Anchorable Bubbles on NPC Station undocks trapping diamond rats

So players sit in a bubble at 0ms and dont shoot it. Yeahhh.

It might not currently be an exploit, but certainly needs to become one (unless rat AI can be changed quickly to shoot bubbles and their owners - say a standings loss to the bubbler)

But kudos to the person who thought of it

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If only there were some way to prevent the hauler from anchoring the bubble in the first place.

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Haaaaaaaaaaahahahahahhahahahahahaa nice throwaway account Olmeca, I high doubt anyone else uses the signature " — " cancer naming scheme besides you.

https://zkillboard.com/corporation/98488864/ - looks like bubbles can be taken care of just fine!

clever use of NPCS

It results in a lot of friendly deaths as well so it’s not exactly one sided. I think positive standings = NPC assistance could lead to interesting strategy as well.

what happens to players with positive standings that go against each other?

The NPCs watch, eat popcorn, criticize fits and armchair about what the pilots should have done. Wouldn’t be surprised if they take part in EULA-violating betting activities.

AI need to be watched…

The funny thing is it’s not me who aggresses them, I have good standings, I drop bubbles. They constantly, over and over, undock and dock spam amassing a huge army of NPCs on the station. They don’t shoot pods, and they can kill bubbles as clearly shown in my previous post. They are simply crying about getting an instant “win” button by removing all risk of staging in an NPC station. There was absolutely no risk in staging out of NPC stations before, now there is, I think it’s a great game mechanic honestly. It also delivers some incredible comedy.

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OK I see where you are coming from. Sorry for being a huge protruding sexual organ.

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If I’m honest I’d love a lowsec equivalent :grinning:

A shame that I’m not sure either of the scenarios are possible without the nullsec tools used.

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Since NPC AI reacts to players standings, if the players have neutral or positive standings, then the NPC’s should only do defensive actions, such as remote repair.

If anything it could be viewed as intentionally exploiting game mechanics to manipulate large amounts of NPC’s to not follow their original coding - warping away after a set period of time. That alone should be enough to classify it as an exploit.

Also in that scenario with it being done on NPC stations accessed by other player’s, by not letting NPC’s leave and continuing to capture more NPC’s, it basically disrupts the gameplay experience of others by causing undue excessive lag.

Sometimes I’ll warp to a large group of NPC’s in a Deadspace pocket and experience lag, just with me on grid. Now add in more players, celestial objects like Mobile Depots, Can’s, the Station, it’s guns, etc. Definitely could induce lag.

Anyway, according to the T.O.S. rules of conduct and policies:
https://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/terms-of-service-en/

  • #16 - You may not do anything that interferes with the ability of other EVE Online subscribers to enjoy the game or web site in accordance with its rules. This includes, but is not limited to, making inappropriate use of any public channels within the game and/or intentionally creating excessive latency (lag) by dumping cargo containers, corpses or other items in the game world.

  • #17 - You may not engage in any activity that increases the difficulty and/or expense of CCP in maintaining the EVE Online client, server, web site or other services for the benefit and enjoyment of all its users.

Other than that, whoever first thought of trap-camping NPC’s on NPC station undock was definitely thinking outside of the box.

:wink:

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Hmm, I understand your point, but I’m not sure I agree with the conclusion.

Yes, the NPCs in a bubble are being prevented from warping away, but as a part of the active and reactive universe that is New Eden, I think they should be bound by the same kind of tactical constraints as the players, and bubbles are probably the best example of this.

By the same token, I agree with what others have said earlier in that the NPC’s AI should be able to react to the fact they’re in a bubble and either slowboat to the edge, or pop it, so that they can leave.

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Yeah, I agree the AI program definitely needs to be revised so they react appropriately.

However, since the actual coding for the NPC’s is to just go into warp from their location instead of first slowboating away, placing a bubble on station undock to capture them has gotta be an exploit since it’s not allowing the NPC’s to follow their original programing.

Not to mention the excessive amount of NPC’s not initially programmed to be there causing possible lag issues and or disruption of server status for other players.

Course easy way to fix it, CCP can just code the bubbles so they can’t be placed in close proximity to stations.

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I suppose that’s valid.

Apparently NPC AI is improving, so we’ll see how reactive they become to different scenarios.

It’ll also be interesting to see whether this get’s a CCP response in terms of an exploit/no exploit judgement :slightly_smiling_face:

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Why would they shoot a bubble that was trapping their targets?

If it was a bubble from someone who was red to them.

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Can’t you just take a fast ship and burn away? The rats should follow you out of the bubble, once out of the bubble they’ll be able to do their regular warp around routine.

No this exploit gets the rats stuck inside the station model.

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Hi KingBanjo II. Welcome to our community.

Did I do GOOD, CCP?

Now, where was I? Oh yeah. When the thread title caught my eye, I read it as Adorable Bubbles.

Here’s the thing. I do think bubbles are adorable.

Just sayin’

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The anchorer is red. The bubble is indiscriminant. It has been said that the best weapon to use against an enemy is another enemy.

I disagree. I think the best weapon to use against them is their own friends. Would you disarm a bomb that was going to kill your opponent just because it was “red”?

In the context of the AI’s reaction to the bubble stopping them from warping.

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Are you seriously talking about AI"s possible motivations? Pointless, but let’s that game for a sec.

If they wanted to bubble the station, why don’t they deploy their own bubble, right?

Or why would they block a station from which they are earning taxes? Maybe they just want no people on the undock during the hauling times, but they want hostiles being able to come and go?

Stupid stuff, right?

Perhaps we should stop talking about NPC’s possible motivations and start talking about what’s good and balanced for player usage of these stations then. Thanks.

NPCs are programmed to kill us on sight.
Warp disruptor bubbles are designed to disallow warp or jump drives from operating in a give volume.
Neither of those are “good” for players.

What we have here is a synergy between these two things. Synergy is “emergent”. Do you want to play a game with emergent interactions? If not, I recommend checkers or tic tac toe. Good luck!

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