Two questions...

a) Anybody have any idea how frequently onyx shuttles drop viruses?

b) The level 60 Tech Cruiser (a common NPC) on my battle screen expires in about 8 hours, but the level 45 Dark Speeder has no expiry. Unless I misread Dan's update, I thought they were all supposed to expire? I'm only level 35, so the best I can do is whittle the speeder down over a long time. Is there something wrong with my speeder?

To clarify, only NPC spawns that came *after* the update will be affected.

It was just the kind of update I was hoping for, so yay! I think NPCs was such a great idea. It give some players to come out of cloaking and try combat which also exposes them to attacks from other players, so planning is required.

OK, thanks Dan.

... great... I get my butt handed back to me by NPC's that are lower level, let alone one that is 10 levels higher! LOL! That means I'm down to one slot now...

First I would like to say thanks Dan for quickly fixing NPCs. I love the concept and the artifacts you get from them. I have one question though. They switch out every eight hours? Is that just the ones you have not damaged or no matter what they will swap out. Reason I ask this. I am lower level around 40's and it took me over a day to kill off a Rare NPC.

If they swap out no matter what, then I recommend that there be a action timer on each npc. every time I attack it the 8 hour timer would reset. This way lower level players will have to stay active and keep the timer reseting but would also have time to kill the NPC. There is really just no way to kill some NPCs in 8 hours as it stands now for lower level players.

Rare NPCs have a 24 hour timer by default, so they will last longer than commons/uncommons.

The Hull/Shields on most NPCs was also lowered a bit yesterday, so it should take less energy to kill them.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I still think there should be a reset timer on NPCs you make action against(i.e. attack, use arty), or a toggle to remove timer if you decide its a keeper. That way you are not rushed to disable. If i decide to sleep, do yard work or what ever and dont log on for 7 hours i have hardly no chance to kill that uncommon ship or rare ship.

Dan...

I seem to have a problem with my NPC's now... The Dark Speeder that is not on a timer at least.

It seems to be since the hull/shields were lowered.

The damage to the hull seems to be about half of what is reported in the Battle Results. The result is, I am still taking damage as it was before, but now am only doing half the damage I was to the NPC. Its actually made things worse.

I also have a problem with NPC's but different, the effects are similar tho. The NPC has 150 attack and 180 Defense and I have 188 attack and 188 defense but it seems I am taking 3x the dmg I am doing to him.

every time or just sometimes? because that could be critical hits.

it seems like every time unless Im unlucky and the NPC got 3 critical hits on me in a row. Would hull and sheilds have anything to do with it? Because I had 4 sheilds(yes, afetr battling a different NPC) and 440 hull and the NPC had 500 sheilds and 100 hull(when would a rank 35 have that much sheilds?) EDIT I made a mistake, I actually had 137 atk because I had to sell soem to put relays on.

Remember that the damage ceiling is based on ship size now. If you want to post questions about battle results, you need to include everything:

* Your ship size
* Full attack / defense / hull / shield stats
* Enemy rank and stats
* At least 3 results from the combat log

the attack thing wouldn't help and yes your hull and such would make a difference. With the new system ships with more decks take more damage.

Oops, before I posted this it notified me of your post dan. I have 268/270 space, 200 hull, 2/244 sheilds, 218 atk(I put some new weaps back on), 188 defense. The TO NPC has 150 atk, is rank 35, and has 180 defense, he also has 500 sheilds and 100 hull(which I think is too big for a rank 35).

Im gonna do three attacks to get those results and will edit them in, here is the first one I took 27 dmg he took 20.

Ok, something weird just happened, I went back to battle tab to do my 2nd attack and the TO was back to 100% stable here is 2nd attack I took 23 dmg he took 18.

Ok, edit #3, I took 18 dmg and he took 21 dmg, first one Ive won so far.

OK, sorry, I was not aware of that...

Strangely, I had left the battle screen to come report the descrepency, but when I returned, the damage was reporting properly.

Must've been a glitch or something. Please ignore my previous post.

Im just doing this so this thread will apear active and youll find I did all three edits. My problem is that we are taking similar dmg but I have 60 more atk then him.

Ok, I just did 4th attack and took 20 dmg and the NPC took 25, 2nd win out of 4, its balanced, but I have 68 more attack adn 8 more defense!!!

Do NPC's sheilds recharge after a certain time?

Not yet, but Dan says they will in the future. He hasn't said when this will be, however.