It seems that they rebalanced the NPCs a bit. Namely, they upped their ship stats to ridiculous levels. I was bounty hunting at an asteroid field when this mechanic became obvious.
I mean, you can see it in other games where they have problems to make the computer competetive - rubber banding for racing games, money / research / production advantages for strategy games and now it's the pilots not playing by the same rules.
I mean, it's beyond ridiculous - my Viper has a class 2 shield of quality B. And yet, it takes longer to re-establish and recharge to full than the shield of a lowly Sidewinder, just because the pilot NPC is deemed "dangerous" or "elite". I was able to compare it really easily - I managed to collapse the enemy shield at the same time mine collapsed.
His shield re-established after about 20 seconds - mine took way longer. At least three times that. And after re-establishing, his shield went to full very fast. While mine took its sweet time.
Now, you'll say: Of course - it reloads faster because it's less strong. Nope. In my desperating I was firing both my Burst Lasers (fixed) and my gimbaled Multi Cannons at him. Took me three passes (as in: We were charging at each other from 1.5 km) to get them down again.
Not to mention that this Sidewinder is also more maneuverable than my ship. Thank god for Shield Cell Rechargers - though I've seen the NPCs use those as well now.
But seriously, I don't like it very much when NPCs play by a different rulebook than us without telling us about it.
I mean, you can see it in other games where they have problems to make the computer competetive - rubber banding for racing games, money / research / production advantages for strategy games and now it's the pilots not playing by the same rules.
I mean, it's beyond ridiculous - my Viper has a class 2 shield of quality B. And yet, it takes longer to re-establish and recharge to full than the shield of a lowly Sidewinder, just because the pilot NPC is deemed "dangerous" or "elite". I was able to compare it really easily - I managed to collapse the enemy shield at the same time mine collapsed.
His shield re-established after about 20 seconds - mine took way longer. At least three times that. And after re-establishing, his shield went to full very fast. While mine took its sweet time.
Now, you'll say: Of course - it reloads faster because it's less strong. Nope. In my desperating I was firing both my Burst Lasers (fixed) and my gimbaled Multi Cannons at him. Took me three passes (as in: We were charging at each other from 1.5 km) to get them down again.
Not to mention that this Sidewinder is also more maneuverable than my ship. Thank god for Shield Cell Rechargers - though I've seen the NPCs use those as well now.
But seriously, I don't like it very much when NPCs play by a different rulebook than us without telling us about it.
