What are the AI issues, specifically?

[S!rAssassin]

In terms of all factions needing battleships. I don't think I agree. I think it makes more sense to keep the XL category of ships focused on being support ships, while the actual fighting is done by more agile weapons platforms.

Battleships can tanks enemy’s firing, providing cover for carriers and destroyers... We don’t have powerful missile weapons for L/XL and fighting focused to artillery, so armor is important as weapons. Destroyers haven’t survivability against L-artillery.
No need to take military as dumb men...

[EGO_Aut]

In terms of all factions needing battleships. I don't think I agree. I think it makes more sense to keep the XL category of ships focused on being support ships, while the actual fighting is done by more agile weapons platforms.

Battleships can tanks enemy’s firing, providing cover for carriers and destroyers... We don’t have powerful missile weapons for L/XL and fighting focused to artillery, so armor is important as weapons. Destroyers haven’t survivability against L-artillery.
No need to take military as dumb men...

L and XL combat and pathfinding is broken, no need to go bigger. First ES has to fix that. Torpedos are powerful, defence stations are powerful, like they should be. But ships can only carry small amounts.
Asgard maingun, and Erlking turrets are like cheating.

But combat would be more interesting with 10x more shield (L,XL ships) and structure HP (defence modules). The battles would be longer and more tactical.

[A5PECT]

Destroyers are good at attacking stations, so there is a strategic role for them in the game.

Here's a crazy idea people will probably get mad at me for: what if instead of adding more points of failure (and resource demands on the game and hardware) to destroyer AI in an attempt to make it smarter, we made destroyer fight scripts dumber instead? Destroyers as they are designed don't have the maneuverability to make complex maneuvers in AI hands. They don't even have enough agility to correct simple errors in spacing and positioning. Time spent trying is missing out on damage they could be dealing with their forward guns.

0) attack order is received
1) fly towards target
2) when target enters maximum weapon range, stop
3) fire forward guns
4a) target is destroyed, stop firing
4b) I am destroyed, stop firing
4c) new order is received, stop firing

Retreating or even repositioning during an engagement isn't an option: destroyers in AI hands don't have the turn rate, acceleration, top speed, or travel drive charge rate to outrun anything once they come under fire. If their target closes in while the destroyer is attacking: keep attacking. Trying to turn and run only results in the destroyer getting shot in the back while it tries to charge its travel drive, which is constantly prevented by it getting shot in the back. The only way out of the situation for the destroyer is over the enemy's dead body. They can decide whether to pick another target or withdraw from the fight between engagements.

The firing angle scripts are moot on a destroyer with forward guns. At the maximum range of destroyer main batteries, their target will turn to face the attacking destroyer by the time the first main battery shot to travel from the attacker to the target. Even before that, the attacking drstroyer will often waste time turning to orient its forward guns after placing itself on the "weak side" of its target.

Again, if you want more movement in AI capital ship battles, create ships for the AI that align with the AI's capabilities. Analyzing targets for weakest facing, putting itself in a position to exploit that weakness, and - especially - attempting to maintain that point in relative space as it moves based on the target's positioning is a task for a type of capital ship that does not yet exist in (unmodified) X4.

[Blackbirdx61]

Dear Devs: Stupidity is not a Feature.
I know many others have tried, I know they have failed. I really should just uninstall X4 and go to Eve or Elite but there are some good things about this game, but its a Love/Hate relationship for sure. ..

Ok the Movement commands are a mess, as the OP points out sometimes, the AI wont use Travel drive when it should but my experience has been the AI overpowers every thing its trying to do badly. So today I am trying to siege a Station, I have a very narrow window where I can do damage, but not get killed. I try to bring a 2nd Destroyer up, just move it Just one Length, It turns hard right, and shoots off into space, Why? There is no way that if I want a ship to move 300m forward its best course is to Sheer Right and Fly off into space before maybe coming back to that mark, if it survives.

Now I used to live on Laird Street in Buffalo, My Best Friend lived on Crowley on Block over. If I was to tell your AI take me to Wayne's house, it would shoot off for the Thruway, Engage travel Drive, Race to Rochester NY 100 Miles away, Fly back, overshoot the landing and wind up on Hertle 2 miles from where it started. At which point I would be calling Wayne to tell him I can't make it over because the AI in the New Car, got my Vehicle Wrecked on Hertle. Is it just me, or is it not one of the very simplest programing skills any game programmer must have to move a Sprite, and Icon, a square. One step on the grid; but your guys can't do that. And is it Really so amazingly hard to get the computer to go at a speed appropriate for the distance one intends to Travel, and or still has to go.

I had to laydown a cordon of Laser towers before attacking, because this station has Hundreds of Defense Drones, Maybe 1000, I'm pretty sure its cranking them out during the fight to replace its losses. Again I have to micro this on my own ship, because to get a tight cordon I have to be going between 40/60 Meter per sec, and if I leave it to the AI it will be going at least 250 meters per sec. Then when If I get a ship into that sweet spot its 4Star Captain will not engage without Charging in. He's got 4Stars, so he should be able to use the full range of his weapons. But he Doesn't

I lost an Oddy, because somehow, the AI decided it needed to Flee from a Drone, I swear I am not making this up, I could not make this up.
So my Oddy, decided is needs to Flee from a Drone, like a man running from a Hornet; And runs straight at the Stations Defense platform. Incinerated in Sec.... Over all after 3 restarts, I lost at least 4 Oddy's in various ways to the AI, not once to the enemy doing something you would expect, not once for a reasonable tactical reason. Each and Everytime because the AI kicked and did something Suicidality Stupid. I would not think you could code in a death wish but you all seem to have succeeded at that project. But But But, see that's another opportunity for you as a Player to be the Hero. If all your Captains are complete Idiots You! and Only You!! can save the Galaxy Yeah!!!!!!!!

Excuse me, Why do we even need fleets if one and only One Pilot, the Player. Can be expected to act with the Least bit of Sense? No, Ok Please, Pretty Pls, there is no excuse in this moment in time when AI is exploding all around us, for your AI to always do the Dumbest thing Possible. And I am Quite sure this is intended, it simply can't be random. It can't be Random that if the least competent Human Pilot imaginable in a given moment with a given choice would still pick A, and your AI processes that information and will ALWAYS pick Z. Is always 180' out of phase with the least bit of judgement. Oh a Drone is attacking me let me run towards the Mega Plasma Cannon!!. Which as I said literally happened today.

Item: Facing, Why is it I can't order a ship to Face, X -X, Z, -Z no to get a ship faced the proper way I most order it to move, Order it to come back along the line I want it facing. Pray it stops where it's supposed to, watch it fail, Slam my head against my Desk 11 Times and Try again.
Again, is not Facing something kids teach themselves out of Game Programming Books in Grade School, before there even begin formal Computer Science Training?? So why can't we do this Elementary thing?

It's not just that I don't want to have to Micro every ship in my Fleet. Its that I can't If I tell a ship or Group of ships go to point A. The Larger the Ship the better the Chance it will slide past the point and into Trouble. Ok just Tell it to Go to B, if you want it to go to C, and hope it Slides into C, problem Solved. ... No, ok No, If I tell a ship to Go From A to B that should be the end of it, I should have no reason to Doubt that ship will stop on B! Again that is like something a Kid in 7th Grade programming his first game would get Right. Why do you guys get this wrong?? Ship ordered to B should always land on B no Excuses, no well we have to Calculate Weight Velocity, 100K other Variables so it never happens that a ship actually lands where you tell it to go.

Its a Game!! Simplify your model and remember people don't really care about your Formula under the hood, but the damn well do care about the result. Right now, trying to Micro my ships into a position, is rather like trying to drive a nail with a Sledge Hammer. Well don't Micro put things in the hands of your painfully incompetent pilots. Ok we are back at square one and we have already covered that blunder.

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So long as I have your attention for a moment, Item: Why can't my L class ships use Torpedos Oh but they have heavy Dumbfires. Which have virtually no pop and are useless. But But But if Big ships could use Torpedos Frigates would have no reason to Exist. .. True, Sorry for the Frigates, but that's a BS Reason, and there really is no Good one. Ok we need the ability to use Torpedo's on any Large ship for Bombardment purposes, they are the only weapon in the game with the Range and Pop you really need to get this right.

Item: Bombardment does not mean attack Capital Ships, not in English. We do need a proper Bombard Command, we do need to be able to Tell our L and XL Class ships to Stand off and "Bombard" A Station, or Big ship from Max Range with it's Big Guns. You see that is what the Word Means. And we need to be able to do that.. God we have needed a Stand off and Fire command for years. I know others have Begged for one, ... Na, but Look the Boron have a new Fished Shaped Fighter, doesn't that make you happy!!! No, Please at least add Stations to the current Definition.

Station Sieging is such a basic part of this game, so why are our tools for doing this basic thing so bloody Awful? Again that has to be intended. Lil Clue, your job as Dev is not to maximize a players chance of failure when ever possible. It is to create an environment, for the game to be played in...

Lastly, Here is a little Mark to Aim for Going forward, If the Stupidest Person you know would not do something,
because he's just not that Dumb. Your AI should not do that Dumb thing Either.

[LameFox]

Another AI thing I'd forgotten about until recently: the Tide, and "critical orders".

Both things will arbitrarily kill ships because of quirks of the AI. A ship docking or undocking when hailed by pirates cannot comply or otherwise respond, so it just fails to notice them and dies. Likewise it misses Tide warnings, and dies. If it misses the initial Tide warning and flies in, it dies. I'm sure there are people who would defend this because they just feel ships ought to drop dead sometimes, but in my view this is exactly how that should not happen. There's no in game reason why your radio doesn't work while you undock, or why you don't see all the traffic waiting outside Avarice, and proceed on to your death like someone going the wrong way down a crowded highway in a disaster movie.

These are not good reasons for ships to die, they're just the AI being bad. Pirates should not be able to hail during critical orders if critical orders have to exist at all (I really wish they didn't). Tide warnings should happen more frequently than 10 minutes before and then "too late, you're dead".

[Zironic]

Another AI thing I'd forgotten about until recently: the Tide, and "critical orders".

Both things will arbitrarily kill ships because of quirks of the AI. A ship docking or undocking when hailed by pirates cannot comply or otherwise respond, so it just fails to notice them and dies. Likewise it misses Tide warnings, and dies. If it misses the initial Tide warning and flies in, it dies. I'm sure there are people who would defend this because they just feel ships ought to drop dead sometimes, but in my view this is exactly how that should not happen. There's no in game reason why your radio doesn't work while you undock, or why you don't see all the traffic waiting outside Avarice, and proceed on to your death like someone going the wrong way down a crowded highway in a disaster movie.

These are not good reasons for ships to die, they're just the AI being bad. Pirates should not be able to hail during critical orders if critical orders have to exist at all (I really wish they didn't). Tide warnings should happen more frequently than 10 minutes before and then "too late, you're dead".

Tide seems more like a player problem then AI problem to me. You're given tools to make your ships immune to the tide (Hazard immunity mods). Pilots being too dumb to survive the tide is a vital part of the avarice recycling economy. A quality of life improvement however would be to make the Riptide ships immune to hazards by default to save you from having to hazard mod all your manticores.

[LameFox]

Tide seems more like a player problem then AI problem to me. You're given tools to make your ships immune to the tide (Hazard immunity mods). Pilots being too dumb to survive the tide is a vital part of the avarice recycling economy. A quality of life improvement however would be to make the Riptide ships immune to hazards by default to save you from having to hazard mod all your manticores.

I mean if they want to have a hazard that unpredictably kills things, there have got to be better ways to do it that look more like an immersive part of a game and less like a dumb AI not getting the memo that was explicitly included so it wouldn't die. As it is, it looks to me like oversights that have not been fixed rather than intent.

Ship modding also does not really scale well and seems like something that is not meant to scale well. Though the player can, of course, simply not use S or M ships, as with kha'ak.

[blackphoenixx]

One that just popped up again so i remembered it: ships set to protect another ship don't defend themselves if they get attacked even if set to retaliate.
They just ignore the attack as long as their defense target isn't shot at (and in the case of the Nemesis escorting my L miner get slowly shot to bits by tiny Khaak force it could've killed in seconds ).

Needless to say that's a really frustrating kind of AI fail, and i've yet to find a decent workaround.
Also "intercept for commander" doesn't work properly when the commander is moving which was one of the workarounds i tried.

Also why do ships using the "protect ship" behavior manage to fly in formation with their target but ships set to "defend commander" don't?

Ship modding also does not really scale well and seems like something that is not meant to scale well. Though the player can, of course, simply not use S or M ships, as with kha'ak.

You can work around that easily enough by putting a distribution station into Windfall close to the gate to Avarice and the Avarice station just inside it.
A single Vulture Sentinel can easily move 150k m³ of wares per hour over that distance with repeat orders, so you don't need to mod (or set up orders for) a lot of ships if your setup is good.

It's actually faster than using L ships since those take ages to dock & undock, which is what most of your "travel time" will consist of.
And as a bonus on top you get to avoid your traders spending 1/3rd of their time idling in Windfall waiting for the Tide to pass and can mod them with Mirage mods instead to avoid pirates.

A quality of life improvement however would be to make the Riptide ships immune to hazards by default to save you from having to hazard mod all your manticores.

A single Tenacity & Reaver-modded Manorina, Drill or Plutus Sentinel moves scrap from Windfall IV to Avarice for 2-3 Manticores with no trouble, which is enough to feed 3-4 recyclers.
How many recyclers do you realistically need at endgame? 20? 30? Modding half a dozen ships with Tenacity mods isn't exactly a huge task. And it lets you put drag mods on your Manticores to make them go faster.

For longer distances the distribution station mentioned above works just as well. You're probably already using miners as scrap traders anyway so it's basically the same thing only with solid storage.

[Blackbirdx61]

Tide seems more like a player problem then AI problem to me. You're given tools to make your ships immune to the tide (Hazard immunity mods). Pilots being too dumb to survive the tide is a vital part of the avarice recycling economy. A quality of life improvement however would be to make the Riptide ships immune to hazards by default to save you from having to hazard mod all your manticores.

Are you really saying, if your pilots/ships were not too stupid to live, you would not have scrap to collect, which is a vital part of the Tides Economy? That's nonsense, maybe you've plugged into just how the Dev's were in fact thinking but seriously; Two stupid to live is not a Feature. It's a Bug.

[Blackbirdx61]

Ok Last night's post was a bit TLDR, Let me try to make the most important Point a little more economically.

So, I'm trying to line up some ships to Bombard a station. I order a Destroyer to move on Length, one hex forward. Straight ahead. The ship immediately executes a Hard right turn and starts to shoot off into space.

Now if when I was in service some Sergeant ordered me to take one step forward; and my response to that simple order was to go Right Face and Run off, would he be in the wrong. I don't think so, I think I would be doing a couple weeks extra duty. The first for disobeying an order; and the 2nd for being an Idiot. This has nothing to do with the Stars of the Pilot, and everything to do with an AI that simply cannot and will not execute even the simplest of orders without tossing in something Random and Utterly inexplicable. It's not a player problem, it not "Oh you want a win button" or a "Phew Phew" Game. We should be able to expect our ships to execute simple orders without the AI tossing in the Random and Bizarre for no good reason.

And while we are here, As to Stars Vs Range mechanic, which is awful. If I hand a Rifle to Forest Gump or Albert Einstein it matters not the Projectile goes the same distance. One might be less accurate than the other and reflect that, but the current system has one purpose and one purpose Only. To waste player ships, Once again by launching the AI captains into suicidally stupid behavior.

Dev's re: But But But, that's not a Bug! It's a Feature.

[Blackbirdx61]

One that just popped up again so i remembered it: ships set to protect another ship don't defend themselves if they get attacked even if set to retaliate. They just ignore the attack as long as their defense target isn't shot at (and in the case of the Nemesis escorting my L miner get slowly shot to bits by tiny Khaak force it could've killed in seconds ).

Black Phoenixx; I so agree with you, and this is one of the most inexplicable parts of the game to me. Ships Ignoring taking damage because of some switch or setting. Sometimes maybe you want this, Sometimes maybe you want a Torpedo Bomber to press home its attack despite interceptors or flak; but for every time that happens, there are a dozen more where a ship just sponges up damage till it dies for no good reason at all.

Again Dev's there is nothing conceptually hard about this, maybe a bigger challenge to code, But if you punch Forest Gump in the Mouth, Even Forest Gump, He knows he's been hit and he responds to that input somehow. So if something just Blasted my shields to Zero, the correct response is not, La de Da, La de Da, I have a Miner to escort so I'm not going to acknowledge you even exist, La de Da.

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I wish we had a simple upvote mechanic, like nearly every other set of boards on the Web, but we don't..
So the only way we can say "I agree" is to post ourselves. That is beyond sad.

[Chips]

Use of drones to collect loot; its likely been said a dozen times, but check the image.
They've launched from the Raptor. Look what's around the Raptor. Now look where the quad are headed... do you think they'll make it there before it expires? Do you think they'll make it back before it expires? Why don't they just collect what's around the ship (which was the intent of the collect drops order).



They got just over half way... before they were heading back. Meanwhile, the rest of the loot vanished before they'd remotely come close to the ship again.

[adeine]

Use of drones to collect loot; its likely been said a dozen times, but check the image.
They've launched from the Raptor. Look what's around the Raptor. Now look where the quad are headed... do you think they'll make it there before it expires? Do you think they'll make it back before it expires? Why don't they just collect what's around the ship (which was the intent of the collect drops order).



They got just over half way... before they were heading back. Meanwhile, the rest of the loot vanished before they'd remotely come close to the ship again.

The real problem here is that cargo drones are just too slow to work for collecting drops. Not only does stuff despawn, but if you try and use the ship at all they'll get left behind leading to other problems (waiting for deployables).

I just use a single docked S/M ship to collect inventory wares.

[Falcrack]

The real problem here is that cargo drones are just too slow to work for collecting drops. Not only does stuff despawn, but if you try and use the ship at all they'll get left behind leading to other problems (waiting for deployables).

I just use a single docked S/M ship to collect inventory wares.

Yeah I wish cargo drones, at least when collecting drops, moved about 10 times faster. The slow speed is fine for regular cargo transfer.

[LameFox]

Someone ought to weld the engines from those build drones on them. They don't seem to have any trouble getting around.

[Falcrack]

Someone ought to weld the engines from those build drones on them. They don't seem to have any trouble getting around.

Yeah, I was thinking that the build drones speed would be about right.

[Hector0x]

How about an ingame feedback pipeline similar to Subnautica?
It uploads your savegame with your instructions how to reproduce a bug or you mark some ship that shows wierd behavior.

Not viable for mod users i know. But Egosoft seems to grow right now and such an investment into the vanilla playerbase might already be worth it.

It could also be used to share savegames for asynchronous play or help the forum warriors to prove their points.

[flywlyx]

How about an ingame feedback pipeline similar to Subnautica?
It uploads your savegame with your instructions how to reproduce a bug or you mark some ship that shows wierd behavior.

Not viable for mod users i know. But Egosoft seems to grow right now and such an investment into the vanilla playerbase might already be worth it.

It could also be used to share savegames for asynchronous play or help the forum warriors to prove their points.

Are you suggesting that the issue lies in Egosoft's lack of awareness regarding what is going wrong?
You should start reading from page 3.

[nikoli grimm]

At this point I would be ecstatic if the AI driven L and XL ships that have to make a turn 5° to get where they need to be didn't decide to stop and turn 365° in the other direction, overshoot the position, back up, try turning again, making sure to turn whatever direction the turn requires the most arc. Especially while in a firefight.

...and while docking, if is a waiting que of ships, don't run full tilt into them, clipping through them to get to the front of the line or pick up speed, realize you can't stop and end up clipping halfway through the station.

[Khugan]

When the player is a passenger on just about any ship/ship class, when passing through a jump gate, the ship can come out vast distances from the gate. Sometimes the ship just continues on, but other times it burns it's shields over and over and over until it gets back to the area of the gate it came through. Yes, and now it turns back around and goes on it's way. I said "just about any ship". I don't believe the Phoenix suffers from this problem, though I am not positive on this.