Spinning battleships

[Poacher886]

So ive seemed to have noticed an issue that has occurred more than once now, on the map screen, battleships come into contact and then decide to spin around like battle tops, those old enough to remember that!, they quite literally, spin around constantly doing no damage at all.

I cant confirm if this is happening in first person as im not close enough to them to confirm..

[dtpsprt]

They try to bring their turrets to bear but with their slow turn rate and the turret's (still slow) turn rate all they manage to do is "dance" like Turkish Dervishes

EDIT: Quick Solution to this is to have only their L Turrets (Plasma) on "Attack all Capitals" and their M Turrets (Flak or Pulse) to "Attack Fighters"

[LameFox]

The map spinning is a very old bug. I have read that it is unrelated to low damage OOS, even though it does often feel like they occur together.

[Imperial Good]

Almost certainly is related to low attention damage issues as destroyers have most of their damage pointing forward. At least that is what it seems like to me.

The issue is due to leading their course to intercept the target. Due to having infinite rotation speed and acceleration in low attention there is no dampening factor so when two destroyers try to intercept each other they get into an unstable oscillation. Capping low attention turn speeds would dampen this enough that it should no longer happen, at least to such an extreme. Another solution would be to disable intercept logic when within practical range, with instead the ship optimising its rotation for maximum effectiveness. Destroyers with batteries in range should point forward at target rather than where target is heading or trying to orbit the target.

[CBJ]

Almost certainly is related to low attention damage issues as destroyers have most of their damage pointing forward.

Again, no it isn't. It's a purely visual issue on the map.

[Imperial Good]

It was the case in 4.10 and older versions where I could increase damage against a Destroyer I or stations by parking destroyers facing it. 1 Asgard and 5 Syns attacking a Destroyer I. Destroyer I main shield was not taking significant damage and was regenerating over time. Manually parking the Syns to face at the Destroyer I while the Asgard was distracted with it (suffering oscillation/dance bug discussed above) resulted in the Destroyer I starting to lose shields. Eventually the I was starting to dance out of range on the Y axis so I ordered them to attack again, Destroyer I began regenerating shield again over time, despite having all its surface elements now stripped off it at this stage. At that stage I resorted to in sectoring it to finish it. Maybe it was some other issue causing attack order to not factor in forward damage correctly, however it certainly did statistically show that forward damage worked better when manually ordered to face the target in low attention than letting them attack it normally.

I cannot confirm if this is still the case in 4.20 yet. Destroyer Is deal so much damage now the fight has to end fast and there is little time to micro like I did back in 4.10. However from my rough testing against one in the beta using 9 Syns they will almost one shot the Destroyer I's shield, start to oscillate/dance and then do very little damage to it until the Destroyer I kills them all over a minute as it slowly regenerates shield and all ships oscillate. I am aware there there is meant to be a "burst" damage mechanic, but given that there are 9 Syns attacking it the sustained damage should be more than enough to melt a Destroyer I. This was not the latest beta version so that might have been fixed as well, I will need to test this again.

[Poacher886]

ive also noticed the inability of the AI to protect its systems...

frequently an Xenon i will enter the system alone, for one it does not seem to target stations much or go on the rampage throughout the system, but just sits around knocking out traders and alike as they pass..and they do?

Worse still, rather than the systems defences all mass together , battle ships en' all, the decend on said threat, they just send the odd fighter or two, which do nothing but get killed! i rarely see the full might or even a creditable defence put up, and often any destroyers sent to deal with the issue have real trouble making contact as they are too slow to catch up.

I would have expected ALL ships of war to make a b-line for the threat, with perhaps a few small patrols left to deal with other sector issues..