Forums » Bugs
Fix the NPC item drops.
In order to "fix" farming of high-quantity required capship parts (Synthetic Silksteel), Vendetta 1.8.199 changed NPCs so they no longer drop any cargo unless they are damaged by a player.
This has caused some problems with CtC as discussed here and throws a wrench in the works for some PCC mission ideas (Pizzasgood may want to chime in here with details...)
Just last week I had two CtC transports killed within 1000m of my ship by hive bots in an ion storm. The 36cu of cargo they had was lost because an NPC killed them instead of a player.
Instead of using an across-the-board change like this to fix an exploit in Hive Skirmishes, fix the Hive Skirmish missions so that they do not spawn NPC fighters and capships to attack the Hive robots unless a player is active in the mission group and in-sector. This will prevent people from idling for hours and hours out of range keeping the sector alive from lagging the server, since the mission will run it's course once, and the AFK player won't be there to re-take the mission.
This has caused some problems with CtC as discussed here and throws a wrench in the works for some PCC mission ideas (Pizzasgood may want to chime in here with details...)
Just last week I had two CtC transports killed within 1000m of my ship by hive bots in an ion storm. The 36cu of cargo they had was lost because an NPC killed them instead of a player.
Instead of using an across-the-board change like this to fix an exploit in Hive Skirmishes, fix the Hive Skirmish missions so that they do not spawn NPC fighters and capships to attack the Hive robots unless a player is active in the mission group and in-sector. This will prevent people from idling for hours and hours out of range keeping the sector alive from lagging the server, since the mission will run it's course once, and the AFK player won't be there to re-take the mission.
Yes, do this.
Regarding missions, the 'fix' messes up situations where you might want to have NPCs kill a ship and have that ship drop stuff, or where you might want to order the ship to self destruct and still drop its cargo - if the ships in question were originally friendly ships that the player wasn't supposed to kill, he won't have shot at them and they won't actually drop anything. Or if he's just slow or sucks and doesn't manage to land any shots before the NPCs kill it.
-1 to magic.
Regarding missions, the 'fix' messes up situations where you might want to have NPCs kill a ship and have that ship drop stuff, or where you might want to order the ship to self destruct and still drop its cargo - if the ships in question were originally friendly ships that the player wasn't supposed to kill, he won't have shot at them and they won't actually drop anything. Or if he's just slow or sucks and doesn't manage to land any shots before the NPCs kill it.
-1 to magic.
A better fix is to not allow drops unless a mission is underway
Edit: in this post I assumed you meant not to allow drops at all, even by human vs. bot. It just occurred to me that maybe you just meant bot vs. bot drops...
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No, that would be even worse than the way it is now. If I kill something, stuff should drop. Period.
Missions are an artificial construct. If I wander into a sector and discover a hive infestation, I should be able to fight and kill the bots and collect the loot, without ever taking the mission. I won't get the extra rewards that the mission offers, but I'd still get the basic XP, have lots of loot, and set the hive back a step.
Why would signing up for the mission magically let them drop things?
Arf's idea is better - it is silly that the skirmish keeps respawning over and over. Once one side or the other wins, end it. If the hive win, they should keep the sector for X amount of time, mining merrily, and then fly away. Same for the NPC team. Spawn a new skirmish elsewhere.
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No, that would be even worse than the way it is now. If I kill something, stuff should drop. Period.
Missions are an artificial construct. If I wander into a sector and discover a hive infestation, I should be able to fight and kill the bots and collect the loot, without ever taking the mission. I won't get the extra rewards that the mission offers, but I'd still get the basic XP, have lots of loot, and set the hive back a step.
Why would signing up for the mission magically let them drop things?
Arf's idea is better - it is silly that the skirmish keeps respawning over and over. Once one side or the other wins, end it. If the hive win, they should keep the sector for X amount of time, mining merrily, and then fly away. Same for the NPC team. Spawn a new skirmish elsewhere.
Hmm. We'll take a look at this. I'm not going to respond on specific solutions yet though. We'll have to look at the technical complexities of different approaches.