Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: CapnHector on January 27, 2019, 11:44:57 AM

Title: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: CapnHector on January 27, 2019, 11:44:57 AM
My playership is a [REDACTED]-killer Onslaught with HMGs in the medium slots, dual LMGs in small slots, Devastators in large slots, heavy armor, and my character has all combat skills. My doctrine is set to steady officers.

Long story short, we're fighting a LP battlestation and several fleets, myself and two Paragons with high level officers, and I decide to hand over control to the AI because this is a routine mission that is no longer very interesting. No orders given.

What happened was that my Onslaught decided to burn drive into the battlestation pretty much ramming the heavy citadel, then stay within an inch of the station and tank the return fire on its armor while firing all of its guns, not even bothering with shields, just letting all that firepower land on its front armor. Meanwhile the Paragons took out the battlestation and the Onslaught still had a little frontal armor left, so the AI decided to immediately turn and burn drive straight into the heart of the LP fleet, so that it was surrounded by several layers of LP ships and hull was ticking down despite LP ships exploding left and right. Fortunately we killed enough ships that I was able to esc out of the battle with a sliver of hull remaining.

I'm not sure if this is awesome, intended, bug, annoying, or some combination of these, but definitely memorable
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: Euphytose on January 27, 2019, 01:15:50 PM
The AI is somewhat strange when fighting battlestations yes, this is something I noticed.

As far as the Onslaught goes, I usually put a reckless officer in it. With the right skills it's unkillable. I use flak in all medium mounts, and sometimes two of the large mounts as well. Auxiliary thrusters, heavy armour, and DTC/ITU and that's it.
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: SapphireSage on January 27, 2019, 04:41:39 PM
AI ships with Burn drive ship system or other similar "forward-burst Only" mobility systems tend to use them on Cooldown and will freely dive towards enemy fleets with them, for better or worse. It can work well for an Onslaught though, since they're the capital with the most forward oriented firepower and have tons of armor anyway making them good line breakers. Though if you want to shut down a burn driving onslaught coming in, Ion is the way to do it or a few reapers in the direction its coming in on (high forward speed = less time in PD).
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: Megas on January 27, 2019, 05:19:21 PM
AI ships with Burn drive ship system or other similar "forward-burst Only" mobility systems tend to use them on Cooldown and will freely dive towards enemy fleets with them, for better or worse.
This is a major, if not fatal, flaw with AI Odyssey.  Thanks to Plasma Burn, AI forces Odyssey to charge into combat and brawl like an Onslaught.  Skilled player can flank and outmaneuver enemies to mitigate Odyssey's poor defenses (for its size), but the AI is incapable of that, preferring a direct frontal assault instead where it will probably get crushed by capital-grade threats.
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: Null Ganymede on January 27, 2019, 11:00:26 PM
That's an opportunity, not a flaw. Use them to clear out frigate/destroyer chaff while outnumbered.
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: Retry on January 28, 2019, 06:43:16 AM
That's an opportunity, not a flaw. Use them to clear out frigate/destroyer chaff while outnumbered.
The AI needlessly isolating itself from the rest of the fleet and burning into the other side's death-ball so the lone ship can easily be defeated-in-detail is a flaw regardless if the burning ship is a Shrike, Odyssey or Onslaught, no matter the spin.
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: Megas on January 28, 2019, 07:42:34 AM
That's an opportunity, not a flaw. Use them to clear out frigate/destroyer chaff while outnumbered.
Such chaff is not a capital-grade threat.  That said, Odyssey is good at clearing pirate and pather chaff, which is the endgame threat in 0.9 (due to those factions ignoring your colony defenses), unless player foolishly sells blueprints to black market.  (Fights with major factions can be completely ignored once your colonies are powerful enough.)

However, if I want to fight classic endgame threats of previous versions (i.e., deserters and major factions' invasion fleets), I cannot give my Odyssey to the AI because it will "Leeroy" it and die because, unlike Onslaught, Odyssey does not have the defenses to trade blows with capital-grade threats (either another capital or a group of smaller high-grade ships).  Bottom line, AI is incompetent with Odyssey in 0.9.
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: CapnHector on January 28, 2019, 10:09:13 AM
Not to mention that in another memorable instance where I handed control over to AI, the Onslaught spent a minute trying to catch a single Lumen-class frigate, burn driving away from the rest of the fleet, while the rest were getting swarmed by the opposing fleet. Having this kill frigates is a horrible idea.

But in the instance mentioned in the OP, the AI was at least trying to play to the ship's strengths. I appreciate that and the heroism, it just wasn't good strategy here.
Title: Re: Onslaught Leeroying it
Post by: Plantissue on January 28, 2019, 12:42:01 PM
Anything with a burn drive does have a tendency to just suicide into the enemy fleet, though in your case, your Onslaught seems to be exclusively armed with anti-fighter and missile weaponry so maybe it thought to make good use of all its short range weaponry. Your Onslaught probably didn't have shield up since the LP battlestation has mostly small weapons, so it can take the attacks on its armour. Still, an Onslaught and 2 Paragons is just overkill vs a LP battlestation in terms of sheer power. It's 160 deplotment points. I took out my first LP battle statiuon with 120 deployments and a bunch of cruisers with no ships destroyed.