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Suggestions / Weapons, timing, ammo and the AI
« on: January 15, 2015, 01:13:45 AM »
Hypothetical scenario:
you have ships with 3 weapon groups - 2 energy weapons, 2 HE weapon and 2 kinetic weapons.
Energy weapons are effective against everything, so when they auto-fire, you don't worry.
Kinetic weapons are mostly against shields, but can damage the hull. Since you want the shields to stay down, you generally wont' mind those guns shooting non-stop (unless ammo is low)
HE is against hull and you want them to unleash when the shields are down.
The player can manage that. The AI? Not so well.
How many torpedoes and limited shots do AI ships waste? How many times do they unload all of your HE torpedoes on a capital ship with full shields?
This holds especially true for weapons with low ammo but high damage (such as torpedoes), but it also applies for the new clip system. Long reload times and only a few rounds in a clip, means that a useful weapon will be in a reloading cycle when you need it most.
So a way to control when the AI will use a weapon group.
"Fire only if you have a clear shot at the hull"
"fire only at shields", etc..
I guess one could base it on damage type, but problem is you can have weapons that deal any kind of damage that have tons of ammo or no ammo, so conservation or timing isn't an issue for them.
you have ships with 3 weapon groups - 2 energy weapons, 2 HE weapon and 2 kinetic weapons.
Energy weapons are effective against everything, so when they auto-fire, you don't worry.
Kinetic weapons are mostly against shields, but can damage the hull. Since you want the shields to stay down, you generally wont' mind those guns shooting non-stop (unless ammo is low)
HE is against hull and you want them to unleash when the shields are down.
The player can manage that. The AI? Not so well.
How many torpedoes and limited shots do AI ships waste? How many times do they unload all of your HE torpedoes on a capital ship with full shields?
This holds especially true for weapons with low ammo but high damage (such as torpedoes), but it also applies for the new clip system. Long reload times and only a few rounds in a clip, means that a useful weapon will be in a reloading cycle when you need it most.
So a way to control when the AI will use a weapon group.
"Fire only if you have a clear shot at the hull"
"fire only at shields", etc..
I guess one could base it on damage type, but problem is you can have weapons that deal any kind of damage that have tons of ammo or no ammo, so conservation or timing isn't an issue for them.
