Endless donuts/loops in AI combat, even harmless-ranked AI's. New combat standard?

[Zeta Legion]

I don't understand why some people are gushing and guffawing over the new AI. It doesn't react or adapt at all, and is easily countered by by reverse boosting and pitching with FA-off. This isn't dogfighting. I'm not even sure what to call it. The old AI was more fun to fight, minus the occasional spinning in place bug.

It's a ridiculous circle-jerk. It makes me wonder if they have photos of the dev team in their closet that they pray to every night and twice on Sundays.

 

[Mike Syron]

I think (too) that it has a lot to do with the "flight physics" we have in ED. Playing ED now for a while I'm becoming more and more unsatisfied with the flight dynamics than with the AI, it just feels to slow and I start really disliking the FA off mode for being so wonky and still slow. I would like to have some real speed, the "sweat spot" of optimal turning pace should be put a good tad higher, so you're somewhat "forced" to keep the pace in higher levels. FA off should mean that the ship will hold its current course while you are able to turn your ship in whatever direction fast and precise. Really hart breaks should be possible in such way, using your main drives and boost i.E.

But on the other hand, I know, that this just may sound more fun but will actually lead to different, probably greater problems. And yes, I assume the flight physics of ED had been discussed to death already long before I joined, there had been a thread about this last week actually. But nevertheless, at the moment I've to agree, 1on1 combat looks pretty much like flying donuts or jousting, at least for me, only CZs are still fun with all the hostile action around you. But I don't know myself, with the current dynamics we got there aren't much options for other maneuvers I think. Everybody tries to get behind the other one so you end up flying a circle. You yourself will only break out if you have some serious reason and so does the AI. Breaking out means simply to have the enemy right behind you and if you're not fast enough it's just a wrong move. Well, something should be done to overcome this but it isn't easy to think of something that is fun as it is effective. And not so hard to learn which is important too.

 

[AluminumAlloy]

The new AI is just as bad as the old one, but in a different way.

Before it was dead easy to simply 'pin' the target and never take damage, regardless of what they were flying. Thus, every fight played out the same way once you learned the tactic as it was never not effective.

Current AI tries to joust or out-turn you based on distance, they never do anything else. The ship with the most DPS and/or EHP wins. It's predictable, boring, and favors high DPS low efficiency weapons over others.

I'm pretty much going to agree on that one.

 

[Privata]

The low rank NPCs are dumb , they just fly around in a loop and aim at you a bit.
If you use your lateral movement and a bit of FA/OFF you can dodge every single one of there shots

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Oh . Why does it always have to be "it'll be 2.0 AI again!" with you people? The AI is just as idiotic now as it was before, only now they are berserkers with a grudge and one g tactic that they use. Every. Single. Time. It just reinforces the fact that you're fighting a robot that literally cannot make mistakes within its' routine, sort of like an automated canning machine, but can be defeated by using the one tactic they can't beat, and using it every single fight. It's like fighting the AI in an RTS game that doesn't know how to use inventive tactics, so just compensates by having 100% situational awareness, flawless micromanagement, and a perfect economy, but can't handle a particular unit when massed.

The AI still misses shots , crashes onto astroids all the time and has no clue how to dodge weapon fire.
Its still very easy sadly.

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

The low rank NPCs are dumb , they just fly around in a loop and aim at you a bit.
If you use your lateral movement and a bit of FA/OFF you can dodge every single one of there shots

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The AI still misses shots , crashes onto astroids all the time and has no clue how to dodge weapon fire.
Its still very easy sadly.

I think any respectable AI with railguns would be extremely offended at you saying they "miss." And the only one I've seen hit an asteroid so far is a Type 9 mining vessel that I scared the crap out of.

 

[Minoo Minou]

They are good, depending on your ship versus their ship. If you're in a big ship with lots of shield and/or armor, you WANT to be fighting face to face with an agile little small ship that has none of those advantages. You'll destroy them in no time flat. If you're in a ship that hits REALLY hard with high dps but weak defenses, you want to be jousting to accent your advantage. Finally, if you're in an agile ship, you want to get into turning battles and win with your superior maneuvering ability.

It's basically a game of paper/rock/scissors.

Exactly this. Big ships are meant to tank damage and laugh at the little pests while blasting them to dust. And vice-versa.

 

[Privata]

I think any respectable AI with railguns would be extremely offended at you saying they "miss." And the only one I've seen hit an asteroid so far is a Type 9 mining vessel that I scared the crap out of.

Even in the very first version of 2.1 the rails could miss.
Its a hitscan weapon , they hit if you dont move around.
You need to make sure you stay out of there way no matter what.

There cone of fire is the key , when running away it gets a bit harder but using FA/OFF to avoid hits works very well against rails , small boosts up and down and a few rolls here and there confuse the NPC , like a real player.

I have seen that most players dont move around much in combat they fly in a line

 

[Lheim]

I don't understand why some people are gushing and guffawing over the new AI. It doesn't react or adapt at all, and is easily countered by by reverse boosting and pitching with FA-off. This isn't dogfighting. I'm not even sure what to call it. The old AI was more fun to fight, minus the occasional spinning in place bug.

See, I don't get it. Boosting and FA-off spinning just turns the game into a face-tank, and that's frequently what I don't want to be in with these new AI.

So I'm stuck jousting. I had an assassination target yesterday that my turrets probably did 50% of the damage to, because neither of us could bring each other to bear for long. But I sure as heck ain't going to face-tank a deadly python.