Taking squadrons and Furies out sucks, a lot. I've fallen victim to them plenty of times and I still feel like removing them makes the game less fun.

Instead, fix the NFZ double standard for NPCs. We've suggested this a lot over the years.

I've heard in the past that NPC vs NPC fighting is the cause of concern for server load reasons, so instead of having bots violate the NFZ, get TempKOS, and get attacked by the strike force, instead make them just behave.

Suggestion: Change NPCs so that they do not fire within the NFZ unless they have been attacked and can lawfully defend themselves. Exclude Strike Force, Station Guards, and Unaligned (Hive, NPC mission pirates, etc) from this rule.

This will solve the problem with Furies and squads being used to attack players where the players cannot defend themselves, and it will also solve the issue of CtC bots killing players as they undock from Bractus C-5 and Sedina L-2.

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+1 While this doesn't address the underlying problem, I do think this would mitigate the worst of the issue. Aside from that, I have two things to comment about the op

1) In my non developer mind, it seems like this could be an equally difficult problem to sort out as the faction problem.

2) The devs have done a lot of work improving server capacity. Why not open her up and see what happens?

How does this not address the "underlying problem?"

You want the bots defending a player to transfer the consequences of their (autonomous) actions to the player they're supposed to be defending instead of just making the bots obey the local laws?

Yes, toys get taken away when you break the rules with them. Why don't you have a talk with your friends ARF, if you are so upset about it?

However, to address the OP in a practical manner:

So ARF, are you suggesting that the furies and squadron's defense of their owners be suspended in NFZs? The reason they were taken away is because they were used to skirt faction penalties. I don't see how your suggestion fixes that problem unless you suspend the "defend" behavior in NFZs. Or remove collision damage from being a trigger for them to defend (but I personally like that aspect).

I do think it's a good idea for NPCs to follow the NFZ rules, and thus would support the OP on it's own. I don't really support it as a solution that should permit furies and the squad to be re-introduced.

I know you think the risk involved with using furies and squadrons are sufficient now, but I would disagree. Travel time and credits are not appropriate risks for skirting a faction penalty. The faction penalty should apply to anyone that violates it, every time.

If the bots are defending the owner then the 15 minute kill permission that the player gets should also apply. I have only seen these bots used offensively and primarily as a means to evade the faction penalty system as well as the station response.

It does not address the underlying problem because it only applies to NFZ areas around stations and not any monitored sector. I will agree that addressing the issue at a NFZ level would mitigate a lot of the problem. However, as I suggested, doing so may be just as complicated or more so than dealing with the faction penalty issue. Regardless, I do think that removing them entirely was an overreaction to the problem and most likely due to the stress of all of the other bs going on in game and on the forums at the moment. As such, my attempts at addressing this issue were as Bojan kindly linked to, an addition to a suggestion regarding improving the furies back in April as well as a support ticket that only the devs could see in light of the ongoing drama. I personally view this as at least as much of an exploit as farming pk's since in this case it materially affects other players. My 'Bullshit.' thread was a reaction to incarnate's post on Boa's thread, not meant to stomp my feet and yell about the bots. Overall, I thought that that thread had some good discussion going before it was locked.

I will agree that addressing the issue at a NFZ level would mitigate a lot of the problem. However, as I suggested, doing so may be just as complicated or more so than dealing with the faction penalty issue.

Yes, the NFZ area is not the entire problem, but the majority of it. If a fix of the entirety of the issue takes as much time as addressing only the NFZ portion it would certainly make sense to fix the whole thing. I wouldn't be opposed to re-introducing the bots if only the NFZ problem was addressed.

I listed this as the first and most important solution in my reply in that "Bullshit." thread:

1. Make the player responsible for all furies action (NFZ penalty, faction standing repercussions, the works)

Also, to clearly identify whom the furies belong to - could we get the LAR mission (when you take it) include players name in their designation and have furies visible on sector list like this:

[SKV]Bojan Valent A-3 Assault DR-0565w

Outside the NFZ, you can just kill the bots. I've done this dozens of times.

Inside the NFZ on the other hand, the consequence of doing this is... More bots attacking you!

This fixes the problem because it allows you to flee to the NFZ for safety and if your attacker wants to kill you then, he'll have to personally violate the NFZ and get TempKOS to do it, likely resulting in his destruction and the loss of his bots (death = mission failure = lost furies) or fleeing the sector to avoid the Strike Force.

Allowing self-defense against NPCs would fix it too. Both of my suggestions are a hell of a lot better than adding an easily exploitable chain-of-responsibility mechanism to the NPCs so that their owner gets penalized for their actions.

I don't feel like the game needs more ways to weaponize the faction standing system.