I am a member of [TRI] Trident Arms Syndicate and I make Stygian Furie kits for sale to other players. I sell them for 750000 credits and it takes quite a bit if work to assemble the makings of the Furie.

Problem 1:

I had three Furies riding shotgun while I carried valuable cargo in my Behemoth XC and expected that they would defend me. A pirate who had earlier been killed by one of my customer's Furie decided to take out his anger on mine. He started killing them one by one but I was able to recall one of them. It did not appear that they made any effort to defend themselves. There is no way that I could defend myself with an XC - not even to ram him to trigger a response from the Furies. I took heavy damage before evading.

In this context the Furies represent an expensive liability - a wasted effort. They should make an effort to defend themselves. I think that Furies should have limited insurance similar to the Tridents or be recalled when they are killed.

Problem 2:

Another player built two Fuires from kits that he purchased from me. He launched them and within minutes his internet connection drop. He subsequently lost both Furies. Again, I think there should be an auto recall in this case.

I think the Furies could be a lot of fun, especially for players that have not been playing enough to build a Trident. But as they are currently implemented they are too fragile to be worth investing any effort in. I have always wondered why so few people made them and now I understand why.

The player should be able to give them more direction. For instance a player could set a distance of 750 m in which if someone who is marked as hostile on the players radar enters that range voluntarily or involuntarily, the furies attack. Or they could be set to guard / mark a certain area.

I'd like to also see the time limit removed.

However, the first thing that needs to happen with any fix regarding the furies is that the owner be made responsible for their actions. Any fix prior to this only serves to enhance the exploits they are used for.

I'd like to see them respond to the come command from a sector within the same system. But, yes, the current implementation is flawed. They should at least defend themselves.

+1 Fluffy

A lot of things are broken with the furies but, before anything else, furies need a fix Fluffy mentioned.

You should not be able to get furies to kill players inside station NFZ without any nation/faction standing repercussions. Make the player responsible for all furies actions.

Furies commands need to be restructured:
1. Follow - furies will follow you and won't react on any accidental bumping by other npc or players
2. Defend - furies will follow and react on any attack on them or their owner
3. Attack - furies will attack target selected by owner
4. Wait (or stand down) - furies will move behind owner and stand down from any action they were performing (similar to Hold position now)
5. Recall - returns furies to the barracks

Also, one really crucial fix is needed: furies do not turbo in ion storms, they get lost and are not defending themselves from hive bots.

There is no way that I could defend myself with an XC - not even to ram him to trigger a response from the Furies.

This would have triggered them to attack in the past, I think. However, this behavior was also associated with an issue where the Furies would attack the owner if the owner somehow damaged him/herself by bumping into an inanimate object. Hence, it was taken out. There is also the matter of players using this to circumvent NFZ protection.

I agree that it would be great to have the Furies defend themselves if attacked directly.

I think that Furies should have limited insurance similar to the Tridents or be recalled when they are killed.

How would this work? It seems as if this would allow one to build the Furies once, and then have them replaced immediately when they die? Or perhaps some of the items needed for manufacturing would be replaced by credits? For replacement, there is probably a balance between 100% the cost of initially building them and no cost at all.

Another player built two Fuires from kits that he purchased from me. He launched them and within minutes his internet connection drop. He subsequently lost both Furies.

This issue should be fixed. John has made the design imperative clear that missions should be resilient as possible to the entire range of internet connections. People playing on mobile generally do not have as reliable of a connection as those on a PC.

@Phaserlight

The 'disconnect' and furies getting deleted problem is linked to the VO mission system furies operate within.

If a player gets disconnected - mission is interrupted (read 'aborted'), furies are deleted, and there is no way to get that mission to return to the state before disconnect.
Only thing a player can do is to manufacture new furies and hope he won't get disconnected next time he takes them out for a stroll.

Not sure the whole mission system can be fixed so easily.
Maybe, as a quick fix, an exception can be made to allow players to get a free furies 're-stock' if mission is interrupted by disconnect?

Right. I wasn't suggesting the devs change anything about the way missions work; I was merely acknowledging that the issue theantigod's customer had is a design flaw in this particular set of missions. I wrote this sequence way back when: well before the advent of VO for phones. ARF improved on the mission structure so that the furies don't always all die simultaneously. The devs made them fire all of their weapons.

The tree has been through some improvements, but it clearly has room for more.

perhaps if the mission is interrupted (i.e. disconnection) they simply fly a holding pattern for 5 min. or even 15 min.

They'll be vulnerable, but the case above I was there for. The owner logged back in seconds after they jumped away (which deleted them, of course). Had he logged back in, he probably still couldn't have controlled them unless the mission was still active. Isn't there a way to keep a mission active during a log out or disconnect?

It might be easier and cleaner to just have them return to the dormant state as though they had been instructed to return to the station.

As far as the getting lost and not defending themselves issue goes, there's really nothing the PCC can do without tools to allow more granular control over NPCs.

It might be possible to change the way the mission works when the player logs out. I'll take a look.