Make it so Hive bots can't chase things beyond their radar range. This week an update was rolled out that did this:

" Capship 'attack', 'defend', and 'follow' targets need to be in the
radar range of the capship.

I suggest rolling this out to hive bots as well. If something is beyond their radar, they should not be following it.

+0.5;

Bots spawned by missions NEED to be able to find the mission pilot for instances where they spawn too far away. Otherwise, new pilots less familiar with VO might find issue with supposedly broken missions.

Then treat mission bots differently from static bots.

This is something that would actually be in alignment with the mechanics of a lot of other games. Many games that came about after Everquest would cause NPCs to forget about the player that aggroed them after a period of time or distance (not sure which), during which they'd always be able to find where the player is at. Making this time out limited to the radar range of the NPC makes a lot of sense in the context of VO. Not to mention that it does seem a little silly that an NPC that can't see you on radar should be able to easily find you. Granted, it is technically possible to locate ships at distance via sight. However, without backgrounds off, this can be a bit tricky.

Additionally, different bots could have more or less capable radars which would dictate the range at which they'd be able to follow.

As mentioned, mission NPCs need to be able to find their targets, but this is slightly more of a problem with the mission spawning mechanics and the lack of ability to locate oneself within a sector than with the NPC system. It's very easy to drift away from a spot during a skirmish, and there''s no easy way to get back to it. But that's a different suggestion.

+1 bots having infinite radar makes no sense

+1,

there was a time you could mine outside bot radar, now they will find you even 20k/m away making a lot of decent mining spots obsolete without a guard.

This was implemented last Fri, 1.8.552:

- NPCs now have radar awareness limits, impacted by local phenomena (ion storms, etc). Mission NPCs are not affected, and Strike Forces have a long radar range.

I wish the hive radar wasn't impacted by ion storms. Trying to find the bots in an ion storm skirmish has become very tedious.

Also, bots seeking you out when you got caught in an ion storm added a small bit of exciting danger that wasn't terribly difficult to escape from.

use a storm range extender. There are small and large port variants. Also, the raptors have them built in.

though, perhaps hive bots should have some level of built-in storm radar...

though, perhaps hive bots should have some level of built-in storm radar...

If they do, then it should be some kind of dropable Hive storm radar extender.

The only nerf that's worth posting in the boards atm are railgun turrets which do as much damage as a quadrail hornet zapping ~70% of the ships in game in one shot despite having a 2.5s refire rate.

Capships are have become even harder to approach with light fighters with pretty much anything getting within ~200m having a very high probability of dying.

I'll be writing up a thread about it.

If anything, the caprail needs to be buffed just slightly. The damage is right, but they fire just a bit too slow both in velocity and repetition.