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Pet AI: Front dual cannons still useless on pets. Suggesting some solutions.
molen
Member Posts: 55 Arc User
As a player that really enjoy the carrier pet aspect of the game I appreciate what the devs are doing to improve pet game play with the new UI and improved AI but there is some things that still need some improvement and the AI for pets that use dual cannons as their main energy weapon is one of those things.
I use the Fer'Jai frigates but I assume similar pets have the same problem. The problem is that the front dual cannons hardly ever are used because the pets spend most of their time circling the target like a cruiser leaving the turret the only thing firing. It seems they only turn toward the target when they are ready to fire torpedoes and since they are so fast they can only fire the front cannon for a second or two until they fly past the target and they start circling again.
Doing some patrol missions in Tau Dewa and analyzing the damage output with Advanced Combat Tracker confirms this. My four frigates logged 80-100k total damage with their turrets but only 1-3k damage with their front dual cannons. The damage from the front cannons is so little the weapon could be totally removed at this point and not be missed which is a shame.
I know there was a supposed fix for this issue a few months back in a patch that would make pets with cannons use them more but I didn't see much difference and ACT confirms the issue still exists.
Solutions?
My dream AI for the Fer'Jai frigate: Escort type attack runs straight towards the target(NOT at full speed so they can get some shots in before passing) shooting all energy weapons and torpedoes if they aren't on cool down and when flying past the target drop a mine if they got them. After passing the target they can go full speed again to build up some distance to the target circle around and do another attack run.
I realize this maybe hard to do so my other solution is simple this, switch out the dual cannons with their 45 degree firing arc which the current AI isn't built for and replace them with single cannons. With their 180 degree firing arc they could be used more often and be more useful.
I use the Fer'Jai frigates but I assume similar pets have the same problem. The problem is that the front dual cannons hardly ever are used because the pets spend most of their time circling the target like a cruiser leaving the turret the only thing firing. It seems they only turn toward the target when they are ready to fire torpedoes and since they are so fast they can only fire the front cannon for a second or two until they fly past the target and they start circling again.
Doing some patrol missions in Tau Dewa and analyzing the damage output with Advanced Combat Tracker confirms this. My four frigates logged 80-100k total damage with their turrets but only 1-3k damage with their front dual cannons. The damage from the front cannons is so little the weapon could be totally removed at this point and not be missed which is a shame.
I know there was a supposed fix for this issue a few months back in a patch that would make pets with cannons use them more but I didn't see much difference and ACT confirms the issue still exists.
Solutions?
My dream AI for the Fer'Jai frigate: Escort type attack runs straight towards the target(NOT at full speed so they can get some shots in before passing) shooting all energy weapons and torpedoes if they aren't on cool down and when flying past the target drop a mine if they got them. After passing the target they can go full speed again to build up some distance to the target circle around and do another attack run.
I realize this maybe hard to do so my other solution is simple this, switch out the dual cannons with their 45 degree firing arc which the current AI isn't built for and replace them with single cannons. With their 180 degree firing arc they could be used more often and be more useful.
Post edited by molen#7916 on
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I'm running 2 Qaw'Duns and they really can only hit with the dual cannon on the alpha strike and even then it is lucky. Most of the time half of them will break off the attack run and circle around.
We need a new AI for strafing run, orbit close(what we currently have) and orbit far (like 6km ish).
I'm down for testing more carrier pet AI stuff if Captain Gecko can give it the green light.
It turns out that the AI Weight (a value which helps AI to determine which powers/items to activate) were set incorrectly at very low values on all Fekihri Fighters and Frigates, so they were not performing even as well as BoP pets and Peregrine Fighters. The aforementioned AI update should have a more profound impact on these pets, than on others.
Assigning an AI routine for these pets to follow is not as simple as "do a strafing run" or "fly in figure eights past the target" or anything similar. We have to set up conditional statements for these pets to follow under every single conceivable circumstance. Your requests to send these pets extremely specific positioning commands, in 3D space combat, is almost laughably far into the "easier said than done" category of suggestions. Instead, we have to settle for encouraging the AI to follow certain behaviors in certain categories of situations.
It might be best to think of AI as strong suggestions, not guaranteed commands.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Thanks!
This was specifically aimed at hangar pets. I'll take a look at the Aquarius (and the Bortas' BOP launch) and see if it needs similar treatment.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
J-man you are a rockstar! Thank you for working hard on a topic the is near and dear to my heart.
I know things I ask for are sometimes outside the realm of possibility but I like to shoot high and end up getting great stuff from Devs like you.
Again thanks for your hard work and I owe you a beer.
Most likely. Though not as noticeably, if so.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
While you're looking at the Aquarius, could you look into putting it on a diet, I swear it balloons up 5x when it leaves the dock... (also the playable model is way too big as well...)
Thanks!
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
Some issues like them getting the most out of those cloaks would be beneficial since when you launch them they are not cloaked and then to attack and then recloak after certain amount of time to redo these strafing runs or figure 8's.
Another issue is those skull fighters I hope they are truely better than they are now because they virtually weren't even worth the Dilithium same with the slavers as I did get e lite slavers but like the advanced ones when I play I'm figuring there is some kind of hard cap involved since I do contraband farming with the character that uses the elite slaver that because of the doffing that its never looting anything. So the ability to loot shouldn't be hard capped if that is the case because in this game the slavers could be viewed as an "investment" to continue to get more than what we are getting thus far.
Last issue is the warp core explosion only thing I could suggest that pets have evasive but just a pet version when warp core is detected or if that is not possible than have it where a certain hull percentage makes it where if say a target has 5% hull health that it will turn away from the target when it gets a certain distance from it. The evasive would be easier to kick in when its very low on health but either of these suggestions would on paper/or in theory work to prevent those explosions.
Sounds extremely cool and thoughtful of you to do this. I can't wait to see the results!
It's going to be sadder still once I can't refresh them and have them launch, now facing their target, and get some front-end action happening again (until they get close and start circling).
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Thanks for taking a look at this and I will be testing the tweaked AI on tribble later and see if there's a notable difference which I hope.
Interesting about the low values for the Fekhiri ships, that would explain the result when a friend and I did some pet PVP a while ago and his BoPs crushed my Fer'Jai in every test we did 4-0.
That's not really the whole issue.
Is it hard to program AI to do this? You betcha. Possibly difficult enough that the time that'd be required just simply isn't available.
But there's also the rabbit hole... The can of worms... the setting of unreasonable expectations, and the question of whether to fulfill them.
And by that I mean this: Say we were to take the time to improve the behavior of a specific pet, like BOP Raiders. What's to say that players will be happy if we stop there?
What about Jem'hadar Attack Ship Pets? Maybe they want better control over their Ramming Speed?
What about Runabouts? Maybe they should use their Tractor Beam more aggressively on faster targets?
What about Ferjai Frigates? Maybe they should only lay mines when their target is very nearby, and has high health (to ensure that the mines will actually hit the intended target)?
The list goes on and on. And the simple truth is that we cannot afford to spend our development budget tuning features like this, when we have design matters to deal with that have a more profound effect on the future life of the game on a whole. We do what we can.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Can't you just recall them, and then relaunch them (once that's fixed)?
There is definite room for improvement, especially with these changes intended to improve the longevity of carrier pets.
Wouldn't it be easier if the they simply had the 360 degree weapon arcs that come with a lot of shuttle weapons or some such? Or give them all beams or something? (I apologize if this sounds really naive.)
I understand rebuilding AI is a slippery slope with the possibility of things never being good enough but some items in the game do need to worked on. I do want to try the BoP after you make the changes. But the current state of a Qaw'Dun is really sad with little use of the dual cannons and torps RoF taking between 40s to 60s is silly.
As I'm a hardcore carrier captain only a few of the pets are not working correctly IMO.
Here is my personal rank of issues starting at high priority to low.
1. BoP AI/use of cannons
2. (All pets)The nerf to torpedo rate of fire that was made around the time Romulan rep came in. 30s to 60s for a torp to fire is not acceptable.
3. Powers recharge rate
4. Ramming pet damage and vs vet system???? 5 star pet ramming .... now no stars:eek:
Beam weapons are truly the best weapons for pets as they are not subject to the limited arcs of fire. But cannons do work better on fighters than frigates as they have a better turn rate.
Again borticuscryptic thank you for your hard work and I know how it is to be the brunt of all the hate and complaints.
Again thanks for working on this.
PS: I want the "I
Slippery slope arguments are a logical fallacy; there's an assumption built in that opinions/desires/needs can't or won't change in the face of something new. It's also a really crummy excuse to stand by and do nothing.
"If we make the game better, they might expect more good things! Oh, the humanity!"
Conversationally, I do have a question (and I admit to ignorance), but is it really like that, programming AI, that you'd have to improve the behavior of a specific pet, like BoPs? I mean, is it not possible to create one "Strafe/Fig8 Attack Subroutine" and apply that to all "Front Arc Pets", couldn't you improve all of them with the same fell swoop?
Or is it that each Pet follows their own AI and what works for a BoP wouldn't work for another Front-Arcer?
Just curious.
I guess I'll have to test that out and see how it works once, as you say, it's fixed.
I wouldn't say they are doing nothing. I think they are doing the best they think they can with the resources they have at their disposal.
It's like a poor person could eat a $100 fancy steak dinner, but it'd be better to use those funds for ten $10 meals. I'm not meaning to say Cryptic is poor, but they do have finite resources and their decision on where best to apply them is to spend them on things other than tinkering with the AI.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
As far as I understood this problem, all Pets are using the same functions/routines (or whatever you might call them). Now each Pet-Type (Peregrine or advanced Peregrine would allready be a difference here) has it's own table of behaviour-chances... Maybe something like (for the Romulan Droneship) 50% chance to fly a circle around a target and 50% chance to use the 8-shaped-figure.
Now you can imagine, what would happen, if those chances for different behaviour are wrong. Instead of 50% for each of the types it could be 10% for the one behaviour and 90% for the other.
So, how did you come to these values in the first place? Could it be possible to integrate some trial-and-error-code that tries to optimize the behaviour of the pets? Well, it should be possible and it should get the pets optimized to use their full gear and abilities.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Oh, I definitely agree. Resource management has always been an issue for STO. I understand that with limited resources, you have to pick and choose your battles, but that's not where his argument left off.
I'm simply addressing how silly it is to blame a lack of action on the assumption that it'll just make players want more--especially when we all know they'll want more no matter what they do. Again, it's a lame excuse for a lack of action. He should just stick with the resources line.
Here is a thought. Hire a 6 man dev team whose whole purpose is to work through your half completed game design and do EXACTLY that.
The biggest problem this game suffers from is that EVERY system in the game is not given the long term focus it needs and is ALWAYS released 'as is' before it it is polished. Create a team with a environment artist, a ship artist, a writer/editor, and 3 coders to go through and fix what the mainline designers, (*Cough*Geko*Cough*) have given up on or left behind because its not "on the schedule".
I seem to recall back in the day you were brought on to do exactly this function. But one man does not a QA/Polish team make.
Have if your on a team have them escort a Player BoP which usual do strafe runs them selves so if your pets are staying around that ship, they themselves are likely doing strafe runs because they can't drift too far from the ship they are escorting I believe.
Please, please, PLEASE look into the weapon priorities of elite widow fighters from the nukara rep. Elite widow fighters are about as good as normal peregrine fighters against single targets, and after reading the above post, now I know why.
Elite widow priority is so bad that upon spawning, despite facing the enemy, they immediately turn to use their beam arrays. And since they've already turned sideways, they're unable to fire off a torpedo or use their DBBs without FAW.
for example in EVE online pets only orbit the target and shoot with a single 360 degree weapon. the balancing done simple by adjusting the damage, better pets do more damage then cheaper pets.
KISS rule always wins, really.
1 to 3 of 360 degree cannon/beam scaled to tier/rarity, 0-2 tac/eng/sci ability to perform different roles.
remove mines, as they are useless (especially on ferjai), put another torp.
make torps wide angle 180.
make pets immune to warp core breaches. which even doesn't sound unrealistic in real world since small and lightweight object will be simple pushed away by explosion waves instead of bigger objects, which will be thorn apart because of their mass and inertia.
no scripts involved and most of the drawbacks will be cured instantly.
no script overhead for server/client.
romulan drones became best available pet just because in fact they are simple beam boats.
so why those weird, complicated setups, which gives no real benefits, but only drawbacks? it makes no sense at all.
Hmmm has anyone tried using attack then recalling and sending back into attack again? See if you can guide them into strafing into them. I'll try when I get on to tribble next.
I'm curious: What courses of action are even available to pets, and what governs their turning behavior? How exactly would a pet behave if it possessed ONLY forward-arc weaponry and thus had all of its weight upon such weapons? Could these various action-weights be made player-adjustable via an interface similar to the power presets, thus allowing players to determine what and how much they wish a pet to do a given course of action?