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[phyrex]

would it be too strong if the AI that manages a player's groups on autofire was as wise as ai controlled ship ?
because right now, ai ships use appropriate weapons at appropriate times while ai groups on the player's ship will just fire away mindlessly as soon as theyre turned on autofire

It works the same for the player and the AI - the AI is just turning the groups on/off as it finds appropriate. You can also use the "hold fire" key to make managing things a bit easier.

oh ok. so basicly, its just the AI better micro-management that gives that feeling

[Silver Silence]

Did I miss that energy topic?

Here.

Ah, THAT topic. Read that a little, couldn't think of worthwhile replacements. Perhaps high and low tech mounts? I dunno.

"Hit strength" sounds like something that could be used to make certain weapons totally ineffective against shields/armour/hull. Like massed needlers will overload shields in literally seconds but you could waste endless bursts against a battleship's armour to little effect.

That's how it already works, and is why it exists/the armor damage reduction formula works the way it does

I dunno, any ship with a Storm Needler fitted can be pretty brutal, no matter what it shoots at. Endless laser accurate fire at around, what, 800 dps if I remember correctly? Even just the one can keep any ship's shields offline, let alone two by turning an Onslaught to the side a little, for example.

[Pentarctagon]

I've also adjusted the maximum reduction to 85%, after some playtesting. 90% was a bit much.

Should probably update the patch notes then, they still say 90%.

[naufrago]

The damage type multiplier gets applied before the armor damage reduction is calculated. So, if a Light Assault Gun (high explosive) does 50 damage per shot, a "hit strength" of 100 is used to determine the damage reduction.

Don't worry, I made sure to account for that =)

I've also adjusted the maximum reduction to 85%, after some playtesting. 90% was a bit much.

Is it possible to mess around with maximum armor reduction by modifying some file, or is it hardcoded? Might be fun to try out different values. Those 5% can make a pretty big difference in the numbers for some guns.

I just want to test out 87.5% as the maximum reduction... mostly because it's easier to calculate than with 85%. Basically, with 87.5% reduction, most weapons would deal half their current minimum dps against anything with armor value 7x greater than their damage value (taking into account damage type modifiers).

[Histidine]

Half DPS as armor damage strength for beams is pretty meh, especially with the new change (bad against shields and armor)? I think it could be stand to be 1x DPS at the very least.

[Alex]

I've also adjusted the maximum reduction to 85%, after some playtesting. 90% was a bit much.

Should probably update the patch notes then, they still say 90%.

Hmm, good point. I was just going to have that in the next round of notes but, right, why not change it now.

Is it possible to mess around with maximum armor reduction by modifying some file, or is it hardcoded? Might be fun to try out different values. Those 5% can make a pretty big difference in the numbers for some guns.

I just want to test out 87.5% as the maximum reduction... mostly because it's easier to calculate than with 85%. Basically, with 87.5% reduction, most weapons would deal half their current minimum dps against anything with armor value 7x greater than their damage value (taking into account damage type modifiers).

It's in settings.json.

Half DPS as armor damage strength for beams is pretty meh, especially with the new change (bad against shields and armor)? I think it could be stand to be 1x DPS at the very least.

Relatively speaking, they haven't gotten any less effective vs armor, and they were already quite good at that - somewhere between most comparable kinetic and HE weapons in terms of hit strength, possibly even closer to HE.

[Voyager I]

would it be too strong if the AI that manages a player's groups on autofire was as wise as ai controlled ship ?
because right now, ai ships use appropriate weapons at appropriate times while ai groups on the player's ship will just fire away mindlessly as soon as theyre turned on autofire

It works the same for the player and the AI - the AI is just turning the groups on/off as it finds appropriate. You can also use the "hold fire" key to make managing things a bit easier.

Does this mean that the way for us to manage this is to have our Kinetic and Explosive weapons on separate hot groups?  I'm okay with that, although the buttons for disabling and enabling autofire are a little fiddly for the amount of micromanagement that will probably involve.

Would you mind explaining a bit of detail on how the AI operates weapons?  I do know it's capable of things the player can't do, like engaging multiple targets with the same weapon group if there are targets in different firing arcs.

[Alex]

Does this mean that the way for us to manage this is to have our Kinetic and Explosive weapons on separate hot groups?  I'm okay with that, although the buttons for disabling and enabling autofire are a little fiddly for the amount of micromanagement that will probably involve.

Yes, keeping different damage types in different groups is usually a good idea, unless the group is a PD group in which case the damage type doesn't matter so much.

Also, what I find works pretty well is keeping manual control of the "main" battery" and using 'X' ("hold fire") to toggle all autofiring groups on/off as appropriate.

Would you mind explaining a bit of detail on how the AI operates weapons?  I do know it's capable of things the player can't do, like engaging multiple targets with the same weapon group if there are targets in different firing arcs.

It uses weapons exactly the same way the player does. If it's firing at multiple targets, that's because it has the weapon group set on autofire.

[Gothars]

Would you mind explaining a bit of detail on how the AI operates weapons?  I do know it's capable of things the player can't do, like engaging multiple targets with the same weapon group if there are targets in different firing arcs.

It uses weapons exactly the same way the player does. If it's firing at multiple targets, that's because it has the weapon group set on autofire.

To expand on that, while the Ship AI can't do more than the player, the autofire mode can. It controls all weapons individually, including targeting and firing. It's basically a third firing mode besides "linked" and "alternating". Mh...which gives me an idea...... on to the suggestions board

[Linnis]

On the micro-management on players thing, I think the biggest problem is the defualt setup leading to players not toggling autofire enough, and relying on hold fire. Making for a more clumsy playing experiance.

and the trick is to set 1-x on the keyboard to directly toggle autofire without needing to press shift, and all I control are the movement and shields (which then i can put less PD on too), then press 1-5 depending on what i am shooting at, be it shields or armor, or some talons that no way I want to shoot at with my storm needer or something.

Manual fire still has its merit so shift + 1 or 2 to swap the weapons espechially missles but i dont really see a reason to switch to my tiny lasers or machineguns or anything.

[Voyager I]

I basically never use the hold-fire command anyways because it also means turning off point defenses, which is something I rarely want to do.

Part of the issue is also that different ships have divergent enough play styles to merit different control schemes.  What you posted would work fantastically for capital ships with far more guns than the player could ever hope to manage, but on something like a frigate or some cruisers I probably will be manually controlling my non-PD weapons most of the time, to say nothing of missiles that I almost never want to autofire.

Basically the issue is that the shift + number combination is somewhat clunky for how often we'll probably want to be manipulating it.  This also doesn't solve the issue of whether or not the AI / Autofire AI will be smarter about how it uses it flux against the improved armor.


One more question about AI ships:  are they essentially piloted with everything on autofire, or is there an AI Captain 'manually' operating the main guns?

[Wyvern]

One more question about AI ships:  are they essentially piloted with everything on autofire, or is there an AI Captain 'manually' operating the main guns?

There has to be, doesn't there?  Because autofire won't shoot low-ammo missiles.

[xenoargh]

One more question about AI ships:  are they essentially piloted with everything on autofire, or is there an AI Captain 'manually' operating the main guns?

Yes.  You can see the AI switching weapon groups, actually, if you observe them closely.