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Elusive NPC-Mission Frigates
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Jegrey Dozer
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2014-05-29 12:07:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Jegrey Dozer
I have done quite a lot of missions and a peculiar thing seems to happen every single time I target frigates with my sentry drones.

Before anything is aggroed, if I direct my sentry drones to attack a frigate, I miss as if my chance to hit is 0% for a brief period of time. This is to say that I will miss every shot for about 30 seconds up to a minute before my shots begin landing.

At first I just figured the ships are just small and they're moving very fast. However, I am in optimal range and when I looked at their transversal, it says they are not moving... Hmm. OK?

Then I noticed something even more strange. If I instructed my sentry drones to attack a frigate, allow them to fire a volley or two, then instruct them to attack any larger ship (destroyer, cruiser, battlecruiser, or battleship) their next and last volley lands hits on the frigates before switching over to the larger ships.

I am not quite sure if I have stumbled onto a bug where the sentry drones are unintentionally reading the signature radius of the larger ships for the frigates in that brief moment when they switch targets.

Has anyone else experienced this or am I not seeing something here?
IIshira
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#2 - 2014-05-29 12:37:10 UTC
Jegrey Dozer wrote:
I have done quite a lot of missions and a peculiar thing seems to happen every single time I target frigates with my sentry drones.

Before anything is aggroed, if I direct my sentry drones to attack a frigate, I miss as if my chance to hit is 0% for a brief period of time. This is to say that I will miss every shot for about 30 seconds up to a minute before my shots begin landing.

At first I just figured the ships are just small and they're moving very fast. However, I am in optimal range and when I looked at their transversal, it says they are not moving... Hmm. OK?

Then I noticed something even more strange. If I instructed my sentry drones to attack a frigate, allow them to fire a volley or two, then instruct them to attack any larger ship (destroyer, cruiser, battlecruiser, or battleship) their next and last volley lands hits on the frigates before switching over to the larger ships.

I am not quite sure if I have stumbled onto a bug where the sentry drones are unintentionally reading the signature radius of the larger ships for the frigates in that brief moment when they switch targets.

Has anyone else experienced this or am I not seeing something here?


I could be wrong but here's a possibility... You're shooting at this frigate that's just standing still and miss... Once the NPC aggro system kicks in the frigate starts a direct approach to your ship. At this time it goes pop.

By shooting at the BS first you may have pulled aggro from the frigate as well causing him to directly approach you.
Nad'x Hapax
Hapaxa
#3 - 2014-05-29 12:43:04 UTC
Jegrey Dozer wrote:
I have done quite a lot of missions and a peculiar thing seems to happen every single time I target frigates with my sentry drones.

Before anything is aggroed, if I direct my sentry drones to attack a frigate, I miss as if my chance to hit is 0% for a brief period of time. This is to say that I will miss every shot for about 30 seconds up to a minute before my shots begin landing.

At first I just figured the ships are just small and they're moving very fast. However, I am in optimal range and when I looked at their transversal, it says they are not moving... Hmm. OK?

Then I noticed something even more strange. If I instructed my sentry drones to attack a frigate, allow them to fire a volley or two, then instruct them to attack any larger ship (destroyer, cruiser, battlecruiser, or battleship) their next and last volley lands hits on the frigates before switching over to the larger ships.

I am not quite sure if I have stumbled onto a bug where the sentry drones are unintentionally reading the signature radius of the larger ships for the frigates in that brief moment when they switch targets.

Has anyone else experienced this or am I not seeing something here?



My guess is that u need the frig to activate MWD bloom Before hitting. Take a cruiser or BS out first...

Quote:
Then I noticed something even more strange. If I instructed my sentry drones to attack a frigate, allow them to fire a volley or two, then instruct them to attack any larger ship (destroyer, cruiser, battlecruiser, or battleship) their next and last volley lands hits on the frigates before switching over to the larger ships.


This is wierd though. Does that happen every time u try it?
Jegrey Dozer
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2014-05-29 12:49:41 UTC
Nad'x Hapax wrote:

This is wierd though. Does that happen every time u try it?


For the most part, yes. Switching targets seems to always work.
Hakaari Inkuran
State War Academy
Caldari State
#5 - 2014-05-29 13:23:36 UTC
If transversal is near zero he really shouldnt need the MWD bloom to hit his target, right?
Jegrey Dozer
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2014-05-29 14:32:36 UTC
Hakaari Inkuran wrote:
If transversal is near zero he really shouldnt need the MWD bloom to hit his target, right?


Exactly my thoughts. That is why I think that something is going wrong here. There isn't a reason for me to not be able to hit them in the first place.

Even so, the target switch seems to correct the issue? However, it seems odd that switching targets allows me to land hits. That leads me to believe something is messing up with sentry drones targeting frigates.
Nad'x Hapax
Hapaxa
#7 - 2014-05-29 15:04:36 UTC
Hakaari Inkuran wrote:
If transversal is near zero he really shouldnt need the MWD bloom to hit his target, right?



Oh right. I missed tthe part where the target had 0 angular. In that case yes this is truely wierd
Dato Koppla
Spaghetti Militia
#8 - 2014-05-29 15:17:42 UTC
If you did indeed check and the frigs were not moving at all, then there's something wrong. However when you describe not being able to hit frigs when first shooting them, this happens to me all the time, that's because usually mission frigs don't just stay when not aggroed, they move around at their base speed which is usually enough to outtrack sentries, then after a few shot once they have aggroed, they turn on their MWDs and burn straight at your ship/sentries which causes them to have 0 transversal and get popped.

As for the hitting a few shots before switching, it could that while the sentries are locking the BS, they continue shooting their previous target until the BS is targeted. Try having the sentries engage a frigate, a BS and a third target to ensure the first 2 are locked, then test it again.