PETITION: Nerf NPCs

[mjolnir]

[*]The GRN at... literally everywhere. Specifically, the GRN beating the crap out of unlawful bases. These guys are like the BHG, but with bombers that have infinite powerplants.

This is much more a system feedback thing, so post it in there so that the system designer who did them can change it.

[*]NPC capital ships spamming Razors like there's no tomorrow. And considering their powerplant, there really isn't.

Get admin shield park one patrol and do the count. You will be rather surprised how seldom they fire guns. If you do the math and count it out, they do about the same damage as player capship. Except that they hold formation/distance. So they are easy to evade if you choose to.

All patrols have "weak" points in their loadouts, with exploiting them properly it's quite easy to kill them, unless off course you try it in a lone GB. A lone bomber with SN + nova can kill cruiser patrols without ever loosing shield for example. Getting some 800k in a few mins.

[*]Omicron Eta. I'm aware you think it's balanced, but seriously, nobody cares about the numbers on paper if they don't work out ingame. I'm well aware of the huge amount of very deadly Titans when I'm in there on my Outcast or my Corsair. Eppy's right, we did have this discussion last version and except for you, I believe it was unanimously agreed in every thread that the Corsair NPCs needed a serious nerf, especially the ones right outside the Alpha JH and Palermo, which are practically suicide for anything bigger than a VHF. You know something is serious when Dab, Eppy, Joe and McNeo all have the same opinion.

I said that Corsair vs Outcast "standard" group is balanced. How and where they spawn is a matter of system design. The people you mentioned were talking about places where they spawn not about how "powerful" they are. Again this is a matter of system design and feedback should be dericted that way - which all those 4 you mentioned have tons of room for and they also had the opportunity to express it since august.
The problem I can see there is that NPCs sometimes "overfill" the available slots. How it works - same OC vs Corsair groups fight... then during the fight one side gets "reinforcement".. which makes it win. So lets say there are now 6 Corsair NPCs. Now if the new single OC patrol comes, it will probably get killed. If a single Corsair patrol comes...it will reinforce the "overkilling" NPC side. This goes on until all NPC slots (say 12) are "filled" only by one side.
As I said I'm no system designer but maybe this can be countered by selecting some maximum number for each side independently.



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The general consensus among people here seems to be that lawful forces do not patrol in asteroid fields/nebulas/etc. Well, according to NPC patrol paths, they do. One can find RFP patrols (that's the police, not the military) in all the asteroid fields in New Berlin, wings of KNF dragons flying through the nebula surrounding the research station in Honshu (outside of the mined area mind you, and even spawning in Chugoku, itself. LN patrols roam the scrap fields in New York, flights of Crusaders meander through the Leeds smog clouds. If you intend for one moment to tell me that the locations of any of these patrols is "correct", I am baffled as to how pirate organisations survive.

Check the patrol paths a bit more carefully, yes they are inside nebulas and asteroid fields, but they don't head to enemy bases.. except for BHG.

Now the patrols paths were made by vanilla freelancer developers. :shok: So yes I do intend forever to tell you that they are "correct" according to vanilla freelancer developers. The same developers that btw made it rather very hard for someone hostile to OCs survive in Alpha in vanilla.


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In addition to Sov's list: Don't forget Omicron 47, its a warzone and seems just as out of whack as Eta.

What exactly is out of whack there?
From what I saw Corsair npcs win close to Fes.. while hessian ones win close to Casablanca.

Also, can we do anything about the Kusari traders? Everywhere I go, NPC battleships (stationary and not) open up on my Bowex trader because I happen to be hostile to the random Kishiro or Samura NPC...I imagine, with the Rhienland/Liberty war, either side will be getting this problem in the two neutral houses, such as I have since 83..come 85, this is a huge problem, because when a cruiser patrol opens fire on one's train out of the blue...Well. You can imagine.

The way I understand that (and the way it works for my KNF ships/traders) if you are hostile to say Bowex NPCs in Liberty and Green to Liberty lawful bases, they won't turn hostile. But neutral bases will turn hostile and can in turn influence the green ones.
There's no really easy fix against this unless messing with a ton of things. So maybe don't be hostile to them on your Bowex? Yes you should be hostile to KNF/KSP, but there's nothing forcing you to be hostile to trading companies afaik.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.