down your trigger in a corvette, at least you earned it haha.
If SR/stealth gameplay was actually something that worked, it would at least be more rewarding to do. Doing it well requires management of distance, ship temps, position, better build planning, etc. If you make some combat trivial for doing all that, instead of just holding down your trigger in a corvette, at least you earned it haha.
I'll admit I stopped at asp scout and have hardly flown anything bigger (I own them, just prefer small ships by far) so I don't know how bigger ships work. I know I can smack any one ship in my own but a lot of events involve ++ or waves of ++, so...eh I dunno. Balancing this game is a mess! Mostly I just wish there was more reward for fitting anything but shield boosters in utility slots which I think would also help no-shield fits.
Not if they never lost sight of you.
They turn away when you get 8km from them, and that's about the same distance you completely leave sensors.
A real person looking for you will absolutely continue to follow your unresolved contact, even if they lose visual momentarily. The odds of you escaping anyone with any experience at a range less than that which NPCs would is essentially zero.
The stealth system is far from perfect, but the situations you and other describe as being impossible, impractical, or even unlikely really are not.
My statement was neither bull nor hyperbole.
Stealth combat has been a thing for a very long time and I've participated in a lot of combat with, and against, stealth vessels. Indeed there was a 9-12 month period, which coincided with when I was most active in PvP where it was hard to find a fight that didn't feature a stealth FAS or three.
Anyway, after my first serious encounter fighting stealth vessels (which I made a thread about in October 2014: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/52142-Silent-running-combat-ship-fad) I've generally not found them difficult to fight, except when multiple ships that look identical are in the same hostile wing, which makes trying to focus one of them down a kind of cup game. If you think you, or anyone else for that matter, can catch my CMDR off guard, or shake him, using stealth, they are free to try. I essentially never leave Open and can give you a list of my likely haunts and play times.
An NPC who has reached those upper ranks should be assumed to have experience using and countering silent running and should be extremely difficult to shake.
Absolutely correct, the reflexions and the way your ship renders even at distance
gives you away, also does your ion trail.
People using FA: On in stealth miss the point of "not leaving a trace".
The notion is correct,
i will keep my eyes open, but i feel some NPCs are more persistent and they stick even at 9KM.
10KM however seems to be the absolute safe distance. All hail long range sensors!
Yes, due to the changes FD implemented to stealth
when the META was strong (DO NOT META!) with stealth,
we now have less chance using stealth fruitfully,
unless your ship is significantly faster and can reach the distance and relocate fast enough.
Even during the peak of the stealth 'meta', when it was possible to stay silent for protracted periods of time, even while firing weapons, it was difficult to lose someone with any experience, unless, as you note, you were way faster and could get out of range (visual and sensor) quickly then approach from another vector.
As for the current status of stealth, silent running hasn't improved much, but low emissions PPs have. I've seen some low emissions Diamondbacks that can maneuver with weapons deployed at sub-20% heat, making them resolve only at very close range...not quite as low as silent running, but since it's effectively permanent, it's much easier to use.