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[Wyvern]

Nnnno. Just the part where they don't lose it if they're not actively doing something.

Or just exclude shield from it. 

Rather, you'd have to allow "shields up, but no cumulative flux" as "not actively doing something".  Excluding shields entirely would be exploitable in the other direction.

Is there any way to exploit that... hm... well maybe if you had a map with a really dense asteroid field, and could force your opponent to actually run into things while you weren't?  ...I don't think that's particularly practical.  Not to mention that, if such a scenario existed, it'd be exploitable even without a CR time limit mechanic, just from dealing damage.

And I do like the frigate time limits going by "active" time.  It may not actually give them longer in combat, but it feels a lot better when you can use them to, say, defend some objectives, and know that they won't go all CR-implode-y just from sitting there.

[Chronosfear]

Don´t know if reported yet :
It´s very easy to circumvent the a AI-ship with "Fortress Shields"
Just use hold fire for a short moment ( press X ). Very soon it will deactivate its system , hit x again.
repeat.
Saves many many bullets and so much time.
Found this while playing Ironclads cause many UIN ships have "Fortress Shield"

Sometimes they even drop their shields which will make it possible to hit hull/armor with fast bullets or beams.

greetz
Chronosfear

Edit : something added.

[Wyvern]

Don´t know if reported yet :
It´s very easy to circumvent the a AI-ship with "Fortress Shields"
Just use hold fire for a short moment ( press X ). Very soon it will deactivate its system , hit x again.
repeat.
Saves many many bullets and so much time.
Found this while playing Ironclads cause many UIN ships have "Fortress Shield"

Sometimes they even drop their shields which will make it possible to hit hull/armor with fast bullets or beams.

greetz
Chronosfear

Edit : something added.

What, it should leave fortress shield on all the time?  That generates hard flux, and is a rather poor tactical decision.  Or do you mean it should go back to how it was, where it could (and would!) raise fortress shield for just a tiny fraction of a second any time one of your shots was about to hit... and then drop it after, allowing it to gain the benefits of fortress shield without even noticeably impairing its rate of fire?

Dropping shields sounds like those ships are high on hard flux, too.

So my question here is, what would you do if you were flying the opposing ship?  What's the better behavior that the AI could be doing?

[Chronosfear]

Snipe

I know it generates hard flux , but better that , then getting shot on the "normal" shield or hull and take the full blow.

Well the enemy is low on flux and in weapons range. Deactivating it´s fortress shield takes some rounds builds up its flux way faster then keeping the shield on a few seconds longer
What I would do depends on (lets make it very simple):
if i want to attack , i would only use it to get in weapons range with as low flux as possible . So i would go in weapons range with system on , strike and try to get out while using the system again if needed.
if i want to retreat , keep it on as long as possible to get out of range and decide based on enemy weapons to take the hit on the armor or not.
both would depend on my current flux level if i would go toe to toe.

My feeling is, that the AI thinks if i´m on hold fire : hey his weapons are disabled ( like emp or something ) / the target is no threat anymore.
They same with weapons here is what i say with its shield : They seem to forget that my ship stays the same threat just a sec ago.

You could try something ( happens with every Ai ship ) : hold fire : the enemy will close in to a short distance ( i think his optimal weapons range ) , but when not on hold fire , the enemy keeps a greater distance.
So you can lure the enemy into short/medium range and not fighting on long range.( which could be another issue )

I know it´s hard to get it right.
I´m no programmer , just telling what weakness I found so that it can be dealt with as best as possible.

[dmaiski]

i dont think anyone really understood how sever the AI "must absolutley avoid overload" policy is:

pictures!!

full health, no flux paragon... and 1 second later (btw it had its shields up right untill I fired my gun



all of these ships killed in 1 shot (well more like 9 2000dmg shots in a single voley)

Spoiler

[close]

this really needs to be fixed, its just stupid prioritising overloading infront of certain death (and those are he rounds, they dont even do damage to shields..)

[PCCL]

i have seen AI prioritizing avoid torpedo hit over avoid overload... not entirely certain why they didn't even raise shield against it...

[Unfolder]

I think a lot of the mods screw up AI. The tricks and rules of AI that are perfectly reasonable in vanilla simply don't scale with many of the mods, especially those that seem to center around cramming as many lulz doomsday guns into as many lulz giant ships as the editor can handle.

[dmaiski]

try a 4x reaper aflictor frigate, most ships will drop its shields happily for you to blow them up(rather then take that 1-2 extra reaper on shield, overload, and survive...

[Unfolder]

Here's one. The AI vastly overvalues the benefits of capturing command points. Does the AI even gain benefits from "comm stations" (the one's that give you more orders?). But anyway, one thing I do is capture one of four command points with a paragon. The enemy will capture three with fast ships (hounds, frigates) and rush the last one. I'll position the paragon on the outside, with the command point between me and these fast ships, then lurch forward once they approach. I ended up frying three frigates and a fighter wing before the main body beat me off the command point. Now granted, these frigates and fighters would have gotten killed pretty quickly against the paragon anyway, but if they had died flanking my paragon, rather than getting mulched trying to capture another 10% damage bonus, they would have been much more useful.

[dmaiski]

unless you are planing to write a turning compliant ai for starsector, that kind of thins is probably allways going to be in there... its not really something that can be fixed easily

[Unfolder]

unless you are planing to write a turning compliant ai for starsector, that kind of thins is probably allways going to be in there... its not really something that can be fixed easily

Eh, not really. A change I can think of making is only having the enemy AI secure command points based on the deployment ratio. If it's evenly matched, it will secure half of the command points (the two nearest ones) and then combine forces to fight you (as it would normally in no command point battle). Maybe leaving behind a wing or a frigate to keep its points secured. Basically what I'm saying is that maintaining a blob of ships is more useful for the AI than spreading itself thin initially and securing all the points, even if it gets a 40% boost to its stats (secures all four points) it emerges weaker because it lost a third of its fleet to ambushes.

[goduranus]

I noticed that fleets on full retreat will point toward their edge of the map, both AI and player. This is especially bad for ships with forward shields. They could just coast and still point their shield at the enemy, and much more of them will survive.

[Ordanen]

Had something odd happen just now, new save.

Anyway, two lashers, against a bunch of Pirate Raiders. One Lasher, Buffalo Mk2, Piranha wing, and two Hounds.

I deployed both my ships at once, and the AI controlled one was disabled rather early on the fight while I took out the wing, then the Lasher. I was then severely damaged, with about 15% left of my hull by the Hounds, but also managed to cripple the Mk2 enough to the point where it turned around and was obviously intending to retreat. The Hounds then fired a bit at me, flew away, then returned one at a time, only to spin around in circles in firing range while I easily disabled them. After I severely damaged the second Hound, the ''enemy fleet defeated'' text appeared, implying to me something messed up and that the Hounds were intending to fire, not dance around.

[sirboomalot]

Had something odd happen just now, new save.

Anyway, two lashers, against a bunch of Pirate Raiders. One Lasher, Buffalo Mk2, Piranha wing, and two Hounds.

I deployed both my ships at once, and the AI controlled one was disabled rather early on the fight while I took out the wing, then the Lasher. I was then severely damaged, with about 15% left of my hull by the Hounds, but also managed to cripple the Mk2 enough to the point where it turned around and was obviously intending to retreat. The Hounds then fired a bit at me, flew away, then returned one at a time, only to spin around in circles in firing range while I easily disabled them. After I severely damaged the second Hound, the ''enemy fleet defeated'' text appeared, implying to me something messed up and that the Hounds were intending to fire, not dance around.

Sounds to me like the hounds had gotten an order to escort the buffalo, and were straining against the leash that the order sets on them. If I'm guessing correctly they moved into firing range at the edge of their fly-zone around the buffalo, but then had to turn around and fly back to stay in range of the retreating ship before they got a chance to fire, going from defensive mode to "catch back up to the ship you're escorting" mode too quick for them to get any shots off.

I actually kinda wish that such bounds were a tiny bit more lenient to ships, 'cause behavior like this often gets them killed against an enemy that lacks such restraints; the ship ai is good enough to take advantage of the fact that one side isn't able to chase past a certain point, letting the attacking ship continuously weave in and out of range until the ship that does have a defend or escort order is wore down and defeated.

[miro]

If you point your guns away from the enemy ship, it will lower it's shields. Not a huge issue on smaller craft, but you can whittle down larger ships by snapping back to face the enemy then putting shots into their side as the shield slowly expands to cover it.