Time for some bloody automation ALRIGHT?

[Cabrelbeuk]

Better get few core things automated working well and a good MODability so the community can do the choices they want to !

I would love these ideas to come real but Rebirth has been a big reminder that it doesn't matter how passionate you got about your project, when you don't have the ressources you can't do miracle, no matter how much time you spend on it.

[Morkonan]

So the next step is working together to get a sort of command list map going of sorts, the link i was given in past replies was pretty good and i loved that it auto expanded. So when i have a bit of time i'll be looking into working on a command structure and probably have a google drive shared page for people to help edit or contribute to.

You don't yet know how much you can touch in the engine. I would assume that, for instance, the functions available in X3TC would be, by and large, available in X4.

....I'm somewhat amazed that i never see a cap ship strafe into a position and it rather likes to splash around like a fish propelled by one end.

In X3TC, AI ships "don't know strafe." That was their Achilles Heel. They couldn't target strafers very accurately, either, so it was a popular tactic.

That's not unusual in games involving tactical movement, from FPS fighting games to MMORPGs and the like - Strafing has always been an anit-AI tactic. In some cases, you can even move faster than the game intends, just because you're abusing strafe mechanics.

[RAVEN.myst]

Strafing .... In some cases, you can even move faster than the game intends, just because you're abusing strafe mechanics.

Well, "abusing" is relative In a FPS or the like, sure - but when it comes to (fictional) spaceships flying around in space, they are responding to lateral thrusters (in X3 we even see those firing on some fighters - I love that!), so you actually have addition of vectors which IS mathematically correct (within the existing framework that ignores Sir Isaac or pretends there's friction in space... But even with Newtonian physics, the vectors would still add together, but to increase acceleration instead of velocity.)

Too bad that AI programming does, as you point out, almost always neglect to give our antagonists that important tool. I remember how formidable high-level ReaperBots were in Quake, and much of that was because they had been made to use circle-strafing to some extent (as well as other player-used tricks such as rocket-jumping and timed tele-fragging.)