The Heart Breaker - NPC causes loss of everything

Kismet

Kismet
Hi all,

Thought I'd come share a heartbreaker with you all.

The setup:
1) Spent 5 days trading back & forth. Just started playing.
2) Got to my Lakon Type 9
3) Was on my last load of the night with full cargo worth 1.5 mil.
4) Was one trade away from having both a full load & enough to cover loss of ship. (Yeah I know your suppose to keep a safety amount of Cash in there, but thought I had it down & ran one last "Risk" run.)
5) Playing in Private group with just my team.

How was it lost?
1) Coming out of the dock, waited for two smaller ships to exit.
2) Started out of dock and I think from below me (I didn't even see him) a NPC Type 9 NPC Rams into me and keeps going forward ramming me into the dock portal area.
3) The NPC just keeps going forward and I am unable to get unstuck.
4) Tried everything to maneuver out of the way/forward, totally stuck and NPC just keeps pushing forward.
5) BOOM > Ship lost & cargo Lost back to Original Ship & 3k cash.

Conclusion:
1) NPC's are too dumb: They should detect a collision and take action, such a reverse or full stop to allow people to clear. Not just keep pushing forward. A 5-10 second NPC stop after a collision would of allowed me to clear the dock.
2) NPC will just ram into you on the way in & out, they need to have a proximity sense and slow down/stop when they get close to other ships.
3) NPC's love to cut in front of you when your trying to go in/out of the dock. I've had the smaller ships bump me many times.
4) NPC Right of way. Bigger ships should have priority and be accounted for when NPC's are coming in & out of the dock.
5) Keep that extra Cash, in case a poorly programmed NPC bashes into you. :p I just needed 180k to cover my losses, would of saved me the loss of 5 days worth of trading.

EDIT: Also a suggestion: add the ability to add insurance before you leave the dock, not after your ship blows up. I think that would reduce losses by most players as well.

A good friend told me once: It is not how we act when we win, but what we do after we fail that is the true measure of a person.

While this is a heartbreaker, I still had fun building my way up the ship levels and will continue to play. Best thing to do is take a break & come back stronger. Lessons learned. :)

Best wishes to all,

- Kismet
Leader, Ring of Destiny
http://www.kismetbp.com
 
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Monde

Monde
Yep, agreed! We've all lost ships/wealth. Agreed that the AI ships are mindless and seem to maintain absolute control of the traffic flow in/out of the station(s).. I sometimes sit and wait till a break occurs with traffic, sometimes, letting the timer run it's course and reapplying for new docking.

Yes, it's a heartbreaker, but a hard lesson to learn.

Remember this, full wipe coming!

Monde
 

Burgundy

Burgundy
don't fly what you can't afford to lose.

don't fly what you can't buy back.

what can happen, will happen.

don't put the blame on other things, when you made a choice, knowing that losing your ship with set load, would make you unable to buy it back. Learn from your bad decisions and accept them, don't demand a fix from something else, when you could easily have been blown up by several hundred other reasons, and then put the blame on those, instead of the fundamental one, your decision/choice.

that said, the AI is funky at times, but still we already knew this, so always take that into account, when you make a decision.
 
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flexy123

F
Burgundy said:
don't fly what you can't afford to lose.

don't fly what you can't buy back.

what can happen, will happen.
Click to expand...

Sorry, don't get this the wrong way...

Telling such silly things to new players once the game goes retail.... best way to make people REALLY unhappy [redacted] about the game and not playing...

NO GAME...should enforce or encourage people to do really stupid things that CAN lose them literally *everything*.

A new player gets g 1000CR.

A player starts trading, because this is what the game is, mainly, TRADING.

You fill your cargo with some low-priced stuff, you WILL have very little money over.

You will need SEVERAL successful trade runs after you start the game with your measly credits until you have backup credits OVER to being able to buy back your ship.

But the way until you are there...is TORTURE...since every single run something CAN happen which can literally cost you everything. Pilot errors, pirate attacks, game glitches.

Even at a LATER stage of the game you may be attempted to risk something like the OP did....and something happens and you're back at ZERO.

We could argue now that doing it that way is actually more "realistic" and from a certain point of view you are right. If you lose your stuff, then you lose your stuff. "Be careful"...etc..etc...

HOWEVER, I personally HAVE NO MOTIVATION, intention etc. (and I am sure others are with me)..playing such a game where always something can happen which throws you back at SQ1. What game is that supposed to be? Show me one game where you can "level backwards"? Show me one game where you play a week or a month and something can happen which throws you back at 0.

If you think this would be a selling point and keeps people playing you would be wrong... no one would want to play such a game. No matter what happens in the game and what negative consequences this can have, it should not wipe-out literally ALL progress. The feeling of progressing in a game (despite set-backs) is essential. Nothing is worse than a game where you can play days, weeks and realize that all time you spent was for nothing.

If the game "offers" situations where such catastrophes CAN happen, there must be warnings or other measures in place to prevent them. A new player with some credits in their pocket who fills their cargo and has only 200CR left afterwards is not AWARE that what they're doing is potentially "dangerous".
 
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ElectricZ

ElectricZ
That's a bad beat for sure... But as others have pointed out, the galaxy's gonna get set back to zero before long anyway. Being in the beta you have an opportunity though - send this as a note/bug report/suggestion off to Frontier to make sure they see it. They don't want stuff like this to happen either, and it might help them improve the ship AI if they know what to look for.
 

Half Giant

H
flexy123 said:
Sorry, don't get this the wrong way...
Click to expand...

What is the wrong way to take that? A bit of a rant? Then what is the right way?

The final game will let you take out a loan to cover the insurance excess in case you don't have it.

The game did not enforce the OP to take this risk. He did it, knew exactly what he was doing and took the consequences in good spirit. The thing is there are often cheaper commodities that only give you slightly less profit per ton but way more return on investment. I often fly with part expensive commodity and part medium commodity so that I have a reasonable amount of cash in reserve.

Show me one game where you can "level backwards"? Show me one game where you play a week or a month and something can happen which throws you back at 0.
Click to expand...

Rogue. It's a classic of game design and the constant chance of losing everything is the whole point. Do I win something?
 

Alb

Alb
This is my first post in the forums and I feel for you dude. I've been playing for a few months and taken the highs with the lows in terms of NPC randomness. They always never fail to shock me.

I find this method a good way to get out of an epic fail.

It doesn't help if you die instantly but that's rarely the case. I also wouldn't recommend this in a PVP or anything other than your Private game being about to be ruined.

I jumped out of shift and was stuck in the frame of the starport. Quickly realizing my shields were taking a hammering I hit escape and Saved and Quit to Main Menu. On resuming the game I was outside the station safe and sound, with the same damage but still a working ship. I think if you're about to fall foul of in game lack of tuning like NPCs being stupid this is a valid get out.
 

desausie

D
Kismet said:
Conclusion:
1) NPC's are too dumb: Yadda yadda yadda
http://www.kismetbp.com
Click to expand...

Wrong ! Never underestimate them ..they were designed to kill you while acting innocent ..all those npcs are just waiting for the right time to kill us !

1 ) If it moves - Shoot it !
2 ) If its doesn't move - Shoot at it anyway , it might move later.
3 ) If it blown up n drop cargoes , Shoot the cargoes too ..those are baits and usually have tracking devices on them so they can come track where you are for revenge.
 

FatWeasel

F
Its been pretty much covered by most here - Don't fly what you aren't willing to lose.

Alongside this, the fact that you got to the Lakon in 5 days suggest you were playing, well, a lot.

It only hurts a lot because you obviously played non-stop for quite a while in those 5 days.

Remember its only a game, and also remember that its okay to let go of the joystick every now and then.
 

xaccers

xaccers
I've had one of those days too.
Managed to get a Cobra, thought I'd do that "one last trip" and voice attack failed on me so I ploughed into the side of the letter box before I could hit X.
Worked my way into Mom's Minivan (hauler - anyone else notice it looks a bit like a Citroen Picasso inside?) and noticed someone had dropped some expensive cargo around the station, so picked it up, not a good idea as I became wanted and managed to jump to the safety of Eranin where I wasn't marked as Wanted, thought I'd pay off the fine and all would be well, except as I docked a viper scanned me and blasted me apart.
Fine, take the freebie again and stock up on goods. I launch and cough, voice attack hears "go to silent" mucks it up and somehow jettisons my cargo which then refused to enter my cargo scoop, so with only a couple of hundred credits (did we really start with just 100cr back in 84?) I self destructed and got another freebie, managed to launch successfully only to be interdicted on my way to I Bootis, nearly defeated the Sidewinder that was attacking until I boosted to get closer, misjudged it and went straight through it turning my Sidewinder into slag.
Then the computer crashed.
Time for dinner me thinks!
 

CTR69

C
In cases like this, immediately reset your PC. No ctrl alt delete or anything, just reset. You'll be back with full health.
 

Don_Von_Hulio

Don_Von_Hulio
Hate seeing "dunt fly wut cannot afurd to loose" comments.... that's is actually what I hear in my head when I read those statements. Everything is 20 20 in hindsight, no reason in pointing out the obvious after the fact.

Anyways... yes. The Ai needs some adjusting as soon as possible. Dieing in a way that's believable is one thing.... but dieing because of a bug or broken mechanic is another.
 

metalnwood

M
flexy123 said:
Show me one game where you can "level backwards"? Show me one game where you play a week or a month and something can happen which throws you back at 0.
Click to expand...

The game of life, probably happened to some of us outside of the game, usually through business, gambling or bad decisions.

In this case it was a bit of all three in the game, done it too :)
 
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