Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Arcagnello on June 05, 2021, 06:37:41 AM
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Awfully simple suggestion proposting a tweak to how the AI and autofire as a whole treats continuous fire Laser PD weaponsbeam weapons like Tactical Lasers when they're augmented by the Integrated Point Defence AI hullmod.
B-b-but friendly fire!
I see you've never had ships equipped with Devastator Cannons.
The potential friendly fire beam PD weapons would cause by just opening up regardless of perfectly tracking (and hitting) their target is a minor sacrifice I'm willing to consider making if all my laser PD actually shoots down more incoming enemy ordnance, fighters, bombers and missiles instead of...you know...not having enough beam travel speed to do anything and pointlessly flicker half the time at medium to short range targets.
B-b-but flux generation!
I don't think the extra flux generated by better point defence would be an issue, really. Especially if said extra flux manages to shoot down things that would cause Hard Flux instead.
B-b-but laser PD is supposed to be bad!
It would still be a lot worse than both ballistic and missile based point defence/fighter counters. Remember beam weapons and dedicated beam PD are both the most expensive PD for the amount of DPS/accuracy they provide and all deal soft flux damage, which may aswell not exist when fighting shielded fighters if there's not enough of it.
Addendum: would it be possible to have Integrated Point Defence AI also affect Graviton Beams? They're amazing at throwing enemy missiles of course and it would be pleasant for the AI to intentionally do that, for once.
The Ion Beam also acting as point defence and seeking to disable bigger missiles/fighters that have not been EMP'd yet would also be great, atlough that would be a much higher "point defence friendly fire hazard" than the rest of the laser PD combined. I'd still love it tough.
Addendum Number 2: It would also be a really, really nice thing to not have beam weapons and non-PD small weapons alike ON HARDPOINTS try act like PD if IPDAI is installed. I would prioritize the suggestions above this one tough.
Thoughts?
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This sounds great, I especially love the graviton beams changing the course of missiles, also ion beams as pd sound as a high risk, high reward deal
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This sounds great, I especially love the graviton beams changing the course of missiles, also ion beams as pd sound as a high risk, high reward deal
Indeed. I've wanted Graviton beams to act as PD since the first time I've witnessed enemy reaper torpedoes doing a 90° turn and oneshotting one of my allied frigates that had a front shield turned somewhere else.
Also, I've added a second addendum suggesting that small non-Point Defence weapons on hardpoints do NOT act as point defence even with PDAI.
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(B-but weapons turn 5x faster when not firing...)
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(B-but weapons turn 5x faster when not firing...)
Is that why my beam-based IPDAI ships often seem to go back and forth repeatedly instead of actually shooting something?
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(B-but weapons turn 5x faster when not firing...)
I'm willing to live with it and try to prevent it from making all my beams miss with Advanced Turret Gyros.
P.S: I'm quite surprised either Point Defence or Elite Point Defence don't increase the traverse speed of PD capable weaponry by the way. It would at least prevent me from abusing dual light machineguns with 450 range on overridden ships if it was instead of the +100su range increase...
(B-but weapons turn 5x faster when not firing...)
Is that why my beam-based IPDAI ships often seem to go back and forth repeatedly instead of actually shooting something?
Probably one of the many reasons why they do that, yes. Had that happen a lot myself.
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Yeah, the Tactical Laser isn't great for PD - same beam speed as PD Laser, sure, but with the lower turn rate, it often can't stay on target at its *actual* turn rate, without the "turret is idle" turn rate bonus. So it starts firing, slows and can't keep up with the lateral movement of the target, stops firing, etc. Gyros can help, and for smaller ships especially, rotating the ship to help PD stay on target - this can be especially useful/needed vs Salamanders, for example - can be a very useful trick, too.
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Yeah, the Tactical Laser isn't great for PD - same beam speed as PD Laser, sure, but with the lower turn rate, it often can't stay on target at its *actual* turn rate, without the "turret is idle" turn rate bonus. So it starts firing, slows and can't keep up with the lateral movement of the target, stops firing, etc. Gyros can help, and for smaller ships especially, rotating the ship to help PD stay on target - this can be especially useful/needed vs Salamanders, for example - can be a very useful trick, too.
It's something I actually copied from the AI when personally piloting ships too by the way.
I've got this solid feeling AI controlled pressure / fire support frigates using tac lasers/gravitons/ion beams with PDAI would really benefit from this change overall.
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I have a feeling it would *maybe* benefit this specific case overall and mess up a lot of other things. "Keep firing when you know you're missing" is only going to be good under a very narrow set of circumstances, you know? Where, say, a lone PD laser trying to shoot down a Salamander or some such would often just get locked out of ever hitting it once it misses even by a bit.
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I have a feeling it would *maybe* benefit this specific case overall and mess up a lot of other things. "Keep firing when you know you're missing" is only going to be good under a very narrow set of circumstances, you know? Where, say, a lone PD laser trying to shoot down a Salamander or some such would often just get locked out of ever hitting it once it misses even by a bit.
That is a very good counterargument.
How about meeting halfway then? As in having beam weapons with (inherent or given by IPDAI) PD capabilities keep shooting at their target until they start "missing too much"? It would heavily reduce the current "flickering dance" beam weapons with IPDAI tend to engage in.
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For beam weapons, what's "too much"? Any decision to keep firing when not actually hitting the target would result in these problems. IF we wanted to make Tac Laser great with IPDAI (or buff IPDAI in general) it could increase beam speed - that'd be a safer way to go...
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For beam weapons, what's "too much"? Any decision to keep firing when not actually hitting the target would result in these problems. IF we wanted to make Tac Laser great with IPDAI (or buff IPDAI in general) it could increase beam speed - that'd be a safer way to go...
In my experience it's not just tac lasers that have this problem, though. Regular PD lasers and even Paladins I've seen dancing back and forth when faced with more than one missile to target. No clue if ballistic PD has the same issue, though, I don't think my last playthrough ever used any.
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For beam weapons, what's "too much"? Any decision to keep firing when not actually hitting the target would result in these problems. IF we wanted to make Tac Laser great with IPDAI (or buff IPDAI in general) it could increase beam speed - that'd be a safer way to go...
It would require testing, but say a beam weapon will keep opening up on the targeted ordnance as long as the "angle" does not get above 5-2 degrees, with
1)the first outgoing line being the laser bearing
2)the second outgoing line being the bearing required to nail the targeted ordnance
3)the center of this angle being the position of the laser weapon in question
That said, having Integrated Point Defence AI buff the laser beam "speed" across the board by 50ish % would by far be the easiest solution. I did not suggest that as I did not think it would be possible to do, I swear on Ludd's green underwear!
For beam weapons, what's "too much"? Any decision to keep firing when not actually hitting the target would result in these problems. IF we wanted to make Tac Laser great with IPDAI (or buff IPDAI in general) it could increase beam speed - that'd be a safer way to go...
In my experience it's not just tac lasers that have this problem, though. Regular PD lasers and even Paladins I've seen dancing back and forth when faced with more than one missile to target. No clue if ballistic PD has the same issue, though, I don't think my last playthrough ever used any.
I've mostly had this problem with beam point defence (probably because I had such good PD on my low tech runs I never really focused on watching singular flak targeting, really) but I could see ballistic based PD to also benefit from it.
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For beam weapons, what's "too much"?
>5 degrees maybe?
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Do those small beams even have enough DPS to do anything useful by sweeping, other than slow down their target acquisition? Sure, I can clear out a lot of missiles with a sweep from a high intensity laser but that thing has WAAAAY higher DPS than a tactical laser.
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Do those small beams even have enough DPS to do anything useful by sweeping, other than slow down their target acquisition? Sure, I can clear out a lot of missiles with a sweep from a high intensity laser but that thing has WAAAAY higher DPS than a tactical laser.
High Intensity laser does not turn into a PD weapon, and neither it would make sense for it to. It does work rather well as a long range fighter/bomber deleter well already with advanced turret gyros on AI ships tough.
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Maybe tac lasers just aren't good PD no matter how much you try and make them and people should just accept that instead of trying to make them into PD.
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Maybe tac lasers just aren't good PD no matter how much you try and make them and people should just accept that instead of trying to make them into PD.
Allow me to introduce you to the Tactical Scarab, slaughterer of Fighters and Missiles alike.
Advanced Turret Gyros is required though, and Advanced Optics is probably a bad idea.
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High Intensity laser does not turn into a PD weapon, and neither it would make sense for it to. It does work rather well as a long range fighter/bomber deleter well already with advanced turret gyros on AI ships tough.
No but I manually fire and sweep it across missile volleys. It's really effective.