Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Euphytose]

I didn't post this in the bugs section because I don't think it qualifies as a bug. However, I think that the AI's behavior regarding missiles (Harpoons at least) should be tweaked a bit. Right now my Onslaught is controlled by a steady officer, and when one Hound arrives, way ahead of the fleet, the Onslaught fires 3, sometimes 4 of its missile pods. That's a huge overkill, and more often than not these missiles get lost. This is a problem for long battles as the AI tends to deploy in two ways: 1) Biggest ships first, then swarm of frigates. 2) The opposite. In both cases, Harpoons are very handy. The AI does a great job at detecting overloaded ships and quickly destroying them with missiles, but when you have no missiles left, it's hard. And the Onslaught is very vulnerable from behind, unless you have lots of Harpoons left, then frigates are not a threat, unless they're phase ships.

[icepick37]

Which version are you running? There was a tweak to improve the "FIRE EVERYTHING AT THE FIRST THING I SEE" behavior. Not sure if this is related.

I actually like the harpoon spam. It has murdered me on more than one occasion. I'd rather they overkill a little than just fire off ineffectual single missiles.

"There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload."

[Megas]

Was the weapon group with the missiles on autofire?

[Euphytose]

I'm running the latest version, vanilla, with a savefile created on this version.

Missiles weren't on autofire, and were on the "alternating" setting.

[Alex]

Is this consistent? There's an element of weighted randomness in when the AI will decide to fire missiles vs unshielded ships, but vs an unshielded frigate, it shouldn't fire more than one burst in most cases - though it *may* fire several bursts in close succession, within ~5 seconds of each other.

I can't seem to reproduce the "fire 3-4 Harpoon Pods vs Hound" behavior in the simulator. Any thoughts on what might be different? Are you seeing it in the simulator too?

[TJJ]

Is this consistent? There's an element of weighted randomness in when the AI will decide to fire missiles vs unshielded ships, but vs an unshielded frigate, it shouldn't fire more than one burst in most cases - though it *may* fire several bursts in close succession, within ~5 seconds of each other.

I can't seem to reproduce the "fire 3-4 Harpoon Pods vs Hound" behavior in the simulator. Any thoughts on what might be different? Are you seeing it in the simulator too?

Is there something to stop *every* ship in a fleet firing 3-4 Harpoons at the same Hound?

In large fleet engagements this seems to happen quite often, and can be both a good & bad thing.
Good: It often assures the destruction of at least 1 of the player's ships (whichever AI piloted ship was nearest the front).
Bad: It often assures the destruction of at least 1 of the player's ships (whichever AI piloted ship was nearest the front).

I tend to field at least 1 sacrificial cheap, fast frigates just to absorb this opening salvo, so you don't lose a valuable Destroyer to it.

[Alex]

Is there something to stop *every* ship in a fleet firing 3-4 Harpoons at the same Hound?

In large fleet engagements this seems to happen quite often, and can be both a good & bad thing.
Good: It often assures the destruction of at least 1 of the player's ships (whichever AI piloted ship was nearest the front).
Bad: It often assures the destruction of at least 1 of the player's ships (whichever AI piloted ship was nearest the front).

I tend to field at least 1 sacrificial cheap, fast frigates just to absorb this opening salvo, so you don't lose a valuable Destroyer to it.

There is, yes. It checks to see how many significant missiles are already around the target. That, combined with the firing times being (weighted-)randomized, should mostly prevent huge overkill from multiple ships vs unshielded targets.

Ships with shields aren't particularly vulnerable to this unless their flux goes high, btw. If that happens, then the firing times are more coincident, and the risk of overkill is considerably higher because if multiple ships are firing missiles at the same time, the missiles won't be close enough to the target to register for overkill counting.

But underkill risks just wasting missiles if the target has good PD (or good supporting PD)... hmm. Might end up checking what the target is on guided missiles; could help fine-tune this a bit. Made a note.

[Euphytose]

Is this consistent? There's an element of weighted randomness in when the AI will decide to fire missiles vs unshielded ships, but vs an unshielded frigate, it shouldn't fire more than one burst in most cases - though it *may* fire several bursts in close succession, within ~5 seconds of each other.

I can't seem to reproduce the "fire 3-4 Harpoon Pods vs Hound" behavior in the simulator. Any thoughts on what might be different? Are you seeing it in the simulator too?

I haven't tried in the simulator, but in real battles it's very consistent yes, happens every time. Whether it's a Hound, Wolf, Tempest. Any ship that's alone and doesn't require that much firepower to take down.

[Clockwork Owl]

My 2 Enforcers consistantly starts a fight with some nasty Harpoon salvos that obliterates an enemy Wolf.
I don't approve it in terms of tactical efficiency(they can achieve similar result with their main guns), but it's not like they aren't fun to look at...

[Alex]

Hmm - if they have missile specialization and expanded missile racks, they may be more free with an initial salvo due to having more missiles to spare. If that's what's happening, it's pretty much working as it's meant to, and then should be more sparing with missiles after that initial salvo.

[Linnis]

I haven't tried in the simulator, but in real battles it's very consistent yes, happens every time. Whether it's a Hound, Wolf, Tempest. Any ship that's alone and doesn't require that much firepower to take down.

I have noticed this too.

Emy has one cerberus.

2-3 harpoon pod shots (thats like 6 missles) gets shot at em. Maybe the targeting get bounced around in the AI code and they end up decide to shoot multiple times?

[Clockwork Owl]

Hmm - if they have missile specialization and expanded missile racks, they may be more free with an initial salvo due to having more missiles to spare. If that's what's happening, it's pretty much working as it's meant to, and then should be more sparing with missiles after that initial salvo.

Yes, they have both. And indeed they spare their missiles after that.
So that's fine, but will you fix the Thunder thing? With that Harpoon they even have a chance to score a kill if they don't waste it when opening fire.