4Game

I just had an interesting story just . . . happen out of on-foot gameplay. I took a mission to download data from a security data port on a military base. The mission required me to download settlement defense plans, and gave more settlement defense plans as a reward. So, very much worth doing!

I arrived at the base, landed about 500 m away, and drove my SRV in, parking behind a building. I made an effort to get into the data port by profile scanning. I managed to get a L1 permission, which got me in the front door. But then I got scanned by an L3 guard and all hell broke loose. I managed to kill the nearby guards and create enough of a pause to scan the L3 guard who scanned me.

That gave me access to the alarm panel, but before I could get to the panel, I could hear the thump of ground based aniti-air. A moment later, my ship was destroyed. I turned off the alarm, and killed the guards who came after me. Accessing the data ports in that building, I got the required settlement defense plans. I also downloaded a financial projection and a faction associates. Heading over to the hab buildings, I finished my data downloads, and headed out.

Amazingly, my SRV had survived, even if my ship was destroyed. So I climbed into the SRV and headed away from the base, hoping to call a taxi when I got far enough away. To my surprise, after about 1K meters, I started getting attacked by air ships. It wouldn't take long before the SRV was destroyed!

So I hopped out. Immediately, the airships stopped attacking my SRV and just circled above it. I tried boarding and booking it out of there, but I couldn't lose them. So I hopped out again. I figured I would never be able to escape in the SRV, so I just started walking away on foot . . . just me and this huge ringed planet hovering over the far horizon. Eventually, I got far enough away so that the mission updated as complete.

I decided it would be safe to call a taxi without losing my mission reward. So I did. A minute or so later, down comes that taxi. I boarded, ready for a restful ride back to base.

Not so much! At that point, all of the ships that had been circling my SRV attacked the taxi and destroyed it quickly. I had thought that NPCs would not attack or kill taxis. I was wrong!

I revived at a prison station in the Colonia region. I had not failed the mission and the valuable data downloads were still there. +3 notoriety was the main downside. Otherwise, I got my ship back and went on my way.

There is no point to this story, other than relating an instance where NPCs attacked a taxi. But it's the kind of random, slightly unpredictable gameplay I enjoy about Odyssey.