I see lots of fixes except for the most stupid and annoying issue.

[lordmuck]

That issue happens to be our ships wanting to grind against the enemy ship / station when attacking. They fly right INTO it lick the paint off the target(while not firing the weapons except a turret perhaps), fly away and then do the attack run where they fire(if they survive being shot at while they go lick the paint off and when they fly off to start an attack).

Why does no one talk about this? I'm not imagining it as I captured this issue so many times on my uploads.


Dont get me wrong, I do see the hundreds of entries of fixes/features/improvements and happy to see all that. However certain issues that have been raised in the past 1.20? have not been looked at which are quite the game killer.

[MHDriver]

Yes I have posted about this issue a number of times which results in just a bunch of conjecture by other players ranging from "its a feature," "your crew skills are too low." "Egosoft is just a small studio," etc. but no real helpful information as to why the AI are so stupid in X4. Folks can cite endless examples of AI doing anything other than what they were assigned to do but no good reason for it to be that way. I sill find it odd that 10-20 NPC warships will huddle around a Kha'ak hive and attack it in endless futility while the rest of their sector is being overrun by hostiles. Yeah, you are unlikely to get any good answers on this issue here imho. But that is just me..

[Warnoise]

I also talked about this. And this is why I am not hyped about the dlc. As long as the combat ai is still garbage there's no point.

[lordmuck]

I also talked about this. And this is why I am not hyped about the dlc. As long as the combat ai is still garbage there's no point.

Yes exactly how I was also looking at this tbh. Like I said in some other post, Yeah 1000s fixes and features, yet 1 issue can just poop all over that hard work and it goes unnoticed, which is kinda upsetting considering how long I have been a fan since x2 days.

Yes I have posted about this issue a number of times which results in just a bunch of conjecture by other players ranging from "its a feature," "your crew skills are too low." "Egosoft is just a small studio," etc. but no real helpful information as to why the AI are so stupid in X4. Folks can cite endless examples of AI doing anything other than what they were assigned to do but no good reason for it to be that way. I sill find it odd that 10-20 NPC warships will huddle around a Kha'ak hive and attack it in endless futility while the rest of their sector is being overrun by hostiles. Yeah, you are unlikely to get any good answers on this issue here imho. But that is just me..

Yeah, the whole pilot skill is bs about that, I have been playing since day 1, I believe I can trust my own "homework" in that regard. When something is flying directly towards an enemy does not fire its main weapons, scrapes along the paintwork, turns to fly off again to start the proper attack run. is not a pilot skill issue, if they recruit pilots like that then the Xverse should just fly to the nearest sun for target practise rofl

[taztaz502]

Combat AI has a LONG way to go.

Wish the AI was like freelancer so we could have huge engaging battles, to be honest i think the combat/fleet AI and engagements are what is really letting the game down at the moment.

Think the range on weapons needs a buff too, you have to hug anything to hit it.

[mr.WHO]

I think I see more and more proof that AI stupidity is directly connected to crew low rank feature, rather than bug on Egosoft side.
Fortunately 3.0 introduce mass crew transfer, which should make having high class crew a bit easier.

[Shuulo]

Yeah, like 70% of ai stupidity is really just from low skill crew, I base this answer after going deep into the air scripts of the game.
That problem is there is NO feedback to the player on this and in most situations it really look like ai is just plain dumb.

@Devs, this is an elephant in the room, we need a proper information on what we can expect from the ship, if the crew is low skilled, add some markings, notifications or exclamation mark or anything that will tell player to not expect high performance from this ship.

[Matthew94]

@Devs, this is an elephant in the room, we need a proper information on what we can expect from the ship, if the crew is low skilled, add some markings, notifications or exclamation mark or anything that will tell player to not expect high performance from this ship.

And/Or give us a reliable way of hiring high-skilled crew. Make a pilot school station where we can pay through the nose for 5 star pilots.

[taztaz502]

I disagree about crew skill, most of my ships perform the same in combat regardless of skill.

All of my capital ships have 5 star pilots and still dork about.

[Artean]

Yeah, like 70% of ai stupidity is really just from low skill crew, I base this answer after going deep into the air scripts of the game.
That problem is there is NO feedback to the player on this and in most situations it really look like ai is just plain dumb.

@Devs, this is an elephant in the room, we need a proper information on what we can expect from the ship, if the crew is low skilled, add some markings, notifications or exclamation mark or anything that will tell player to not expect high performance from this ship.

At least a tool tip would be nice to indicate what the skill levels mean.

[GCU Grey Area]

Why does no one talk about this?

It is discussed. Here's a recent thread about capital ship movement scripts from the beta forum:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 82289215ee
By the way, highly skilled crews (pilots in particular) are absolutely vital for getting the best out of capital ships.

And/Or give us a reliable way of hiring high-skilled crew.

Get most of my warship service crews from station builders - they seem to be particularly good at levelling up engineers.

Usually get my capital ship pilots by building a bunch of fighters each time I get a new destroyer. Like to assign 8 of them as an interception wing for each destroyer & almost every time there's at least one pilot with a minimum of 4* piloting. That's generally the lowest I consider acceptable for command of a destroyer, though will sometimes consider training up a 3* pilot with seminars if they have good morale (also has a significant impact on ship performance in combat).

[tomchk]

Yeah, like 70% of ai stupidity is really just from low skill crew, I base this answer after going deep into the air scripts of the game.
That problem is there is NO feedback to the player on this and in most situations it really look like ai is just plain dumb.

@Devs, this is an elephant in the room, we need a proper information on what we can expect from the ship, if the crew is low skilled, add some markings, notifications or exclamation mark or anything that will tell player to not expect high performance from this ship.

At least a tool tip would be nice to indicate what the skill levels mean.

Strongly agreed.

[MHDriver]

Why does no one talk about this?

It is discussed. Here's a recent thread about capital ship movement scripts from the beta forum:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 82289215ee
By the way, highly skilled crews (pilots in particular) are absolutely vital for getting the best out of capital ships.

And/Or give us a reliable way of hiring high-skilled crew.

Get most of my warship service crews from station builders - they seem to be particularly good at levelling up engineers.

Usually get my capital ship pilots by building a bunch of fighters each time I get a new destroyer. Like to assign 8 of them as an interception wing for each destroyer & almost every time there's at least one pilot with a minimum of 4* piloting. That's generally the lowest I consider acceptable for command of a destroyer, though will sometimes consider training up a 3* pilot with seminars if they have good morale (also has a significant impact on ship performance in combat).

Honestly ES just needs to get rid of the crew skill mechanic in X4 as it is far to convoluted and adopt the mechanic from XR where you just shop around different areas for skilled captains, engineers and defense officers, hire them then assign them to ships. Why does it need to be this silly go figure out a method of getting a skilled crew X4 utilizes FFS.

[Warnoise]

I think I see more and more proof that AI stupidity is directly connected to crew low rank feature, rather than bug on Egosoft side.
Fortunately 3.0 introduce mass crew transfer, which should make having high class crew a bit easier.

not really i use a mod that makes all crews 5 star and they are still stupid

[GCU Grey Area]

Honestly ES just needs to get rid of the crew skill mechanic in X4 as it is far to convoluted and adopt the mechanic from XR where you just shop around different areas for skilled captains, engineers and defense officers, hire them then assign them to ships. Why does it need to be this silly go figure out a method of getting a skilled crew X4 utilizes FFS.

Prefer it myself to the XR approach. Not bad as a first iteration, but always felt odd that every XR ship (no matter how big) only had a maximum crew of 3.

Don't find X4 crew mechanic remotely convoluted. Particularly like it that there's absolutely no shopping around for crew needed. The crews already work for me, I'm just reassigning & promoting from within my organisation those people whose skills have progressed enough to get a more important job.

Similar for pilots. I never get a new destroyer without a few interceptors to go with it. Combination works well (fighters harass enemy capital ships from close range, destroyers blow them to bits from long range). Just makes sense to me that out of each group of pilots the best of them gets the top job & command of the destroyer. Certainly find it MUCH more convenient than having to go hunting round stations for new destroyer captains personally. Got quite a lot of them now (several dozen), would have taken rather a long time to find enough good captains if they weren't already working for me.

[taztaz502]

i must be the only person that can't see a difference between pilot skills other than having extra options like autotrading, my ships seem to perform the same regardless...

[lordmuck]

Wait lol WHAT that is a SKILL?? you mean these stupid ass m3 m6 pilots are so utterly stupid that in a group they all go fly INTO the station / into L xenon ship WITHOUT shooting, pull away back to where they came from, then initialise the attack run? Can you all not see what I am saying here? They initialise the attack run after if they survive getting to lick the paint of the target. I have this in so many uploads pointing this issue out I'm surprised to hear that you believe it to be a star issue while its clear that even a blind monkey with no thumbs would at least shoot at the target while it dives towards it on the first "hey hi5" run. A pilot with -5 skill would kinda know that he is a taaaaaaaaaad too close and needs to pull away + use that red shiny button to shoot. No one would employ idiots of that level to pilot stuff and ill repeat 3-star minimum.

Are you saying that the skill level of these pilots are that low even at MAX???? coz if so then yes that for sure needs tweaking up. However mostly all my pilots are always 3-4 stars to start with anything less I fire, I buy bulk scout ships to pick out decent pilots so I am sorry but I am doubting the star issue and if it is a star issue then the base value of stupid needs to be increased to "intelligence of a gnat level". Yeah the code may be there, but is that code working? That is the question.

I dont get it :/ and Iv not even got to the part where they can sometimes fire torpedoes and missiles while turning away from the target -.- or 2km away while they can chillax 4km+ away.

[taztaz502]

Wait lol WHAT that is a SKILL?? you mean these stupid ass m3 m6 pilots are so utterly stupid that in a group they all go fly INTO the station / into L xenon ship WITHOUT shooting, pull away back to where they came from, then initialise the attack run? Can you all not see what I am saying here? They initialise the attack run after if they survive getting to lick the paint of the target. I have this in so many uploads pointing this issue out I'm surprised to hear that you believe it to be a star issue while its clear that even a blind monkey with no thumbs would at least shoot at the target while it dives towards it on the first "hey hi5" run. A pilot with -5 skill would kinda know that he is a taaaaaaaaaad too close and needs to pull away + use that red shiny button to shoot. No one would employ idiots of that level to pilot stuff and ill repeat 3-star minimum.

Are you saying that the skill level of these pilots are that low? coz if so then yes that for sure needs tweaking up. However mostly all my pilots are always 3-4 stars to start with anything less I fire, I buy bulk scout ships to pick out decent pilots so I am sorry but I am doubting the star issue and if it is a star issue then the base value of stupid needs to be increased to "intelligence of a gnat level". Yeah the code may be there, but is that code working? That is the question.

I dont get it :/ and Iv not even got to the part where they can sometimes fire torpedoes and missiles while turning away from the target -.- or 2km away while they can chillax 4km+ away.

I'm right there with you mate, all my capital ships have 5 star in piloting and still fly like a drunk new born.

I think piloting skill just effects which scripts they can run.

[GCU Grey Area]

i must be the only person that can't see a difference between pilot skills other than having extra options like autotrading, my ships seem to perform the same regardless...

Well, I did spend quite a lot of time watching newly built ANT & ARG warships fly out of my Antigone Memorial shipyard directly into battle with HOP invaders. At times HOP were literally waiting for them right outside the construction bays, ready to start shooting the instant construction completed.

At the time the sheer magnitude of that HOP fleet terrified me, so remained neutral & focused on Trade. Did my best to assist ANT & ARG without getting involved in the fighting personally. Had a LOT of time to watch NPC ships fighting on external views whenever I was in the sector, while my freighter was plodding around between stations (was also a lot more interesting to watch than what was going on directly in front of my ship, so let my relief pilot do the flying). Had sufficient rep with both ANT & ARG that I could get full info on their ships, including crew skills.

After a while found I could predict (with a fair degree of accuracy) approximate skill level of capital ship pilots, purely from observations of how closely they approached the enemy, the sort of manoeuvres they performed & how many main gun shots they could fire in a sustained burst (i.e. before having to manoeuvre round to reacquire the target). Differences are clear when you know what to look for & have a big enough sample size.

[tomchk]

GCU, what do you think of how skills are used? Do you like this system or would you change something?