[6.0 Beta 1] Turrets not shooting Kha'ak Hive (Save)

[Scoob]

Hi,

Please examine this saved game.

In it, I'm piloting a Phoenix Vanguard destroyer, attempting to take out a Kha'ak Hive. The ship's turrets are all set to "Attack All Enemies" and there are Hive structure elements within range, but none of the turrets are firing. As the ship spins, the L-Class turrets can sometimes be seen to turn, as if they're tracking something, but don't have a firing solution.

Basically, there ARE parts of the Hive in range of multiple turrets, but none are shooting. I also have a Colosuss flying around, and it's turrets are shooting. It's like the Phoenix is targetting something is cannot currently hit (LoS or range?) rather than object it could readily hit.

Note: From my observations, this become more of an issue the further "into" the Kha'ak Hive superstructure the Phoenix gets. It was shooting Ok, when nearer the edge of the Hive...like where the Colossus is currently.

[Scoob]

Addendum to this. If I manually target the Hive, then order all turret to "Attack my current enemy" they generally WILL open fire on the nearest chunk of station. The question then becomes why did "attack all enemies" and "Attack capital ships" not manage to get a firing solution?

[Raevyan]

This does not only relate to 6.0 as i have seen this in previous versions (latest with 5.1), when i was destroying lots of Xenon stations with the Erlking. Sometimes the turrets fired at the station, sometimes they didn't. They usually did fire, when set to attack my current target, but i've also seen them not shooting at the station.

I think the issue with the turrets is, that they try to target a module thats out of range or not in line of sight. When i moved around the station, turrets began eventually to shoot at the station when set to shoot all enemies. We have very limited control on the turrets, even if you target a specific module of the station (which can only be done via map and is somewhat tedious), it doesn't guarantee that all turrets that have line of sight will actually shoot. The weird turret behavior makes it really annoying to destroy stations.

[rusky]

It's the geometry of the station (and often the wrecks of parts of it which are also almost invisible but still there) that blocks direct los for the turrets.

I made a mod that removed all wrecks once to see if i was right and sure enough, as station parts were destroyed aand no wrecks were created, the guns never stopped firing.

[Venetrix2]

Addendum to this. If I manually target the Hive, then order all turret to "Attack my current enemy" they generally WILL open fire on the nearest chunk of station. The question then becomes why did "attack all enemies" and "Attack capital ships" not manage to get a firing solution?

I've had this issue with other stations as well, not just the Khaak ones. Attack Capital Ships does nothing sometimes, when Attack All Enemies finds its targets just fine.

[Scoob]

It's the geometry of the station (and often the wrecks of parts of it which are also almost invisible but still there) that blocks direct los for the turrets.

I made a mod that removed all wrecks once to see if i was right and sure enough, as station parts were destroyed aand no wrecks were created, the guns never stopped firing.

This is a targetting issue. If indeed the turret is targetting a module I cannot hit, why is it different with different turret commands?

Turrets were ordered to "Attack Capitals" and they IGNORED the numerous station parts they could readily hit. I changed them to "Attack my Target" and suddenly those exact same turrets, on a ship that's not moved, began happily shooting the station. This proves that there was a valid targetting solution available to the Turret, why didn't "Attack Capital Ships" ordered turrets fire?

It looks like the "Attack Capital ships" turret command was perhaps trying to shoot something it could not get LoS on - perhaps getting stuck on or blocked by an already destroyed module. Aka, a bug. While the "Attack my Target" turret command perfectly selected part of the station to attack. Why the difference? That's the issue.

You'd hope, if it indeed is getting stuck on / blocked by the wreckage of a module it's already destroyed as we speculate, that clearing the turret command and re-applying it might resolve things. However, it seemed that once "Attack Capital Ship" turrets were stuck, they stayed stuck while the ship was stationary. Moving the ship WOULD eventually see it engage another valid part of the station.

It's the combination of things that's the issue. If the ship continues to move it will eventually engage another valid part of the station, if the ship does not move it NEVER selects another station part to attack while "Attack Capital Ships" is used. Attack my Target just appears to work.

Hopefully the Devs can load my save as look "under the hood" so to speak to see why the game is making the choices it makes. This IS a bug, there are ample valid targets for the turrets to engage, they simply do not when running the "Attack Capital Ships" command.

Note: this has indeed happened to me in prior versions of the game and has been reported before. However, as it's occurring for me now (at the time of this save) and is readily demonstrated, I'd hope the devs would be able to figure out what the underlying issue is. Seeing your ships, ordered to attack a station, basically doing NOTHING for ages isn't ideal. The Kha'ak station's return fire is pretty weak, but other stations have the ability to really hurt in this situation.

[Scoob]

I've had this issue with other stations as well, not just the Khaak ones. Attack Capital Ships does nothing sometimes, when Attack All Enemies finds its targets just fine.

Yep, this is the point of the report. Why does "Attack All Enemies" and/or "Attack my Target" have a valid firing solution, yet "Attack Capital Ships" does not? There must be something different about how the latter picks a target. It has perfectly valid targets available but, we speculate, selecting one it CANNOT currently actually hit and getting stuck. Once the ship moves, it does eventually get a firing solution, but what it SHOULD do is actually pick something it can hit.

[XenoXenoson]

Don't want to just say 'me too' here, but here's a save where the issue is easily reproducible and bizarre. You'll be in my Erlking aiming at a module I intend for the turrets to assist me with destroying.

Setting Turret Behavior to 'Attack All Enemies' results in the turrets not firing. Setting it to 'Attack Capital Ships' likewise results in the turrets not firing. 'Attack my Current Enemy' results in all turrets engaging the target as expected. Peculiarly, being at a complete stop and cycling turret modes allows the turrets to engage the station with one valid behavior but not two other behaviors that should be equally valid in this scenario (Capital Ship/All Enemies).

Of course, flying around occasionally allows turrets set to each of the firing modes to decide on a target eventually, but in this case, all three modes have a valid LOS to a module that falls under the restrictions of the turret behaviors. Perhaps this has something to do with 'where' the turrets are aiming in each scenario- perhaps 'Capital Ship' is attempting to find LOS to the station center, for example.

Here's the save- just cycle all your turrets between 'Attack all enemies', 'Attack Capital ships', and 'Attack my current enemy'. It appears that in this particular orientation, only one mode works to assign a valid target to the turrets.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ao-Dmai33_tmgetBxQG ... A?e=ngXn0c