Oh GEEZ, Gavan. Are you going to buy me a new frickin' keyboard? I was eating dinner when I read that Wikipedia article, and snarfed pasta all over the place.

Thank you.

~D.
"Nigel"

Sarah, I am thirty-two years old. I am well aware that human beings possess far greater ranges of responses to external stimulus than any current AI. In fact, that's one of the subjects of the book I just published on coaching football at the youth level: the difference in training your players to be automatic without being robotic. I can send you a precis of the chapter if you'd like.

I understand the REASONS the pirates were programmed the way they are. IN MY OPINION, which no one has to agree with or even read if they choose not to, the pendulum is too far in the "challenge" direction when a pilot of average or even slightly above average caliber flying one of the fastest ships in the game needs four tries to get through one wormhole. SEVEN to TWELVE pirates might be a challenge. TWENTY-THREE would be excessive even if they had the same limitations on firing and movement that my ship does. Hmm... Corvus Vultarus boosting at top speed of 220mps, not firing any weapons. Behind me, a Warthog (top speed: 180mps, I believe) with a gatling turret maintaining a steady stream of fire and GAINING on me?

Sorry, add TWENTY-TWO more of those hogs. I guess I must be stupid, because when I fly a Warthog, I have to stop boosting when my BATTERY RUNS OUT. Maybe if I were a little smarter I could avoid that, eh? I've also noticed a corrolary: when I fire my weapons my battery level goes down. For some reason, and this might be a reach here, I think this means that I sometimes have to stop boosting and shooting at the same time.

Yeah, gray space is supposed to be dangerous. I don't question that. However, I think there has to be a balance. Either send a shitload of ratbots, or make them super ships with capabilities we don't have. Doing both is out of balance, IN MY OPINION.

I wouldn't have said anything if momerath hadn't invited comment with this thread, because I know he's been busting his ass for weeks to tweak the ratbots. However, he DID open a thread on the subject. Silly stupid me to think that his doing so meant that he was interested in opinions on the subject.

Jesus, if this is how people treat members of this community that have been here for a couple of weeks, in a thread that was started for the purpose of inviting comment on an aspect of the game that is in some controversy, then I'm glad I'm not discovering this game for the first time through this message board. I hope there aren't any new users reading this.

Condescension and calling people stupid. What a great game we have here! I'm proud to be a part of it!

~D.
"Nigel"

The bots have the same boosting and firing limitations as you. They're just much, much better at coordinating it to maximize their batteries. Didn't I say that few threads ago? :P

Nigel,
First, any community has it's trolls. If you start discovering any game by reading forum posts of those who doesn't care about the form of expressing their thoughts (even reasonable thoughts in this case), you will never be proud of being part of it.

Second, about "unusual limitations", let's actually look to wiki and do some math.
Vulturius's max turbo speed is 220 m/s.
http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vulture
Different Warhogs' max turbo speed is 180-220 (pay attention: warthog mkII has max turbo 220, drain 50 -- this is actually a popular ship for racers and pirates!)
http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Warthog
AGT's velocity is 180 m/s
http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Weapons:Large#Energy_Weapons
So, flying at speed 220 from projectiles which can have speed of up to 400 and being gained is not such a surprise. Any skilled player will tell you that aiming to pilot who moves at straight line is simple task. And these bots have a good aim (AI don't need a mouse, remember?).
Let's add that AGT does up to 4000 damage per second, so 1 AGTer can blast Vulturius's armor in less then 3s. If every of one 23 unbots can hit you once -- you're dead. Oh, and FC powercell's capacity/recharge is enough for infiniboosting and shooting from AGT for more then 2 seconds

Third, any unbot sector is safe to pass if you warp here after NPC convoy

Fourth, it's a bit naive to speak about "pilot of slightly above average caliber" after few weeks in game. I am not above average after 6 weeks in VO, and I doubt you are (do you realise how many pilots spend *years* in this game? of course the term "average" will shift Soon(tm) when the game will be more advertised and there will be a lot of new pilots)

Nigel's example of a Corvus Vulturius being chased by the Pirate Bot Warthogs works out like so:

Player: Corvus Vulturius, probably with a Fast Charge Powercell.
Max Turbo Speed: 220 m/s
Turbo Drain: 60/s

Pirate Bots: Warthog Territorial Defender with Heavy Powercell.
Max Turbo Speed: 220 m/s
Turbo Drain: 60/s

The bots in this case tend to win in a chase because they have more than 2x the battery capacity and large enough numbers to stay within AGT range and fire enough rounds to kill their target before they run out of power. A single TD hog with AGT and Sunflares couldn't pull off the same feat (a direct chase)

A trader shouldn't be having any trouble with the bots unless they're in a moth. Get a Centaur, get an FC battery, get some Proximity mines. Point ship at wormhole. Go go go. Distribute mines as seems appropriate. Win. This also works well against most player pirates.

The new pirates are not really comparable to the current unbots: They're corvus aligned and therefore aren't universally aggressive. They now mostly fly vulturiuses rather than vult4s, warthogs and cents. They don't all jump on you at once. If any are available when you jump into a corvus-guarded wormhole sector, one is assigned to follow you. If you don't pay or drop the required amount, that follower will attack and follow you from sector to sector for up to 5 minutes. If you go into another guarded sector, you will have another attacker assigned. The numbers of initial and additional pursuers can be adjusted, and, at least in the long run, I intend to make it adjust to player ability: one who successfully escapes 5 pirates might be given 6 right away the next time; one who failed to escape once there were 2, might be seen as not worth sending more than one; and one who has blown up every bot sent after them, might be written off as too expensive. So... all this discussion of bot difficulty, numbers at wormholes, and chase-speeds is off-topic, to say nothing of the little flamewar.

Miharu was actually the only one to post something useful to me in the thread. I'm very interested in why her money wasn't accepted; it always works for me. Also, yes, the pirates need to be prevented from following you into a non-corvus station sector, and, also, perhaps, beyond some established border apart from what is implied by the 5-minutes-from-the-first-attacker chase timeout.

Well, did I actually need to stop moving in the trade ship?

They accepted my money when I flew through (again) in a Warthog. The first time I was in an Axia Wraith.

Just kill em all.
They're bots!

I agree with Kix. they're not so hard. If you REALLY want to go thru the wormhole and can't clear 'em out, take a convoy mission that goes thru that WH, wait unti the convoy reaches the WH sector, then sneak by the unbots when they're trying to get to the convoy you spawned.

But I usually don't have too much trouble with the unbots. If I don't want to fight them, I don't. Hell, I got away from them in a Centaur Mk. I the other day without dropping a single mine. Just don't lollygag around when you enter a sector. Immediately make your run in the opposite direction that you warped in from. (i.e. turn 180 and FLEE!)

I'll test out the new bot pirates in a little bit.

My problem was not our running them but when i enter the WH they kill me while i jump.