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Suggestions / Make Eliminate Actually Eliminate
« on: March 31, 2024, 12:53:28 AM »
The "Eliminate" command is supposed to tell the ship to put all their effort into eliminating a target.
1. A ship when ordered to "Eliminate" will often instead back off, sometimes over 3000 su away, to safely vent flux, before reengaging. I can understand if this is because the ship is at high flux, say >80% flux. But I see this happening even to ships at low flux, say <30% or so (hard to tell but thereabouts), and even with no other enemy ships around (i.e. there is no risk to them dropping shields and gaining some flux while they move toward the target). Aggressive officer so it'd not a timidity issue. This is bad AI behavior, since it's not in any danger and yet is still backing away from the front lines, and backing so far away that it will take a while to get back to the front lines.
Worse still, the "Eliminate" command is often used to strike at a vulnerable and important target during a window of opportunity, or to plug a breach in the battle lines, or to rescue another ship under attack. The last thing the player wants the ship to do in any of these situations is to back off and disengage from combat, and yet that is exactly what the ship often ends up doing with the "Eliminate" command. A ship should virtually never back off under the "Eliminate" command short of high flux or under heavy attack. Instead, the ship should move forward immediately, and drop shields if needed if it's not under any pressure and flux is a concern.
2. If a ship is ordered to "Eliminate" a target, and that target is in range, the ship should be firing its weapons on the target. Not on any frigates or fighters or any other ships in the vicinity, no matter what the ship's AI thinks in terms of priority. The whole purpose of the command is to tell the ship's AI that the target is the most important one to focus on. I've seen ships, when ordered to "Eliminate" a Nova for example, fire on and chase down all the ships in the vicinity except the Nova, eventually ending up behind (i.e. above) the Nova without ever firing a shot at it and being in range the whole time. As a corollary, this also seems to happen with missiles a lot, where it'll fire its ballistic/energy weapons at a target, but send its long-range missiles toward a farther away, more "attractive" target (usually some frigate that can easily dodge those missiles). It should concentrate its fire on the ship it's ordered to target if that target is in range.
3. Related to the above, it seems like when a ship is ordered to "Eliminate" a target, it'll ignore other enemy ships in terms of preventing it from being flanked (i.e. in terms of its personal danger), and yet still consider other enemy ships in terms of whether or not to fire on them. This is backward. It should maneuver to not put itself in undue danger, and focus its firepower on the target. I don't mean a situation where the "Eliminate" target is behind other enemy ships, forcing the ship to wade into other enemy ships. I mean when there's an enemy ship on one side, and nothing on the other, it should not strafe itself into the enemy ship nor get between the other enemy ship and its target (exposing its vulnerable engines), when it can safely hit at its target by staying put or by strafing in the other direction. It seems like in sim the ship AI understands to do this, so there seems to be something that happens in fleet combat that overrides it. (Maybe it's trying to stay a certain distance away from friendly ships?)
1. A ship when ordered to "Eliminate" will often instead back off, sometimes over 3000 su away, to safely vent flux, before reengaging. I can understand if this is because the ship is at high flux, say >80% flux. But I see this happening even to ships at low flux, say <30% or so (hard to tell but thereabouts), and even with no other enemy ships around (i.e. there is no risk to them dropping shields and gaining some flux while they move toward the target). Aggressive officer so it'd not a timidity issue. This is bad AI behavior, since it's not in any danger and yet is still backing away from the front lines, and backing so far away that it will take a while to get back to the front lines.
Worse still, the "Eliminate" command is often used to strike at a vulnerable and important target during a window of opportunity, or to plug a breach in the battle lines, or to rescue another ship under attack. The last thing the player wants the ship to do in any of these situations is to back off and disengage from combat, and yet that is exactly what the ship often ends up doing with the "Eliminate" command. A ship should virtually never back off under the "Eliminate" command short of high flux or under heavy attack. Instead, the ship should move forward immediately, and drop shields if needed if it's not under any pressure and flux is a concern.
2. If a ship is ordered to "Eliminate" a target, and that target is in range, the ship should be firing its weapons on the target. Not on any frigates or fighters or any other ships in the vicinity, no matter what the ship's AI thinks in terms of priority. The whole purpose of the command is to tell the ship's AI that the target is the most important one to focus on. I've seen ships, when ordered to "Eliminate" a Nova for example, fire on and chase down all the ships in the vicinity except the Nova, eventually ending up behind (i.e. above) the Nova without ever firing a shot at it and being in range the whole time. As a corollary, this also seems to happen with missiles a lot, where it'll fire its ballistic/energy weapons at a target, but send its long-range missiles toward a farther away, more "attractive" target (usually some frigate that can easily dodge those missiles). It should concentrate its fire on the ship it's ordered to target if that target is in range.
3. Related to the above, it seems like when a ship is ordered to "Eliminate" a target, it'll ignore other enemy ships in terms of preventing it from being flanked (i.e. in terms of its personal danger), and yet still consider other enemy ships in terms of whether or not to fire on them. This is backward. It should maneuver to not put itself in undue danger, and focus its firepower on the target. I don't mean a situation where the "Eliminate" target is behind other enemy ships, forcing the ship to wade into other enemy ships. I mean when there's an enemy ship on one side, and nothing on the other, it should not strafe itself into the enemy ship nor get between the other enemy ship and its target (exposing its vulnerable engines), when it can safely hit at its target by staying put or by strafing in the other direction. It seems like in sim the ship AI understands to do this, so there seems to be something that happens in fleet combat that overrides it. (Maybe it's trying to stay a certain distance away from friendly ships?)