But shouldn’t they at least shoot back? They do nothing at all.
They can’t, the old npc’s have no programming to follow when they are attacked by another npc.
That’s horrible half-done programming. Thanks for the info.
Well not really, they cannot rip out the old npc programming and replace it with the new AI as, well it would wiped out every PvE’er in a couple of days.
Its a slow process and there are just these odd happenings when the two interact (well actually the old npc’s get ganked).
Yes they could. The AI does not change the stats of the ship.
In this you are correct. When a player first starts out in Eve, there is a lot to figure out, and the tutorial doesn’t always explain everything a newbro needs to know right out the gate. Throwing hyper aggressive hunter/killer Guristas/Blood Raiders at them the minute they finish the tutorial and go to their career agent is essentially stacking the game against them. Sooner or later they will get fed up and quit for a game that doesn’t have such a steep entry level learning curve. On the other end of the spectrum, I own a station in a sector that has a Gurista FOB, I have since located said FOB, but rallying the sector’s occupants to actually do something about this threat is about as easy as fitting iron shoes onto the soles of elephants. It isn’t going to happen. I cannot take on this FOB solo, no matter what I throw at them, and the fact that Kestrels can do 240-440 dmg to my BS is insane. I have run across player frigates that didn’t dish out that kind of dmg. In all seriousness, if CCP wanted to kill highsec content, and the players that stay there to get things done, they couldn’t have found a more effective way. I only started playing about six months ago, and up until this content was released, I found the game playable, even if I lost the occasional ship to another player ganking. Now, with this, I risk losing a station, and to an NPC I can’t even fight back against, even with reinforcing my shields to resist their dmg and using EM ammunition to dmg them. In my opinion, CCP either needs to scale it back to where it would be a challenge for a solo player, but a doable challenge, or remove this content from the game. If they don’t and I end up losing my station to an NPC I cannot fight back against, CCP will lose me as a player.
In this I would agree with you. PvP or PgP (Player ganking Player) is indeed a reason to stick around, mostly because it is a challenge that can be overcome but will punish you if you are caught slipping. The challenge for the ganking player is overcoming the evasiveness of his quarry, whereas the challenge for the ganked player is evading long enough to get away. With these new NPC FOBs, that all gets thrown out the window. I just witnessed a player in a Badger hauler enter my sector from a low sec area, only to get pounced and trounced by 5 Gurista Kestrels that had hitherto been attacking my station. They ceased their attack, warped to the Badger and turned him into space dust. Once they finished him, they returned and resumed attacking my station. So the truth is: if it is PvP or PgP, the attacked player can always find a way out subject to his/her skill limitations vs the skills of the attacker. With Guristas, there really is no way out, once they pounce, you are going no where, especially if you are a rookie with no real understanding of the game. I venture into low sec on occasion even though I mostly stay in high sec, and I have not found the game boring, however, with these FOBs, the game isn’t boring, it is becoming impossible. Besides, ganking in high sec isn’t advised unless you can pull the gank before local security intervenes. With Guristas/Blood Raiders, there is no local security and you are essentially on your own vs an AI that is programmed to be more skillful than you are at any given minute. CCP give us a challenge, yes, but give us a challenge we can overcome if solo as a lot of times, many of us are just that: solo pilots.
Unfortunately CCP have been against the solo player, well perhaps against is too strong a term, but solo players are not their desired type.
CCP want players that group up, preferably those that group up in null sec and make their own content against other player groups (its much cheaper to have your players make their own content).
CCP have always tried to use the carrot of “better rewards in null sec” to get people out there, it seems they are now trying the stick.
With FOB’s camping gates, killing ships on autopilot, attacking vunerable structures and generally harassing people in the system and then the npc mining teams sucking hi-sec belts dry there does not appear to be a future for hi-sec solo.
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Especially since structures are about to become 100% vulnerable. With no auto defence at all. Which means a FoB in your system means you log into a reinforced structure.
What kind of roaming fleet do FOBs spawn to attack structures? If it’s 4 frigates, you should be able to handle that if you have the means to deploy a structure…
If you are a solo structure owner, then you likely would be better off using a low tax public structure than putting the capital and fuel cost into owning your own any ways. Reducing the total number of structures in HS by removing those of people who can’t defend them is maybe not a bad thing.
The roaming patrols start at 4 frigates, the longer the FOB is active the more the patrol is upgraded. Frigates are replaced by cruisers that we know for certain. It is possible that the cruisers are replaced by battleships … and that the number of ships in the patrol will increase.
The next FoB Patrol Escalation should be on the 12th after downtime. The Patrols do start at 4 Frigates, first escalation was 4 Combat Frigates and 1 Logistics Frigate, the next Escalation was 5 Combat Frigates and 2-3 Logistics Frigates. Estimate for the next escalation is 1 Cruiser, 6 Combat Frigates, 3 Logistic Frigates.
They patrol and attack randomly, sometimes staying in one area for long periods of time. If the FOB patrol happens to RF a structure, it would just be bad luck if the patrol happened to find the same structure again after RF. A POCO needs longer to regenerate, but a citadel is back to normal after a 15-minute repair timer.
Players are talking about in-game FOB alert & help channels. I think that’s a good method. Some players will enjoy the challenge of taking on these patrols.
Please explain to me how you deal with 4 frigates even (That by reports do a combined 1000 DPS or so, like officer fit player frigates) when you have no-one in your corp online for hours.
By your argument no group not large enough to have a 24/7 presence in system with every single one of their structures should be using one, and that’s just a joke expecting corps to sit someone in system 24/7 to fight them.
you are supposed to put vulnerability timers during times you can defend your structure.
Let’s say you can’t : The shields go down.
You still have 24h to adapt the vulnerability schedule to ensure next vulnerability you can defend.
If you care not here or can’t defend : you still have 6D before the structure goes into hull and can be destroyed.
If the rats don’t appear during the armor vulnerability, you get back to full shield.
If you are alone, you can easily dispatch the rats in a dominix. or just stay close to them and the structure, you are tethered and the rats try to switch to you but can’t and remain bugged.
Timers are being removed for shields & the armour timer is no longer on your day you chose, meaning you will log onto a reinforced structure, & if you aren’t online for more than 24h, you might even log onto a structure in hull already. Keep up with up coming updates and you will understand the issue that this raises now we have NPC’s that get to attack structures unopposed.
At least link the sources.
I totally agree that this could become an issue when the patrols start getting upgraded.
So far I’m not sure the patrols are really getting into the shield.
Vegas Upwell 2.0 presentation. There is also a thread somewhere around discussing it.
The only source I found was talking about inactive structure losing their armor cycle and reduced armor/shield resists.
