I destroyed several powerplants from NPC's and they still fly around and attack me, they don't explode.
Is this a bug?
NPC's powerplants are immune in Elite Dangerous
- Thread starter Ricardo Escobar
- Start date
I destroyed several powerplants from NPC's and they still fly around and attack me, they don't explode.
Is this a bug?
Yes that's completely normal. Just getting the plant down to 0% just means the NPC might have to turn off a few modules. Hit the powerplant a couple more times though and then you're likely to see the ship go boom.
Also, plant explosion chances are per-hit, so while the rails are good for getting the plant down to 0%, the slow rate of fire means that they might well take a while to blow it up with further hits, too. A multicannon / burst laser / beam laser which can hit it several times a second can be a lot better for finishing it off, even if it won't wear it down that fast in the first place.
Thank you,
I think I will try the powerplay rail cannon then, since it hits 3 times per shoot.
The Imperial hammer? I'd give it a try but that can be tricky to aim, more than normal railguns anyway. They do also get very hot as well. Something you could try though is high capacity engineering. I think at grade 3 these go from a normal 3 shots to 6 shots. You're bound to hit something!
Otherwise, as was mentioned by Ian, multicannons work very well for this. I can certainly second that idea.
Deleted because my post was incorrect. See correct discussion of PP integrity and power output here:
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NPC's powerplants are immune in Elite Dangerous
NPCs are typically setup with large power surpluses so all they tend to lose with a destroyed PP is shields. Some also lose some weapons, but crippling an NPC with PP damage is rare. A power plant at 0% integrity still produces power. I think 40%, and it drops down to 20% when it momentarily...
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When a power plant is at 0% integrity, it still produces 40% of its potentical output. Provided power prioirites are set correctly, and heavily depending on your ship build, you can still fly around and maybe even continue shooting.
But players should just wake at that point, as your a 1-tap away from exploding.
Frag cannons are great for making plants go boom.
Short Range Plasma Accelerators too. Module hits depend on breach chance and then breach damage. If you can breach hit for more damage than a power plant has integrity, that's a 40-80% chance to instantly destroy the power plant and possibly also the target entirely. If the target has MRPs then you're taking the largest possible bite out of them to get them destroyed quickly.
A couple of small or medium rapid fire pulses are another good option for triggering the fatal malfunction once the power plant is at 0%.
A couple of small or medium rapid fire pulses are another good option for triggering the fatal malfunction once the power plant is at 0%.
If you want focus on power plants use Concord Cannon. This is my current build but any ship will do: https://edsy.org/s/vzKiZI0
The output drops to 40% once it reaches 0% integrity, then slightly increases to 50% after a few seconds.
A power plant drops to 40% output if you have a malfunction, which can happen anywhere below 80% integrity but that's temporary.
It drops to 50% output permanently until repaired once the integrity hits 0%.
It drops to 50% output permanently until repaired once the integrity hits 0%.
Just trundling this one out again for reference.
NPCs don't cheat when it comes to Powerplants. Players just don't design ships for low power conditions... here I clear a Medium Intensity CZ with no PP or PDS.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g79QgL7_AUc
NPCs don't cheat when it comes to Powerplants. Players just don't design ships for low power conditions... here I clear a Medium Intensity CZ with no PP or PDS.
I second to SRB Concord cannons being really good at doing power plant damage and triggering the explosion. Easier to use than railguns, easy on power distro, high breach chance, high shot speed and 3 shells per gun per volley that guarantees that at least one shell gets through. Combine with a corrosive multicannon to mitigate low AP and to add some volume of fire for triggering. Gels well with a feedback cascade railgun to cancel SCB-s.
SRB PAs- my go to for this. The amount of times I've seen a ship going flying off with dead drives, a shield stop regenerating or just going boom while still above 50% hull, without me even sub-targeting the modules makes these my first choice the first time I'm building a ship.
Assuming the distributor can handle them and the ship doesn't melt too much of course.
A Power Plant at 0% integrity still generates 40% of its original power. If the commander correctly configures module shutdown priorities to maintain only essential modules, so that their power demand does not exceed 40%, the ship will not explode.
You know what works great together with those? Penetrator Munitions Advanced Dumbfires. You need a fairly maneuverable and fast ship with good hardpoint convergence.
Dumbfires have 100% breach chance, and with Penetrator Munitions they can hit power plants for 20 absolutely guaranteed damage as long as you make your shot. Put a SRB PA in the center large of a Chieftain. Put one to three Advanced Dumbfires in the small hardpoints around it. From typical Chieftain attack range (i.e. out to around 1 km) the projectile speed difference doesn't matter. Just target the power plant and fire.
Thanks to the guaranteed damage it's a great way to hedge your breach chance bet. In the worst case scenario you're doing 20 (or 40 or 60) breach damage to the plant which adds up over time.
In the best case scenario when the SR PA breaches, you're doing a bare minimum of 144 breach damage. If you have corrosive active, that gets an additional 25% on top for a total of at least 180 breach damage, and most un-armored power plants vanish with one shot.
It's very satisfying and also very ammo efficient to strip the shields from an anaconda and destroy it with one shot to the plant. The highest remaining hull I've ever seen was 96%, and I have a nice collection of kills at 90% and above.
I see no one mentioned in detail, how actually instakill works on plant, and there is case wich where one post is wrong (seen bellow);
"the ship will not explode"... Not. Thats not how it works. If you exceed 40%, it only will shut off modules, if priorities are poorly set up.
The "instakill" on plant its actually independ 5% chance, when there is sucessfull breach (breach chance vary on used weapon) happen into plant after 0% of intergrity. The dmg itself does not matter, it does not matter if dmg to plant after 0% is 1000 or 1, its only based on that 5% chance. Sometimes it will blow up instantly, sometimes it needs repeatedly pummeling to trigger that 5%... anyone who planted enough ships in thier lifetime, should notice that variety, especially those who planted tons of other cmdrs.
Back in 2014, plants used to instakill once reached 0% (same as FSD), but it was only like that for few months, and it was later changed into "5% chance" for plant only, and it has been not changed since. See one of earliest patch notes, wich included this change (early 2015/end of 2014 - the 1.0 or 1.1 version or something)
Or couple of beam lasers (works better in range vs rapid pulses - no jitter). In general, the "high chance breach" weps as cannons with good depth of penetration, are good too, as most of time, thier dmg is actually breach dmg, as again, the "5% kill" triggers from breach dmg only. In case of pen dumbfires, its good as well for triggering fatal malfunctions, but to standstill targets only. If target flying is erratically, its quite hard to have 100% accuracy with dumbfires at such - just saying.
It was poor matchup for my quad LR rail phantom... also that cmdr was very (un)lucky, as instakill triggered in very first hit after plant reached 0%.
Got two things wrong here, bud... 40% is when malfunctions happens, and at 0% plant gets halfed capacity, so 50% as others mentioned already.
"the ship will not explode"... Not. Thats not how it works. If you exceed 40%, it only will shut off modules, if priorities are poorly set up.
The "instakill" on plant its actually independ 5% chance, when there is sucessfull breach (breach chance vary on used weapon) happen into plant after 0% of intergrity. The dmg itself does not matter, it does not matter if dmg to plant after 0% is 1000 or 1, its only based on that 5% chance. Sometimes it will blow up instantly, sometimes it needs repeatedly pummeling to trigger that 5%... anyone who planted enough ships in thier lifetime, should notice that variety, especially those who planted tons of other cmdrs.
Back in 2014, plants used to instakill once reached 0% (same as FSD), but it was only like that for few months, and it was later changed into "5% chance" for plant only, and it has been not changed since. See one of earliest patch notes, wich included this change (early 2015/end of 2014 - the 1.0 or 1.1 version or something)
Or couple of beam lasers (works better in range vs rapid pulses - no jitter). In general, the "high chance breach" weps as cannons with good depth of penetration, are good too, as most of time, thier dmg is actually breach dmg, as again, the "5% kill" triggers from breach dmg only. In case of pen dumbfires, its good as well for triggering fatal malfunctions, but to standstill targets only. If target flying is erratically, its quite hard to have 100% accuracy with dumbfires at such - just saying.
Record of mine, its another cmdr, an cutter with 98% hull left. It was actually "funny hull" bulid, no shields, and they used LE plant and obviously no MRP's.
It was poor matchup for my quad LR rail phantom... also that cmdr was very (un)lucky, as instakill triggered in very first hit after plant reached 0%.
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Yeah I recall when I was incredulous that an NPC ship with a 0% plant seemed unaffected. I'm pretty sure I made this exact same post even. Now I often use PP shots mainly to knock out any possiblity of shields coming back. It's usually in a pretty good spot to aim at overall and if I get lucky and ding it enough before hull is 0% then great but most ships just can't keep shields AND weapons up on 50% juice so it's a very good target to go after. Most players have shield and weapons on same priority so they loose defense and offense.
Most times it has happened to me, I'm too wrapped up in the fight and takes too long to recognize what just happened and I go boom very shortly afterwards.
Most times it has happened to me, I'm too wrapped up in the fight and takes too long to recognize what just happened and I go boom very shortly afterwards.