NPCs behavior is completely arbitrary

[Crimson Kaim]

Do you know this moment when you need to drive 100 meters with your car and you are just too lazy to use your seat belt and then your car's alarm activates to tell you that you are not using your seat belt and this is annoying as some little crying child which just doesn't stop (and most cars won't turn off the alarm unless you use your seat belt).

Well, I am that alarm that will not stop until these probnlems with NPCs have been fixed. A repetetive reminder over time to mention the following:


Today's occasion is that alot of Eagles and Sidewinders are in the opinion "I will take on you for what you are hauling." while I am flying safely in my Anaconda with alot of resistance shield boosters and even more guns. However, they are not worth my attention as they are neither rewarding nor will they stop spawning in front of my face wherever I go in the void so it is pointless to even consider turning into their direction. Yet they open fire.

For these 12 tonnes of water and biowaste it isn't really worth to challenge an Anaconda, no?


This is why NPCs remain computer controlled objects rather than actual characters that feel alive. Apart from missing interaction and conversation with NPCs, they feel more like soulless drones controlled by my local cores as the game files tell my core certain instructions of how to generate these objects.


Thank you for your attention. Won't bother to quote myself about all the other issues regarding NPCs as my previous post is only one month old.

 

[Darrett]

I agree, NPCs need some sort of threat level check prior to engaging. We see a bit of this in RES where the enemy decides to leave you alone with a "Sorry, it was a misunderstanding" message, but it should apply even if you have commodities that they're interested in. Really, I'd prefer if that Eagle would just follow you in supercruise in an interdiction position, and slowly spawn in wingmates over time to represent him calling in for help until the threat level limit was overcome, at which stage the wing would interdict and attempt to pirate (not destroy) your ship.

 

[h347h]

I agree, NPCs need some sort of threat level check prior to engaging. We see a bit of this in RES where the enemy decides to leave you alone with a "Sorry, it was a misunderstanding" message, but it should apply even if you have commodities that they're interested in. Really, I'd prefer if that Eagle would just follow you in supercruise in an interdiction position, and slowly spawn in wingmates over time to represent him calling in for help until the threat level limit was overcome, at which stage the wing would interdict and attempt to pirate (not destroy) your ship.

According the patch notes they have 'rank' which I guess it similar. It is supposedly higher in anarchy systems vs normal ones for the same ship ai level.

 

[Lobstris]

I agree, NPCs need some sort of threat level check prior to engaging. We see a bit of this in RES where the enemy decides to leave you alone with a "Sorry, it was a misunderstanding" message, but it should apply even if you have commodities that they're interested in. Really, I'd prefer if that Eagle would just follow you in supercruise in an interdiction position, and slowly spawn in wingmates over time to represent him calling in for help until the threat level limit was overcome, at which stage the wing would interdict and attempt to pirate (not destroy) your ship.

That is a really good idea. Rep inbound.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

I agree, NPCs need some sort of threat level check prior to engaging. We see a bit of this in RES where the enemy decides to leave you alone with a "Sorry, it was a misunderstanding" message, but it should apply even if you have commodities that they're interested in. Really, I'd prefer if that Eagle would just follow you in supercruise in an interdiction position, and slowly spawn in wingmates over time to represent him calling in for help until the threat level limit was overcome, at which stage the wing would interdict and attempt to pirate (not destroy) your ship.

Yes, a threat check would be of a good use. But this "misunderstanding" is not a pirate Eagle that is scared .. it is a bounty hunter randomly scanning you and seeing you are clean. If you would have 400 credits of a bounty somewhere in the bubble he would risk his life to kill you. This is also just stupid.

 

[Lobstris]

According the patch notes they have 'rank' which I guess it similar. It is supposedly higher in anarchy systems vs normal ones for the same ship ai level.

But the current seems to be - spawn equivalent sized ship with somewhat equivalent rank. Darrett's suggestion would add a lot of variety - lots of small ships in the mix. Since 2.0 hit (or even previous?) I don't recall being interdicted by an NPC wing. Happened in 1.2...? Hmmmmm.

 

[h347h]

But the current seems to be - spawn equivalent sized ship with somewhat equivalent rank. Darrett's suggestion would add a lot of variety - lots of small ships in the mix. Since 2.0 hit (or even previous?) I don't recall being interdicted by an NPC wing. Happened in 1.2...? Hmmmmm.

Yeah just pointing out something like his idea is already in the game. Changes to make it better are welcome.

 

[fennster]

It wasn't so long ago that some NPCs would scan you in RESs and say something like "Sorry bigman, won't bother you again" or "Look, I don't want any trouble" and they would just scuttle off into the distance... Whatever happened to that?

 

[nathdixon92]

Do you know this moment when you need to drive 100 meters with your car and you are just too lazy to use your seat belt and then your car's alarm activates to tell you that you are not using your seat belt and this is annoying as some little crying child which just doesn't stop (and most cars won't turn off the alarm unless you use your seat belt).

Well, I am that alarm that will not stop until these probnlems with NPCs have been fixed. A repetetive reminder over time to mention the following:


Today's occasion is that alot of Eagles and Sidewinders are in the opinion "I will take on you for what you are hauling." while I am flying safely in my Anaconda with alot of resistance shield boosters and even more guns. However, they are not worth my attention as they are neither rewarding nor will they stop spawning in front of my face wherever I go in the void so it is pointless to even consider turning into their direction. Yet they open fire.

For these 12 tonnes of water and biowaste it isn't really worth to challenge an Anaconda, no?


This is why NPCs remain computer controlled objects rather than actual characters that feel alive. Apart from missing interaction and conversation with NPCs, they feel more like soulless drones controlled by my local cores as the game files tell my core certain instructions of how to generate these objects.


Thank you for your attention. Won't bother to quote myself about all the other issues regarding NPCs as my previous post is only one month old.

Perhaps they've fallen on hard times

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

"Whatcha haulin' there, pal?"

*commences scan*

"Nothing? Useless dreg."

*turns back on FAS with deployed hardpoints*

Come on, now.

 

[CMDR-AD]

For these 12 tonnes of water and biowaste it isn't really worth to challenge an Anaconda, no?

Do they scan you? Often, I find that an NPC pirate does not scan my ship to even see I have zero (or worthless) cargo.

They just demand cargo, wait (yes, the wait will be forever as I have none to give!) and fire.

I have been taking on a few Pioneer rank USS salvage missions, and often I see a wing of 4 ships jump in and demand my cargo. The first time around was as above, no cargo on board (and had yet to scoop the on-site canisters), but still no scan and they shoot. Well then I get crafty. I jump into the Mission Target USS, and quickly scoop up one non-mission canister. Water, IIRC. And then wait.

Well, here comes the wing. They demand cargo, and I drop the 1 canister of water. They take it and leave me. I scoop the mission critical cargo and complete the mission.

IMO, the way this was probably intended to work, is that the NPC are after the mission critical data canisters. But since the NPCs don't scan me, they don't know I don't have it. And since that same mission critical canister is floating right there below them, they are not seeing it there, either.

A better play out would have them first check the floating canisters upon arrival, and if the mission target is there... Scoop it up! Now I would have to either face the fight to get it back, or fail the mission. If the canister is not floating, scan my ship. Demand that canister, or else.

These are a newer mission type, so perhaps they will be fixed/improved in 2.2.

 

[Thetele]

I think the difficulty of AI isn't too high or two low. The problem is that all npc use same strategy. Like every npc act same way in combat and do same moves. There is no variations at all. We need npc have a lot more different strategies to make them feel better rather than always do same thing again and again.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Yes, a threat check would be of a good use. But this "misunderstanding" is not a pirate Eagle that is scared .. it is a bounty hunter randomly scanning you and seeing you are clean. If you would have 400 credits of a bounty somewhere in the bubble he would risk his life to kill you. This is also just stupid.

I have seen NPC bounty-hunters scan me and decide not to engage, saying something like "sorry, I thought you were someone else."

The behaviour is already in the game; it just needs to be applied as a universal sanity check.

 

[Lobstris]

Remember people we were all 'Harmless' once. Pirates have got to start somewhere. It's just that the galaxy tends to weed the crap ones out fairly quickly.

Fennster: That does happen still. I've just had someone scan me then go "I think I'll leave it...". I just think the percentages got tweaked.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

According the patch notes they have 'rank' which I guess it similar. It is supposedly higher in anarchy systems vs normal ones for the same ship ai level.

Well I have spotted mostly harmless Eagles against me in deadly with my Anaconda. So much for "rankings".

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Do they scan you? Often, I find that an NPC pirate does not scan my ship to even see I have zero (or worthless) cargo.

They just demand cargo, wait (yes, the wait will be forever as I have none to give!) and fire.

Depends wheather they are mission spawned NPCs. Those do not scan me as they already know what mission I am doing and what is in my cargo hold.

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Remember people we were all 'Harmless' once. Pirates have got to start somewhere.

When I had a kill mission in my C rated Viper MK III back then and I faced an Anaconda, I abandoned the mission as I knew this was a little bit out of my league. Beginner pirates shouldn't start with deadly Anacondas.

 

[Lobstris]

When I had a kill mission in my C rated Viper MK III back then and I faced an Anaconda, I abandoned the mission as I knew this was a little bit out of my league. Beginner pirates shouldn't start with deadly Anacondas.

Trouble is, as I found out when modding the A-Life in the STALKER games, some people get very upset when they can't complete a mission in a game that was 'out of their league'. Kudos to you for realising that. (I hope it wasn't the hard way after the rebuy screen?)

Generally, I'd argue that, if you're simulating a galaxy 'warts and all', then there should be a chance for a Harmless pilot to run into a Deadly Anaconda. I dislike 'level scaling' in games (thank the gods for Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul! for example) so the actual chance should be limited (few pilots reach Deadly), and that Deadly Anaconda probably has a survival instinct or else it wouldn't have reached Deadly, so he (or she) probably was somewhere a Harmless person shouldn't be, or the Harmless accepted a mission he shouldn't have. The previous games really did this with their system government, and it's still feels AWOL-ish in E: D, though with the rank requirements clearly stated in missions now, and the UI showing system status on jump, I'm hoping Frontier realised this.

Also, there should be a chance of the Elite pilot running into a Harmless Anaconda. Someone's rich daddy bought their child a toy, but perhaps really shouldn't have...

Note in all of the above I said 'a chance' - we're talking the real tail ends of a bell curve here.

Oh - the 'ranking' of NPCs seems to only apply to those attached to missions or RES/Conflict sites. I think you can still get interdicted by 'ambient' wanted NPCs occasionally, of any rank, which would explain your Eagle attack. I've also noticed that I get interdicted by chains of similar NPCs on a particular day when doing missions (and I don't mean low waking) - missions on one day generate Fer-de-Lances, missions the next day generate Anaconda's, the day after FAS' etc. But that's speculative, I've not actually been keeping notes on it.

 

[Sapyx]

I have seen NPC bounty-hunters scan me and decide not to engage, saying something like "sorry, I thought you were someone else."

The behaviour is already in the game; it just needs to be applied as a universal sanity check.

No, that's one of the things NPC bounty-hunters will say when they scan you and you've got no bounties. If you know you did have a bounty somewhere and you got this message, then maybe it was part of the bounty glitch (where you've definitely got bounties but they don't show up in your transactions tab for some reason). If you can't see your own bounties because of the glitch, then they can't see them either.

 

[MarcusKross]

For these 12 tonnes of water and biowaste it isn't really worth to challenge an Anaconda, no?

In Fdevs defense they have more important priorities and better things to do first like implementing a magic ship teleportation service across the galaxy to ruin everything the game stands for.

Threat checks for npcs?? Pfft who cares. They hired their awesome AI programmer just to use 10% of her skill anyway.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Trouble is, as I found out when modding the A-Life in the STALKER games, some people get very upset when they can't complete a mission in a game that was 'out of their league'. Kudos to you for realising that. (I hope it wasn't the hard way after the rebuy screen?)

Generally, I'd argue that, if you're simulating a galaxy 'warts and all', then there should be a chance for a Harmless pilot to run into a Deadly Anaconda. I dislike 'level scaling' in games (thank the gods for Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul! for example) so the actual chance should be limited (few pilots reach Deadly), and that Deadly Anaconda probably has a survival instinct or else it wouldn't have reached Deadly, so he (or she) probably was somewhere a Harmless person shouldn't be, or the Harmless accepted a mission he shouldn't have. The previous games really did this with their system government, and it's still feels AWOL-ish in E: D, though with the rank requirements clearly stated in missions now, and the UI showing system status on jump, I'm hoping Frontier realised this.

Also, there should be a chance of the Elite pilot running into a Harmless Anaconda. Someone's rich daddy bought their child a toy, but perhaps really shouldn't have...

Note in all of the above I said 'a chance' - we're talking the real tail ends of a bell curve here.

Oh - the 'ranking' of NPCs seems to only apply to those attached to missions or RES/Conflict sites. I think you can still get interdicted by 'ambient' wanted NPCs occasionally, of any rank, which would explain your Eagle attack. I've also noticed that I get interdicted by chains of similar NPCs on a particular day when doing missions (and I don't mean low waking) - missions on one day generate Fer-de-Lances, missions the next day generate Anaconda's, the day after FAS' etc. But that's speculative, I've not actually been keeping notes on it.

Totally agree. Whenever I want to farm expensive ships I hop into atleast a medium ship to spawn mediums to large ones and whenever I don't want PvE I hop into a small ship so they only spawn Eagles.

But yes, I lost my Viper a couple of times but I reengaged the Anacondas until it was quite easy for me to kill even the Elite ones. I was quite mad during the ramming bug day(s) when your ship cuddled with any other ship (slight touching it) the game would count it as 100 rams per second, instantly destroying any ship but other than that losing your ship is part of the game. Pay rebuy and go ahead.

But yeah, Elite contains alot of "loopholes" as some article I just read calls it. I rarely play the game as it is intended to be played. Mode switching, ship-spawn-control, NPC confusion are all aprts I gladly use against NPCs. I never engage against a NPC like firing back or handing over cargo as it wouldn't make a difference. They are lifeless, non-intelligent aritficial characters controlled by the game or my local cores to keep me annoyed.
It's a shame.

 

[Lobstris]

But yeah, Elite contains alot of "loopholes" as some article I just read calls it. I rarely play the game as it is intended to be played. Mode switching, ship-spawn-control, NPC confusion are all aprts I gladly use against NPCs.

Fair enough. Through personal choice (masochism?) I'm the opposite. I like to get immersed in the fiction of a game, never use fast travel, don't mode switch (I've olny been in solo once or twice to fix the hang on the spinning ship screen). An Ex pointed out that I was always very forgiving of things like 'chest high fences' in games, when she was like 'it's only a bloomin' fence, I could climb over that no problem! Why's it there?'. That is selective though (SpaceMagic™ is still a bad idea! )

I never engage against a NPC like firing back or handing over cargo as it wouldn't make a difference. They are lifeless, non-intelligent aritficial characters controlled by the game or my local cores to keep me annoyed.
It's a shame.

Indeed, but if you think like that aren't you always going to be disappointed in them? Or AI NPCs in any game? They are never going to be absolutely 'human', but I'll give the them benefit of the doubt till they do something really stupid . And I agree, it would be nice if you could have a bit more two-way 'intelligent' interaction with them before 'hot lasery death' time, but for that to be worthwhile there need to be a) NPCs you *really* don't want to take on in a fight 'cus they would annihilate you, and b) a viable chance to talk those NPCs down and either give them what they want (or convince/appease them to go away for another reason - e.g. "OK, if you mess with me, you'll be starting a war with all of the 'Jet Blue Mob' and you really don't want that do you?" (and that response could be a bluff, or an actual threat if the player was respected within the 'Jet Blue Mob', and the game allowed more player agency over the BGS.

At the moment my procedure, even with the supposedly too-hard AI, whilst in an un-engineer modded Python is simply: Submit to interdiction. Issue command for '4 sys, 2 wep' from '4 sys, 2 eng'. FA Off. Rotate to face threat. Chaff. Open up. Throttle FA Off/On a bit to keep upper hemisphere on target. Dead NPC. It would be nice to have more than that.

Oh. And if NPCs were a bit more persistent in system, we could have these NPC interactions in super-cruise, to increase gameplay there, rather than having to go through the 'phase transition loading screen' rigmarole. E.g. 'Aha! There's the ship I'm looking for!'... Target Sender. Open Comms... 'Option 1. (Bribe) Here's 10,000cr to look the other way then'. '2. (Threaten/Bluff) If you do this, you'll be starting something you won't be able to finish - I bring friends.', '3. Dear Sir! I see that it appears you are about to initiate hostile actions against me! Therefore, could you possibly furnish me with the details of your next of kin, so that I may send the remains of your teeth to them, when I've scooped them from your frozen corpse?' etc. etc.