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Erratic carrier pet behaviour

twamtwam Member Posts: 0 Arc User
edited March 2013 in Klingon Discussion
To all you carrier captains out there:

I'm running into some trouble keeping my pets centered on my target.

The frigates on my Vo'quvs and Kar'fi's have this annoying tendency to fly off across the map, and attack random stuff elsewhere, rather than sticking around with me and firing on my mark. The only thing I can do to get them to return is use recall, but the moment I switch back to an attack mode they fly off again, generally. The only 'fix' is spawning a new set, but yeah, the timers on the frigates can't keep up with the frequency of this happening. With fighters this is less of a problem, as one can just keep pumping these out, but even then, it's odd and a nuisance.

In STF's this is particularly obvious (less in ISE, btw), but it also happens in fleet actions and, I suspect, pretty much anywhere.

I already micromanage my attacks to some extent, using the various modes, but this keeps happening.

I'd guess it's something to do with AI threat mechanics and/or target assigning, but if not, I'd like to know how I can prevent this.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Post edited by twam on

Comments

  • benovidebenovide Member Posts: 397
    edited March 2013
    twam wrote: »
    To all you carrier captains out there:

    I'm running into some trouble keeping my pets centered on my target.

    The frigates on my Vo'quvs and Kar'fi's have this annoying tendency to fly off across the map, and attack random stuff elsewhere, rather than sticking around with me and firing on my mark. The only thing I can do to get them to return is use recall, but the moment I switch back to an attack mode they fly off again, generally. The only 'fix' is spawning a new set, but yeah, the timers on the frigates can't keep up with the frequency of this happening. With fighters this is less of a problem, as one can just keep pumping these out, but even then, it's odd and a nuisance.

    In STF's this is particularly obvious (less in ISE, btw), but it also happens in fleet actions and, I suspect, pretty much anywhere.

    I already micromanage my attacks to some extent, using the various modes, but this keeps happening.

    I'd guess it's something to do with AI threat mechanics and/or target assigning, but if not, I'd like to know how I can prevent this.

    Does anyone have any suggestions?

    Do you know why they are attacking? Because you are TELLING THEM TO ATTACK! they will attack the nearest ship, or any ship you have selected, why? BECAUSE YOU'RE TELLING THEM TO!

    If you don't want them to be contineously on the offense, use escort command. They will then fly in attack formation around your carrier, engaging only enemies that get to close to them or your ship.

    Use Intercept to engage distant targets that are on the move (really good for those freighter defense missions).

    Does that answer your question?
  • cmdrskyfallercmdrskyfaller Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    beno, this is an old bug.

    The pet AI is fubar and has been fubar since the devs MADE it fubar. Pets used to have awesome AI.


    Hell... they used to go to full impulse when recalled and clear their target lists. Now they keep lock on whatever (even when attack order is withdrawn and recall issued) and crawl back to you.
  • trycksh0ttrycksh0t Member Posts: 148 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    benovide wrote: »
    Do you know why they are attacking? Because you are TELLING THEM TO ATTACK! they will attack the nearest ship, or any ship you have selected, why? BECAUSE YOU'RE TELLING THEM TO!

    If you don't want them to be contineously on the offense, use escort command. They will then fly in attack formation around your carrier, engaging only enemies that get to close to them or your ship.

    Use Intercept to engage distant targets that are on the move (really good for those freighter defense missions).

    Does that answer your question?

    That's not how Intercept works....at all. Intercept is supposed to put them into an aggressive mode while keeping close to your ship, where they prioritize engaging "small" objects, such as fighters, mines, and destructible torpedoes. I say it is "supposed" to keep them close to your ship, because I often watch a group of my fighters speed off to attack a group of Probes 15km away while the Tactical Cube I'm duking it out with proceeds to pound the bejeesus out of me with HY plasma torpedoes.

    Point being, support craft AI is borked, which is pretty much what the OP stated and skyfaller confirmed, it got broke and subsequently ignored.
  • twamtwam Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Yeah, that's pretty much the point I was making, I guess, the broken AI-point.

    I'd be fine with the Attack setting having them attack any and all things I'd selected or that's close - that's what they're supposed to do.

    It's just that they have this tendency to ignore every target nearby (and I mean 0,1 to 15 km range), whether it's my target or not, and fly off to attack a target 40+ km away.

    Say, I'm in CSE and I'm blasting BoP's and probes, and they'll suddenly fly over to the other end to attack a cube there. Or I'm in KSE, dealing with probes and generators, and they'll decide to help out on a cube on the other side of a map, that'll most likely be destroyed by the time they get there - so they'll attack the gateway on that side instead. That's just uncalled for, with 3-8 targets within range, one of which being the one I tell them to attack.

    Attack mode should make them attack my target, and only my target - and it does that about 65% of the time.

    Anyway, thanks for the confirmation that they are in fact borked, and that I'm not the only one having this problem. Since it's been a longstanding problem, I guess the devs will be aware of it, but I assume it's just above the exchange bugs on the list of priorities.
  • oneandonlyrecceoneandonlyrecce Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Generally when my pets go off on one it's because I don't have any of the 4 carrier commands selected. If you have a close look at the Attack command you will see you can toggle it on and off.

    When a map starts and the pets don't have any orders and will just fly off to attack anything they are aware of. And it's worse when you STF, as they will go and back-up your teammates who are in combat, even though the targets are outside their perception range. You can experiment with this in a controlled environment like a private PvP room.

    A couple of points about Attack mode.
    They will fire on other targets on their way to the target you have selected. So in Infected they will fire on the generators on the way to attack the Cube.

    They will attack any enemies in range if you are "In Combat" but don't have any target selected. So in KA and your defending against the probes, when the last probe goes down and you're not targetting anything they will switch to the generators. This is also why they attack the gate in ISE while you switch sides.

    Pets are better behaved when you are by yourself. And if you are in a widely spread out team and want tight control you will need to use Recall.
  • cmdrskyfallercmdrskyfaller Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Generally when my pets go off on one it's because I don't have any of the 4 carrier commands selected. If you have a close look at the Attack command you will see you can toggle it on and off.

    Actually no. The reason why they go off to attack a target in the middle of nowhere, 40km from you is because the pet detects 'hate' from that NPC towards you or towards themselves and react to it.

    There is also a bug of the pet AI picking aggro from an NPC ship towards one of your team-mates. In essence, the pets brain TRIBBLE into thinking aggro on your team-mate = aggro to you and they go attack it.

    Its all a massive mess in the hate list recognition of the AI. You want to know why pets now will switch targets when you switch targets? They didnt use to do that..you could order pets to attack one ship and you could shoot another.

    The reason they're like this now is because the carrier constantly (about once per second) sends an 'attack my target!' command to the pets when you're in red alert.. even if you DONT have an attack order selected. We know this is a FACT because not too long ago the doffs that gave defense bonus to carriers when pets were on recall was glitched...it would flicker on and off once a second...because the carrier was sending the attack order every second interrupting the recall but instantly the recall order was re-sent so the pets remained in recall.

    So, the thing is, you dont even need to issue attack order. if you're in red alert its sent for you by default. This was the lame, lazy quick-fix drone-AI the devs slapped onto fighter pets after they completely FUBARD and deleted the fighter pet's great AI.

    You only need issue intercept if you have many heavy torps or fighters bugging you for they do react to it...but only as long as the pets are near you. If they are 8km away dont bother, the pets wont return to you in time. Escort works for the pets but not for the player since you cannot target something else... the pets will remain escorting the original target if you switch to an NPC enemy but you can't really support a team with pets because all pets will obey the constant 'escort' order being sent out.

    Before the AI fubar you could assign a wing of shield drones to your tank and a wing of fighters to your sci ship under escort order because the pets had two distinct AI's: Drones only obeyed ONE order and that was it. Launching shield drones and telling them to escort a player meant that if you wanted to re-allocate those drones to help another ship you had to re-launch them.

    Under the old system, the fighters you assigned to escort your team's sci ship (you know, back when sci ships actually did something and were valuable to protect) also stayed with the ship you ordered them to escort even if you targeted another player to heal him. Why? You unselected the escort order. If you do that now the pets will simply move to the next ship or attack whatever enemy is shooting you or the player you target (assist targeting) and abandon their escort order.

    What we have now is a really crappy AI system and the devs dont give a rats butt to fix it.
  • pirebpireb Member Posts: 15 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    All this ofc ONLY if the fighters actually decides to follow you in the first place....

    More then once have i had half my fighter wing just sit there in space doing f all useful after i launch them, and just as often i can't even replace them, even if i switch to a different fighter in the hangar(s)

    But Cryptic is probably satisfied with how they work now as scrubs screamed that the Carriers were to OP when they had working AI.

    That or they just fired the one person that knew how to fix it, my money's on this one personally.
  • erraberrab Member Posts: 1,434 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Actually no. The reason why they go off to attack a target in the middle of nowhere, 40km from you is because the pet detects 'hate' from that NPC towards you or towards themselves and react to it.

    There is also a bug of the pet AI picking aggro from an NPC ship towards one of your team-mates. In essence, the pets brain TRIBBLE into thinking aggro on your team-mate = aggro to you and they go attack it.

    Its all a massive mess in the hate list recognition of the AI. You want to know why pets now will switch targets when you switch targets? They didnt use to do that..you could order pets to attack one ship and you could shoot another.

    The reason they're like this now is because the carrier constantly (about once per second) sends an 'attack my target!' command to the pets when you're in red alert.. even if you DONT have an attack order selected. We know this is a FACT because not too long ago the doffs that gave defense bonus to carriers when pets were on recall was glitched...it would flicker on and off once a second...because the carrier was sending the attack order every second interrupting the recall but instantly the recall order was re-sent so the pets remained in recall.

    So, the thing is, you dont even need to issue attack order. if you're in red alert its sent for you by default. This was the lame, lazy quick-fix drone-AI the devs slapped onto fighter pets after they completely FUBARD and deleted the fighter pet's great AI.

    You only need issue intercept if you have many heavy torps or fighters bugging you for they do react to it...but only as long as the pets are near you. If they are 8km away dont bother, the pets wont return to you in time. Escort works for the pets but not for the player since you cannot target something else... the pets will remain escorting the original target if you switch to an NPC enemy but you can't really support a team with pets because all pets will obey the constant 'escort' order being sent out.

    Before the AI fubar you could assign a wing of shield drones to your tank and a wing of fighters to your sci ship under escort order because the pets had two distinct AI's: Drones only obeyed ONE order and that was it. Launching shield drones and telling them to escort a player meant that if you wanted to re-allocate those drones to help another ship you had to re-launch them.

    Under the old system, the fighters you assigned to escort your team's sci ship (you know, back when sci ships actually did something and were valuable to protect) also stayed with the ship you ordered them to escort even if you targeted another player to heal him. Why? You unselected the escort order. If you do that now the pets will simply move to the next ship or attack whatever enemy is shooting you or the player you target (assist targeting) and abandon their escort order.

    What we have now is a really crappy AI system and the devs dont give a rats butt to fix it.

    I also remember how good the Hanger Support AI was before it was destroyed by the Season 4 (might have been 3) update.

    The AI for Hanger support has been craptastic now for just about 2 years maybe longer, I've take 2 differnet 6 month breaks from STO in the past.

    I miss being able to have BOP engage a Target and hold its argo while I work on another target.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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