2.1 NPC AI - my findings so far

[Schmobius]

I got interdicted by a Deadly FDL last night (I literally never saw a single FDL outside of RES before 2.1), which was one of 3 occasions. I was carrying 8 tons of some reward materials, but of course nothing that would actually help me.

I turn my tail to the sun, and he just loiters there, moving around a bit, but buzzing around me in supercruise. The SECOND I turn so my tail isn't facing the sun, BOOM: Interdiction. So that trick doesn't work anymore.

I get into combat with him, and manage to get the drop on him, as he was turning to face me somehow (he wasn't OVERLY concerned with getting position behind me the whole fight. Felt like overconfidence, as there were times he did so easily.), so I brought his shields down pretty quick (1 huge, 2 large, 4 medium pulse lasers...) as he fired off a few rounds at me, then decided to try to get position on me. He had a PA, so he was starting to wear down my shields pretty good.

By the time I get him down to like 10% hull, he finally brings my shields down, then I start seeing multicannon fire and missiles against me. Ok, sound tactics so far.

Now, he sends the "I've taken too many hits" message, but he doesn't disengage at all. Even as he literally gets to 1% hull, and his shields come back up. Seems like the perfect time to run to me. Nope.

So he manages to get my hull down to 53% while I'm trying to just get his shields back down and get the 1%.

I won the fight, but I'm not happy with the suicide-bomber AI they have especially when they start the fight saying its about cargo. I'm also not happy about getting harassed for like 30,000 credits worth of cargo while flying a Cutter, and spending 100,000+ in repairs.

I'm trying to do engineer missions and gear up for an exploration expedition right now, but I'm starting to wonder if I go back to my usual config with 720 tons of imperial slaves for trading, if I'll be interdicted by 5,000 capital ships simultaneously, trying to steal my cargo?

[tinnitus]

Encountered a Vulture that can fire two Beam Lasers for 18 seconds without heat damage or Capacitor fully discharged and suffer no damage when hit with a full 2 Pulse Lasers discharge mid belly when it rolled in front and slightly below. Are there different rules for the new AI's, where can I get one? Res hunting now is Anaconda City, great BALLS of Plasma Accelerators, all fun but I now know what a Ten-pin bowling pin feels like.

[Myrm]

Are people reporting these over-the-top AI capabilities to the developers?

[Loriath]

Love the new AI. Makes it worth fighting, worth winging up, and worth laughing when you get your butts handed to you.... Hope they don't change a thing.

[Cmdr Kharma]

Told ya he was a dickhead........

[Elias]

Are people reporting these over-the-top AI capabilities to the developers?

I think so. They will also probably notice a shitload of threads about it on Reddit :

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous ... _since_21/ (this one is pretty fun :p )
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous ... xperience/
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous ... for_noobs/
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous ... nd_doesnt/
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous ... _from_npc/

5 first active threads @ reddit at the moment

Personnaly i'm not very proficient with combat, though i could handle myself decently in rez's in 2.0 but not using FA off at all yet,
and not always messing good enough with power management. I could defnitily feel the difference in 2.1. Got my
asp interdicted, and couldn't get away at enough distance to avoid the fire even though in 2.0 i was able to boost away
thanks to it's speed most of the time without taking too much damage, this time the chasing was wild and i got destroyed
pretty fast (with the pressure i forgot to chaff though ..).

So i made the wise choice to buy a lighter ship (dbs) to mess a bit around in Azrael and test my luck by picking my targets, up to
expert/master level, there i could rack up 100+k credits with 3 or 4 interdictions i made, but two times i was lucky/happy to see the
system security rushing to help after some time, cause things could have turned badly for me without their help. I was
attacking only light ships, vipers, cobra, adders.

i hope they'll fix that **** soon because it feels pretty bad overall. like someone wrote it somewhere on reddit, it feels more like
an engineer outfitting NPC ship issue than the AI itself, maybe. Their weapons can often drop even very tough shields in a matter of seconds, that's wrong. I guess we would feel better if everyone already had plenty upgraded ships, but that's not the case, and even less for the newcomers to ED (i feel pretty bad about it cause i led a friend to buy ED very recently and it's actually a bad timing).

Also in my opinion it's totally awkward if the whole NPC's in galaxy have engineer mods (dunno if it's the case though, but i'm wondering), not realistic even according to the "lore" around them. These engineers are ment to be mostly discrete and not -known-by-everyone individuals, and we need to be introduced to them as players, building reputation, missions etc. So logically only a few part of the AI should have acces to it in my opinion, they should reserve it for higher AI ranks, randomizing a number of mods depending the AI rank, something like that. But i don't want to see mutant railguns on the everyday novice eagle in a far (from the nearest engineer) system, neither mutant engines on novice haulers that would outfly my asp, that's immersion breaking, illogical, in addition to be a balancing issue then.

[smartroad]

I just wish there was some I'm game simulator that would walk you through improving your combat. It's all well and good being told you need more FA-Off but when you don't know how to do it some form of training would be great.

[Xebeth]

I just wish there was some I'm game simulator that would walk you through improving your combat. It's all well and good being told you need more FA-Off but when you don't know how to do it some form of training would be great.

Isinona has a load of FA-Off videos, here's a link to his training one A Flight Assist Off guide

[Xebeth]

I don't mind their improved capability, I don't mind that the small fast fighters can run rings around your big lumbering cruiser, I don't mind that they now know how to fight, or that they know how to use tactics, or that they have modified weapons.

I do however mind the suicide ramming (how is that a tactic?), I mind that they can do stuff that would cause my ship to fry itself, I mind that their ships can turn faster than should be possible for the class.

I'm all for harder AI, but they shouldn't be able too do stuff we can't.

That said, I don't want to go back to the barrel shoot that it was before either.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

• NPC tactics seem to consist of circling and jousting. Gets boring after a while.

Isn't that what they've always done - or at least tried to do but weren't good enough? Are you matching their moves? I've been able to boost boost boost and get around behind some ships. I've also had some AI high wake out after getting damaged. Still, not enough attempt to run when they are clearly over matched, either by me or a bunch of cops, for my tastes. I'd rather have some run - not all - and have to chase them down and shoot out there FSD, instead of having them suicide on my guns.

Anyway, I'm finding it kind of exciting so far - that is combat, not the chemists. I haven't run into any of the insta-death bugs. I thought it got boring before when a single ship could easily take out a wing of deadly/elite ships of any class.