NPCs kinda suck

[boxcartenant]

Hi all!

I'm back in the game

So.... I was playing with a friend today, and we both started with new characters just for fun. We decided to start by buying and selling commodities, and we had to travel to a nearby system as part of our trade rout.

When we got to the new system, we were immediately attacked by hostile NPCs. At first it was exciting; we flew back and forth dodging bullets. It didn't take long to notice that we weren't doing much damage to the enemies with our starting weapons. That's no problem -- we can trade until we have better weapons -- but then we got hit a couple times and noticed that the enemies weren't doing any damage to us either.

That was the starting ship. There shouldn't be any enemies so weak that they can't even damage the starting ship; and if their offense is that weak, then why is their defense so strong?

Now, I know that many of the RP rules are intended to cater to wimpy, fight-scared gamers, but it's like the NPCs are intended to be just background objects. Does this lack of danger subtract from anyone else's game experience, or just mine?

Is this game a space trading game, or is it just a trading game? If I wanted a "just trading" game, there are plenty of alternatives. If I wanted just the pretty space view, I have plenty of alternatives. But if I want a a "space trading game", then I have to realize that space is a frontier full of pirates. It's a dangerous place, even (and especially) the freelancer universe. Weak fight-scared Freelancer doesn't do the game justice. In the words of Q (TNG):

"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, but it's not for the timid."

ETA: Before someone points out that I can be killed by other players, I want to point out that the universe is huge, and there's usually less than 100 people out there. You have to admit, it would feel pretty empty without NPCs. But to be honest, I'd prefer that they didn't exist than that they sucked so bad. Also, the RP rules basically say that people have to ask my permission to fight me.

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Kill a whale; save a giant squid.