The AI thread.

I think the turrets should ONLY fire at the classes that it has orders to fire one EXCEPT if Rescuer, Vulture, Protector, and MAYBE Retaliate, and Co-operative.

I would REALLY Love if Co-operative, was also a only fire on frendly target IF I have orders to fire on that class.

So lets say I have a Cruiser that has the following orders:
Attack frigates range 600, percent 45
Attack cruisers range 900, percent 80
Co-operative
Keep Moving

I would like that set of orders to fire at cruisers once they are in 900 range, only switching to frigates if they are within 600 ok my ship. Also If a freandly ship is targeting a cruiser or frigate and it falls in the set orders then change to that target and open fire.

Now IF I have the same ship but i have the following added in:
Vulture
Rescue

I would expect that same as above, except that if a fighter is hitting a nearby ship and Its in range I fire at it. If the fighter is NOT in range ignore that fighter and not go chase it down, and then same with a fighter that is badly damaged.

And the same for deal for frigates and fighters and so forth. That way you do not have fighters with Torpedos shooting at fighters as they had toward a frigate, unless that fighter group has orders to fire on fighters

Also If there is only one class order that a ship can fire on, lets say you have a cruiser that it’s job is to hunt down and kill frigates, and there is no more frigates then it will move to shot on cruisers and fighters as it is now, unless there is another order that takes prority…

Anyways my take on the order’s and AI, I have been quite till this point on this thread and now i have opened my mouth just please do not force my foot into it.

Lone Starr

I already understand that. Having fighters rescue other fighters from impossible fights is still silly. It would make more sense, to me, if the sqaudron acted as a group on rescue orders. Not ‘rescue your wingman repeatedly’ but ‘hey, this friendly ship is getting pounded.’

I think most of us agree with you. The root cause of your fighters’ dilemma is the same that is troubling the rest of us. I’m not sure how the “driver” code is calculated though, but it sounds like that’s why your fighters loop back suicidally to their doom.

Once I complete the wallpapers, I’ve planned to take a closer look at the logic case for the AI commands.

Orders.

The problem with the current system is both the gunners and the pilot are using the “Attack X” orders to divine their action/role.

Perhaps splitting those in two (refactor) might solve that. One set of orders for pilots and another for gunners.

The other issue is: there are two different “don’t fire at this class” thoughts.

1. Don’t fire at this class, until it is the last class alive.
2. Don’t fire at this class, unless it’s the only thing in range.

We only have the 2nd one, not the first (I believe you get that by deleting the “Attack X” order). The first would fix fighter torpedoes.

If ammunition was an issue (and for some weapons it might be), you would need:
3) Don’t fire at this class, ever.

Ok, whole 'nother topic.
The gunner system should not be looking at the world when evaluating its target. There should be a range officer for each gun.

1. As soon as a target moves into range, the gunner target selection algoritm should run.
2. If another target moves into gun range, a small algorithm should run that says: “Is new target better than current target?” If yes, switch, if no, remain on current.
3. Gunner should switch to new target if told by another gunner he is getting effective hits and gunners current shots sequence is in-effective.
4. If current target moves out of range or is destroyed or weaponless (unless vulture), all targets in range should be evaluated. Gunner target selection algorithm should run.

Otherwise a gunner should never switch targets.

5. Gunner should switch targets if, ship it is firing at has shields and another ship in range loses shields.

I agree it would be nice if we could distinguish between gunner orders and pilot orders.

It would also be nice if we could issue conditional orders. For instance, have a ship that starts in formation, but if not in formation (I.e. driver died) then keep moving. Or if cautious, then escort X, so you have some influence over the direction the cautious ship flees.

Of course, the problem is the amount of time available to work on these sorts of improvements (or lack thereof).

Yeah, I haven’t been too involved with the AI mechanics since I saw Cliffski’s announcement of moving on to another game following the release of the Campaign expansion. I think there are a number of improvements that could be made, but it sounds like GSB may be entering its twilight period of development. Sad…

I get the same impression. Sad, squared. Campaign GSB promises to be intriguing, but the core game still has holes aplenty which need repair. The AI faults are, collectively, the one flaw that most frequently damages my enjoyment of this otherwise-fine game.

If I had one wish, before the game development died. And I was trying to pick the smallest feature that would most likely create the most sales over time, I would pick Multiplayer GSB.

Alas, to keep it the smallest feature it would have to be 2 player only.

Players choosing the multiplayer game mode, would enter a room/screen where they see the other players who are online, and the games in progress, available, and short log of ‘just finished’ w/winner name.

They can create an invitation/game (add to the available list) or join one.

Once created or joined they are in the deployment screen, where they can load a deployment or create one from scratch (chat would be nice).

Once both are “ready” (have clicked the “Fight!” button), each game launches independently.

Both computers fight the same battle (by using psuedo random number generators) and return the players (after stats, if desired) to the original multiplayer room.

Given that the campaign can automatically download challenges I don’t think this feature would be that hard. It would add a great deal to the game (I could play my friends IN REAL TIME). Refights, tweaks, radical changes to strategy and launch again!! Multiplayer would become the life of the game and be great word-of-mouth.

I completely agree that multiplayer should be tweaked and perfected, and it is an EXCELLENT marketing tool. Synchronizing game play would make multi-player functionality more difficult, but independently calculated games could lead to both players winning a close battle. If nothing else, allow me to sort challenges by Enjoyment and not just Difficulty.

Hey there!

There is one big complaint I have for the AI, and that’s the wonky “Keep Moving” command.

I see it all the time…I have a Cruiser on “Keep Moving”, it has a nice speed to dodge a lot of heavy attacks and is equipped with a nice balance of Beam Lasers and close range Quantum Blasters. I love it and cheer when he circles the enemies…but sometimes it just heads straight towards them, in a “Left right left right” turning sequence causing him to go straight into big clusters of enemies. Then my Cruiser gets hung up on theirs while their little Defense Lasers start cutting me up. I just hate seeing my ships Rambo right into their death.I want them to comfortably circle my enemies, or at least stay at the edge of the battle…not waltzing right into it…

Is there a way to have your ships keep moving while also staying at a maximum range?

I propose that this is this the way to do just that:

An now we come to the pilot orders. :{

A couple of major sections that need to be talked about for pilots.

Fighters:
The box pattern they fly in is insufficient. I tell my fighters to escort a ship at 600 m and they fly in a box 600 m wide by 200 m tall. They should fly in a sphere with a radius of 600 m. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched my cruisers and frigates get killed by fighters behind my fleet but close to my fighter box (well within the given 600 m escort orders) and my fighters are streched out toward the enemy fleet they can’t even reach yet (outside the 600 m).

Escort @600 m mean 600 m all the way around the ship, not in a box leaning toward the enemy fleet. When “waiting” to engage they should be flying in an 100 m circle at the point closest the nearest enemy ship.

Capital ships:

Keep Moving. At first I was going to say “strike this order” all ships never stop. But I can see reasons to have a missile/archer line. If you can’t stop, “bait” tactics work less well. So we need to be able to add Keep Moving to orders like Formation (takes effect when Formation target dies). And maybe some other areas, see below:

Allemande Right (or “Fly right” as they say in aviation). When I reach my engagement range and I have Keep Moving orders I FLY RIGHT. That means, in military speak, execute the predefined turn based on engagement with the enemy. There are only four possible values, RIGHT, LEFT, FLEET RANDOM (whole fleet moves left or right), SHIP RANDOM (each ship randomly pick left or right). As stated by many others this means I circle my prey AT my engagement range in the FLY RIGHT direction. The four options are radio buttons of Keep Moving.

I just thought of something else, pertinant to this:

And that is, Keep Distance. This is a different kind of Keep Moving. In Cetiah Nova’s scenario above I want my ships to “back up” and stay at engagement range. This could be a check box on the “Attack X” orders, “Keep Distance”. Keep Distance could also have FLY RIGHT settings for when you hit the back wall. When I was at engagement range I would not be moving. It might be nice if this value could have a “width” so my ship didn’t react to an “exact” range (a buffer zone).

Herd: Discussed here.

Sounds like what we need. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who was bothered by this…

Presumably they’re just bouncing back and forth between their one-time determined driving target and the ship they’re tethered to.

Changes to how and how often the driving target is selected will likely help clear this up.

I would agree that this game has some fairly serious AI issues, and I’d also agree that the ones mentioned in this thread are the worst of them.

The single problem I have consistently had with this game is the orders. Probably, the tooltips for the orders should have included some technical information since, as has been pointed out earlier in this thread, a lot of the orders are not perfectly clear. That isn’t the only problem though. The orders we are given to work with are limited. I would have absolutely loved it if there was a way to script orders (i.e., to be able to say things like “IF enemy shields go down in X range, OR if enemy craft is unshielded, engage” or “IF this craft’s attack has no effect, choose a new target up to X distance away”) but, alas, it was not so. Still though, with this current system of orders I think that we need some more options.

For example: why don’t we just have a “Don’t ever attack X type of craft, not even if nothing else is in range, unless literally all other enemy craft types on the battlefield are gone” function? This could stop rocket frigates/cruisers from wasting long cooldown payload on fighters, or prevent dogfighters from permanently buzzing uselessly around armored cruisers. It doesn’t seem like it would be terribly difficult to implement either, especially since it seems to already be part of the automatic AI for some weapons (also already mentioned).

an order id love to see is a set destination for a units or group of units… to often i see units with ignore a unit type turn around to engage said unit type anyway id like to see a group set to drive to said destination engaging anything in range on the way but not stopping to get caught up in a furbal of uselessness with unit type they have no business trying to kill only to be getting pelted by units they should have been trying to kill in the first place… once the hit the end of the path set the resume there order sets as per normal.

this would at lest set up the option of making flanking groups to try and get around the sides of an opssing fleet also this might address bomber groups flying through the middle of a fighter furbal that no self respecting bomber pilot would do in his right mind… to often i see bombers with fighter engagement deleted or set to 0 and no retaliate orders still getting into fighter furbals or even cruisers stopping to try and kill fighters when they have nothing that really got a chance of hitting them.

also id love to see wounded fighters checking there intended carrier for availability if it already has more then x landed and there is another carrier on the map then it should rerouteing to said carrier i see it to many times where just cause 1 of 4 carriers has just the slightest lead of the 4 others sitting right next to it that 20 fighters are docked there and the other 4 are empty doing nothing

even if i had the option to set how many figs a carrier mod held before fighters had to rerouteing would be great at the moment i have had to mod a carrier mod to be used on frigs just so they are closer to there respective battle fronts and the figs make there way to them rather then all to one CR… i call them Jeep carriers after the US world war 2 tactic of using small carries in the pacific to resupply the main battle group carries with fresh fighters

Apologies for the threadomancy, but this thread is where this comment belongs.

On the subject of pilot (or navigation) AI: the Formation order. I have been toying with the Formation order lately and have determined that apparently it does absolutely nothing. I tie fast ships to a slower ship, which should, theoretically, keep the group all together in a nice block. And then the speedy little frigates, who are supposed to be hanging back behind the big tough cruisers, go zooming out into space and get shredded.

From what I can tell, the ship pilot AI is still using the percentage and range values from the Attack orders to determine where it goes. If the Formation order doesn’t supersede the Attack commands in every possible situation, the Formation order is useless. I want one pilot deciding where the whole mass goes. The gunners should target autonomously, but the pilots with Formation orders should be paying attention to the ship they are following and absolutely nothing else. I’m assuming this is a priority issue, where the Attack orders are being evaluated by the pilot when instead he should skip them.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior, or is it just me?

hmm…

I’ve experienced nothing like that

my ships stick to their formations as far as I remember

although I havent used the order for probably months now and I really have no idea of any recent changes…

gunny

Don’t notice either. The primary use I have for formation is so it breaks on engagement. In fact I deliberately set formation to an empty ship.