Story time: AI cannot into derelict salvage

[Anrock]

I've been a witness to a quite funny yet a bit tragic story in multiple chapters and decided to share it here.

I was in a quiet system with two derelict ships. One derelict was a pretty small ship and the other one was a huge spiral-like station. I was salvaging the small one when a ship belonging to Android Collective arrived into system. We traded a bit and they announced that they're going to enter station derelict. I thought "oh noes my loot" but ultimately I couldn't do anything about it since Android ship was bigger and had actual ship weapons.

To my surprise when Androids entered the station I could see what they were doing there and the station was also revealed to me, "Okay, at least I can enjoy the show then". Androids send a crew of four and they decided to dock at airlock instead of going through hull breach like I usually do (bugs can't fly so you can safely shoot while hovering there). Airlock was located in small room and the room also had a couple of bugs there so Androids were immediately attacked and one of their guys went down. Completely ignoring downed crew member they proceeded out of the room and were immediately ambushed by two more bugs at door between that room and corridor. Lost another. Two last guys made it to the end of the corridor dispatching two more bugs on the way without anyone going down (ranged weapons ftw!). At the end corridor did a hard turn and narrowed to 3 or 4 tiles. And right over the corner there was a bug that somehow managed to dodge all the incoming shots and brought down the guys.

Android ship sent another shuttle, now with three guys. Again, they completely ignored downed comrades, made it to the corner, took down one bug and one of the androids went down. Last android in this batch went over next corner into long narrow corridor, dispatched maybe three or four bugs and made it almost to the end of the spiral. At the end there was a small T-section with two more bugs, he managed to kill one and was taken down by the last bug.

Shuttle brought another android, Nansi if I remember correctly. Unarmed! She walked to the end of spiral, ignoring dead and dying androids, punched last bug to the face(?) and it exploded. She mindlessly walked around a bit and returned to her ship. Shortly after the ship left the system leaving completely untouched and safe derelict for me.

A week or so of game time later I was in another system and situation was pretty much the same - two derelicts: one station and one ship. I salvaging the ship derelict when the same Android Collective entered the system. A shuttle delivered Nansi to station derelict (they didn't even announce they were going there), Nansi exited the shuttle and three seconds later died because robot shot her in the face. My reward for all the tragedy and heartache I witnessed (and doing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about it) was a completely intact Android Collective ship with storage full of goodies that went derelict soon after Nansi died. Heartache didn't stop at that though: the ship wasn't claimable.

The end.

[Nebelbiber]

Haha, nice read. Yeah, it often ends tragically when NPCs try to clear a derelict, they're quite bad at it. It feels like such an exploit when they sacrifice everyone of their crew.

Nansi flying around in space alone only to stop at derelicts trying to go punch some rogue bots is the silliest and most hilarious thing I've heard though :D

It's funny but should really be changed though imo. If a crew gets overpowered, the reinforcements should concentrate on getting the unconscious back on board. I think it would be an obvious and cool thing if they would ask the player for help in some of these situations, resulting in a reward.

[Anrock]

Originally posted by Nebelbiber:

It's funny but should really be changed though imo. If a crew gets overpowered, the reinforcements should concentrate on getting the unconscious back on board. I think it would be an obvious and cool thing if they would ask the player for help in some of these situations, resulting in a reward.

Definitely! I've completed a mission of recovering a body from derelict just a bit before entering this system and I was expecting a mission to retrieve those poor androids to pop up as soon as first batch of them was down but it didn't happen.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Anrock:

Originally posted by Nebelbiber:

It's funny but should really be changed though imo. If a crew gets overpowered, the reinforcements should concentrate on getting the unconscious back on board. I think it would be an obvious and cool thing if they would ask the player for help in some of these situations, resulting in a reward.

Definitely! I've completed a mission of recovering a body from derelict just a bit before entering this system and I was expecting a mission to retrieve those poor androids to pop up as soon as first batch of them was down but it didn't happen.

It is random whether they ask for assist or not. (I think it depends if they can clear the derelict or not.)
I used the above tactic with pirates:D
Lure them to derelicts and let them visit them...and waste their humans:)

Also you can see all non-hostile factions usually as they clear a derelict:P