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[majk]

Fast ships ai loves to flank enemies and shoot the engines, the problem is: they suck at doing that, the average fight is like this:

AI Attack Steps:
1:
Attack slower ship.
2:
Keep shooting it, while trying to circle towards engines.
3:
Keep shooting thin air while circling.
4:
Bugger away before reaching the engine since enemy frigate is looking at you funny.

The behavior would be ok, if they actualy hit the enemy, the way it works, AI can't curve their ballistics/unguided missiles to account for their own speed and keeps missing. It's ok for stuff like Tempests with beam weapons, but fast 'melee' range ships like anything with unstable injector, or SO fail hilariously.

It would be amazing if ai learned to properly lead their shots.

[Alex]

Hmm - do you have a specific ship/ship example? I just tried a Brawler (LP) vs a Dominator and it pretty much just nailed its shots. Tried a Lasher (LP) with max skills and that did alright, too - some misses, sure, but not missing all its shots or anything like that.

One thing to keep in mind is the quality of target leading is directly impacted by the ship's combat readiness. At 100% CR (or with Gunnery Implants) it will always get the "best" target leading, but if it's lower, it will take up to several seconds for its aim to converge on the right place.

[SafariJohn]

Frigate v frigate fights are especially frustrating. The main problem is the AI faces its hull exactly at its target's center, making it impossible for hardpoints to hit.

[Alex]

Frigate v frigate fights are especially frustrating. The main problem is the AI faces its hull exactly at its target's center, making it impossible for hardpoints to hit.

Hmm, it definitely tries to lead the target with its hull facing, but, again, that can take a few seconds of firing to converge to the right spot and in a frigate-vs-frigate fight, it's likely there wouldn't be enough sustained fire for it to "walk" its aim to the right place. (Unless, again: 100% CR or Gunnery Implants.)

It's possible that it's finding hard to turn fast enough to keep up, though, and to further complicate things, frigates that are being shot at will often try to juke the shots and throw the aim off. Since there's turn inertia, that can be particularly impactful vs  hardpoint aim...

I don't know if that's what you're seeing or not, just saying that there some possibilities here.

[majk]

Hmm - do you have a specific ship/ship example? I just tried a Brawler (LP) vs a Dominator and it pretty much just nailed its shots. Tried a Lasher (LP) with max skills and that did alright, too - some misses, sure, but not missing all its shots or anything like that.

One thing to keep in mind is the quality of target leading is directly impacted by the ship's combat readiness. At 100% CR (or with Gunnery Implants) it will always get the "best" target leading, but if it's lower, it will take up to several seconds for its aim to converge on the right place.

Dominators are a bad choice, they are very big and bulky with huge engines making it hard to miss and for turn speed i used Support doctrine ships with thrusters, so turn speed is a non issue.

Try this:
Your Ships: Anything fast-ish(150+ final speed with SO/UI to buff it) like lp brawler, lasher with ballistics.
Weapons: unguided rockets like anhihilators, any ballistics like HMG, PD weapons or assault chainguns.
Enemy ships: pick something long, like atlas, atlas mk.II or mules, or just any pirate bounty.

For instant results(just tested): Lp brawler with hmg+assault chaingun vs atlas in the simulator, try it a few times. Sometimes it will kill it quickly wihout missing, but usually it will circle around and start missing the engine before hovering from behind and killing it.

It's pretty funny to see, but in big bounty fights, they miss their mark pretty often and blow up each other with anihilators.

[Alex]

Missile aim is less than ideal, yeah, though that's a somewhat separate issue from guns. I just tried a bunch of LP Brawler vs Atlas and it's basically all like this:

https://imgur.com/a/oA519DU

Which to me looks fine?

[majk]

Missile aim is less than ideal, yeah, though that's a somewhat separate issue from guns. I just tried a bunch of LP Brawler vs Atlas and it's basically all like this:

https://imgur.com/a/oA519DU

Which to me looks fine?

That time they miss the engine greatly increases vs. anything not virtually immobile like the atlas. in actual fights, slow ships are almost never alone, so they rarely get time to aim their shots. If that's intended ok, but it feels weird/wasteful in fleet vs. fleet battles.

[Alex]

It's literally what you told me to try it against I'll keep an eye on it, though!

In general, fast-moving short range ships will always have the hardest time aiming, though, that's just the breaks.

[SafariJohn]

Missile aim is less than ideal, yeah, though that's a somewhat separate issue from guns. I just tried a bunch of LP Brawler vs Atlas and it's basically all like this:

https://imgur.com/a/oA519DU

Which to me looks fine?

It's missing half its AC shots against one of the largest, slowest ships in the game for no good reason. That is horrible.

[Alex]

I guess it's a question of expectations. The LP Brawler is fast enough that it has a hard time compensating for its lateral movement - that's absolutely the reason for the misses. I suppose one might argue that it's not a "good" reason (which, fair enough) but it's a pretty apparent one.

Like I said, though, I'll keep it in mind! Most ships aren't that fast *and* short-ranged *and* limited to hardpoint weapons, though - which is where it really starts to break down - so it's not exactly a priority, if that makes sense.

[SafariJohn]

That describes a lot of early game ships. Hound, Lasher, Wolf, Brawler, Afflictor (P), Hammerhead (SO), Domain drones, LP variants, etc. are all fast, short-ranged, and use hardpoints. The aiming error is exacerbated because they are often shooting at those same small, fast, early-game ships.

[Alex]

I hear what you're saying, but I'm not sure it generalizes. The Atlas has a center-of-rotation set pretty far back so the AI ends up missing more than it probably should due to aiming for that. But for example, an LP Brawler at 100% CR vs a Hound, the hit rate looks to be better than vs the Atlas. I *will* keep an eye on it, though. I just wonder how much of the frustrating moments are ones where it's basically supposed to miss due to not having zeroed its aim in yet.

[majk]

I hear what you're saying, but I'm not sure it generalizes. The Atlas has a center-of-rotation set pretty far back so the AI ends up missing more than it probably should due to aiming for that. But for example, an LP Brawler at 100% CR vs a Hound, the hit rate looks to be better than vs the Atlas. I *will* keep an eye on it, though. I just wonder how much of the frustrating moments are ones where it's basically supposed to miss due to not having zeroed its aim in yet.

Sorry for not including this: all the testing i did was with 100% cr ships (crew training, hull restoration and support doctrine) so theit aiming was supposed to be perfect.

That's what i get for posting after midnight. :p

[Thaago]

I have to agree, that the clip made me wince. It kind of looks like the Brawler is aiming at the atlas' center of rotation without taking into account its sideways velocity, but the bullets inherit that? Maybe not quite turning enough to face the aiming point as it strafes? Either way, that kind of accuracy vs a giant mostly stationary target breaks the rule of not making the AI look dumb.

I'm not saying the AI is dumb - it makes sense that firing vs a long narrow ship with a far back center of rotation might throw off targeting as it's against the expectations of ships shapes. But when it happens it is noticeable enough that it looks like the AI can't just do the simple thing of sitting there and shooting a stationary target, it hurts.

(Obligatory mention of Monitors also making the AI look dumb in its targeting priorities as there is no expectation of a small ship having that low offense and high defense. Monitoro delenda est!)

[Great Wound]

The Atlas has a center-of-rotation set pretty far back so the AI ends up missing more than it probably should due to aiming for that.

How easy would it be to add a target-offset to the .ship file to account for this sort of thing? I'm picturing something like this:

Code: atlas.ship

"targetOffset": [35,0], ### offset for enemy ships targetting the ships 'center' (defaults to 0,0)