As some of us will know.... NPC's give life. They add immersion to a game. They make a situation interesting with their presence. They can be killed in Freelancer. So I was wondering, if they are just for effect, why not make them weaker? There have been many times when they have interfered with RP. There where 2 ways I could think of that wouldn't interferre with ballance too much.
1]Disable NPC use of Bots and Bats. This makes them harder to kill and is very annoying, not challenging, annoying. Or at least make it so they can only use them once, not infinite times.
2]Disable NPC usage of Cruise disruptors. Its really annoying when your heading to a battle and you get CD'd by about 10 fighters. I think we should have the choice to engage NPC ships. Because, they always chose to engage even if they are a starfea and your a BS :). Maybee thats why the NY system is soo popular, because NPCs dont use CDs.
I think NPC issues should be addressed on place by place basis. Although I think that having some NPC's not engage in suicidal attacks on vastly superior foes would be nice I believe the only way they can determine strength is by level, so to them a transport can look just like a BS. This obviously would not work.
For any other comments look in the long nerf NPC thread.
Without the use of CDs & B/B, NPCs would simply be free-farming regens. Hell, most people use them as that right now. Surely a nerf would just make this easier?
Quote: I think NPC issues should be addressed on place by place basis. Although I think that having some NPC's not engage in suicidal attacks on vastly superior foes would be nice I believe the only way they can determine strength is by level, so to them a transport can look just like a BS. This obviously would not work.
I think the decision whether they run or not should be a relationship between both levels. So if you where a lvl 20 and a lvl 5 disabled a lane on you they would run. This would also make people want more money on their fighters and do more missions.
Some NPC's run away from me in my juggernaut, i know one (maybe two) nomad fighters run away, but not much else, but it would be nice if they werent completely suicidal morons.
Drakes and Legionnaires come to mind.. they do some ridiculous maneuvers, they are some of the worst enemies in the game because you simply cannot hit them when they go into spaz mode.
I wish someone would change their flight patterns..
NPC's arent bad in most places. Where they ARE bad is in the borderworlds (primarily omicron kappa, gamma, delta, and minor), and those are really only the nomad NPC's... nomad assassins are ridiculous -_-
The other place is gallia, it is soooo not fun flying a transport or the like through gallia and having a patrol of 3 bombers, spamming supernovas every 5~ seconds with uncanny accuracy, tear apart your ship in seconds.
' Wrote:Drakes and Legionnaires come to mind.. they do some ridiculous maneuvers, they are some of the worst enemies in the game because you simply cannot hit them when they go into spaz mode.
I wish someone would change their flight patterns..
When an enemy NPC goes into 'spaz mode', target another npc but keep firing at the one you were shooting at. In my experience, NPC's only seem to dodge a lot when you're actively targeting them, and switching targets while keeping your gunfire going on the same enemy usually works.
I like that npcs can (only somewhat) CD and pose possible issues. What I don't like is how they come is such huge groups sometimes. Those groups of 8 (actually 2 patrols I think?) get really annoying and it seems to happen a lot to me in certain places.