Ship classes of my observations: Heavy Fighter, Miner/Freighter, Corvette, Destroyer. (this probably applies to all ship classes)
Ships: F, SE, B, PE, H (I use Xenon ships because I like them, and they're somewhat okay overall even if not very good.
Pilots: "all" (I think I have lost a few to stations getting nuked) 5 star boron.
yes, this is a rant...
Expected behavior: the pilots fly their ships perfectly, evading enemy units and fire effectively, while utilizing their ships in the optimal manner, they have excellent survival instinct and automatically flee from combat when things get dicey, etc.
Actual behavior in the current game/beta (mods if this needs to go in beta please move it there, thanks): Pilots fly the ships horribly, doing things like constantly changing their turning direction while not moving, crashing into other ships, crashing into stations and docks, crashing into any object at high speed and nuking their own shields, flying towards enemy ships when fleeing, making no attempts to move out of the way when shot at instead opting to sit in one place and rotate in random directions while changing direction constantly so that they are always facing away from the enemy ship, losing to ships they should be able to easily defeat (for example, a B should easily win in a 1v1 vs a Kha'ak Queens Guard if it engages it correctly and manages to keep its weapons on target, however it will instead be unable to aim properly, stop halfway through an attack run, usually right next to the enemy ship, and get into a confused turning state where it will sit still and constantly turn away from the enemy ship, getting itself killed as a result), attacking in the optimal firing arc of ships (especially capital ships, I've watched my Fs all get nuked by an I because they decide to attack it side on and fly right into the graviton turret volleys), pathfinding into danger simply because they want to utilize or access a certain map object, attacking ships that can easily defeat them with a single shot, extremely inconsistent behavior and co-ordination, engaging targets when global standing orders tells them to flee and drop laser towers under every possible circumstance that allows it, not paging the player when told to, not fleeing properly (won't flee, flees towards or into danger, gets into a confused turning state (not moving but constantly turning), doesn't drop a laser tower when escape and deploy laser towers is set as their flee method, drops a laser tower but doesn't flee, etc. Improper use of travel drive and boost, being either too willing or too unwilling to use boost and travel drive, leading to them either running into things at high speeds and nuking their own shields or getting nuked by enemy fire, or being too slow when they need to move quickly, which also gets them killed usually. The AI is so bad right now that looking away for a single second could mean losing most of a fleet while the rest runs away (horribly), missing half their hull strength. They also seem to be unwilling to utlize their weapons effectively, with ships like the H not using its sesimic charge turret when told to attack surface elements on a larger ship, and instead opting to fly really close and use the needler turrets.
The current state of the player faction AI turns X4 from a space trading simulator, into a space stressful-micromanagement simulator. In which attempting to enjoy the game results in at best suboptimal results. One should not have to, essentially, manually control, their AI controlled fleets, so that they don't get into horrible space accidents from their space stupidity, resulting in their space deaths. The other factions AI does not seem to have this issue, at least not as badly, and does a LOT better in nearly every situation. Better aim, better flying, better docking, etc.
While watching all your Fs get stuck trying to enter a Teladi trading station to dock is funny, watching all your Fs die because their 5 star pilots fly like how you'd expect a 0 star pilot to, is not funny or fun in the slightest.
The game is not fun when most of your time needs to be spent manually controlling things which should be automatic and require no player input at all. (Also what happened to the restore ship/fleet function I remember being announced?)
Another thing, which isn't entirely related with the "player faction AI is extremely stupid and lacks basic instincts that even single celled organisms have" but could possibly provide some amount of assistence to the player, especially when dealing with this, would be the ability to have more than one quicksave loadable, that way if the player quicksaves too close to a moment where their ships are all getting nuked, they can load a qucksave that is before it, but after one of their autosaves or manual saves.
Also, save slots. Please make save folders/slots. (again not really on topic but important enough to mention)
TL;DR
The player faction AI shows significantly worse performance than the non player faction AI, including but not limited to: Improper handling and control of ships, not following orders correctly, downright horrible tactics in combat, lack of survival instinct, being a klutzes, flying as if they are completely unaware of anything happening around them, attacking things when told not to attack anything and let their laser towers handle it, not dropping extra laser towers when attacked again while fleeing (please add this, it would be very useful), inability to do combat properly or effectively, etc. All of this with the entire PF fleet having max level ship captains and veteran military crews on their military ships.
Suggestions for some things:
- Target preferences: Ships of certain classes, sizes, and with certain weapons, prefer certain targets and will prioritize those over other targets. By default it should be set that S ships will attack S and M but prefer S, M ships will attack S M and L ships but prefer S and M, L ships will fight S M L and XL ships but prefer L or smaller and will try to avoid fighting XL unless they are forced to. All ships by default should attempt to escape any ships larger than them if they encounter them, and should escape and drop laser towers if a ship of their same size attacks them. (this will prevent the player from having to micromanage large fleets in completely separate areas of the map.
- Improved combat behavior: This is things like Auto-Flee, etc. Auto-Flee means that a ship will automatically attempt to drop laser and withdraw from combat/flee/escape under conditions such as their shields dropping below a certain threshold or becoming depleted. Being more willing to utilize tactical repositioning and laser towers when in combat, when they get hit instead of sitting there and constantly turning, they drop a laser tower (or multiple even) and attempt to quickly move to a safe position before attempting to find their target and attack it again.
- Better aim: This applies to everything that needs aim, from combat, to mining, to shooting down enemy drones. This also would be useful for laser towers. Better aim is self explantory, the pilots should do their best to keep their primary weapons on target for as long as possible when firing/attacking, should attempt to lead effectively for the weapons and weapon type they are utilizing, etc.
- Smarter stations/leaders: some of the problematic behaviour is linked to a fleet leader giving their subordinates bad orders. The fleet/station commanders should follow global standing orders and the survival of their fleets above all else. A station or fleet commanders orders and AI should not prevent global standing orders from being executed, and should not prevent behaviour such as auto-flee from happening.
- Ships should not return to combat unless their sheilds are fully recharged and their hull is above 50% (as a good default). If their hull is too low, they will attempt to make it to the closest warf as quickly as possible and get repairs, if repairs are not possible, they will simply dock and wait until they can repair, then resume their duties automatically. In their attempts to escape and find repairs, they must also do their best to avoid enemy ships in any way possible. If attacked while fleeing, they should drop laser towers every time they are attacked. (auto flee and repair) Too many times I have seen my ships I told to flee, returning to combat with their shields barely recharged, and their hull heavily damaged.
- Auto replenish resources: If a ship was configured with a certain amount of resources by the player, it should attempt to automatically resupply itself with those resources whenever the supplies drop below a certian percentage. This should not be prevented by a ship being in a fleet/having a commander ship. (resources includes things like drones, deployables, and flares) This should be done along with the "flee and repair" function of auto-flee, and should also be done along with auto-dock-and-repair behavior. If the ship cannot afford resupply, it will stay docked until it can, then it will reload its drones, deployables, flares, etc. to the configuration specified by the player/loadout, and resume their duties.
- automatic target priorities when set to "attack all surface elements". Ships should attempt to use their larger weapons on larger sized ship elements, ships should engage in this manner: destroy enemy engines while evading enemy fire as much as possible, a ship like an H can take out surface elemets rather quickly if it uses its seismic charge turrets (which are the third highest burst damage L turret in the game, and the only non missile turret to have AOE damage along with its direct damage), then target weapons clusters, taking out their sheilds then destroying the turrets, again while avoiding fire as much as possible and fleeing if necessary (low sheilds, damage to hull, out of resources such as drones, flares, laser towers, etc.), then once all the turrets are gone, moving to an optimal firing arc and destroying the main sheilds, then attacking the hull itself to finish off the ship, destroying any surface elements that regenerate as soon as they do. They also need to be more willing to use their large turrets and main batterys when attacking, I watched my H attack an I, and make an attack run in which it never fired its seismic charge turrets ONCE, and when it did it was ineffectual because it would either fire into empty space, or simply at the hull of the ship instead of attacking and destroying the surface elements.
- Preference to attack and destroy surface elements on any ship larger than themselves which possess destroyable/targetable surface elements. This is a very good strategy as it prevents the enemy ship from being able to fight back and nuke your ships.
- evasive manuvers: player faction AI controlled ships should do everything they can to avoid taking damage while in combat, and should especially try to avoid being hit. If a missile is after them they should flare, and flee. (drop a laser tower too, and laser towers should also be able to target and shoot down missiles)
- more willingness to utilize laser towers and F/F mines in a tactical manner. Such as deploying them when turning around, in a joust, etc. This will result in a group of laser towers, mines, etc. being in and around the combat area, which means if other ships try to join the fray, they risk being damaged, and whichever ship the player faction AI ships is fighting now has to also deal with the obsticals. (note: the player faction AI pilots should strongly prefer laser towers over mines)
- maybe, deploying a satellite when in combat to provide more awareness of what is happening around the combat area, then retreiving it when out of combat/danger.
- smarter docking behavior: Ships should attempt to enter and exit stations in an orderly and efficent manner, same for when docking to and undocking from other ships. While a ball of Fs in the entrance of a closed off docking area (such as a carrier or a teladi trading station) is comical, it also is a signifcant problem, which can result in unnessicary losses.
- better pathfinding. if PFAI (Player Faction Artificial Intelligence) ships detect enemy ships, stations, etc. they should adjust their pathing to avoid coming into range of the enemy ships, stations, etc.
- an understanding of weapons: they should be able to know and understand the range, projectile velocity, accuracy, aiming speed, damage, etc. of all weapons, including their own. So that they are able to utlize and combat them effectively.
- pilot level mattering for more than "possible orders". With the improvements I mentioned above, they should be applied more strongly to higher ranked pilots than lower ranked pilots. However, this does not mean that any rank of pilot should continue with the problematic behavior I mentioned in my rant earlier in this post.
- preference to get repairs from factions which the player has high standing with, as a toggle-able option.
Anyways as of typing this I am getting very tired so I will wrap it up here. Also, I am tired of losing all my Fs.
Also, can we please have re-programable Xenon ships and possibly even stations? Where it is possible for any Xenon ship or station to become unclaimed, and the player has to scan it, first with their ship, then scan the revealed data-leaks with their space suit to "re-program" it. Which adds it to the player faction and allows the player to give order to, or even pilot it directly if possible. (such as for the B, PE, SE, F, and H)
