I see a lot of activity around modding ships and equipment. What about the AI? I regularly find myself in battles where my ships focus on enemies that can’t really hurt me while completely ignoring others that are pounding me into oblivion. Is there a way to mod the AI?
you mean orders given to the enemy on single player?
Use the ‘add/remove/edit orders’ section. In your circumstance, try setting your ships to retaliate and possibly co-operate. If the ships you’re attacking are of different classes, try moving the fighter/frigate/cruiser sliders around. Also, engagement ranges are important.
I guess I meant the ability to create my own custom drop-in replacement AI. In this case a simple “Attack those doing the most damage to me” would solve it.
ah. well than i cannot help ya. sorry!
Hmm, yeah the AI could use a bit of work in the movement department. It would be nice to modify the AI so that all your ships don’t get stuck in traffic jams and don’t charge across the battlefield into a triangular point. No self respecting space admiral should use a triangle formation that feeds the front ranks to the enemy bit by bit.
I know there’s the formation command but that locks your ships into a rigid formation that can be even worse for many situations.
I use my first line of ships as a hit-and-run / harassment kind of thing, basically the second that armor starts getting hit, they run for it.
Hmm, which orders do you give them?
Default orders that seem to work well:
Co-operate - ships generally fire on the same target though… this is dodgy at best, as they also tend to switch to targets that are more ‘in their optimal’ so are not always focusing fire on the same target.
Vulture - In conjunction with co-operate you’ll get good focused fire. This is generally very effective with frigates or slow long-range sluggers.
Beyond that I don’t use a whole lot of the other commands for the fleet as a whole.
This is slightly off-topic, but what bonuses do you get for firing at something in optimal range? I’d assume weapons fire would be more accurate, but I’m curious by how much and if there are other bonuses.
Also, missile weapons don’t seem to have an optimal range at all, so maybe they get better focused fire.