NPCs are damn too strong.

[AeternusDoleo]

Cap patrols should only exist in 2 areas:
- Around well guarded bases and capital planets, and no more then 8 KM from said base or planet (usually a sphere centered on the base is set).
- Warzones. Which Leeds is one of. Yea, you run a transport through there and get blown to pieces, that should be no surprise. That said I'll doublecheck why there's battleships spawning near that jumphole... there should be at most gunboats in areas covered by nebulas. Unless that was Curios exhagerrating again.

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Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.

[Curios]

Simpler to disable them entirely then. Shall we do that instead? Not a whole lot of work to repeatedly press delete. Yes, that was sarcasm.

Actually, I'd buy it, lol

Cap patrols should only exist in 2 areas:
- Around well guarded bases and capital planets, and no more then 8 KM from said base or planet (usually a sphere centered on the base is set).
- Warzones. Which Leeds is one of. Yea, you run a transport through there and get blown to pieces, that should be no surprise. That said I'll doublecheck why there's battleships spawning near that jumphole... there should be at most gunboats in areas covered by nebulas. Unless that was Curios exhagerrating again.

I'm never exaggerating. Funny enough that there is no other way around to ship artifacts to their sale location then through the warzones. Awesome, thanks a lot then if it's not a bug but intended feature.

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[Sarawr!?]

Before you read the whole text, remember this is coming from a guy who spends 80% of his disco time playing on the lawful side.


Over the last two weeks I tested unlawful gameplay in all Sirian Houses, and I can say this: it's horrible to play as pirate. Lawful NPC patrols are everywhere, and they're strong, stronger than in the previous version. While they already were nerfed, so group of few hostile NPCs can't deshield cruiser in no time anymore, they're still too strong.

What's the point of logging lawful ships and patrolling, what's the point of hiring Bunters by miners, if lawful NPCs provide constant, ever-spawning protection? Do the NPCs really need shieldbusters, strong mines and missiles?

I want to play with other players, not with NPCs, here's my (will be too drastic for some, I know) proposal - nerf NPC guns to level 1. They should have no impact on player-player interaction; should be mere decoration so the available world doesn't look "empty", but nothing more than that. Removing trade lines' defences is pointless if NPC patrol is able to deal far more damage than any trade line turret could ever do.


In my opinion current NPC level makes playing as a pirate nearly impossible. It disrupts traditional trader->pirate->navy food chain, removes antagonist element from it. An unplayable for the unlawfuls mod is a dead mod.

Completely and whole heartedly agree. As I've said before it's not a PvE server. Challenging NPCs should be kept to places they're actually needed.

I completely agree with the sentiments of both quoted posts above.

As some of you might know, I recently started a Blood Dragon group, those are Kusari unlawfuls, for those of you who don't know.

Now, after playing solely lawful or neutral characters for quite a long long loooong time, I was fairly, and unpleasantly surprised, at just how powerful and ever present, lawful NPC patrols were.

I really do not think that they need player weapon loadouts, it's crazy.

I was in full cruise the other night, when a Kusari Naval Capship patrol spawned in front of me, and nearly killed me, instantly, while I was in cruise....am I the only one who thinks that isn't right?

NPCs are a part of the background, a part of the environment, something to make people go "Cool, this seems alive", not "Oh god oh god NPC patrol, WHAT THE FFFFFFF-"

Bases guns and Jump gate guns are already powerful enough to quite frankly irritate people, adding NPC patrols armed with player loadouts is just, infuriating.


So yes, this is something that I think needs to be changed.

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[LN] Recruitment | Rachel Baker Bio

[bloogaL]

NPCs as weak as players are asking really have no point to exist. Simpler to disable them entirely then. Shall we do that instead? Not a whole lot of work to repeatedly press delete. Yes, that was sarcasm.

I'd be fine with that, but I imagine a lot of people would want them there for atmosphere so things don't feel so empty. The thing is, we play on a multiplayer server designed entirely around players interacting with eachother, as opposed to SP where you can go PvE all you like. NPCs interfering with that player interaction is a bad thing, and it's been brought up over and over, yet for .87 you decided to buff most NPCs as far as I can tell.

[Highland Laddie]

Couldn't you just lower the player threshhold down from when the server lowers npc spawns? I think it's like 130 players at present. What if you dropped it down to 100 or so?

Maybe it doesn't fix the npcs, themselves, but it lessens the probability of you running into them as long as there are people on the server.

[Curios]

Couldn't you just lower the player threshhold down from when the server lowers npc spawns? I think it's like 130 players at present. What if you dropped it down to 100 or so?

Maybe it doesn't fix the npcs, themselves, but it lessens the probability of you running into them as long as there are people on the server.

Maybe stight down to 50 then, heh

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[bloogaL]

Couldn't you just lower the player threshhold down from when the server lowers npc spawns? I think it's like 130 players at present. What if you dropped it down to 100 or so?

Maybe it doesn't fix the npcs, themselves, but it lessens the probability of you running into them as long as there are people on the server.

Because that leaves people playing at low server population times to still take the full punishment from current NPCs, and still doesn't properly fix things for those playing at peak times anyway.

[Durandal]

Lowering the NPCs based on a lower playercount might be a nice hotfix, but the only proper way to do it is to tone their guns down across the board, as well as eliminate some of the crazy cap spawns in certain places.

[Vrabcek]

Over the last two weeks I tested unlawful gameplay in all Sirian Houses, and I can say this: it's horrible to play as pirate.

Now imagine how factions hostile to whole sirius feel like : ))

Yes, NPCs are strong, not to mention the fact that full EMP bombers are having a hard time too, because snacing npcs isnt really that much fun as it might sound like.

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[Syrus]

I like NPCs. They add something to the game, make it livelier, even if few people are around.
But as others have already stated, it is just annoying when they shred away your shield and hull and blow you to pieces in seconds. That's just not why people play the multiplayer. Sure, I'm fine with having them a little more damaging than they were in Liberty back in vanilla FL...But they shouldn't make RP impossible, whenever there's a hostile patrol around.

Also, there shouldn't be any NPCs in the mining fields. People sitting there a long time can cause a lot of loot to pile up and all...not to mention just being annoying. Those fields which didn't have them normally were nice places to RP a bit without too much trouble from annoying flies. Flies which nowadays shoot lasers from their eyes and crap lightning.

Overall I also suggest not giving NPCs bots....

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