Stop the Murder-hobo AI 2 Second Interdictions

Hydrino · Jul 19, 2020

I just spent 3 hours mining and had a half-decent cargo, 6 LTD and 4 Grandiderite. Jumping to a station, clean in system, 1.5 MM from station (3 seconds to drop), interdicted in about 3 seconds, which I did not submit to, pirate was within 1 KM directly behind me, opened fire in about 1 second, 5 seconds shields down and maybe 10 seconds at most and I'm dead.

FD, this is not fun. I realize it's Elite Dangerous and there has to be some danger. But with the mining nerf and the time investment, this is just crap gameplay.

I have bugs to report from the session, which I will do.

777Driver · Jul 19, 2020

I'd suggest learning to Evade, it really isn't hard. Also read up on how to survive if you do drop out, again, not hard, you just have to follow a method, not run away in a straight line screaming.

NPC pirates do gank far too much, especially if you have stacked missions. I doubt that is going to change any time soon. Adapt.

[Diplomacy] Carnegie · Jul 19, 2020

"Why does it matter if noobs can get a 'Conda in a few hours?"

777Driver · Jul 19, 2020

Attack Chimp said:
Any weapons on that boat of yours?

A strange quirk of the AI in the ops situation, if he fired back at the NPC it would start to evade, the npc doesn't care that your ship is far less powerful, it actually works out better to fight if you are in a slow ship during the cooldown. All pointless though, once you figure out the interdiction method, you never have to fight another NPC if you choose.

Malcolm Tucker · Jul 19, 2020

Get onto engineering, at least enough to survive long enough to bug out.

The AI only seem only able to cope with the horizontal plane, climbing a bit in SC seems to throw them off.

With pirates at least, they have an 'ooh, piece of candy' mentality, so drop a bit of non-essential cargo.

Assassin's you'll have to learn to evade.

[Diplomacy] Carnegie · Jul 19, 2020

Attack Chimp said:
OP has been playing for more than a few years, according to the forum profile.

Then we REALLY need to slow down ship progression.

Xious · Jul 19, 2020

Video or it didn't happen

Hydrino · Jul 19, 2020

777Driver said:
I'd suggest learning to Evade, it really isn't hard. Also read up on how to survive if you do drop out, again, not hard, you just have to follow a method, not run away in a straight line screaming.

NPC pirates do gank far too much, especially if you have stacked missions. I doubt that is going to change any time soon. Adapt.

Um, no time to evade. I started boosting instantly and cycling through fire groups to get to shock mines. It was all over before any of that did any good. AI dropped in literally 1 KM behind me and starting firing within 1 second.

I've evaded many interdictions. I've submitted and low/high waked out. I've even submitted and fought.

This is about AI ganking.

Rat Catcher · Jul 19, 2020

DrewCarnegie said:
"Why does it matter if noobs can get a 'Conda in a few hours?"

It doesn't...

Well, it actually does to the excessively petty, narrow-minded bigots who consider themselves above all others

Hydrino · Jul 19, 2020

Hydrino said:
Um, no time to evade. I started boosting instantly and cycling through fire groups to get to shock mines. It was all over before any of that did any good. AI dropped in literally 1 KM behind me and starting firing within 1 second.

I've evaded many interdictions. I've submitted and low/high waked out. I've even submitted and fought.

This is about AI ganking.

I mean the pirate didn't even ask for cargo. Just opened fire and killed me. LOL.

If I didn't feel like I just literally wasted 3 hours of my life to be ganked by the game, not even a player, I wouldn't have posted anything. I was just furious.

777Driver · Jul 19, 2020

Hydrno said:
Um, no time to evade.

There is always time, if the rest of us can go months/years without seeing a rebuy in a freighter/mining ship, you certainly can too. As mentioned, it is almost like cheating, once you learn the evasion method for both interdicts and dropouts, it works 100% of the time. Against humans is a whole different story, are you sure it wasn't a hollow triangle?

Just reread your last post, yeah the pirates have changed, they don't even want cargo anymore. It's like being back at a CG in open play

Methods vary, if I did submit to an interdiction or it failed (the vector used to do strange things, even when bang on target) Drop out (preferably switch FA-OFF) Immediately boost towards the aggressor whilst adding some vertical or lateral thrust, boost past them and unload weapons on the pass, even equipping a single seeker rack will cause the NPC to go evasive, keep boosting past them for the few seconds until the FSD has cooled down, retract and high wake if you are damaged, or low wake if you are close to the station.

NPC's seem to get confused when you do that, they spend more time evading then attacking. If you just try to run, you will see a rebuy screen unless engineered.

A video showing your method could help a great deal in analysing the problem.

Rat Catcher · Jul 19, 2020

Hydrino said:
I mean the pirate didn't even ask for cargo. Just opened fire and killed me. LOL.

If I didn't feel like I just literally wasted 3 hours of my life to be ganked by the game, not even a player, I wouldn't have posted anything. I was just furious.

What were you flying?

The interdiction sounds like a common enough bug that I've seen (I've 'lost' the interdiction, with the following long cool-down even when submitting in the recent past) and the instant 'no negotiation' pirate is common enough, but as I tend to fly well armed & shielded 'just in case', unless I'm way out in the black, so their instant attack is just an annoyance.

Malcolm Tucker · Jul 19, 2020

Hydrino said:
I mean the pirate didn't even ask for cargo. Just opened fire and killed me. LOL.

If I didn't feel like I just literally wasted 3 hours of my life to be ganked by the game, not even a player, I wouldn't have posted anything. I was just furious.

Yeah, that was an assassin. Their only concern is killing you.

See, all those factions on the message board are often against each other, even ones aligned to the same superpower.

Doesn't happen very often but you can end up with guys after you for each mission.

Pay attention to the 'chat' you'll often get a good advanced warning if somebody's coming for you.

Wasp0 · Jul 19, 2020

Win some, lose some OP. As long as you LEARN from this experience then you will start to enjoy the game. It is a steep learning curve, most of us if honest, have been there, seen that and got that 'T' shirt, and the ones still playing are the ones who did learn. The ones who did not learn anything and it kept happening to them, most likely made use of the games 'Uninstall' feature.

Bottom Hat · Jul 19, 2020

Bad luck OP, it has happened to all of us (even if we don't admit it!), but you can guarantee that you won't let it happen this way again.

The posts above really do intend to help, even if people are a bit short around here at the moment - blame the incessant "but I want a win button" threads for that!

Explain your ship, build, engineering, and things like the system and station etc, as they can all indicate different factors. People will happily show you builds that can improve your survivability in these situations, and generally are happy to take the time to post you builds and explain them etc.

You don't need me to quote the learning curve thing again but it's true in the game. I shall tell you a story that will make you laugh - first serious mining session I did about 4yrs ago - I had filled my 96T asp with 5m in stuff. Was just about to jump out to go sell, when I pressed the eject everything button accidentally.

Needless to say, I was oblivious to this, but as my fsd was engaging I saw all the white dots on the scanner. Got to the station, still oblivious. Went to sell, and all I succeeded in dropping was a brick!

Long story short, I found in the logs that I'd pressed the button. What a plonker! I've never done that again for sure! At least with yours, it was an NPC that griefed you - in my case, I was obviously having some kind of subconscious self-griefing attack. Not really any excuse for being a dumbass!

Good luck OP,
The Hat

Dragsham · Jul 19, 2020

Even my hauler is sufficiently engineered to submit turn about and scoop his bits after a brief firefight. Point is be prepared.
Don't just max out cargo full and scoot into space thinking yay I'm rich! Cos that's what you did. No hull reinforcments module reinforcements a weak shield no extra power or tweaked distributor etc.
Gotta engineer!!
So unlock them and get to it.
Once you got a engineered ship you can pretty much survive anything.
Did u have chaff! Doesn't need engineering so helps enormously.
Perhaps some shock mines again easily sought and very effective against pirates.
Pop a heatsink he will lose lock. So on so forth lots u could have done...

Having read posts since I'll conclude he was engineered. In which case to what degree & did he deploy chaff too. And the heatsink works well too.
Guess we wait till Op posts more detail.

Hooplah · Jul 19, 2020

Checking Hydrino the player has been on the Forum since Feb 2014 making 3016 posts. ED went live for world wide sales in Dec 2014. I take this into account replying to posts on the Forum thinking most players with this history have some knowledge playing ED but I could be wrong. Maybe they were playing another Frontier game. Anyone remember Frontier's Darkxide on a PDA in the late '90s? No? It still works on my ancient PDA if I can get the batteries to recharge.

Meanwhile Hydrino vented and maybe that was all the player wanted to do. But it came across as a new player not understanding the game. Was it Solo mode with NPCs or Open mode with live players? Does the player know how to avoid an interdiction even in a slow ship? Did the player understand the weapons being fired at his ship? Did the player know his ship build limitations versus dealing with interdictions?

I feel for Hydrino and his loss and many others wanting to help are responding. It is up to Hydrino to ask or not if it was all just about a rant.

Hydrino said:
Um, no time to evade. I started boosting instantly and cycling through fire groups to get to shock mines. It was all over before any of that did any good. AI dropped in literally 1 KM behind me and starting firing within 1 second.

I've evaded many interdictions. I've submitted and low/high waked out. I've even submitted and fought.

This is about AI ganking.

There is no AI ganking. Years playing ED I might get an Elite NPC Anaconda or Type-10 with a rare wing fighter (makes me smile) or several NPCs dropping in because I'm stacking smuggling missions in the past. Getting blown away in seconds is usually about live players. Never with an NPC. We live players see all their basic NPC moves. Didn't you get the memo?

Regards

Dutchman141 · Jul 19, 2020

Is this new or a bug?
I get interdicted all the time running missions but they either run or get killed.
Some put up a nice fight, FDL vs my Python, but never this drastic as the OP mentioned.

Northpin · Jul 19, 2020

Hydrino said:
I just spent 3 hours mining and had a half-decent cargo, 6 LTD and 4 Grandiderite.

Whaat?

Rubbernuke · Jul 19, 2020

Hydrino said:
Um, no time to evade. I started boosting instantly and cycling through fire groups to get to shock mines. It was all over before any of that did any good. AI dropped in literally 1 KM behind me and starting firing within 1 second.

I've evaded many interdictions. I've submitted and low/high waked out. I've even submitted and fought.

This is about AI ganking.

Misake 1 is boosting in a straight line- you are simply a better target. Second mistake is thinking mines will help when ships will just dodge them.

The only thing to do is make a ship thats tough enough to survive.