NPCs not blowing up with power plant at 0%

[AceMcKool]

I mentioned this a few days ago in another thread.

For weeks (months, perhaps?) I'd been noticing that some (not all) NPCs were not dying when taking down their PP to 0%. I still have to bring their hull down to 0% so they will die.

Well, as of last week during the whole combat CGs and right now that I'm bounty hunting at a hazres, there hasn't been a single NPC that blows up after I take their PP down.

I just fought an elite Python, took down its PP to 0% and hull to ~20ish%, and it wouldn't die even though I kept hitting the targeted PP with square frag cannon volleys. Very frustrating.

What is up with that? Anyone else seeing this? Do I have to open a case in the Issue Trasher?

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

yep that happens go for power distributers get better results, npc are magic if you didnt alreadt know.lol have fun cmdr,07

 

[Riverside]

Python power plants are hard to hit, you need to go at them from above or below to get decent penetration. With Pythons I usually just hammer the hull.

 

[metatheurgist]

They don't die with 0 PP, haven't in aaaaaaaages. Each additional hit has a chance of crit and death, keyword - chance.

 

[AceMcKool]

Python power plants are hard to hit, you need to go at them from above or below to get decent penetration. With Pythons I usually just hammer the hull.

Even after getting the PP down to 0%?

Like I said in my post, I was landing hits squarely at point blank range (yes, from both above and below), PP was at 0% and the NPC didn't pop until hull was at 0%.

Same just happened with and Anaconda, and before that a FDS.

This isn't just a random event. It's happening all the time with all NPCs, no matter size, make, model or rank.

 

[DemiserofD]

Even after getting the PP down to 0%?

Like I said in my post, I was landing hits squarely at point blank range (yes, from both above and below), PP was at 0% and the NPC didn't pop until hull was at 0%.

Same just happened with and Anaconda, and before that a FDS.

This isn't just a random event. It's happening all the time with all NPCs, no matter size, make, model or rank.

There are two things you're experiencing here. The first is breach chance; weapons don't have a 100% chance of damaging a module, the more hull the ship has left, the less likely you are to breach it.

The second is hull penetration depth. Some weapons have very low penetration depth, and simply cannot hit a module from certain(or any) angles. If you are shooting at a thick ship with a weapon with low penetration distance, you may spend most of your time not hitting it at all.

Once you DO hit it, you have something like a 15% chance per hit to cause the power plant to go critical.

 

[Old Duck]

All I know is that I was popping ships with over 70% hull in the last CG thanks to targeting their power plant. This was with a combo of two large efficient beams and a huge SRB MC, all gimbaled.

Not all ships have easy-to-hit power plants, but if the OP is getting them to zero, then I suspect hitting the PP is not his problem.

 

[Riverside]

Even after getting the PP down to 0%?

Like I said in my post, I was landing hits squarely at point blank range (yes, from both above and below), PP was at 0% and the NPC didn't pop until hull was at 0%.

Same just happened with and Anaconda, and before that a FDS.

This isn't just a random event. It's happening all the time with all NPCs, no matter size, make, model or rank.

The Conda PP is easy to hit & most Condas I pop are done by targeting the power plant. The FDS PP is even easier to target and I don't remember the last time I popped one via any other method than getting underneath the back & blatting it's PP. The Python is different in this regard, and bringing it's hull to zero is usually the most effective method ime.

Even though getting the PP to 0% is not a guaranteed kill it doesn't usually take more than a couple more shots to trigger the death sequence, if you are able to get it to zero reasonably quickly you should also be able to get it to pop after a few more hits using the same strategy as you used to get it to zero in the first place.

It's been a long time since I shot at an NPC (nearly a year, I do have well over 100,000 NPC kills recorded in my codex stats though) but if others are able to do this that suggests the issue may not be with the game but something at your end, technique perhaps, or something else. If you can capture your experience on a video it may reveal some further clues about what's happening, particularly for FDSs that can be taken out pretty quickly if you can get below or behind them.

 

[AceMcKool]

The Conda PP is easy to hit & most Condas I pop are done by targeting the power plant. The FDS PP is even easier to target and I don't remember the last time I popped one via any other method than getting underneath the back & blatting it's PP. The Python is different in this regard, and bringing it's hull to zero is usually the most effective method ime.

Please read my posts again. I have no problem targeting, hitting and bringing PPs down to 0%.

Even though getting the PP to 0% is not a guaranteed kill it doesn't usually take more than a couple more shots to trigger the death sequence, if you are able to get it to zero reasonably quickly you should also be able to get it to pop after a few more hits using the same strategy as you used to get it to zero in the first place.

Please read my posts again. I repeatedly hit the PPs squarely (as in the whole of the ship's top/underside in full view in front of me) at point blank range (<700m) after getting them down to 0% and they still won't die.

It's been a long time since I shot at an NPC (nearly a year, I do have well over 100,000 NPC kills recorded in my codex stats though) but if others are able to do this that suggests the issue may not be with the game but something at your end, technique perhaps, or something else.

Yeah, there must be a problem with my technique. The same technique that got me to combat elite in less than two years just by doing hazres sites, in solo. Sure.

If you can capture your experience on a video it may reveal some further clues about what's happening, particularly for FDSs that can be taken out pretty quickly if you can get below or behind them.

I guess I'll have to do that. Obviously no amount of explanation will make you comprehend what the problem is.

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

been playing a few years , and i said before npc are magic ,they have there own rules ,dont target just shoot them out the sky it works just as well. remember they computer generated and follow the same path,pvp is a different kettle of fish . you have to hit them in small window,npc are are a open door. said my bit, just my opinion.

 

[cmdr milesred]

if it showed a decimal you could see why

same when you are at 0%, you still have a chance to live as long as your ship still has some integrity left.

it isn't a bug.
some blow up real easy some take a bit longer. keep shooting

funniest thing I see in every one of these threads is about targeting the power plant..
from the very beginning I have done this too, take out various modules to mostly see what kills the fastest.
nothing,
all I see is a slower death to the target.
every time, they blow up long before any module I target dies. Always.
from this I just stopped targeting modules, unless I am pirating and don't want them dead, then I target a module.
I don't usually even use weapons when pirating, I want them alive.
as it still is to this day, I only target the ship and shoot, it dies faster than by targeting modules.

but then maybe its my weapons, no. I have tried every weapon.
the only difference is when the weapon is weak, it takes longer.

most of my kills die with 20 to 60% hull left
the ones that make me take them to 0%, keep getting shot until they are no more.
no math required.
even at 0% spinning and smoking, full volley till it is sparkles only.
the alliance ships in a cz, I love, so hard to go boom, 10-30km chase of continual fire...they never win.
If I am out to win the cz, I will ignore and not chase.
fwiw most of my kills are under 30 seconds. any longer means I am not focused. or am in the wrong ship.(aka wrong weapons)

 

[Jmanis]

Oh look, another thread like this.

NPCs do have some of their own rules, mostly around appearing in supercruise... powerplants, power distributors and module damage is not one of them.

0% Powerplant = 50% power output. Repeated hits have a small chance to cause instant death. Multicannons, beams and other repeated-hit weapons are best to get this effect, as each strike counts as a new chance.
0% Power Distributor = Unable to change power priorities only. It does not stop systems recharging per your settings at the time of losing the system.

NPCs also use power priorities. If you look at NPCs whose Power Plants are out, their priorities will disable nonessential systems such as:

• Shields
• Shield Booster
• Shield Cell Banks
• FSDI
• Cargo Hatch
• Other comparable nonessentials.

Players can do that too. They just, generally, don't. See here for a video of me running a medium CZ with a 0% PP and PD as proof of this.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g79QgL7_AUc


... and this video for proof of the effect on NPC ships.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKJii-lo6aM


... and a screenshot of the effect of knocking out a powerplant on an NPC ship (noting all the disabled subsystems)

... and the last time I said exactly the same things.

Fix broken PvE AI to make it an enjoyable challenge, and not CHEAP

Seriously, it's ridiculously imbalanced. And cheats like nothing else... And by cheating I mean IT'S OBVIOUS it's CHEATING. It does whatever it wants, negates whatever damage it wants, ignores whatever it module damage wants because it doesn't seem to have effective parameters telling the AI...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[goemon]

choice of weapons plays a role. as others report in this thread, a beam laser is especially good of popping powerplants - probably because its continously stream of damage is modeled as a high rate of single hits with each having a 15% chance of popping the powerplant.

frags aren't all bad for it, as a single shot has 6 projectiles, but their amour penentration value is low and they have jitter, so whether you hit the pp at all with one of the projectiles depends on ship module, module size, module placement, relative position, size of frag etc etc.

with my frag builds i usually can only pop the powerplants of some ships, mostly condas. with those builds having at least a medium beam, i pop most medium and large targets. you might consider adding a beam or a focussed pulse to your build.

 

[Jmanis]

choice of weapons plays a role. as others report in this thread, a beam laser is especially good of popping powerplants - probably because its continously stream of damage is modeled as a high rate of single hits with each having a 15% chance of popping the powerplant.

frags aren't all bad for it, as a single shot has 6 projectiles, but their amour penentration value is low and they have jitter, so whether you hit the pp at all with one of the projectiles depends on ship module, module size, module placement, relative position, size of frag etc etc.

with my frag builds i usually can only pop the powerplants of some ships, mostly condas. with those builds having at least a medium beam, i pop most medium and large targets. you might consider adding a beam or a focussed pulse to your build.

Conversely, my 2x MC, 1x beam krait build will drop a big ship with a PP kill anywhere between 20-80% hull left on the dial

 

[William J Smith]

Fixed % chance the PP goes boom once it hits 0%
So once it goes to 0% use a multi-cannon on it since the more rounds land on it the more chances you have of it going boom

Having said that, remember that some ships PP are harder to hit than others..

Bill

<<currently playing 'chase the glowing spidery thing around'

 

[Old Duck]

choice of weapons plays a role. as others report in this thread, a beam laser is especially good of popping powerplants - probably because its continously stream of damage is modeled as a high rate of single hits with each having a 15% chance of popping the powerplant.

I think this is the key. I don't ever remember blowing a ship up by hitting the PP with a railgun, for example, despite the railgun's ability to quickly snipe modules.

Has anyone ever seen an NPC ship blow up because its life support ran out? I'm just thinking about other ways to kill a ship without shredding the hull to zero. I've done it both by triggering a PP explosion and also overheating a ship using aggressive thermal shock weapons. Maybe someday I'll take out a ship's thrusters, then life support, and then I'll just follow it while it drifts forever to see if it eventually "dies" like a CMDR would.

 

[Screemonster]

Yeah, high-damage-low-RoF weapons are great at knocking the plant to 0, and very poor at actually triggering the boom.

Multicannons are, as always, an extremely solid weapon against NPCs due to having a decent breach chance and the high rate of fire causing a lot of chances to pop the plant.

 

[goemon]

Has anyone ever seen an NPC ship blow up because its life support ran out?

yes, they do, but only after oxygen support runs out. so something like 5 minutes (grade e) to 25 minutes (grade a). not worth it beside testing.

 

[Old Duck]

yes, they do, but only after oxygen support runs out. so something like 5 minutes (grade e) to 25 minutes (grade a). not worth it beside testing.

Too bad NPCs don't exist outside an instance. This could be a nice DOT effect, especially if the ship jumps before you can finish it off, but it doesn't make it back to base before "boom".

I definitely want to test this now, just for the fun of it. I can think of some unique scenarios where this might be a useful tactic.

 

[MickyG1982]

I mentioned this a few days ago in another thread.

For weeks (months, perhaps?) I'd been noticing that some (not all) NPCs were not dying when taking down their PP to 0%. I still have to bring their hull down to 0% so they will die.

Well, as of last week during the whole combat CGs and right now that I'm bounty hunting at a hazres, there hasn't been a single NPC that blows up after I take their PP down.

I just fought an elite Python, took down its PP to 0% and hull to ~20ish%, and it wouldn't die even though I kept hitting the targeted PP with square frag cannon volleys. Very frustrating.

What is up with that? Anyone else seeing this? Do I have to open a case in the Issue Trasher?

Years behind the curve on that one, they haven't been blowing up at 0% PP for years (neither have players).

Even a destroyed power plant will always produce 50% power. That means provided your power priorities are set right a ship will still function. The sam goes for NPC's but they are much better at managing their priorities & can do so on the fly.