*Rant* WTF is wrong with hostile ships in trade missions

[Hush!Hush!What?What?]

Hello fellow CMDR's.

[TL;DR : (I fly a type 9 atm) After multiple deaths these past few days. I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sick and tired of getting (chain) interdicted during trade missions by multiple hostile AI ships and especially CONDA's, that can appear every/any time you supercruise. Even when you submit, cooperate and give what they want, they start shooting immediately. And CONDA's just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2 shot you cripple, 3, 2, 1, ded. Wasting my time, effort and credits, just because there is a weird difficulty curve which leaves NO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CHANCE of surviving. Please just let me throw credits in some useless well like taxes so I don't have to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ experience watching my ship getting shot to ♥♥♥♥ by top tier vessel because I fly a type 9 and death is what I get for resisting...]

I've been playing ED for some time now, still pretty green, but growing steadily. I like most aspects of the game, but trading, powerplay and mining are what I tend to do. Especially trade missions catch my attention as I like gathering a shopping list of needed items for nice profits.

Climbing the ranks with a hauler, type 6 and type 7 I was pretty successful and never had any real problems with the occasional "hostile ship" trying to take my precious precious cargo. I'd get interdicted but easily escaped those, even from seemingly larger ships like CONDA's (Not including PvP! "learned that the hard way..." ).

So now I got myself a type 9 big boi. Learning this units strong points, being BIG, HEAVY and SLOW is actually quite fun when you can dump 500+ ton cargo at a station.

I got myself a couple of trade missions, in my type 9, and when I leave the station I get couple of mails, "you've got enemies." One reads bounties of 400k for 1/4. Welp those are gonna be CONDA's I thought. I visited all the places, completed my shopping list and when I try to fly back I get interdicted on my way to the station.

Now the ♥♥♥♥ starts.

Evading interdiction of smaller and medium ships with the cumbersome type 9, is do-able. CONDA's however nope. So my 1ste time I tried to run. Pew, pew, ded. Okay... not a viable strategy. ♥♥♥♥♥♥ situation, but I guess I had to learn the hard way.

2nd time I get interdicted I submit and drop from supercruise, to be welcomed by threats "gimme cargo or die, you got 10 sec. Pew, pew, ded. Why? I stopped, was submitting and dropped the appropriate amount of cargo, but he still fired upon me, actually right from the start the AI starts to blast.

Cue the 3de time and the 4th time. Exactly the same, get shot to ♥♥♥♥ even when submitting and cooperating. All the while I have no way to out run, out gun, our out sustain a CONDA. While that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ simple 2 shots me cripple with railguns or plasma. And even if I'd manage to fight and win it would only be the first of a couple, that for some reason manage to spawn directly behind you even if you do manage to escape with a jump.

Defuq is wrong with this game? Why not give me every 24 hours a huge tax of 10/25% of my total balance and be done with it. I don't mind losing the money as much as I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hate to spend time and effort figuring stuff out, gathering etc. to be shot to ♥♥♥♥ 200ls away from where I'm supposed to be, even when I'm cooperative and willing to submit. (Not to even mention the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that happens when you have mission critical stuff in your hold) Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't.

My apologies for the venting, it's annoying getting hit by the same stone multiple times.

CMDR Hush!Hush!What?What?

[Hush!Hush!What?What?]

İlk olarak Wesker tarafından gönderildi:

If all you do is haul stuff your fine, if you do haulage missions then your in for a rough time, stack the missions and you get multiple ships attacking you at once.

My closing argument is this, yes you can haul almost double the cargo in a load with the type 9, but with an Anaconda you can ensure that the cargo WILL get there.
If you really want to haul more then that and you can stand the rank grind and slavery then get a Imperial Cutter.

I think I'll be aiming for what you are saying, I really like the type 9, but large trade mission quests binges are going to be limited for it.

^^ yeah cutter is my end goal in regards to the trading game, but still loads to do.

thank you for you reaction

[Boomer]

I never bother with trade ships anymore, period. Because of ♥♥♥♥ like this. Nothing like trying to fend off constant attacks by elite conda's in a type 7. Now i use my own anaconda or cutter, with 60% resistant shields and all 8 hard points equipped.

[Agony_Aunt]

İlk olarak Hush!Hush!What?What? tarafından gönderildi:

But in previous scenarios, even my type 7 has never had problems evading CONDA's. (Certainly easier to evade then PvP interdictions)

The Type 7 is actually a very good ship for evading interdictions. It has reasonable SC manouverability and great Yaw, meaning you can evade those interdictions. In normal flight it has the highest yaw of any ship in the game.

As for the mines - sure, stick some of those on. There was a time when pirates were a bit dumb. They would run straight into your mines. For a while you could nicely increase your bounties by doing trade and letting yourself by pirates. FD fixed it though, so pirates tend to try and avoid mines, unless you let them get close to you.

[Wesker]

The talk of mines reminds me of a part I left out earlier,
I had 3 class 3 mine launchers on my Type 9, badly damaged a Cobra that interdicted me and destroyed one Viper in the 2 months I flew her,
And the Viper was a cop that flew in after the pirate just listed lazily to the left to avoid my mines.
If they had better tracking maby but they just dont seem effective enough considering you cant charge your FSD while dropping mines.

[ZombieHunter]

Evade interdiction. They are gone from the instance. Don't submit if you don't have to.

Remember each mission can come with its own 'baddies' that will try to attack you. Stack them and you get an annoying composition of pirates and jerks that want to interdict you.

[Galon007]

I play this game 4 years and system how NPC bother you is really stupid. You avoid one interdiction and in 1 sec there is another one and sometime they do that ♥♥♥♥ 4 times in a row.
Scripted content like this is garbage and super annoying i must agree.
If you are in high sec system it should be safe or police should help you out insta.

[Solar_Flare]

I've run into the same issues and it's so off putting when it comes to using different ships. The game as a whole is great, but i find it kind of shoehorns you into using a few ships, even though it advertises a ton of different ships.
it has classes, combat/ trade/ passenger/exploration, and yet punishes you for trying to run with ships designed specifically for such roles.
Now, don't get me wrong. i feel the interdiction system does need to be there, it brings in some danger, which is good, but it needs to be scaled to the mission. if i want to run dangerous cargo, say taking guns to a system that is already at war, then yeah, conda's should be chomping at the bit to wreck my stuff. i should have to take a combat/ trader and fight, or a very fast ship to outrun the pirate.
if i'm running biowaste or taking food as aid to a starving system, then why would i be being hit by a rigged up military frigate.? it makes no sense the money spent on interdiction and running such a ship would not be regained through interdicting a type 9 hauling such cargo. I would expect some low level thugs to try and take the food, or some old jim bob hillbilly to intercept biowaste, not a conda, and yet it happens all the time.
Setting up interdiction like this would make a world of difference and would encourage the use of all ships equally. Monetarily you just tweak the payouts. Big payouts come with risk. Running food and biowaste, while not as lucrative, would give a set fee, easy money, if you have the time and are willing to run the route.
This is something i've really noticed lately. I finally managed to get a vette, and man, it's like there is no other ships for me now. Need to fight. vette. need to passenger. Vette. Need to run food. Vette. better than everything and safer than everything. it's a shame to, because i love my other ships, just why use them when i have the vette. it carries less and cant jump as far as the others, but i'll never die to interdictions and will always make my money.

[ZombieHunter]

İlk olarak Galon007 tarafından gönderildi:

I play this game 4 years and system how NPC bother you is really stupid. You avoid one interdiction and in 1 sec there is another one and sometime they do that ♥♥♥♥ 4 times in a row.
Scripted content like this is garbage and super annoying i must agree.
If you are in high sec system it should be safe or police should help you out insta.

The NPC is scripted to spawn but it isn't scripted that he interdicts. He still has to obey the rules of the game...somewhat. One issue is certain 'bounty hunter' NPCs will follow you even if you are a gazillion light seconds away and drop to local. When you do they will be there. That is kind of annoying but NPCs are really not that much of a threat with decent equipment.

But once you evade an NPC they are gone. Never to return until you go to a new system. It is usually 2 to 3 systems before the same NPC, likely in a different ship with the same name, will interdict again.

[Les Grossman]

İlk olarak FrozenStorm tarafından gönderildi:

I know it is frustrating but the issue is you upgraded to a bigger ship. This in turn tells the game to send "Bigger" ships after you. You need to be prepared before just jumping into a new ship, esp one that ends up being bigger.

Also, as your rank increases the AI gets harder. It grows with you. You need to keep this in mind while playing this game. I'd say a lot of people don't even realize this aspect of the game.

This is the problem that players who "Grind" excessivly for one thing end up in bad situations and a lot of CMDRS would recommend being against it. You can't just idle and do one thing over and over.

You need to engineer if you own horizons. I run into a lot of people who just ignore it and end up in the exact same situation as you. Weak ship being attacked by harder AI and dying over and over and are oblivious to why. They expect to jump into a new ship (Bigger) and have an easier time.. nope not how this game works.

TL:DR. The Ai grows with you. As your rank increases the AI will get harder. When you change ships, the AI will also change what they send after you. If you are a decent rank and in a big ship and running mostly stock modules for example... you might have a hard time.

Trust me, I'm almost Elite in combat and anytime I do "Black Box Salvage" missions I have to deal with Elite Annacondas that are engineered. If I wasn't in a Fully Engineered Vette... I'd have a pretty hard time.

Are you 100% sure about that? Because on my experience so far, it doesn't seem like there's any particular way of enemy scaling here. When I ran in Viper MKIII or now in MKIV, I got all kinds of enemies sent against me, from harmless Sideys, to deadly Condas, FGS, you name it, which I have no chance against, and my current combat rank is Novice. Sometimes I pick my newly aqcuired Krait MKII, and situation is absolutely the same: in contracts, random enounters, mission side objectives and etc I still can get anything from small harmless ship to deadly endgame one.

[FrozenStorm]

İlk olarak Space Hobo tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak FrozenStorm tarafından gönderildi:

I know it is frustrating but the issue is you upgraded to a bigger ship. This in turn tells the game to send "Bigger" ships after you. You need to be prepared before just jumping into a new ship, esp one that ends up being bigger.

Also, as your rank increases the AI gets harder. It grows with you. You need to keep this in mind while playing this game. I'd say a lot of people don't even realize this aspect of the game.

This is the problem that players who "Grind" excessivly for one thing end up in bad situations and a lot of CMDRS would recommend being against it. You can't just idle and do one thing over and over.

You need to engineer if you own horizons. I run into a lot of people who just ignore it and end up in the exact same situation as you. Weak ship being attacked by harder AI and dying over and over and are oblivious to why. They expect to jump into a new ship (Bigger) and have an easier time.. nope not how this game works.

TL:DR. The Ai grows with you. As your rank increases the AI will get harder. When you change ships, the AI will also change what they send after you. If you are a decent rank and in a big ship and running mostly stock modules for example... you might have a hard time.

Trust me, I'm almost Elite in combat and anytime I do "Black Box Salvage" missions I have to deal with Elite Annacondas that are engineered. If I wasn't in a Fully Engineered Vette... I'd have a pretty hard time.

Are you 100% sure about that? Because on my experience so far, it doesn't seem like there's any particular way of enemy scaling here. When I ran in Viper MKIII or now in MKIV, I got all kinds of enemies sent against me, from harmless Sideys, to deadly Condas, FGS, you name it, which I have no chance against, and my current combat rank is Novice. Sometimes I pick my newly aqcuired Krait MKII, and situation is absolutely the same: in contracts, random enounters, mission side objectives and etc I still can get anything from small harmless ship to deadly endgame one.

Combat rank isn't the end all be all though. It's more complicated then what I brought up.

All missions have a rank tied to it as well. So if you pickup an Elite Mission, I would expect anything related to that mission to be close to that rank also.

If all you do is trade, and your trade rank is high, then when you do trade this could impact the AI sent after you. If you go do combat, like haz rez and combat zones, then your combat rank might be the check. This is why I always advise people to not just focus on 1 thing because eventually you will have to do the others. Simply put, if all you want to do is trade, fine.. but expect to be running a lot from Pirates as you climb the ranks.

I see it all the time in youtube videos of players posting their "Builds". They grinded for example a Fed Corvette and make a video and I notice... everything they are facing is very low rank. Guess what... they grinded Fed Rank and now have a power house ship only because they only went for that. Eventually they would be in here QQing because they ignored the rest of the game, and started ranking up in Combat to a point where that ship, slowly "SEEMS" to get weaker because they ignored Engineering and the AI is getting stronger. That's just one example though.

It's not as "tight" as I make it out to be that is for sure. You will run into "Harder" ships from time to time, but you can either fight or run... it's never hard vs the AI. There might also be exceptions to the rule. You can see this at NAV Beacons where pretty much 99% of the ships are low rank even if you are "Elite". Haz res might be the same, for balancing reasons so players always have somewhere to go that isn't always "OMG" Hard ships.

I will admit. This is all based off personal experience. When I do trade for example (My trade rank is low) i usually get weaker ranked AI sent after me. BUt when I do say Wartime Missions, my Combat rank is Deadly... ALmost everything sent at me is Deadly or Elite.

I'm not sure about ship sizes. Eventually I think it stops mattering because you can engineer any ship to take out AI. I take down Corvettes and Annacondas (Deadly and Elite) in my Engineered FDL for example. In the end I think the system is way more complex but there is something going on.

[Hush!Hush!What?What?]

İlk olarak FrozenStorm tarafından gönderildi:

Combat rank isn't the end all be all though. It's more complicated then what I brought up.

All missions have a rank tied to it as well. So if you pickup an Elite Mission, I would expect anything related to that mission to be close to that rank also.

If all you do is trade, and your trade rank is high, then when you do trade this could impact the AI sent after you. If you go do combat, like haz rez and combat zones, then your combat rank might be the check. This is why I always advise people to not just focus on 1 thing because eventually you will have to do the others. Simply put, if all you want to do is trade, fine.. but expect to be running a lot from Pirates as you climb the ranks.

I see it all the time in youtube videos of players posting their "Builds". They grinded for example a Fed Corvette and make a video and I notice... everything they are facing is very low rank. Guess what... they grinded Fed Rank and now have a power house ship only because they only went for that. Eventually they would be in here QQing because they ignored the rest of the game, and started ranking up in Combat to a point where that ship, slowly "SEEMS" to get weaker because they ignored Engineering and the AI is getting stronger. That's just one example though.

It's not as "tight" as I make it out to be that is for sure. You will run into "Harder" ships from time to time, but you can either fight or run... it's never hard vs the AI. There might also be exceptions to the rule. You can see this at NAV Beacons where pretty much 99% of the ships are low rank even if you are "Elite". Haz res might be the same, for balancing reasons so players always have somewhere to go that isn't always "OMG" Hard ships.

I will admit. This is all based off personal experience. When I do trade for example (My trade rank is low) i usually get weaker ranked AI sent after me. BUt when I do say Wartime Missions, my Combat rank is Deadly... ALmost everything sent at me is Deadly or Elite.

I'm not sure about ship sizes. Eventually I think it stops mattering because you can engineer any ship to take out AI. I take down Corvettes and Annacondas (Deadly and Elite) in my Engineered FDL for example. In the end I think the system is way more complex but there is something going on.

I can relate and have experienced most issues and experiences posted by you all. But that is kinda my issue here, the player gets hit by a weird difficulty curve that, in case of my TYPE 9, I didn't really experience before, other then with PvP players.

Now the chain interdiction while seriously annoying, is certainly do-able. (in my TYPE 9) If I'm interdicted by anything else then a CONDA, I'm safe. Takes a long battle, but evading is certainly easy enough, and once you do, indeed those ships often don't pose a real threat any more.

So, for me at least, the difficulty curve goes from; easy.... easy...easy....somewhat easy...easish... to smack dab brick wall of pain and disappointment.

Now If I'd expect to out run or out fight (in a trade build ship) someone far superior to me I'd be crazy, so giving in to demands of robbery sounds pretty good. (There is a time to fight, there is a time to run but sometimes you'll have to submit or lose more then you have). I'd rather pay a lump sum or drop some cargo ( wouldn't put a dent in the profits that can be made) than to re buy all the crap and my ship. This irrational behaviour of the AI to start shooting, keep shooting, never stop shooting and not stop chasing you, EVEN THOUGH you submit to their demands seems broken to me. Without a good reason, like someone posted, high profile smuggling or some such, where it would be logical for the AI faction to kill you as an enemy. (But please incorporate that into the difficulty rating which is kinda dodgy to the less seasoned pilots.)

Quality of ship shouldn't be real factor here because it would be perfectly feasible for a trader/smuggler to pay off/bribe it's perusers. They even shout it at you in chat so I guess the core mechanic/principle is in place. It would also make sense story/simulation wise. Even PvP pirates often will issue simple demands. Which I should listen to in the future (bad experience).

But I've come to learn from this experience and insight from you all. I simply stop doing missions with my TYPE 9 and simply focus on bulk commodity trading. Less hassle and with the right route easily as profitable. 300K profit from shipping biowaste is quite funny. I might also buy back my TYPE 7 or go for a CONDA/CUTTER myself if I wanna dabble in high quantity trade missions.

PS.

I also think it's kinda silly to have some top of the line vessels being as expensive as they are to be less feasible with stock or slightly better internals and only be functional with A rank stuff AND the necessary engineering. Meaning I don't need 8Mil for a ASP explorer and a few guns. No I'd need 30-40 Mil simply to BUY the ASP explorer, upgrade with A level stuff for it to be feasible and still fail because I didn't engineer a specific thing.

That said, becoming a bit more risk aware might be a good thing to have learned now, at least so I can be successful and have fun in the game. Fingers crossed for possible improvements in the future.

[ExtremelyMift69]

Never played Powerplay myself but as I understand it, if you're pledged, then whoever is at war with the overlord you've pledged too will come after you to do you mischief. Powerplay has built in enemies. Whereas if you play the independent pilot you are the one to pick your enemies or not. In powerplay you don't only have to be cautious of the NPC badguys but onliners pledged to your opposition. Fly safe Cmdr. o7

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Sell type 9
Buy conda
Fit as well armed shield tank
Use internals for cargo

Now you can submit, turn and waste em, then carry on with a smile on your face :)

[ZombieHunter]

Powerplay is very weird now with the new C & P. You can only interdict another PP player IF you are pledged to another power AND they are pledged to a power that has the system you are in. So if you try to take out a Yi Long Rui and you are Aisling Duval in Zach Hudson space you will get a bounty.

Not that I speak from personal experience or anything.

But this new mechanic put in by FD b/c of the new C & P is 100% braindead for PowerPlay and should be removed or re-designed post haste. As it is now it severely limits power play options.

[ScytheKnight]

Also remember the Type 9 can have Ship Launched Fighter Hanger. Sure it'll eat into your cargo space. But one of them with a decent pilot, beam and MC turrets and boosted A rated shields will give you a lot more survivability.

Set your turrets to fire on selected target, launch the SLF and have it attack your target and then start boosting (NOT in a straight line). Some decently engineered turrets and a SLF should be enough to handle most low to mid range threats with little input at your end.