The New AI is Too Good! I'm back in an Cobra After Loosing Python 3 Times in 3 Days!

[Mungrul]

I love it, and it's bloodied my nose in a humiliating yet amusing fashion.

I was cruising in Beten in my fully rigged hunter Vulture, looking for pirates as part of a mission from my home system, when I spotted a lone Sidewinder just idling.

"Easy pickings!" thinks I.

I interdict it, ready to pound it into oblivion when seven other Sidewinder pirates all jump in.
Okay, a little shocking, but hey, they're all Sidewinders, right? I should take these down no problem!

NOPE.

Little buggers pecked me to death, and as I gave up on Shield Cell Banks a while back, they were quick to target my subsystems once my shields were down. I was constantly losing and regaining power until *POP*, I lost my first ship in ages.

I'm now seriously looking at my loadout trying to make room for an SCB or two, on the basis of these little ships utterly destroying me.
Sure, before I died, I'd managed to get them down to two. But simply the fact that what is widely considered the most vulnerable ship in the game can now be a threat is a thrill.

Well played Sarah, well played

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

Is it within your domain to also adjust bounties, combat bonds and mission payments correspondingly to the changes in AI difficulty? Because while these changes sound fantastic, I fear they could lead to many players avoiding the higest ranks of NPCs (let's say Dangerous and higher) because the effort isn't worth the payout when in the same time, with much less risks, multiple easier NPCs could be destroyed.

To be perfectly clear: avoiding an Elite NPC because you don't expect your chances very good is a totally legit decision. But doing so because you expect the payout to be less than the repair bill and/or the opportunity cost of not spending that same amount of time, ammunition etc. on a few weaklings which, together, reward you just as well (or badly) - that is something I would rather not like to see. To the contrary, once a player is sufficiently practiced and equipped, they should relish the moment they happen to meet, for example, Elite NPC flying an FDL - a good, challenging fight ahead and a great bounty to make it worthwhile.

This is gold, FD listen...

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[W4rSkuLL]

I love it, and it's bloodied my nose in a humiliating yet amusing fashion.

I was cruising in Beten in my fully rigged hunter Vulture, looking for pirates as part of a mission from my home system, when I spotted a lone Sidewinder just idling.

"Easy pickings!" thinks I.

I interdict it, ready to pound it into oblivion when seven other Sidewinder pirates all jump in.
Okay, a little shocking, but hey, they're all Sidewinders, right? I should take these down no problem!

NOPE.

Little buggers pecked me to death, and as I gave up on Shield Cell Banks a while back, they were quick to target my subsystems once my shields were down. I was constantly losing and regaining power until *POP*, I lost my first ship in ages.

I'm now seriously looking at my loadout trying to make room for an SCB or two, on the basis of these little ships utterly destroying me.
Sure, before I died, I'd managed to get them down to two. But simply the fact that what is widely considered the most vulnerable ship in the game can now be a threat is a thrill.

Well played Sarah, well played

Great story from the void. Its like Piranhas, 1 is harmless, but a flock of them can strip a man to the bone. Ive still not been jumped by a large wing of Sidewinders or a mixture of small ships, but I hope I am one day and that they make me eat rails

 

[DJ]

"Easy pickings!" thinks I. I interdict it, ready to pound it into oblivion when seven other Sidewinder pirates all jump in.

Good share! All these little traps are certainly generating some variety and "oh cr@p!" moments these days.

 

[Badben]

Honestly dude, that sounds awesome. There is no such thing as too good AI, hats off to all at FD who worked on this.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

The AI's Are Pushovers!

Arry is correct; any group of NPC's can take down the average single player.

 

[dsagent]

If anything the AI needs to be harder.

I spent the entire day shooting NPCs and players for merits a while back and my shields only went down once.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

On my build here at work I've recently been making the lower ranks easier, and will drop them even more before I'm done. It's only the top ranks that are getting a boost. A lot of the work is plugging all the gaping holes in the AI logic that makes it so exploitable (such as flying in reverse and picking off AI ships easy-peasy). So next major update will see a much broader spread of AI abilities and tactics. Something for everyone is my plan.

Good to hear! I can't wait to test (and die because of) the new Elite AI

 

[M. Grey]

Good work SJA and keep it up! Looking forward to the new high ranks AI and pirates!
(As long as it's skill and tactics the AI gains and not some boost in the shield/damage stats as in "other" games)

 

[g04tn4d0]

I'm having a problem dealing with the smaller ships, oddly enough, not the larger ones. I got Bill Cosby'd by a *competent* Diamondback Scout in my Viper Mk4... but I regularly prey upon Pythons and Dropships still without an issue. Way too soon for me to form an opinion but I can definitely tell a big difference since the patch.