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Author Topic: Suicidal Frigates  (Read 5089 times)

Squigzilla

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Suicidal Frigates
« on: February 24, 2012, 11:00:52 AM »

I've noticed that my frigates tend to pass extremely close to larger ships while making their attack runs, getting themselves killed far more often than they should.  This seems to happen most frequently against high-tech ships that don't have many blind spots in weapons coverage, such as the Aurora or Apogee.  Unless a frigate has exclusively long range weapons (ex. the Wolf-class close support with its graviton beam and three tactical lasers), they get so close to enemy capital ships that they nearly bump shields with their target.  Against the Apogee's pulse lasers or the heavy blasters of the Aurora, this often ends with a quick shield overload and explosive death.  Even ships like the Tempest, which has a graviton beam for long-range fighting, prefer to dash into pulse laser range against capital ships instead of remaining at a distance.  Is there a quirk in the frigate AI that prevents them from accounting for the wider weapons coverage of some ships, or does this happen because some ships are simply better equipped to deal with frigates?  I rarely have this problem when fighting low tech ships like the Onslaught, since most of its weapons face forward and its turning speed is abysmal. 

Additionally, the explosions from dying capital ships do a ludicrous amount of damage to nearby unshielded ships and claim the lives of many brave frigate captains.  While playing a campaign yesterday, my small fleet (my Medusa flagship, a Wolf, a Tempest, and a few wings of Broadswords/Piranhas) ambushed a damaged Apogee cruiser, the sole survivor of a large battle between some mercenaries and the Tri-Tachyon.  I saved right before the battle in case I didn't capture the cruiser (I REALLY wanted an Apogee).  I reloaded the save around ten times and lost a frigate in two or three of the battles; the Apogee stood no chance of winning (it never survived for longer than a minute), but my ships passed so close to the dying cruiser that the explosion disabled them as well.  Do frigates not account for the possibility of their target exploding violently while their nose cone is lodged firmly in its engines, or did the cruiser just die too quickly for them to fly clear of the blast radius?  If the latter is true, the deaths of my frigates are my own fault -- overloaded capital ships do not last long when hit by four Atropos torpedoes and a full load of Piranha bombs in the exact same spot. ;D

In case you are wondering, I never did capture that Apogee.  It turns out that 33 marines are not enough to successfully board a captured cruiser.
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Alex

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2012, 11:18:40 AM »

Do frigates not account for the possibility of their target exploding violently while their nose cone is lodged firmly in its engines, or did the cruiser just die too quickly for them to fly clear of the blast radius?

They'll raise their shields in the next release - I've tested it a fair amount in the dev build, and they hardly ever die this way anymore.

Right now, they try to clear out, but rather half-heartedly, and usually a little too late.
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Doom101

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2012, 02:27:21 PM »

Alex i gotta say you actually listen to your players. I've seen MANY developers fail because they don't pay attention to their players, your probably one of the better and nicer developers I've ever seen. Also I always hated loosing my frigates to explosions XD now i just need to work out how to properly do that XD even with the fact i can see the hull of the enemy i sometimes get stupidly close due to lack of judgement.
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When you can't go on, just accept your doom. It comes to all, it is inevitable.

Also I totally had the name BEFORE the cruiser.

Abyss

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2012, 12:00:42 AM »

I've noticed that my frigates tend to pass extremely close to larger ships while making their attack runs, getting themselves killed far more often than they should. 

Unless a frigate has exclusively long range weapons (ex. the Wolf-class close support with its graviton beam and three tactical lasers), they get so close to enemy capital ships that they nearly bump shields with their target.  Against the Apogee's pulse lasers or the heavy blasters of the Aurora, this often ends with a quick shield overload and explosive death.  Even ships like the Tempest, which has a graviton beam for long-range fighting, prefer to dash into pulse laser range against capital ships instead of remaining at a distance. 

I see the same thing every game, and it's not limited to frigates, my Sunders, Hammerheads, Apogees ram into larger ships on sight.  Try taking on a lone Paragon with a bunch of Wolves armed with Gravitons/3xtacs with ranged targeting and optics.  Each of them WILL crash into the Paragon and gib.  It seems like ships want to dart in to use their shortest range weapons, even it's a point-defense vulcan cannon, and then try to dart back out or circle.  This might be optimal against weak frigates, but fails against anything that can do burst damage.  The darting behavior also puts ships behind enemy lines, causing them to take concentrated fire from multiple flanks.

For taking down dangerous targets, what I've resorted to is arming my frigates with ONLY graviton beams, optics/targeting upgrades.  They keep range and circle at a much safer distance, though they'll still go on suicidal ramming runs if they see an opponent drop their shields. If I try to mix my gravitons with pulse lasers or AM blasters, they go full kamikaze again. 

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hunterkiller725

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2012, 12:19:22 AM »

ive noticed that the eney frigate avoid my ship like a plauge but mine give the enemy "hugs"
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Gaizokubanou

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2012, 12:09:21 PM »

Do frigates not account for the possibility of their target exploding violently while their nose cone is lodged firmly in its engines, or did the cruiser just die too quickly for them to fly clear of the blast radius?

They'll raise their shields in the next release - I've tested it a fair amount in the dev build, and they hardly ever die this way anymore.

Right now, they try to clear out, but rather half-heartedly, and usually a little too late.

Great to hear that this is getting fixed.  This one was definitely one of more frustrating ways of losing your frigates.
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SgtAlex86

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2012, 05:00:21 PM »

had enemy hound crash into my eagle cruisers side at full speed... it died disabling all my weabons on that side and taking nice chunk of the armor (thinking the explosion did most of damage)  :-\ was funny...
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Doom101

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2012, 05:05:35 PM »

had enemy hound crash into my eagle cruisers side at full speed... it died disabling all my weabons on that side and taking nice chunk of the armor (thinking the explosion did most of damage)  :-\ was funny...

when all hope is lost KAMIKAZE!!!!!
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When you can't go on, just accept your doom. It comes to all, it is inevitable.

Also I totally had the name BEFORE the cruiser.

Squigzilla

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #8 on: February 29, 2012, 10:36:25 PM »

Do frigates not account for the possibility of their target exploding violently while their nose cone is lodged firmly in its engines, or did the cruiser just die too quickly for them to fly clear of the blast radius?

They'll raise their shields in the next release - I've tested it a fair amount in the dev build, and they hardly ever die this way anymore.

Right now, they try to clear out, but rather half-heartedly, and usually a little too late.

Thanks for the feedback and good news  ;D
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jenga201

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #9 on: September 08, 2019, 03:23:15 PM »

necrothread ahoy!

I'm a new player and having problems with phase ships charging into carriers and dying to explosions.
Normal ships will raise their shields and be fine.

For example, a full hull 97% CR Harbinger with 3x Heavy Blasters pew'd a modified pirate superfreighter and instantly died.
This harbinger had a 'steady' AI with Impact Mitigation.

I'm pretty sure the weapon range could have been outside of the freighter's explosion radius.

This happens with the frigates as well, but not with the Doom cruiser because of its' mines attack distance.

Is there anything I can do to prevent my phase ships from dying to annoying things like this?
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TaLaR

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #10 on: September 08, 2019, 03:39:21 PM »

In more extreme cases avoiding death explosions takes some fancy piloting that AI isn't really good at.
For example, AMB on a frigate barely outranges a capital's death explosion, IF you fire at one of it's extremities (front or rear of Conquest, not it's side/etc) and are moving away from it at full speed while shooting.
Another way is to approach unphased and phase as you are firing - but it's only usable against very weak opponents (otherwise you just get blasted during approach).

Though Harbinger with HBs should be safe just firing normally from near max range.

As for what you can do - add ITU to Harbinger, maybe Augmented Thrusters (AI tries to keep distance, but not sufficiently in advance, extra acceleration helps to compensate this). No guarantees though, overall I consider only Doom to be piloted well enough by AI to be worth deploying (out of phase ships).
« Last Edit: September 08, 2019, 03:45:45 PM by TaLaR »
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jenga201

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2019, 12:33:07 PM »

Thanks, I think I came to the same conclusion and will only deploy Dooms.

As good as Shades are, I'm going to use some alternate frigates.
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Schwartz

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Re: Suicidal Frigates
« Reply #12 on: September 09, 2019, 03:18:39 PM »

This isn't strictly a weapon range problem. Even long range frigates will for some reason or another go into hugging distance sometimes, which may happen when the enemy is about to explode.

There are some other threads about the subject - from this year, too. ;)
« Last Edit: September 09, 2019, 03:20:34 PM by Schwartz »
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