Print

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

[HollandOats]

The biggest problem with the lack of an ability to give complex orders to the AI means that it really cuts down on the amount of strategies that are viable. Basically a lot of games devolve into me making a massive battle line with beefy ships that just sit and pummel the enemy at long range because anything more complex requires excessive micro management. If I don't order my So ships to regroup after an eliminate order they'll just scatter and get picked off, if I don't constantly watch my officers I often find them behind enemy lines chasing some frigate oblivious to the fact that they're about to be surrounded, etc.

A recent example of this in my games was I had an idea for a build for the Vindicator (A cruiser armed with 2 giant, long range artillery guns) from the Ship and Weapon pack. I figured I would give it no weapons other than it's two cannons and put all the other OP into improving its armour and flux stats (Shield shunt, heavy armour, etc) to keep its guns constantly firing. I figured if I had some monitors escorting it, that would handle its point defence needs. What actually ended up happening is the monitors would just sit behind the cruiser and let it face tank reapers, and the few times it did go in front of the cruiser to defend it, it was constantly blocking its line of sight. I was so annoyed since it could be fixed if I could just tell the AI to park its ass to the left and right of this ship and just stay there no matter what.

I really hope there is some kind of overhaul to the way orders are given to the AI since right now it is just a pain in the ass to manage anything more complex than a boring battle line of cruisers and capital ships.

[SCC]

Interesting. I found that fast and manoeuvrable ships are the ones that require less micromanagement than slow ships. Fast ships can get out of trouble easily, whereas slow ships either need to slug it out with their enemies, or they can only hope that rescue comes before they die.

[mecha_red]

The AI is so hilariously bad I created an account just to post this.
In my experience, where the AI most noticeably fails at are in flux management and threat assessment/spacing; creating situations such as 5 frigates pushing 3 cruisers off of a capture point, or a large ship at hardflux threshold being essentially stun locked if it's chased by a faster smaller ship, never dropping shields, venting, armour tanking while firing guns, etc, just futilely backpedalling, or the AI choosing to overload it's shields in the middle of a group of enemies rather than vent or amour tank and trade back damage.

On the strategic level, the AI just can't work well in a fleet with varied speeds and/or weapon ranges, it takes player intervention (which is limited by command points and how well the AI will follow commands) to stop such a fleet from breaking apart into small groups of chaotic melees all over the battlefield. The fleets needing the least baby-sitting are the ones utilising the extremes of this spectrum, either really high weapon range and/or really high speed, because then all the annoying situations start applying to the AI of the enemy fleet instead of the player's fleet.

I don't know how much of this can be easily fixed, but hopefully some weights/priorities can be changed in the AI to at least lessen the frequency/impact of such situations, it really is my main gripe with the game.

[Null Ganymede]

I figured if I had some monitors escorting it, that would handle its point defence needs. What actually ended up happening is the monitors would just sit behind the cruiser and let it face tank reapers, and the few times it did go in front of the cruiser to defend it, it was constantly blocking its line of sight.

That's both tragic and funny. Escorts sitting on the engines is a really good recent change that stops big ships from getting flanked by a Wolf or whatever, then rotating to bring weapons to bear to chase the frigate off, only for whatever cruiser/capital was in front of it to pounce and get it in the side. Now escorted ships can brawl whatever's in front of them and the escort chases off inquisitive frigates.

Escorts don't do point defense - unless they're really niche long range beam PD disco ball ships. But that's nowhere near obvious until you see a bunch of emergent stuff happen. Or watch past AI tournaments where Onslaughts have to rotate to face Hounds otherwise the Hound gets free shots on engines.

The fleets needing the least baby-sitting are the ones utilising the extremes of this spectrum, either really high weapon range and/or really high speed, because then all the annoying situations start applying to the AI of the enemy fleet instead of the player's fleet.

That's a very good piece of intuition.

Only possible exception to it is "combined arms" fleets - if you can get enough missiles or interceptors in the air ships end up providing mutual support regardless of speed or weapon range. Angling shields and PD weapons against potential missile threats can wreak havoc on high speed fleets and getting greedy with artillery builds often leaves no PD versus wings.

[TaLaR]

In my experience, where the AI most noticeably fails at are in flux management and threat assessment/spacing;

Which are all more difficult than they sound.

For threat assesment AI must basically know the outcomes of trying to engage particular opponent or set opponents. I do, because I did many similar scenarios, AI would need to simulate at least a simplified model. Failure here is punished particularly harshly, typical example is almost any frigate deciding to engage a 4xTL Paragon - that's instant death. And happens because AI has no real threat assessment, it just engages with wrong assumption that it will be able to disengage as flux rises.

For range management, it's the same, but with focus on trying to engage the enemy from different ranges. As well as speeds and mobility systems involved, for whether it's actually able to dictate the chosen engagement scenario. It's very much possible to have a 1v1 that results in one ship winning from afar, losing at mid-range, and winning again point blank.

Flux management is once again similar. AI would need to identify correct range bands and weapon firing patterns as well when to armor tank, how to vent, etc.

[mecha_red]

Only possible exception to it is "combined arms" fleets

That's a good point, I forgot about those as I don't play those types of fleets, but yes, that's another type of fleet that doesn't need much baby-sitting, all for the same reasons as the others; the AI can't properly deal with those types of fleet formations on the strategic level and the enemy fleet's AI gets overwhelmed, but the player's fleet AI plays it fine.

In my experience, where the AI most noticeably fails at are in flux management and threat assessment/spacing;

Which are all more difficult than they sound.

I realise that and I don't want an AI that can play as well as a human player, that's completely infeasible for an indie dev team creating a game like starsector, and would probably require something like Google's Deep Mind to pull off.
What I want is a reduction in the amount of times I notice the AI doing these kinds of annoying behaviour, or a reduction in the impact/noticeability of the behaviour when it does do it.

Whenever I see the AI derping around like that, it completely breaks my flow/immersion in the game, which is why I think the OP's idea is a good one. Having some kind of more strictly followed commands available to the player would be a good implementation into the game; no more will I see my Eradicator (P) being chased off a capture point by a kite with a light auto cannon and a reaper torpedo, if I could tell it to park on top of the point and not move.

I don't need an AI that can recognise the kite as a minimal threat (maybe even burn drive in and destroy it), but what I do want is an AI that doesn't commit horrendous tactical/strategic blunders constantly. In the current state of the game, these situations are the norm in my battles; if I run around with a fleet of varied speeds and weapon ranges, I can almost always find at least one ship (mine or the enemy's) doing something that raises my blood pressure when I hit tab and look around the battlefield.

Hopefully something can be done to change this type of behaviour from extremely common to uncommon edge-chases, whether it's the implementation of something like OP's idea, or tweaking some of the existing AI priorities/weights, I just want to play a battle from start to finish without constantly witnessing these types of immersion breaking behaviours the AI is so fond of committing.

[Null Ganymede]

Are histories of WW2 naval engagements immersion breaking?

Not realizing enemy torpedoes are really good while most of yours are duds and engaging at the wrong ranges, then making up imaginary enemy submarines to explain why your ships exploded, then having to painfully figure out why so few of theirs did. Chaos on the radio when setting up a battle line; receiving orders to turn all guns around 180 and cover the opposite side just as your crew has zeroed in on a target and is laying into them. Hijacked supplies, improvised equipment, mysterious radar, conflicting commands.

I realize the limitations on current AI are mostly performance-based but the resulting slapstick is very much truth in fiction.

[mecha_red]

I think that a more accurate WW2 comparison with the AI would go more like this.
I handful of frigates steam towards a cruiser task group tasked with defending a strategic atoll, covering an amphibious landing. The cruisers are completely pushed off the point because the commanding captain wants to keep his bigger guns barely in range of the frigates whilst worrying about the range of the enemy's smaller guns (bad threat assessment). Or he's pushed off the point because he was in the middle of refuelling and didn't like that he only had 90 minutes left of fuel even though the landing was already half-over (bad flux management). I think that that commanding officer would be court-marshalled.

The AI's behaviour that I witness just doesn't seem like it can be waived away with 'fog of war' or concern for the lives of the crew, it really just seems like clear-cut incompetence. So it's definitely immersion breaking when I see it happening right in front of me.

[Aerolfos]

Honestly, I've been pretty impressed with the AI myself. It's far ahead of most other games. Especially more recent RTS which seem to think lobotomizing your units is the way to go, so they can get picked off one by one because of their lack of responsiveness to being poked.

But it for sure seems most focused on early game frigate+destroyer fleets - those didn't even need orders in my experience, because the AI is good enough by itself.

The problem comes with lategame fleets with scared capitals that refuse to commit alongside bomber waves from their escorts, and a general lack of awareness of the group they're in. Escort orders are pretty good, especially for frigates, but still lacks a certain level of awareness for bigger ships working together. Formations would be a welcome addition.

[intrinsic_parity]

A handfull of frigates can easily kill a cruiser though. Especially if they are officered. Even the lowly kite can drop a reaper up your tailpipe if you aren't giving it some respect (it's happened to me more times than I would like to admit).

There are also different aggression levels. If you find the AI is too passive, use more agressive officers, and set your overall fleet aggression to be higher! Personally, I find steady to be too passive unless it has a range advantage. Agressive is best, and reckless is a bit too much. If the reckless AI is too passive for you, then I don't know what to tell you. In my experience, it will routinely just kill itself for no reason because it basically disregards everything except what it want to fight.

[Null Ganymede]

That's a good point, the fleets I run never have officers below Aggressive. Which raises its own set of problems - reckless and fearless officers will not back off a capture point in the face of a Kite, or a missile volley, or wave of fighters with EMP weapons, or...

"AI isn't aggressive enough" is a problem I solved well enough for my liking a long time ago, though.

[Exasperation]

I think the biggest, most obvious, and most common source of AI stupidity I've noticed is that the AI appears to consider fighters to be full scale ships instead of PD targets.  I recently had a fight where a pirate Colossus got separated from the other pirates.  I told a capital ship to engage, and it moved towards it along with two destroyers and a light cruiser that didn't have any specific orders.  The enemy launched its fighters and my capital ship, despite specific orders, an aggressive captain, 8 LR PD lasers and 2 Paladins, and supporting friendly ships turned around and ran away from the fighters.  This isn't even unusual behavior - I've seen my ships repeatedly ram friendly vessels, just plowing into them over and over in a panic, because they were approached by a single wing of enemy Talons, and I regularly see friendly fire incidents because my ships insist on trying to shoot down fighters with Mjollnir Cannons, Plasma Cannons, Thermal Pulse Cannons, and whatever other heavy weaponry is at hand (that's how I discovered that there's an opinion penalty for having too many friendly fire incidents in a battle with allies).

[mecha_red]

When the AI works, it works quite well and I'm fairly impressed with how it operates when it does.
The problem is how often it doesn't work in the current state of the game.
Hopefully a few tweaks in the AI priorities/weights can reduce the amount of times it breaks, or the addition of formations could also really help.
I've also found that just hitting full assault at the start of the battle increases my fleet's performance when my ships are individually stronger than the enemy's (larger hulls, better loadouts, s-mods, etc.).

[Null Ganymede]

There's a ship loadout guide, does there need to be an order guide?

Abusing full assault is a big one for powerful but un-confident fleets. You can give retreat and eliminate orders with it on.

[Megas]

I think the biggest, most obvious, and most common source of AI stupidity I've noticed is that the AI appears to consider fighters to be full scale ships instead of PD targets.

Fighters were ships until 0.8a.  Fighters became missiles or weapons since 0.8a.