Ummm... Yeah... This is even more interesting than them issuing. They seem to be smashing into and killing each other. Shouldn't this be impossible, given that friendly fire is on?

Friendly fire doesn't apply to bots, for whatever reason. This definitely isn't new, although it's exaggerated with the new stations since the bots tend to follow each other very very closely, and then run into one another.

And they shoot each other. If the one in back rams the one in front, the one in front turns around and blasts the one in back to little bits. However, the one in back shoots too. So they all die!

What? The defense bots do that? That's like, impossible!

My theory on their running into one another is that they get close to each other, then as they get into a sharp curve, their wings interlock, and viola! you have two dead defbots.

Well it doesn't help to make the NPCDEFs the easiest ship to issue in the game. They're practically made outta glass with the wing bug. Aside from turning friendly fire off for the NPCDEFs, the collision code is just messed up.

They shoot each other a1k0n. I've seen it.

I should go watch that...

I've never seen them shoot eachother intentionally... generally they are shooting at something else and don't realise that there are 4 others between them and their target.

Sometimes, when a DEFbot hits another DEFbot, the 2nd defbot will get mad and shoot back. It happens.