Why are capital ships so bad at aligning their main battery towards the target?

[FatalKeks]

Why are capital ships so bad at aligning their main battery towards the target, especially at close range?
Seriously, this is sooooo frustrating. 5 Syns vs 1 Xenon K and the Syns just don't align/use their main battery and die one by one. What is the technical problem here? I really would like to know, since fighters align just fine.
It would be such a pleasure to see this fixed.

[GCU Grey Area]

If the K's close enough that they're dying one by one, they're in panic mode. What they're trying to do is get further away from the K, well outside it's turret range, to where they'll have the advantage. This is why they're not pointing their main guns towards the K - makes it hard to retreat when engines are pointing in the wrong direction.

Best thing to do is not let them get into that situation in the first place. All of my war fleets include a carrier (usually the command vessel). Fighters aboard the carrier fall into two categories. Heavy fighters to harass & distract enemy capitals (& if they get lucky maybe smash it's engines or other subsystems), along with fast, agile interceptors to protect the heavies from enemy fighters. Most of the time enemy capitals don't get anywhere near my destroyers, there's just too much stuff for them to have to wade through first before they can even think of shooting at them. Meanwhile my destroyers have the range advantage...

[FatalKeks]

Thanks for the tips.

I would like to see a "do not retreat" option (maybe with the requirement of at least 3 stars or even 4 stars in morale), since the "retreating" only makes it worse . If they would just shoot it, the K would go down in no time (in a 5v1 Situation or even 3v1). They are too slow to get away anyway.

In my opinion the retreating isn't working very well, especially if the K/I is moving.

[Mightysword]

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not ... but I miss the X2 design philosophy where capital ships were pretty much turret exclusive. 'till this day I'm curious about what prompt the decision to switch to the "main forward batteries" design we have starting X3. I remember back then capital ships were actually reliable and competent in the hand of the AI, and usually you will only lose one to straight up superior fire power. But ever since X3 placing your capital ships in the AI is a constant source of "just lost my destroyers to something really dumb" story. It almost feels like the game take what the AI sucks the most in handling a capital ship, and change the designs to specifically magnify that weakness.

[LameFox]

I don't remember that being much of an issue in X3, their destroyers were usually forward-heavy but still using turrets. Having fixed forward guns was more of a frigate thing.

[Mightysword]

The design direction had already started though. All fighters classes got a massive boost to forward firing power, and the M6's change was even more radical. It basically went from a gunboat combat model in X2 into pretty much a heavy bomber role with massive forward firing power in X3. The destroyer in X4 basically continue that trench.

[j.harshaw]

'till this day I'm curious about what prompt the decision to switch to the "main forward batteries" design we have starting X3.

From a game design perspective, this is because forward weapons give the player a tool that they can directly use, and that's always directed towards where they're looking. There were attempts at shifting it more towards turret gameplay with an emphasis on maneuver, ships like the Syn and the Erlking, but there's still the occasional post about how the Erlking's main gun sucks or how they wish it were more like the Asgard. Some people get it, some don't. With the number and variety of ships we've added over time, hopefully there's something for everyone at this point.

Note that you do have the option of deactivating your ships' main guns. I find that useful in some situations.

[Mightysword]

From a game design perspective, this is because forward weapons give the player a tool that they can directly use, and that's always directed towards where they're looking.

I feel X2 and X3 already achieved that to a much better decree by allowing the players to jump into different turrets. The player can choose to be the pilot and let the AI handle the firing, or let the AI guide the ship when we do the shooting. That's more option and IMO also a lot more interactive then the current iteration in X4 when we're either playing passenger, or assume almost full control (pilot the ship and firing the main gun.

There were attempts at shifting it more towards turret gameplay with an emphasis on maneuver, ships like the Syn and the Erlking, but there's still the occasional post about how the Erlking's main gun sucks or how they wish it were more like the Asgard. Some people get it, some don't. With the number and variety of ships we've added over time, hopefully there's something for everyone at this point.

My concern was more on the AI side of thing, but the AI. Like I said, X2's AI had no problem handle capital ship combat and do it very decently (outside the use of strafe drive, which was so OP it was essentially a player's cheat). They were also pretty decent in X3 even with the introduction Newton's physic. But even then, the issue with forward mounting gun was a thing even with fighters (getting too close or bumping to their target), X4 just basically transfer that problem into capital ships (and make it worse because they lack the agility of fighter to quickly rectify the issue).

The point is I feel the AI can be decent if the combat design are suitable, even if their skill level is the same as it is now. For example, I feel the AI will perform much better if the ship designs have similar layout to this. I think the main issue with capital ship pretty much root from their inability to align and training their main gun, which affect almost everything else. (like getting closer then they have to, or bumbling into other ships). A turret design like in the pic will put less emphasize on orientation, and allow the AI to effective bring most of their fire power to bear in most circumstances.

Note that you do have the option of deactivating your ships' main guns. I find that useful in some situations.

Will this make the AI stop trying to align the forward battery?

[j.harshaw]

Note that you do have the option of deactivating your ships' main guns. I find that useful in some situations.

Will this make the AI stop trying to align the forward battery?

Yup. I don't have the code open since it's two in the morning, so not sure if you'll have to deactivate weapons before the ship starts combat or if it'll adjust if they're deactivated while the ship's already in combat. Think it's the latter.

[Slashman]

Note that you do have the option of deactivating your ships' main guns. I find that useful in some situations.

Will this make the AI stop trying to align the forward battery?

Yup. I don't have the code open since it's two in the morning, so not sure if you'll have to deactivate weapons before the ship starts combat or if it'll adjust if they're deactivated while the ship's already in combat. Think it's the latter.

Huh...that's interesting to note. I never thought of doing that myself.

[FatalKeks]

I'm actually fine with the main battery beeing important. As far as I can tell by now, the actuall problem is not the aligning but the initial approach, overshooting the optimal firing distance and then trying to gain distance again and then realign. This takes a lot of time for big, slow ships.

For a player it is obvious, that in a 5v1 situation it would be better to just shoot the target even at close range. Maybe the ships should consider their advantage in combined firepower compared to the target before deciding to initiate a repositioning maneuver. In 90% of the cases this withdrawal/repositioning only makes things worse at least against Xenon.

In summary there are 3 things to improve:

1. Initial approach (prevent overshooting)
2. Decision making regarding repositioning/withdrawal
3. Alignment speed towards target

[flywlyx]

If the K's close enough that they're dying one by one, they're in panic mode. What they're trying to do is get further away from the K, well outside it's turret range, to where they'll have the advantage. This is why they're not pointing their main guns towards the K - makes it hard to retreat when engines are pointing in the wrong direction.

It is not about K's turrets' range, it is their own weapon range.
All capital ships with weapons will try to fight outside around 50%(depending on pilots' level) of their weapon range, so for Syn, that number is 5km.

Best thing to do is not let them get into that situation in the first place. All of my war fleets include a carrier (usually the command vessel). Fighters aboard the carrier fall into two categories. Heavy fighters to harass & distract enemy capitals (& if they get lucky maybe smash it's engines or other subsystems), along with fast, agile interceptors to protect the heavies from enemy fighters. Most of the time enemy capitals don't get anywhere near my destroyers, there's just too much stuff for them to have to wade through first before they can even think of shooting at them. Meanwhile my destroyers have the range advantage...

And it will work even better with the new bombardment group, until Ego is smart enough to put all of Xenon's capital into the bombardment group, players could enjoy butchering Xenon capitals for a while.

In my opinion the retreating isn't working very well, especially if the K/I is moving.

I think this is the corrective measure they put to solve their capital ships' station-embracing problem. But clearly, they forget to distinguish the target.
K is way faster than most destroyers, running away is never an option. They will get butchered one by one like this:https://youtu.be/GWxYGQXullU

[A5PECT]

I think destroyer AI should just have the "minimum firing distance" part of their behavior removed. That kind of repositioning during an engagement is rarely, if ever, a desirable course of action.

It doesn't matter how many stars its captain has, an npc-controlled destroyer will not gain any tactical advantage trying to maneuver away from an enemy capital ship after they've begun exchanging fire. That's just not how destroyers are currently designed.

I'd rather capital ships continuously attack until they receive new orders or are destroyed. When a Xenon K is bearing down on one of my behemoths, I already know I'm going to lose that destroyer. Rather than the behemoth squirming around trying to reposition itself to less than no effect, I want it to keep firing and go down getting as much damage on the K as possible before it goes down

[As25]

2 Things I wish Egosoft would do about this.

1: Make it so after destroyers get into their fire range, they fire their main gun at the target no matter what. No reposition, no evasive maneuvers. These ships turn at like 2° per second. Just have them sit there at 0 m/s and fire. That's it. That's all they need to do. Better having them dying doing damage than trying to run away ignoring the fact that they don't have the speed and agility to do so. Plus, them sitting at 0 m/s makes it easier for the M turrets to track fighters.

2: Add a "gunboat" variant for destroyers. The idea of having main guns is good for the player, but as it was point out, it was a bad move for AI piloted ships. Add a second line of destroyers with no main battery but more L turrets. For example, for the Argons we have the Behemoth as it is, and we could have the Titan with 0 guns, but maybe 4 L turrets or something like that.

[abc0000]

They just need to make 2 different behavior patterns for Destroyers with and without main mains

The current pattern is only suitable for destroyers without main guns

For destroyers with a main battery, they need to teach the destroyers to use strafe and reverse, when the distance to the target becomes the maximum distance from the main battery distance + 10-20%, the ship should stop maneuvering and start aiming the main battery at the target, then only strafes and movements forward - backward until the moment the target is destroyed, or there is no panic due to morale (running attempt) or accept a move order from the player.