so far, as a lvl 18ish, pilot I would say No. I've not seen any enemy ships (or friendly ships for that matter) regen hull or shields. I'd be interested to find out if this stays the same for higher levels.

It is a good thing they do not! That would get crazy when 6 of them attack you all at once and you have no help!

I'm pretty sure I've seen friendly ships use nanobots and shield batteries like mad, actually... I routinely scanned any escort ships I had for the story missions (usually Juni)... She'd start off with 30 of each, and by the end only have 6 or 7, and be pretty beat up. But I guess that explains how they manage to survive...

Dunno if that's an answer.

edit: And because it's bothering me... what does your subject mean?

---

"Hey...that's not my hand!"

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~ Self to the Centurion.


Edited by - Mephisto on 14-03-2003 16:05:54

it wouldn't suprise me if mission critical NPC friendly ships, like Juni, use nano's and shields.. or even that they are not killable at all (anyone seen Juni snuff it?).. as they are vital to the continuation of the plot. never seen it on NPC bad dudes though

As for Juni, King, or any of the other main characters, I have never seen them die. On the other hand I have seen people on your side die. Like in situations in the sp missions, a squadron of fighters being led by one of the main characters. I seen and heard over the comm some of those guys dying.

I have to admit I'm guilty of letting the npcs in the SP missions handle some of the nastyness for me when severely outnumbered, and i've never seen any of the main characters die. In the later stages of the game some of the scripted encounters get pretty absurd and the only way I found to make it out was to go fully defensive dumping mines and cm like the damned and let the friendly npcs even up the odds first. Then I would turn my guns on them when it wasn't a full wing of fighters, 4 gunboats and a battleship trying to pry my ship open...

I think I'm going to have to run through some of those last missions, and actively try to kill Juni or King when I can... See how -that- works.

"Hey...that's not my hand[!"

~ Self to the Centurion.

I have seen everyone use Boosters....But have not noticed anyone use nanos....

I know I have spent a good 15-20 minutes pelting a corsair down to almost no shield several times, only to have him use a booster and bring it back up.....That was before I realized...I was using weaps that didn't do enough shield damage...

I don't recall seeing any opponent using boosters once the shield bar is empty.

As for the NPC main char like Juni....I have seen them get beat to hell....I accidentally clicked on Juni, and saw that her shields were at 1/4 and had barely a sliver of hull left.....and she was smoking like crazy....

-Arg

-Narf

Yeah, I've seen them getting pretty battered, but never actually die. I wonder if what would happen if a few missiles accidentally hit the wrong target... Would the mission fail? Would I get some crazy alternate missions? Is there even more to the storyline, that nobody tapped???

Well, no, probably not. But one can hope.

"Hey...that's not my hand[!"

~ Self to the Centurion.

My assessment has been that the non-scripted NPC do not use the boosters they have. But at the same time when you go for the big missions there are so many around you should feel happy about that. I'm surprised that they didn't just let them use them and then cut back on some of the numbers of ships engaging you. Then again this could be just a simple bug that was overlooked before release.

I agree that it would make sense to have the higher level enemies us them though based on the fact that alot of time during combat situation a pilot can get overloaded trying to keep up with everything going on. I've always been pretty good at keeping an eye on my shield and hull levels but the later on in the game you get the more distracted you get with everything coming at you then BOOM! You're space dust.

Having those types of NPCs using boosters would make the situations you get in that much more difficult but in the same breath I would hope more profitable. But i'm willing to guess that facing a class 12 pilot would feel more like you were facing a class 21 pilot if they were using boosters.

But the funny thing is that even the green pilots(Level 1-10) seem to have pretty impressive targetting skills. Maybe they are getting 'target fixated' and that's why they don't get on the ball with the bosters can be the arguement. But my guess is either such a routine was either omitteed or just a bug.


"Paradox"

I'm glad they don't use nanos. I like to ride them to the carpet, guns blazing through them, but if I'm getting too heavily pelted, I'll disengage to attack my attacker(s). I'm glad to find my former prey still wheezing in some corner.

Not only do non-critical AI not use batteries and nanos, but their shields dont' even regenerate on their own after they've been knocked to zero (like player shields do).

This part seems kinda unfair on the AI to me. Admittedly, I wouldn't want to fight 8-10 bad guys even with just that on their side

ER

I'm pretty sure that the main characters are incapable of death, unless of course you shoot them (in which case the mission ends).

I think they just explain that w/ nano-bots. Besides, it'd be real frustrating to have Juni and King dying all the time... you'd have to be actively fighting off THEIR targets while you have to ignore the ships shooting at you. That wouldn't be any fun... games where you have to look after the NPC's (and NPC's that are supposed to be your boss, like Juni) bug me.

Easy Rhino,

Actually the NPCs shileds do regenerate. I watched this happen lastnight but going into god mode and saving the last guy around for my test. The hull never got repair by nanos but after a long while the shield did come back on line adn regenerate very, very slowly. My guess is that the shield generator had been damaged and that's why it was taking so long.

If you do a scan of the enemy ship you can usually find the ships weapons, countermeasures, and shield generator. If it's aft of the ship and you beat the hell out of it's ass I'm guessing the shield is going to take some damage.


"Paradox"