Horizons Trying to make progress and going backwards...

[soapmak3r]

I never used to play the missions, because they paid so little it never seemed worth the time and effort (or boredom) required.

I always used to make my credits exploring, or bounty hunting in RES. Since the latest patch, I am noticing that the fully tanked out Vulture that I was using to bounty hunt was being consistently destroyed for the first time.

I am not a bad fighter pilot and before the Engineers update, I could have taken on a wing of 2 or 3 fairly confidently. Maybe losing shields and sustaining a bit of hull damage if I was unlucky. Now I find myself continually having to flee battles, even against smaller ships who somehow strip my shields in no time, or I get blown up trying to jump away to repair my ship...

Before I could have confidently done a bit of bounty hunted in my ASP Explorer as long as I didn't take on too large of an opponent, but that is no longer viable at all.

I now seem to lose more money than I can earn with bounty hunting. I used to find it a fun way to blow off steam and earn credits, but not any more.

So, I moved on to taking missions in my ASP Explorer that has a re-buy cost of just over 900 thousand credits. Delivery missions, salvage missions, basically all peaceful stuff.

With that though, what I find is that I am often interdicted, and the interdiction symbol either flashes rapidly and my FSD fails, or it appears in front of me, then instantly disappears and I am interdicted before I can find the escape vector, or I get interdicted while fuel scooping and dragged too close to a star, or I am trying to approach a planet to land and get interdicted and dragged too close to a planet.

To make things worse, the NPCs that interdict me strip my ASPs shields (that I just paid 5 million credits to upgrade!!) in seconds(!!) and instantly attack my thrusters or other vital means of escape.
Either I barely make it away alive and have to interupt my mission to limp to the nearest station to repair, or I die, and lose almost 1 million credits, which is probably more than an hours work, taking on low paying jobs to earn reputation with mission holders so I can gain access to higher paid missions.

I feel like FD may have made things significantly more difficult because a vocal minority have complained that it was too easy. I felt like the balance was fine before, but it feels a tad on the punishing side now.

I have been 'stuck' with an ASP and Vulture (now just an ASP) for over a year now. I'd love to see what else the game has to offer, and I genuinely believe that there is a great game here, but it seems that with every update, something that I enjoy about the game in terms of gameplay is taken away from me...I just can't seem to make meaningful progress.

Long story short:

The NPC combat balance seems way off now.

The interdictions mechanics are frequently completely broken.

Please, for the love of all that is good, avoid 'One step forward, two steps back' 'gameplay'. It is highly frustrating, and not fun at all.

Your players should never, ever spend hours playing the game only to find that they have been taken backwards from where they started because of the recent changes to ship combat balance.

Do NPC ships have access to all of the engineer upgrades? Because they really shouldn't.

Sorry for such a long post. I really do love Elite, and am coming back after a long break (due to frustration) and I can feel the same frustration building up and pushing me away again. The sad thing is that I actually love the changes to mission system, it's really just the combat and buggy interdictions that are getting me down. The buggy interdictions wouldn't be so bad if I could actually out-run or out-gun any of the bloody NPCs...

Anyway, rant over.

 

[Ren Garris]

Things have changed since 2.1, but all is not lost.

There are a ton of threads next door in dangerous discussion. Just do a couple of searches and you will find boatloads of tips and methods of avoiding destruction.

Like-
Pip Management
Evasion after interdiction
Load out management
Evasion under fire
Escape routes in Supercruise
Knowing when to fight and when to run
Security levels
How to avoid interdiction when in super cruise

If you really want to avoid buybacks and that nagging feeling of impending doom, I would head over there and read up on some of these topics.

Good luck out there.

 

[LameoveR]

You doing something wrong
[video=youtube;qdCkXTo7onQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdCkXTo7onQ[/video]

But i'd suggest to put large MC with, hm, beam or burst.

 

[GG7]

You should take a closer look at the SALVAGE mission types. The Space Based versions are all MEDIUM influence in terms of rank progression, and now with these "Mission Specific" USS things out there, it takes much less time to actually find your salvage drop point. Equip your ship with the best Collector Limpet system you can afford, like the 5B module I use on my Python which provides you with (3) limpets at a time and a good range and deployment lifetime.

These space based salvage mission provide the IDENTICAL level of ranking points as any combat mission does, PLUS... If you can get yourself allied with a group of mission givers in a particular system, the reward payouts on these can be VERY HIGH! I am getting these with an average payout of over 700,000 CR, and often I am picking up some that pay over 1.5 MILLION CR! Pirates can and do spawn in to these debris sites about 50% of the time, but if you use a 3 limpet system and learn to lock on and deploy them quickly, you can usually collect all (4) of the mission specific salvage before they scan you and start firing on your ship.

The planet based salvage missions provide an alternative set of activities, but unlike the space based type, these only provide the SMALL level of ranking increase. Payouts can be in the same ranges as the space based ones, so I tend to split my time between the two.

I also will accept any of the "TAKE OUT the PIRATE LORD, or Eliminate the Deserter" missions that come along. Those are relatively easy, with the difficulty directly tied to the reward amount. These also provide MEDIUM rep and ranking increase.

The mission type to AVOID is the "WETWORTH" assassination missions. Simply because there is no way to complete those without getting a bounty on your head. and with the new and improved Bounty Hunter AI, you will be getting interdicted constantly if you have ANY outstanding bounty on you in ANY system. No longer limited to just the system you are wanted in. Bounty Hunters will track you down and severely interfere with your ability to travel in SC. They will disrupt your ability to work through missions as well due to their persistent interdictions.

Since 2.1 dropped, you really want to avoid ANY risk of getting a bounty on you.

 

[Montague]

For what it's worth, the AI change was a nasty wake up call for me, too, but I've managed to adapt. Pip management is more important. Devoting more power to shields does seem to help. I'm not that great of a pilot, so won't give you advice that may not be right, but will say it's possible to adapt. Searching the forums for advice has been very useful.

Like you, I didn't do a lot of missions before, but now they seem much more lucrative. Building up rep with a faction definitely leads to higher mission payouts. So far my Asp has been able to escape after submitting to interdictions just fine and I'm making more money than ever before. Maybe you should switch to a less expensive cobra for a while. It's also fast and can escape well.

 

[X-Terminator]

Once you get a FAS stick with it as it seems to be the central turning point of to payouts with good spawns and abililty to go the stretch. Python will get its ass kicked and still not pull in high payouts but cost you more in repairs at a huge risk of Excess. Vulture can do ok but has low pay spawns so takes much longer.

 

[LameoveR]

Python will get its ass kicked and still not pull in high payouts but cost you more in repairs at a huge risk of Excess.

I'm doing good on my Python in HiRES. 5 kills - million. each kill ~2-3 minutes, add spawn time to this.
But yeah, FAS and FDL will do the job better, slightly faster and more convenient.

 

[goemon]

adjust your loadout on your AspE.

- pointdefence
- one medium beam or burst or pulse turrett
- one or two seeker missiles
- a class 3A scb.

if you pick your targets you can use it like before.

for the vulture: with the new AI you will spend less time on target, so you want to hit hard whenever you can. beam+frag or beam+mc are great for that. and - pointdefence.

i recommend testing the new AI at nav beacons with system security. maybe take a cheap ship like eagle or viper. after some runs you'll have "re-learned". it won't get as easy as it was, but you won't loose cr anymore.

 

[4gui4]

soapmak3r why these guys don't recognize that the game is broken?

Get fanciful explanations to explain nonsense, in this game the sparrows drop hawks and eagles and is normal so, is new, no, it is just sad, without sense.
Everything now is the bloody combat, have the conda stopped gathering dust.

 

[soapmak3r]

I've been playing since the Beta. I know how to play the game and manage systems, loadouts etc.

I am talking purely about getting interdicted in my AspE, interdiction bugging out on me maybe 1 in 3 times, having FSD failure and being stuck with a Python, or 2 Pythons, or a FAS on my tail while waiting for FSD cooldown. Somehow unable to get away from them with full boost and 4 pips in engines, 2 in shields. Can never get out of their range and they just bombard me. Shields are down in seconds, ship is in bits in about 20-30 seconds. 1 million credits down.

Even if the interdiction doesn't bug out and I submit to the interdiction and immediately try to boost out of range and jump away, the same thing happens, but I barely get away in one piece and have to limp to the nearest station/outpost to repair...Over and over. It's not fun.

I am going to go back to Dark Souls 3 and see if they patch this mess any time soon. Otherwise my return will be pretty short lived, which is sad, because I appreciated everything about the Engineers update apart from this dramatic difficulty hike. It's not challenging (as in Dark Souls series, where you know you died because you messed up), it is punishing, because you die due to no fault of your own. That is just pure frustration.

 

[babelfisch]

I've been playing since the Beta. I know how to play the game and manage systems, loadouts etc.

I am talking purely about getting interdicted in my AspE, interdiction bugging out on me maybe 1 in 3 times, having FSD failure and being stuck with a Python, or 2 Pythons, or a FAS on my tail while waiting for FSD cooldown. Somehow unable to get away from them with full boost and 4 pips in engines, 2 in shields. Can never get out of their range and they just bombard me. Shields are down in seconds, ship is in bits in about 20-30 seconds. 1 million credits down.

Even if the interdiction doesn't bug out and I submit to the interdiction and immediately try to boost out of range and jump away, the same thing happens, but I barely get away in one piece and have to limp to the nearest station/outpost to repair...Over and over. It's not fun.

I am going to go back to Dark Souls 3 and see if they patch this mess any time soon. Otherwise my return will be pretty short lived, which is sad, because I appreciated everything about the Engineers update apart from this dramatic difficulty hike. It's not challenging (as in Dark Souls series, where you know you died because you messed up), it is punishing, because you die due to no fault of your own. That is just pure frustration.

If you are constantly interdicted by Elite NPCs you should submit a bug report, I think this is the best way to make them aware of the issue.

On your running away problem, do you have a full cargo hold? The Asp isn't very fast and a FAS should be able to catch you. IIRC the Python is slower but cargo slows you down.

 

[avow555]

If you are constantly interdicted by Elite NPCs you should submit a bug report, I think this is the best way to make them aware of the issue.

On your running away problem, do you have a full cargo hold? The Asp isn't very fast and a FAS should be able to catch you. IIRC the Python is slower but cargo slows you down.

If the devs haven't noticed the Interdiction issues people are having by now then this game is over.

 

[babelfisch]

If the devs haven't noticed the Interdiction issues people are having by now then this game is over.

The last comment on this is that they fixed the issue. Not everyone is experiencing this behaviour so it's possible that they don't know that the problem still exists. If you provide more bug reports it's more likely that they fix the issue.

 

[Ren Garris]

For some reason I don't experience the interdiction problem.

So..... Last night I ran a couple of missions from Sothis/Ceos to wherever I ended up.
Thats a 400LY + run, each way. At the end of the night I flew about 1600LY.

Just to push my luck, I flew in a D rated, UNARMED and NON-SHIELDED Asp X and I stacked missions. All of these things are a big no-no in the new universe. I was also in Open.

I was interdicted once. And I paid for it. The Imperial Courier took me down to 14% hull before I could escape. He then followed me to the outpost where I had to hide in the superstructure until the cops arrived to chase him away. I totally enjoyed it.

But why was I interdicted only once when other get interdicted way more? Beats me.

I know that I was coming from the out edge of the bubble, but there was life in the last 150LY of the trip.

I stayed in the shipping lanes, but I didnt fly in a straight line. I yaw and cork screw and check my scanner. If I see something ' off ' I will deviate and see if they follow. if they adjust course to me, I jump out and back in. Or I may jump out of super cruise and back in. This is just being aware and flying defensively.

There may be times when i am interdicted four or five times in the span of a night, but thats the max. And never chain interdictions.

Maybe I'm just lucky.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

I've been playing since the Beta. I know how to play the game and manage systems, loadouts etc.

It has changed since then. (Some) stuff we learned is obsolete and needs updating.

I am talking purely about getting interdicted in my AspE, interdiction bugging out on me maybe 1 in 3 times, having FSD failure and being stuck with a Python, or 2 Pythons, or a FAS on my tail while waiting for FSD cooldown. Somehow unable to get away from them with full boost and 4 pips in engines, 2 in shields. Can never get out of their range and they just bombard me. Shields are down in seconds, ship is in bits in about 20-30 seconds. 1 million credits down.

This is a familiar story. It's happened to many people. What you describe is true. The minigame is winnable sometimes, sometimes it is bugged.
You can survive by making a simple change to the routine: 4 Pips to Shields, 2 to Eng, and stow the weapons. Create distance by boosting, and then Hi-Wake out.

Check this out: Surviving Interdictions Post with many useful things.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/350533172687957202/

 

[gizmo6023]

It has changed since then. (Some) stuff we learned is obsolete and needs updating.




This is a familiar story. It's happened to many people. What you describe is true. The minigame is winnable sometimes, sometimes it is bugged.
You can survive by making a simple change to the routine: 4 Pips to Shields, 2 to Eng, and stow the weapons. Create distance by boosting, and then Hi-Wake out.

Check this out: Surviving Interdictions Post with many useful things.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/350533172687957202/

When an A class Conda gets shredded in 3 passes of a FAS me thinks the game is just rigged to punish accomplishment, the fun is fading almost as fast as my shields and my credit count.

 

[Paineframe]

I've been playing since the Beta. I know how to play the game and manage systems, loadouts etc.

I am talking purely about getting interdicted in my AspE, interdiction bugging out on me maybe 1 in 3 times, having FSD failure and being stuck with a Python, or 2 Pythons, or a FAS on my tail while waiting for FSD cooldown. Somehow unable to get away from them with full boost and 4 pips in engines, 2 in shields. Can never get out of their range and they just bombard me. Shields are down in seconds, ship is in bits in about 20-30 seconds. 1 million credits down.

Even if the interdiction doesn't bug out and I submit to the interdiction and immediately try to boost out of range and jump away, the same thing happens, but I barely get away in one piece and have to limp to the nearest station/outpost to repair...Over and over. It's not fun.

I am going to go back to Dark Souls 3 and see if they patch this mess any time soon. Otherwise my return will be pretty short lived, which is sad, because I appreciated everything about the Engineers update apart from this dramatic difficulty hike. It's not challenging (as in Dark Souls series, where you know you died because you messed up), it is punishing, because you die due to no fault of your own. That is just pure frustration.

Put your pips in shields when you start taking fire. NPCs are more aggressive than they used to be, so you can no longer get away with just tanking fire.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

When an A class Conda gets shredded in 3 passes of a FAS me thinks the game is just rigged to punish accomplishment, the fun is fading almost as fast as my shields and my credit count.

If you're getting beat up, and losing resources to boot, you bet it's not fun. It's more like a divorce proceeding.

Let's just take note that the top end ship is probably much tougher than anything else. So accomplishment isn't being punished any harder than a slacker like me in a Cobra - consider what's happening to the smaller ships. But the AI does have the redeeming quality of emotionlessness. It isn't out to mess you up the way a human ganker is. It doesn't care. It just processes the inputs, applies the algorithms, and executes the output.

A human intelligence can beat it.
But it isn't easy to do, especially in the beginning. We have a learning curve to pass through. Combat is demanding, requiring us to concentrate and think.

Until then, anybody can quickly learn basic survival moves. If you're taking it on the chin, why not check out that post I linked? It might have material that you could use. Meantime, maybe don't fly the highest risk ship till you are comfortable with the new environmental threat?

 

[gizmo6023]

Checked out the link, good info some I have known for a while some new, will give it a try. Might go buy a Clipper at least they can run fast just hate giving 23 Ly jump range for speed.