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[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

The IR Autolance doesn't prioritize fighters, despite being essentially dedicated PD. It will focus on ships regardless of whether their shields are raised or not. I checked and it doesn't have the "anti-fighter" hint in weapon_data. So, it's a A.I. balance issue and not a bug.

Proximity launchers won't fire at fighters or missiles. I tested this with both hardpoint and turret mounts with the same result. It has the anti_fighter tag, but lacks the PD tag which it had last version. So, this is both a bug, as well as a A.I. balance issue.
PCLs were some of the best PD for ships that lack ballistic PD. It can't be understated just how big of a nerf not targeting missiles is, especially with the current missile meta.

I'm putting this in general as it contains A.I. balance issues, suggestions, as well as bugs.

[BaBosa]

The PD tag made PL not work as an assault weapon which was a real shame because it is basically a flux free HE heavy blaster. I would use two or three with sabots on a falcon P and wreak *** but under AI control it wasted a lot and did not use them well against ships. Now they do better.

[Draba]

The autolance is a nice economic long-ranged hull DPS weapon.
Shouldn't waste charges on fighters if there is exposed hull around, especially since buffed burst PD also benefits from expanded mags and most ships using autolances can mount it.

The PD tag made PL not work as an assault weapon

Yeah, wasting an extremely good assault weapon on swarmers and salamanders was the problem.
Pointlessly throwing away ~500 HE DPS made it really weak under AI control, no way that should come back.

Neither is a bug or balance issue, both weapons are much better this way IMO.

[KDR_11k]

IIRC the prox launcher is described as an anti-fighter weapon, feels to me like it should favor that role over being an assault weapon.

[Dwarfslayer]

As far as I can tell, the IR Autolance will swat fighters quite nicely but it only does so if you don't actually have a target selected so it can pick its own priority. If you target select then yes, it will completely ignore fighters.

It's a little awkward maybe, but it seems best to have it work this way so you can allow free fire, or focus fire on a shields-down target

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

The autolance is a nice economic long-ranged hull DPS weapon.

That's cool, but no one uses dedicated anti-hull weapons for a reason.

[Brainwright]

The autolance is a nice economic long-ranged hull DPS weapon.

That's cool, but no one uses dedicated anti-hull weapons for a reason.

Except the extra cool ones.  And me.

When your flux expenditure is double your vents, shredders provide the kind of efficiency you need.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

@BaBosa

The PD tag made PL not work as an assault weapon which was a real shame because it is basically a flux free HE heavy blaster. I would use two or three with sabots on a falcon P and wreak *** but under AI control it wasted a lot and did not use them well against ships. Now they do better.

On the other hand, double PCL on an Odyssey would allow it to fight the Onslaught and Conquest without needing two Tachyon Lances thanks to the PCL eating all incoming missiles. As it currently stands, there is no PD in the game (at least for high tech) that can handle such a large volume of missiles.
You can also just put the PCL in the falcon's hardpoints to help prevent it from shooting at missiles.

@Draba

The autolance is a nice economic long-ranged hull DPS weapon.
Shouldn't waste charges on fighters if there is exposed hull around, especially since buffed burst PD also benefits from expanded mags and most ships using autolances can mount it.

That's the issue, there's rarely exposed hull, but the lance will focus on ships with shields raised that have full armor, over shooting fighters. It will just sit there aiming at the enemy ship doing nothing when it could be shooting at fighters. This is under auto fire conditions BTW.
As for the rest, see above.

@Dwarrfslayer
I can double check, but when I tested it a couple days ago auto fire without a target always chooses ships over fighters.

Edit: PCL not PLC

[Brainwright]

I’ve used PCLs extensively on an Odyssey, and I can attest they still do a good job of clearing incoming missiles.  They explode and damage missiles.  It’s pretty useful, and in the previous version, the speed of the mine made the predictive pretty wild to the point of uselessness.

It’s a good change.

[Draba]

The autolance is a nice economic long-ranged hull DPS weapon.

That's cool, but no one uses dedicated anti-hull weapons for a reason.

So every single Starsector player throws cryoblasters into the trash, ok then

There is a new "common" burst frag weapon in a slot that didn't have anything similar before, the ship that likes cheap M energies got buffed, all burst weapons got a big possible buff, burst PD got a decent buff on top.
Whatever you think people were doing doesn't matter much, there were lots of significant changes this version that (most likely) add more fitting options.

Eagle can "buff" the few ballistics it has with with builtin armored mounts and pull very nice damage numbers with autolances.
I was more interested in the mining blasters for it but autolances look much better, and Eagles decent this version so far.

[SCC]

Proximity charges work best when not fired at any missile in particular, but rather thrown at the enemies en masse to create an unpenetrable wall of PD that also deals damage. For that end, targeting ships works better than targeting fighters or missiles.

[PixiCode]

That's cool, but no one uses dedicated anti-hull weapons for a reason.

I sure hope you’re not implying frag is a bad damage type. Nobody used anti-ship frag weapons in vanilla since the minimum armor update up until recently because the only two choices are really bad (thumper) or actually extremely overpowered and rare (Cryoblaster)

However IR Autolance is actually a good weapon. It has 3x better armor hitstrength  than the thumper (25 vs. 66-ish) and costs even less sustained flux to fire than thumper.

I don’t know how I would feel making it prioritize fighters. Would make it a bit too good I feel.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Proximity charges work best when not fired at any missile in particular, but rather thrown at the enemies en masse to create an unpenetrable wall of PD that also deals damage. For that end, targeting ships works better than targeting fighters or missiles.

Except in non-frontal facing missile setups, such as the Apogee, or the Conquest since it broadsides. This results in the missiles coming in at an angle that prevents the PCLs from destroying them.
Likewise, once the PCLs are out of range of the enemy ship, they stop firing, which means enemy missiles are uncontested.

I know having PCLs target missiles works and works well because I made a mod for myself, back before Alex fixed them. The mod fixed the EECM issue, and set launch speed to travel speed and lowered both. They were the Odyssey's only reliable answer to both the Conquest and Onslaught. With the exception of double Tachyon lance, squalls, and A.I. engagement range manipulation.

@Brainwright
There was a bug with EECM last version that reduced PCL range and speed, technically it increased acceleration which, due to PCLs launching faster than their max speed, increased deacceleration.
PCLs on any ship that lacked EECM last version were, for the most part, fine.

[Amoebka]

As it currently stands, there is no PD in the game (at least for high tech) that can handle such a large volume of missiles.

Paladin? S-modded expanded mags burst PD? Targeting array sparks? A million overlaping mining lasers with IPDAI?
Odyssey, of all ships, doesn't struggle with PD in the slightest.

[Dwarfslayer]

@Dwarrfslayer
I can double check, but when I tested it a couple days ago auto fire without a target always chooses ships over fighters.

Okay so I can see what might be the difference in perception - because the Autolance avoids shields I am wading into a fighter screen of shielded carriers with lances zapping broadswords left and right - possibly you are getting behaviour with unshielded or shields-down ships and it's targeting a higher priority vessel?

I generally am using Autolances on an Executor just to mitigate fighter swarms, if a ship goes down shields in range it's dead usually so that would be a reason I don't see the lances focusing them for too long and they are free to zap fighter wings incoming