As I turboed through s4 today in a Valk, a single defbot sniped me. It brought my health down to 30% with what seemed to be a single shot. It happened just as I turboed past, going about 180 m/s. I didn't see any other shots hit me or hear any, and my health drop was instantaneous. I didn't think anything of it the first time.

Then it happened again. And again.

Whenever I turbo past a bot, passing within say 300m, it fires its stream. I only see or hear one shot hit me, but my health instantly drops to 30%. Has anyone else experienced something like this?

I had this happen to me in 6!! I thought it was some bug. I was cruisin in a valk with a medium/fast shooting up players, when in one instant my health was down below 30%. A split second later, some valk (sadistic father, for those who keep track of these things) got a lucky shot with tri-gauss and killed me. It was odd. One moment I was at 100%, the next, I was dead.

Yes, that happened to me too. Single shot, just a soft hit, almost dead... pretty good defbot.

It happens to me during fights too. It seems like my vult is being killed with just one or two dual gauss shots. I don't remember the Gauss being that good. Once, I even killed a Valk with only 5 Gauss hits. Gauss does 1200 damage and the valk has 10,000 health. 5 Gauss should only be 6000 damage. But it blew up. Funny things are going on with the health here.

Gold 6. I was cruising 3 and one hit took me to 29%.

In 17, we have a sniper Furie. One ion killed me when I was at 49%.

In 18, the Furies are all messed up. Each shot does 4400 damage (I calculated it with my exploding busses). That's really, really weird, but true.

Again, I was in 1, had killed a couple of bots, and was 69% in my valk (6900 health) when one shot from Blue 6 killed me.

CTF was the only team-oriented venture there was. Now it's ridiculously impossible. The NPCDEF's give players no chance and force us into exploiting them to death. Again, if their weapons and engines weren't so über, it'd be more fair and fun. I guess it's back to shooting everyone in sight and hoping enough Itani gang up on me to make things worthwhile.

*raises glass* "Here's to hoping CTF comes back."

I think I have an explanation - speed effects the damage a weapon causes. I.e. if a weapon does 1500 standing damage, at 200m/s it will do double. Not exact figures, mind you, but I was sniping bots with a single gauss yesterday while turboing past them... lots of single hit kills.

I remember hearing recently about some NPCDEFs going a little bit too fast for the ship they were in... ;)

In sc18, I wasn't moving when I did my bus tests. I let them hit me, recorded the % and calculated from there. They were barely moving too, since they slow down when they attack. it's just uberified.

I did some preliminary tests with a gauss.

The damage appears to be an inverse relationship with the damage. At 0m/s, a gauss cannon does 3570 damage to a vulture. At 150m/s, the same gauss cannon dies 2040 damage to the same vulture. I'll make a pretty graph sooner or later.

Damage / Damage = 1

I think you meant that as speed increased damage decreases using gauss.

I think with the NPCDEF, it's the other way around. Everytime the def do their super-massive damage trick, I'm turboing past them.

The tachy si the same way as the gauss.

I would test with the frigate gun, but I'm having trouble making the NPCDEF's go 0. :P

I killed a vulture with two tach shots. I killed a bus three times in a row with one gauss shot.

The way to do is it to moderately bring up your ping (I had about 500) and hit the rear of the craft. The server lags you and guesses you fired more than once and does several times the appropriate damage to the enemy craft (My guess, anyways).

I think Darkstorm was right...

Take a jeep and slam it into a wall at 50mph (the player), damaged but the passengers may survive.
Now take 2 jeeps move 1 at 50mph (the player, and another at 125mph (the shot) more damage done and occupants probably killed.

It's that simple but it makes our jobs a lot harder. I just hope that in response to the increased NPCDEF bot AI we see several new counter craft and weapons. Perhaps the NPCDEFs are gearing up to meet the first in a new line of Capitol-class ships, say the Frigate?

No, NPCDEF AI is improving so that their weapons can become nonuberified. After all, in a month or two (if guild gets $$$), the NPCDEFs' only job will be keeping n00bs ungriefed. No more capping 'cause we'll have real missions and frigates and COOL!

Sadly, many are leaving until the piracy and everything is under control.

Don't blame the defbots, it ain't their problem!!!

I didnt mean to sound like I blamed the NPCDEF bots, I just wish that the system was around sooner and that piracy wasnt rampant. That way more people would stay and enjoy the new system updates.

I think this is mostly happening with valks cause i played space chicken with a guy in a vult and i rammed him and he rammed me, i died but he only got 5% damage.

Dude, this problem was fixed. It was misleading called a "double damage" bug, where energy damage was done multiple times to a ship. I remember killing Phoenix's valk with one gauss round, and he logged off in disgust. ;-) Long time been fixed.

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