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136

Bug Reports & Support / AI Behaviour

« on: February 19, 2012, 08:05:39 AM »

First of all, thank you for adding strafe-only keys.

-AI Retreat (bug/exploit)
I'm playing in Campaign mode. I am going lonewolf till I raise some money, so I decided to use a Medusa-class destroyer, with additional agility added to it. The problem is, some enemy fleets using ammunition based weapons (missiles, mostly) tend to retreat after they run out of ammunition. I noticed this when I was engaging a bigger fleet (where capture points are enabled on the map), then tested it again. When I tested it, I just avoided them & got rid of the missiles, and after they run out of ammunition, they retreated - some ships even surrendered.

The problem is, they also have other weapons rather than just missiles, and they can swarm me if they want. As far as I can tell, Pirates invest heavily in missiles, and you can grab their ships for free by doing this, without even getting a single-point armor damage.

-AI Caution
The other problem is, AI tends to raise shields if you have a weapon that can reach them. While this sounds awesome, the speed lost due to raised shields can be devastating for them. Since I'm using a single ship, all I have to do is face my enemies for a while, and they raise shields, and sometimes try to move away from my reach, interrupting a potential swarming chance.

137

Suggestions / Re: Strafe only key

« on: January 25, 2012, 10:02:58 PM »

Merged the two threads.

I'm not opposed to adding dedicated strafe left/right buttons in principle, but it is adding more complexity to the controls. Both for configuring them, and for where they go on the keyboard in the default layout. (Before you suggest Q and E, they're being saved for active ship systems, later on.) I feel like anything that impacts the learning curve needs to be considered very carefully. Yeah, this is just one thing - but there are a potentially a *lot* of those, and the controls are already fairly involved.

I'd love to hear from more people here. Personally, I've only felt like I wanted to do that very few times - but then, I tend to set anything turreted on autofire, and it's usually easy enough to move the mouse to where it needs to be for strafe to move where you want it to.

I only set PD weapons on autofire, and when I'm busy firing fixed-weapons or missiles, I turn autofire on for turrets temporarily. I use ESDF configuration, but that is another thing - I moved A and D (turn left/right) to Q and E, and set A and D to strafe left/right; strafe is a high priority for me. It allows me to make sharp turns, or set a fixed weapon on auto-fire, and while "orbiting" the target, use my mouse to shoot other stuff down - which is impossible with this auto-turn thing when strafing.

And as I tend to use strafe a lot, most of the time I lose my target; since my ship starts turning towards the pointer, the target gets out of my firing arc. This gets a worse problem when I am commanding capital ships; most of the time my ships turning in the wrong direction, and due to that I cannot dodge the anti-capital torpedoes, I get myself more exposed and I usually end up hugging all of the salvo.

And about that ESDF configuration, since I have access to more buttons on left side, anything you add to Q and E can directly go to that side for me

138

Suggestions / Strafe Problems & Suggestions

« on: January 23, 2012, 03:46:40 PM »

No, there is no real strafe in this game. Your ship tries to face mouse pointer if you try to strafe, allowing "easier" strafe for smaller crafts. But this shouldn't be obligatory. This needs to be a toggle/hold key. Or this should be active only when direct fire weapons are selected. Or, it should be activated like auto-fire / from options menu.

Because, you might want to get away real fast/ the weapon you use might be fitted on rotational turrets/ etc... This is a big problem (for me at least) when I am controlling a heavy battleship, as I tend to use strafe a lot. For example, most of my targets get out of my firing arc, because my ship is trying to face my mouse pointer while I'm trying to shoot at something. And/or sometimes, strafe+turn doesn't allow me to dodge heavy yield missiles... Please, don't get this buried!

139

Suggestions / Re: Ballistic ammunition/missiles.

« on: January 23, 2012, 03:32:10 PM »

I don't think he's done anything like this for the game at the moment, so if he were to add it in, he'd probably have to code it from scratch.

Think out of the box. New ammo types may be interpreted as new weapons. So, if there is 3 ballistic weapons each capable of using 4 different ammo types, you can make 12 different weapons, and a "magical" function that'll swap those weapons in combat. And expanding another function to remember how many ammo does those "shared" slots left.

So, when I swap ammo, I actually swap the weapon itself with another one, having same base characteristics like weapon model, turret turn rate, etc... but damage, spread, accuracy, range, "special properties" are all different.

140

Suggestions / Re: Strafe only key

« on: January 18, 2012, 02:24:11 AM »

*sigh* + *facepalm*

No, there is no real strafe in this game. Ship starts facing the mouse.

One thing that I'd like to add, which is especially required for smaller, fast&maneuverable ships; a combat mode toggle/hold key. Targetted enemy acts as a point of origin, and as long as this mode is active, your ship always faces the target. This would allow easier strafe around the target. Or, an extra option (like autotarget) for fixed weapons to force ship face mouse while firing. Or, both of them.

AI is capable of this, however, even if you fix strafe issue, controlling highly maneuverable ships is still a problem, as one hit to turn key tends to screw my aim & mostly get me in more trouble.

I currently try to avoid fast ships at all costs, because I end up doing nothing beneficial at all, especially with ships that has fixed mounts... Even with good turret weapons, since there is no real strafe, I cannot dodge enemy fire easily, as it tends to turn me towards the enemy while my turrets are capable of firing that angle while strafing&gaining distance.