NPC Ship Update - 22 Jan 2014

[76561198117629946]

NPCs have received a large revision. Renon, Transgate, and Shoten now prefer different weaponry and equipment. Optimal ship configurations and tactics differ depending on Faction.

Three new pirate gangs have also been introduced - Voidstalker, Umbra, and starJack. Each pirate gang favours similar weapons and tactics to one of the megacorporations.

Renon & Voidstalker

• Favour Energy weapons like Laser Cannons
  
• Resistance to Kinetic and Plasma Damage
  
• Overall Weaker Hulls and Shields
  
• Faster Engines
  
• High Ship Count per Encounter

Transgate & Umbra

• Favour Kinetic weapons like Railguns
  
• Resistance to Energy and Plasma Damage
  
• Strong Hulls
  
• Low Ship Count per Encounter

Shoten & starJack

• Favour Plasma Cannons
  
• Resistance to Kinetic and Energy Damage
  
• Strong Shields
  
• Average Ship Count per Encounter

NPC Distribution & Difficulty

Difficulty
NPCs now come in 5 difficulties. The power of an NPC is not mapped directly to individual ships, but by group. However, on average an encounter’s difficulty will be reflected by the types of ships the NPCs in the encounter are flying.

Difficulty is mapped by number with 1 being the easiest and 5 the most difficult:

• 1: Auger, Witch, Brighthelm
  
• 2: Raven, Razorwasp, Photon
  
• 3: Auger REV2, Warlock, Hardhelm
  
• 4: Heyerdahl, Fury, Anvil
  
• 5: Kulullu, Stormbow, Bulkherder

Player ships should be able to solo encounters of difficulties 1-3. Difficulties 4 and 5 are designed to be taken on by groups, with a full group of 5 players needed to take down the toughest.

Distribution
There are 5 types of Systems for NPCs that reflect the system’s status. Developed systems remain as is, but Frontier and Wilderness systems are split into 2 types, inner and outer. PvP rules remain unchanged, this only matters to NPC difficulty.

The difficulty of NPCs in each system changes as it moves from developed into outer wilderness. The system and NPC rules are as follows:

• Faction Convoys start frequent and weak, they become more rare and stronger as they move out into the wilderness
  
• Faction Patrols start extremely strong but become weaker in the frontier. There are no faction Patrols in the wilderness
  
• Hostile pirate groups are small and weak in the developed systems, of Average strength in the frontier, and become very powerful in the wilderness
  
• The same is true of Hostile pirate Convoys. There are no Pirate Convoys in developed systems, and they are less frequent in frontier systems
  
• In the Outer Frontier, Faction and Pirate NPCs are roughly equal in strength
  
• Systems with independent stations have no faction NPCs and Average strength Pirate NPCs

What to Look for When Testing

The primary things to look out for when testing and playing are:

Ship/Encounter Balance
NPC encounters by type and difficulty (Patrol/Convoy) should be comparable across factions and pirate gangs. Individual ships may be stronger or weaker, but what matters is that the groups are equivalent.

If an encounter is too strong or too weak, describe what you think made it so. For example, “I was atomized instantly as soon as I spawned”, or “They couldn’t kill me, but I couldn’t kill them either. It just dragged out until I got bored and jumped out.”

Make certain your ship is outfitted well to defeat a faction’s preferred damage type and resistance.

Again, Difficulties 1-3 should be soloable, and 4-5 should require a group of up to 5 players.

NPC’s of the wrong type in the wrong area
Look for NPCs that “don’t belong”. This means something like only Renon Convoys trading in Shoten space.

In the wilderness there should be occasional faction convoys of neighboring faction space. The wilderness is sometimes “shared” by factions, keep an eye out for faction NPCs that are not near their own systems.

Convoy and Patrol Frequencies feel correct
Keeping in mind the color of the system, and where it is located in the galaxy, the number of convoys and patrols of both faction NPCs and Pirates should feel appropriate.

In Progress

Rewards
Ships still have the same reward structure (loot, xp, bounties). This means it will be more profitable to hunt some groups of ships over the other. This will be changed as balance testing undergoes revisions.

Varied NPC Encounters
Currently NPC’s only use cannons, and there is only one encounter of each type and difficulty. As the Alpha progresses NPC’s will get new capabilities and the encounters will be diversified to make for more interesting gameplay.

Thanks in advance for your feedback and suggestions.

[Vren]

Originally posted by Bridger:

What to Look for When Testing

The primary things to look out for when testing and playing are:

Ship/Encounter Balance
NPC encounters by type and difficulty (Patrol/Convoy) should be comparable across factions and pirate gangs. Individual ships may be stronger or weaker, but what matters is that the groups are equivalent.

If an encounter is too strong or too weak, describe what you think made it so. For example, “I was atomized instantly as soon as I spawned”, or “They couldn’t kill me, but I couldn’t kill them either. It just dragged out until I got bored and jumped out.”

Make certain your ship is outfitted well to defeat a faction’s preferred damage type and resistance.

Again, Difficulties 1-3 should be soloable, and 4-5 should require a group of up to 5 players.

NPC’s of the wrong type in the wrong area
Look for NPCs that “don’t belong”. This means something like only Renon Convoys trading in Shoten space.

In the wilderness there should be occasional faction convoys of neighboring faction space. The wilderness is sometimes “shared” by factions, keep an eye out for faction NPCs that are not near their own systems.

Convoy and Patrol Frequencies feel correct
Keeping in mind the color of the system, and where it is located in the galaxy, the number of convoys and patrols of both faction NPCs and Pirates should feel appropriate.

THIS! THIS! (x) 1,000 THIS!

(by 'THIS', I mean please keep asking us what to test.)


*Also, should all npc kills yield a flat 500xp? It doesn't make much sense, imo, if harder ships are the same amount of xp as normal ships, unlike in the prior state of the game where Faction Guards (stormbows) would give ~866 xp per kill. Now, stormbow or witch, the xp granted is a flat 500. Is this how it should be?

[Spikeatron]

Ok well lets start with the npc battles they are all over every mining field that i have mined at and now mining has become impossible as you cant fight and mine at the same time there are faction guard npcs there but they dont do a thing and i got completely pulverised in three seperate mining fields the first one was at ez the second one was at areyh and the third one was at khelev.

Personally i think that the pirates being everywhere is a good thing however having some guarded mining sites where people who only want to mine can do so without having to worry about dying while mining would also be good as we now have more than enough to have to worry about with pvp as well as npc encounters on the system maps without having to try and mine and fight and not get completely smashed.

My second thing is with the tax we get charged the percentage rate twice once when we buy the product and then again when we sell the product the selling should not incur tax in real life when selling an item its either that price or we put the tax as extra income for ourselves which will lead to people wanting to trade at lower tax brackets and risking all to sell at higher ones which would mean more money but a higher risk which could be a good spin on it all possibly. But getting taxed twice is harsh i think we should incur the cost of the tax when buying but get it back when selling or not have to pay tax if we are selling.

I would also like to see sometime son hopefully some xp per unit mined so that people like myself and others who only want to mine or trade can level up i know that you guys are getting smashed about this but i think that 1xp per tonne of goods sold and mined would be a possible way of making it work depending on scalling and well with the current situation of the mining fields that wont help as noone can truely mine properly anymore since the npc ships arent engaging one and another they are just there screwing with us trying to target the pirates which is another impossible thing at the moment lol

Also i think that the mining needs to be addressed to the regen rate of some of the resources as if the problem is fixed on how to mine without getting killed comes in then there is going to be a lack of resources to mine so the timers of the rocks regen should be relooked at as then there wont be the problem of barron mine fields at all.

Please feel free to email me on [e-mail] with any thoughts you have to what i have said or if you wish for me to elaborate more and also please email me and tell me your thoughts about what you as the devs think about my little thoughts thanks for a wonderful game in the making guys from josh.

[76561198117629946]

Originally posted by Commissar Vren:

Also, should all npc kills yield a flat 500xp? It doesn't make much sense, imo, if harder ships are the same amount of xp as normal ships, unlike in the prior state of the game where Faction Guards (stormbows) would give ~866 xp per kill. Now, stormbow or witch, the xp granted is a flat 500. Is this how it should be?

No, but it's how it works right now.

Sorry, the 'Loot' part of the 'In progress' section should probably say 'rewards' (as it includes loot, XP and bounties, all of which are in progress but not in this build).

[Izzy]

I am really upset about this patch. This game is not playable with the current market rates, Mining, and income for combatants. We have been waiting a week to see how well the game will get after, and the patch ends up being npc killing, which does not matter in a game focused on player driven content.

On top of that there is no improvements to making money as a combantant. No improvement to ship stats, or annoying missile cargo sizes. This is Very upsetting.

[Izzy]

Bridge,can you deliver this message to a coder?

> Please change the conditions of combat music to "if Dealing damage, Play combat music" as opposed to "if firing, play combat music".

[hindhaughlee]

I agree, mining needs addressed asap. It's making the game less fun because some of these belts are so packed full of npcs and crappy ore it makes life difficult.

[76561198117629946]

Originally posted by Uhmari:

Bridge,can you deliver this message to a coder?

> Please change the conditions of combat music to "if Dealing damage, Play combat music" as opposed to "if firing, play combat music".

Of all the aspects of the game that are at an early stage, I'm afraid sound is at the earliest.

We are working on it, but it might take some time, especially for the combat music thing. The main problem there is that telling when a player is actually 'in combat' can be really complicated. So for the moment, we have a very simple system that assumes the player is 'in combat' when they use an offensive ability or weapon, or are affected by any offensive ability or weapon.

[Izzy]

Na, actually its pretty simple, Just base it on combat rates.

- Entering combat Play music is based on Player A dealing damage to Player b, Or npc.
- Exiting combat music is based on 15 seconds of "no damage"
- If player a has no targets with in 10km, Leave combat

these conditions should be work, just tweak the values later as needed.

[Gatau]

Originally posted by Uhmari:

I am really upset about this patch. This game is not playable with the current market rates, Mining, and income for combatants. We have been waiting a week to see how well the game will get after, and the patch ends up being npc killing, which does not matter in a game focused on player driven content.

On top of that there is no improvements to making money as a combantant. No improvement to ship stats, or annoying missile cargo sizes. This is Very upsetting.

All u want is to be able to put all missiles in secure cargo so u can pvp without risk. Because right now any ship can carry enough missiles to fight a good while.

[-TWI- Ales D]

Guys did u even test the new system? The laser mobs expecially :)

This is not playable honestly... u die in seconds.

[Izzy]

Yea, whats taking place is extreme natured specs. Lower damage rates, over more constant ranges and fall offs is far superior in balance to other variables. Its been my experience, that there is a specific rate at which weapons are viable and not, but these are based on secondary factors like movement speed of ships, and targeted survivability rates.

[Izzy]

All u want is to be able to put all missiles in secure cargo so u can pvp without risk. Because right now any ship can carry enough missiles to fight a good while.

Not Exactly, I want to use plasma's personally. I have personal problems with the ranges on the weapons at the moment, but out side of this, you cant loot much when you spent 40/50 cargo with missiles. The increase to there mass was a rookie mistake, Imho. I put a post up on missiles, clearly defining how they should work. This is based on my experience in games, as well as observations from other games. Its dependent upon the "lazy factor" which basically stated that if you have a player who is lazy, they will always take the lazy option (in this game, missiles just require a lock, and thus, missiles are the highest-used weapon in game). as a direct result of this, placing missiles on as a primary weapon, which spams, but at low damage rates it will work out perfectly.

Imo, Bridge needs to make these changes at once! because if they dont, im gona whine about it and "i told you so" for 3-4 years tell they finially get to that point after exhusting every other option.

missiles being low damage rates really encourage people to step out of them; the trick is just not making them so low that they are useless.

[Denaut]

Alek,
I am happy to look into it for you. If you could let me know which ship, roughly what modules/weapons you are using, and what system you are fighting in I can get a more accurate picture of the difficulities you are having.

Keep in mind that NPC groups in red systems are primarily designed for groups of players, so soloing them could be quite difficult (I was not able to do it).

As for the Renon in non-red systems, I was able to defeat all the patrols (in a well equipped ship) by maintaining distance with Rail Guns using the following tactic:

Enter the encounter and bring myself to just outside optimal range of the Rail Gun. Fly in full reverse while trying to focus down one of the ships with the cannons and missiles. Just before the npcs reached optimal range with their energy weapons I would break at a 90 degree angle and use my engine boost to get distance quickly. Once far enough away I would turn around and repeat the process.

Try it out and let me know if you are still having trouble.

[Denaut]

Alternatively, if your ship is fast enough, you can fly away from Renon ships and use the engine kill to turn around and shoot them from range while maintaining your speed and heading.

[DarkSheer]

I can tell this is just wrong without playing. You need to fix the player ships before you beef up the NPCs. As a fighter at the moment, the only viable ships to use are the small ones due to the small hitbox. And since the warlock now is nerfed beyond use due to the missile weight, you are down to one ship, the Razorwasp.

The Fury works, but only if you have millions to throw into modules.

All the other ships are big, have big hitbox, so naturally they take heavy damage very fast.

The Stormbow is a very good example, this should be a tough fighter, especially when fitted with modules for several millions. But its the ship that dies the fastest in the game when faced with a pack of NPCs.
I do understand that its supposed to be big and therefore slow and be weak to several small fighters which are fast. But right now its just silly weak.