Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Tempest on January 18, 2019, 10:57:29 PM

Title: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Tempest on January 18, 2019, 10:57:29 PM
I just had a cloud of standard bombs thrown at me by my own Legion. Previously I tried equipping Mules with lots of Annihilator missile packs, which they promptly emptied into my engines.

It makes no sense. We have IFF and self-destruct capability on missiles in this day and age, a spacefaring civ surely has the means to not shoot its own ships.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Deshara on January 19, 2019, 01:44:17 AM
considering the current state of bombers you could consider it a balancing feature
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Philder on January 19, 2019, 01:49:10 AM
Identity signals can be spoofed and friendlies can suffer damage to identity signaling systems. If a commander had to choose between giving the enemy the chance to disable their weapons, or trust in their forces to not shoot each other or walk into the line of fire and just accept some occasional friendly fire losses, they'd choose the second option every time.

It'd make a lot of sense for intelligent munitions to electronically shield itself and no longer accept signaling after being fully armed and fired to prevent counter-measures from interfering with its mission, or even worse, being used by the enemy. Intelligent munitions and everything they involve are also a lot more costly to produce.

I'm not an industry expert on the matter but as far as I know, Identity signaling just gives weapon controllers a message of who they're aiming at, and it's the weapon controllers' perogative to shoot or not.

To answer your question, my take on friendly fire is that FF is an integral part of warfare. Removing FF completely changes the way war is waged. It's typically instituted because the idea behind the game is completely untennable with FF, whether through game functionality or multiplayer griefing. Logic and historical continuity need not apply to fictional works.

Either way, the ACTUAL problem you're having an issue with is either AI deficiencies or you're just blindly moving into the path of oncoming weapons.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Tempest on January 19, 2019, 02:57:37 AM
The actual problem is that the fight was already over, while the bombers sneaked up on me and helpfully unloaded everything they had. I'm sitting there in my Falcon thinking I won, when I notice incoming bombs and think "Do those blow up my ship?", completely unable to move out of the way.

This makes unguided missiles completely useless on AI ships. It is not a balancing feature, but a design flaw. Since we have minimal control over what the AI decides to do at any given moment, you can't prevent your carrier or a missile frigate from trying to "help" by arriving too late. Even if you happen to have command points left, there's no way to guarantee that they won't just continue helping instead.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: DatonKallandor on January 19, 2019, 03:45:50 AM
Unguided weapons can't be spoofed by flares, but also aren't friendly fire proof. That's the trade-off you make with them. They're far from useless.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: RawCode on January 19, 2019, 04:44:50 AM
this happen when you play rambo and let your AI ships tend for themselves, as you move forward and cross fire lines, as result taking FF from "slow" weapons.

in case of beams they perfectly predict your movement and disable beams just at time for your passage.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Tempest on January 19, 2019, 07:34:49 AM
this happen when you play rambo and let your AI ships tend for themselves, as you move forward and cross fire lines, as result taking FF from "slow" weapons.

in case of beams they perfectly predict your movement and disable beams just at time for your passage.

This happens when you are fighting a ship, then your carrier shows up and unloads stuff in your direction.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Alex on January 19, 2019, 07:44:31 AM
Previously I tried equipping Mules with lots of Annihilator missile packs, which they promptly emptied into my engines.

If you could provide more detail about when/how that happens, that could be helpful in tracking this down. They're supposed to avoid friendly fire - and mostly do - so some specifics here would be really nice.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Megas on January 19, 2019, 08:29:43 AM
Friendly fire problems:

Piranha.  Their bombs are very slow and travel for a while before they disappear.  The bombs can also be hard to see, and my ships have taken damage or spontaneously combusted from an unknown source (which is probably Piranha bombs).

Also, ships with burn drive and Doom are not a good combination.   If Doom and ship with burn drive fight the same target, Doom might lay mines in the path of a burn driving ship with no way for the latter to avoid.  Does Doom even account for allied burn driving ships?  If not, it needs to do that or if that cannot be done, bring back vent canceling featured in one of the 0.7.x releases.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Euphytose on January 19, 2019, 08:49:55 AM
I liked Burn Drive cancelling but I think it's really overpowered, it basically nullifies the lack of speed for ships that have it, mostly Enforcer, Dominator and Onslaught, at no downside whatsoever.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Megas on January 19, 2019, 09:54:52 AM
I do not want my AI-controlled Doom or star fortress to lay mines in the path of my Enforcer, Dominator, or Onslaught if we fight the same enemy or general area.  I do not care how that is fixed.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Tempest on January 19, 2019, 02:12:00 PM
Previously I tried equipping Mules with lots of Annihilator missile packs, which they promptly emptied into my engines.

If you could provide more detail about when/how that happens, that could be helpful in tracking this down. They're supposed to avoid friendly fire - and mostly do - so some specifics here would be really nice.

Unfortunately, that was many playthroughs ago (I restart a lot). By the looks of it, it takes too long for a missile like Annihilator to travel from max range, so the shooter may think there's no friendies in the way. Except it's possible to drift into the line of fire or have the enemy hide behind you while a missile salvo is taking place. The Rocket Launcher version of it fires 5 missiles before it can stop, and I had two of them equipped, plus the bigger Pod in the front.

I had equipped 4-5 mules as missile platforms, and I think they were just throwing missiles in the pack we were fighting. They didn't kill me when I noticed, but it wasn't a pleasant discovery.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: FreedomFighter on January 19, 2019, 06:39:40 PM
this happen when you play rambo and let your AI ships tend for themselves, as you move forward and cross fire lines, as result taking FF from "slow" weapons.

in case of beams they perfectly predict your movement and disable beams just at time for your passage.

Except for the Tri-Tac beam. If something spook the AI that is using it, it could cut your entire fleet in half.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: RawCode on January 19, 2019, 11:13:59 PM
burst beams cannot be disabled and have "warmup", it's quite easy to get shot from AI, especially if you operate SO frigate.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Lighthouse on January 20, 2019, 10:24:04 AM
By the looks of it, it takes too long for a missile like Annihilator to travel from max range, so the shooter may think there's no friendies in the way. Except it's possible to drift into the line of fire or have the enemy hide behind you while a missile salvo is taking place. The Rocket Launcher version of it fires 5 missiles before it can stop, and I had two of them equipped, plus the bigger Pod in the front.


I think your problem is with the behavior of the ships getting hit (not prioritizing staying out of the way of friendly dumb-fire missiles) rather than with the behavior of the ship firing the missiles.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Tempest on January 20, 2019, 03:38:24 PM
By the looks of it, it takes too long for a missile like Annihilator to travel from max range, so the shooter may think there's no friendies in the way. Except it's possible to drift into the line of fire or have the enemy hide behind you while a missile salvo is taking place. The Rocket Launcher version of it fires 5 missiles before it can stop, and I had two of them equipped, plus the bigger Pod in the front.


I think your problem is with the behavior of the ships getting hit (not prioritizing staying out of the way of friendly dumb-fire missiles) rather than with the behavior of the ship firing the missiles.


Bigger ships can hardly choose whether they will be hit, because of both momentum and sheer size. The way combat works, I've been wondering if even my small ships were disabled by friendly fire sometimes.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Plantissue on January 21, 2019, 07:34:51 AM
I've been hit by bomb bay bombs quite a few times, usually when i think combat is over and I drift into a bunch of bombs, though to be honest I think the AI recognising friendly fire opportunities is pretty good.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Schwartz on January 21, 2019, 11:10:59 AM
Previously I tried equipping Mules with lots of Annihilator missile packs, which they promptly emptied into my engines.

If you could provide more detail about when/how that happens, that could be helpful in tracking this down. They're supposed to avoid friendly fire - and mostly do - so some specifics here would be really nice.

I can chime in on this. Annihilators are problematic mostly in the small mounts because the AI (as I feel) does not take into account the spread pattern of the missiles. I get bit in the ass by Annihilators occasionally, and most of the time it's from the 4-shot small mount version.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Sarissofoi on January 25, 2019, 10:03:33 AM
I was hit often by allied mines in defense of allied high tier orbital station if its count.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Cosmitz on January 25, 2019, 11:13:58 AM
Previously I tried equipping Mules with lots of Annihilator missile packs, which they promptly emptied into my engines.

If you could provide more detail about when/how that happens, that could be helpful in tracking this down. They're supposed to avoid friendly fire - and mostly do - so some specifics here would be really nice.

Most of my encounters with friendly fire happened with burst-style weapons or random-pattern weapons, the AI considers the initial firing sequence but if anything happens during, like the gun switching target to something else (due to R or target dying), it'll just spray over it. I've seen it /so/ often with Needlers as well as Annihilators, but it's very obvious with bombs since once they commit to the burst, that's what's happening. I don't have an example on hand, and the reasons vary, with Annihilators it's based on the fact that the AI seems to not consider 'what's behind/next' to the target that much, and given the spray of the weaponsystem, anything else it hits is collateral damage. I'm reasonably sure this can be tested with a mock gun that has a huge spray range cone, say 180 degrees, with friendlies in it, and a valid target, and the AI will probably just spam it no matter the collateral.
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Retry on January 25, 2019, 02:11:16 PM
I've suffered from FF, Piranhas are often a big culprit.  I've also seen friendly-fire incidents when ship's are trying to shoot down hostile fighters and miss.  Usually it's small PD stuff but sometimes my ship or another one will get their rear shot up by a heavy blaster or ion weapons, and in one particularly memorable moment I got hit by a friendly with a heavy ion blaster from the SWP mod.  The front lines is not the best place to lose control of all engines and weapon systems...
Title: Re: Why is there friendly fire?
Post by: Deshara on January 28, 2019, 08:07:15 PM
maybe -- friendly fire for the player only?? TBH I can't think of a single case in which AI friendly fire improves player experience -- at best it highlights gaps in the AI. At best