Forums » Suggestions

Escort combat ships should defend them selves.

Mar 28, 2021 death456 link
So we all know people attack NPC escorts to take their loot.

My suggestion is after some field testing in a sub cap is to change to were the combat ships in an escort fight back. As of now they don't attack back if a person shoots ONLY the combat ship.

For example Person A in a Valkyrie X-1(or any sub cap) Attacks an NPC WTD,Vulture,Centron guarding the NPC escort. only attacks the combat ship only. Said combat ship will not fire back or attack.

After some quick chats I feel it would be optimal if the NPC did attack back but stayed tethered to the escort it's guarding. (something like old queens) Staying tethered to the queen but not going out an engaging the hostile target but attacking if target gets in range.

Now if I attack a WTD,Vulture,Centron It would essentially agro the entire convoy The moth turrets will fire the capital ships turrets would fire. While still heading to the jump point and the escorts would be targeting the aggressor but not chasing and detaching from the escort.

Feel free to change and debate this. But the entire underlying Issue I have is that the NPC combat escorts (the ships that protect the Behemoths and trade ships) don't attack back if they only are attacked.
Mar 28, 2021 DeathSpores link
what will be the benefit of that suggestion for players or for gameplay?
Mar 28, 2021 incarnate link
Well, it would make the convoys behave in a more reasonably expected manner, for one thing.

It might make convoy assaults more engaging and entertaining as well.

To be clear, the current behaviour is not "by design", it was essentially a least-bad choice after dealing with a substantial variety of AI problems and trade-offs that would each be significant enough to just call "bugs", and which (at the time) we didn't have the resources to overcome.
Mar 28, 2021 death456 link
Ah I thought there was a development reason behind it.

And I agree. By making the convoy defense ships actually defend them selves raises the bar on convoy assaults by a little bit. It just sounded like a common sense suggestion Furies defend them selves. Hive bots defend them selves Deneb Bots will turn and defend them selves if you attack one that's not attacking you. Old old hive queens had escorts that were tethered to the queen but always followed the queen and always attacked if the aggressor got in range.

Yes this would raise the bar for people attacking convoys slightly. as of now people would PCB the target trade ship and just attack the NPC fighter ship and it wouldn't attack back. Besides a lot of convoy attackers have their own personal tridents and capital ships. I don't see how this would make it too much harder.

Applying this suggestion would pretty much as Incarnate put it more engaging and entertaining to attack convoys. I don't think it would break the balance of the game.
Apr 08, 2021 incarnate link
Some changes made in VO 1.8.549.