Invitation for opinions.
- Thread starter Wescott
- Start date
The AI continues to improve. I think there is a fine balance between engaging and too tough. I, myself, hope for a wide range of AI skill competency, just as we would find in player pilots.
Probably. Though it is possible some weapon systems, such as missiles, will have a limited ammo count. But NPCs will likely always have a primary weapon system with unlimited ammo.
It is unlikely a fight with an NPC will last long enough for that to become a factor anyway.
Why not? dialling up the difficulty of an npc is less than trivial.
It would be interesting to have a scanner tell you what you were up against. Weapons, ordnance, shield type, armour type, active systems.
It would facilitate tactical decisions. There must be something in the DDF..
You can do this, if you hit the navigation/target info screen (default KB '1') and to go to the third tab I think it is it lists all the subsystems including weapon types. I find this useful as some NPCs have rail guns which change the way I go about that particular fight.
Hope this helps you out.
I don't see why you can't have AI that uses projectile weapons with limited ammo. Currently if they begin to get damage, they may recognize that and try to SC out, and they could do the same thing once they run out or low of ammo. The trick is to get them to aim well and be conservative with their firing, so it's not a quick retreat.
But as pointed out in another thread, there has to be some believability of the AI you encounter, and having weaknesses or limitations they have to deal with is one of those things.
But as pointed out in another thread, there has to be some believability of the AI you encounter, and having weaknesses or limitations they have to deal with is one of those things.
Because the game AI is unable to anticipate the flow of battle like a human player can. It can only react to the current set of parameters. A human might fire off 80% of their missiles and then stop because he wants to save the last salvo for an opportune moment, or they might notice they're running low on ammo on their multicannons and decide to fire only when lined up for a sure hit, or even let their buddy finish the target off so they can conserve ammo. NPCs usually do not harbor such considerations. If you're within firing parameters, they will fire.
You will notice the NPC combat AI has a set of predictable, fixed flight and engagement patterns; for example, at present they will never do a 180 and engage in a head-on pass if you keep pinging them with weapons with their shields down - even when at long range and ineffective they'll be in full evasive mode and trying to get away. Also, if they are coming at you and you drop their shield in a jousting match, they will drop into evasion mode, even though your hull is at 20% and theirs at 100%.
It IS possible to make the combat AI take into account more factors and create a better illusion of planning, but I don't think they'll let NPC ships run dry with *all* of their weapon systems like a human player can.
I hope they really spend a lot of time on the AI. We'll most likely be interacting with NPC's most of the time so they need to be as "human" as possible.
Frontier has done a decent job of it for as early as it is but, I'm sure we'll see improvements. May even regulate them to limited ammo and trading routines that allows the AI's load out to reflect their accomplishments. In other words, the AI could upgrade and lose just like us real humans. Wouldn't that be sweet?
Don't know if the background simulation will be that robust but, it would be awesome.
Frontier has done a decent job of it for as early as it is but, I'm sure we'll see improvements. May even regulate them to limited ammo and trading routines that allows the AI's load out to reflect their accomplishments. In other words, the AI could upgrade and lose just like us real humans. Wouldn't that be sweet?
Don't know if the background simulation will be that robust but, it would be awesome.