Ramming speed, Mr Schmee!

[Deleted member 38366]

Hehe, I wonder if hugging an Asteroid could be used as a trick - at least for the covered direction.

Either they detect the Asteroid (which they now seem to do properly) and you avoid getting perma-rammed when static... or you get alot of shieldless Targets announcing themselves with large *clunk* as they speed into the Asteroid from the other side

 

[EDbubba]

Chill, it's just a bug...

Sometimes in RES and stations (police) the NPCs get it right and hold at 1km while scanning, sometimes they forget to hit the brakes! I'm sure it's a silly oversight in some maneuvering sequence where a flag to "slow down" is not set, and they basically aim right at you to maintain the scan, but the "slow down" code is skipped!

 

[Gold Member]

I read it, and the other dozen that have been about the same subject. 80% of the posts these days are rehashes and nothing new. Another 10% are posted in the wrong forum.

TBH, I spend a lot of time in RES zones, I have not had a ship just come up ram me unless I was moving forward as well.

Maybe they are smarter in Empire space, I dunno.

Nope, the only thing that will try to ram me in Federation space is an Anaconda, but I think that's because I'm in a Cobra IV, and I would ram me if I was in the larger ship. If a ship purposely tries to ram me I don't consider that unfair or a bug since I do the same thing.

I do wonder however if the problem some people have with this is related to a possibility for another problem - interdictions escapes or submissions that don't match what the screen is saying. I've been winning interdictions on me and then was suddenly told I was interdicted. The reverse has also been true. Anyways, one of the comments that made sense was that there was a potential latency issue.

Remember people periodically have issues with ships docking and exploding, and to me that is completely related to a mismatch in where the client and the game think the objects are. Anyone experiencing frequent ramming just from pirates who are scanning them could be subject to the same problem.

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

I heard about all this ramming stuff but hadn't really seen the problem myself until my joystick broke. Being forced to use a mouse and keyboard, I didn't want to risk crashing my Vulture ten times an hour so bought a sidewinder and kitted it out to be quite a mean little beast. It was then that I discovered what you guys are on about. At a RES site or anywhere where you are just flying around, whenever a new ship joins the area it makes a B line straight into my sidewinder. I could see it coming, 1 new contact, BAMMMM! However, with a new joystick I felt brave enough to fly the Vulture again and the ramming stopped. I even watched as one of the high speed lunatics flew in across my radar thinking this one will hit but it didn't. It just shot past.

I wondered if this has something to do with your heat signature. My Vulture runs quite hot but the sidewinder is very cool. Perhaps the NPC's don't see the cooler ships until its too late. Just a thought.

 

[Kiiyor]

I once lost a Python to a double NPC Anaconda ram. I feel your pain.

Now, I'm lucky enough to have a reasonably well kitted out Corvette. Each time I see an NPC approaching, I rub my hands together with glee, throw 4 pips of vengeance into shields and throw a near 2000 tonne uppercut into their eyeballs.

Fighters usually end up as paste on the canopy - Anacondas will lose all their shields if you angle the hit right.

Makes me wish the frontier store sold snap on battering rams.

 

[Cobra T]

Have raised this issue previously also and rolling around a nav beacon the other day got scanned and rammed by 6 ships of varying sizes - 1 python which was the largest on site at the time and all at full speed ram not a minor clipping and from the side not front on, very rarely get rammed from the front and often that is only because I might turn into a ship slightly resulting in a clip. Tis hard to concentrate on what your doing, monitor your systems then "thrust" out of the way of an incoming NPC that you only become aware of in a split second. Seems more than accidental for this to happen so frequently in such a short space of time at one location.

 

[Confidenze]

It's just that Frontier have made all ships, regardless of mass stop in the same distance; which doesn't work and should never have even been expected to work. It still doesn't work any more than it did (not) work on day one.

It simply needs amending. It's been raised countless times. One should not need 2k+ in shields or hull just to enter a sodding RES site, to avoid survive the constant NPC ramming. It's been like this for at least 6+ months.

Right now, I have to consciously make the decision to leave with ~45% hull. Not because I am particularly chicken, but because I can guarantee the next fight I am in, some NPC Anaconda will pile into my ride, because they are so very very desperate to know what I am carrying.

edit: note that Resource extraction site [high] is bad for this; however the hazardous version is almost unplayable at this point. Not because of combat risk, oh no, that would be too predictable. Just endless wings of ramming anaconda.

I've been flying HazRes for the past time and not experienced this even once. I fly a combat fittet Python and simply can't get targets fast enough. Where is this happening to you?

 

[kofeyh]

I've ended up piling on some extra HRM.

It's hilarious that HRM is basically the answer to a broken AI mechanic though; doesn't help protect (at all) from module sniping but Anaconda and other spastic AI driven ships come off second best as a consequence.

It's worth noting that FAS have no shields, to speak of. It's fine in something like another Anaconda, FDL, Python or any other that has a crapton of shields; but anything with weak shields basically needs HRM to survive. I love adding extra mass for no real value proposition (beyond ramming) though; it's great.

tl;dr - HRM helps, but please fix this Frontier; I know you can fix it, so please feel free to fix it.

 

[Lightspeed]

I was skewered at a Nav Beacon by Vlad The Impaler last night

 

[Grumpy181155]

Maybe they are smarter in Empire space, I dunno.

That must be it because I was Res Hunting in Empire space for a few hours last night and the only things going Clang where Rail Guns hitting hulls and I was scanned an unknown number of times.
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To the OP I am not suggesting that you are not having a problem but it is not a consistent problem.

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I was skewered at a Nav Beacon by Vlad The Impaler last night

That could of got a bit personal.

 

[Senik]

Alternatively, they could also just make the NPCs not completely suck at flying. This is worst in RES, but it happens everywhere. It's like NPCs are completely oblivious to whether there's something in/near their flight path. My favorite was when I was leaving a station, heard a SA ship boosting, and then he smacks into me a second later -- and I get fined for it.

I really don't care how recklessly they fly as long as they learn to steer.

 

[kofeyh]

To the OP I am not suggesting that you are not having a problem but it is not a consistent problem.

It's a consistent problem for any ship with low/ no shields. Also security will boost at stations and collide for exactly the same reason; NPCs attempt to close distance to institute a scan and will happily plough into you to achieve this goal because whatever routine is in place to scan, appears to be at a higher priority to collision avoidance.

And all NPCs, regardless of mass will only attempt to stop, once they are within the 1km scan range. This is automatically problematic for all ships based on the FDS hull & Anaconda, as they are incapable of stopping within 1km of a target at maximum cruise velocity (let alone boost) and to a lesser degree Clipper.

Having said that even Eagles and Vipers will bounce off the hull. You can often hear them coming in, with throttles at full. There's no hint that they are in the process of avoidance. It is plausible that this is latency dependant, and anyone who is on a more latent connection to the ED servers, is automatically at a higher chance of collision due to the inherent delay this could cause.

But come on. An eagle? It has arguably the best acceleration, deceleration and agility stats in the game. I can forgive a lumbering Anaconda for being a bit crap at avoidance, but vipers and eagles have no excuse. AI, go home, you're drunk.

This is a known issue, it's something frontier are aware of. Note that I don't really care if the NPCs don't slow down; just that their intercept routine needs some work so they apply pitch, or some other thruster input to at least attempt collision avoidance. A direct intercept (you can actually maneuver and observe the AI react and also maneuver to ensure they collide) such as in place now, is busted and needs a bit of work.

Hell, simply adding some 'fuzz' to the intercept routine means they would more often than not zip past, rather than outright collide. Right now, AI is arguably more accurate than a Tomahawk Cruise Missile.

 

[Grumpy181155]

It's a consistent problem for any ship with low/ no shields. Also security will boost at stations and collide for exactly the same reason; NPCs attempt to close distance to institute a scan and will happily plough into you to achieve this goal because whatever routine is in place to scan, appears to be at a higher priority to collision avoidance.

And all NPCs, regardless of mass will only attempt to stop, once they are within the 1km scan range. This is automatically problematic for all ships based on the FDS hull & Anaconda, as they are incapable of stopping within 1km of a target at maximum cruise velocity, and to a lesser degree Clipper.

Having said that even Eagles and Vipers will bounce off the hull. You can often hear them coming in, with throttles at full. There's no hint that they are in the process of avoidance. It is plausible that this is latency dependant, and anyone who is on a more latent connection to the ED servers, is automatically at a higher chance of collision due to the inherent delay this could cause.

You may be right in that it could be latency but .......... I am based in Far East Russia with a reasonably good internet connection but I regularly suffer from really long transition times into and out of Supercruise, very long load times for the System and Galactic map (System in particular is always long) and my Interdiction mini-game is so bad that I always submit so I don't get hull damage. These delays are, I assume, based on my geographic location from the servers as while my connection is pretty good I can't guarantee the quality of all the connections in the middle to the server. Only occasionally do I have NPCs run into me doing scans and then mainly going into the station as I am manoeuvring. Because of the other issues I have I would have thought that if latency is the problem I would have it more often while Res farming but I don't seem to.
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It is annoying when an NPC flies into my shield but I can see that it would be bloody annoying if I had no shield to start with. I hope they fix whatever is causing it sooner rather than later.