NPCs should follow the same rules we have (scanning a ship from supercruise)

[Chalky]

Since day one, this has been a bug bear of mine.
The moment you jump into a system and almost straight away you get a message from an NPC along the lines of:
"There's that juicy cargo...." or something like that. I can't remember the exact message, but it's cargo related.
Now, in populated space this works. I get it. Role play can be word of mouth etc....

However, I just kitted out an Asp and headed off in the rough direction of Sag*. It's been a long time since my last exploration trip so I thought I'd try the big one. Or at least, see how far I'd get before I wanted to head back. My previous exploration was in a Hauler, so internal space was limited and no space for cargo. The Asp however still had cargo space. I think I left it in, as I planned on stopping at some planets and seeing if there was anything there along the way. Hopeful that I could be posting some exciting story in the exploration forum about a downed ship in a less travelled area of space.

So quite a way out on my trip, I spotted a USS and dropped. Some poor chaps remains and some rescue ships. I moved on. A couple more hundred LYs on and I do the same, with the same result. But then further out I went I hit an USS that had a container. This was something I hadn't seen before. It was exploration data and it was 'legal salvage'. The last time I was out exploring this wasn't a thing. Must be a new game feature added. The estimated value was high, so excited I carried on. Further on another USS. This time it was small exploration data. Not really worth much at all, but I kept it too as it was legal.

It was after this that I rechecked my route and filtering on populated stars I spotted that the Lagoon Nebula must have a star port. Again this was new since my last trip a few years ago. I decided that was my next stop. I could sell my exploration data and my picked up cargo. With a goal in site I carried on meticulously scanning and jumping, listening to my tunes and grabbing pictures (usual explorer activity). Finally after a long time for me (1 months play on and off) I was 1 jump away.

So, you can probably guess by the thread title what happens next.
In I jump to the system that has the starport or base. Then literally seconds later the message hits.
"You're the one I've been looking for with that cargo..." or something along those lines.
I'm tired. I wasn't expecting this. I hadn't been part of aggressive encounters in months. My system scan had only just finished.
I could see 1, possibly 2 NPC ships on the scanner.
I dropped from supercruise to think and look (stupid mistake 1. I didn't think they'd drop straight in on me as they were a long way off).
I opened the System map to look for the starport (stupid mistake 2), that was on a planet, so it took me further to find it.
Then by the time I came out of the map I had warnings about ship under attack, shields were down. 2 NPC icons flashing red.
I hit the FSD but it had failed. Manoeuvrability gone, it was seconds later and I was destroyed.
A Federal looking ship went by as my ship disintegrated. One of those ones with a terrible jump range. :S

So I started thinking.
Why was I attacked? What made me a target for such a ruthless assassination?
Why are pirates way out here (3000LY from the main systems) with a really expensive poor jump range ship.
Then it dawned on me. It must be the 1t of large exploration data in my cargo hold. The message had something about cargo from the NPC.
I've seen these before when trading. I get it that you can see these. Role-play says you were betrayed by someone in customs who messaged the pirate in your destination. However, I couldn't work this one out. Why would they know when I picked up this cargo from a USS that is LYs from anyone?
Have I missed some crucial part of the game play over these years, or can you really scan another players cargo from supercuise? If I can't do then the NPCs should not be able to do it either. Unless I bought that cargo, nobody should know I have it unless I'm scanned. NPCs should have the same restrictions as human players.

The next question was. How did they get to my low wake so quickly? It would take me at least a minute (being reasonable) to do what they did.
Surely NPCs again should follow the same rules as human players?

Don't feel sorry. Yes I was grumpy afterwards. But it's the game mechanics here.
I ended up paying the insurance and I picked a new paint job, new destination and have headed off again. This time I'm not picking anything up at all. It's a shame really that I have to resort to this, as I do not want a repeat of the same instantaneous NPC message and result.
It has robbed my of part of the game, as I cannot trust the game will treat me fairly if I find any high value cargo miles from populated space again.

Would it be too much to ask for cargo to be tagged in the game with 'known \ unknown' so that the game mechanics can distinguish between cargo that other NPCs would know you are carrying (e.g. bought at a market \ collected on a mission) and cargo that they would not know about (e.g. found in a USS \ salvage site). Then add that metric into the NPC messages. i.e: Change the message to "Let's see if you're carrying anything?" and then attempt an interdiction. Rather than the "there's that cargo" message.
Also, could we also have the NPCs match us on time to get to a low wake? The sudden appearance of a NPC when I dropped was too quick for the distance they were away, in my opinion.

 

[Hatchepsut]

This has been asked a number of times and the answer is still the same.

We do not yet have a game AI that can simulate a real player. In any GAME.

The NPCs cheat because they have to.

This is all by design.

Perhaps one day the designers can make us all an AI nemesis.

That is to say an AI that will scan our wakes and follow us to other systems.

An AI that will HUNT us down until we die ... or we kill them.

 

[Chalky]

They must be using some logic on the AI already and surely it's quite simply to modify it to stop them finding cargo that is known \ unknown. As they already modify a message sent depending on if you have cargo or not.

They could just add in a metadata tag on the cargo.

AI Ship check in hold:​

Yes - Check if cargo is known or unknown​

Known - "This is the cargo I'm looking for"
Unknown - "I wonder if you're carrying anything useful"​

No - Treat as unknown - "I wonder if you're carrying anything useful"

​

If there's any probability built in on if you get interdicted, then the same logic could apply. It would make stopping at USS and salvaging more likely to happen for explorers and other less combat based roles.

 

[Schmack]

Bugs me too. They don't get me, but the persistent pirate that drops from super cruise 40L Ls back and suddenly appears right behind you is annoying. But I get part of it, you'd not want to wait a full minute for an interaction if you actually wanted to engage the NPC.

The game puts a seemingly meaningless time grind on human players while have instantaneous NPC interaction. The scanning from supercruise isn't the only magic though, they can do it without even being on your sensors, meaning they don't even exist in the instance yet unless somehow they are doing it from normal space.

 

[fitzsteve]

Most robberies are inside jobs ya know, maybe they obtained your manifest from a shady contact at the mission board or commodity market, basically insert any role play that makes you happy.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I suggested an advanced manifest and/or ship scanner (or whatever) a while back, that;
1) Allows a very basic manifest scan of ships in supercruise. You won't see exactly what they're hauling, just what subgroup it belong too. Such as "4t organic", "20t metals", "10t ore" etc, etc.

And/or 2) allows scanning for modified modules on ships in normal space. Then we can police our own fun events by keeping them engineering free. Or we can assess a threat of a target ship.

These could be 2 separate modules, or whatever.

Then NPC's can have them to scan us in supercruise and make seemingly informed decisions, instead of just being all knowing. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Crank Larson]

The funny thing is that some NPCs do behave as expected. When doing cargo runs, I've noticed that quite often one of the interceptor NPCs first appears in front of me in orbit around a planet that I go past on my route. Once I spot them (by their name), I tend to keep them locked so that I know when I am going to be interdicted. In most cases, the NPC drops behind me as I go past, and tries to get the angle for interdiction (which you can prevent them doing quite easily, if you like).

But then there are other cases where my scanner is completely clear, I'm ten seconds from the space station, and suddenly I get interdicted...

 

[Schmack]

Most robberies are inside jobs ya know, maybe they obtained your manifest from a shady contact at the mission board or commodity market, basically insert any role play that makes you happy.

If you read the OP, he picked up the canister from a crash site, nary a human around.

 

[fitzsteve]

If you read the OP, he picked up the canister from a crash site, nary a human around.

I read that a bit too fast. I was Interdicted at nearly all the asteroid stations on my trip out after 2.2 landed and that was without even having cargo racks, a couple were anarchy systems too iirc. You need to be super cautious when coming back into populated space.

 

[Scoob]

NPC's do cheat sadly, sometimes you don't notice, other times it's glaringly obvious. An example of my own would be a classic "Tasty Cargo..." message, followed by me leaving them in the dust. For whatever reason they fell further and further behind as I approached my destination several thousand ls away from my entry point. I kept the would-be pirate targetted, so saw them go to 1,000, 2,000 then 3,000+ ls distance. Suddenly, they insta-warped to a few hundred ls and at the same instant were interdicting me,

To be clear, they did not catch up, not even close, they simply warped a couple of thousand ls in no time at all and were instantly interdicting me. This sort of thing is really VERY jarring from a gameplay perspective. I.e. I'm carefully monitoring a potential hostile, keeping them at a distance where they are no threat, yet they are able to insta-warp to within Interdiction Range.

Now, I dropped out of SC and killed the guy, a cool quarter million credits for me, nice and easy. However, if I were a new player, or still sat in my unarmed Type 7, it might have been a different story. I get that NPC's can't always play by the same rules...you know for a fact that an NPC hasn't followed your for 20 jumps since you bought that Rare (for example) but for them to gain super powers when they've already just been automagically spawned in by the game is annoying.

In the OP's scenario, there really should be checks in place to decide whether the player being "discovered" or "followed" is even remotely realistic based on actual in-game events and player actions. As it stands, it appears that pure RNG means a pirate was spawned against all logic.

Scoob.