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Author Topic: AI use of missiles?  (Read 3101 times)

Smig

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AI use of missiles?
« on: August 10, 2019, 03:42:21 AM »

I've been avoiding giving AI ships any missile weapons other than those with a lot or unlimited ammo for fear of them wasting them on the first ship that gets in range. How is your experience with the AI use of missiles? Does it pick its shots carefully? Is it worth it?
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Euphytose

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2019, 03:55:37 AM »

It uses massive salvos at the very beginning of combat, against frigates. Do they get removed from combat? Yes, sure. But I'd rather they were kept ready to be used against an overloaded battleship.

Would be nice to have orders specific to missiles.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2019, 08:19:52 AM »

I think it would work well if ships saved missiles for ships the same size as them or larger. Dumping missiles to kill that unshielded hound is such a waste. Maybe if they just didn't fire at unshielded ships that could also work.
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pedro1_1

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2019, 03:28:16 PM »

I (most) of the time give my Ais Harpons, specialy on Ventures they just try keeping then until an enemy gets overloaded and then there's 20 or someting missiles going for only one ship, one quirck I like is how the Ai uses harpons, the do not fire at any frigate, even if thats the only enemy alive, at least bombers do not care about wasting ammo since infinity ammo is a thing for them
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Thaago

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2019, 05:26:03 PM »

I feel like they use Harpoons inappropriately against un-shielded ships. Hounds have flares and dodge, BMII's have flares and are incredibly easy to kill so why waste missiles? For that reason, I will always use dual atropos instead of harpoons in small slots at the beginning of the game.

My other gripe is the AI usage of Reapers: It will correctly fire them at high flux targets, but once said target is overloaded, they won't fire a second shot for the massive damage! Grrr! They do aim well though so its worth mounting them.

With those two exceptions, I think the AI uses missiles pretty well. Call it B+ overall. Worth mounting on most ships.
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SCC

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2019, 10:36:12 PM »

AI is wonky with missile usage from time to time, but don't underestimate it! The ability to remove a ship from the battle in a couple of seconds is useful to the AI, too.

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2019, 12:31:15 AM »

There's one especially wonky thing. If you outfit conquest with forward facing torpedos, AI will always miss them, because there seems to be a momentary delay between AI firing and torpedo actually being shot, that AI isn't aware of, so it begins turning broadside before torpedo is away so said torpedo always flies past the target.
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Igncom1

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #7 on: August 11, 2019, 03:09:04 AM »

I do find that the AI is missile happy but that's also not too bad. Spamming harpoons to kill frigate escorts are in my opinion the point of harpoon missiles. For anything larger torpedoes are more appropriate as they are less likely to dodge.

I often have to play around the AI's funk-y style and I feel that missiles are well worth the investment as killing escorts is still a very important job. Assuming you don't have interceptors/fast fighters to do the job in their place that is.
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Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Serenitis

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Re: AI use of missiles?
« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2019, 03:53:00 AM »

The AI is generally fairly okay at handling missiles. It just can't deal with context.
Such as the abovementioned Hound/Buffalo issue. On their own, good targets. Part of a fleet, bad targets.

Weird behaviour like this is a large part of why I'm such a fan of missiles not being ammo limited.
Because then it doesn't matter if the AI makes a bad call, as it can come back and have another go later.
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