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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); In-development patch notes for Starsector 0.98a (2/8/25)

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Author Topic: [0.97a] AI Tweaks  (Read 127378 times)

Reshy

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #240 on: January 22, 2025, 11:35:59 PM »

I haven't used the most recent version yet, but one request I'd have is probably changing a ship targeting priority.  I've had issues where capital ships will, when facing off against another capital ship turn around and expose their backside because there's a phase frigate nearby behind it even if it can't threaten your ship.  This also happens to a lesser extent with smaller ships, any that lack like a serious threats like unfired torpedos, prioritizing diving through a mass of other enemy ships for the kill confirm.  The biggest problem is this behavior happens even when ships have say Frontal shields that don't cover the back of the ship, so turning away from larger ships tends to be a very dumb way the AI can die.
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Genir

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #241 on: January 23, 2025, 11:16:09 AM »

I haven't used the most recent version yet, but one request I'd have is probably changing a ship targeting priority.  I've had issues where capital ships will, when facing off against another capital ship turn around and expose their backside because there's a phase frigate nearby behind it even if it can't threaten your ship. This also happens to a lesser extent with smaller ships, any that lack like a serious threats like unfired torpedos, prioritizing diving through a mass of other enemy ships for the kill confirm.  The biggest problem is this behavior happens even when ships have say Frontal shields that don't cover the back of the ship, so turning away from larger ships tends to be a very dumb way the AI can die.

Just to be sure, the capital ships you're talking about are equipped with Custom AI hullmod?

If yes, do they drop the current target when still firing at it? Or only when they back off to vent or when the target itself backs off and is out of range? Custom AI definitely shouldn't drop the target it's firing at and focus on a lone frigate somewhere in the back instead. If it does that, it's definitely a bug for me to fix.
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Adrian23138

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #242 on: January 23, 2025, 02:49:35 PM »

Say is there a way to allow this human like "intentional delay" with Ai tweaks?

I do want to see how the Humanely  part of the Ai from Alex and your Ai's ability to not make the OG Ai be stupid could work together.
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Adrian23138

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #243 on: January 23, 2025, 02:57:08 PM »

*edit: what I mean is have a option in ashlib that allows the Ai to retain the good parts (ie your code that improves Ai targeting) while also then allowing Alex's Human-ish delay behaviors to make battles more organic
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Genir

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #244 on: January 23, 2025, 03:08:02 PM »

Say is there a way to allow this human like "intentional delay" with Ai tweaks?

I do want to see how the Humanely  part of the Ai from Alex and your Ai's ability to not make the OG Ai be stupid could work together.

Oof, I need to remove that part of the description. It was my initial goal, but in the end the AI does have intentional delays, just as in vanilla. Not because I don't want it to be frame perfect, but because of performance concerns. Calculating AI logic every frame is simply too expensive.

The only place where the AI does adhere to the no-delay goal is missile targeting by beam weapons. You can see it on the AI Tweaks OP. I chose to make it frame perfect, because even several frames of delay when acquiring a new target greatly diminishes the PD effectiveness when defending from swarms of low-hp missiles.
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Genir

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #245 on: January 24, 2025, 08:36:39 AM »

v1.11.6 is out. Download

Changes:
  • Fixed a bug where some automated frigates had an aggressive personality instead of the intended fearless personality.
  • Added an option to disable automated ship personality override, reverting to vanilla settings. Suggested by shmone-else.
  • Made several improvements to how AI changes are applied, reducing the risk of interfering with custom AI or personality overrides from other mods. Suggested by shmone-else.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented installing Custom AI hullmod on ships with no weapons. Reported by vinh and Rayden_Solo.
  • Custom AI: Fixed an issue where ships would start venting flux and interrupt weapon bursts. Reported by Reshy.
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Reshy

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #246 on: January 25, 2025, 05:42:46 PM »

I haven't used the most recent version yet, but one request I'd have is probably changing a ship targeting priority.  I've had issues where capital ships will, when facing off against another capital ship turn around and expose their backside because there's a phase frigate nearby behind it even if it can't threaten your ship. This also happens to a lesser extent with smaller ships, any that lack like a serious threats like unfired torpedos, prioritizing diving through a mass of other enemy ships for the kill confirm.  The biggest problem is this behavior happens even when ships have say Frontal shields that don't cover the back of the ship, so turning away from larger ships tends to be a very dumb way the AI can die.

Just to be sure, the capital ships you're talking about are equipped with Custom AI hullmod?

If yes, do they drop the current target when still firing at it? Or only when they back off to vent or when the target itself backs off and is out of range? Custom AI definitely shouldn't drop the target it's firing at and focus on a lone frigate somewhere in the back instead. If it does that, it's definitely a bug for me to fix.


This wasn't with the custom AI hullmod, just vanilla behavior it seems.  Larger ships will often try to chase smaller faster ones, often to the opposite side of the map.  Happens with player ships and it happens with enemy ships.  This also happens in major engagements where if two large ships are fighting and a small ship gets incidental damage enough to start backing off the capital will swap to shooting at it, which is fine up until it starts turning around to chase the ship that's now out of range while the other capital is now getting free access to the backside of the ship.


A minor request but is it possible to change the way that AI pursues retreating ships so that they go to where the ship wants to be (the edge of their side of the map) rather than chasing them to their current location as they're actively moving away.  Basically, something to help the AI know to cut off fleeing ships.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2025, 05:44:45 PM by Reshy »
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Genir

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #247 on: January 26, 2025, 03:04:51 PM »

This wasn't with the custom AI hullmod, just vanilla behavior it seems.  Larger ships will often try to chase smaller faster ones, often to the opposite side of the map.  Happens with player ships and it happens with enemy ships.  This also happens in major engagements where if two large ships are fighting and a small ship gets incidental damage enough to start backing off the capital will swap to shooting at it, which is fine up until it starts turning around to chase the ship that's now out of range while the other capital is now getting free access to the backside of the ship.

What you're describing is the expected vanilla behavior, as far as I understand. As Alex mentioned recently in one of his posts, "ignoring even a frigate is often a bad idea". And so the AI is not ignoring even a frigate.

Ships scattering around the map, chasing lone destroyers or frigates, should be mitigated to a certain degree by Fleet Cohesion. Do you have it enabled?

Target selection is at the core of ship AI and I don't plan on interfering with the vanilla algorithm. Instead, I focus on the Custom AI, which shouldn't behave as you describe above.

Quote
A minor request but is it possible to change the way that AI pursues retreating ships so that they go to where the ship wants to be (the edge of their side of the map) rather than chasing them to their current location as they're actively moving away.  Basically, something to help the AI know to cut off fleeing ships.

Good idea, I added it to backlog!
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Genir

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #248 on: January 26, 2025, 03:40:40 PM »

v1.12.0 is out. Download

Changes:
  • Fixed several regressions in weapon aiming, particularly affecting PD beams.
  • Improved the algorithm for calculating ship rotation to better aim hardpoints and broadside weapons.
  • All ships, regardless of whether they are equipped with the Custom AI hullmod, now aim hardpoints and handle broadside builds correctly. Apexes will kill all your frigates.
  • Vanilla AI is no longer affected by the bug where broadside ships revert to front-facing behavior when issued an escort order.
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Ioulaum

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #249 on: January 26, 2025, 10:23:09 PM »

The new patch makes normal front facing ship trys to leaning a bit sideways in order to use it's side/back facing turret.

Eradicator(P) SO build suffers from this alot, it trys to wiggle and spread annilator launcher all over the place and burn drive sideways, resulting had to stop and turn to catch the Aurora.

If you need video I can upload a comparison, though it should be very self explaining.

===================

Just tested even if I remove the side/back PD it still leaning left. So I guess there's thought or logic need to be done, maybe first determine whether it's a front or broadside build, then activate the respected mode accordingly? Any burn drive ship shouldn't use broadside logic IMO

In the mean time, I'll use the old version. Thanks for the great mod!
« Last Edit: January 26, 2025, 10:37:07 PM by Ioulaum »
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Genir

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #250 on: January 27, 2025, 02:29:48 AM »

The new patch makes normal front facing ship trys to leaning a bit sideways in order to use it's side/back facing turret.

Eradicator(P) SO build suffers from this alot, it trys to wiggle and spread annilator launcher all over the place and burn drive sideways, resulting had to stop and turn to catch the Aurora.

If you need video I can upload a comparison, though it should be very self explaining.

===================

Just tested even if I remove the side/back PD it still leaning left. So I guess there's thought or logic need to be done, maybe first determine whether it's a front or broadside build, then activate the respected mode accordingly? Any burn drive ship shouldn't use broadside logic IMO

In the mean time, I'll use the old version. Thanks for the great mod!

Thanks for the report!

Before I go into any details, can I ask you to post a picture of the misbehaving Erad build? With all weapon slots and hullmods visible?
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Ioulaum

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #251 on: January 28, 2025, 12:32:17 AM »

Hi Genir,

Thanks for the quick reply, sorry was a bit busy today.

Here's the build
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Genir

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #252 on: January 28, 2025, 03:20:32 PM »

Hi Genir,

Thanks for the quick reply, sorry was a bit busy today.

Here's the build

I imagined your build completely differently, so this will help a lot. Thanks!

Fixing the issue may take me some time, as I have a lot of suggestions and bugfixes in the backlog already.
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Ioulaum

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #253 on: January 28, 2025, 04:17:09 PM »

Take your time and no worries.

1.11.6 is perfectly fine for me atm, since I haven't got an Ody or Conquest...
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Reshy

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Re: [0.97a] AI Tweaks
« Reply #254 on: February 01, 2025, 01:52:31 AM »

This wasn't with the custom AI hullmod, just vanilla behavior it seems.  Larger ships will often try to chase smaller faster ones, often to the opposite side of the map.  Happens with player ships and it happens with enemy ships.  This also happens in major engagements where if two large ships are fighting and a small ship gets incidental damage enough to start backing off the capital will swap to shooting at it, which is fine up until it starts turning around to chase the ship that's now out of range while the other capital is now getting free access to the backside of the ship.

What you're describing is the expected vanilla behavior, as far as I understand. As Alex mentioned recently in one of his posts, "ignoring even a frigate is often a bad idea". And so the AI is not ignoring even a frigate.

Ships scattering around the map, chasing lone destroyers or frigates, should be mitigated to a certain degree by Fleet Cohesion. Do you have it enabled?

Target selection is at the core of ship AI and I don't plan on interfering with the vanilla algorithm. Instead, I focus on the Custom AI, which shouldn't behave as you describe above.

Tried the custom AI and it still does this sometimes:



There's likely some other factors involved like the high flux level, but the ship turned to prioritize the heavily damaged frigate and let it's engines get shot out by the much larger ship as well as not using it's maneuvering thrusters to get away but to get closer to try and confirm a kill on a frigate that's already super low and likely to die to incidental weapons fire.  It may also be partially caused by the AI getting confused with frontal shields, instead trying to turn the ship away from danger only to pivot to a direction where the shields won't cover.


Something to look into might be modulating when a ship starts backing off if they have a speed advantage over the enemy.  What usually gets the AI killed is moving too close past the ideal stand off distance for weapons and then only backing off at like 90% flux when it's far too late rather than 50-70%.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2025, 02:00:11 AM by Reshy »
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