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Author Topic: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups  (Read 7929 times)

Plantissue

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #60 on: November 05, 2019, 08:58:13 AM »

It's not about obscure weapon group mechanics, its about making my ships do what I want them to do when I am personally piloting them. I don't particular care about AI weapon usage.  I choose weapon groupings on all my ships on what I would be using when I would be directly controlling them. I like to bounce between ships when as needed. But since I am restricted to 5 weapon groupings I am restricted in my options. A sacrifice has to be made in options. Perhaps I will have to place autofire missiles instead of the missiles I really want. Perhaps I cannot toggle Ion weapon on and off or forgo having them altogether. Perhaps I always have to fire KE and HE together. Perhaps two different large weapon missiles cannot be controlled seperately. Perhaps I cannot concentrate on only moving the ship. Ship loadout is constrained due to the restriction.


If you are worried about balancing the game to a baseline, you should be worried about being able to change battle size which is a significant game changer rather than something that shouldn't change AI balance at all. You call it obscure weapon group mechanics, but is it a problem if suddenly the AI on both sides can choose which TPC on an onslaught to shoot? Just because it is something you don't understand it doesn't make it a problem. If the player pilot gains more ability to choose which weapons to fire on the battlefield is it a problem for game balance? It is not.
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bobucles

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #61 on: November 10, 2019, 05:31:09 AM »

I don't see why the player being able to improve ship performance by understanding how auto fire AI work is a problem. Isn't the point of the game for the player to learn the mechanics of the game and improve their performance? Weapon grouping is a skill the player has to learn: it's just another part of outfitting. You can always improve the AI performance at weapon grouping to make the game more difficult, although I don't think that really a problem right now.
The main reason it's a problem is because the link between "switching weapon groups" and "altering ship behavior" is essentially black magic. There is no intuitive way to understand this and if you can explain it in less than 5 sentences you're probably explaining it wrong. I've been checking out veterans with years of experience, and they still spend hours twiddling with weapon groups because even they don't know how the AI will respond. They add weapons, remove weapons and play with weapon groups, because those are the player levers to interact with ship AI.

Changing AI with weapon groups is like trying to drive a car with a drum set. You can still drive, but you're driving with a drum set.
Even if you cannot imagine using more than 5 weapon groups, other can. Why say that you don't need 5? Why not any other number? You might be happy with 5, whereas plenty others see the opportunity to use more, so why try to deny it to others?

There was an example of the Onslaught. You can also imagine a Conquest with its two sides. Or Paragon. Or for a non-Capital example, even simply wanting Kinetics, High Explosive, missiles, Ion weapons, beam, PD weapons and an empty weapon group to pilot without bothering to aim weapons on something like an Eagle.  It is a restriction, and an unnecessary restriction.
Weapon groups don't solve AI problems. It is also crazy to expect players to solve their AI problems at all, no one expects their player base to be made out of AI designers. If there is a player solution, it needs to be a clear system that provides easily understood AI levers.

Commanding Officers are a good example of a useful player lever. An aggressive officer vs. a cautious officer changes ship behavior in a dramatic way, but it is still easily to understand. So for example if I want my ship to hold back, be conservative with its weapons and stick mostly to using PD, I pick up a cautious officer. If I want a ship to get close, fire ALL its primary weapons and generally run hot on flux, I pick an aggressive officer. That's not a very arcane topic to teach players.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2019, 05:35:13 AM by bobucles »
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TaLaR

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #62 on: November 10, 2019, 05:48:26 AM »

@bobucles

You are over-complicating it. If some weapon grouping is unusable for player, it is unusable for AI that has same degree of control as well.
5 groups are not enough to setup anywhere near optimal control scheme for Onslaught and some builds of other capitals, player piloted or not.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #63 on: November 10, 2019, 06:19:50 AM »

But if neither side can make it "optimal" and "optimal" requires a ridiculous number of weapon groups and manual control.....then it doesn't matter if it's "optimal" or not. In that case "optimal" is neither a desireable goal, nor a balancing factor (because of neither side can reach "optimal", it's an even playing field).
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bobucles

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #64 on: November 10, 2019, 06:39:59 AM »

You are over-complicating it. If some weapon grouping is unusable for player, it is unusable for AI that has same degree of control as well.
5 groups are not enough to setup anywhere near optimal control scheme for Onslaught and some builds of other capitals, player piloted or not.
But weapon groups don't actually work that way. All PD guns can be placed on the same weapon group, and they will all act as independent defense turrets. That feat is not possible with a player controlled weapon group, the player has only one mouse cursor to play with. The AI already has a native ability to treat all weapons as independent actors, regardless of whether or not they're in a group. So if weapons can behave independently, why are weapon groupings changing AI behavior to begin with?

Grievous69

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #65 on: November 10, 2019, 06:47:44 AM »

All PD guns can be placed on the same weapon group, and they will all act as independent defense turrets. That feat is not possible with a player controlled weapon group, the player has only one mouse cursor to play with. The AI already has a native ability to treat all weapons as independent actors, regardless of whether or not they're in a group. So if weapons can behave independently, why are weapon groupings changing AI behavior to begin with?
What a terrible example. You'll never want to disable half of your PD weapons since they barely use any flux. You either have everything disabled (just hold fire) or all PD weapons active. With every other weapon type that's not the case. For example if you have 4 missiles in one weapon group, do you really consider it normal having to press the same exact button 4 *** times just to fire the last one? Please stop with these nonsensical arguments, you won't be forced to use ALL weapon groups if you don't feel like it, get that fact to your head finally.
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guesswho2778

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #66 on: October 30, 2020, 08:05:23 AM »

It's not about obscure weapon group mechanics, its about making my ships do what I want them to do when I am personally piloting them.

I think this guys comment here got completely ignored, so im going to bring some attention to it.

I don't think more weapon groups are going to fix the ai, or make it better. but, it would be nice for the weapons on my ship, to do what i want them to do.

For example, i've run into a problem on my onslaught, where i cant have two different missiles, as i don't have enough weapon groups, to toggle my PD, KE/HE, TPCs and the large mount point, along with two different types of missiles.

i don't think most of us want to fix the ai with this, we just want more player control over our weapons.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2020, 08:44:21 AM by guesswho2778 »
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Schwartz

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #67 on: October 30, 2020, 12:55:39 PM »

Holy necro, but yeah.. I think every player meets the dreaded weapon group limit sooner or later. Maybe we'll see it increased. It shouldn't be tied to an already powerful skill though, this is basically the definition of an UX feature.

Groups are not just for autofire and AI, they're also for granular on-offs, or broadsides, or...
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c plus one

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Re: Gunnery Implant - gives additional weapons groups
« Reply #68 on: November 01, 2020, 02:59:31 PM »

IMPORTANT NEW VANILLA DEVELOPMENT affecting this proposal!
Info here:

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19331.msg301629#msg301629
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