Right, I thought I had posted this earlier, but apparently I forgot.
(12-01-2020, 03:53 AM)Markam Wrote:
(11-30-2020, 03:50 AM)Greylock Wrote:
(11-30-2020, 01:47 AM)Markam Wrote: Population zones can have their density adjusted to lower npc spam, but removal is a bit extreme.
They don't even need removed completely. Just make them spawn solely around stations/planets, and not chase more than 6k from where their path is.
Systems do have "ambient" npc zones that causes NPCs to spawn system wide, no matter where you are. Maybe removal of these ambient zones is an idea, as you wont meet npcs outside of specific patrol paths, jumpholes/gates and station/planets. Patrols paths include unlawful/lawful patrols, so you would not have zero npcs on the map, but you wont meet them off in some random corner that npcs have no logical reason to visit. Ambient zones also overlap all other zones, so that may add density.
The issue of chasing is based on the AI assigned to the NPC ship. There are other AI sets to assign, and for example Gunboats have fighter sets which makes them very aggressive/mobile, and we can give them cruiser AI so they mostly sit in formation/not chase, but we cannot give fighters cruiser AI, as that would be quite weird. TLDR; Not much we can do about the chasing as is.
This is kind of what I had in mind. Complete removal would make the game rather boring. Keeping them in populated zones such as near stations and trade lanes is perfectly fine. The one system that has uber NPC spawns everywhere (Omicron Major) is probably fine as it is, just because people rarely go there to fight anyway, but you can also actually escape the NPC spawning zone. The inability to change the fighter AI to only chase for a certain distance and then return to their previous path is unfortunate, but even so, killing the three or so NPCs that you picked up crossing a patrol path is still far better than having them spawn every time you're about to fire a pulse or mortar.
(12-01-2020, 11:29 PM)Firewolfy Wrote: NPC spawns: There is a lot of talk of greatly reducing NPCs or possibly removing them from certain areas to help in the “spinning issue”. For me, I dont think that removing NPC spawns is a good thing because that ruins the immersion of the game.
As I said above, we wouldn't do complete removal, but we would make it so they don't spawn outside of existing patrol paths. This way we don't completely destroy all hopes for any immersion, but we also don't have the most irritating gameplay possible.
(12-02-2020, 01:13 AM)Relation-Ship Wrote: solaris are needed to deal with GBs and bombers. The OP VHF and smaller shield will mean they can stay as they are
I'm going to have to agree with Lemon on this one, even though a competent bomber or GB won't die to Solaris turrets anyway. If the entire point of yeeting Solaris turrets is so battleships can't dunk on fighters, then going through with the fighter shield buff, which I will discuss further on, is rather a silly idea, because hey, as many have pointed out, if a snub is near a battleship with it's shield down, it's going to get hit by any secondary turret, Solaris or not. Did I mention flaks? Mount enough flaks and you can just instakill the snub anyway.
So, fighter shields. I see a couple of issues with the implementation of them taking almost no damage from cap turrets. "da hell is wrong with you? this is a great idea!" you may be saying. I simply do not know if our terrible wonderful little balance plugin can figure out what ship type the shield in question is mounted upon, and as many of you I'm sure are aware, Pretty much every bomber in the game has the capability to use a VHF shield. Only heavy bombers (I think) can even use Freighter shields. So for this to work, we'd have to add bomber-specific shields, and take away the ability for bombers to use any kind of fighter shield whatsoever. That is, unless balancemagic can decide reliably what ship is using what shield, and if it can differentiate between player ships and NPC ships. Because let's be real. Not being able to damage NPC (mainly the strong ones; the weak NPCs use a shield that nobody will ever use so that one doesn't even need buffed) fighter shields is just... ew.