Remove npc's in randoms parts asteroid rings

[The Gael]

This has been mentioned several times over the past few years(SINCE PREMIUM BETA).

If I pick anywhere on an asteroid ring, literally anywhere. When I drop out, I'm immediately followed (by about 2-4 seconds) by either pirates or other miners.
It makes zero sense. This needs to change, it just seriously breaks my immersion and the whole 'emptiness of space' vibe.

It happens in both populated systems and systems without a single soul or station in sight.

I like to park up in a beautiful cold and dark asteroid ring, before I shut down all my systems before I log out. Can't bring myself to do this anymore.
In fact I'm just gonna avoid rings until this is fixed, I just can't do it anymore.

EDIT: I've just finished testing this mechanic. I dropped in a ringed planet in 20 different locations and every single time, within 5 seconds, someone follows, without fail. Despite the system being empty. I may test this further.


Summary of comments below: 7of7 commenteors agree, it's a ridiculous mechanic. NPC's will spawn in every few minutes, even if you have logged out then back in(regardless of separating time), they will magically appear.
Or if you drop out into normal space(in a ring), they will follow, why would a miner have loot to steal, if he just arrived? (pirates, perhaps should arrive in the same instance, but not as soon as you arrive, makes no sense.)
Also if you drop out the boost and silent running mode away, they won't follow, but other npc's will spawn in to scan you.

Awesome comments below, worth reading through.

 

[Codger]

It is a rather ridiculous mechanic.

 

[The Gael]

It is a rather ridiculous mechanic.

Thank you, I love this game so much. Even bought an aorus 1080ti yesterday for $1300aud for my vr setup, just to sink myself further in to the game. Then, when I see this happening, it hurts so much lol.
Just hate to see this amazing game have such an issue. That I'm sure can be fixed relatively easily(i really have no idea tho).

 

[metatheurgist]

It's part of the shallowness of NPC interaction. The whole lot needs to be revisited. I have no issue with them doing that but I want to see an in game reason for it, like being followed from the station after I've just dumped a load of mined goods. Or seeing pirates hanging around the rings dropping into wakes.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I'm not fond of this mechanic either.

IF security, miners, or pirates are lurking within a few LS of the ring in supercruise when you drop, THEN it's ok for something to spawn.

But if you're all alone, either miners need to be spawned on arrival, (as if you dropped in on them), or nothing spawns at all.

If we had a tool to scan rings for activity, then it'd make sense why pirates and security drop in randomly.

But it's really silly when they spawn a few seconds after you drop.

 

[777Driver]

This has been mentioned several times over the past few years(SINCE PREMIUM BETA).

If I pick anywhere on an asteroid ring, literally anywhere. When I drop out, I'm immediately followed (by about 2-4 seconds) by either pirates or other miners.
It makes zero sense. This needs to change, it just seriously breaks my immersion and the whole 'emptiness of space' vibe.

It happens in both populated systems and systems without a single soul or station in sight.

I like to park up in a beautiful cold and dark asteroid ring, before I shut down all my systems before I log out. Can't bring myself to do this anymore.
In fact I'm just gonna avoid rings until this is fixed, I just can't do it anymore.

Yeah kinda annoying, although what I do is mine slightly outside the normal bubble or the Pleiades bubble, no NPC's. NPC's only spawn at rings if there is a port within a certain number of LY's, this also includes a surface ports in tiny remote systems.

Failing that it is quite easy to outsmart NPC's during that random spawn. As soon as you drop out, run silent and immediately boost away,

 

[The Gael]

Agreed on the points you made. I've just finished testing this mechanic. I dropped in a ringed planet in 20 different locations and every single time, within 5 seconds, someone follows, without fail. Despite the system being empty.

 

[777Driver]

Agreed on the points you made. I've just finished testing this mechanic. I dropped in a ringed planet in 20 different locations and every single time, within 5 seconds, someone follows, without fail. Despite the system being

empty.

The system being empty has nothing to do with spawn rates. It is calculated on how far you are in LY's from the nearest port. Filter the gal map for population, any systems nearby move further out. With mining I have always preferred to head out somewhere quiet, pristine rings and no NPC's.

 

[The Gael]

The system being empty has nothing to do with spawn rates. It is calculated on how far you are in LY's from the nearest port. Filter the gal map for population, any systems nearby move further out. With mining I have always preferred to head out somewhere quiet, pristine rings and no NPC's.

Sorry Driver, would have replied after giving rep, was running late for work.

Anyway, what you say is good news. The problem is though, this should apply to any ringed planet. Or at least a 1% chance of npc spawn, whether in a populated system or not.

Also ,something I noticed, if you drop into a ring, and go silent, and get far enough away from the npc, another will spawn close by within a few minutes. Haven't tested this thoroughly enough though.
But it is good to here that the further out you are, the fewer npc's. So thank you for contributing to this thread.
Let's hope FD look into this for us.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Totally can get behind this. Its one the strangest features of the game.

What are the chances of a pirate being in a random point in a ring that is millions of miles across with no reason to even expect a miner to drop in.

Then they come and scan you.... and i'm like "Dude, i've just got here. If you could wait about 30 mins ill have a cargo hold full of stuff" but no, upon discovering the arriving miner has nothing, they jump out!

What makes it more annoying though is when you have to exit the game mid mining session for whatever reason, and you return, bampf, a new pirate appears, but this time you do have stuff in your cargo hold, which means either fighting it if you are kittied for it, or running. But when you left the game there was no pirate there.

 

[Deep Thought 42]

I dont like this NPC mechanic ether Theres no contacts in sc ya drop out into a ring & bam 2-3 ships magicaly appear in seconds

i have noted that this only happens within aprox 150Ly of a inhabited system outside that no npc's appear

 

[askavir]

+1

It's rather offputting when someone is in a system devoid of other ships, drops into a completely random place in a holy high number of millions of square miles asteroid ring and there's always people already there.

 

[The Gael]

Great posts here guys, keep it up!!!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I dont like this NPC mechanic ether Theres no contacts in sc ya drop out into a ring & bam 2-3 ships magicaly appear in seconds

i have noted that this only happens within aprox 150Ly of a inhabited system outside that no npc's appear

Generally speaking though, i'm not going 150LY outside the bubble just to avoid stupidly placed NPCs.

That's one reason i'm happy with the Type 10. A type 9 that can take care of itself.

 

[The Gael]

Just noticed this happen on planets too.

 

[Ronzer]

I agree with this. This stuff you'd think is based off stats or something, but if it were, as you say, would they drop in 20 out of 20 times? It seems like that is a 'placeholder' type thing, which someone hasn't unchecked and once they do, the stats effect how many NPCs show up, just as they effect other aspects of the game already. They could just change it to a time-based thing,and if you're some place that noone is and it's not near populated places, it takes an hour before an NPC shows. But if you're near a busy place, 5 minutes..etc. Not complicated stuff.

 

[Barefoot]

I think this points to a larger concern, which is that the game is entirely too RNG-based.

I understand that it's procedurally generated, and that that's the only way to even create a game world of this scale, and that's fine.

I just think the algorithms for mission generation and NPC placement could be greatly improved, and some behaviors should be scripted rather than randomized.

I agree entirely, it's not believable for me to jump into a random area of a random ring around a random planet in a random unpopulated system, and have two miners and a pirate be within 5 km of me. The implifications of that for the population density of the game are way out of proportion.

Just for fun, let's calculate it out.

For one random planet with rings the size of Saturn's, the rings are approximately 80,000 km in diameter, less a 7,000 km inner diameter. They're thin enough that I'm using area rather than volume for this (1m to 1 km vs 5km relative scanner range upon exiting supercruise, to the nearest ship).

So pi*r² is the area of a circle, so the rings have area 3.14 * 80k^2 - 3.14 * 7k^2 = approximately 2.0 x 10^10 square kilometers.

I estimate based on my scanner range, and the average of two ships each time I jump in, that there are about 2 ships per 20 square kilometers, or 1 ship per 10 square km.

That means this ring system has a population of something like 2 x 10^9, or 200 billion people in it at any given time, mining and pirating.

Now let's say a typical system within 150 LY of the bubble has 3 ring systems of this size, so that 600 billion people per system, just in the rings. Times what... 10,000 systems in the bubble, give or take?

So the population of just ring systems in the bubble implied by the statistical odds of encountering two or more ships within scanner range, every time we drop from supercruise into a ring system is a staggering 6 quadrillion people!

See the problem here, FDev?

And that's to say nothing of the laughable and immersion-breaking stupidity of a pirate faithfully demanding cargo from a miner who just jumped into a system and thus can't possibly have mined anything yet. *facepalms*

The real question here is: Do you (FDev) care about immersion and internal logic? Or not?

 

[askavir]

Just noticed this happen on planets too.

Yep...

Wherever you go, no matter how miniscule and solitary place somewhere in a vast, endless empty expanse, a pirate will always be there. Pirates are the new Helium, the most common element in the universe.

Bleeding annoying, i just can't understand what gameplay value could this possibly aim to add. It completely removes the whole point of going out of your way to find a quiet location, as every location is exactly the same. And it makes a complete mockery of the whole "space is big" notion.

 

[Cmdr FURNICO]

Although it doesn't make a huge amount of sense at least if the pirates sus that you have nothing at the start they leave you alone. So you can fill your hold in peace. If they were to spawn later on or randomly you would almost always either have to cough up some well earned cargo, fight or run which would be a major pain.