Print

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

[Grievous69]

I almost went and reported this as a bug but honestly don't know anymore, maybe it's a loadout thing. Anyway here's the build that breaks the AI completely

Spoiler

[close]

So just to explain, it initially had 6 Light Autocannons (so only 2 Vulcans on the far sides) but I switched it since I thought it was a PD issue, AI being scared and all that.

If you're at your pc, just copy my build, officer is aggressive but I honestly don't think it matters. Elite Helmsmanship, Missile Spec, Gunnery Implants, Damage Control and Impact Mitigation. I also doubt the skill play a role here. Just run a simulation versus an Onslaught or use it in battles to see how it's behaving. Think it's faster to reproduce it and see than for me to explain.

But I will explain for those that can't test things right now. So what happens is the Legion tries to fight diagonally, a lot. Thankfully it still has most weapons in range of the target, but it looks silly and it moves slower this way, not to mention horrible positioning to chase with Burn Drive. I thought Light Autocannons confused it but it does this even at long range. And it becomes REALLY timid, it backpedals from everything and doesn't want to fight, just hovers idling. Again, this is an aggressive officer... Not even Eliminate orders convince it much.

It's so easily reproduceable it almost feels intended, but there's no reason for a ship to behave like this, even if I put Light Autocannons on the sides, hell I've had multiple Railgun Legions. If Alex can't see this in person, I'll capture it the next time I witness it (probably tomorrow), but I think it's more valuable to give the exact recipe for this funky thing.

Btw I know AI does the turn thingy to spread damage on armor but 1) this happens with intact armor and 2) it does it way more often than the mentioned behaviour.

EDIT: Uploading to YT right now, video will be posted soon.

EDIT 2: THE VIDEO

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/XjT8R0MotEs

[close]

It just hovers at zero flux doing nothing, I've never seen that AI behaviour before.

[Thaago]

That looks a lot like a bug to me - its a reasonable loadout that really should be pointing at the enemy. I feel like I've seen a bit of suspicious 'not pointing at the enemy' behavior lately, but nothing that clear. If I come up with something reproducible I'll add it here.

[Goumindong]

What do weapon groups look like?

Maybe it’s trying to orient its target in the center of its selected non-autofire weapon. If this is the HAG then it’s going to be off center there. If it’s the mark Ix it will be the other way.

[vuntron]

I've noticed a lot of jiggling with escort destroyers, most notably on Hammerhead with rear PD lasers, they rotate very quickly in place to try to intercept missiles and fighters super early at the cost of their main guns missing, especially burst shots like maulers. My gut says there's something going on, I have a little writeup about it I haven't posted cuz I wasn't sure if it's totally anecdotal. For no good reason, I suspect the AI is very PD-focused right now and wants to give its PD weapons maximum potential at the cost of main gun effectiveness.

[Alex]

Spoiler

I almost went and reported this as a bug but honestly don't know anymore, maybe it's a loadout thing. Anyway here's the build that breaks the AI completely

Spoiler

[close]

So just to explain, it initially had 6 Light Autocannons (so only 2 Vulcans on the far sides) but I switched it since I thought it was a PD issue, AI being scared and all that.

If you're at your pc, just copy my build, officer is aggressive but I honestly don't think it matters. Elite Helmsmanship, Missile Spec, Gunnery Implants, Damage Control and Impact Mitigation. I also doubt the skill play a role here. Just run a simulation versus an Onslaught or use it in battles to see how it's behaving. Think it's faster to reproduce it and see than for me to explain.

But I will explain for those that can't test things right now. So what happens is the Legion tries to fight diagonally, a lot. Thankfully it still has most weapons in range of the target, but it looks silly and it moves slower this way, not to mention horrible positioning to chase with Burn Drive. I thought Light Autocannons confused it but it does this even at long range. And it becomes REALLY timid, it backpedals from everything and doesn't want to fight, just hovers idling. Again, this is an aggressive officer... Not even Eliminate orders convince it much.

It's so easily reproduceable it almost feels intended, but there's no reason for a ship to behave like this, even if I put Light Autocannons on the sides, hell I've had multiple Railgun Legions. If Alex can't see this in person, I'll capture it the next time I witness it (probably tomorrow), but I think it's more valuable to give the exact recipe for this funky thing.

Btw I know AI does the turn thingy to spread damage on armor but 1) this happens with intact armor and 2) it does it way more often than the mentioned behaviour.

EDIT: Uploading to YT right now, video will be posted soon.

EDIT 2: THE VIDEO

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/XjT8R0MotEs

[close]

It just hovers at zero flux doing nothing, I've never seen that AI behaviour before.

[close]

Yikes, definitely a bug, fixed this up. Really appreciate all the details, that really matters and made it a lot easier for me to reproduce this - thank you!

Basically it was thinking that it was a broadside loadout because... the specific placement of the turrets on the Legion, combined with the range of the weapons, and the range it was checking its optimal firepower angle against, made it "miss" some of the turrets but not others.

[Wyvern]

Huh, now that you mention it- that almost is a broadside loadout. Or, at the very least, one where not quite pointing directly at the target is a reasonably correct call, due to the rear autocannon turrets being unable to fire straight ahead.

Got to be something weird going on with weapon groups too, though, because I can't get the described behavior to replicate myself.

I'm curious if the behavior would be better if you swap the rear autocannons and vulcans - i.e., autocannons in the back-most side turrets, and vulcans one notch further forwards.

[Alex]

I just did auto-generate for the weapon groups and that did the trick. This may require an officer with GI, not sure.

The rear light AC's were my first thought, too, but removing them didn't actually make a difference!

[Wyvern]

Fascinating. Yeah, I took it for a test-run via mission, so no officer. That probably makes the difference then.

[Alex]

Yeah, my sense is that it's a really weird "range of weapon combined with placement of slot hits/misses a threshold" type of thing.

[Grievous69]

Yeah I just went with auto groups for this build, seems good enough. And like I sad, in the beginning in had LACs in the front small slots, that still didn't stop it from doing the funky turn.

And glad Alex already fixed it, kinda funny that a skill that increases range somehow messed this up.

[Nettle]

I was recently playing around with Centurion and found several builds that result in broadside behavior, even though it is perfectly capable of firing all of its forward turrets while facing the target. I'll post one of the builds that result in this behavior. Broadside Centurion does become a lot more timid than regular Centurion, which promted me to post about it. Moving the needler to one of the forward turrets "balances" the build, and it reverts back to normal behavior; however, placing it on either the left or right middle turret makes it broadside.

UPD: Actually, nevermind about "moving the needler to one of the forward turrets", I was able to get broadside behavior with the needler in any of the four forward-facing turrets with auto-assigned weapon groups. I have no idea what is going on here.



Click images to expand

[Princess of Evil]

Truth be told this ship absolutely looks like a diagonal broadsider to me.