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Author Topic: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships  (Read 1224 times)

Yunru

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AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« on: June 29, 2021, 06:36:25 AM »

Right when an enemy ship is most vulnerable, time and time again I see my ships either retreating, or worse still maintaining relative position but otherwise not acting. They just won't attack, or sometimes even continue to pursue them, until they finish overloading, at which point they then resume the offensive.

This mostly seems to occur in (relatively) 1v1 situations, such as capturing locations.

Alex

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Re: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2021, 08:35:00 AM »

I'd have to see an example, but what you're describing probably isn't a bug. I would for example expect the AI to prioritize capturing a location over pursuing a now-harmless and backing off enemy.
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Schwartz

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Re: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2021, 06:08:06 AM »

I have seen a few times that an overloaded enemy was not kept under pressure but had my own forces choose to vent, or gain some distance, or just meander around even though they could have destroyed it. There may be a logic in there somewhere that says "in x seconds, that ship will come back with a lower flux level and I should be prepared" rather than "I can destroy that in x seconds". Though that's just an assumption.

I think the correct mode would be for the attackers to lower their shields (surroundings permitting) and keep on firing, thereby passively venting flux as best as they can. A ship that has taken damage is more likely to have some of its weapons go offline as well. It's really not as much of a calculated gamble as it sounds.

A little more tuning towards erasing an enemy from the battlefield would help. I'd certainly enjoy seeing more AI kills vs. being better at capturing points and then having to re-engage a refreshed enemy. This is a numbers game and nothing tilts the numbers more than erasing an enemy.
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6chad.noirlee9

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Re: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2021, 03:56:38 PM »

I'd be willing to bet the officer you're using on that ship plays a part as well.
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edit: edit: maybe were just falling with style LOL.  make a bubble, make the space in front of it smaller and just fall forward

WeiTuLo

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Re: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2021, 01:05:11 PM »

I have reckless officers that do this.
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ASSIMKO

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Re: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2021, 05:51:29 AM »

Yes, this is also happening with my ships. There are times when they back off or keep a distance with my shar in command of the ship too.
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Deshara

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Re: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2021, 10:29:36 AM »

This mostly seems to occur in (relatively) 1v1 situations, such as capturing locations.

Not a bug, its a feature.
when ordered to capture a location ur ship draws an invisible circle around the location, starts putting invisible "engage" orders on enemies inside it that only it (& other ships assigned to the same location) can see & ignores enemies outside that circle. When it beats an enemy ship but it manages to back out of that circle it lets them go & goes back to cap the location. This is the only way it makes sense for it to work for 2 reasons
1) if the only thing the developer knows about a 1v1 over an objective is that the ship overloaded manages to back out of the contested circle then it can be inferred that that ship is faster than its opponent & chasing it won't do much good.
2) when you assign the ship to capture the location, the ship operates under the assumption that you want it to capture that location. What other assumption can it make? & letting enemy ships go instead of letting defeated enemies peel them away from the location leads to it capping that location & no other action will.

Like, in Heroes of the Storm theres an extremely weak hero who can drop an egg on the map & when u kill him it A) doesnt give u anything and 2) he respawns at his egg instantly. So in order to bring value to his team, his job is not to run up & try to push the enemy team off of the objective, his job is to drop an egg near the objective then run up & annoy the enemy team in an attempt to get them to chase him and then lead them around the map until they kill him then get respawned right next to the objective & cap it before the enemy team can get back to it. Dragging the enemy team off of the point to chase him for a pointless kill is effectively the same as beating them in a fight & if he's even able to distract 2 of the enemy then his team has a game-changing advantage. So when I see my team getting peeled by him I have to jump into chat & be like "stop chasing him & go cap". And that's almost the exact same thing that's happening in starsector, except that your team already knows not to get peeled. It is simulation the experience of having a smart & effective team in this specific situation.

If you want them to press their advantage & kill the ship they're engaging then you need to switch them to an eliminate order on the ship that's contesting the point, as this will automatically assign another ship to come cap while he's off chasing. It's a bit inconvenient to have to be aware of when ur ships are 1v1'ing but what can you do, the game is better for you having to do that
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Yunru

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Re: AI appears to ignore overloaded ships
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2021, 10:35:10 AM »

To clarify, this behaviour isn't exclusive to capture orders; I've seen it happen in various 1v1s, including on maps without objectives.