If I fire my weapons in Itani space, the Itani defbots go after me. Just that alone already doesn't make any sense, as I can't even defend myself against pirate bots, but anyway. Once a bot is pissed at me, I can damage it by turboing into it. It works best in arcade mode. Just crank up speed to max, hit space, let the bot line up, and then hit turbo. Not every hit damages the bot, but most do. After a while, I successfully destroyed the bot (? destroyed Station Guard ***). It didn't issue. I was in a valk and still 100%.

I don't even know where to start:
- Itani bots should not attack Itani players. If a shoot at a serco in my home sector and Itani bots come after me thats just dumb.
- Bots should not take any damage from me, if I can't shoot at them and they can't shoot at me.
- The collision damage has to be fair. The vults took all the damage, my valk was 100%.
- The bots really should try to dodge incoming players, not just to avoid a collision. Once I am really close, they have no choice. Keeping a healthy distance would be smarter, especially if the bot is flying the cheaper ship. A vult is easy game for a valk if the bot lets me come in close, especially if I have gauss and the bot has tachs.
- I didn't take any permanent faction penality for killing a Itani defbot.
- The bot AI needs some sort of randomization. When multiple bots chase you, they tend to line up. This is very visible if I stop and strafe up/down/left/right. The stream of tachs coming from each bot are perfectly in sync. Each bot reacts in the exact same way to my movements. That just looks ... weird. Bots need personality. Individual attack ranges, individual distances during a chase, individual aggressiveness. Make it random for starters. Just make it a little bit more interesting than "get as close as possible and spam the target with tachs".

andreas, I think friendly fire might eventually be turned on so that if you open fire in a guarded sector, your own defbots *will* come after you and damage you. They are the military after all and it's their job to keep the peace. If an unfriendly Serco enters the guarded sector, they will take care of the shooting.

...and if they can't?

/me begins sharpening his axe

I can take out 5-10 serco defbots in a row with ease. And thats just me, not somebody who is actually good at this. If I see Icarus coming at me, I would prefer not to have to rely on some bots for defense.

yes the code has to be modified so that if u shoot and hit nothing, nothing happens.. hell once in a while i love just shooting at a roid, and if u shoot and hit a enemy then the defbots help with that enemy(player). And if, and only if u shoot and hit a teammate, u get a warning and if u continue to shoot at ur teammate in the guarded sector the def bots come to kill u......

darth out

(perhaps if we're going to continue to discuss this in terms of gameplay this should be moved to suggestions?)

I like the fact that strict no-fire is enforced in guarded sectors. When there's a lot of people in each sector you don't want players going around firing off their gauss and sunflares just for kicks. You can do that in a monitored sector. andreas' point is a good one, I guess we'll have to see how it actually works out in game.

yes but the beef right now is that it is so strict that you will get killed for defending against a bot or enemy player

yes this is starting on the verge of needing to be moved to suggestions

darth out