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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: friendly AI behavior  (Read 4218 times)

Rauschkind

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #15 on: April 10, 2021, 12:55:07 PM »

i had simmilar experiences with the defenders of the thing alex hid under his spoiler.
my fleet got sloughterd without doing much damage, i could kill one of the two ships with my paragon flagship but when it split up the emp was to much, i did not kill anything else.
anyway, i dont think my fleet was really "endgame" worthy at that point, and i did not know what to expect from the fight so that was ok.

i see the problem described A LOT with short ranged ships though. i have a few SO eagles, and i see them so often getting shot while they stay JUST outside their own weapon range to retreat outside enemy weapon range when their flux goes up. they usually dont die, but they also are pretty useless.
and its so dumb. if they want to engage, they should get into weapon range, not stop just outside it.

micromanagement helps a bit, usually i order my whole fleet to attack one target and that usually results in that target being dead. sometimes it does not work as described by op, and also i do think the default behavioiur could be a bit smarter.
note: i usually have ecm superiority beacuse i use build in ecm mods in almost all my ships and also a few frigates with officers with ecm skill as well as the skill that gives +2% ecm per ship.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #16 on: April 10, 2021, 12:58:35 PM »

I like agressive frigate officers, but only in the super high end frigates (tempest and scarab mostly). Steady is generally fine in most ships but not optimal, which seems appropriate. Cautious is kinda bad now, I used to like it for carriers, but now I don't like carriers. I tried to make a level 7 cautious officer with gunnery implants + ranged specialization that I found work, but it would drift out of range for no reason and just generally didn't kill much.

I think 15% ecm penalty would be good, 10% might also work.
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Rauschkind

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #17 on: April 10, 2021, 01:01:01 PM »

tbh: i do not see how a slightly nerfed ecm effect could fix this.
the problem seems to be that ai controlled ai ships often stay just outside their own weapon range. it does not seem to matter much how long that range is. they stay just outside very long range as they stay out of very short range.

plus: at the point where even max ecm maulus is more or less irrelevant, the solution becomes to just ignore ecm - especially as it requires pretty high investments to get ecm superiority. it takes sp upkeep for merc officers, sp investments for build in mods (not building them in gimpes the ships to hard as the modules are very expensive), careful selection of officers with the right skills and to pick the right player skills.
i think it will be really difficult to balance it so it becomes worth the investment to counter it while not making the whole game pivot around it.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2021, 01:04:20 PM by Rauschkind »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #18 on: April 10, 2021, 01:11:09 PM »

(Regardless, one of the things I'm doing for the next build is changing the max ECM range penalty to 10% - that's still significant, and 20% is just too oppressive.)
One thing I though of that I mentioned a little in the skill thread I just made is the idea of giving more ways of reducing/capping the ecm penalty (like IPDAI). I suggested replacing the +6% ecm for frigates in gunnery implants with a cap on ecm penalty. Maybe even making the elite gunnery implants perk 'ecm penalties are ignored' could be good (maybe too strong). I think the whole ecm bonus for officered frigates thing is kinda redundant with the ecm skill anyway, and causes a lot of problems.
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Histidine

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #19 on: April 10, 2021, 09:35:51 PM »

(Regardless, one of the things I'm doing for the next build is changing the max ECM range penalty to 10% - that's still significant, and 20% is just too oppressive.)
Will capturing sensor jammers raise the penalty limit? Would be nice to make them more relevant.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #20 on: April 10, 2021, 10:46:26 PM »

(Regardless, one of the things I'm doing for the next build is changing the max ECM range penalty to 10% - that's still significant, and 20% is just too oppressive.)
Will capturing sensor jammers raise the penalty limit? Would be nice to make them more relevant.
I would hope not or else that would pretty much invalidate the nerfed limits in the first place; most people don't have the spare ships needed to help hold control over these points, especially when outnumbered by the AI so much
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Flunky

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #21 on: April 11, 2021, 09:08:11 PM »

I realize this is drifting a bit from the original topic, but...

If ECM cap is going to be 10%, could non- capture point source be a little smaller? I get the sense it's going to be too much of a 'I'm wasting too many ECM points doing nothing' or 'my ECM's going to be screwed anyways so why bother' whipsaw. Probably best to see how it just a lowered cap works in practice before fiddling more, I suppose.

And more on topic, Reckless officers do have their place. Despite what others have said, I'm a big fan of putting one on a Tempest, if they're sufficiently high level. Tempests have a lot of survival in addition to bite, so if the officer ends up biting off more than they can chew a retreat order will usually see them out safely without too many crew losses.
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Flet

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #22 on: April 12, 2021, 02:06:26 AM »

While save scumming to get desired officer skills i have been sitting watching a fight play out with autopilot engaged, so watching my flagship behave as a steady officer.

Ive noticed in some cases the ai simply stops advancing and makes a little half circle swoop for no explainable reason. In one case the fleet was mopping up and all enemies on this side of the map were destroyed. While moving across the map, with no enemies anywhere near my flagship, and the only friendlies on the screen being well away from it just on the periphery, my ship which was moving towards the remaining enemies with 0 flux speed activated, decided to stop, reverse and strafe a bit, and then resumed its course.

If i had to explain it, it was like it decided instead of being abreast of the other ships heading across the map it needed to be behind them. Now they are all aggressive officers so maybe the steady ai wants to be behind the aggressive officer, but thats the only thing i can think of. that or it just forgot what it was doing for a while and then had to re-aquire the enemy position. I was reminded however of the same inexplicable retreating that occurs in combat when i see no obvious trigger - No unfavorable flux ratios (the only enemy overloaded and still at about half flux), no potential threatening enemies, just random falling back, and this time not even during a fight but while traversing the map.
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TottiTheTurtle

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #23 on: April 12, 2021, 02:52:40 PM »

The not-engaging and general weird behaviour of friendly AI is very frustrating.

A Paragon turns away from a higher threat only to chase after a useless frigate. And in most cases, it will do so for a very long time. Front-shielded ships will turn their unshielded back to three ships, just to get their guns pointed at a measly frigate.
Slow turning ships just tank the flux until almost overloaded, then drop and raise shields while keeping being pummeled until the inevitable death. They do not reverse at full speed to try to alleviate danger, they are just sitting ducks while the enemy swarms.

Move orders (and orders in general) are more of a suggestion than a command, when enemy ships are present. Multiple ships capping points when an enemy frigate arrives are scared like they saw a [SUPER REDACTED] and don't cap the point. Movement in general seems weird. Ships cross in front of you while you unload on a ship, ships blocking you on the frontline and wont move out of the way. Combine this with above paragraph's turning behaviour and you get some exquisite suicides. This happens to the enemy too, but their fleet has massively more DP, so its not that bad for them.

Attack or kill orders obey the "I'm scared of enemy, halp", while barely returning fire when more than a single enemy is present.
In some cases, a Conquest ordered to escort will only ever turn its front towars the enemy, never using their side-facing large mounts, thus being rather useless.

Dooms try at meleeing large enemies while tanking shots, even though they are not at max flux and their phase cloak is off-cooldown.

I have the feeling that 0.91 had more consistent behaviour and officers obeyed commands much more strict. Oh, and ships used their flux venting more often, at least in situations which are safe to. This version, they sometimes vent, yes, but under heavy fire...
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 02:56:43 PM by TottiTheTurtle »
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Thaago

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #24 on: April 12, 2021, 04:16:42 PM »

Other than the turning towards frigates thing, I haven't seen ANY of that. For those that aren't already, I highly recommend using only aggressive or reckless officers and setting the fleet doctrine to aggressive in the fleet tab.
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TuxedoCatfish

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #25 on: April 12, 2021, 06:55:02 PM »

Purely anecdotal but friendly AI really does seem a lot dumber about staying out of the way of other friendly ships, especially larger ones. I'm also seeing a lot more frigate casualties to destroyed ship explosions than I used to in 0.91.
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WeiTuLo

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #26 on: April 12, 2021, 07:20:18 PM »

I have seen my Fearless Radiant Battleship acting timid in front of a paragon. Also did it next to a squall spamming conquest. Probably felt outnumbered. Once I deployed frigates, it regained morale, got into weapons range with everything and tore them to bits, as intended. I need to play around with this more. I have also seen aggressive/reckless frigates tilt to the side while firing phase lances, thereby losing some damage, and I have also seen them fire a bit short of the target, hitting just air.
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Flunky

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Re: friendly AI behavior
« Reply #27 on: April 12, 2021, 08:24:42 PM »

Other than the turning towards frigates thing, I haven't seen ANY of that. For those that aren't already, I highly recommend using only aggressive or reckless officers and setting the fleet doctrine to aggressive in the fleet tab.

Wait a sec, I didn't realize that adjusting fleet doctrine affected your own fleet's non-officered ships too, but there it is in the pop-up. Huh, good to know.
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