What should A pilots stars actually represent.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Some thoughts and suggestions for pilot rankings.

The attempt to make the 1 -> 4 star pilots dumber, seems to have failed. Hence the disappearance of the "Waggle Dancing" L sized combat ships.

1) The one star pilot is competant. The seminar (a computer brain inteface) transfers all the necessary learning to fly any ship type. What they lack is experience.
2) The changes to AI need to reflect a growing level of experience. These should be positive improvements not negative.
3) Without at least one star no NPC should be allowed to lift off. You can put them on the ship, but they can't leave until they have that first star.
4) When buying a ship the pilot should always come with at least one star.
5) One star pilots should be commonplace on all stations.

Combat

As a pilot improves with combat experience:
1) They should gain access to better manoeuvers
2) They should get more hits on target.
3) They should NOT hit the ship they are attacking, pulling up in sufficient time to turn away, and start another attack run.
4) Fleets of L size ships, should start attacking all targets from a distance using their main batteries.
5) The more experienced pilots will take out sub-systems (engines, turrets and shields.)

Experience Adds Additional Rewards

At levels 3, 4 and 5 the pilot should get additional "rewards" my suggestion here is the ship gets a free modification. In addition to any existing mods on the ship they are piloting.

a) The three star pilot gets a free basic mod.
b) The four star pilot a free basic and enhanced mod.
c) The five star pilot gets a free basic, enhanced and exceptional mod.

I am suggesting this, rather than having something like a direct increase in damage, speed or protection.

[Pares]

The question is how is decision making, pathfinding and manoeuvring ability affected by the AI. If the 5 star pilot represents the absolute pinnacle of current NPC capabilities, then you cannot make him/her better, only dumber, which seems to be what is happening in the game. If we don't want the to see the badly simulated incompetence in the game, then you have to give the 5 star capibilities to NPCs, and differentiate experience differently, which is very much possible.

[af_2017]

I would like to know what do exactly pilot star represent now, in current implementation.

Yes, sure, I can spend weeks in the game making tests with 1-5 star pilots in all kind of ships in all possible scenarios but I am not really sure that I want to do that and I do not want to consider the activity as a game content.

So yet again the problem is that players do not know what the stars do , well, except obvious cases like setting behaviors.

Adding transparency to the area in the game would be nice. Thanks in advance egosoft!

[Pares]

I would like to know what do exactly pilot star represent now, in current implementation.

Yes, sure, I can spend weeks in the game making tests with 1-5 star pilots in all kind of ships in all possible scenarios but I am not really sure that I want to do that and I do not want to consider the activity as a game content.

So yet again the problem is that players do not know what the stars do , well, except obvious cases like setting behaviors.

Adding transparency to the area in the game would be nice. Thanks in advance egosoft!

Fully agree with that.

[EGO_Aut]

More info viewtopic.php?p=4971597#p4971597

[Clownmug]

Available behavior options and fleet formations. If you worry about the other stuff that may or may not affect aiscripts you're wasting your time and energy.

[Pares]

More info viewtopic.php?p=4971597#p4971597

That is nice, but that topic is still just a speculation about what these configuration settings actually do. Not to mention that e.g. "reactiontime" appears twice in different context with different values, and as mentioned in the topic, some of this code may not even be in use.

One thing I found interesting though, that skills already seem to affect ship stats?! For example "strafespeed" and "steeringspeed" seems to suggest it. Also apparently pilot race influences fighting styles? That would be logical, but how would you discover this during the game without absolutely no hint about it? That is the problem, this is a core part of the game, and yet it is a complete black box to the player.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Possible Improvements in the combat AI.

While dog fighting several L sized ships with a wing of M class corvettes, I did notice that they appeared to be attacking turrets and shields. Difficult to tell if this was intentional.

However there was still a lot of shooting from too far away, and head butting of targets. Why I suggested that better pilots would avoid doing this.

Given that combat is such an integral part of the game, I had thought that more people would have ideas on how a pilot progressed through the ranks.

[mr.WHO]

I ask myself if system is broken, because I have absolutely no incentive to waste 4 and 5 star pilots for S and M ships.

You would need days to grind them to that level, but you can loose them in mere seconds.

[af_2017]

Possible Improvements in the combat AI.

While dog fighting several L sized ships with a wing of M class corvettes, I did notice that they appeared to be attacking turrets and shields. Difficult to tell if this was intentional.

Looking how lets say 20 ships shoot at the same place I barely can imagine that it is unintentional.
Disabling turrets and shields first actually makes sense. As opposite they could shoot at target center with obviously less efficiency.

However there was still a lot of shooting from too far away, and head butting of targets. Why I suggested that better pilots would avoid doing this.

Given that combat is such an integral part of the game, I had thought that more people would have ideas on how a pilot progressed through the ranks.

I think this is not problem of AI ranks but problem of ships design itself.
For example if I would have weapon which shoot at narrow angle then why would I put powerful forward thrusters and weak strafe ones?
I think it is quite obvious that for best efficiency it should be vice versa to make it easier for the ship to orbit target keeping it in the fire cone.
And piloting skills does not make much sense here, you as a human with the best skills can try to apply the strategy, its appliance is quite limited by ship's engines.
Considering all these and current state of the things in the game I am pretty sure that AI performs not that bad

Applying more accurate flying as you suggest potentially will reduce ships dps since the ships will spend less time on target and more avoiding collisions. And combat will look like ships flying here and there instead of shooting. I am sure that will not make us happy either.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@af_2017

Interesting points. I think the head butting is most noticeable during boarding operations. Where it also looks the most ridiculous.

I have several times been shaving hull from an L ship when an M ship of mine has collided and pushed the L ship away. Frankly its annoying and silly.

Also when I am in the middle of boarding, I have noticed Faction S and M ships (that are ruining my boarding by the way,) start runs too far out, fire early, miss lots and then slam into the target.

[oddible]

I can tell you, as someone who has managed a very large team, that the expectations of X players that everyone should be able to get to 4 and 5 stars is completely unrealistic. Most people hover around a 2 and many peak at 3. There are very rare folks who really excel well enough that I would call a 4 but usually they're 3's that just had a moment where they were exceptional. A consistent 4 is pretty rare IRL. A consistent 5 is a unicorn, they don't exist. So an X universe where most are 1s, 2s, and 3s, where you have your fleet admirals as your 4s and 5s and maybe only 2-3 of them in your entire game is pretty spot on. What would be super cool is if there were more hierarchy. So if you had a fleet captain they impart some skill to those below them but it maxes out at a certain number of people - so you have to have middle management. Ideally both in fleets and in station managers.

This is apparently my 666th post.