Why am I being attacked for no reason?

[MDHansen]

I've noticed some unusual NPC behaviour lately. Random pirates dropping in at assassination mission USS, cops turning up to distress calls, allies in CZ turning on each other and you, cops shooting each other, plus the occasional pirate who attacks for no reason.

I quite like it.

I've noticed this aswell, and I aswell quite like it. Hopefully this is something they will build further on

 

[d8veh]

NPCs always tell you why they attack. Look at your comms. All comms are recorded in your log files, so look back there to see what they said - probably something like, "that's our loot. Keep your hands off it".

 

[Kamiyoda]

NPCs always tell you why they attack. Look at your comms. All comms are recorded in your log files, so look back there to see what they said - probably something like, "that's our loot. Keep your hands off it".

No they don't, thargoids don't tell you jack.

Outside of that obvious joke answer, I have pirates that attack me as soon as they start scanning me for no real reason, usually in a USS. Going from "Lets see what you have" to "now you die!" Faster than it takes for their scan to complete.

No deployed hardpoints, no cargo, no loot anywhere around me.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

I've noticed a few times recently that bad guy NCPs have been attacking me for no reason. Times when I have no missions, no cargo, no powerplay alliances, not wanted, just minding my own business. And they swoop in and attack. You might expect that might happen in open play, but what other reasons would an NCP have to attack you?

Happened again a few minutes ago. I dropped out of supercruise to a unidentified signal of threat level zero. So I'm scooping up materials and an NCP drops in and immediately opens fire. For no reason!

Is this a concious decison of the devs to liven thing up a bit, or a bug?

You ever see those massacre missions that say "Kill X number of civilians"?

NPCs get killed for "no reason" all the time. Why should you be any different?

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Well at least you were in an Anaconda. I'm in an Asp Explorer with enough defences onboard to get away. Close cargo hatch, hit jump and keep boosting until out of mass lock range. Imagine if you had a paper-thin Asp or Diamondback stripped out for exploration, hauling nothing but 100s of millions of credits worth of exploration data. One pirate could wipe out everything you'd done for the last several weeks with one shot! That's a little beyond adding a bit of jeopardy. :O

I did imagine that - you know what, I cash in my data at the earliest opportunity - I don't take any chances at known hazards like USSs.

 

[Sapyx]

At a USS, collecting materials for engineering. As said, no cargo, no missions, not wanted, no affiliation with local factions, just passing through. There's no reward nor reason to attack me. I avoid open play for just that reason. If you don't want to fight, you should have a way to avoid it. This tries to force you into combat situations when you may be ill equipped to partake. If this was indeed a conscious decision of the devs, in my opinion, this is a short sighted decision.

Not much to add to this discussion, except this: there is a very simple way for you to avoid combat in this situation: don't drop into USSs. Ever.

It may seem a bit un-adventurous, a bit anti-Star-Trek-Boldly-Going to just ignore the mysterious radar blip or distress signal, but remember, the Enterprise in Star Trek has got the guns and shields and engines to either outgun or outrun whatever the universe throws at it. An unarmed, minimal-thrusters, non-combat-capable explorer ship shouldn't be dropping into USSs.

And remember: back before you started playing the game (around version 2.1 and earlier), most NPC pirates were psycho player-killers who murdered you for refusing to drop your non-existent cargo which they demanded from you. Explorers flying builds like yours needed to wing up with other better-armed players when arriving back in inhabited space, just to survive the NPC who were highly likely to interdict them on their flight into spacedock. So from the longer perspective, playing the game for seven months without meeting a psycho player-killing NPC is pretty darn good.

 

[Krash]

NPCs always tell you why they attack. Look at your comms. All comms are recorded in your log files, so look back there to see what they said - probably something like, "that's our loot. Keep your hands off it".

Something may have changed with one of the recent updates. I've been pulled by NPCs with no warning in comms. I immediately assume its a CMDR until I see the solid icon and its very surprising.

 

[Peter Drakon]

I'm not sure about spawning combat ships at 0 threat level emission type USS, at least, I have never saw that. Pirate ambushes I think at the distress calls?

What I have seen is this: in SC a hostile NPC spawns and plans to interdict you. Before it can, however, you drop into anything anywhere, and the NPC will spawn into that instance 20-30 seconds later.

 

[Straga]

There have always been psycho type NPCs in the game that open fire as soon as they see you. You might get interdicted by one sometimes too. Usually their opening line is just laughter.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

what was the security rating of the system?

 

[Morbad]

Okay, so it is a conscious decision of the devs to introduce 'greifing' to NCPs? I'm sorry, but that's just stupid!

There is usually an identifiable reason for NPC hostilities, even if you've missed it or don't agree with it, and even when there is not, what makes a low level of otherwise inexplicable hostility "stupid"?

Sounds plausible to me that some people will sometimes victimize others just for the sake of it...happens all the time.