I can't believe the pirate NPC's in this game

[tonechild]

So I'm exploring (doing a road to riches circuit), hundreds of ly away from the bubble. I find a degraded emissiosn POI, disengage supercruise and pick up a blackbox, and 7 passengers in escape pods.

As I continue my expedition, in zero population space, I start get interdicted! the chat log is as follows:

NPC: I have you now!
NPC: Big haul like that, surprised you made it this far.
(notice the order here? He magically appears behind me and interdicts without the normal npc introduction lmao)

- then I escape interdiction.

After I scan all the planets, I mark my next destination and engage the jump drive. My next destination is about 4 jumps away.

Every time I enter a new system along the way, I get this stupid message:

NPC: Big haul like that...

or..

NPC: Good job I found you first.


*Are you ♥♥♥♥ing kidding me?*

I'm in deep ♥♥♥♥ing space FFS!!!!

[tonechild]

Now fuel scooping is a royal PITA. I'll have to end my exploration circuit, and start again, I guess I dont need a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CARGO HOLD, because I'll just get interdicted constantly by asshat NPCS because the devs dont give a ♥♥♥♥ if population is zero and im far away from the bubble...

[Oku]

>hundreds of ly

that's like in the farmlands outside of town.

You're not in deep space until you're several thousand ly out.

[tonechild]

yet I have a feeling that it wouldnt matter I'd still get hounded

[Oku]

Originally posted by tonechild:

yet I have a feeling that it wouldnt matter I'd still get hounded

you can have as many feelings as you want. once you're a couple thousand LY outside the bubble, NPCs and sites stop spawning.

[tonechild]

Great, another assertion without evidence

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Originally posted by tonechild:

Great, another assertion without evidence

It's a well established fact that USS and NPC spawns stop 2,000LY outside the bubble, except in rare circumstances where you're within around 100LY of a minor settlement in deep space.

[tonechild]

Ok great. But honestly that wasnt even my point. It makes no sense to me that I'm getting interdicted in zero population space hundreds of ly away. I think that yeah its fine if youre going to get npc spawns 2k ly away, even 10k ly away, that is fine with me. My point is, pirates are going to be just as agressive in deep space as in populated space? give me a break!

They should make it a bit more believeable / realistic.

[in memoriam of Sharky]

Originally posted by tonechild:

Ok great. But honestly that wasnt even my point. It makes no sense to me that I'm getting interdicted in zero population space hundreds of ly away. I think that yeah its fine if youre going to get npc spawns 2k ly away, even 10k ly away, that is fine with me. My point is, pirates are going to be just as agressive in deep space as in populated space? give me a break!

They should make it a bit more believeable / realistic.

This is the ugly nature of procedural generation. You have to deal with it I guess. There should be a lot of variable added I guess to make it more realistic (to your likings) .

Just because the known datas about the systems says nobody is there it does not mean pirates or anyone else can not hide somewhere around these systems. So for you it would be realistic if you would be informed and have the data about every small community with a couple of dozen pirates scattered around the galaxy ? I mean its probably less than one hour to get there with a basic ship (unengineered) . So why is it unrealistic? Its not. Its nitpicking.

[tonechild]

Nah its just hard to believe in omniscient pirates, whether or not its nitpicking, maybe it is, maybe it isnt - but 100s of ly away from civilized space, and pirates instantly know about my cargo and want it and all that, is just a stretch. If you disagree? that's fine, and I'm not slamming this game and saying its bad or anything - don't get me wrong here. No need to defend the game's lackluster npc system.

the pirates should have a harder time finding me and my cargo in uncivilized space, but they just behave the exact same way they do in 10 billion populated system, and that is where I have a hard time staying immersed in the game and that's what I'm complaining about.

But honestly its not that big of a deal, I just had a small gripe about it - no need to blow this out of proportion to be honest.

[John Titor]

Originally posted by tonechild:

Nah its just hard to believe in omniscient pirates

Because there were no pirates/bandits in the middle of nowhere ever. Everyone knows they only hang out in the most populated of areas.

[tonechild]

I'm not saying its a stretch that pirates would be out in the middle of nowhere, I'm saying its a stretch that the game engine has them behaving exactly the same as if in any other system.

Basically the game engine is a bit less sophisticated then I originally thought and that's OK.

Basically we have a boolean value here: if player has some cargo and is in 2k of the bubble, spawn pirates.. I get that now..

Just thought it was a bit more sophisticated is all.

[tonechild]

It's like... Land on a planet, find stuff, leave.. 5 seconds later: "THE RUMOUR WAS RIGHT GOOD JOB I FOUND U FIRST"

really? Wow rumours about people on random planets 100s ly from civilized space travel fast.. even faster than one could travel from said planets to the nearest station.. some FTL rumours they are.

So let me play some mental gymnastics on this scenario:

maybe there was a quantumn entangled sensor somewhere that detected I picked up the cargo and a few guys at a bar at some station were like, oh ♥♥♥♥ look at that and then a rumour started and this guy was like, "I know where that planet is" - and then uses his high tech FTL (faster than anything you can buy) and plops right behind me for interdiction?

Oh but I guess he could be somewhere else on the planet, that would make more sense, maybe some pirates have a place for spreading rumours on the planet itself. but then there is a rumour that has to start, I guess there's no speed limitation on rumours being spread and people knowing exactly where to go or something

[Josey Wales]

Originally posted by tonechild:

I'm not saying its a stretch that pirates would be out in the middle of nowhere, I'm saying its a stretch that the game engine has them behaving exactly the same as if in any other system.

Basically the game engine is a bit less sophisticated then I originally thought and that's OK.

Basically we have a boolean value here: if player has some cargo and is in 2k of the bubble, spawn pirates.. I get that now..

Just thought it was a bit more sophisticated is all.

It is more sophisticated than that. Maybe you hit RNG gold or something. I've been interdicted in the outskirts like this, but certainly not with enough frequency for it to seem abnormal. I've spent a lot of time out a few hundred ly and it really hasn't happened to me more than a couple times.

[tonechild]

right on :D

[Kamiyama]

> 7 passengers in escape pods

I've never had pirates hound me system to system like you're describing. My suspicion? One or all of those passengers is a pirate that is leaking your location information.

I would jettison all the passengers and just keep the black box. Then see what happens.