6 Likes
Probably just a weird glitch where an NPC took offence and gave Mr Jacob a whooping. Or it might be a new feature… Watch the skies in high conflict systems or you might get deadified. Be interesting to see if it happens again to anyone else.
4 Likes
That’s it. I’m agoin’ out an’ shootin’ me some NPC ships. Make my day! 
7 Likes
If the ship retaliated against being hit, then the behaviour has to be reproducible. The hunt is on!
(people with permadeath saves, you might want to skip this one 
)
6 Likes
I have had a few encounters with NPCs, though none ever seemed to target me. Two were freighter battles. One where I went through a battle but didn’t engage. The battle followed me to the surface and the fought above me for a short time then moved away. The other seemed like it was my freighter that initiated the distress and the battle happened around me. One of the NPCs must have hit another because they turned on each other and would occasionally fire in my direction, but when their fire would hit me it didn’t do anything. A third oddity was my freighter once got mad at one of my frigates and and kept firing at it. The noise was deafening and I had to move the freighter to shut it up. This is the first time I have seen anything hit the ground from the sky (except when I go plinking sentinels around a manufacturing plant). Now we have a new sport, to see if we can aggravate NPCs as they fly over.
6 Likes
before beyond came out, i was able to shoot npc ships and if there were 3 of them i would be attacked and a sentient alert would become activated
5 Likes
Just for context…
On January 5, 2019 — a prior update version,
I picked a fight with a couple NPC good guys in Normal mode on PC (a large fighter and a shuttle), shot their ships for no good reason, just to see what would happen if I landed and got out. I know, shame on me, a wild and reckless moment we’ll soon forget, but I was curious. So I landed my large explorer and this is what I got…
These are the only photos that I captured…
Above we see “green tail, red shots (good guy)” and their ability to curve shots.
In the OP we see…
In the OP we also see the ability to curve shots, although demonstrated mildly.
As can be seen, during that update version at least, they seemed transfixed on my starship — But even if I stood in direct line of fire, with laser piercing through my humanoid existence, there was no harm to me and no harm to my ship; Nor would they try to seek me out personally, just my ship — Ship only received harm if I hopped back inside.
Should we test for a new update version?
…be warned
11 Likes
Hmmmm…interesting facts about trying to shoot at a starship while on foot. The game will not let you shoot at ships that are on landing pads or if they are in a holding pattern waiting to land. Will have to try and catch one as it is out on a joy ride. This could be challenging.
11 Likes
I haven’t tried provoking an attack on a trading post for a while. I feel a project coming on…
9 Likes
PROJECT REPORT
Well I set up a couple of planetary battles at trading posts. The good news is it still works - you can provoke a spectacular fight between friendly and enemy NPC ships in planetary atmosphere.
The friendly ships do more damage to enemies than they do in space, and will eventually destroy them.
It’s a lot of fun to watch, and get involved in.
HOWEVER (The Bad News)
If you land and get out of your ship, after 30 seconds, the enemies will just fly away, and the battle ends. They will not attack you while you’re on foot. This is clearly NOT the phenomenon that @MacForADay witnessed. That’s clearly something else - and more detective work is needed, all you Sherlocks!
8 Likes
Did a test myself yesterday by shooting my mining beam at a passing hauler. After taking a bit of fire, the hauler went into a dive, and unfortunately vanished behind a small hill out of my sight, never to reappear again.
My guess is that the hauler took evasive action without considering the terrain, and vanished through the floor of the world, as they have been observed to do every now and then when navigating difficult terrain. It is also possible that it actually crashed and exploded, but since the dive looked controlled and the ship was not spinning as destroyed but not yet exploded ships usually do I don’t consider that likely.
Also, I would be shocked if a relatively short burst from an advanced mining beam with a single S-class upgrade would destroy a hauler.
The haulers two companions carried on as if nothing had happened.
So I could definitely see a reaction to the attack, which might have been cut short by the hauler glitching through the terrain, but it’s also possible that evading was all it was intending to do. I didn’t get another opportunity, and right now I’m setting up shop in an uncharted system, so it might be a while until I get a retry.
8 Likes
We may need to replicate the scenario exactly. Two players in a group. Not sure if macs friend was host or guest but we’ll just get both players to shoot and see if anything happens 
might try this experiment when I finally get around to party play.
Tried shooting ships last night but soon remembered multi tool shot distance is greatly reduced in PSVR to match the reduced draw distance.
6 Likes
I was host at that point in time
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I parked myself on a precipice and waited for ships to fly by. There is a lot of air traffic on this planet.
However, each time a ship came within range, my multi-tool would stop firing.
This is as far as I can test this theory of strafing a starship. I can not participate in multiplayer right now. I cannot join a group.
6 Likes
I have noticed that multitools can now fire in some areas of trading posts. If you don’t care about trashing your status with the local alien species, you might try zapping something in one of those,
Personally, I’m wary about attacking groups I may need to rely on in the future.
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I am just waiting for someone to hit the Space Station during these tests, whether by accident or on purpose 
6 Likes
I didn’t do that… but I did manage to get my fighter tangled up in the ladders on a trading post resulting in a hasty reload before the black screen of doom descended
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I had a go at recreating it. No luck firing from the ground at all. Fired on a hauler from my ship then landed and jumped out. It didn’t attack me but kept looping round and firing on my ship, was quite cool to watch and didn’t stop till i respawned my ship a short distance away.
5 Likes