Discuss the AI here!

[JRok]

Well in fairness if none of us bought the expansions that would be the end of the game so we have to be realistic here. Personally I have sympathy for those that cannot move up to Horizons for some genuine reason but none for those who want it for nothing and refuse to support the game.

I didn't really care for the planetary stuff, but I was considered the expansion for the engineers... having second thoughts though.

I only have 1.6, and I didn't think it was super horrible. BTW, All the beta doods have to start over in the real release, so probably nobody has upgraded stuff this early.

The improved AI is a welcomed change... the little incredible hulk super ships is the problem that I'm having.

I'm seriously considering starting over... if that will truly set things right... I'm semi-scared too as I'm not sure it will. [hotas]

 

[Vasious]

A: "Here's a video of someone being attacked by a shark"

B: "Yea, well I've never been attacked by a shark, so you can't prove shark attacks happen"

Actually it was
A: "Every time you go in the water a shark attacks you, see here is a video"

B: "Yea, well I've never been attacked by a shark, so you can't prove shark attacks happen every time"

 

[JacoTheBad]

Finally got a chance to play since the update... Flipping awsome. Loving the new ai, & a lot of other things with the update. FD you have seriously injected some greatness into the game. I'm giving the ai a vote of "just right"... Although I do admit, I have a friend who plays that was having issues being taken down by npcs before the update, & now his future with the game may be in question... Still, I am absolutely loving it. Taking down an elite Anacaonda actually feels like the accomplishment it should be.

 

[bossbrigand]

[video=youtube;84vuOj9Hc8o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84vuOj9Hc8o[/video]

This is a video of my current Clipper setup ramming a Conda half to death and not even losing shields. 400 m/s frontal ram. Now I'm losing that same 5B shield + 3x 0A booster setup in seconds flat to Cobras. COBRAS. Something is wrong with this picture.

 

[DaveB]

Allowing the AI to regularly spawn with a full suite of overpowered engineer equipment on top of their infinite everything and nil heat concerns is definitely an issue with the AI code.

I recently tried to get at a wing of 3 and rightfully got my ass handed to me. Fair play. On the other side of that coin, lone AI Cobras shouldn't be able to not only avoid getting smacked down by spamming infinite SCBs and chaff but then turn the fight around completely on a far superior vessel.

No it isn't. Seriously. the "AI code" says "if NPC is of this rank, he's got these flight skills, is this good at managing the pips and FA off, can manage heat this well and shoot this accurately" This only comes into play after the game has spawned the NPC(s)

Somewhere else in the game is the code that says "It's this type of instance, (rolls dice) Spawn X NPCs with these ranks"

Somewhere else still, probably in the method that actually spawns them, is "I'm creating an NPC and he's of X rank. (rolls dice) OK, here's his ship type and loadout"

I'd suggest you review your experience with that lone Cobra as I laid out in the post you replied to. Did he outfly you as a "better pilot"? That's AI code.

Since he was alone the second category is moot.

Was he modded to the gills so that his weapons/shields/thrusters were more effective than normal? That's down to the loadout the game coded him to spawn with, not the skills he was coded to have.

If you can honestly review your experience in this way and still say it was AI code, then fair enough. But for your feedback to be effective in guiding FD in their inevitable balance passes over the next week or two, you DO have to be specific as to what aspect of "NPC difficulty" you are addressing. WAY too many folks recounting their experiences on this thread are not being.

ETA: I'm not saying that you are incorrect in saying that something is wrong, just that you need to be more specific as to WHAT is wrong. If they are running boosted weapons too often and that's why you;re getting fried, that's a different thing to them just being too skilled for their rank to beat.

 

[SGTHACK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84vuOj9Hc8o

This is a video of my current Clipper setup ramming a Conda half to death and not even losing shields. 400 m/s frontal ram. Now I'm losing that same 5B shield + 3x 0A booster setup in seconds flat to Cobras. COBRAS. Something is wrong with this picture.

Sorry lad, your playing to deaf ears. The game is broke and no one will admit it. I parked my ships until Frontier decides what to do.

 

[Moonax IRL]

There are a ton of games which I never purchased (or they never made) expansions for which I still play.

Perhaps I'll go whip out Wing Commander 5 or Privateer to make that point.

Purchasing a game should not obligate me to purchase more things later to keep playing what I baught. ED was not billed as an MMO with a yearly subscription.

I'm happy to buy expansions if I want what's in them. In fact: I do have horizons. But I disagree that I should be obligated to. Forntier is not obligated to expand my existing game; but I do want to be able to play it.

Who mentioned the word "obligation", you did. Thats you putting your own slant on it and is completely nonsensical as I have yet to hear of FD making anyone buy the expansion. We have gone over this already ad infinitum FREE WILL how many times must it be explained for those people at the back of the room!

 

[RoLnD79]

I'm on xb1, we don't get horizons until next week, but we had a huge 9.2 GB update yesterday, and it has a lot of the stuff for horizons. Horizons was probably in that update, we just can't get it until next Friday when we can buy it. Enemies are dropping things for the engineers already, we have planetary approach/landing modules on certain ships etc. I've noticed I've been getting a lot of "new data acquired" scans on enemy ships, I guess that has something to do with engineers as well, it's never shown up before.

I posted earlier about the AI, I've played a lot more this evening. I'm in a fully kitted FDL. The smaller ships are definitely a bigger pain, imperial couriers never ever even knocked the dust off me. They in no way threatened me as far as getting destroyed, but they don't mess around now, it's way more of a fight. And almost all the smaller ships it's non stop chaff. I use gimballed pulse lasers, so I've been doing a lot of deselecting.

I read a few people say you can't take on wings like you used to, and that's true. The other day I was doing a pirate kill mission, and I interdicted one of them and 6 enemies popped up. It was Cobras, an asp, a viper etc, all smaller ships. They only dropped my shields one ring. I had two imperial eagles drop my shields tonight in no time. I haven't fought any corvettes or anacondas yet since the update, but pre update I would take on a corvette in a wing of three without thinking about it, I've never found corvettes hard to beat in my FDL(I only play solo though), but anacondas always give me a heck of time, I always get them down low, but seems like they ran me every time and I have to get out while I can. I wouldn't think of taking on a corvette In a wing now. Even one on one battles with enemies, they are a lot harder to kill.

For me, trading in a cutter all day, I've been interdicted a lot more than normal, I just submit and boost off. I don't even look at what type of enemy it is. Betwen my cargo and the rebuy, it's almost 24 million, so not even worth taking a chance. The pain for me isn't them killing me, it's cutting in to my trade time/ profit per hour. Lol.

I just wonder, as some of you have, how all these engineer mods are going to affect the game. I don't play PvP, but it seems like it's going to be a huge advantage for those who have the time to grind for hours. Even though I don't play that part of the game, I hope it don't ruin it for others.

Overall for me, I like. It because I think it's funner fighting now. You just have to be more careful and aware of the situation, before you take on anyone. The part about the constant interdictions, is a Royal pain, and I feel for anyone in a type 6-7 just getting going making decent bank, and now they are afraid to even trade. Best advice I have, is never fight interdiction. I never do.

 

[Moonax IRL]

I'm on xb1, we don't get horizons until next week, but we had a huge 9.2 GB update yesterday, and it has a lot of the stuff for horizons. Horizons was probably in that update, we just can't get it until next Friday when we can buy it. Enemies are dropping things for the engineers already, we have planetary approach/landing modules on certain ships etc. I've noticed I've been getting a lot of "new data acquired" scans on enemy ships, I guess that has something to do with engineers as well, it's never shown up before.

I posted earlier about the AI, I've played a lot more this evening. I'm in a fully kitted FDL. The smaller ships are definitely a bigger pain, imperial couriers never ever even knocked the dust off me. They in no way threatened me as far as getting destroyed, but they don't mess around now, it's way more of a fight. And almost all the smaller ships it's non stop chaff. I use gimballed pulse lasers, so I've been doing a lot of deselecting.

I read a few people say you can't take on wings like you used to, and that's true. The other day I was doing a pirate kill mission, and I interdicted one of them and 6 enemies popped up. It was Cobras, an asp, a viper etc, all smaller ships. They only dropped my shields one ring. I had two imperial eagles drop my shields tonight in no time. I haven't fought any corvettes or anacondas yet since the update, but pre update I would take on a corvette in a wing of three without thinking about it, I've never found corvettes hard to beat in my FDL(I only play solo though), but anacondas always give me a heck of time, I always get them down low, but seems like they ran me every time and I have to get out while I can. I wouldn't think of taking on a corvette In a wing now. Even one on one battles with enemies, they are a lot harder to kill.

For me, trading in a cutter all day, I've been interdicted a lot more than normal, I just submit and boost off. I don't even look at what type of enemy it is. Betwen my cargo and the rebuy, it's almost 24 million, so not even worth taking a chance. The pain for me isn't them killing me, it's cutting in to my trade time/ profit per hour. Lol.

I just wonder, as some of you have, how all these engineer mods are going to affect the game. I don't play PvP, but it seems like it's going to be a huge advantage for those who have the time to grind for hours. Even though I don't okay that part of the game, I hope it don't ruin it for others.

Overall for me, I like. It because I think it's funner fighting now. You just have to be more careful and aware of the situation, before you take on anyone. The part about the constant interdictions, is a Royal pain, and I feel for anyone in a type 6-7 just getting going making decent bank, and now they are afraid to even trade. Best advice I have, is never fight interdiction. I never do.

Dont worry about it I`m at level 3 with a few of the engineers after a few hours, it wont be a problem.AI drops lots of materials and you have salvage etc. You will have to find some material with the SRV but they are in the minority also some commodities which should be in the markets.

Edit - now if you want that 100% mod for completeness than you will be putting pressure on yourself but you are talking about a few % in the difference.

 

[bossbrigand]

No it isn't. Seriously. the "AI code" says "if NPC is of this rank, he's got these flight skills, is this good at managing the pips and FA off, can manage heat this well and shoot this accurately" This only comes into play after the game has spawned the NPC(s)

Somewhere else in the game is the code that says "It's this type of instance, (rolls dice) Spawn X NPCs with these ranks"

Somewhere else still, probably in the method that actually spawns them, is "I'm creating an NPC and he's of X rank. (rolls dice) OK, here's his ship type and loadout"

I'd suggest you review your experience with that lone Cobra as I laid out in the post you replied to. Did he outfly you as a "better pilot"? That's AI code.

Since he was alone the second category is moot.

Was he modded to the gills so that his weapons/shields/thrusters were more effective than normal? That's down to the loadout the game coded him to spawn with, not the skills he was coded to have.

If you can honestly review your experience in this way and still say it was AI code, then fair enough. But for your feedback to be effective in guiding FD in their inevitable balance passes over the next week or two, you DO have to be specific as to what aspect of "NPC difficulty" you are addressing. WAY too many folks recounting their experiences on this thread are not being.

ETA: I'm not saying that you are incorrect in saying that something is wrong, just that you need to be more specific as to WHAT is wrong. If they are running boosted weapons too often and that's why you;re getting fried, that's a different thing to them just being too skilled for their rank to beat.

My point is that the AI is so deadly not because of skill but because it's able to use infinite SCBs/chaff as a measure to make itself untouchable while running circles around me with equipment that it has no reason to have access to.

I have a theory as to why there's such a disparity in player opinion - ED's RNG seems to throw higher ranked ships at you as your combat rank increases. These higher ranked ships must be able to get better engineered components. At lower ranks, they're not much better than a player ship (or are worse) and to those who mostly do trading, exploring, mining, et cetera or have really only just begun a combat career, the problem may not be apparent to them as they'll probably be interacting with engineers over the course of their progression and therefore evolving at a rate that keeps up with the tougher AI they start to encounter later.

The higher ranked players - I am Dangerous - are getting totally tricked out enemies that far exceed any non-engineered vessel's capabilities. To compound matters, these players haven't been interacting with engineers over their career (since they only just came into existence) and are therefore possibly months of progress behind the bots they're encountering. This is the only explanation I can think of as to why many of the more combat oriented players are in a tizzy about the situation.

The solution, then, would be to reduce the odds of NPCs spawning with engineered components - make them rarer opponents.

 

[Asp Explorer]

I just wonder, as some of you have, how all these engineer mods are going to affect the game. I don't play PvP, but it seems like it's going to be a huge advantage for those who have the time to grind for hours. Even though I don't okay that part of the game, I hope it don't ruin it for others.

It's perfectly ok - you have nothing to worry about.

Those who have an "advantage" by being able to grind out engineer mods for hours are absolutely free to do so. It's all part of the game - and there are many juicy things to be found there.

However, those who spend their most precious resource of all attempting to perfect space ships in a space ship game may want to look outside once in a while. There's nothing wrong with it of course, I do it too. But there is a point when I can simply say "Sod it" and dump the game and take the GF out for dinner on the motorbike.

What confuses me is the mindset of some people who will actually say "Dump the GF and motorbike - git gud at the game!"

 

[Khelder]

Those who have an "advantage" by being able to grind out engineer mods for hours are absolutely free to do so. It's all part of the game - and there are many juicy things to be found there.

I don't know the odds of NPCs having mods. I'm getting taken down awfully quick, but sometimes it's hard to tell if that because of potential mods or just because they're much better at staying on target.

My concern is that it won't so much be a situation where using the engineers for mods leads to "advantages", but that not doing so leads to severe "disadvantages".

I have Horizons (LEP). I can go for mods if I wanted to. But I really don't. I feel I'm going to be punished somewhat for that. [ugh]

 

[Soopyyy]

More not too hard AI from 2.1. Totally off the shelf Corvette, no Engineered components. Chasing Vultures, Vipers, Drop ships and Assault ships. It isn't hard.

[video=youtube;QwdWLhfsrks]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwdWLhfsrks[/video]

 

[bossbrigand]

More not too hard AI from 2.1. Totally off the shelf Corvette, no Engineered components. Chasing Vipers, Drop ships and Assault ships. It isn't hard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwdWLhfsrks

What's your combat rank?

 

[Asp Explorer]

My concern is that it won't so much be a situation where using the engineers for mods leads to "advantages", but that not doing so leads to severe "disadvantages".

Remember at school where you had to prepare for exams?

You could either learn stuff, or wing it on the fly. You could pass either way if you were good enough. You were doomed to failure if you gave no attention and were not gifted enough to wing it.

This is exactly what we see here.

 

[Soopyyy]

What's your combat rank?

Elite.
Which means I've spent enough time doing this to say without a shadow of a doubt that these NPC's aren't really any harder than they were. They are a touch bit smarter and sometimes have stronger weapons. The major difference is that they don't bug out any more.

 

[bossbrigand]

Elite.
Which means I've spent enough time doing this to say without a shadow of a doubt that these NPC's aren't really any harder than they were. They are a touch bit smarter and sometimes have stronger weapons. The major difference is that they don't bug out any more.

Then I'm going to have to assert that your Corvette's sheer volume of fire was plenty to overwhelm the smaller ships you were dealing with. I am in a Clipper at rank Dangerous. Previously I would have no trouble taking on as many as seven Anacondas (I did this regularly during the Isinor CG) simultaneously, and I was perfectly able in PVP. Now single AI Cobras are posing a significant threat.

 

[Nuvey]

Love the new AI. It's just right. I personally would tweak a bit here and there, but nothing serious. My biggest issue is I wish that we were paid more per body, since the workload goes up.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

A: "Here's a video of someone being attacked by a shark"

B: "Yea, well I've never been attacked by a shark, so you can't prove shark attacks happen"

C: "Shark attacks make the game much more fun. All those dolphins in the old version were too easy. Anyone who can't kill a shark simply needs to stop crying and git gud, or just stop playing."

D: "I hate sharks. I've been scared of them ever since I watched Jaws. Why do they keep attacking me all the time? I hate FD, and will leave to play No Man's Game instead!"

E: "I don't mind sharks, but they should only come at you like this if you're deliberately hunting them, not when you're just out for a cruise. It's also not fair if you come up against sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads if you haven't also got the frickin' laser beam expansion yourself."


etc. etc.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

My point is that the AI is so deadly not because of skill but because it's able to use infinite SCBs/chaff as a measure to make itself untouchable while running circles around me with equipment that it has no reason to have access to.

Nope...

AI ships do not have infinite chaff, heat sinks, SCBs, missiles, mines, torpedoes, rail gun ammo... They will run out, same as players. It has been tested. Their ships use the same modules, same weapons etc. By design, they do have infinite MC ammo. This is to stop them fleeing when running out of ammo (they'd hi-wake otherwise).