PS: lol

It seems that the simplest way forward would be to create a separate AI behavior from "Defend" that ignores collision damage. Replace all instances of "Defend" in the removed missions with this new behavior, and re-implement. Call it "Defend from weapons fire" or something to that effect. Do this, and you've taken away convoy farming, and the NFZ exploit (the fact that these missions in particular have NPCs which can ignore the NFZ doesn't change that all NPCs everywhere can ignore it also). The Furies and squad will still be able to engage within the NFZ (just like the convoys, for that matter), but players will not be able to initiate their action unless the player him/herself has been shot at.

If at some point the devs are able to forward the consequences of NPCs actions to their captain/owner, then their offensive initiative could be added back in a less tangential way. To me, this seems like a subsequent goal, but not something that has to happen for these missions to work.

Because you asked, you didn't get all the missions related to the squad/Furies. There are several lead-up missions that set players' expectations that they will be given a pet bot / squad for hire for their efforts. On the Furies' end, the missions are "Spice Run", "Axia Must Die", " Uplink Surgery", and "Robot Manufacture" (4 instances of this last mission). The Orion missions aren't my tree, but I believe there are several lead-up missions also.

I'm sad to see these go.

Honestly, I think removing these is the worst possible way of addressing the issue, and nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to some loud minority of players who're complaining about it. Both the Furies and Squadrons have a large cost to the attacking player and logistical limits to how they can be deployed.

For Furies, you get 3 of them and have to build more if they die. They're stupid bots and die easily. That means flying all the way back to Verasi to make more if someone kills them. They completely ignore their own well-being and will be wiped out by hive bots if not micro-managed.

For the squadrons, they're limited to once per-day per-player and cost a LOT (millions) if lost. They have the same lack of self-preservation as the furies do.

I've had my Trident attacked dozens of times by both furies and rent-a-squads. They're not that hard to deal with.

- If you kill the owning player, they go away.
- If you kill them, they go away. (There's NO CONSEQUENCE for killing furies outside of Valent station sectors.)
- If they're attacking your unmanned Trident, they're trivially easy to kill because they will ignore you to keep shooting it.
- If they're attacking you and you undock, they stop shooting your Trident.

The real issue is like Phaserlight pointed out:
NPCs ignore the NFZ.

This was great game content that will missed sorely.

Indeed, priority must be put on reworking the code for them to only respond to their owner being damaged by a weapon of some sort.

This could be as easy as making them attack once you've received X amount of damage from the same person in Y amount of milliseconds or whatever. This way the code for taking damage wouldn't have to be modified at all. Just add a quick check that the damage taken from a particular person exceeds a certain amount and then have the furies or squad attack. Some correct me if my logic is wrong?

I understand that removing them was the most time effective move, but the furies were the basis of MANY MANY MANY player interactions, as they are a commonly sold, commonly built, and commonly discussed item in the game. They gave new and old players a great toy.

I had not seen ARFs post, but I still hold the opinion of all that not being necessary to get them back in the game.

Changing how NPCs behave in NFZs is a can of worms that I don't think GS can open at the moment, but we need furies back in the game as soon as possible.

I think an easier solution is in order for the time being until they can get around to figuring out a smart way to penalize NPCs in the NFZ.

Honestly, I think we can put them back in the game the way they were. They aren't so impossible to deal with in-game that this sort of thing requires dev intervention.

Do I need to run a Trident Combat Clinic this weekend or something to get all of the carebear overload-exploiting cry-to-mommy types up to speed on how to deal with attacks against their capships?

Can you comment on my suggestion to the furies, ARF?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on that implementation.

1) I agree that removing them was more of a knee jerk reaction, and I would like them back in the game as well. Having them fully removed, despite my anger at the start of this thread was never my intention. My anger was due to something else that I have addressed in another post in this thread. I want them fixed, not taken away.

2) I still maintain that the primary issue is that they allow the owner to bypass the faction penalty system, not the nfz.

3) While I question whether they are overpowered, I think it's pretty cool that they can rip apart a trident in no time at all. I think that this is something that players and GS should consider, but not necessarily act on.

4) Yes, they are easy enough to deal with if you are aware that they are there and not in the nfz, the several times I have died to them have been my own fault for not looking at anything but the players in the sector. The couple of times I've lost a trident has been while unloading or loading in a nfz.

Edit:
5) Heck, just eliminating furies attacking due to the owner bumping or being bumped would solve a lot of the problem as it is currently occurs.

Wake the fuck up people. These were taken away because it was the easiest solution to address an ongoing exploit abuse situation. Nobody wants them to be removed permanently. Incarnate didn't say he would never bring them back. He needs to focus on other things, and since players can't stop exploiting them in game, this was the correct solution for the time being.

It should come as NO SURPRISE that they were taken away. Even if you don't think it was an exploit, Incarnate has overrulled your opinion. Deal with it and move the fuck on. I'm sure furies and the squadron will be back someday when he has had time to address the faction issue.

it's absolutely fabulous we have greenwall/avataros to provide us with his analysis on what Incarnate actually thinks, says and does.

Very interesting wally, please continue.

While I don't agree that removing them was actually necessary (see Arf's comment), I do agree with avataros's assessment of the situation.

Anyway, they're just dumb bots. Not the end of the world for them to be temporarily unavailable. I've never used them at all. When I want to kill somebody without faction penalty, I just kill them until I'm KOS, and then I can kill them without penalty from then on.

I think avataros is just annoyed with the continued protest of the decision.

Productively discussing how to address the outstanding problem of faction penalty skirting/abuse is of course worthwhile (but better done in a suggestion post and not one called "bullshit"). Saying "it wasn't really a problem" is simply inflammatory and non-productive.

The core of the issue is two fold:


-not getting a penalty for a unprovoked kill enacted by NPCs on your behalf
-not being able to defend yourself in an NFZ against these bots without being penalized


Perpetrators of the abuse say they would have no problem getting a penalty, and victims want to be able to defend themselves without getting a penalty (in the same way they can against normal players).

It's clearly possible to assign an NPC kill to a player (it happens when NPC player-owned tridents explode and kill people). It's probably not easy, but it's possible. Just transfer this same mechanic to furies and squadrons.

Now all that's left is allowing a player to defend themselves without penalty if they are attacked unprovked by NPCs in the NFZ. Collision can not count as provocation... it's simply not possible ascertain who bumped who. But collision is currently the only way we can direct the bots to attack a target that isn't actually attacking us <-- this is a feature that is important to have. This is a bit more complex of a problem.

Furies and squadrons should be able to used to kill unprovoked targets in the NFZ and elsewhere, but the same rules for player to player combat needs to apply regarding penalties.

I still cannot post in general! So you will have to do without my insightful bullshit!

YEAH SHEEPLE!