Crispy said:
I don't know what you mean about "being on the same cell as them until someone or some thing got them." If it means utilizing some solid tactics to outsmart a patrol, for example, well, that sounds cool! You'd still have to shoot them all and/or blow them up, so what's the problem?
Simple, if you leave the cell they vanish.
Everything only happens in the cell the player is present on, the rest is simply there for background until the player enters the cell.
Also its not outsmarting the patrol as they will walk the path without any regard to anything outside "fight enemies" as they will not retreat when facing a superior force, they do not retreat because they are too injured/few left and if ammo was not unlimited they would not retreat because they run out of ammo.
And they cannot retreat because there is no home base, its a endless patrol route.
Its "outsmarting" very basic AI commands that simply is walk down this path, engage the factions that are listed as hostile ... what so "tactical" about free loot? in Fallout 3 you only needed to follow the BOS patrols and help yourself to the Raiders they just killed and with "lucky" one or two would be killed (Missile Launcher Raider or Deathclaw at lower levels could kill them) and then you would have a nice suit of Power Armor (that likely you could not use anyway) for free.
In order to "outsmart" there must be some degree intelligence that you can outsmart, something that does not really exist on computer games but FO3 was very open to follow abuse because non-enemy patrols were not difficult to find and it was only a question of how long they could last and how long could you take of the boredom that was following NPCs at a distance down a road.
Now smart would be having patrols that had rest areas and unit rotation but you have the problem of the AI not knowing what "ammo" is so the problem stands, a way to solve it would be having almost NO enemy factions spawn areas along their route (besides easy dispatched animals, raiders know best to piss around a area the NCR keeps patrolling) unless certain events happen, I suspect FO:NR will not have Outcast "suicide" patrols or BOS "venturing into the death ruins" that were VERY stupid things.
Patrol areas SHOULD be safe areas for the player to be safe (or not, being on bad terms with the Legion and go right into one of their patrol areas is not a bright idea) and have backup in case he run into trouble, not a source of free loot.