So anyone else hear how the AI made complete superweapons and decimated several commanders?
A friend of mine that came back to ED told me the PvE almost looked like PvP, depending on the NPC level of difficulty.
Iād rather have it this way: a master NPC with a Pyton should not be killed by a Cobra as it was possible before. Not to mention the ridiculous enless spinning 
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Iām somewhat on the fence with the new AI.
Thereās two sides to this coin.
First, having an NPC that doesnāt do the āspiral of deathā is a good thing. Having an actual challenge in fights is good. Also having fights that last longer than 5 seconds is good.
However, this further pushes trading (and long distance hauling missions) as the only viable means to the average player to make any serious amounts of money. Especially for newer players. Iām not sure if this is a good thing or not. Realistically, it might make sense, but gameplay wise, Iām not so sure.
Iām not happy at all with the implementation of the new AI, however. Improvements to the AI, IMO, should make the AI smarter, but not to give them stat buffs to ridiculously high levels.
The very first thing I did, when I finally got around to updating, was to go to a Haz RES, and find a high level Conda with my A-rated Python. First thing I did, CQC. And you know what I found? Not only did that Conda keep up with the turning wars, it actually got a bead on me multiple times. As in actually facing me. Name a single instance where a human player in a conda would win in a turning war against a Python. And itās not as if Iām a stranger to the flight assist off stuff. The way I won was to actually break the turning war, which I would have eventually lost, and eventually destroy the power plant. I lost some hull, but after shields up, I located a high level python, and engaged, same strategy with CQC. And that Python out turned me so bad I had to escape and jump out.
Iām in an A-rated Python, mind you. Maybe not the best ship for bounty hunting, but it was a standard I wanted to test the AI.
Iām all for tougher AI. But Iām for smarter AI, not simply buffed AI. Buffing an AIās stats =/= AI improvement, only tougher but equally dumb AI.
Now maybe itās just me, and I really, really stink at CQC. But I think Iāve proven my point.
Iām all for Cobras killing NPC Pythons, provided that the pilots are skilled enough to take on the challange. They shouldnāt be simply not allowed to because āMuh shipās bigger, bruh.ā Average players, never. Skilled, absolutely. Why not?
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Fully agree on all of the above.
Iāve had the same experiences with the new AI.
Well Iām impressed with the Engineers release, very impressed. The game has now clearly passed the amount of content that one would expect in a full AAA release, sure there are bugs, but the game feels full and rich. Of course Iām biased, but Iām really enjoying ED now and I havenāt played for a few months prior to that.
As for the NPCs and their AI, I think this is one of the few games where NPC difficulty actually scales with their intended ratings. I do not mess even with puny Eagles and think twice about Sidewinders that have Elite rank. I have lost 3 ships in the past week and I have lost 3 ships in the previous 2 years, one of those deaths was because of the buffed NPC bugs present in the initial release, which they patched within days, the other two times, TBH I deserved to die. I took on a target that was ranked higher and was in a better ship.
Right now, you will think twice about attacking a higher ranked NPC and you will think twice about attacking a ship thatās two classes above yours, the way itās supposed to be.
/edit
Pretty picture from the fringe of colonized space.
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Ooh, that might be my cue to get back into it
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Iām liking the new graphical enhancements a lot. Same as Cybercritic, youāve just got to watch your targets and donāt engage anything too high ranked or outclassed.
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Iām not sure to understand: last time Iāve played ED, there was no bonus for getting higher rank in combat.
So letās suppose this scenario: you grind your way up with trading. With all your credits, you decide to buy a mighty Python (pun intended ^^) with best possible weaponry. We can also suppose that youāve played a lot of PvP, so you know your deal. But your rank is Novice.
Will you still get your ass kicked by a sidewinder on any rank above Novice? 
The answer is multi-layered and you seem to dismiss the notion that a player can actually get better at combat the more they participate in it and gain ranks. To rank a human player you need to consider talent and experience, talent being the ability to perform good in combat just because the player was born with that ability or has gained it through playing other games, while experience is measurable in the game and shows up as playerās rank, the amount of combat participation in ED.
Then there is the rank vs ship-class layer, a ābetterā and more expensive ship really is ābetterā, this comes from the simple stats like shield generator class and weapon mount sizes. The more expensive ships will basically by default be ābetterā than the lesser ones, unless very badly fitted. The more subtle sub-layer of this is now engineers which offer subtle stat increases on the equipment.
Third and final layer is the NPCs, they actually have different AI depending on their rank and they leverage the ship-class and equipment benefits depending on their rank. So you can have a Novice Python that is comparable to a Elite Eagle in terms of combat ability/difficulty.
The general case still stands, NPC difficulty scales with their rank and with ship-class. As for the player component of it, the rank a commander has is a measure of his experience in ED. As he gains ranks he has participated in more combat and should be better at combat than if he didnāt participate in it. I would gladly bet on a Commander with a better combat rank in a fight, if those commanders were picked at random.
I get what you are hinting at, that basically rank means nothing for a human player, because that player can be talented. Sure there are players that are better than others, but I still think that the rank is a good indication of combat ability when considering some average in a large sample.
I would say that yes itās possible for a Competent NPC ranked mid-class ship to take down a Novice Commander in a Python, also I think itās possible for a Novice Commander to take down a Competent NPC Python. Yet having a Novice NPC in a lower class ship take down a Commander in a Python seems like a stretch and would really require a bad Commander. However having a Python these days does not make you a big fish though, there are plenty of NPCs that are capable of taking you down, especially if you donāt have much combat experience.
Are the devs adding higher bounties to offset the greater difficulty?
Bounties seem appropriate for the rank and ship class, off the top of my head a Eagle can go from 5k to 20k, Python from 50k to 200k and Anaconda from 200k to 500k. Also credits earning has been tweaked, trading is no more the āgo-toā form of making credits, markets are much more dynamic, you canāt just ride the same 2 jump route and make credits. Also there are now combat missions that earn from 200k to 1mil depending on difficulty and are pretty attractive in terms of payout/effort ratio.
Definitely making the prospects of me picking this back up again when I have time/energy.
I got bored when I gave up the prospect of ever earning decent money in combat
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You can get big bounties from Fer De Lance ships as well, often more than an Anaconda.
Idle thought. I wonder if they will create an up-rated one called a John de Lancie? 
ermā¦ me to
Gave it a spin after a while.
I have to say the new AI evokes those feelings i had years back when playing Privateer.
Even simple trading run can be adrenalin filled chase 
The new difficulty actually forced me to socialize with people. As i was unable to take on hard enemies on my own. That is great.
another small thing that i really liked:
Scanning points of interest to reveal what is inside.
Still not proper sensors as i would like, but it is step in right direction. Why this took more then a year is beyond me.
Another nice thing is dropping out of supercruise far then 1Mm from destination.
ā¦i wonder how long will it take to give players ships stronger acceleration and deceleration in supercruise. That could have been linked to FSD rank but never mindā¦
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ED got quite a large patch today, it addresses some concerns with NPCs and fixes a lot of bugs.
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to share a quick update with you as we go live with the 2.1.03 update. You can see the full list of changes on the forum post here, but we wanted to point out a few tweaks and updates that we made in order to further improve your experience with the NPC AI. We also wanted to share a few AI changes that we have planned for a future update, too.
For 2.1.03 we fixed a bug where AI were using too tight a turning circle at low levels, we reduced ranks of Powerplay interdictors, lowering the chance of powerplay ships choosing to interdict you by 25%. The interdiction rank range has been reduced by one both above and below the player. It is also now based on your combat rating. Weāve made a change that ensures there will be a pause before AI attacks you after youāve been interdictedā¦ previously some Commanders would be immediately bombarded as soon as theyāre pulled from supercruise.
We have a lot of AI changes planned for upcoming updates too, such as stopping the bottom three levels of AI from boosting (which was an unintended bug), we are looking at stopping AI from targeting sub-modules and weāre considering further reductions on the interdiction rank ranges detailed above.
In a previous update we fixed the AI bug that would create super modules, we stopped the bug that allowed AI aligned powers from attacking you, we reduced the ranks of AI spawning based on accepted missions, and we reduced the ranks of AI in ambient traffic.
The development team are dedicated to making the NPC AI experience as fun as possible, and the right level of challenging, and will continue to work hard on finding the correct balance.
Full patch notes:
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Well, Horizons is on sale for 20.09 right nowā¦Iām debating this, I just donāt know how much I can play it. It seems like itās just the same game with more āspaceā to do nothing in.
Am I completely wrong on this? Or would I only be buying this for the modded fittings that I need to grind for?
From what Iāve discussed with my friend, the grind is kind of similar to the previous format, except thereās more sense in it: youāre not just going into mining zones and blindly hunting pirates.
The improvements on NPCs and quests are available on the base game though, so you donāt necessarly need the DLC. Access to the engineers however will be sparse, as most of them are on planets or in zones specific to the DLC.
Grab.i knew what arena become free module for pay attention original game
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I agree @pictbrige!
For the guys that havenāt bought ED, the Arena part of it has been split into a separate game and is free to own forever if you download it before the 11th, they might charge for it afterwards.
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