[SCRIPT] OCS Apollo (version 1.0) - Improved Fighter AI

[Sandalpocalypse]

yep that was the source of confusion, its why it took me a couple hours to write that post, heh.

I ran the same mercenaries guild mission about 4-5 times (starting from out of sector and before the enemies spawned). So I'm reasonably sure the proper scripts were being used, and the way enemies behaved seemed to confirm that. I mostly payed attention to enemy fighter attacks on my destroyer and my fighter attacks on other capital ships.

Under Apollo my Phoenix was constantly bombarded with long range Hornets and Silkworms from all directions. These were annoying but in large part couldn't overcome shield regen. Even without me strafing the enemy rarely fired AHEPTs and the shots never even got within a kilometer of hitting, except for a few turret blasts.

Under Vanilla ships were more aggressive, making HEPT runs that actually connected (or not, depending on my strafing.) They also clearly did the "fire 9 hornets at once" bit, the most I ever saw fired under OCS was 3.

I haven't done comparison test with my Cerberus yet (it's much smaller than the Phoenix, after all) but I'll give it a go at some point.

I like the dogfighting behavior of OCS Apollo a lot, but playing it safe against capital ships is pointless if they don't die.

It could be random bad luck, or it could just be that my Phoenix severely needs a diet. On the otehr hand there were probably about 50-60 enemy ships of all sizes and types and armament generated for that mission, and they attacked from all directions.

[Laureati]

SANDALPOCALYPSE

Hmm... good point about the missiles. It'll be easy to program in an override for the anti-spam code I wrote. Basically what it'll say is activate anti-spam unless target is a Capital ship or Station.

An unfortunate side effect for that is a problem that really annoyed me in the vanilla game - ships killing themselves with their own missiles. This is due to Hornets being generally very slow. But that's something that can't be addressed by script.

Strange about the behavior of the fighters. Maybe it's got something to do with how the AI targets. See capital ship or not, I suspect the AI targets your ship as [PLAYERSHIP] and not specifically as BIG SHIP. That's why might be causing that to happen.

Try it with your Phoenix under AI control and yourself in a fighter. Let me know if the results are the same.

GAZZ

There's a problem specific to the Xenon station. The Xenon station has a bounding box smaller than the station sixe itself, thus creating problems with all collision avoidance scripts. That's a problem when it comes to any fighter attacks against large ships and stations.

For example, TL class ships have a MUCH larger bounding box than M1 class ships of the same physical size. Thus the AI "thinks" they're going to hit it before they actually are.

From what you say it looks like you're intending to run a TASK instead of a script. That's fine. M7's were not originally on my list when addressing things in the OCS. My primary intention was to improve M5-M3 class ships. If you're up to writing and testing your proposed TASK then you can simply release it as an add-on. I'll provide support for it if it works like you say.

[XanII]

Installed this some days ago and reactions this far has been only positive.

Loaded up 300 mosquito missiles and hit the pirate sectors with my M7 flying against incoming tide of pirates. After awhile i had to disable missile defense mosquito as almost all of the 300 mosquito missiles had been chewed up by the defense system. Reverted to PAC and PSG missile defense.

Combat starts differently: Somebody opens fire -> Pirates wake up -> Huge amounts of missiles are fired: boomboomwooshboomwooshboomcrash -> Equal amount of mosquitoes ar fired to counter missile fire -> incoming fire is heavy and more consistent. especialy like the fact that the enemy attempts to lob shots at you even if they are only able to shoot one or two. This results in more incoming fire.

Havent tested the above setup with a Mamba Raider but i get the feeling that Mamba will not dominate the pirates anymore. M7 is in trouble if you are not awake and alert when the fight starts. Flying around too long or ignoring the missiles results in the M7 litting up a like a christmas tree in hell.

But this is what i want. I can use my own missiles pretty much as before to take out targets but once in real close combat the adversaries are deadlier. HEPT fire in close quarters is also just as effective as before so the AI doesnt do any impossible maneuvers to evade fire which is good, but they do seem to evade a bit it seems?

Xenon sectors will also be quite interesting once i get there.

[X-Freak Cartman]

I'm not quite done with everything I want to do on the OCS Apollo. I'll look to getting it signed when I do. X-freak Cartman is also doing some work on it, although he's directly implementing it into his GAUIS system if I remember right.

Well, I'll hand the files to you so you can release them separately. Actually, I'm still working on them.

[Laureati]

Well, I'll hand the files to you so you can release them separately. Actually, I'm still working on them.

Don't worry about it. Remember the OCS is the Open Combat System. It's there to be used by others. Heh.

[X-Freak Cartman]

But nevertheless it's designed to be released separately.

[Sandalpocalypse]

might have an obscure bug: When running OCS apollo and XTM, Xenon Taxi missions will crash.

I was trying to confirm this, when I ****** up humongously and accidentally deleted my saves. SIGH.

I was investigating it because this caught my eye. I had long had occasional issues with xenon taxi missions locking up. It just started locking up again so I was looking around for threads regarding this. I saw this and I thought: "Aha! I had just reenabled OCS apollo!"

I'll investigate further once I finish crying.

[Locksley]

If it in any way is related to OCS it must be in conflict in some way with something else you got installed.

I've played a few Xenon taxi missions in my XTM game and I too got OCS, but no problems for me. I'll try to find an other one and check again if there is any kind of slowdown but the way I remembered it it is no probs at all.

C ya.

[reinhart_menken]

Hi,

This looks to be a really nice script (though I'm not sure if I want my already crippled fleet to have to fight even harder enemies), but I'm a little confused as to what it does, specifically.

This is a script (not a buy-able ware) for all ships, and allow the existence of lv30 fighers? So...does it improve the performance of ALL fighters? Or enemy fighters? My fighters? Or it just allow them to level up normally? What about this famous (and thoroughly awesometastic) missle controlling mechanism, is it on all ships of all levels, or just higher level ships?

[borgrel]

this is active for all AI- controlled small ships

i.e. M5, M4, M3, M3+, (and M6, M7 when fighting M1, M2)

but it improves missiles for everything

[Engine Of Darkness]

So there's no way to make small AI fighters with IREs able to shoot big ships? A Good example is the Prometheus (the Stargate one).

Is there a difference in "real collision box" and the collision box the AI sees? Because Frankly, it's collision box is quite "exact".

Also you said the Turrets skill level is always the same. Which skill level? Highest?