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Topics - Thaago

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Bug Reports & Support / Legion (Battle carrier?) AI Issue

« on: April 18, 2024, 02:54:35 PM »

I'm noticing an odd thing in my current game, experimenting in the sim with a Flagship legion and Hammerhead escorts vs an Onslaught as target practice.

If I deploy my Legion by itself and turn on autopilot, it will attack and destroy the Onslaught without major issue (skills vs no skills will do that). No eliminate or other command is needed (though my faction doctrine is currently on setting 3, so this ship is aggressive).

If I have a Hammerhead deployed, the Legion will start the simulation engaging the Onslaught, but then at some point seems to switch to "full carrier mode" and will then refuse to enter gun range, even against a fluxed-up, back-turned, Onslaught, including when it's fighters are destroyed and on recharge. It will stay in this full-carrier mode for long periods of time and even eliminate commands cannot get it to move into gun range (which is more extreme than most full carriers who I can't keep OUT of gun range!). It out-speeds the onslaught but only uses that speed to hover out of range, and does not use the ship system, even when not under any fire.

Sometimes it will snap back to having a "proper" AI, but only for short periods of time before it returns to the full carrier/timid

Modding / MOVED: [0.97a] Neoteric Advent - 0.2

« on: March 20, 2024, 03:52:21 PM »

This topic has been moved to Mods.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=27850.0

Discussions / MOVED: I want your help

« on: March 17, 2024, 04:59:47 PM »

This topic has been moved to Bug Reports & Support (modded).

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=29554.0

General Discussion / MOVED: What happened to the mods? (Not sure where to post this)

« on: March 16, 2024, 12:42:51 AM »

This topic has been moved to Bug Reports & Support (modded).

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=29530.0

Suggestions / An "always autofire" toggle for weapon groups

« on: March 14, 2024, 04:54:59 PM »

Veteran players have known for a long while now the trick of putting weapons that should always be autofiring under AI control into the same weapon group with a PD weapon. It's kind of a hack and not at all obvious, but it is an incredible boost to ship performance when used on the right groups. In the Eagle thread of the last version, even Alex was using the trick to get performance up to snuff.

(This is a consequence of the AI weapon group control being generalist: it does a 'decent' job all the time in a massive number of configurations, but very rarely does a 'good' job at managing weapons.)

It would be really nice if instead of using the PD weapon hack, we could just press a toggle. There's plenty of room in the UI for it below the current 'start on autofire' toggle as well.

There's also some possibility for enhancing the AI performance on specific builds or to enhance faction personality. For example: Pather ships could have their missile weapons set to "Always Autofire" to match their reckless personality (and players would learn the value of PD); Mid Tech could have their medium beams (graviton and IR Autolance) on always autofire for the 'suppression/support' role.

[Edit] Though one downside is that if this info is stored in variants, then all the variants from mods would need to be updated which is a pain. Maybe have it default to "off" when parsing if the value is missing?

General Discussion / What determines what ships carriers send their fighters after?

« on: March 11, 2024, 06:51:26 PM »

I've been doing some testing with carriers lately, both for Support Doctrine builds and just to gauge their effectiveness, and one thing I can't determine is how the carriers task their fighters. Watching the AI fight, they don't obey the usual rules for players. The fighters do not go towards the target that the ship has selected.

One consequence is that the AI will often "split" its fighters and missiles, if using a ship with both, which is often a bad call.

The AI will often also prioritize sending fighters after farther targets rather than closer ones if the target is vulnerable (maybe? I'm not sure), even though it is doubtful that the target will remain vulnerable once the fighters get there. This is also the #1 way that carriers lose fighters, because the fighters will move past/over unfluxed enemy ships and get destroyed. It doesn't help in this case that if a "wing leader" of a fighter pack gets disabled, the entire strike will slow to match it rather than leaving it behind.

Case in point from a sim battle of an Astral vs an Eagle and a Falcon:
The first image is the situation: a heavily damaged Falcon that has been targeted by the AI and had missiles attacking it, and next to it the Astrals fighters. But they aren't going for it, but rather an Eagle entirely off screen. The eagle had been badly damaged and high on flux, but at this point it has retreated far enough that it is certainly at 0 flux.

The second image shows how the Falcon is picking the fighters off as they travel past, and how it has been targeted and is still under missiles assault. I did not apply that target designation: the AI did. If the fighters followed it, they would have quickly killed the Falcon with little to no losses.

Spoiler

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Bug Reports & Support / An Astral with no fighters will spam recall device

« on: March 11, 2024, 04:53:49 PM »

As title - doing an experiment in the mission sim with an astral with no fighters equipped, and it activated the system on cooldown.

Modding / MOVED: SCAV-CO Ship/Weapon Pack

« on: March 09, 2024, 03:24:08 PM »

This topic has been moved to Mods.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=29449.0

Bug Reports & Support / Patrol guarding a pirate bounty patrol

« on: March 09, 2024, 01:57:21 AM »

An odd thing: a pirate bounty sent me after a patrol, and then there was another patrol assigned to guard it, as if it were a merchant fleet generated by the pirate bounty. Is that supposed to happen? I've got a save copied if you want it.

[Edit] Oh yes, something is strange: when I juked the 'other' patrol away, the first patrol isn't investigating or chasing me even though I have my transponder off. It's behaving as if its a merchant fleet, even though it was patrolling a sensor relay.

Suggestions / Hammerhead Rear Weapon Arcs

« on: February 28, 2024, 02:41:48 PM »

Can the Hammerhead get the arcs on its rear turrets back so they point forward? Maybe as part of the SO changes when they happen, or just because?

General Discussion / MOVED: Lore: Are the ships in the Persean Sector Very Outdated to Domain Standards?

« on: February 17, 2024, 03:38:16 AM »

This topic has been moved to Lore, Fan Media & Fiction.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=29128.0

Bug Reports & Support / Ship stuck in place

« on: February 14, 2024, 10:08:40 PM »

I just had one I haven't seen before: A Dominator, right after killing one eliminate order I gave it another. It rotated to face, but sat in the same spot for about 90 seconds and didn't move towards it (and I checked a few times, it wasn't just going slowly because its a dominator, it wasn't moving). When the target got into gun range, the AI fired and started moving again. Aggressive officer.

I haven't seen this before or since, but if it reproduces I'll update.

Image!

Spoiler

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General Discussion / Lets Talk Harbinger

« on: February 12, 2024, 10:16:07 PM »

One thing the pretty successful Grendel highlights is just how disappointing the Harbinger is. Especially as they cost the same OP.

I've been piloting one most of my current run thanks to a 'lucky' salvage, and with an almost complete build it is just underwhelming: not tough enough to brawl, barely fast enough with every speed boosting skill stacked to dodge, too slow to outmaneuver omni shields, and the system is too short ranged to be easily used for support (unlike afflictor/shade) and has too short a duration (and too long a windup) to be very impactful outside of a few hard counter cases.

It's the only ship I would say is non-functional without skills: the phase skill is required. Without it I'd rate it worse than a hammerhead/sunder/enforcer and possibly worse than basic frigates. With the phase skill it catapults into being an acceptable player ship, except that in many ways it is still just worse than an Afflictor, because the afflictor's system is so much better and it has the speed to be 'tougher' in combat, despite being so much more fragile on paper.

Systems Expertise was unfortunately a disappointment: the ship has such a long base cooldown that while 33% reduction helps a lot, it doesn't make it good. Same with the range: the base is just so short that even with 50% more range (!) I still have to be close enough to the enemy to take damage (the usage windup is still there). And nothing helps the extremely short duration that lets only a few shots through before the target can get its shields up again. That is good vs low skill enemies when something like 2 ion pulsers can disable much of the enemy, but endgame enemies are resistant to being locked down thanks to the elite skills so that can fail.

One thing I'm happy about the ship is raw firepower: with phase anchor (holy crud 20 OP is so much on this ship!) and a combination of ion pulsers/heavy blasters/mining blasters (mix and match to your preference), it can lay out a serious punch. That does let it really lay into an enemy that it already overwhelmed/can't hit back hard. But in that situation the system goes down in value even further, as it doesn't not boost allied damage like the afflictor's does.

In terms of solutions: I think there are a couple of ways to go. A substantial increase in speed or armor, to lean into the dodging or brawling, would help it pick a niche instead of being stuck in the sticky middle. The system needs help - either in range so the ship can act like a Doom, hanging out behind allies to poke them with downed shields - or in frequency. In both cases it has to have a longer disruption so that other ships take advantage of it.

Modding / MOVED: No mods work excluding ZZ Audioplus

« on: February 11, 2024, 05:50:03 PM »

This topic has been moved to Bug Reports & Support (modded).

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=29004.0

Bug Reports & Support / Escort Facing Priorities

« on: February 05, 2024, 05:32:13 PM »

I've noticed something a bit odd: When a ship is assigned as an escort, it will often face distant (beyond weapon range), small targets and track them, but not larger, close ones.

Here's a (somewhat unclear as I took it after the falcon had pulled away, sorry) example: https://imgur.com/a/RyLidGP

The enforcer is granted having a hard time keeping up with its escort target (the falcon), but even when it was it would "track" the lasher that it had pushed away and could only fire on the Eagle with a single gun. This persists even when the Eagle is attacking the Enforcer over a long duration (30 seconds to a minute).

When I removed the escort order, the enforcer immediately turned to engage the closer target, so I think this has to do with the order changing something.