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New NPC AI = death of solo nul exploration?
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dexington
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#21 - 2012-12-28 02:27:38 UTC
CausticS0da wrote:
Opertone wrote:
HTFU, refit and

Ishtar up...

Wait passive Rattlesnake can work too.

SENTRIES are the way to go


Um, that was actually what the post was about. Is it still possible to do the same level of plex with an Ishtar, and if not, what is an alternative?


Go for something that uses missiles, they seems the least effected by ewar. Drones are not easy to use, and often it's faster to kill anything below battleships with light drones. I'm guessing that anything you used to solo in the ishtar, you can still solo flying a tengu. The sites you could "solo" with dual/triple boxing are probably a death trap now, most logi or kitchen sink ships are going to have hard time surviving the target switch.

Personally i would avoid drone boats, light drones are the only type of drones you can use freely. Only elite ships will target light drones, anything else will eat medium and up. I tried a 5/10 solo the other day, and as soon as i launched the medium drones 5-8 cruisers would target them. I tried the target painter trick and it did not work, so i ended up killing all cruisers and battlecruiser with light drones. Having to kill the cruisers using light drones would not be that bad flying a myrmidon, but being target disrupted constantly by battleships makes it slow work. You could try a drone boat with sentry drones, personally i have a hard time seeing how it would out perform a missile boat.

I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.
Eight Two
SWIFT Inc.
#22 - 2012-12-28 11:40:56 UTC
dexington wrote:
Eight Two wrote:
Once the mentality of doing everything in one ship (which you still can do, don't get me wrong) is gone people will appreciate the new AI more.


Please tell me what's so great about the "new" ai, that rats switch target and kill drones, THAT IS IT.


Of course that is it, but at least it's a step in the right direction honestly. The mindless AI has always been one of the major weak spots of Eve in my opinion, at least you get to interact with it a little more now when using drones.

There's a lot of work to be done still (also including redesigning sites) but anything that makes PvE content less dull and repetitive is a good thing.

ZX 185
Zealot's
Sigma Grindset
#23 - 2012-12-28 12:33:50 UTC
I was doing mag sites in stain yesterday and my standard probe/cloaky tengu which does 245 dps
Was'nt enough to break the tanks of ellite cruisers I had to bring in an alt...

(This setup had no problems before)
Gal'o Sengen
Doomheim
#24 - 2012-12-28 15:37:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Gal'o Sengen
Mnemosyne Gloob wrote:
Expensive? what? Not everyone needs to fly pimpend tech 3 ships to explore.

Instead of wanting to do all, you should rather find your niche and find out what works for you. For instance you can take one of the t1 scanning frigates, slap on a probe launcher, codebreaker and some drones and run off to find radar sites in highsec. After one site you will probably have earned back what you paid for that tiny ship ... and if you are a new player you can make some good isk for very little required skillpoints.

Then if you get annoyed by the farming hordes in highsec, you might just as well take your favourite t1 cruiser with cloak and mwd and find a nice lowsec area to explore in. You won't be doing all, but again sticking to radars and maybe the occasional easier combat site can make some good isk for the price of a t1 cruiser.


No... See, that's half the problem. The only T1 Cruisers that can fit a Cloak and Probe launcher without giving up Guns as far as i know are the Vexor and Arbitrator. Drone Boats. In the hands of a new player they're absolutely awful, especially now that Drones get targeted. Add that in many parts of Space there simply aren't any stations to dock up at to Re-fit and it suddenly becomes an absolute chore.

I have 5.3m SP in Drones, yet i kill ships faster with 425mm Autocannons than i do with either Ogre II's or Hammerheads, to say nothing of Light Drones or Tech 1. Without Sentries, especially now, Drone Boats are just a waste of time.

Edit: The Stabber can fit a Cloak and Probe Launcher, i suppose that could work, but it has a weak tank, no DPS and a weak Capacitor.
Larloch TheAncient
Freindly Mining Corporation
#25 - 2012-12-28 17:44:40 UTC
Confirming that Solo exploration is not impossible (although the combat sites are very difficult).


I run them all the time with an alt (scanning/utility(codebreakers/etc), previously I ran them just fine in a maelstrom, and with my earning I just invested in a Loki that "should" be able to handle the toughest Combat sites that the sansha can throw at me.


When I run a few of them I'll post more, but I can confirm 100% that everything bar combat sites aren't even all that challenging.
Paskis Robinson
Black Eagles.
#26 - 2012-12-28 23:31:12 UTC
Larloch TheAncient wrote:
Confirming that Solo exploration is not impossible (although the combat sites are very difficult).


I run them all the time with an alt (scanning/utility(codebreakers/etc), previously I ran them just fine in a maelstrom, and with my earning I just invested in a Loki that "should" be able to handle the toughest Combat sites that the sansha can throw at me.


When I run a few of them I'll post more, but I can confirm 100% that everything bar combat sites aren't even all that challenging.


I've been working out some new methods (lost some stuff along the way!) and I agree, everything can still be done, but it's tougher - an in some cases there's just no suitable counter for the NPC AI other than slow uninteresting grinding. It should have made PvE more interesting, but I'm afraid as the sites were all designed with the old AI in mind and haven't been rebalanced, the new AI has made PvE just more frustrating.

Still can you imaging doing that "Buzz Kill" level 4 mission these days.. now THAT would SUCK!!
dexington
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#27 - 2012-12-29 00:03:53 UTC
Larloch TheAncient wrote:
I run them all the time with an alt (scanning/utility(codebreakers/etc), previously I ran them just fine in a maelstrom, and with my earning I just invested in a Loki that "should" be able to handle the toughest Combat sites that the sansha can throw at me.


Even if the Loki can reach extreme levels of mission specific resist, it's still not immune to tracking disruptors.

I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.
Paskis Robinson
Black Eagles.
#28 - 2012-12-29 06:24:11 UTC
I just ran the Chain Mindflood LADAR site in 0.0. The new AI was brilliant for this site. My drones were safe, but everything else was changing targets; neutralizers, even battleship NPCs were switching between my rattlesnake and logi. I was having to balance tank, cap, DPS, the works - I was kept really busy, but it was achievable. Far more interesting than it used to be without being just a pain in the drone bay.

I don't know if there's any reason the AI was easy on my drones this time, but if the new AI behaved this way all the time, it would be brilliant. Is CCP reading any of these threads?
Larloch TheAncient
Freindly Mining Corporation
#29 - 2012-12-29 07:31:17 UTC
dexington wrote:
Larloch TheAncient wrote:
I run them all the time with an alt (scanning/utility(codebreakers/etc), previously I ran them just fine in a maelstrom, and with my earning I just invested in a Loki that "should" be able to handle the toughest Combat sites that the sansha can throw at me.


Even if the Loki can reach extreme levels of mission specific resist, it's still not immune to tracking disruptors.


I acutally only encountered a few TD'ing frigates and my drones were more than capable of handling them (deaspace small remote rep kept my drones alive with little trouble)

furthermore the 900m/s AB was fast enough to dictate range to the point where the TD's weren't that bad against the battleships.



I will say though my normal range (17km by 43 km falloff) was reduced to 1.2km / 6 km falloff by 3 TD's)


TD's mixed with web's/scrams are still scary however, I likely would have died if my tank wasn't completely cap stable.

The New AI is pretty scary, but people throwing out words like "impossible" isn't warranted since CCP tweaked the TD percentages.


However I will say this, The TD graphics are still off, the 3 frigates who TD'ed me in one room kept TD'ing me permanetly. Regardless if the mechanics showed on the overview or not.


Thats something that should be fixed.
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