Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[sqrt(-1)]

As a sidenote, I think I am a very good pilot who min/maxes with what most would consider impossible battles and even I almost never need to toggle autofire, particularly since I don't pilot (IMO extremely boring) battleships.

Thaago, I don't see the point you are trying to make. What matters is that the AI has no hard problem to decide, every frame, whether a manual group should be fired and can easily trigger its firing for every single projectile. Toggling autofiring is an edge case for a human player in a battleship, with a reason (pracitically unable to handle manual firing of all groups), which isn't a genuine one for the AI.

I also don't see the point with weapon line of sight & range. Yeah, a player should only put weapons in manual fire group where it makes sense. Safguarding against poor loadout decisions with convoluted and limiting behavior is not the right answer.

[Alex]

Hmm. Basically, autofire is not the thing you're asking for, and it needs to be the way it is because while most of the time, you can get good enough results with "hold fire", sometimes you can't, and it would be bad if you didn't have the option for finer-grained control.

I think asking for what you're asking for in the guise of making autofire work that way muddies things. It's fundamentally different - what you want is a ship behavior control (it's almost in the ballpark of suggestions re:, say, being able to configure the ship AI with certain parameters - though not quite, because it'd also affect the player ship), and autofire is just a default state setting for a regular ship control. Conceptually, it's apples and oranges, and one isn't a replacement for the other.

(Though, something like another checkbox to make autofire state for a group "permanent" could be interesting, perhaps... but it'd also feel pretty weird, fundamentally not being able to shut off a specific group firing without shutting off everything else as well. Worth more thought, though.)

I don't think I would have thought to check for that

(... I've done it myself )

[Modo44]

Actual direct ship AI control needs to happen. "Don't mess with player-set autofire" is simply one piece of it. There are countless threads and videos showing just how much trickery you need to make ships do what you actually want them to do. And that's before getting into mods. Some level of control needs to be open to the player. The black box approach to AI will not cut it in a mature game, not when its main focus is on space battles.

[6chad.noirlee9]

It would be cool to somehow set a ship to "autofire select group as much as possible until x flux level"

[sqrt(-1)]

Alex, I read everything again and took a breather on this to be sure.

What I/we are suggesting is not a new feature nor is this a 'mudding' concept, but exactly the contrary. All I want is that the AI is autofiring the group I have selected to do so rather than convoluted side effects by unclear overridings of what I have told the game to do.

If I want the AI to auomatically fire, except when it would immediately overload the ship, then the selection of autofire should be persistent and not be overriden.
If I want the AI to make further situational decisions for the weapon group, then I should deselect autofire.

The current implementation is clearly convoluted and contrary to the meaning of the word's definition, creating very frustrating side effects, as I have mentioned before.
If you still disagree, then I suggest to at least rename the loadout setting to "Autofire when piloted and if not occationally overriden by accidental AI activation" instead of labeling it "Autofire".

[Alex]

Alex, I read everything again and took a breather on this to be sure.

I appreciate this, truly!

If you still disagree, then I suggest to at least rename the loadout setting to "Autofire when piloted and if not occationally overriden by accidental AI activation" instead of labeling it "Autofire".

To be fair, that is more or less how it's labelled "Autofire starts enabled" with a tooltip explaining the details.

https://i.imgur.com/edYqPXs.png

Actual direct ship AI control needs to happen. "Don't mess with player-set autofire" is simply one piece of it. There are countless threads and videos showing just how much trickery you need to make ships do what you actually want them to do. And that's before getting into mods. Some level of control needs to be open to the player. The black box approach to AI will not cut it in a mature game, not when its main focus is on space battles.

Ah, hard disagree on that, I'm afraid! IIRC I've gone into a bit more detail on this elsewhere, but basically: it's one of those things that sound great, but I think in practice it would mean players spending 10x more time trying to find the "right" set of AI toggles for their specific loadout, and then finding in practice that their testing didn't account for something that makes the ship perform horribly as a result. Basically, if you're thinking that "how much trickery is required to get AI ships to do what you want them to do" is a problem, then I think this would very likely do the opposite of helping with it.

(The deck would be stacked against the player, too, since trying to solve dynamic tactical problems with loadout-time settings... well, it's going to be difficult.)

[Histidine]

This would be more likely to change should someone present an actually documented case (video following a particular ship around might be good), where the human player at refit time unambiguously knows better whether or not the weapon group should be autofired (always/never!), than the AI during the actual combat.

(I'm not sure this would be common even for any particular moment, but bear in mind that the player setting needs to be more correct than the AI doing otherwise over the entire battle)

[SafariJohn]

One thing that irritates me about autofire groups is when the AI manually controls one! A "never manually control this group" setting might be useful.

I have also seen troublesome behavior where the AI turns off all autofire groups while at low/zero flux, even when there is a target in range.

[Deshara]

One thing that irritates me about autofire groups is when the AI manually controls one! A "never manually control this group" setting might be useful.

okay the OP's suggestions are uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lacking context? (idk how else to put it politely) but this ^ is unironically second. i like to throw salamanders on everything i have & have noticed that having a pair of salamanders on a ship affects its AI -- a ship that will go in to knife someone in the simulator will get into sally range and then kite them to throw harmless lizards at them until CR runs out if I fill their missile slots. or at least that was my impression

[SCC]

I'm still waiting for that perfect counter AI.

[sqrt(-1)]

Alex, I have noticed that the linked fire mode override by AI can be reproduced quite easily in simulation mode when sending a ship against other ones where at least one has fighter bays.
Even when just a single enemy fighter is in range and is within the weapon group's overlapping firing arc, it aims and fires linked non-PD guns individually instead of aiming and firing the entire group as intended. This causes the weapons to not only be out of loading sync when engaging ship targets (which generally are a priority), but also misaligned, which cascades into long lasting asynchrous firing during a continuous firing engagement, which ruins the intent/benefit of a burst loadout, dissolving the sole purpose of the linked fire mode setting.

At the very least, only PD weapons should ignore the linked firing mode when engaging fighters or missiles, even though I disagree with this because there is also a purpose of linking PD weapons with matching arcs against shielded fighters.

Since you already extend the number of firing groups, nasty convoluted side effects like this can be entirely avoided without any negative side effects by not overriding the player's intent. If I intent a group to be aimed and fired independently, then I should either disable linked fire or put them into separate groups. Again, the impact of good player decisions should not be rendered void by the intent to circumvent inferior player decisions.

Considering the comments of others, it seems as if the core argument about the autofire mode (same as the linked mode) is still not understood: There is clearly no need for adding another loadout setting because a strict execution of the existing firing modes is all what is needed for resolving the side effects while generally enabling all intents.
If I truly intent autofire and/or linked fire then my loadout setting should not be ignored. If I truly want the AI to decide then I disable autofire and/or linked fire. AI override renders those very loadout settings entirely pointless for AI controlled ships and causes frustrating side effects for the piloted ship, just for the sake that someone could have made a mistake when enabling autofire and/or linked fire.

Just truly do as what the names of the loadout settings mean instead of doing something else. There are only upsides and no downsides to this.
Again, the upcoming additon of more weapon groups is the perfect moment to get this cleaned up.

This would be more likely to change should someone present an actually documented case (video following a particular ship around might be good), where the human player at refit time unambiguously knows better whether or not the weapon group should be autofired (always/never!), than the AI during the actual combat.

To put it simple: Every single purpose for the very meaning of the firing modes is either deminished or even entirely ruined by the AI's overriding.

The sole purpose of autofire is to enable a higher, practical firing priority over other weapon groups. For example, that the AI overrides the autofire of Heavy Blasters in an Aurora, and instead prioritizes low projectile damage weapons to consume the last drops of flux capacity so that my Heavy Blasters never fire near flux limit, ruins my intent to take down armour effectively and ruins the chance of overloading an enemy ship with my guns in most critical situations.
Additionally, those groups I intent to be prioritized cannot feasibly be triggered by me while I intent to manually trigger other weapons when piloting a ship. That the AI overrides the autofiring of a group I cannot fire manually, because I have selected the piloted ship when giving tactical commands to a fleet group, is a most inconceivable and frustrating side effect.
If I truly intent to let the AI decide whether a group should be fired over another (beyond preventing direct overloading), then I should just disable autofire.

The sole purpose of linked fire is to enable burst damage. For example, that the AI overrides Linked Fire of Phase Lances in a Tempest just to take down a fighter ruins my intent to effectively overload enemy ships because the refire delay is out of sync and the guns are misaligned.
If I truly intent the AI to decide whether a group should be fired linked or alternating, then I should just disable linked firing.

Just take away firing mode overriding by the AI to make things cleaner while truly enabling its purpose.

[SCC]

Again, the impact of good player decisions should not be rendered void by the intent to circumvent inferior player decisions.

It can't be made useless, if it wasn't a thing in the first place.

I would rather have some priority system for weapon groups instead of locking AI into autofire. I don't always autofire otherwise much used groups. And what if the flagship? A ship player may want to switch later on? You have to choose between convenience and performance.
Having the AI coordinate their long-cooldown weapons would be nice no matter what else happens, though.

[sqrt(-1)]

It can't be made useless, if it wasn't a thing in the first place.

I don't understand what you mean with that. Autofire is supposed to autofire. Letting the AI override this does exactly the same as having it disabled in the first place, so the firing modes are currently entirely pointless for AI ships and ship piloting with intended auto-/linked firing is plagued by terrible side effects because of the pointless decision to let the AI override it.

I would rather have some priority system for weapon groups instead of locking AI into autofire.

But that's the sole purpose of autofire in the first place! Why else would you enable autofire for a group if you didn't want its firing to be a priority?

I don't always autofire otherwise much used groups.

Well, then don't enable autofire for it, which makes exactly happen what you want. So why ruin autofire if you get what you want by disabling it anyway?

And what if the flagship? A ship player may want to switch later on? You have to choose between convenience and performance.
Having the AI coordinate their long-cooldown weapons would be nice no matter what else happens, though.

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

If you want to let the AI make situative decisions on weapon firing then disable autofiring.
If you want to toggle autofiring for groups then do so.

There is simply no need to make the firing modes entirely pointless for AI ships and cause nasty side effects for piloted ships by letting the AI override them.

[Yunru]

I don't understand what you mean with that. Autofire is supposed to autofire. Letting the AI override this does exactly the same as having it disabled in the first place

Auto-fire isn't an AI setting though, it's a player-assist setting.
It's like complaining that your saw is a terrible hammer: Of course it is, it's not supposed to be a hammer.

[sqrt(-1)]

Auto-fire isn't an AI setting though, it's a player-assist setting.
It's like complaining that your saw is a terrible hammer: Of course it is, it's not supposed to be a hammer.

If this was truly the case (which it of course isn't), why is the AI disabling my autofiring setting because my piloted ship was accidentally in the group I selected to give a tactical command to? And I thought to just have given plenty clear examples why the firing mode should not be overridden by the AI. Why ignore something useful?

A proper anecdote would be "It's like randomly overwriting the setting of a speedometer in a car with the 'explanation' that you can manually control the accelerator."