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[intrinsic_parity]

I have an aggressive officer in a doom, and I keep seeing it do silly things like eat full tac lance blasts when it has cloak up, or un phase right next to its own mines. It feels like it is a bit too unconcerned about damage now. Has anyone else seen similar behavior from doom/phase AI.

[iseethings]

Yeah, its pretty much a given that the AI shouldn't be allowed near a phase frigate more expensive than a afflicter. They tend to kill themselves. Often.

[Alex]

Hmm - the question is, does it get itself killed, or just take damage? Phase ships in particular have to be more risk-tolerant than other ships, which means being willing to take some damage - and given that it's hard to tell if it's *necessary* sometimes, they'll get it wrong with some frequency. But they should become more careful after taking some damage.

(There's a similarity here with armor-tanking - to do it at all, the AI has to be willing to take some unnecessary damage. This is why, for example, you might see a Paragon take some damage when it doesn't seem like it "needs" to - but then become more conservative when it can no longer afford to risk it...)

That said - especially if there's a 1-1 scenario that can clearly demonstrate the issue - I'm pretty much always happy to take a look!

[intrinsic_parity]

It takes a lot of easily avoidable damage, and then has no HP left to survive the unavoidable damage that happens sometimes. Also it goes well into the territory I would consider dangerous (sub 50% hull). I don't mind some willingness to trade damage, but eating full volleys of plasma cannon/tac lance/HE when armor is already stripped is just silly. Maybe have some damage/shot threshold it's willing to take and it phase dodges anything over that?

Also, the putting mines on itself thing while on high flux was also annoying. I think there was a lot debris around and maybe the mine didn't spawn exactly where it was aiming.

[Sinosauropteryx]

Has anyone else seen similar behavior from doom/phase AI.

Twice my Doom has died on autopilot from its own mines after I set it to retreat. Both times it tried to hit nearby fighters within splash damage range that it could have ignored, was either unphased or at high enough flux to force it to unphase, and had <15% hull.  I have been driving it all the way to the bottom ever since.

[bobucles]

It could be that phase ships are under valuing HE damage and over valuing energy or kinetic damage in terms of risk. As a phase ship, any type of HE damage is extremely hazardous and trivially avoided. But when PD and beams are involved, why be scared? That's why phase ships are loaded in thick armor, after all. Phase ships also don't worry about risk in terms of DPS, because they can phase out of sustained damage at any time. Damage per shot is more lethal and thus far more important for consideration.

Don't forget that damage types multiply TWICE into damage formulas. So HE damage not only gives 100% more numbers up front, it also penetrates damage reduction twice as effectively too. The actual risk is much higher than 2x. Once a phase ship runs out of armor, it can't defer risk to the shields for backup, making it a nasty trade.

[intrinsic_parity]

I was seeing that the AI doesn't care about high energy damage, so I don't think it's an issue with damage types. I think it's just gone a bit too far in the 'trading damage to deal damage' direction to the point of behaving irrationally.

[intrinsic_parity]

I just watched a doom put a mine directly into my engines, it's definitely more careless with mine placement

[intrinsic_parity]

I've been experimenting in the simulator a bit and I think there are two big problems I see:
1) Doom has serious issue with unphasing near its own mines. It does this regularly against sim paragon with an aggressive officer, even with the elite phase skill that makes it very fast (did it in 2/3 tests, happened to kill the paragon somewhat quickly in the other test). I'm actually suspicious that this is the cause of my doom taking lots of damage in battle, not the enemy.

2) There seem to be issues where if the enemy is high on flux, the doom never backs off, even if it is also high on flux. I think this is maybe just aggressive officer behavior and not doom specific, but it can be quite suicidal. I don't mind staying to try and finish something off, but there are lots of ships that are not actually vulnerable because they are high on flux (due to high armor and good PD), and staying to fight on high flux is suicidal for the doom against those ships. Maybe aggressive AI on phase ships is just bad? I'm not sure. I would like if it backed off to vent when both ships are high on flux. A lot of time the enemy does not have time to vent in that case and you can easily kill them with a fresh flux pool.

edit:
3) Doom 'relaxing' after securing a kill (un-phasing, venting etc) even though there are still threats like a final volley of projectiles, or mines or missiles and take unnecessary damage.

[TaLaR]

2) There seem to be issues where if the enemy is high on flux, the doom never backs off, even if it is also high on flux. I think this is maybe just aggressive officer behavior and not doom specific, but it can be quite suicidal.

Probably. Had a Falcon with aggressive officer dive straight into incoming Piranha bombers to reach high-flux Legion and die in process.

[intrinsic_parity]

I feel like that should be reckless behavior, not aggressive. Aggressive behavior should be taking some risk/damage to deal extra damage, but actively avoiding serious harm IMO.

[TaLaR]

Imo, even Reckless shouldn't dive straight into incoming piranhas. Falcon can avoid them easily enough at cost of only somewhat disrupting it's attack approach (not having to give it up completely).

[intrinsic_parity]

Yeah I do agree I've seen a lot of aggressive officers taking easily avoidable damage that isn't required to do what they were trying to do.