Why do NPCs play by blatantly different rules than players?

If you drop supercruise to try and lose them, they manage to follow your wake unerringly within seconds.

This is my "favorite", these are my top three:
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  • I was doing some smuggling and a security anaconda shows up looking for me, so I looped him around some planets, he being in an anaconda (supercruise whale) ended up a couple hundred light seconds behind me when I dropped in at the station, 2 seconds later he appears in front of me....that irks me every time.
  • Later on in that smuggling run a pirate appears in supercruise at the drop in point 2000Ls behind me just as I drop out at the outpost, "well he'll never get here before I dock and wake out" I say to myself. Hit the boost toward the outpost, NPC pirate ("I've come a long way for what's in your hold") pops up in front of me and instantly explodes from the impact of my boosting python on his flimsy hull, murder....really?
  • Case 3, I let some punk interdict me so I could shoot him. I was in an asp and he was in a courier, I decided after a few rounds of him boosting past me that I didn't feel like slapping him with the Asp's wet noodle hard point selection so I just waked out. Now he's been scanned, KWS'd and he's interdicted and attacked me. I jump in to the outpost just as he's respawning a few dozen Ls away saying something silly about space dust. I drop in and boost toward the station, right in front of me pops this courier telling me he'll boil me up, I get a murder charge for ramming a pirate to death that had in the last minute threatened, interdicted, assaulted, chased and again threatened me....
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It's frustrating that you can't ever outrun an NPC, your only option is to let them tether you and beat them (roll of the dice there sometimes no matter how good you are with the insta flipping interdiction tunnels) or high wake and come back again (yay tedium), there isn't any opportunity for flying smart. Barring something as involved as delaying their drop in to an appropriate amount of time based on their distance behind you, maybe they could just not appear exactly in front of your ship?
 
When a competent pilot can burn down 100+ ships an hour in a CG, the computer needs all the help it can get. 36 pilots over 3 hrs, 100 per hour was the average.


i dont think thats the reason for cheating ai. its more likely that FDEV just hasnt fleshed out the ai code enough yet, seeing as how there are sometimes blatant issues with ai behaviour. it seems work on the ai has slowed down a lot and i hope sarah jane will finish whatever shes assigned on right now and return to expand the ai code in soon.
 
The only one that bothers me is their ability to light up my shields with beam lasers from over 3km away. Makes withdrawing to let the shield level get back up, or luring a solitary craft away from its friends impractical.
 
The way NPCs are handled in the game has always been bad. Just like how all POIs spawn right infront of where you happen to be looking at the time. Instead of in logical places which you have to go looking for or travel to (that includes on planet surfaces too). The problem is theres no persistence in the game.

But yea getting interdicted by sidewinders, who demand cargo and instantly start shooting doesn't make much sense. Especially when I'm flying a FAS with no cargo.
 
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The devs built in some 'advantages' for the AI. Yes, they cheat, sometimes blatantly so. Until the state of AI programming rivals that of the human brain, expect the AI to be given some extra leeway that we don't enjoy.

This essentially ^

Most video games do this nowadays although I played games 15 years ago that had much better AI than they tend to do lately. Maybe it's cheaper and easier to do fake difficulty.
 
This essentially ^

Most video games do this nowadays although I played games 15 years ago that had much better AI than they tend to do lately. Maybe it's cheaper and easier to do fake difficulty.

Yep. AI and sound are generally the things that have got WORSE over the years.

With most games now being aimed at console gamers who just like to mindlessly pewpew on nice looking graphics, maybe the skills have just been lost :(

Look at the AI in e.g. System Shock 2, Half-life 1, FEAR 1 compared to modern FPSs. It's way better.
 
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Oh, honestly, that's always the excuse. Dangerous would be fun - if it weren't in the form of magic teleporting NPCs. I don't recall the last 'shooter' game I played having teleporting NPCs - no, they let me seat-of-the-pants my way through hails of bullets, but at least I knew where the enemies were, and they moved sensibly as real characters would.
This ain't your daddy's shooter. NPCs can do whatever they want, especially the higher skilled ones.
They aren't doing anything that a good CMDR can't. Its called FA off and they are good at it.

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Yep. AI and sound are generally the things that have got WORSE over the years.

With most games now being aimed at console gamers who just like to mindlessly pewpew, maybe the skills have just been lost :(

At least FD made a pewpepwpew area for that. They got gangsta skillz in my opinion. Mega OxBridge Brit Boffin Talents.
 
Obvious things about the AI that irk me:

a) fragment cannons (no reload, no heat)
b) beams (no heat)
c) weapons range (someone already mentioned that)
d) chaff galore (oh come ON, not AGAIN!)
e) SC gimmicks for NPC pirates
f) "Good job I've found you, you're a hard one to track down" in every bloody system on a cargo mission, sometimes repeated multiple times along with other repeated chat... The IDEA of having alternative mission endings is welcome, but if this is the only way it can be implemented it should be less frequent and offer some actual rewards... but that's another topic altogether.
g) [Has this been changed?] Can't scan chaffing NPCs, NPCs can scan me when I chaff?
 
This isn't the first "inequality between PC / NPC" thread. I've asked for consistent rules to be applied to both PC and NPC concerning silent running, chaff, Wings and scans. No luck yet I'm afraid.

No NPC should have any ability that I cannot use as well.

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NPCs that drag you out of SC, then ask for cargo without scanning to see that you're not carrying anything, then proceed to shoot you, is particulalry annoying. :)
I look on those opportunities as free bounties in the bank. Annoying, but ultimately rewarding.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
(sorry Sarah & any potential militant Fanboys ;) )

I see two issues :
- we don't have a Sandbox, hence no universal laws are enforced upon all assets... visible in many places and details (often for legitimate, plain gameplay reasons with no bad intent)
- we technically don't have AI but we have Scripts instead, with all associated shortcomings and issues that arise from that.

Combining Scripts with the lack of Sandbox mechanics and adding some network issues that cause Trigger misses even for existing Scripts to handle them properly... weird results can easily occur.

That allows for those scripted NPCs to do things in ways, quantity or quality that the Player (bound to fixed Player mechanics limitations on its Client) simply can't do.
And as they're scripted to simply perform certain actions - those they will execute. No matter what. And technically there's nothing limiting them, except the manual limitations given to them by their Scriptor.

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The current obvious issues will be fixed of course, but personally this way of doing things always leaves a bad taste.
It's far easier at the beginning - but gets more and more complicated the further the AI or the mechanics it is supposed to interact with gets.
Every single condition needs to be predicted, thought out and handled by a script trigger that catches and processes it to a desired conclusion. Every... single... one. No matter how tangent or benign.
IMHO almost "Mission impossible" after a certain complexity is reached and it will show obvious cracks at some point.

But arguably :
- good NPC Scripts that give the illusion of AI is good enough for government's work any day... for as long as they work flawless
(and most importantly their Triggers aren't easily identified to prevent the dreaded "Script obviousness"... *hint* fuzzy logic/small RND modifiers help that alot ;) )
- in the instanced world we have with unlimited "parallel Universes" and the requirement for frequent spawn/despawn of assets... a full Sandbox might turn out impossible or plain impractical to implement
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My personal favorite currently are NPCs spamming SCBs - despite having none fitted, clearly visible in their SubSystems :D
 
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AIs cheating?

Not really; but the Pixels do know everything and that is their advantage. They know what you are carrying and so send the nightmare for that cargo. They know what you are doing and will act accordingly. Unlimited ammo is wrong, but nothing we can do about it.

Pulling us out of super cruise? I am an avid radar watcher and I am intrigued how my radar can be clean and then within seconds, a blip appears on my six and I am being pulled. I also find it interesting that fixed weapons can hit me from all angles; yes fixed, as chaff dose not effect them.

However: Being the paranoid psychopath that I am, I know everything is out to get me and so expect no less, from NCPs.
 
Nope, they don't use fa-off; confirmed by Devs.

A.I. is garbage, just one of the negatives of this game you have to sigh your way through.

Sj made a few comments in this thread on one of them she didn't deny that they use FA off nor confirm.

This thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=115139&page=5
 
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Obvious things about the AI that irk me:

a) fragment cannons (no reload, no heat)
b) beams (no heat)
c) weapons range (someone already mentioned that)
d) chaff galore (oh come ON, not AGAIN!)
e) SC gimmicks for NPC pirates
f) "Good job I've found you, you're a hard one to track down" in every bloody system on a cargo mission, sometimes repeated multiple times along with other repeated chat... The IDEA of having alternative mission endings is welcome, but if this is the only way it can be implemented it should be less frequent and offer some actual rewards... but that's another topic altogether.
g) [Has this been changed?] Can't scan chaffing NPCs, NPCs can scan me when I chaff?

h) 2 NPCs locked in a fierce duel. Player joins, attacks the enemy ship. "Your ticket is about to get punched" - NPC immediately switches to the player as its new target, almost guaranteed. It's as if our weapons had a MMORPG-style taunt effect built-in, so they snap-aggro on players and ignore anything else.
 
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This isn't the first "inequality between PC / NPC" thread. I've asked for consistent rules to be applied to both PC and NPC concerning silent running, chaff, Wings and scans. No luck yet I'm afraid.

No NPC should have any ability that I cannot use as well.

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I look on those opportunities as free bounties in the bank. Annoying, but ultimately rewarding.

I do too, but every now and again I get one labelled as "Lawless" which gets me zip in the way of reward. In these cases they're an annoying waste of time.....
NPC interactions have always been a bit pants. There was a lot of noise made about NPC's being too easy to take in a fight. The NPC's appear to have been buffed somewhat since, but instead of improved AI the NPC's appear to have been provided with some odd super powers, never ending chaff, never ending ammo etc. It's a lot like the difference between medium and hard levels in many games. The enemies on the hard level don't become harder to hit or more crafty they just become bullet sponges who only die after being shot in the face ten times but appear to have limitless ammo themselves.
It's a tricky one to get right in games....
 
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