@Egosoft: can we talk about the NPC weapon loadout mechanic?

[Max Bain]

The actual game mechanic that picks the turret loadouts for NPC ships has many flaws in my opinion and should be changed to more flexible and better way. Actually, it is not possible to let the ships pick random turrets for all of their turret slots. The best we can achieve if we want to have random turrets for ships is to give them some kind of variation, but this also will make ships sometimes not use all of their slots.

The mechanic as far as I have understood it works like this: we have 3 values that determine what turrets a ship will pick for each of his groups, that is tolerance level, weapon price and variation. Each turret has a tolerance value and if the ship job has a tolerance level of lets say min 0.8, the ship will only use weapons that have at least a tolerance of 0.8. The normal game mechanic will always try to pick the most expensive weapon of all the weapons that are above that tolerance level then. Turrets priorities to pick are ordered by price. This would mean that we will only have ships with the most expensive turret in game and that was pretty well seen in an early beta 3.0 version where all ships were equiped with Flak turrets because it was the most expensive turret.

Then we have another value we can influece the loadout system but this has a big flaw. Its called variation value that will determine the chance, that the game will take a turret from the next lower priority (as long as the turret is in the tolerance borders). But it will also mean, that if the rolls for picking the next lower priorized turret reaches the end of the priorization list and there is no next turret in the list, atht the turret slot will be empty. This is actually the case in the newest beta. We have more variation, but it is impossible to guarantee, that enemy ships will use all of their turret slots.

In my opinion, the system is not good at all.

• It is not possible to let the AI pick cheaper weapons more often than the expensive ones without the danger that many slots will be empty
• The system does not allow us to define that some specific weapon types will be picked more often than others (lets say I want that beam weapons will be used way more often on paranid ships but at the same time I want that the paranid ships use many different weapons by chance)

Suggestion:

Tolerance level defines what kind of weapons are possible for the specific job.
Normally, each weapon that lies in the tollerance borders will be picked with the same chance for each weapon group.
But we should also be able to define what tolerance values will be picked with a specific chance.
Price should not have any impact on the weapon priorities. The most expensive weapons should definately not be the most used weapons in the game.
Additionally, there should be a value like "min" "exact" and "max" for the amount of used groups in percentage of the ships max weapon groups. This should be default exact="1" for combat ships so all ships would fit all turrets.

Example:
Lets say we have a tolerance limit of 0.5-0.8 for a specific job. There are 3 weapons in these borders, weapon A with tolerance 0.5, weapon B with tolerance 0.7 and weapon C with tolerance 0.8. So by default each weapon has a chance of 33% to be picked.
But we should be able to define something like that: tolerance min="0.5" max="0.6" chance="0.5" that would result in all weapons inside that group would be picked with a chance of 50%. The rest of the weapons will then be picked 25% each.
This system would be way more flexible.

I really hope that we will see some changes into that direction soon, because the system right now is not good. I want to say that specific ships use specific weapons more often and some races should also use specific weapons more often than others. All without reducing the total number of used turret slots.

[CBJ]

But it will also mean, that if the rolls for picking the next lower priorized turret reaches the end of the priorization list and there is no next turret in the list, atht the turret slot will be empty.

This part of your understanding of the system isn't quite correct. It should be extremely rare for un-grouped slots, such as forward-mounted weapons, not to be filled; generally only slots in turret groups are liable to be empty occasionally. The decision of how many slots in a group to fill is separate from the selection of what to fill those slots with, and has nothing to do with the process of dropping through from one price band to another.

Price should not have any impact on the weapon priorities.

The price is simply used to ensure that a given ship normally chooses the "best" equipment it can afford. Without this there are far too many poorly-equipped ships around, which significantly weakens those ships and the fleets they are part of. The tricky part here to strike a balance between fitting all ships well and having people complain that too many ships have similar fittings, and fitting ships more randomly and having people complain that the NPC factions are really bad at fitting ships! The variation parameter is what allows us to adjust this balance, and it can be done selectively (for example by giving one "job" different parameters to another).

Lets say we have a tolerance limit of 0.5-0.8 for a specific job. There are 3 weapons in these borders, weapon A with tolerance 0.5, weapon B with tolerance 0.7 and weapon C with tolerance 0.8. So by default each weapon has a chance of 33% to be picked.
But we should be able to define something like that: tolerance min="0.5" max="0.6" chance="0.5" that would result in all weapons inside that group would be picked with a chance of 50%. The rest of the weapons will then be picked 25% each.
This system would be way more flexible.

A min and max of 0.5 and 0.6 is no different to a base value of 0.55 and a variation of 0.05, so your suggestion here would make no functional difference at all. The only possible change would be your separation of the calculation of the number of turrets in a turret group to fill, from the calculation of which turret to use in those slots that are filled. While possible, the benefit of this is questionable for the reasons set out above.

[Max Bain]

The decision of how many slots in a group to fill is separate from the selection of what to fill those slots with, and has nothing to do with the process of dropping through from one price band to another.

So how is that defined? How can I change it? It feels bad that ships fly around using empty slots but therefore use the most expensive turrets only.

I sincerely disagree for many reasons and hope that I can convince you, to rethink about the actual system.

(When I use the word weapon I mean turrets btw.)

Disadvantages of the actual system:

1. priorization over price is a bad design for several reasons:
   • The NPC ships should not spam the most expensive turrets. It is like in an RPG each enemy has a super duper equipment and the player can only reduce the gap to this level of equipment but never become stronger than the average. It also feels unrealistic if you only see the best weapons. Its like each one of us would drive in a Bugatti Veyron and the Golf car is the exception.
   • It is not possible to separate the usage of a weapon from its price. When I want to have a super weapon that is extremely good for one purpose and therefore extremely expensive, the NPCs will spam this weapon even if it is not good if used that often. Think of a super weapon that does extremely much damage against shields, but none to the hull. Then the NPC ships would use these turrets way too often and would still be very weak. Or think of a weapon with extremely long reload time but extreme damage and low rotation speed and accuracy. This weapon would be super agains big ships, but very bad against smaller ships. So the NPC ships would not be equipped for the common situation.
   • Making the NPCs use mostly the most expensive weapons will result more likely in a resource gap because they cost way more resources. At the end there will be less ships produced what will result in a worse situation than having more but maybe less good equipped ships.
2. The whole system is very intransparend and difficult to understand. I talked to many veteran modders over discord and they all share similar opinion that the actual system is not flexible and has many flaws. None of them could really explain the whole details and mechanics how the loadout system works. This alone is a bad sign for an essential game mechanic.
3. It is not possible to define the number of used turrets separately or at least I and no one else could tell me how to do so. Even in vanilla game (beta 3 V5) many ships fly with unused turret slots. I (and I think everyone else too) would prefer the full usage of all slots over the usage of the most expensive turrets. At the end the firepower would be way betterand especially because you can destroy turrets, more is always better.
4. It is not possible to define separate chances for different turret types. I can not say that turret A and turret B shall be the most common used turrets for ship class X. I want to design some anti fighter craft ships that use anti fighter weapons the most but should also be able to mount some bigger guns with a lower chance (for example 90% anti fighter weapons that would have a tolerance of below 0.2 and 10% heavy guns with a tolerance of 0.6 or higher). This is simply not possible at all. Also it is not possible to make race X use weapon types A and B more often than race Y.
5. Having completely empty turret groups is bad if not explicitly wanted.
6. For missiles it is important that the ship does not have too many missile groups because of the ammunition. But on the other hand, you dont want that the ships dont use them at all. So you should be able to give these turrets a lower chance.

The advantages of a system as I suggested are:

1. Chances for weapons can be set individually. It would even be possible to make ships use weapons of tolerance 0.1 - 0.2 with a chance of 40% and also use weapons of tolerance 0.9 - 1.0 with a chance of 60% while tolerances between these values would not be used at all if wanted. This would make it possible to give races specific loadouts but not force them to only use these weapons (they would simply have higher chances for specific weapons but also can equip other weapons with a lower chance). With the low number of turrets we have, I think this is important.
2. Price would have no impact on the priority. The tolerance value (not the best name for this) would determine the "usability" of a weapon. Your fear of "too many poor ships fly around" would not be the case if you set the chances for the weaker weapons to a low value what you absolutely can. But on the other hand, you now at least have the option to do so.
3. The system would be easy to understand and to change. Right now, I have absolutely no idea what I have to do if I want to make ships use weapon A with a chance of 10% and weapon B with a chance of 90%. I think this is not possible at all because chances are always for all weapons.
4. If you dont want, there wouldnt be any ships with empty turret slots. Turrets would be filled until the turret number lies between the set min, max, exact value. So if you say that ships will have 100% turrets, then the system will only spawn ships with 100% turrets and exactly the type of turrets you define.
5. No empty turret groups at all. The percentage (min max, exact) would be for each group. So if you set the value to 80%, each group would have 80% turrets/shields. It would always be taken the number next to the wanted result, so if the group has only 1 shield and 1 turret it would take 1 shield and 1 turret (1 is closer to 0.8 ). But this us just details and not finally thought out. Maybe if the number is not exactly reached, the game should roll a dice for with the defined chance and so in this case the group would have in 80% 1 shield and in 80% 1 turret. But if the group would have 1 shield and 2 turrets, it would always have at least 1 turret and in 80% a second one and 80% one shield.

I really dont see any disadvantage but many advantages over the actual system and simply the fact that I could not achive the result that ships use mainly average priced turrets, but also have chances for higher and lower priced ones while using all of their turret slots show me that something should be changed (or someone should explain how to achive it with the actual system).

[Matthew94]

On the topic of turrets, it'd be good to have more in-depth options like target priority rankings, instead of just "attack fighters" or "attack capital ship", and emergency settings like "if shields < x%, fire missiles at capitals".

I usually equip my capitals with a ton of tracking launchers equipped with light smart missiles which target fighters. When a fight with another capital goes badly, I have to manually go through every ship in my fleet to change the turrets to attack the current target to get a bit of extra firepower which is quite tedious.

[Max Bain]

On the topic of turrets, it'd be good to have more in-depth options like target priority rankings, instead of just "attack fighters" or "attack capital ship", and emergency settings like "if shields < x%, fire missiles at capitals".

I usually equip my capitals with a ton of tracking launchers equipped with light smart missiles which target fighters. When a fight with another capital goes badly, I have to manually go through every ship in my fleet to change the turrets to attack the current target to get a bit of extra firepower which is quite tedious.

Please stick to the loadout mechanic topic, else we will drift far away. There are plenty of ideas for improving turret behaviours, but the loadoutsystem is something totally different that many people dont notice at all because normally, you dont care what weapons the enemy ship has and Xenon use their own individual loadouts anyway. So let us stay to the loadout game mechanic for NPC ships.

[Matthew94]

On the topic of turrets, it'd be good to have more in-depth options like target priority rankings, instead of just "attack fighters" or "attack capital ship", and emergency settings like "if shields < x%, fire missiles at capitals".

I usually equip my capitals with a ton of tracking launchers equipped with light smart missiles which target fighters. When a fight with another capital goes badly, I have to manually go through every ship in my fleet to change the turrets to attack the current target to get a bit of extra firepower which is quite tedious.

Please stick to the loadout mechanic topic, else we will drift far away. There are plenty of ideas for improving turret behaviours, but the loadoutsystem is something totally different that many people dont notice at all because normally, you dont care what weapons the enemy ship has and Xenon use their own individual loadouts anyway. So let us stay to the loadout game mechanic for NPC ships.

Sorry about that. Well, I feel it's a complete non-issue and the devs shouldn't prioritize it at all compared to some of the bigger issues in the game. I'd go as far to say that there is no issue at all.

[Max Bain]

On the topic of turrets, it'd be good to have more in-depth options like target priority rankings, instead of just "attack fighters" or "attack capital ship", and emergency settings like "if shields < x%, fire missiles at capitals".

I usually equip my capitals with a ton of tracking launchers equipped with light smart missiles which target fighters. When a fight with another capital goes badly, I have to manually go through every ship in my fleet to change the turrets to attack the current target to get a bit of extra firepower which is quite tedious.

Please stick to the loadout mechanic topic, else we will drift far away. There are plenty of ideas for improving turret behaviours, but the loadoutsystem is something totally different that many people dont notice at all because normally, you dont care what weapons the enemy ship has and Xenon use their own individual loadouts anyway. So let us stay to the loadout game mechanic for NPC ships.

Sorry about that. Well, I feel it's a complete non-issue and the devs shouldn't prioritize it at all compared to some of the bigger issues in the game. I'd go as far to say that there is no issue at all.

As I have explained in my second post, there are many issues. Its just that you dont see them because you are focused on your own ships normally and not on the enemy ships loadout. But just pick some random samples of the NPC ships, press F3 and check their turret loadout and you will see what I am talking about. The system is also not flexible if you want to change the loadouts for specific ship classes. I have explained it all.

[CBJ]

I think part of the problem here is that the OP is prioritising this because it doesn't do what he wants for modding purposes, rather than for gameplay purposes with the standard game. While we do try to support modding as far as possible, vanilla gameplay has to be the priority, and adding complications to an already complicated system for modding purposes is not normally a good way forward. The other issue I see with it is the insistence on there being no empty turret slots, which the OP insists is a priority to avoid but we see as an intended feature.

[Max Bain]

I think part of the problem here is that the OP is prioritising this because it doesn't do what he wants for modding purposes, rather than for gameplay purposes with the standard game. While we do try to support modding as far as possible, vanilla gameplay has to be the priority, and adding complications to an already complicated system for modding purposes is not normally a good way forward. The other issue I see with it is the insistence on there being no empty turret slots, which the OP insists is a priority to avoid but we see as an intended feature.

That is just partly right. I sure want this mechanic to be changed because I would use it for modding, but I would also expect the vanilla game to benefic a lot from it (sure you would need to put some work on it) and if the loadouts on NPC ships would be better I wouldnt even think about modding it. Right now the ships are all more or less equally fitted. You will find the same turret loadouts on the Behemoth and the Odyssey no matter what variant you pick and you can not simply change it. I would hope that vanilla game would make use of an improved loadout system and make some individual ship classes use specific types ot turrets. Right now we have just combat ships, but wouldnt it be better, if we would have some kind of anti fighter ships, missile boats, long range artillery ships and some other specific types of loadouts?

The arguement that my suggested system would be more complicated is false. In fact it would be way more intuitive, more transparent and more easy to understand and to configure. As I have mentioned I asked many modders (some old veterans) and none of them could explain me the whole system. I tried to get informations about the system how it works and even the devs couldnt explain me the system in all details. Why do we have some slots unused and how can we change that? How can I set priorities to pick some specific turrets? I think someone told me that we only can have 100% turret amount if we set the threshold level to 1.0 what makes no sense in my opinion because then we would only fit the most expensive turret.
Do you really think that the actual system is a good one?

There is nothing the suggested system could not do that the actual system does but it offers many more options you can control.

[CBJ]

Do you really think that the actual system is a good one?

If you are going to take this attitude with me then my involvement in the conversation will end right here. The system does what the game designers, and those working on the balancing of the game, asked for it to do. I understand that you want something different from it, and are frustrated that it doesn't do what you want, and there is always room for improvement in any system. However, that doesn't automatically mean that the current system is a bad one or that we have to immediately accept, or even agree with, your suggestions.

[Max Bain]

Do you really think that the actual system is a good one?

If you are going to take this attitude with me then my involvement in the conversation will end right here. The system does what the game designers, and those working on the balancing of the game, asked for it to do. I understand that you want something different from it, and are frustrated that it doesn't do what you want, and there is always room for improvement in any system. However, that doesn't automatically mean that the current system is a bad one or that we have to immediately accept, or even agree with, your suggestions.

No need to feel offended, really.
Believe it or not, we are both on the same side. I want to improve YOUR product that you are earning money with. I do this for free, btw.
I am still disappointed because I dont see why you defend the system with no real argument except that it does what the game designer asked for. As said, a new system (must not be my suggested one) could offer the same but on the same time would offer many more possibilities (not only for mods but for vanilla also), so the game designers requirements would still be intact. But ok, if you think it is good as it is and not worth to rethink about it I can not do anything more about it.

[CBJ]

I wouldn't have engaged in this discussion at all if I didn't think it was worth considering. Please bear in mind, however, that while your suggestions may be free, our time to actually implement changes is not. Everything has to be fitted in to limited time and availability, and prioritised against other tasks which may be more important. So yes, features that the game designers ask for, and the balancing team need, do take priority; modders' additional wishes can be taken into consideration when there is time, and where it makes sense to do so. If I am going to ask for time to improve loadout generation, I need to be convinced that there is a good reason to do so, preferably one which does not conflict with the game design or create a large amount of work (for example adjusting every existing job and script to use a new format, and rebalancing the entire game because of changes to how powerful ships and fleets are on average).

Repeatedly insisting that there is no downside to a proposal that would clearly come at considerable cost, and taking an attitude like the one in the question I quoted, does not make your argument more convincing; quite the opposite in fact. If you want to convince me (so that I can convince others) then please take note of the points I've made and try and work with them, rather than getting shirty with me when I don't accept everything you say without question.

[Max Bain]

I never asked that you or anyone should implement it instantly for the next version and I also did not said that my suggestion is the non plus ultra idea. This thread was more made as an open discussion about the actual system and if there is space for improvements. I just wanted to give a starting point for a simple system that could solve some of the problems I have noted. My hope was that at the end vanilla game would benefit from it.

Your arguement that you are low on resources is valid and you could have said that in your first post. But other than that I could not get your point why you defended the actual system, so finally I know why after several posts.
Btw, my question was not rethorical. I was hoping to understand Egos point of view on the actual system more clear why you stick to it (except from extra work you would have to put into it to change and balance it).

But lets just quit this discussion. I did not wanted to have a fight or anything. We all have enough stress in real life

Edit: Just to close it, I made some tests in game without any mod that would influence the loadout. Here are my results of the missing modules on each ship I checked:

MT = medium turret, MS = medium shield, LT = large turret. The numbers represent the missing slots. Non of the ships I checked had full amount of turrets. Values are from actual Beta version.

2x Behemoth 3 MT
2x Behemoth 4 MT
1x Behemoth 3 MT 1 MS
3x Odysseus 3 MT
1x Odysseus 3 MT 1 MS 1 LT
1x Odysseus 2 MT 1 LT
1x Odysseus 2 MT 1 LT
1x Odysseus 3 MT 1 MS 1 LT
2x Phoenix 2 MT
1x Condor 3 MT

WHile a Behemoth has only 8M and 2L turrets, that is a significant amount of missing turrets. For the other ships it is similar (roughly 30% and more turrets are unused).

[Derp]

Is this why so many ships only run with tracking and beam turrets? It only works if you assume that turret utility is directly related to price, which doesn't hold while the cheapest pulse turrets are easily the best general-purpose pick.

How about:

1) Every turret or shield slot gets pulse turrets and mk1 shields for free, in every slot
2) Variation is the chance for each to upgrade to a different pick
3) Tolerance is an extra chance for each to upgrade to the highest tier for that pick

So a high-tolerance, low-variation ship will have lots of Mk2 pulse lasers, while a low-tolerance, high-variation ship will have a colorful mix of mk 1 turrets.

[CBJ]

For grouped turrets and shields, all items in a group have to be of the same type. Different groups can have different types of course.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

For grouped turrets and shields, all items in a group have to be of the same type. Different groups can have different types of course.

I think what Derp is meaning is that -
there should be no unused slots period so that no ship which can per se fit 8 weapon groups rolls out with only half of the available slots filled making an otherwise certain class ship an expensive sitting duck. All ships should begin with cheap mk1 weapon as per loadout variation filled into all groups in all slots the vanilla math to calculate what weapon and group to use should only influence on which groups get the upgraded slots in a loadout variation and hence what the chance is that ship loadout is packing higher fire-power for that group of weapons than the base.

[CBJ]

And as I already said...

The other issue I see with it is the insistence on there being no empty turret slots, which the OP insists is a priority to avoid but we see as an intended feature.

[Max Bain]

And as I already said...

The other issue I see with it is the insistence on there being no empty turret slots, which the OP insists is a priority to avoid but we see as an intended feature.

But as a player I must ask myself why ships have so many turrets slots if they can not (or will never) use all of them but only around 70%.
As said I checked about 20 different kind of military ships and none of them used all slots. On the same side you say that you want to use the price as the priority value to select what turrets you pick because you fear that the shipsfly with cheap weapons, but on the same time you have no problem that ships never use their theoretical full potention. Not even close to that.
Sorry when I post again on this but it feels as a design issue for me and the bad part on this is that I can not even mod it to corret it .Escpecially if we have problems like ships losing turrets too fast in OOS combat...

[Misunderstood Wookie]

And as I already said...

The other issue I see with it is the insistence on there being no empty turret slots, which the OP insists is a priority to avoid but we see as an intended feature.

Which is totally fine, It is working as intended the other person simply wants it changed to fit a scope they want and tbh this seems more like a thing us modder can do and we have already done similar things so I don't know why the fuss was dragged on like it HAD to be changed. Besides XML being at times a royal pain in the behind to script with just due it not being an object-based language that requires oh so many references in a script chain does not seem to stop anyone, I would rather the product we have get polish before trying to test waters with things we are already used too.

If anything actually needs to be addressed it would be the fact that a station that cops a few burst rounds during a dogfight decides to call the police on you while you were defending the station from attackers. I know how to fix this with a mod it just leaves it open to slight exploitation tho if I run checks on player target and combat status. Maybe there is a better way tho this is something that I would think is way more important down the line then turrets we can just change the loadouts with an extension really fast for.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

And as I already said...

The other issue I see with it is the insistence on there being no empty turret slots, which the OP insists is a priority to avoid but we see as an intended feature.

But as a player I must ask myself why ships have so many turrets slots if they can not (or will never) use all of them but only around 70%.
As said I checked about 20 different kind of military ships and none of them used all slots. On the same side you say that you want to use the price as the priority value to select what turrets you pick because you fear that the shipsfly with cheap weapons, but on the same time you have no problem that ships never use their theoretical full potention. Not even close to that.
Sorry when I post again on this but it feels as a design issue for me and the bad part on this is that I can not even mod it to corret it .Escpecially if we have problems like ships losing turrets too fast in OOS combat...

Yeah but as far as CBJ said it is intended to be this way.. all you can do is ask nicely and maybe eventually they make something optional that does just that.
if it bothers you a lot just go on discord state what you would like and I am sure a modder will adjust it for you and send you a mod. I cannot even speak on vanilla combat really as I use VRO 2.0 for Beta 5 H1, This does away with the MK type weps in first place and makes each wep 100% unique in it's own right and changes all the ship mounting and makes M turrets not destroyable along with many many balance changes such as ships which used to be able to have Medum weapons not anymore things like this are now per ship every ship has some kind of reason to exist instead of just wep counts, like some of the S ships have one slot for Heavy Wep and 2-3 light weapons you can only fit a Heavy in that one slot or Med etc etc which makes loadouts quite different.