Idiots

[capitalduty]

Not true. If I drop a satellite or nav beacon, and tell my L freighter to move to it, it will practically bump into it. The problem is with the distance it drops out of travel drive before traveling the rest of the way 'slow boat'. It doesn't stop at your so-called "safe position".

The actual "fly to" command does send them to a random spot like an electron in a valence cloud, some fuzzy probability field near the spot you told it to go. You can see this if you watch them do the full command.
Supposedly, it is more "human-like." Other commands are more precise in regard to destination, but they do still drop out of travel drive early.

Can someone explain why "fly to" command cannot be as ping-point precise as possible? I mean games like HW and others can achieve this without any trouble...I don't understand why rng or imprecise commands are necessary in X4?.

[flywlyx]

The actual "fly to" command does send them to a random spot like an electron in a valence cloud, some fuzzy probability field near the spot you told it to go. You can see this if you watch them do the full command.
Supposedly, it is more "human-like." Other commands are more precise in regard to destination, but they do still drop out of travel drive early.

I have no clue why it is called "human-like", brain dead is not "human-like".
Any human licensed driver could park into a parking lot only 20% bigger than his car, while this "human-like" thing is designed to park within the space with a radius of 3 times longer than its ship.
It is nothing close to human, just a pointless excuse.

[builder680]

Egosoft designed artificial stupidity into its commands to be more "human like" and to allow "progression" based on its skill star system. It's basically the entire point of my rant in the op. It's aggravating design.

This post is what I think would be a better skill system if one must exist.

[Alan Phipps]

It often seems like half the posts on such topics say that stupidity is deliberately designed into low skill NPCs to make skill progression a gameplay target to achieve more competent NPC behaviour, yet the other half of posts say that achieving skill progression makes no difference at all in terms of NPC stupidity and competence. If both camps are mainly correct then it follows that the intended skill progression effect on NPC competence is somehow broken and needs some attention from the devs.

[builder680]

Basically, skill determines things like percentage distance from destination a ship leaves travel drive, percentage distance it will engage with its turrets assigned to a target type, turnaround to find new trade offers, repair speed, mining speed, and other stuff I'm not sure of. That's what I've read, anyway.

So, it does improve behavior, it's just that the pinnacle of five stars is what the default should be in the first place. Imo skill should give benefits other than basic functionality that had been deliberately hobbled until you got to five stars.

The AI is bad enough, it doesn't need made worse for every pilot not at five stars, which is most of them. How anyone thought this was a good idea on a team capable of creating such a good game baffles me. A lot of the game design baffles me tbh.

[Nanook]

I think we're discussing two different issues here. One has to do with how close the AI pilots its ships to the desired destination, the so-called 'safe position', and the other has to do with the point at which a ship drops out of travel drive and slow-boats its way to the final 'safe position'. It's the former that bugs me the most, not the latter. And from what I've observed with different level pilots, the dropping out of travel drive does not seem to be related to pilot skill, nor to the size of the ship.

Here's the typical scenario I've observed. I'll raid a build storage and drop a nav beacon nearby as a destination for my AI freighters. They'll then fly from another sector to that beacon. I may call both M- and L-class freighters with many different pilot skills. Yet they almost** invariably drop out of travel drive at close to the same spot, typically 40-50 km from the beacon, before preceding to the beacon.

**(I say "almost" because randomly and infrequently one of them will travel drive all the way to the beacon and instantly stop without apparent regard to pilot skill.)

[Zalzany]

The main issue is every one wants only the best pilots then try to confuse this with real life, its like um in real life I run into people every day who can't drive a car let along a ship size of football field or bigger, or a fighter plane. I mean it takes a ton of time and money in real life to train pilots to run fighters, but they keep going "well in real life any idiot could just hop in space ship and park it on a dime." Its like uh most people can't park SUV let alone a space ship lol. I am ex miltary the amount of money spent just on my basic is more then most employerers will ever pay, just like I enlisted to do avionics repair with a 6 months MOS school, I had to agree to a 6 min active duty contract because the insane amount of money US Army was gonna invest in me, its also why it was with out question after I got out, I could almost name my own price because I received more training and experince then any civil company could ever afford to spend on me.

Then complain about the fact there is ways to train them up, and they go "well its hard and expensive!" its like if we could buy 5 star pilots when we wanted it would cost a fortune. Ace pilots are crazy overpriced even in real life there is only hand full of them. Instead people want comercial grade rookie pilots to fly fighter ships and capital classes like they are seasoned veterns with 40 years of experince for like 6k hiring fee lol Crew should be expensive, it should be a huge problem unless you helped terrform a planet and built a pilot training school it should be crazy hard.

Early game you just farm missions for skill books, you can't afford 30 ships yet so you don't need 30 freaking ace pilots and if you can afford 30 freaking ships, you can afford to set up a boot camp of sorts and sick them on pirates or xenon incursions to train them. The idea you can just get ace pilots for free, is crazy. Meanwhile I can early game ace them out to at least 4 stars just by fixing satelites for Telradi trade guild lol. After that I just station new recruits with my aces, and do minor fights to train them. Its 100% realistic, I mean take civilians with no formal training they are gonna act like idiots they just bearly passed their pilot license exam lol. Its like expecting a 16 year old to handle pick up truck and trailor when they got maybe 20 driving hours stashed away and just bearly passed drivers test lol

Best case maybe we could get like in x3 a training station, in x3 I had to dump marines into a daycare and supply it with weapons and food and pay them to train my marines for me, it was not cheap, so if it came back in x4 people still complain when they want 30 ace pilots in 1 hour ready to go lol

[builder680]

The problem is "best" is basic functionality. There are no "ace" ai pilots in the game. They don't come in a scale from Rookie to Top Gun. They come in a scale from Brain-damaged Rabbit (0 stars) to Slightly-drunk Chimpanzee (5 stars). The best the AI has is basic functionality, and most ships spend most of the game with Pilots WELL below that threshold. I don't think this is a good system.

[flywlyx]

Then complain about the fact there is ways to train them up, and they go "well its hard and expensive!"

Nope, the "safe position" is built-in code and has nothing to do with pilot skill, nor the travel drive distance.
The only thing in moving command related to the pilot skill is the waiting time between sectors, which I don't believe anyone noticed since the biggest difference(Lv0 vs Lv15) is only 5s.
5 stars pilots are still braindead by the human standard is the problem here.

[Zalzany]

The problem is "best" is basic functionality. There are no "ace" ai pilots in the game. They don't come in a scale from Rookie to Top Gun. They come in a scale from Brain-damaged Rabbit (0 stars) to Slightly-drunk Chimpanzee (5 stars). The best the AI has is basic functionality, and most ships spend most of the game with Pilots WELL below that threshold. I don't think this is a good system.

Nope the problem is yet again you consider veteran skill level to be "basic." Same with other guy complaining about them what not parking a giant thing size of a football feild well. um yeah that is harder to do just saying I driven large non comercial vehichles with a simple trailer its harder then most people think, it takes practice or you just got settle. This don't change fact most the complaints are about how they act in combat or other situations were its far beyond "basics" your talking basics for a 10 year veteran, or some oen who trained for 3 years under one lol. If I put a guy rated to fly a single engine plane into a fighter jet, and told him to do an attack run, the odds of him even getting the damn thing to the target are slim to none let alone doing a good attack run lol

Same deal here, we get basic "I know how to fly, kind of I just got my licnesne today!" pilots and people are like "why they no like experts trained by greatest modern miltary? Why they know how to do perfect attack runs? Why they so clumsy and awkward?" Meanwhile they are like teenagers who just passed their drivers test, who hit curbs all the damn time, and still can't parallel park because it was never on their drivers test lol

Just like I said no people been driving for 30+ years who still don't know how to take turns worth a crap, or understand basic road laws lol I mean in real life the M classes would need something equal to a tug jsut to land worth a shit, that was guided by the station same way in rea life a ship needs a team of tugs to get it into port. Just be glad they didn't go that far, every time I hear you guys go on about "real life" its like in real life driving a L or XL woudl require completly diffrent set of skills and license lol

[flywlyx]

Same deal here, we get basic "I know how to fly, kind of I just got my licnesne today!" pilots and people are like "why they no like experts trained by greatest modern miltary? Why they know how to do perfect attack runs? Why they so clumsy and awkward?" Meanwhile they are like teenagers who just passed their drivers test, who hit curbs all the damn time, and still can't parallel park because it was never on their drivers test lol

5-star pilots are the best-piloting creatures on a whole planet. They win the title by being the winners in a planet-wise competition.
Your 30 years experience level should be 2~3 stars in the X4 universe, as an experienced worker, but 5-star should be planet-level geniuses.

[builder680]

We simply disagree Zalzany. My point is that there are no Ace Pilots in the game, and you believe that there are. I believe that the behaviors ships in-game show support my view but you are welcome to your opinion obviously.

[Zalzany]

We simply disagree Zalzany. My point is that there are no Ace Pilots in the game, and you believe that there are. I believe that the behaviors ships in-game show support my view but you are welcome to your opinion obviously.

The point is there is, your opinion just they should be even better. The worst of the ship behavior is from this game destorying CPUs in long hauls some things have to be watered down but i had had a 5, and a 1 star pilot there is huge diffrence in quailty. Issue is your trying to nit pick the most simple basic things on purpose. Your going out of your way to ignor facts and data that doesn't agree with you. Like the fact 5 star pilots react better in combat, perform better, just like they do better in trading and mining. Instead your going out of your way to find tiny little things like thye have trouble parking wich is kind more rare to see issues i only really see low skill S pilots have issue parking on stations, and that is only when I am close ot them when OOS they do great on their own.

I get you don't like my "opinion" but the fact remains in battle a 5 star with MORAL to match as that too effects how they perform and their over all pilot skill they act diffrently. Then tend to blow up less, and retreat less often or suicide, they can perform more advanced tasks as well. You haven't counted any of that real fact, minus trying to argue in your opinion its a fact there is no aces, but the data shows other wise. You see threads all over steam froums and here confirming 5 star pilots with good moral are way better in combat then 1 stars. Same station managers, and everything else. Just because you don't like the facts don't mean you can call them opinion and push them aside.

I mean your agurement is they should be running at optimal settings by defualt. But in reality some one with no skill is not gonna use their turrets worth a damn, some one with no skill or moral aka cofindence in themselves is not gonna fire from max range, and be successfull. The things you point out the AI do is all real stuff. In real life a novice is not gonna take a turn super hard in vehichle that can roll over. Like I use to drive in a Bronco II but I was cocky little bastard and I knew how far I could push it and keep all four wheels down, I did things that mathmatically it could do, but other drivers wouldn't dream of doing with out knowing the vehichle and being skilled enough. Or they would try and flip damn thing over or put it on 2 wheels and have a nice jump scare.

Same thing here, in miltary I knew the max range of my rifle but till I got familiar with it I wasn't gonna fire at max range with iron sites just because on paper i could lol. Same deal here, just because mas optimal range is x km in game doesn't mean the pilot feels cofident ordering the attack at that range. I mean crap the amount of people I saw suck with weapons in real life, like we learned how to use basic heavy weapons we had familiarity training day where I fired 50 call, and other machine guns, as well as grenade launcher, and a LAW missile launcher. So many were scared of a the 50 cal that was in damn stand bolted to the cement with a standard turret like you would see in a humvee. It had no recoil but the shots rattled you, and the noise was insanely loud so it frightend the hell out of people they were scared like it would kick back and slam into their chest, instead of just vibrate, as the bass from the ammo going off hit you like you were at a concert lol.

Same thing here. People just play games and assume "oh its basic combat is easy." Its like no no diffrence between a civy using miltary grade equipment and a trained ace is light and day. Like I seen people do ok with AR rifle, but after shit tone of money and use soliders in middle east had to have people show up to observe them because their headshot ratio was so high the UN was worried they were excuting enemies but instead they were just so damn good with the weapons and in real fight they heads stick out more then their center mass in a fight so you shoot at it instead. Its same thing here a one star has no clue what they are doing with miltary grade weapons, even if your the specs don't good with them, or making judgment calls when to shoot, when to not, when to engage travel drive etc etc.

[flywlyx]

i had had a 5, and a 1 star pilot there is huge diffrence in quailty.

It is only your imagination when we are talking about move command.
The only difference in the AI script is the waiting time between sectors, and the difference is only 5 seconds.
It is written as:

Code: Select all

 <wait max="(not $bigship) * (5.1 - (this.ship.pilot.skill.piloting / 3))s"/>

Other than this, lv0 or lv15 has no differences at all in moving behavior.

[Ragnos28]

I get you don't like my "opinion" but the fact remains in battle a 5 star with MORAL to match as that too effects how they perform and their over all pilot skill they act diffrently. Then tend to blow up less, and retreat less often or suicide, they can perform more advanced tasks as well. You haven't counted any of that real fact, minus trying to argue in your opinion its a fact there is no aces, but the data shows other wise. You see threads all over steam froums and here confirming 5 star pilots with good moral are way better in combat then 1 stars. Same station managers, and everything else. Just because you don't like the facts don't mean you can call them opinion and push them aside.

These are 5 star pilots using "coordinate attack": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O9Q5dXb77s&t=251s
These are other clips were I made a point in showing the pilots skills before engagement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMJTqHbJnAY&t=1380s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQQrinUcvvk&t=508s
Same ships, same pilots.

[Pares]

...

Is X4 realistic? No. Should the game be believable? Yes. Is it believable, that powerful warships costing millions of credits are commanded by utterly incompetent morons who can't execute even the simplest commands? No. Should the game be fun? Yes. Is Space Idiocracy simulation fun? No.

Stop comparing X4 to real life. People play games to escape real life. The decision to dumb down the AI decision making for the sake of this frustrating, grindy, tedious half-baked skill system was incredibly stupid. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to make their already barely capable AI even worse?! The lack of tools to manage and train pilots effectively makes the whole thing even worse. It's a huge mistake Egosoft has to learn from. And if they want to implement an experience/skill progression system, there are plenty good and working examples as to how to do it right. Hint: not by shooting your AI algorithms in the leg.

Honestly (here I go again) what I personally would like to see instead of the current completetly black box implementation is a clearly communicated and simple trait based system. After a few battles a pilot might gain the "Battle-hardened" trait which gives the piloted ship +X% HP. After a few trading runs a pilot might gain the "Well connected" trait making all his/her trades +X% more profitable. A captain piloting a builder ship could gain the "Master builder" trait accelerating station build speed by +X%. You get the basic idea. Would it be realistic? Maybe not in every case, no. Is ship HP realistic? No. Is it still in the game for gameplay reasons? Yes.

There would be not star ratings so commands would be unlocked by purchasable, researchable, plot reward or lootable software.

I have to say the fact that they didn't touch the most complained about mechanic in the game in any meaningful way since release doesn't make me very hopeful about Egosoft's viewpoint on the issue. But then again they did update the Paranid ships, so...

[builder680]

@Ragnos28

You should dub highway to the danger zone over those clips LOL

[GCU Grey Area]

These are 5 star pilots using "coordinate attack": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O9Q5dXb77s&t=251s
These are other clips were I made a point in showing the pilots skills before engagement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMJTqHbJnAY&t=1380s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQQrinUcvvk&t=508s
Same ships, same pilots.

You need to give them better orders. A vague order to attack that thing over there is not enough. They work much better if you give them clear orders, including where you want them to attack from. That's where the difference between fully trained destroyer captains & 0* Piloting/0* Morale captains becomes readily apparent. Still need to keep an eye on them & be ready to order ships back into the firing line if they become a bit too enthusiastic (particularly against non-Xenon stations, where the margin for error is much lower), however with properly trained captains this becomes the exception rather than the rule.

[Ragnos28]

@Ragnos28

You should dub highway to the danger zone over those clips LOL

Yeap...must be that morale thing Zalzany was talking about

[Ragnos28]

These are 5 star pilots using "coordinate attack": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O9Q5dXb77s&t=251s
These are other clips were I made a point in showing the pilots skills before engagement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMJTqHbJnAY&t=1380s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQQrinUcvvk&t=508s
Same ships, same pilots.

You need to give them better orders. A vague order to attack that thing over there is not enough. They work much better if you give them clear orders, including where you want them to attack from. That's where the difference between fully trained destroyer captains & 0* Piloting/0* Morale captains becomes readily apparent. Still need to keep an eye on them & be ready to order ships back into the firing line if they become a bit too enthusiastic (particularly against non-Xenon stations, where the margin for error is much lower), however with properly trained captains this becomes the exception rather than the rule.

@GCU, my dude, I gave 5 star pilots the best posible option for them..."coordinate attack".
"They work much better if you give them clear orders, including where you want them to attack from"...it is irelevent from where they will atack, because they will rarely keep their distance. Because artillery, in X4, NEED to hug targets for some reason.
"Still need to keep an eye on them" by that you mean, by any chance, the "flee" command that is interpreted, by 5 stars pilots as well, as use thrusters that drain shields and go as fast as you can towards the graviton turret that fire at them?

I have a test for you, take your destroyers with 5 stars captains and order them, with "coordinate attack" or not, to atack a xenon SPP and make a clip of it, to test that exception rather than the rule thing.

Coincidentally, I'm in a process of making a clip in which I go to a xenon defence station, save, fire my 5 stars destroyer captains, go to a station and hire 1 star pilots put them in charge and order them to atack. After, I give the same atack orders to 5 stars captains, to see the outcome.