AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

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LameFox
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AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by LameFox » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 04:00

I have been trying out some Jians lately on a Terran-centric playthrough, and I am noticing that in AI hands they are quite horrible. Not in the usual way the AI is bad, but because all their turrets face 'up', and even when fighting one single opponent they make no apparent effort to utilize this. It appears to be sheer chance whether the turrets ever end up facing the enemy—the ship's combat effectiveness is almost literally a coin toss.

I must admit I had suspected this before, because some of the self-propelled landing pads are like this, but it's a lot more obvious when the ship has 6 turrets on a flat surface and one single gun.
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flywlyx
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by flywlyx » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 04:26

There was a time the AI destroyers don't aware they have weapons to shoot. And I think they finally fixed it around 4.1
I am not even expecting they will get this level of intelligence one day, all I am expecting is one day it could be as good as Homeworld(1999), not even Homeworld2(2003).

LameFox
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by LameFox » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 04:40

That may be so, but in that case I wish they'd design things for the AI they have, instead of an ideal one that doesn't exist. Ships ought to have balanced turret coverage if they don't know how to use turret coverage.
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flywlyx
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by flywlyx » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 05:00

LameFox wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 04:40
That may be so, but in that case I wish they'd design things for the AI they have, instead of an ideal one that doesn't exist. Ships ought to have balanced turret coverage if they don't know how to use turret coverage.
Jian is very useful as a turret attchment for XL ships, and I don't believe TER build it for themselves. so I think Jian is an exceptional case.

LameFox
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by LameFox » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 05:04

It's exceptional in how extreme it is but I do think a lot of ships, particularly M ships, have the same issue. One of the things I've always liked about the ships-formerly-known-as-bombers is that their layout works really well for the AI.
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kmunoz
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by kmunoz » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 05:56

flywlyx wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 04:26
There was a time the AI destroyers don't aware they have weapons to shoot. And I think they finally fixed it around 4.1
I am not even expecting they will get this level of intelligence one day, all I am expecting is one day it could be as good as Homeworld(1999), not even Homeworld2(2003).
The Homeworld games are helped by the fact that they tactically only exist in 2-D space. It's probably several orders of magnitude easier to design an AI that can handle a flat plane.
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builder680
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by builder680 » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 06:06

kmunoz wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 05:56
flywlyx wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 04:26
There was a time the AI destroyers don't aware they have weapons to shoot. And I think they finally fixed it around 4.1
I am not even expecting they will get this level of intelligence one day, all I am expecting is one day it could be as good as Homeworld(1999), not even Homeworld2(2003).
The Homeworld games are helped by the fact that they tactically only exist in 2-D space. It's probably several orders of magnitude easier to design an AI that can handle a flat plane.
Honestly, so does this game... except for the rando stations the AI builds 300km off the ecliptic for some reason.

flywlyx
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by flywlyx » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 07:38

LameFox wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 05:04
It's exceptional in how extreme it is but I do think a lot of ships, particularly M ships, have the same issue. One of the things I've always liked about the ships-formerly-known-as-bombers is that their layout works really well for the AI.
Yeah, but most M ships has relative "good" distribution since most turrets could shoot to the front. It seems X4 AI is designed to face their enemy and fight, which makes sense, but this kind of extreme design won't work at all.

kmunoz wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 05:56
The Homeworld games are helped by the fact that they tactically only exist in 2-D space. It's probably several orders of magnitude easier to design an AI that can handle a flat plane.
You miss the point, I am not talking about the AI faction tactics, I am talking about AI pilots following your order, fighting in formation, and using their guns to shoot at enemies as you expected.
All of these functions have been achieved in Homeworld in 3D in 1999, and tens of strategy games in recent 20 years.
X4 is designed to have brain-dead AI pilots doing stupid things which is OK since it is not an RTS game, but I still feel it is a stupid design.

j.harshaw
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by j.harshaw » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 12:37

Capital ships are aware of their turret coverage and try to account for it when positioning. Small and medium ships tend to favor getting targets in front of them regardless of turret coverage to bring forward guns to bear, and keeping them moving is much more important since agility is a much more significant component of their defensive toolbox.

LameFox
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by LameFox » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 13:32

j.harshaw wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 12:37
Capital ships are aware of their turret coverage and try to account for it when positioning. Small and medium ships tend to favor getting targets in front of them regardless of turret coverage to bring forward guns to bear, and keeping them moving is much more important since agility is a much more significant component of their defensive toolbox.
It's not that I want them to prioritize that above all else but, for instance, in 1v1 combat if the ship is going to roll and pitch for a turn, I wish it would roll so that the turreted side is facing the enemy. So often I see it do the opposite. If it was aware of that it could finish fights quickly that it otherwise ends up losing.
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flywlyx
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by flywlyx » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 17:06

j.harshaw wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 12:37
Capital ships are aware of their turret coverage and try to account for it when positioning.
It is really good to know those wiggling have a purpose. But I think the easy strategy is to find the max output angle and stay like that until turrets get destroyed, current rotation strategy looks totally random to me.
j.harshaw wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 12:37
Small and medium ships tend to favor getting targets in front of them regardless of turret coverage to bring forward guns to bear, and keeping them moving is much more important since agility is a much more significant component of their defensive toolbox.
Unless the front gun has zero gimble angle, directly facing the enemy is always the worst option if the fighter trying to keep agility. The fighter should always use their max weapon gimble to keep the angle between their speed and enemy aim line as large as possible. I was thinking the current design is to help players shoot down AI fighters, otherwise, current turrets will have next to zero chance to shoot down fighters. Except for the updated beam turrets, they are awesome.

Actually, no matter what size the ship is, the best moving/shotting strategy is the same, try to move on the circle which is formed by the target as the circle center and your turret Max range as the radius. This gives the ship the biggest strategy freedom, the ship could easily switch between engaging and departure.

capitalduty
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by capitalduty » Fri, 3. Dec 21, 23:39

Normally I tend to criticize a lot overall turreted ships behaviour, but after testing new beta 4.2 I can say it have been a long road but really now is working pretty well, congrats on egosoft team. I am not saying there is no room for improvement, quite the opposite, but I want to make clear that they keeping up a good work on it and now it shows.

Still I keep begging for proper custom turret firing priorities and pinpoint accuracy for 3D movement, but that is just a dream in somewhat distant future just my guess.

flywlyx
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Re: AI ships aren't even aware of their turret coverage, are they?

Post by flywlyx » Sat, 4. Dec 21, 04:56

capitalduty wrote:
Fri, 3. Dec 21, 23:39
Still I keep begging for proper custom turret firing priorities and pinpoint accuracy for 3D movement, but that is just a dream in somewhat distant future just my guess.
The current beam turret is pretty good, you could find the root issue is not the prediction, is the balance.
Since their AI pilots lack the real "dodge" ability in IS battle, but they have to meet the differences between IS vs OOS battle, I assume dev intended adding this inaccuracy to the game to meet OS behavior.

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