I fought a few of them and many other players have also, I understand this is a form of NPC pirate "test" but don't you think that this "test" is a bit of an overkill lol? like the huge cluster of raptors is quite hard to kill in one go without being ready with an suicide Avalon and/or TU. also it seems that it has affected all of the warthogs in the game, the strike force hogs wont fire at you beside staring into your eyes before you make them see plasma and a their broken hull, same applies to those said NPC pirates, I haven't seen convoys warthogs(unless they are not a thing). also I understand that hiding in an ion storm is a good tactic and all and I am not complaining there, my issue is the I8 storm ( and any other manufacturing- conquerable- station), the NPC pirates just camp there so oddly and the station DOESN'T even FIRE on them like wtf do they have a key or something? I went scouting just now to latos I-8 station in a greyhound going slow at 10m/s and nothing popped up, I got to the warp area to go back to latos N-2 and brought my XC with items for manufacturing but nope right when I warp in I was shot dead in less than 5 seconds like wtf. so yah that was my little rant. make stations fire at these NPC pirates, fix the warthogs and lastly make them in smaller clusters, like come on 30 NPC ships swarming at in at higher speed abnormal for their ship then insta ganking you is sorta ridicules in my view, also I was told by a player they used to give you an option to drop some(?) cargo of yours or pay money, can you add that when ever you guys get the chance. thanks for the read and uber ranting.

Firstly, that wall of text is painful to read. Would it kill you to format it into paragraphs and use capitals at the start of sentences and such?

Secondly, regarding the lethality of the NPC rats, I for one think they are AWESOME. We should not be able to pwn everything that crosses our path. I can kill 6-10 of them before needing to rep, but the fact that I have to rep is great, IMO. I can farm other bots at will for ages, with only skirmishes offering mild danger. They are the only NPC "threat" to me, and others of similar skill, and I welcome the threat they pose.

Just because they out-class you doesn't mean they need a nerf. It means you need to get better, or smarter (perhaps engage an ally to scout ahead and occupy them before you jump your unarmed and helpless trade barge into a dangerous sector?).

I suspect someone broke the warthogs with the recent ship release. We'll check into that this coming week.

Obviously we're going to make them more wholly functional, when it comes to being noticed by conquerable turrets (and also in terms of conquering and defending the stations themselves. Have fun with that!).

No, I don't consider them overpowered. Basically.. what Faille says.

Also: Grayspace is dangerous. It will become more-so.

No, I don't consider it overkill; it was quite carefully metered, and I considered it interesting. Latos was thoroughly invaded (and one sector in Pelatus). That's it. Invasions are not going to happen constantly, but when they do, stuff gets real.

I created an unexpected challenge, and frankly I thought the playerbase did a good job of rising to that challenge.

As you say, this was just a test, and a pretty informal one at that, with no real AI changes. But, I'm firmly marching in the direction of what I consider to be More Interesting, and it definitely involves some crazy stuff happening in Grayspace from time to time, and some dramatic risk.. no matter what ship (or capital ship) you may happen to fly.

I'm just upset that I didn't get to see this madness. Nice work man! Keep it up!

@Faille Corvelle, sorry that I written a rant in two am in the morning just so i know I won't forget.

Also my main complain was the ion manufactory station where the station doesn't attack them, we don't all own dents, also my reason of over poweredness i meant is with their abnormal speed, a tpg raptor catches up with my hound like it was the same ship hell it could even pass me if it wanted for all I know, also I hate nerfs also and it just felt to me that seeing three clusters of 30ships(90npcs) in one sector that can catch up to you faster than a hound is overpowered, well aware this is a test and that was maybe a slight error?

I managed to figure out how to wipe them out pretty easily, costs me a ship or two, but they go boom just fine.

Now to see what happens when I only kill the raptors and leave the currently non functional hogs.

I'm hoping they will keep sending reinforcement waves with more hogs, till I've created a sector with dozens of WTDs that just follow you about pointlessly, as it will confuse the hell out of noobs.

Oh yea I should mention, one thing that does seem legitimately broken as well. They attacked the orion station in latos, but did not cause a strike force response. The strike force should react pretty severly when there are 2 dozen ships blasting all the convoys I kept sending to their doom.

They attacked the orion station in latos, but did not cause a strike force response.

Hmm. That's strange. They were fighting strike forces in other locations. We'll check it out.

also my reason of over poweredness i meant is with their abnormal speed, a tpg raptor catches up with my hound like it was the same ship hell it could even pass me if it wanted for all I know

All the Raptors spawned yesterday have the same Turbo top speed, Turbo energy usage, and Turbo thrust constant as every Strike Force, Marshal, Station Guard, and Capship Escort have had for.. years.

it just felt to me that seeing three clusters of 30ships(90npcs) in one sector that can catch up to you faster than a hound is overpowered, well aware this is a test and that was maybe a slight error?

No, this was not an error. Grayspace is dangerous, you may die, and there's a very good chance you're going to have to evolve your tactics and expectations over the coming months.

Also, the most Raptors we had that were combat engaged last night was about ~45 in one sector (Latos H2). There was a one-time peak of 30 in most other sectors, with less in a few. There were transient periods when bots were going places (like going through Sedina B8 or Latos O-12 on their way to other locations), when you might have seen 90 bots, but they were not aggro yet at that point, they were only interested in reaching their respective destination sectors.

But, I'm certainly not ruling out the possibility of future situations with 90 bots.. or more, if we found a way to not overwhelm too many people with the bandwidth lag. Enabling battles and conflicts of scale (PC or NPC) is exactly why we've been doing a lot of the work that we have.. for years. Situations are going to get more challenging, there will be new rewards with higher risks, I think this is all a good thing. I'm burning the CPU-cycles on the server to control large numbers of bots, and the dev-time to deliver it, so clearly I think it's worthwhile.

I’m sure the bots vector better than the average player giving the illusion they are going faster than they are.

They are a bit faster, as Strike Forces and Station Guards and such have been for years. But, they have an awful lot of disadvantages to overcome versus a decent human pilot.

In small numbers, people take them out pretty quickly. It's only en masse that they started to be a bigger challenge to groups of veteran players.

Ss, stop turboing around; if you backstrafe they are a bit easier to avoid. Also, just send some poor escort through beforehand or something, to grab or divide their attention.

@luxen, like there's a convoy that gets sended to latos I-8, also I didn't turbo around I legit just turbo straight and was surprised that they can catch a hound like its nothing, I don't attack/get attacked by the strike force a lot (only two times in fact, very short living ones) so that's why I didn't understand the turbo of theirs.

Unrats are back?! or was this just a manual /kbot thing

I took a trip to I-8 last night while the raptor swarm (and storm) were present. I flew in in a Hog2, and let them chase me around a bit to get the feel for them. They didn't seem "super fast" to me, though they were faster than I expected. As for getting out in an XC with a pair of cap-rails onboard, I merely asked for someone to come distract them while I out-jumped. With the storm there, this was a pretty risk free method of getting 1M creds worth of weaponry out of I-8. My dent was not involved, or required.

When you face an obstacle, try to find alternate tactics to overcome it before calling for the nerf-bat. We players have the HUGE advantage of sentience going for us. Don't let it go to waste. It's much more fun to overcome an obstacle than to simply have it removed.

@faille, I am sorry but I hardly doubt the players that was on that day would help, i.e wash, yes he would distract, then after manu and warp he pop me. a broad example but still, valid in my opinion.

and by players I mean pirates that are to busy doing their own thing.

Actually, during much of the time when the NPC pirates were active in Latos, players from opposing guilds and other situations were all combining forces to take on the common enemy. It's possible that someone would have "pretended" to help you, and then killed you.. that's a risk. But at that particular time, I think you might have been at much less of a risk of that than most.

At any rate, in answer to your original question about whether the NPCs were overpowered, or undesirable, the answer is "no". So, whether you believe someone would help you or not.. you have to figure out some way to evolve your tactics. As Faille and Luxen and LNH have all pointed out, it's possible to do.

Expect challenges that are more difficult, and require greater adaptation.

"Actually, during much of the time when the NPC pirates were active in Latos, players from opposing guilds and other situations were all combining forces to take on the common enemy."

How dishonourable. All proper Serco warriors would never collaborate with the disgusting Itani to kill a mere pirate.

How dare you suggest otherwise, you filthy smurf.

DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR!

DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR!

But, those words are dishonour to the Serco nation. I had no idea you couldn’t keep your mouths shut about your beliefs.

the SKV people also say that: "Død før vanære!". I spot a conspiracy. also did a player just call a inc " you filthy smurf." lmao that's cockiness at their finest.

(and for the players than never saw inc in game he has a blue char)

I love it! More things to blast! Hahahahahahahaha >:D