OK. Been away from the game for a while... When I started playing again, I decided
to "re-activate" an old character. With that character, I've reached Level 3 in a few
catagories, and am now supposed to kill Apu-Tek 5s. I'm flying a good, light, fast
ship (Vulture Mk III) with a heavy battery and I can't catch them. At all. Ever. How
are we supposed to kill 'em if we can't catch 'em? Even more interesting is the fact
that I can't catch 'em BUT I can out-run them. What the heck kind of sense does that make???? I'm not making this up. I tested it for more than half an hour. They
can't be caught but they can be out-run. What's with that???

Interesting. I am on the same combat mission. I havent tried to chase them yet. I generaly just sit off to the side and they come to me, but I will have to give that a try.

So you can pass them but not catch them? Or you mean when they chase you you can get away but you can't catch them. Skills?

Yeah, I've noticed this too. In 'combat' mode bots go slow, in 'Just going about my business' mode they can really zip around.

Yep, sometimes it's even really hard to get 'em to attack you. They're zipping all over the place and unless you manage to get a lucky shot in there's no way to catch 'em...

i killed some at level 3.

they are easier than tycorp assault.

at level 4 i managed tycorp assault fine.

combat is difficult that's why it's fun.
if you work on it you will raise your skill.
do not make it too easy.

Personally I think the Tycorp assault is easyer, but the point is not that Apu-Tek 5s are hard to kill.
The point is that Apu-Tek 5s that do not actively attack you, are impossible to catch. Untill an Apu-Tek 5 goes into attack mode, it zips all over the astroid field faster then you can.

I'd say it's a balance thing. The Devs don't want you to be able to fight a peaceful(at least, for that moment) target, they want you to fight with a target that is fighting you.

That's cool, if there actually is something fighting you. But if you're in an astroid field with only Apu-Tek 5s and they are all ignoring you it gets annoying really fast...

c'mon, old man...pick a turn spot and wait for one to come to you. ;-)

C'mon indeed RelayeR. You missed the point: "They can't be caught, but they can
be outrun." That was the point of my post.

I'd like to see reasonable speeds from the bots at all times, if that's not currently the case... what's the worst that can happen if they all move slowly?

I mean, one could attack a bunch of bots at once, but then one has a huge pack of bots chasing them. Some people(like me) actually LIKE being chased by 10 bots or so. Makes combat interesting.

I recently fought an Apu-Tek, and I now agree with Rattmann, it was impossible to catch, I only fought one because it found me.

BTW stats at the time: 0/1/0/1/0; Ship: Wraith; Weapons: Plasma Cannon MKIII, Ion Blaster, Stingray Homing Missile Launcher; Result: Victory with 16% hull left. It took me about 5-10 minutes.

I just botted them today (in a hornet - HORNETS RULE!!!) and if I sat in a bunch of them, 1 would come out and attack me. so I just killed that one, waited, another one came, repeat.

Actually, when they move normally they use the turbo, stop and recharge, and continue. You need a fairly good battery to out-run them

..and thats why everyone loves that heavy battery. Takes awile for it to recharge but hey you'll be long gone by the time you need to recharge

Umm.... in a Vult with F/C infiniturbo I can't catch them - and the distance to target increases rapidly, even when I'm going 200. So if all they're doing is turboing... I want their engine!

Last time I was on I was fighting aputech 5s because TyCorps always gang up on me. Besides that, I haven't really had problems getting them to fight me, or running away when I need to. In terms of difficulty they are quite a big jump from the Artemis collectors though, which is rough on new players. There were at least a few days there when the advanced combat didn't even include the Aputech 5s, but they fixed that.

Beolach: while you could follow them and try to attack, they accelerate pretty quickly, so unless you're in a light ship, you'll have a tough time if you just follow them around.

What you do is you follow them until they stop and change directions, and then you pick a new path that will either intercept them with pretty high deflection or cross in front of them. When you get close, you start firing and when your first shot lands, the bot stops flying around and gets aggressive.

In all my experiences botting Aputech-5's, I would find a sector with only Aputech's and jump into in. There would be number of bots whizzing around doing their thing, which were generally too fast to be caught. However upon closing on the asteroid field, I would always notice a pair of red dots on the radar, getting brighter and brighter. It seemed that on entering the sector, two bots are triggered to attack the player. Once you have killed these two bots (and I usually find myself well beyond the 3k radius), I could simply fly towards the 'centre' of the system again, until another two bots were triggered. Try finding one of these Aputech only sectors, and tell us whether your experience changes...