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[sqrt(-1)]

Hi,

the old bug, that the autofire loadout config for the flagship and fire mode (linked/alternating) for fleet ships is randomly ignored, even for the same battle after loading.
This happens to vanilla ships like the Aurora and Tempest and others too.

This is quite annoying, to be frank.

Thank for getting this fixed finally.

[Alex]

I'm not sure I understand what the issue is. I suspect what at least part of this is that autofire *is not* a permanent setting, but just the setting for the starting state of the ship's weapon groups. So for example if you toggle autopilot on, it will turn autofire on and off as it sees fit. And for fully AI controlled ships, this setting has no impact, and isn't supposed to. It's only there to make it so that for your own ship, you don't have to set specific groups to autofire at the start of every battle.

The alternating/linked status, I'm not actually aware of any issues with this, so more info - including steps to reproduce, if possible - would be very helpful!

[sqrt(-1)]

That the autopilot changes this setting of fleet ships, is clearly wrong in my opinion because it renders the purpose of burst weapon loadouts and the ship's fire mode settings void.
If someone uses an illicit weapon group setting, then he should suffer the consequences, not someone who wants to enforce an ideal loadout that can only be utilized with a fire mode that is actually used and not randomly reset.

And that my flagship is randomly reconfigured by some autopilot that I never want to use, has caused quite some frustration for me, too many times.

[Alex]

Autofire state is very much a tactical decision that flux levels - and many other dynamic things - heavily factor into and it would not be a good idea to have that be forced to a specific state for all of combat.

I can understand what you're asking for, it might be handy in some cases to be able to say "keep firing these guns no matter what" but autofire just isn't that setting. Restricting it to that would cause far more problems than it would solve.

Edit: the group mode (linked vs alternating) *is* on the other hand a "hard" setting that's not changed mid-combat. But - maybe this is the confusing point here? - it does not matter for autofire, since in an autofiring group, each weapon aims and fires individually, so the group's firing mode doesn't matter.

[sqrt(-1)]

If this would make sense, then you should remove the firemode settings, because a setting that is arbritrarily overridden only causes frustration and has no purpose.
The AI can avoid overloading solely by deciding if firing any weapons is viable or not. Overriding the firing mode setting for a specific group is not necessary for this.

My flagship's (or any other fleet ship's) autofire setting is randomly changed, even before any combat has happened. This just doesn't make any sense.

EDIT: I have observed several times that the linked/alternating setting is changed too.

[Thaago]

If this would make sense, then you should remove the firemode settings, because a setting that is arbritrarily overridden only causes frustration and has no purpose.
The AI can avoid overloading solely by deciding if firing the group is viable or not. Overriding the firing mode setting is not necessary for this.

And as I have already said, punishing good players for the sake of saving bad players is generally not a good idea at all.

I think you might be confused about something? There's nothing here about bad players vs good players. How the AI turns guns on/off if they think a group is bad to fire is through the autofire setting, or in the one group that it takes 'manual' control over. Exactly like how a player does it.

The setting is there so that we as players don't need to set our autofire groups every single fight - on a big ship thats not only tedious, but potentially disastrous if forgotten.

[SCC]

My flagship's (or any other fleet ship's) autofire setting is randomly changed, even before any combat has happened. This just doesn't make any sense.

EDIT: I have observed several times that the linked/alternating setting is changed too.

This does definitely sound like a bug. I haven't ever had my weapon groups's autofire switch around just because or even change from linked to alternating or vice versa, not unless I changed them manually in refit screen or used autofit.

[sqrt(-1)]

I think you might be confused about something? There's nothing here about bad players vs good players. How the AI turns guns on/off if they think a group is bad to fire is through the autofire setting, or in the one group that it takes 'manual' control over. Exactly like how a player does it.

The setting is there so that we as players don't need to set our autofire groups every single fight - on a big ship thats not only tedious, but potentially disastrous if forgotten.

It is 3 separate issues:

• If the autofire setting wasn't randomly overridden for AI controlled fleet ships, I could optimize weapon group fire prioaritization to the AI. The AI could still decide to fire no weapons at all if flux levels don't permit it.
• If the linked/alternating wasn't randomly ignored for AI controlled fleet ships, I could optimize burst weapon efficiency.
• If the autofire setting wasn't randomly overridden for my flagship, I wouldn't need to hit my desk in frustration because I am not an AI that can manually fire 7 non-PD weapon groups and because I find it irritating to have to change the setting again depending on what the AI has randomly decided upon at the beginning of this battle.

[Thaago]

Are you updated to the latest version of the game? There was an issue in the initial release of .95 with a bug that scrambled weapon group settings, but points 2 and 3 haven't happened in my experience since it was hotfixed.

For 1, optimizing fire group prioritization is an entirely different feature than what autofire is, and a simple toggle would only be able to achieve 'always fire' or 'only manual fire'. I wouldn't mind having a feature like that either (it could really up the power of some builds!) but thats a feature request, not a bug.

[sqrt(-1)]

The alternating/linked status, I'm not actually aware of any issues with this, so more info - including steps to reproduce, if possible - would be very helpful!

I will try to isolate occurences when this happens for linked/alternating.
I guess this can be easily overlooked if one doesn't use linked low fire rate weapons like Phase Lances.

But I am not sure if you think that it is intentional that the flagship's autofire settings should be overridden randomly at the beginning of a battle and even during a battle.
I can reproduce this frequently and this is clearly terrible in my opinion.

Are you updated to the latest version of the game? There was an issue in the initial release of .95 with a bug that scrambled weapon group settings, but points 2 and 3 haven't happened in my experience since it was hotfixed.

I am running .95 RC15 and I observe these issues for years now.

For 1, optimizing fire group prioritization is an entirely different feature than what autofire is, and a simple toggle would only be able to achieve 'always fire' or 'only manual fire'. I wouldn't mind having a feature like that either (it could really up the power of some builds!) but thats a feature request, not a bug.

In my eyes that's the only conceivable functional purpose for this setting anyway. There is no difference between the intent for this setting for a player or AI controlled ship.
But yes, now that Alex's intent is clearl, at least this point is a feature request, even though I think it is a conceptual bug.

[Alex]

I will try to isolate occurences when this happens for linked/alternating.
I guess this can be easily overlooked if one doesn't use linked low fire rate weapons like Phase Lances.

Thank you!

One possibility, btw - not for linked/alternating, but for autofire: if you right-click your flagship onto an objective, that will engage autopilot. That, in turn, will change autofire toggles to what it would normally set them to based on the current situation, almost as soon as the game is unpaused. Basically, you generally don't want to select your flagship and issue an order to it when you're giving orders to your other ships, unless you're not planning on personally piloting it. This might explain why this could feel "random", since this is easy to miss.

[sqrt(-1)]

One possibility, btw - not for linked/alternating, but for autofire: if you right-click your flagship onto an objective, that will engage autopilot. That, in turn, will change autofire toggles to what it would normally set them to based on the current situation, almost as soon as the game is unpaused. Basically, you generally don't want to select your flagship and issue an order to it when you're giving orders to your other ships, unless you're not planning on personally piloting it. This might explain why this could feel "random", since this is easy to miss.

I have tested this immediately, and that's exactly what is causing this. I think that this is a very inconsistent and convoluted behavior. And since I (and I suppose many others) frequently want to save time when giving orders with group selections, wiyhout tediously deselecting the flagship, this is something that is causing frustration often.

The whole thing could be avoided if autofire was seen conceptionally consistent. 'Autofire' already literally means: fire this group automatically unless it would overload the ship, the firing of manual groups is intended for more situational consideration. I don't see how this would break anything for the AI if this wasn't overridden. The only difference would be that poor loadouts would be punished more and better ones would be rewarded.

[SCC]

One possibility, btw - not for linked/alternating, but for autofire: if you right-click your flagship onto an objective, that will engage autopilot.

Nice job, Alex. I don't think I would have thought to check for that - I would have assumed he had seen the "autopilot engaged" message and realised autopilot is taking over and messing with weapon groups, so it couldn't have been that.

'Autofire' already literally means: fire this group automatically unless it would overload the ship, the firing of manual groups is intended for more situational consideration.

When piloting a capital ship, turning weapon groups on autofire or off is the situational consideration.

[sqrt(-1)]

When piloting a capital ship, turning weapon groups on autofire or off is the situational consideration.

Right, but the point of this is solely an extension of manual firing because players cannot trigger the individual firing of up to 7 groups. For AI, this isn't a practical concern.
The autofire override by AI only causes the now clarified problems and takes away from the possibilty to prioritize weapon group usage.

[Thaago]

When piloting a capital ship, turning weapon groups on autofire or off is the situational consideration.

Right, but the point of this is solely an extension of manual firing because players cannot trigger the individual firing of up to 7 groups. For AI, this isn't a practical concern.
The autofire override by AI only causes the now clarified problems and takes away from the possibilty to prioritize weapon group usage.

It actually is a concern for the AI. It controls its weapons exactly like the player: swapping weapons in and out of autofire, with a single 'manual' group that is aiming at some virtual mouse point and is fired on a virtual mouse click. (And, for alternating groups like missiles, it even advances the group's selection by 1 every time it decides to switch to that group! Which can screw up their usage of missiles by making them fire multiple times from a single missile when others of the same type have more ammo... but thats a different issue.) The AI will switch its 'manual' group around depending on the situation (including switching to missiles and leaving guns off sometimes, which can be annoying), and IIRC this is the only way it tries to optimize damage types being fired against the enemy.

It also has the same differences in behavior between the 'manual' control group and the autofire groups, which can sometimes cause weird issues that are a bit opaque. For example, if sometimes a linked group with weapons pointing in different directions (like a mix of hardpoints and turrets) fires correctly, only when enemies cross the firing arcs, its in autofire mode. If the whole group is firing at once even when the target is out of arc, its in 'manual' mode and the AI just clicked the mouse button.