Discuss AI here (After Engineer mods removal)

[Mohenjo]

What I mean is, the AI only seems weak because you've gone to lengths to make them insignificant. If you want them to challenge you, you can put less effective gear on your ship.

If the AI is too weak, you have two choices. Either make THEM stronger, or make yourself weaker.

If you make THEM stronger, you make it impossible for anyone who already found them a challenge to compete with them. If you make yourself weaker, it doesn't hinder anyone else.

 

[Codger]

I'm still voting too hard. I'm not sure it's the AI specifically that's the problem, depending on what you mean by AI. If the AI is just the part the controls how they fly after engaging in combat, then it's probably OK. But if the AI includes what happens before combat as well, then it's still messed up.

I was interdicted several times today while not on a mission, just travelling here and there. I had no cargo, nor even a cargo hold. The NPCs were all Master or above (I'm rated Expert), and they all demanded that I drop my cargo. That part is just plain dumb. I have no cargo. I'm sick of NPCs stupidly demanding my non-existent cargo.

But even if I had had cargo, they didn't wait for me to drop any, they just demanded the cargo and then immediately opened fire. Ridiculous. At least without the 'insta-kill' bug I was able to escape, but it was touchy.

In one case I was interdicted twice in a row by different NPCs. And this was in a high security system. So I'm in a high security system, with no mission, no cargo, no Powerplay, and I still have to run for my life? Nah. That's just annoying and certainly not fun or exciting.

 

[Enopho]

Hello again community.

I have been reading with interest on these forums and the latest post from FD which mentioned the changes made yesterday.. I have yet to try the AI since the changes, but i have a question if I may. After getting slaughtered by the new AI so many times, i thought i would try improving my chances using flight assist off as an option. (thank you Isinona for your tutorial guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtD41MRibe4) as it appears you can maneuver faster and keep your weapons trained on your enemy longer - not sure if that is the case but it does look like it!

However, i seem to have a problem and i don't know if it is an issue because of the settings, the new update, any changes etc? I am using a joystick my grandson gave me .. it is a logitech pro 3d and when using the twist control on the flight stick (yaw?) there is no noticeable movement for about 20degrees both directions ..then it turns violently. but the pitch and roll work perfectly?
I can see no dead zone in the game control settings and i have redone the calibration on the windows joystick in the devices so

can anyone tell me if this is a patch problem thing and if i need to report it to someone as a bug or does anyone else also have this problem.

As a side note, you may have seen that i was not happy with the new AI as i struggle with the controls a bit, but while waiting for the patch fix (thank you FD) i decided to try to earn my lost money by hanging around a compromised navigation beacon and waiting for a fight to start then when the enemy is nearing death, taking a few pot shots and backing up the other friendly law biding pilot. I then get the bounty. managed to do this a couple of times last night while trying flight assist off and made a little (about 170k).

Thanks

Enopho's Grandfather

 

[WR3ND]

What I mean is, the AI only seems weak because you've gone to lengths to make them insignificant. If you want them to challenge you, you can put less effective gear on your ship.

If the AI is too weak, you have two choices. Either make THEM stronger, or make yourself weaker.

If you make THEM stronger, you make it impossible for anyone who already found them a challenge to compete with them. If you make yourself weaker, it doesn't hinder anyone else.

I know what you mean, but it's like telling a runner who's very fast to go a bit slower so that a race is more fun; it doesn't really make sense in the context of playing the game, nor running the race. Basically, it's immersion breaking. Handicapping myself isn't really an optional solution for me. Heck, I'm already using a much less than optimal combat setup, not using ammo nor anything else that has a limited supply, as my Vulture is used in a weird kind of hybrid role for both exploration and combat.

No, I just have to settle for a less than truly challenging game. But that's OK, as I understand this game isn't made just for me, and I still enjoy it, of course. I enjoyed it back before 2.1 as well.

 

[Sunleader]

Not Sure about the Entire thing.
Last Fight tonight felt just like Before.

An Enemy Gunship Duked it out with me. And aside from the absolutely absurd maneuverability they get from their Inhuman Support Thruster Usage. The other thing absolutely uncanny is their ability to Damage my Weapons within 2-3 Salvos.


They need a more Human Accuracy with Fixed Weapons.
And Players need an better UI for Targeting Subsystems as NPCs unlike us dont have any menu opening in their face for that....
Also they need a more Human lvl ability with their Maneuvers. Any of the Upper Ranked NPCs is Flying like a Paid Korean Professional Gamer which does nothing but play this Game 12 hours a Day.



Will Accept some Fights tough to test it out further.

 

[Ziljan]

If the AI is too weak, you have two choices. Either make THEM stronger, or make yourself weaker.

If you make THEM stronger, you make it impossible for anyone who already found them a challenge to compete with them. If you make yourself weaker, it doesn't hinder anyone else.

I'm already in a Viper mk III with D3 shields and dumbfire missles. How much more unrealistic of a self handicapping should I do? I mean, I would like to enjoy more ships and more weapon choices, not less and less.

The other thing absolutely uncanny is their ability to Damage my Weapons within 2-3 Salvos.

Probably using missles. They can knock out your outer modules (like weapons) very quickly. You can defend against this by getting military grade bulkheads and/or at least 1 point defense. If your shields go down and you are about to flee, try applying silent running. The missles will lose lock and fly harmlessly past you. Especially if you use lateral/vertical thrusters a bit from your last known position.

Btw, Missles work just as well for us and they do for NPCs. As I said above, when I land several volleys of unmodded dumbfire missles on a sluggish Anaconda, they get enough malfunctions that I can basically pick them apart at will with my Viper. It's a bit sad to watch them fume helplessly. But that's what those NPCs get for not equipping a point defense or better armor.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I've reserved full judgement on the AI until had a proper chance to test things.

Bugs aside, in general i like it. I do worry a bit for the new player though. I think there might need to be another look taken at what sort of enemies attack you based on rank/credits/ship flying.

I have two issues that i'll bring up.

1) NPCs now love to ram you when they are close to dying. Instead of running like it was in the early betas, they now seem to fixate on the idea of "If i can't win, neither can you". Had it a few times now, and lost a ship because of it. As soon as you get a high ranked NPC low on hull, they seem to go into suicide mode. Glad i'm in a vulture for combat, because i could dance aside from the bigger ships.... something with less powerful side thrusters is going to be getting rammed. Also found flying backwards helped here (which i don't really like doing). Hope this gets looked at.

2) Combat zones. Ships in CZ are generally full of HRPs and/or armour. This makes taking hull down a longer task. Well, understandable, they are combat ships, but when you have targets all around, combined with the new AI, it means each kill is taking quite a long time to finish off. I understand the armour on ships in CZ was probably to slow down the kill rate, but with the new AI, its kind of a double whammy. So, my hope here is they look at this, and reduce the armour on the NPCs in CZ, or increase the payout per kill. Took me about 30 mins to get 124k credits. Ok, i'm not the best pilot, but i am in a vulture, and that thing packs plenty of heat. I wasn't even focusing on bigger enemies... although i found it was taking about the same amount of time for most ships because smaller ships are pretty zippy.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I'm already in a Viper mk III with D3 shields and dumbfire missles. How much more unrealistic of a self handicapping should I do? I mean, I would like to enjoy more ships and more weapon choices, not less and less.




Probably using missles. They can knock out your outer modules (like weapons) very quickly. You can defend against this by getting military grade bulkheads and/or at least 1 point defense. If your shields go down and you are about to flee, try applying silent running. The missles will lose lock and fly harmlessly past you. Especially if you use lateral/vertical thrusters a bit from your last known position.

Btw, Missles work just as well for us and they do for NPCs. As I said above, when I land several volleys of unmodded dumbfire missles on a sluggish Anaconda, they get enough malfunctions that I can basically pick them apart at will with my Viper. It's a bit sad to watch them fume helplessly. But that's what those NPCs get for not equipping a point defense or better armor.

Unfortunately, you are just too awesome. In any online game there is going to be the full spectrum of players. FD probably need to do a balance pass to ensure better pilots have opportunities for really challenging enemies while at the same time allowing poorer pilots to survive better by presenting them with weaker targets more frequently.

 

[IceFire122]

And Players need an better UI for Targeting Subsystems as NPCs unlike us dont have any menu opening in their face for that...

Players don't have to use the UI. You can assign/use buttons for targetting next/previous sub-system.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I've reserved full judgement on the AI until had a proper chance to test things.

Bugs aside, in general i like it. I do worry a bit for the new player though. I think there might need to be another look taken at what sort of enemies attack you based on rank/credits/ship flying.

I have two issues that i'll bring up.

1) NPCs now love to ram you when they are close to dying. Instead of running like it was in the early betas, they now seem to fixate on the idea of "If i can't win, neither can you". Had it a few times now, and lost a ship because of it. As soon as you get a high ranked NPC low on hull, they seem to go into suicide mode. Glad i'm in a vulture for combat, because i could dance aside from the bigger ships.... something with less powerful side thrusters is going to be getting rammed. Also found flying backwards helped here (which i don't really like doing). Hope this gets looked at.

2) Combat zones. Ships in CZ are generally full of HRPs and/or armour. This makes taking hull down a longer task. Well, understandable, they are combat ships, but when you have targets all around, combined with the new AI, it means each kill is taking quite a long time to finish off. I understand the armour on ships in CZ was probably to slow down the kill rate, but with the new AI, its kind of a double whammy. So, my hope here is they look at this, and reduce the armour on the NPCs in CZ, or increase the payout per kill. Took me about 30 mins to get 124k credits. Ok, i'm not the best pilot, but i am in a vulture, and that thing packs plenty of heat. I wasn't even focusing on bigger enemies... although i found it was taking about the same amount of time for most ships because smaller ships are pretty zippy.

I'm a "new" player, in that I recently started the game from scratch. Even with just a stock Sidewinder, I've still managed to hold my own in combat. I would submit that-unless you go looking for trouble-then the quality of AI you will face is scaled to the player's current combat ranking.

 

[Ziljan]

2) Combat zones. Ships in CZ are generally full of HRPs and/or armour. This makes taking hull down a longer task....Took me about 30 mins to get 124k credits. Ok, i'm not the best pilot, but i am in a vulture, and that thing packs plenty of heat. I wasn't even focusing on bigger enemies... although i found it was taking about the same amount of time for most ships because smaller ships are pretty zippy.

Try herding the NPCs to fight your opponents. This requires you to aid NPCs that are already engaged on one edge of the fight, and then working your way to one side, dragging your "freed" greens with you by attacking the next closest enemy to them. This way you can use the awesome high ranked greens to your advantage

Unfortunately, you are just too awesome. In any online game there is going to be the full spectrum of players. FD probably need to do a balance pass to ensure better pilots have opportunities for really challenging enemies while at the same time allowing poorer pilots to survive better by presenting them with weaker targets more frequently.

I am actually not awesome. I get my butt handed back to me on a regular basis in PVP and by higher ranked pilots in CQC, so there are far better pilots out there than me. It's because of these pilots that I know anything at all about the game. So I studied their techniques until I could use them too somewhat. I have a LONG way to go before I am "awesome" however. I try to share what I know, just like they did, but without all the screaming and explosions. Words will suffice

SJA's 2.1 AI actually taught me a couple new things about FAoff as well. And I look forward to learning more tricks from her AI in future updates

 

[WR3ND]

I'm a "new" player, in that I recently started the game from scratch. Even with just a stock Sidewinder, I've still managed to hold my own in combat. I would submit that-unless you go looking for trouble-then the quality of AI you will face is scaled to the player's current combat ranking.

Ironically, I'm likely over skilled/equipped and under ranked then at "Expert" level, as I guess I didn't do enough NPC farming. Bounty hunting turned out not to be all that much fun for me, so I only do a bit now and then as well as popping ships that interdict me while on route somewhere.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Maybe they should introduce an Elo ranking system into the main game for NPC matchmaking. After all, with all the farming that happened earlier in the life of the title, there are a lot of pilots whose combat rank and ship loadout doesn't match their true skill.

 

[pippo]

Maybe they should introduce an Elo ranking system into the main game for NPC matchmaking. After all, with all the farming that happened earlier in the life of the title, there are a lot of pilots whose combat rank and ship loadout doesn't match their true skill.

I couldn't agree more. I'm far from being a ace combat pilot but my Elite combat rank doesn't reflect that.
I'm rank master and a couple of percents before progressing to the next rank up. I never farmed res, I just happened to have played the game for a very long time now.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Try herding the NPCs to fight your opponents. This requires you to aid NPCs that are already engaged on one edge of the fight, and then working your way to one side, dragging your "freed" greens with you by attacking the next closest enemy to them. This way you can use the awesome high ranked greens to your advantage



I am actually not awesome. I get my butt handed back to me on a regular basis in PVP and by higher ranked pilots in CQC, so there are far better pilots out there than me. It's because of these pilots that I know anything at all about the game. So I studied their techniques until I could use them too somewhat. I have a LONG way to go before I am "awesome" however. I try to share what I know, just like they did, but without all the screaming and explosions. Words will suffice

SJA's 2.1 AI actually taught me a couple new things about FAoff as well. And I look forward to learning more tricks from her AI in future updates

Yeah, i know all the tricks. Was holding my own in combat against the NPCs. Had to run a couple of times until shields recharged a bit, but had just gathered quite a few combat bonds.

Then it happened. Encountered an NPC with OP weaponry and was dead. Within seconds, everything going offline, shields dropped in seconds, hull a few seconds later.

Well, that's me out of all combat until the next patch lands. Hundreds of thousand of bonds lost and facing the rebuy screen. Glad i'm just in a Vulture, rebuy less than a million. Raised a ticket for compensation anyway because its over 2 million i've lost in the last couple of days to this. Whatever was done yesterday to remove Engineer weapons from NPCs as well, didn't work. Came under thermal attack at one point.

By the way, don't care what Mark Allen says, i was in a private instance, no other players even in the group. I think his theory is wrong about how the OP weapony issue is happening.

 

[Spook 00]

I'm a little confused, I thought I'd try a Res Site (High) last night after I read there was a server patch to take the modified weapons off the NPC ships. Well OK I still had the message "gaining heat" which I thought was from a modified weapon. The confusion I have is, did frontier replace the removed weapons with conventional ones? I'm sorry to all the commanders who had difficulties before but I hardly got hit by any ships. I found the NPCs at a level below the level they were at before the Engineers update. My Combat level is Dangerous and most of the NPCs were Dangerous and above.

 

[smiths121]

There were 3 or 4 of us regularly doing CZs in 1.4 - we all got our Elite ranking through farming CZs. When 1.4 hit we all upgraded to FAS for CZ fighting, the Vulture just killed too slowly compared to the potential targets in the CZ.

Whilst I am pretty sure CZs are far more difficult now than in 2.0, I have only used an Eagle with Capital Ship support post 2.1, and that is a little too edge case compared to normal CZs for me to agree. However if your having to dance more often due to superior AI I can see the kill rate lowering for the Vulture. We concluded it was the king of the CZs in 1.3, but quickly de-throned it in 1.4. It might be the case it is just a little too slow for the CZs.

On another note, the low CZs do offer smaller targets where the agility of the Vulture and class of the weapons offset the fact there are only 2. You may curiously do better in low CZs with the Vulture than in Hi CZs. NPC ranking used to be down a tad as well, which is annoying if you are working on your rank.

Simon

I've reserved full judgement on the AI until had a proper chance to test things.

Bugs aside, in general i like it. I do worry a bit for the new player though. I think there might need to be another look taken at what sort of enemies attack you based on rank/credits/ship flying.

I have two issues that i'll bring up.

1) NPCs now love to ram you when they are close to dying. Instead of running like it was in the early betas, they now seem to fixate on the idea of "If i can't win, neither can you". Had it a few times now, and lost a ship because of it. As soon as you get a high ranked NPC low on hull, they seem to go into suicide mode. Glad i'm in a vulture for combat, because i could dance aside from the bigger ships.... something with less powerful side thrusters is going to be getting rammed. Also found flying backwards helped here (which i don't really like doing). Hope this gets looked at.

2) Combat zones. Ships in CZ are generally full of HRPs and/or armour. This makes taking hull down a longer task. Well, understandable, they are combat ships, but when you have targets all around, combined with the new AI, it means each kill is taking quite a long time to finish off. I understand the armour on ships in CZ was probably to slow down the kill rate, but with the new AI, its kind of a double whammy. So, my hope here is they look at this, and reduce the armour on the NPCs in CZ, or increase the payout per kill. Took me about 30 mins to get 124k credits. Ok, i'm not the best pilot, but i am in a vulture, and that thing packs plenty of heat. I wasn't even focusing on bigger enemies... although i found it was taking about the same amount of time for most ships because smaller ships are pretty zippy.

 

[Sunleader]

I'm already in a Viper mk III with D3 shields and dumbfire missles. How much more unrealistic of a self handicapping should I do? I mean, I would like to enjoy more ships and more weapon choices, not less and less.




Probably using missles. They can knock out your outer modules (like weapons) very quickly. You can defend against this by getting military grade bulkheads and/or at least 1 point defense. If your shields go down and you are about to flee, try applying silent running. The missles will lose lock and fly harmlessly past you. Especially if you use lateral/vertical thrusters a bit from your last known position.

Btw, Missles work just as well for us and they do for NPCs. As I said above, when I land several volleys of unmodded dumbfire missles on a sluggish Anaconda, they get enough malfunctions that I can basically pick them apart at will with my Viper. It's a bit sad to watch them fume helplessly. But that's what those NPCs get for not equipping a point defense or better armor.

Didnt Notice any Missiles also didnt get any Missile Warnings.
So i dont think its due to Missiles. Its also not limited to weapons. They are very fast in damahing anything now. Not only extern modules.
Did consider Testing Missiles myself tough as the Python has a good Hardpoint setup for this. Guess i.ll try it later.

Players don't have to use the UI. You can assign/use buttons for targetting next/previous sub-system.

Oh!...
Ok didnt know that. Didnt change my Controls since Beta lol.
I.ll check that out. Thanks for the Tip!

 

[Mohenjo]

Part of my problem is I'm not actually seeing any combat. I'm off in the boonies, so I never see any enemies. However, even if I was, I am NOT about to risk my ship just to see how hard the AI is.

This brings me to my question. Do the TRAINING missions use the same AI? When I fight that Cobra in the training mission, or the waves of enemies, are they using the same AI as the game does, that everyone is discussing?

 

[Zen17h]

I haven't played since the weekend, too much work (and to be honest, when I got home, was just a little too afraid to try), so can't say how the AI feels right now

That said, I like the couple of mentions people made that they no longer find ONLY Elite/Deadly/Dangerous NPC's anymore:
I was fortunate enough to never run into instakill weapons(though my shields went down very quickly), but still had a hard time in every battle due to their maneuverability(stuck on my rear with FA off and 3 pips to engines - shields were also a priority) and optimal use of SCB's

Once I can play again, it will take a while before I can give a fair judgement on the state of NPC's again - I was blown up* and currently only have enough credits for just one Anaconda insurance payout, so switched to my Asp and just did missions to get enough for a full cargo load on the Anaconda

*I was blown up by a tough, but not blatantly cheating AI ship, so don't feel right to ask for a refund on the insurance