Stop with the ramming!

[EDbubba]

Yep, I've noticed this too at Nav Beacons recently. It seems to me the behaviour is only from "friendly" ships - fellow bounty hunting NPCs - who come over for a nosey, smack into you, then fly away.

Common element: scanning

Pirates do it, bounty hunters do it, "friendly" police do it... All are known to crash into you on occasion when scanning you = bug.

 

[Darth Ender]

it's a bug probably related to the same thing that caused the "i'm gonna go boost into an asteroid bug" that existed up until the previous patch. Also likely related to the "i'm gonna spin in place" bug that occurs when the npc is under heavy sustained fire.

Seems like there is a bug in the AI where they're not able to update their own physics state.

 

[Andy_Pipkin]

Ramming is a valid combat tactic...

Ramming ain't a valid scanning tactic

 

[Zelos1983]

I've got no issues with NPCs using this as a combat tactic.

It's more a griefing tactic. NPCs do this within the no-fire zone in the hope that they will explode and inflict a bounty. They also don't turn hostile, so everybody will shoot at you if you blow them out of the sky.

 

[Vladimar Rubicon]

I got rammed by a station the other day. Dang thing just smacked into me while I was in the bathroom. We have to stop these stations from sneaking up on us and ramming our ships while we aren't paying attention!