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Author Topic: Inconsistent fighter broadside behavior.  (Read 1743 times)

Tartiflette

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Inconsistent fighter broadside behavior.
« on: September 29, 2018, 12:20:01 AM »

   So, I tried to make standoff broadside support fighter for ORA that would orbit its target just outside PD range. A a quick test I used an existing fighter, gave it a Broadside Friendly Layoutâ„¢, created a system that just forces the ship forward without straffing to impose the desired orbiting behavior, and launched a simulation.

   It was... A total failure: the fighter would be extremely conflicted between turning to their broadside and doing bombing runs. I tried to change the wing type and the bombing range without success, the fighters would always face their target, straffe like crazy despite their system imposing a NO_STRAFFING rule and overall be useless.

   Except in one instance.

   The frustrating part in this attempt is that when the fighter is the player ship (thanks dev-mode) and put in auto-pilot mode, it behave beautifully! Check this out:

Spoiler
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Pictured above:
1 player controled broadside fighter in autopilot, orbiting its target beautifully,
1 AI wingman, derping like a mad dog because it want to bite the target but is held on a short leash,
1 other AI wing of broadside fighter stupidly trying to do bombing runs...
(ignore the small interceptors, those are working as intended)

So the question remains: is there a way to force the AI fighter behavior to match the player ship auto-pilot behavior?
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Alex

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Re: Inconsistent fighter broadside behavior.
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2018, 09:12:48 AM »

Ahh - fighters and ships use entirely different AIs, and fighter AI does not support broadsides in the slightest. What you're seeing as "conflicted between turning to their broadside" is likely just it alternating between turning towards the target and turning to follow the wing leader.

The reason you're seeing it work when on the player ship is because the autopilot sets the AI to be ship AI, regardless of what you're piloting - so, it's using ship AI. Performance issues aside, this wouldn't work on anything but the wing leader anyway, since it's not coded to maintain wing cohesion. It'd also have other issues since a fighter is not a ship and doesn't need to, say, avoid asteroids or friendly ships, but does need to do other things, like "land on a carrier". Just... different AI.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Inconsistent fighter broadside behavior.
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2018, 12:52:58 AM »

I figured as much. Welp, time for hacks to try and make this work!
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