AI abilities and firing arcs.

[nikos]

Greetings. I read a Dev response recently arguing that AIs don't cheat in the sense that they use thrusters, power management, FA etc as normal players would do (or better!). I also read about coming updates to the AI that would allow it to avoid player firing arcs.

I do have a question though: can NPCs "see" targets despite orientation? In other words, do they ignore cockpit visibility limitations that would affect human players?

Even with the best tracker hardware or the widest multi-screen setup I can still not "see" my target's orientation when they are behind me. Do NPCs "cheat" by ignoring such limitations?

 

[Mephane]

Greetings. I read a Dev response recently arguing that AIs don't cheat in the sense that they use thrusters, power management, FA etc as normal players would do (or better!). I also read about coming updates to the AI that would allow it to avoid player firing arcs.

I do have a question though: can NPCs "see" targets despite orientation? In other words, do they ignore cockpit visibility limitations that would affect human players?

Even with the best tracker hardware or the widest multi-screen setup I can still not "see" my target's orientation when they are behind me. Do NPCs "cheat" by ignoring such limitations?

The 3D image of the target shows its actual orientation, its position can be deduced from the scanner, and whether it is firing or not is shown by the scanner icon flashing or not. So in principle, you have all necessary information in the cockpit.

I do believe, however, that it is impossible for ordinary human beings to determine whether the target is actually facing you unless it is coming straight ahead or from behind, I simply can't measure or calculate angles on the scanner and the hologram by sheer eyesight in order to compare them. (I would prefer the target's facing relative to you instead of its actual orientation in space - i.e. when facing you, regardless from which direction, you'd always see the hologram head-on, when it is flying away from you, you'd always see its back side, etc.)

 

[Cmdr Pli55ken]

can NPCs "see" targets despite orientation?

They certainly have 20/20 nightvision when fighting on the night side of planets in resource rings.
Implementing a vision model that takes into account cockpit visibility (with uncertainty as to the player position) would be very hard to do. The way it seems now is that NPCs see that which they see on the radar

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(I would prefer the target's facing relative to you instead of its actual orientation in space - i.e. when facing you, regardless from which direction, you'd always see the hologram head-on, when it is flying away from you, you'd always see its back side, etc.)

Good idea.

For the Oculus users: Is it easier to integrate heading and position information once you have 3D vision? I'm thinking about getting one and that would certainly be a selling point.

 

[Mephane]

For the Oculus users: Is it easier to integrate heading and position information once you have 3D vision? I'm thinking about getting one and that would certainly be a selling point.

I don't have an Oculus Rift but I can assure you that when you use the scanner in the default logarithmic mode, 3D vision wouldn't help, either, and in linear mode I'd be highly sceptical that any human being could do it.

 

[Cmdr Moritz]

Avoiding the fire arc is an old thing...

Thats one of the vipers advantages, using lateral thrust to break the fire arcs. I am quite sure that the majority of senior viper players use this technique.

 

[nikos]

Good points, thanks. One thing that I believe we humans can't deduce at all is target speed. Am I right?

They certainly have 20/20 nightvision when fighting on the night side of planets in resource rings.
Implementing a vision model that takes into account cockpit visibility (with uncertainty as to the player position) would be very hard to do.

I am not sure it is that hard. They could, e.g., add some random noise to the speed vector, whose amplitude depends on some measure of how far outside the ship's cockpit visibility the target is.