[2020] Upcoming Changes to Drone Aggression

Hello Capsuleers,

In December, we will be modifying the ‘Aggressive’ behavior setting of drones, making them respond only to direct offensive actions taken by another Capsuleer (player) or their controlled drones.

Drones will therefore no longer automatically attack NPCs when their behavior is set to aggressive and instead will rely on player-issued commands to initiate action against a designated target. We are making this change to ensure that NPC killing activities move closer towards attentive player interactions and rely much less on low or no attention gameplay.

We also wish to maintain the criticality of Player versus Player engagements, and recognize those situations which is why drones will continue to attack your attackers when set to aggressive.

Fly safe o7

Note: Drones will only auto-attack Capsuleers piloting a ship. They will not auto-attack controlled Structures or Player Owned Starbases modules/weaponry when you are attacked by these.

Hi everyone,

A lot of healthy conversation surrounding the recent drone change is happening and we have been monitoring and discussing your feedback internally.

Our goal is to make PvE activities with drones a more attentive player experience that relies less on low or no attention gameplay moving forward, but the unintended impact on how the drone assist functions in certain scenarios is something we are not happy with. For this reason, we will be changing the drone behavior back to how it was before Tuesday’s patch in an upcoming deployment. We should have news for you on timing tomorrow.

We gathered a lot of valuable data and feedback from you and the CSM in the last couple of weeks on this matter and would like to thank everyone who shared their thoughts with us.

Fly safe! o7

Thanks,

See? Every now and then they listen to us.

m

You point at several of the right things.

We knew there was further vectors for AFK abuse as you correctly identify, but there is perhaps other approaches/solutions to the problem. Which is where we arrive at for now with going back from this change and taking some more time.

Delegate control for the old style of fighters is one street for discussion that takes us down a different and interesting path for drones.