NPCS using mods?

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

… I guess there are now NPC Type 10s too, anyone seen one?

Yes. Got interdicted yesterday by a deadly T-10 while flying around in my FDS.
NPC asked what I have in my cargo hold - nothing - got annoyed and wanted to jump out. I checked if it has a SLF, it didn't, and a few seconds later I got 200 kcr. reward for blowing it up (looks like they have quite a lot of armor).

 

[BDelacroix]

If you get hit by NPC plasma accelerators, you're baaaad.

<tongue in cheek, but seriously, strafe rolling makes you almost unhittable by standard PAs>

On similar lines, I was pleased to see various NPC targets have paint jobs now, and that I was interdicted by an NPC Chieftain (I was flying my own chieftain, and I was surprised how good the NPC was). I guess there are now NPC Type 10s too, anyone seen one?

I have seen many. The only things that seems to come after me when trading are t10s, fdls and anacondas.

 

[Arguendo]

The NPCs all cheat, all the time, and you should all file bug reports till FD takes it seriously. Because they don't.

Please elaborate on the term "all the time".
The only "cheat" that is programmed into NPCs is the unlimited Multicannon ammunition. If they didn't have that, they would run away alot!
Other than that, NPCs should not do anything players can't do in their ships. So, please explain what you mean by cheating. I see plenty of people claiming that NPCs cheat, but I have yet to see hard evidence in the form of a video etc that confirms this, and the NPC programmer has expressively stated that they do not cheat.

 

[Marra Morgan]

Please elaborate on the term "all the time".
The only "cheat" that is programmed into NPCs is the unlimited Multicannon ammunition. If they didn't have that, they would run away alot!
Other than that, NPCs should not do anything players can't do in their ships. So, please explain what you mean by cheating. I see plenty of people claiming that NPCs cheat, but I have yet to see hard evidence in the form of a video etc that confirms this, and the NPC programmer has expressively stated that they do not cheat.

NPCs with Refinery / Mining Lasers will cheat their FSD cooldown, spooling up as soon as you instance with them.

But that is fine, for reasons

 

[insanephoton]

NPCs using mods? That explains why T.J. has been so quiet recently

 

[AbsinthSvK]

The NPCs all cheat, all the time, and you should all file bug reports till FD takes it seriously. Because they don't.

they need to have some sort of cheat to be a worthy opponent...

 

[Troy_McClure]

Please elaborate on the term "all the time".
The only "cheat" that is programmed into NPCs is the unlimited Multicannon ammunition. If they didn't have that, they would run away alot!
Other than that, NPCs should not do anything players can't do in their ships. So, please explain what you mean by cheating. I see plenty of people claiming that NPCs cheat, but I have yet to see hard evidence in the form of a video etc that confirms this, and the NPC programmer has expressively stated that they do not cheat.

You people make me sick...just because you haven't observed these obvious cheats, you automatically disregard testimonies from people who have & simply take the word of the devs at face value.

Take the well documented, go-to example of railgun accuracy that many, many players continually cite - NPCs never miss...ever! Sure, some guy posted a vid where he avoided rails when facing the enemy ship by boosting & thrusting, but when running NPCs will hit every time - fact!

Here is the 'hard evidence' vid to prove my point:

[video=youtube;lFvv2IhIxr4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFvv2IhIxr4[/video]

EDIT: Ahhh 'wrong video - awkward!

 

[PhanttoM]

You people make me sick...just because you haven't observed these obvious cheats, you automatically disregard testimonies from people who have & simply take the word of the devs at face value.
<snip>

It goes both ways.

Here's a video I made back in 2016 at the height of the comments of "NPCs have unlimited SCBs"
Heck it even shows them taking heat damage. (This was before NPCs used heat sinks)
https://youtu.be/UAsmdHKvyaQ

 

[Aashenfox]

You people make me sick...just because you haven't observed these obvious cheats, you automatically disregard testimonies from people who have & simply take the word of the devs at face value.

Take the well documented, go-to example of railgun accuracy that many, many players continually cite - NPCs never miss...ever! Sure, some guy posted a vid where he avoided rails when facing the enemy ship by boosting & thrusting, but when running NPCs will hit every time - fact!

Here is the 'hard evidence' vid to prove my point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFvv2IhIxr4

EDIT: Ahhh 'wrong video - awkward!

Bit strong there bro, the truth is NPCs cheat a lot 'less' than people tend to believe.

Things they don't have infinite of, that people believe they do...

Heatsinks, chaff, missiles, other ammo apart from MCs, shield cells, heat sustainability.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Cheating or no, NPCs are total pushover in 99% of cases.

Loving those engineered targets, it's refreshing compared to bounty farming.

 

[sollisb]

Yes. Got interdicted yesterday by a deadly T-10 while flying around in my FDS.
NPC asked what I have in my cargo hold - nothing - got annoyed and wanted to jump out. I checked if it has a SLF, it didn't, and a few seconds later I got 200 kcr. reward for blowing it up (looks like they have quite a lot of armor).

Fdev make us grinds like a chinese sweatshop to get a decent ship capable of killing these engineered ships, and then give us 400cr as a reward!!

This is what really annoys me about this game.

 

[UnhappyDev]

and a few seconds later I got 200 kcr. reward for blowing it up (looks like they have quite a lot of armor).

Fdev make us grinds like a chinese sweatshop to get a decent ship capable of killing these engineered ships, and then give us 400cr.

I think he meant 200K? i.e. 200,000 cr reward which isn't bad.

This is what really annoys me about this game.

Then why play it? Plenty of games around with zero grind

 

[Arguendo]

You people make me sick...just because you haven't observed these obvious cheats, you automatically disregard testimonies from people who have & simply take the word of the devs at face value.

Take the well documented, go-to example of railgun accuracy that many, many players continually cite - NPCs never miss...ever! Sure, some guy posted a vid where he avoided rails when facing the enemy ship by boosting & thrusting, but when running NPCs will hit every time - fact!

Sorry, but ROFL!
In the video that NPC misses alot! Actually about twice as often as hitting you. So you can take your fact elsewhere please.
It actually used to be a lot worse than that, and SJA has admitted that she may have been a bit naughty, to use her own words, on the railgun aiming. That was however adressed. Looking at your flying, it seems to me that you're pretty much doing the same thing over and over again (ie. rolling while pressing one lateral and/or one vertical thruster). After about three rounds of that your pattern gets easy to anticipate tbh. How about trying to actually be evasive?

 

[Troy_McClure]

Sorry, but ROFL!
In the video that NPC misses alot! Actually about twice as often as hitting you. So you can take your fact elsewhere please.
It actually used to be a lot worse than that, and SJA has admitted that she may have been a bit naughty, to use her own words, on the railgun aiming. That was however adressed. Looking at your flying, it seems to me that you're pretty much doing the same thing over and over again (ie. rolling while pressing one lateral and/or one vertical thruster). After about three rounds of that your pattern gets easy to anticipate tbh. How about trying to actually be evasive?

I love it!

 

[Garand1987]

I've been doing those wing assassination missions solo and I will say some of them are a challenge with the new engineered NPCs. Some NPC's still suffer from the spam SCB's with no heat sink and can still fight like they are not having heat issues I'm afraid though.

Yeah i was doing the same thing yesterday. Took a wing massacre mission to do solo. 40 pirates for 1.7Mil. Under pays but I wanted to get some combat in. And yeah lots were just your standard NPC’s, pop em like bubble wrap. But every now and then, you’ll get one that bites back now. I like it

 

[Garand1987]

Yeah I haven’t seen bounty payments to be THAT low. Heck even a sidewinder dishes out somewhere betwixt 1,200 and 6k for the .2 seconds it takes to slag it. The bigger, badder, New engineered NPC’s I’ve been snagging 200-225K creds per.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

If you get hit by NPC plasma accelerators, you're baaaad.

<tongue in cheek, but seriously, strafe rolling makes you almost unhittable by standard PAs>

On similar lines, I was pleased to see various NPC targets have paint jobs now, and that I was interdicted by an NPC Chieftain (I was flying my own chieftain, and I was surprised how good the NPC was). I guess there are now NPC Type 10s too, anyone seen one?

Yep, taken a few of these apart. Thick skin and lots of big guns, so they do struggle a fair bit before they go down.

 

[Garand1987]

If you get hit by NPC plasma accelerators, you're baaaad.

<tongue in cheek, but seriously, strafe rolling makes you almost unhittable by standard PAs>

On similar lines, I was pleased to see various NPC targets have paint jobs now, and that I was interdicted by an NPC Chieftain (I was flying my own chieftain, and I was surprised how good the NPC was). I guess there are now NPC Type 10s too, anyone seen one?

Yeah I’ve had two NPC type 10’s so far. They take a pounding but in the AC it’s real easy to stay in their guns blind spots and just give em hell.
Had the same experience with an NPC AC with engineering. Actually gave a decent fight

 

[EvoBeardy]

. I guess there are now NPC Type 10s too, anyone seen one?

Seen two not in SC, but haven't been out a whole lot if I'm honest (re-Engineering).
One had two Sidey's in a wing at a res, it was mining. I protected it as much as I could whilst taking out baddies, but an Anaconda, Python and two Clippers in a wing (wing was actually all but Conda, but they were all same group and flew to garth) all messed them up, I died taking on the Anaconda lmao.
The second, was some emissary or something, jumping into a space port. Heard it's wingmen in chat but only it jumped in a docked. Was pretty cool!

As far as NPCs having mods, I was shot by modded weapons plenty pre 3.0... But then by the sounds of you guys talking about easy NPCs, I'm clearly not as git gud, and not afraid to admit it.

 

[Zazzilas Arden]

Cheating or no, NPCs are total pushover in 99% of cases.

Loving those engineered targets, it's refreshing compared to bounty farming.

I'm glad to see the general attitude changing. Once upon a time, NPCs literally sat in place and did nothing but roll until you killed them. When Frontier patched that and actually made the NPCs fight back, the forum "make the game easier" squad rose quite a stir and for about a solid month the forums were filled with nothing but complaint threads made by like the same twenty people. Fortunately, Frontier did not cave that time.

Once upon a time, when engineering was first introduced, they DID implement NPCs with light engineering and made the game a little more challenging. Once again the forum "make the game easier" squad of like twenty people filled the forums with complaints and general toxicity. Unfortunately, Frontier caved to them that time.

It's refreshing to see someone that actually wants the NPCs to be a little more challenging.