NPC Pirates: Upcoming addons & improvements

New NPC Pirates
NPC Pirates have been missing out on the fun of destroyers, battlecruisers, logistics, assault ships and covert ops. The next Big Content Patch (B.C.P.) will introduce new pirate types that will be able to play the roles of these ships.

Pirate NPC Naming
As we are adding new Pirate NPC types, new names must be created. Instead of only creating new names, a couple of NPCs will have their names changed. Why you might ask? In short, it will decrease the threat display with a shorter name and cause less confusion for future add-ons of NPCs.

All the name changes and the complete "rank listing" are listed in this post. This will happen for Asteroid Belt and Complex pirates.

New NPC Effects
NPC Pirates will be getting new effects that will make them more player-like. The five pirate factions will have different effects that will come into play; various NPC Pirates will be balanced for their new effects (reduced damage output for some etc.).

Examples of new effects for factions:
Angel Cartel: Target Paint
Blood Raiders: Cap Drain
Guristas: Target Jam
Sansha’s Nation: Tracking Disrupt
Serpentis: Sensor Dampen

We are also working on allowing specific NPCs to aid each other with remote shield transferers and armor repairing. More details about this will be giving in time in this post.

Cap Drain the NPC
Various modules have not been able to affect NPCs in the past; we have slowly been able to fix these issues (target jam for example). In the next B.C.P. you will be able to reduce tanking efficiency of NPCs by draining their capacitor.

Immunity for Special NPCs
On the topic of Cap Drain, Target Jam etc., super NPCs like Complex Bosses, Commanders and CONCORD etc. will be made immune to many of these effects. They will be acting similar to Dreadnoughts when they go into siege mode. More info will be posted in this post that will list which effects they will be made immune to.

Loot Tables
Loot tables will also get some anti-nerf lovin', among the tweaks are removing mediocre or non-sensical loot, like small shield boosters and basic damage controls from battleships, and increased drop rate of named modules from the elite ships.

**A lot more details and open discussion on various topics are here.

TomB**