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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Full AI Weapons Control  (Read 7461 times)

JDCollie

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Full AI Weapons Control
« on: March 26, 2018, 01:15:30 PM »

I love commanding and controlling my flagship, but there are times when I want to give over full control of the weapons to the AI, be it briefly or for the duration of combat. My suggestion is a sixth "weapon group" that only appears in the combat HUD UI, and only contains the item "Full AI Fire Control". Pressing '6' would give control of all weapon groups over the the AI until the player switches to another weapon group. This would allow the player to fully focus on flying and shield orientation when needed.

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Grievous69

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2018, 01:41:59 PM »

Don't really understand what you're proposing. Just set the weapons you want to be used by AI on autofire, if you're not very good at aiming, quickly enabling and disabling autofire works good if you have to keep your flux low. Having AI control every single weapon group and when to fire certain groups kinda defeats the whole point while flying a ship. You're meant to keep an eye out for shield positioning, weapons and speed at the same time. Otherwise it just takes the skill from it. I'm not saying how you should play the game, after all it's single-player, but we already have so much controls that this seems a bit needless in practice.
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Blothorn

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2018, 04:06:01 PM »

Don't really understand what you're proposing. Just set the weapons you want to be used by AI on autofire, if you're not very good at aiming, quickly enabling and disabling autofire works good if you have to keep your flux low. Having AI control every single weapon group and when to fire certain groups kinda defeats the whole point while flying a ship. You're meant to keep an eye out for shield positioning, weapons and speed at the same time. Otherwise it just takes the skill from it. I'm not saying how you should play the game, after all it's single-player, but we already have so much controls that this seems a bit needless in practice.

The AI ignores the selected weapon group, even if it is set to autofire.

And I hate the argument that the player should be blocked from handing tasks off to the AI--some of us who are bad at real-time multitasking like to play too! I would actually press for the other direction--I would like to be able to give the AI control of omni shields, since it is difficult to finely control aiming of a hardpoint-dependent ship outside strafe mode, and you cannot rotate the shield and ship independently in strafe mode.
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Goumindong

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2018, 04:07:01 PM »

The solution is to put a salamander on its own fire and just click every once and a while. But yes the ability to deselect all weapons would be nice.
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Linnis

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2018, 05:11:03 PM »

Would be helpful. Right now every build either has to have an non active weapon or a blank slot, which limits to weapons you can toggle for AI down to 4.

Not a huge thing but could be helpful too when accidentally forgot to bind weapon keys for a new ship.
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Megas

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2018, 06:14:27 PM »

There are few ships, mostly weirdos like Apogee, where I would like the use all five groups, but if I do that, I have no way to force all groups to autofire.  I am limited to four groups if I want to use 5 as global autofire.
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AxleMC131

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2018, 10:35:43 PM »

Uhh, guys?

The AI ignores the selected weapon group, even if it is set to autofire.

The solution is to put a salamander on its own fire and just click every once and a while. But yes the ability to deselect all weapons would be nice.

Would be helpful. Right now every build either has to have an non active weapon or a blank slot, which limits to weapons you can toggle for AI down to 4.

Guys?

You can already switch to a non-existent weapon group by pressing 6 (or higher), and it frees up all other weapon groups for the AI to use if they're on autofire.  ;D
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arcibalde

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2018, 11:02:46 PM »

Are you sure?
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Blothorn

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2018, 09:38:10 AM »

Guys?

You can already switch to a non-existent weapon group by pressing 6 (or higher), and it frees up all other weapon groups for the AI to use if they're on autofire.  ;D

Now that you mention it, I think I discovered that and then forgot it again... oops.
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JDCollie

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2018, 11:39:04 AM »

Uhh, guys?
You can already switch to a non-existent weapon group by pressing 6 (or higher), and it frees up all other weapon groups for the AI to use if they're on autofire.  ;D
If I have less than five weapon groups, selecting one of the empty action groups activates this behavior, but I am unable to get my ship to do this with five full weapon groups by pressing 6 or higher. There's also no keybinding for any weapon group higher than five. (Hence why I made the suggestion in the first place)

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for this to already be in the game, but at least for me, I'm not seeing it. (Is there a config option or something I need to enable?)
« Last Edit: March 27, 2018, 11:43:03 AM by JDCollie »
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Megas

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2018, 12:25:59 PM »

You can already switch to a non-existent weapon group by pressing 6 (or higher), and it frees up all other weapon groups for the AI to use if they're on autofire.  ;D
Pressing 6 does nothing for me.  Weapon group that was manually selected before pressing 6 remains so after pressing 6.
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arcibalde

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2018, 01:42:16 PM »

Having less than 5 weapon groups and putting all weapons on auto fire and then pressing 5 put all weapons in AI hands. Pressing 6 doesn't do a thing. Having all 5 weapon groups and pressing 6 doesen't do a thing. At least for me.
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LazyWizard

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2018, 08:07:28 PM »

The always empty weapon group 6 appears to be supported by the game, but Starsector lacks a keybind for switching to it. Setting the weapon group through the modding API seems to work perfectly.

Here's a tiny utility mod adding a keybind for it. Pressing 6 will deselect all weapon groups.

Hopefully vanilla adds a keybind for the next version, because as others have said, handing over full weapons control to the AI can be very useful at times. :)
« Last Edit: March 27, 2018, 08:09:59 PM by LazyWizard »
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AxleMC131

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2018, 09:57:19 PM »

... Weird. I'm sure I've unlocked all weapons by hitting 6 before.  ??? I hope I didn't hallucinate that...
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LazyWizard

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Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« Reply #14 on: March 27, 2018, 10:02:39 PM »

Yeah, I could swear it worked in the past as well. Maybe it was lost when the number of weapon groups was increased to 5?

Edit: booted into .52a, and apparently there have always been five weapon groups for as long as refitting has been a thing.  I think I'm experiencing one of those weird "stepped into an alternate universe" moments.  I could swear I remembered a lengthy forum thread from a few years back where people were requesting an extra weapon group and Alex replied saying he had added one.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2018, 10:21:04 PM by LazyWizard »
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