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[Vayra]

...It's harder than you think!

Try this: Take a Mercury to the drydock. Outfit it with Harpoons. Put it in the simulator against a Hound on autopilot and watch what happens.

The damn thing is afraid to fire its harpoons! I especially noticed the following:

- Even though Harpoons are DO_NOT_AIM, it will almost never fire them from the rear turret.
- - In fact, even if linked with one or two forward Harpoons, it will refuse to fire the whole weapon group.
- - Even if linked with 1x forward Harpoon rack and a gun (I used a light mortar, but flux inefficiency shouldn't be a calculation here vs a shieldless hound) it won't fire them. In fact, in this case, it will almost never fire the mortar either.
- - If you put a Salamander in the rear slot it'll happily fire that even though it's also DO_NOT_AIM.

- If you put 1x Salamander in the rear slot and 2x Harpoon in the front slots and link them, it will sometimes fire them, generally one at a time. (I forget if the Salamander was linked to the Harpoons or in its own group for this test)
- - This also happens if you put 1x Salamander in the rear slot and 2x Harpoons in the front slots and give them all their own weapon group.

- If you put 1x Salamander in the rear slot in its own group and 1x Harpoon + 1x gun (i used a tac laser) in the forward slots linked together, it will dump its Harpoons immediately. This is generally the desired result, but it means you're only mounting 1x Harpoon when the whole point of fielding a Mercury was to mount 3x Harpoons on your little undercosted shuttle with 3 universal mounts.

[Vayra]

Here's a video of one of the more successful tests, btw, after I figured out how to get them to (sometimes) fire ze missiles (1x rear salamander and 2x forward harpoons, each in own group). This is in Tart's Fleet Tester mod with both sides set to Reckless, but I also tested this in simulator as mentioned in OP to confirm it's an issue in one-on-one scenarios with no mods at all and steady AI.



Note 2:20, when a Hound catches 2 Harpoons and then while at <1% HP is steadfastly ignored by the Mercs who still have harpoons and are literally bouncing off it... They eventually kill it with Salamanders.  

[Alex]

This is... extremely not a bug? Moving to... General, I guess!

The behavior is that it will:

1) Use the Harpoons when seriously pressured (i.e. high flux, taking damage, etc), and
2) Otherwise save them for more ideal situations

After all, in a fleet setting, chances are the Hound will get cleaned up by another ship, and the Harpoons are probably better spent on a higher-value target. And even firing off 3 full racks at a Hound might not kill it, and then where will the Mercury be?

If this happens to be a problem when you field an entire fleet full of Mercury-class shuttles, well. That's what you call one of them edge cases. Basically, what you're observing is the fix for "ships immediately dump most of their missiles at a few unshielded targets at the start of combat" issue

[Vayra]

Try it yourself! It happens in one-on-one or with pretty well any number of Mercuries. I'll accept that "ships immediately dump most of their missiles at a few unshielded targets at the start of combat" is a matter of opinion as to whether it's the correct tactical decision or not, but at least the behavior of them refusing to fire even a single Harpoon at flamed out, low HP targets that they're literally bouncing off of despite Reckless AI seems like a bug, as does their refusal to fire rear-mounted Harpoons at anything to the point where they also won't fire a forward-mounted gun that's linked to them.

[Alex]

I did try it! My feeling is that trying to tune the AI to make a "mass pure missile Mercury" strategy work slightly better vs unshielded ships, at the expense of likely making it worse in other situations, is ... not a great idea. IMO it works quite nicely otherwise, and it eventually works even in this super weird situation, so I'm going to chalk it up as a win.

but at least the behavior of them refusing to fire even a single Harpoon at flamed out, low HP targets that they're literally bouncing off of despite Reckless AI seems like a bug,

At the point you timestamped, it's likely trying to avoid overkill since other Harpoons are already inbound - and almost get it, but not quite. They also do fire at it a bit more eventually and get the kill. Plus maybe it might've got it with the shield bump. (Ok, ok, the AI wasn't really considering that last one. But it does consider what's already incoming, including from other ships.)

as does their refusal to fire rear-mounted Harpoons at anything to the point where they also won't fire a forward-mounted gun that's linked to them.

Well, I mean, at that point you're creating weird weapon groups to try to game the AI into doing something it wouldn't normally, so I'm not sure expecting anything in particular as far as behavior makes a ton of sense.

[Vayra]

Ah, I see what you mean about the trying to avoid overkill, and all fair points. I guess I'll just go back to Buffalo Mk.IIs for my missile-boat shenanigans. 

[Euphytose]

There's something I don't understand about missile usage. The case here is pretty easy to understand after Alex's explanations, but there's one thing that always bothered me:

When I start to have a pretty big fleet with lots of missiles, sometimes a LOT of harpoons are fired right at the start of the battle. And while it does kill a few frigates, I'm not sure it's the best use for them.

[Alex]

When I start to have a pretty big fleet with lots of missiles, sometimes a LOT of harpoons are fired right at the start of the battle. And while it does kill a few frigates, I'm not sure it's the best use for them.

I *think* what might be happening is there's enough missiles to where there's just a good chance some of the ships will decide to take some potshots at unshielded ships - which they may do from time to time anyway - but when there's enough ships with missiles, it could sometimes end up looking like a lot. The behavior here has a random element so it's not going to be consistent.

If that doesn't sound like it, and if you got a save handy prior to a battle where this happens, I'd love to take a look!

[Cyan Leader]

I feel everything could be improved by behavior being tied to ships and not officers.

[Alex]

... erm, this behavior doesn't have anything to do with officers.

[Euphytose]

I feel everything could be improved by behavior being tied to ships and not officers.

There's a mod that does just that called Automatic Orders.

[Vayra]

I feel everything could be improved by behavior being tied to ships and not officers.

This behavior is entirely independent from officers. If anything, my issue with it is that it's not overridden by a Reckless officer. 

[Blothorn]

Tying behavior to ships would cause two problems, IMO:
- Forcing ships into particular roles. A common, if not dominant, use of cheap missile ships (Kites, Mercuries, etc.) is as a finisher in a mixed fleet--giving Mercuries a special propensity to dump missiles at the first opportunity would help the missile alpha spam fleet Vayra was trying to make, but ruin it as a support missile carrier.
- AI quality control is probably roughly combinatorial in the number of profiles--tying behaviors to ships rather than personalities would not make it notably easier to support a greater variety of profiles.

As far as reckless not overriding that conservatism--my reckless ships tend to combine kinetics with missiles/torpedoes as a rapid finisher. I would be rather upset if they started dumping their harpoons at the first opportunity.

[Thaago]

Yes, I am very happy that they do not fire at unshielded ships much! In my mind this is the correct behavior.

@Vayra, I used Harpoon Mercuries in the last round of the tourney and they would consistently fire finishing volleys (timid personality). Probably not perfect, but they worked.

[TJJ]

Is AI aggressiveness (or rather, willingness to expend munitions) tied in any way to battle advantage?
i.e.
Ships in a fleet that out-gun the opposing fleet 10 to 1, would be much more willing to exhaust their missiles to bring the battle to a close.

Maybe that's not good for the player experience though; as you're typically outnumbered, a brutal AI that exploits such an advantage too efficiently wouldn't be a very fun opponent.