31
General Discussion / A method for focusing autofire weapons on a single target
« on: October 01, 2023, 02:42:45 PM »
I discovered a weapon group feature in AI controlled ships that allows to focus autofire weapons on a single enemy target. Let's call it autofocus. Usually, weapons in autofire mode are free to choose their own targets independently, while weapons in "manually" controlled group follow the manually selected ship. Using the autofocus feature overrides targeting logic for autofire weapons. Instead of selecting targets individually, they all follow the enemy towards which the friendly ship wants to face. This includes PD weapons, which will ignore incoming missiles and fighters, effectively becoming anti-ship weapons. Note that the target manually selected by AI, and target towards which the ship attempts to faces is not necessarily the same, as illustrated in one of the attached images.
How to activate autofocus: Autofocus is enabled automatically for the first weapon group if and only if all weapon groups are in autofire mode. To achieve this, all groups must be forced into autofire by including at least one non-ammo PD weapon like Mining Laser or Flak Cannon (but not Burst PD Laser or simillar). This works beause ship AI avoids manually controlling groups with PD weapons. Additionally, all groups must have "Autofire starts enabled" ticked in the group manager.
Attached image shows an example Paragon weapon group manager with autofocus enabled. Turreted weapons are gathered in the first group, along with a single Mining Laser. This Laser loses its PD functionality, but is required to force autofire. Hardpoints and weapons which are meant to select targets individually are in the second group. Puting hardpoints into the first group makes beam weapons miss their target occasionally. Note: on Onslaught the built-in hardpoints must go into the first group, otherwise autofocus is disabled.
What's the benefit of Autofocus? Doesn't the ship AI do the same already, by manually controlling weapons? No, not even close, especially if you use weapon groups auto assign.
I wonder if the feature intentional or a bug? If it's a bug, I hope it remains unfixed, as I find it extremaly useful.
How to activate autofocus: Autofocus is enabled automatically for the first weapon group if and only if all weapon groups are in autofire mode. To achieve this, all groups must be forced into autofire by including at least one non-ammo PD weapon like Mining Laser or Flak Cannon (but not Burst PD Laser or simillar). This works beause ship AI avoids manually controlling groups with PD weapons. Additionally, all groups must have "Autofire starts enabled" ticked in the group manager.
Attached image shows an example Paragon weapon group manager with autofocus enabled. Turreted weapons are gathered in the first group, along with a single Mining Laser. This Laser loses its PD functionality, but is required to force autofire. Hardpoints and weapons which are meant to select targets individually are in the second group. Puting hardpoints into the first group makes beam weapons miss their target occasionally. Note: on Onslaught the built-in hardpoints must go into the first group, otherwise autofocus is disabled.
What's the benefit of Autofocus? Doesn't the ship AI do the same already, by manually controlling weapons? No, not even close, especially if you use weapon groups auto assign.
- With autofocus, the fire is much more concentrated and decisive. The ship focuses fire on the target it faces, meaning both turrets and harpoints can be used together. With manually controlled weapons the AI can decide to focus fire on ship not in front.
- Autofocus is the only vanilla method (that I know of) to abuse PD weapons into strictly anti-ship role.
- Autofocus is the only method of maintaining coherent fire if you want to take away AI's ability to disable weapons for saving flux - useful for solving https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=27247.0 and making ships more deadly in general.
I wonder if the feature intentional or a bug? If it's a bug, I hope it remains unfixed, as I find it extremaly useful.